of a fine Gentleman
makes as many aukward Beaux, as the Easiness of your Favourite _Waller_
hath made insipid Poets.

At present You are content to aim all your Charms at your own Spouse,
without further Thought of Mischief to any others of the Sex. I know you
had formerly a very great Contempt for that Pedantick Race of Mortals
who call themselves Philosophers; and yet, to your Honour be it spoken,
there is not a Sage of them all could have better acted up to their
Precepts in one of the most important Points of Life: I mean in that
Generous Dis-regard of Popular Opinion, which you showed some Years ago,
when you chose for your Wife an obscure young Woman, who doth not indeed
pretend to an ancient Family, but has certainly as many Fore-fathers as
any Lady in the Land, if she could but reckon up their Names.

I must own I conceived very extraordinary hopes of you from the Moment
that you confessed your Age, and from eight and forty (where you had
stuck so many Years) very ingenuously step'd into your Grand
Climacterick. Your Deportment has since been very venerable and
becoming. If I am rightly informed, You make a regular Appearance every
Quarter-Sessions among your Brothers of the _Quorum_; and if things go
on as they do, stand fair for being a Colonel of the Militia. I am told
that your Time passes away as agreeably in the Amusements of a Country
Life, as it ever did in the Gallantries of the Town: And that you now
take as much pleasure in the Planting of young Trees, as you did
formerly in the Cutting down of your Old ones. In short, we hear from
all Hands that You are thoroughly reconciled to your dirty Acres, and
have not too much Wit to look into your own Estate.

After having spoken thus much of my Patron, I must take the Privilege of
an Author in saying something of my self. I shall therefore beg leave to
add, that I have purposely omitted setting those Marks to the End of
every Paper, which appeared in my former Volumes, that You may have an
Opportunity of showing Mrs. _Honeycomb_ the Shrewdness of your
Conjectures, by ascribing every Speculation to its proper Author: Though
You know how often many profound Criticks in Style and Sentiments have
very judiciously erred in this Particular, before they were let into the
Secret. I am,
_SIR,
Your most Faithful,
Humble Servant,
THE SPECTATOR_.

(_THE_ Bookseller _to the_ Reader.

_In the Six hundred and thirty second_ Spectator, _the Reader will