Lincoln, Sept. 9.
"Sir,
"I have long been of the number of your admirers, and take this opportunity of telling you so. I know not why a man so famed for astrological observations may not be also a good casuist, upon which presumption 'tis I ask your advice in an affair that at present puzzles quite that slender stock of divinity I am master of. I have now been some time in holy orders, and fellow of a certain college in one of the universities; but weary of that inactive life, I resolve to be doing good in my generation. A worthy gentleman has lately offered me a fat rectory, but means, I perceive, his kinswoman should have the benefit of the clergy. I am a novice in the world, and confess, it startles me how the body of Mrs. Abigail can be annexed to cure of souls. Sir, would you give us in one of your Tatlers the original and progress of smock-simony, and show us, that where the laws are silent, men's consciences ought to be so too; you could not more oblige our fraternity of young divines, and among the rest,
"Your humble Servant,
"High Church."
I am very proud of having a gentleman of this name for my admirer, and may some time or other write such a treatise as he mentions. In the meantime I do not see why our clergy, who are very frequently men of good families, should be reproached if any of them chance to espouse a handmaid with a rectory in commendam, since the best of our peers have often joined themselves to the daughters of very ordinary tradesmen upon the same valuable considerations.
"Globe in Moorfields,
Sept. 16.
"Honoured Son,
"I have now finished my almanac for the next year, in all the parts of it except that which concerns the weather; and you having shown yourself, by some of your late works,[112] more weather-wise than any of our modern astrologers, I most humbly presume to trouble you upon this head. You know very well, that in our ordinary almanacs, the wind and rain, snow and hail, clouds and sunshine, have their proper seasons, and come up as regularly in their several months as the fruits and plants of the earth.[113] As for my own part, I freely own to you that I generally steal my weather out of some antiquated almanac that foretold it several years ago. Now, sir, what I humbly beg of you is, that you would lend me your State weather-glass, in order to fill up this vacant column in my works. This, I know, would sell my almanac beyond any other, and make me a richer man than Poor Robin.[114] If you will not grant me this favour, I must have recourse to my old method, and will copy after an almanac which I have by me, and which I think was made for the year when the great storm was. I am,