T.


[Footnote 1:]

£100,000.

[return to footnote mark]

[Contents]


[No. 451]Thursday, August 7, 1712Addison

—Jam sævus apertam
In rabiem cæpit verti jocus, et per honestas
Ire minax impunè domos—

There is nothing so scandalous to a Government, and detestable in the Eyes of all good Men, as defamatory Papers and Pamphlets; but at the same time there is nothing so difficult to tame, as a Satyrical Author. An angry Writer, who cannot appear in Print, naturally vents his Spleen in Libels and Lampoons. A gay old Woman, says the Fable, seeing all her Wrinkles represented in a large Looking-glass, threw it upon the Ground in a Passion, and broke it into a thousand Pieces, but as she was afterwards surveying the Fragments with a spiteful kind of Pleasure, she could not forbear uttering her self in the following Soliloquy. What have I got by this revengeful Blow of mine, I have only multiplied my Deformity, and see an hundred ugly Faces, where before I saw but one.