f Eve's nuptials by
contrasting what he says with the account in the opera in which Dryden,
according to Lee's verses, refined "Milton's golden ore, and new-weaved
his hard-spun thought."]

[Footnote 127: Addison, on reading here this remark upon Virgil, which
he himself had communicated to Steele, discovered that his friend was
the author of the _Tatler_. He was at this time in Ireland, Secretary to
Lord Wharton, and returned to England with the Lord Lieutenant on the
8th of September following. (Tickell's Preface to Addison's Works.)]

[Footnote 128: "AEneid," iv. 124.]

[Footnote 129: "The Rehearsal," act i. sc. 2. This play of the Duke of
Buckingham's was produced in 1671, and the poet Bayes, as finally drawn
after revision, was a satire on Dryden.]

No. 7. [STEELE

From _Saturday, April 23_, to _Tuesday, April 26_, 1709.

* * * * *

It is so just an observation, that mocking is catching, that I am become
an unhappy instance of it, and am (in the same manner that I have
represented Mr. Partridge) myself a dying man in comparison of the
vigour with which I first set out in the world. Had it been otherwise,
you may be sure I would not have pretended to have given for news, as I
did last Saturday, a diary of the siege of Troy. But man is a creature
very inconsistent with himself: the greatest heroes are sometimes
fearful, the sprightliest wits at some hours dull; and the greatest
politicians on some occasions whimsical. But I shall not pretend to
palliate, or excuse the matter; for I find, by a calculation of my own
nativity, that I cannot hold out with any tolerable wit longer than two
minutes after twelve o'clock at night, between the 18th and 19th of the
next month. For which space of time you may still expect to hear from
me, but no longer, except you will transmit to me the occurrences you
meet with relating to your amours, or any other subject within the rules
by which I have proposed to walk. If any gentleman or lady sends to
Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq., at Mr. Morphew's,[130] near Stationers' Hall,
by the Penny Post, the grief or joy of their soul, what they think fit
of the matter shall be related in colours as much to their advantage, as
those in which Jervas[131] has drawn the agreeable Chloe. But since,
without such assistance, I frankly confess, and am sensible, that I
have not a month's wit more, I think I ought, while I am in my sound
health and senses, to make my