ength in Ward's "London Spy."
The wonder and dexterity of the feat consisted in the damsel sustaining a
number of drawn swords upright upon her hands, shoulders, and neck, and
turning round so nimbly as to make the spectators giddy. [S.]]

NUMB. 41.[1]

FROM THURSDAY MAY 3, TO THURSDAY MAY 10, 1711.[2]

_Dos est magna parentium virtus._[3]

I took up a paper[4] some days ago in a coffee-house; and if the
correctness of the style, and a superior spirit in it, had not
immediately undeceived me, I should have been apt to imagine, I had been
reading an "Examiner." In this paper, there were several important
propositions advanced. For instance, that "Providence raised up Mr.
H[arle]y to be an instrument of great good, in a very critical juncture,
when it was much wanted." That, "his very enemies acknowledge his eminent
abilities, and distinguishing merit, by their unwearied and restless
endeavours against his person and reputation": That "they have had
an inveterate malice against both": That he "has been wonderfully
preserved from _some_ unparalleled attempts"; with more to the same
purpose. I immediately computed by rules of arithmetic, that in the last
cited words there was something more intended than the attempt of
Guiscard, which I think can properly pass but for _one_ of the "some."
And, though I dare not pretend to guess the author's meaning; yet the
expression allows such a latitude, that I would venture to hold a wager,
most readers, both Whig and Tory, have agreed with me, that this plural
number must, in all probability, among other facts, take in the business
of Gregg.[5]

See now the difference of styles. Had I been to have told my thoughts on
this occasion; instead of saying how Mr. H[arle]y was "treated by some
persons," and "preserved from some unparalleled attempts"; I should with
intolerable bluntness and ill manners, have told a formal story, of a
com[mitt]ee[6] sent to a condemned criminal in Newgate, to bribe him with
a pardon, on condition he would swear high treason against his master,
who discovered his correspondence, and secured his person, when a certain
grave politician had given him warning to make his escape: and by this
means I should have drawn a whole swarm of hedge-writers to exhaust their
catalogue of scurrilities against me as a liar, and a slanderer. But with
submission to the author of that forementioned paper, I think he has
carried that expression to the utmost it will