cover herself; but, as soon as she was able to speak, Sir, (said she,) you are mistaken; I am but a servant.' Her voice fell in these last words, and she burst again into tears. I was sorry to have occasioned in her so much grief and confusion, and said what I could to comfort her. 'Alas! sir, (said she,) my condition is much better than I deserve, I have the kindest and best of women for my mistress. She is wife to the gentleman you come to speak withal. You know her very well, and have often seen her with me. To make my story short, I found that my late friend's daughter was now a servant to the barber's daughter, whom she had formerly treated so disdainfully. The gentleman at whose house I now was, fell in love with Moll, and being master of a great fortune, married her, and lives with her as happily and as much to his satisfaction as he could desire. He treats her with all the friendship and respect possible, but not with more than her behaviour and good qualities deserve. And it was with a great deal of pleasure I heard her maid dwell so long upon her commendation. She informed me, that after her father's death, her mother and she lived for a while together in great poverty. But her mother's spirit could not bear the thoughts of asking relief of any of her own or her husband's acquaintance: so that they retired from all their friends, until they were providentially discovered by this new-married woman, who heaped on them favours upon favours. Her mother died shortly after, who, while she lived, was better pleased to see her daughter a beggar than a servant. But being freed by her death, she was taken into this gentlewoman's family, where she now lived, though much more like a friend or companion, than like a servant.

"I went home full of this strange adventure, and about a week after, chancing to be in company with Mr. T. the rejected lover, whom I mentioned in the beginning of my letter, I told him the whole story of his angel, not questioning but he would feel on this occasion the usual pleasure of a resenting lover, when he hears that fortune has avenged him of the cruelty of his mistress. As I was recounting to him at large these several particulars, I observed that he covered his face with his hand, and that his breast heaved as though it would have burst, which I took at first to have been a fit of laughter; but upon lifting up his head I saw his eyes all red with

weeping. He forced a smile at the end of my story, and parted.

"About a fortnight after I received from him the following letter.

"DEAR SIR,

I am infinitely obliged to you for bringing me news of my angel. I have since married her, and think the low circumstances she was reduced to, a piece of good luck to both of us, since it has quite removed that little pride and vanity, which was the only part of her character that I disliked, and given me an opportunity of showing her the constant and sincere affection, which I professed to her in the time of her prosperity.

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Yours, R. T."

No. 160. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 14.

Solventur risu tabulæ, tu missus abibis. HoR.

FROM writing the history of lions, I lately went off to that of ants, but, to my great surprise, I find that some of my good readers have taken this last to be a work of invention, which was only a plain narrative of matter of fact. They will, several of them, have it, that my last Thursday and Friday's papers are full of concealed satire, and that I have attacked people in the shape of pismires, whom I durst not meddle with in the shape of men. I must confess, that I write with fear and trembling, ever since that ingenious person, the Examiner, in his little pamphlet, which was to make way for one of his following papers, found out treason in the word Expect.

But I shall, for the future, leave my friend to manage the controversy in a separate work, being unwilling to fill with disputes a paper which was undertaken purely out of good will to my countrymen. I must, therefore, declare, that those jealousies and suspicions, which have been raised in some weak minds, by means of the two above-mentioned discourses concerning ants or pismires, are altogether groundless. There is not an emmet in all that whole narrative, who is either Whig or Tory; and I could heartily wish, that

the individuals of all parties among us, had the good of their country at heart, and endeavoured to advance it by the same spirit of frugality, justice, and mutual benevolence, as are visibly exercised by members of those little commonwealths. After this short preface, I shall lay before my reader a letter or two which occasioned it.

"MR. IRONSIDE,

I have laid a wager, with a friend of mine, about the pigeons that used to peck up the corn which belonged to the ants. I say that by these pigeons you meant the Palatines. He will needs have it, that they were the Dutch. We both agree that the papers upon the strings which frighted them away, were Pamphlets, Examiners, and the like. We beg you will satisfy us in this particular, because the wager is very considerable, and you will much oblige two of your "DAILY READERS."

"OLD IRON,

Why so rusty? Will you never leave your innuendoes? do you think it hard to find out who is the tulip in your last Thursday's paper? or can you imagine that three nests of ants is such a disguise, that the plainest reader cannot see three kingdoms through it? The blowing up of the neighbouring settlement, where there was a race of poor beggarly ants, under a worse form of government, is not so difficult to be explained as you imagine. Dunkirk is not yet demolished. Your ants are enemies to rain, are they? Old Birmingham, no more of your ants, if you do not intend to stir up a nest of hornets.

