----Quæ nec reticere loquenti,
Nec prior ipsa loqui didicit.[149]
I should not have deserved the character of a censor, had I not animadverted upon the above-mentioned author by a gentle chastisement: but I know my reader will not pardon me, unless I declare, that nothing of this nature for the future (unless it be written with some wit) shall divert me from my care of the public.
FOOTNOTES:
[145] The Examiner, the eleventh number of which consisted of jibes against No. 229 of the Tatler, by Addison.
[146] Sir Samuel Garth, who has attacked in the sixth number of the Examiner.
[147] Bishop Atterbury. The verses were written "on a white fan borrowed from Miss Osborne, afterwards his wife."
[148] The attack was, of course, on Steele, and consisted of allusions to sponging-houses and fears of arrest for debt. It will be remarked that No. 229 was really by Addison, who here nobly defends his friend.
[149] Ovid, "Met." iii, 357.