tried his Fortune that way without Success. I cannot however dismiss his
Letter, without observing, that the true Story on which it is built does
Honour to the Sex, and that in order to abuse them, the Writer is
obliged to have recourse to Dream and Fiction. [1]

[Footnote 1: At the end of this number and in all following numbers
there is a change in the colophon, caused by the addition of Tonson's
name to Buckley's. It runs henceforth thus:

LONDON: Printed for S. Buckley and J. Tonson: And Sold by A. Baldwin
in Warwick-Lane. But an announcement at the head of the advertisement
sets forth that Advertisements for this Paper continue to be taken in
by S. Buckley at the Dolphin in Little-Britain, J. Tonson at
Shakespear's Head in the Strand, C. Lillie at the Corner of Beauford
Buildings, and A. Baldwin in Warwick-Lane.]

* * * * *

No. 500. Friday, October 3, 1712. Addison.

'--Huc natas adjice septem,
Et totidem juvenes, et mox generosque nurusque.
Quaerite nunc, habeat quam nostra superbia causam.'

Ov. Met.

_SIR_,

'You who are so well acquainted with the Story of _Socrates_, must
have read how, upon his making a Discourse concerning Love, he pressed
his Point with so much Success, that all the Batchelors in his
Audience took a Resolution to Marry by the first Opportunity, and that
all the married Men immediately took Horse and galloped home to their
Wives. I am apt to think your Discourses, in which you have drawn so
many agreeable Pictures of Marriage, have had a very good Effect this
way in _England_. We are obliged to you, at least for having taken off
that Senseless Ridicule, which for many Years the Witlings of the Town
have turned upon their Fathers and Mothers. For my own part, I was
born in Wedlock, and I don't care who knows it; For which Reason,
among many others, I should look upon my self as a most insufferable
Coxcomb, did I endeavour to maintain that Cuckoldom was inseparable
from Marriage, or to make use of _Husband_ and _Wife_ as Terms of
Reproach. Nay, Sir, I will go one step further, and declare to you
before the whole World, that I am a married Man, and at the same time
I have so much Assurance as not to be ashamed of what I have done.

'Among the several Pleasures that accompany this state of Life, and
which you have described in your forme