"DEAR GUARDIAN,

"WILL. WASP."

Calling in yesterday at a coffee-house in the city, I saw a very short, corpulent, angry man, reading your paper about the ants. I observed that he reddened and swelled over every sentence of it. After having perused it throughout, he laid it down upon the table, called the woman of the coffee-house to him, and asked her, in a magisterial voice, if she knew what she did in taking in such papers! The woman was in such a confusion, that I thought it a piece of charity to interpose in her behalf, and asked him, whether he had found anything in it of dangerous import. 'Sir, (said he,)

it is a republican paper from one end to the other, and if the author had his deserts' He here grew so exceeding choleric and fierce, that he could not proceed; until, after having recovered himself, he laid his finger upon the following sentence, and read it with a very stern voice- Though ants are very knowing, I do not take them to be conjurers : and, therefore, they could not guess that I had put some corn in that room. I perceived, for several days, that they were very much perplexed, and went a great way to fetch their provisions. I was not willing for some time to make them more easy; for I had a mind to know, whether they would at last find out the treasure, and see it at a great distance, and whether smelling enabled them to know what is good for their nourishment.' Then throwing the paper upon the table; Sir, (says he,) these things are not to be suffered -I would engage, out of this sentence, to draw up an indictment that- He here lost his voice a second time, in the extremity of his rage, and the whole company, who were all of them Tories, bursting out into a sudden laugh, he threw down his penny in great wrath, and retired with a most formidable frown.

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This, sir, I thought fit to acquaint you with, that you may make what use of it you please. only wish that you would sometimes diversify your papers with many other pieces of natural history, whether of insects or animals; this being a subject which the most common reader is capable of understanding, and which is very diverting in its nature; besides, that it highly redounds to the praise of that Being who has inspired the several parts of the sensitive world with such wonderful and different kinds of instinct, as enable them to provide for themselves, and preserve their species in that state of existence wherein they are placed. There is no party concerned in speculations of this nature, which, instead of inflaming those unnatural heats that prevail among us, and take up most of our thoughts, may divert our minds to subjects that are useful, and suited to reasonable creatures. Dissertations of this kind are the more proper for your purpose, as they do not require any depth of mathematics, or any previous science, to qualify the reader for the understanding of them. To this I might add, that it is a shame for men to be ignorant of these worlds of wonders which are transacted in the midst of them, and not to be acquainted with those

objects which are everywhere before their eyes. To which I might further add, that several are of opinion, there is no other use in many of these creatures, than to furnish matter of contemplation and wonder to those inhabitants of the earth, who are its only creatures that are capable of it.

“I am, sir,

Your constant reader, and humble servant."

After having presented my reader with this set of letters, which are all upon the same subject, I shall here insert one that has no relation to it. But it has always been my maxim, never to refuse going out of my way to do any honest man a service, especially when I have an interest in it myself.

“MOST VENERABLE NESTOR,

As you are a person that1 very eminently distinguish yourself in the promotion of the public good, I desire your friendship in signifying to the town, what concerns the greatest good of life, health. I do assure you, sir, there is in a vault, under the Exchange in Cornhill, over against Pope's-Head Alley, a parcel of French wines, full of the seeds of good-humour, cheerfulness, and friendly mirth. I have been told, the learned of our nation agree, there is no such thing as bribery in liquors, therefore I shall presume to send you of it, lest you should think it inconsistent with

1 As you are a person that.] In our management of the relatives, who, which, that, it may be a good general rule, to apply who to persons; which, to things; and that, to things chiefly. But, when the antecedent is the second person, not only that, but which, is used for who, by our best writers. And this use, which is enough authorized, may be worth retaining, not merely for the grace of variety, but for the convenience of pronunciation.

As to the second person singular, we have an instance of that, for who, in the passage before us-" You are a person that very eminently distinguish yourself;" and elsewhere, frequently. But, when a vowel follows the relative, it seems preferable to who, as " It is thou, O king, that art become strong." Dan. iv. 22.--And again, "Thou that art named the house of Jacob." Micah ii. 7.-Which, in the same circumstance, is preferred to who,- "Our Father, which art in heaven"-plainly, to avoid the ill effect, which the open vowels in-who art-would have on the ear, in both cases. So, likewise, in the second person plural, "Ye that are of the fountain of Israel," Ps. lxviii. 26, [marginal reading in our Bibles,]—and, "Ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness.” Gal. vi. 1.