s quills and
darts will be the same thing." He was going to embrace me for the hint;
but half a dozen critics coming into the room, whose faces he did not
like, he conveyed the sonnet into his pocket, and whispered me in the
ear, he would show it me again as soon as his man had written it over
fair.

[Footnote 233: Perhaps Henry Cromwell. See Nos. 47, 49, 165, and Mrs.
Elizabeth Thomas' "Pylades and Corinna," i. 194.]

No. 164. [STEELE.

From _Tuesday, April 25_, to _Thursday, April 27, 1710_.

Qui sibi promittit cives, urbem sibi curae,
Imperium fore et Italiam, delubra Deorum,
Quo patre sit natus, num ignota matre inhonestus,
Omnes mortales curare et quaerere cogit.
HOR., I Sat. vi. 34.

* * * * *

_From my own Apartment, April 26._

I have lately been looking over the many packets of letters which I have
received from all quarters of Great Britain, as well as from foreign
countries, since my entering upon the office of Censor, and indeed am
very much surprised to see so great a number of them, and pleased to
think that I have so far increased the revenue of the Post Office. As
this collection will grow daily, I have digested it into several
bundles, and made proper endorsements on each particular letter, it
being my design, when I lay down the work that I am now engaged in, to
erect a Paper Office, and give it to the public.[234]

I could not but make several observations upon reading over the letters
of my correspondents: as first of all, on the different tastes that
reign in the different parts of this city. I find, by the approbations
which are given me, that I am seldom famous on the same days on both
sides of Temple Bar; and that when I am in the greatest repute within
the Liberties, I dwindle at the court end of the town. Sometimes I sink
in both these places at the same time; but for my comfort, my name has
then been up in the districts of Wapping and Rotherhithe. Some of my
correspondents desire me to be always serious, and others to be always
merry. Some of them entreat me to go to bed and fall into a dream, and
like me better when I am asleep than when I am awake: others advise me
to sit all night upon the stars, and be more frequent in my astrological
observations; for that a vision is not properly a lucubration. Some of
my readers thank me for filling