means they talked together across a whole Continent, and conveyed
their Thoughts to one another in an Instant over Cities or Mountains,
Seas or Desarts.

If Monsieur _Scudery_, or any other Writer of Romance, had introduced a
Necromancer, who is generally in the Train of a Knight-Errant, making a
Present to two Lovers of a Couple of those above-mentioned Needles, the
Reader would not have been a little pleased to have seen them
corresponding with one another when they were guarded by Spies and
Watches, or separated by Castles and Adventures.

In the mean while, if ever this Invention should be revived or put in
practice, I would propose, that upon the Lovers Dial-plate there should
be written not only the four and twenty Letters, but several entire
Words which have always a Place in passionate Epistles, as _Flames,
Darts, Die, Language, Absence, Cupid, Heart, Eyes, Hang, Drown_, and the
like. This would very much abridge the Lovers Pains in this way of
writing a Letter, as it would enable him to express the most useful and
significant Words with a single Touch of the Needle.

C.

[Footnote 1: Orphan, Act II.]

[Footnote 2: [In one of Strada's Prolusions he] Lib. II. Prol. 6.]

[Footnote 3: [begun], and in first reprint.]

* * * * *

No. 242. Friday, December 7, 1711. Steele.

Creditur, ex medio quia res arcessit, habere
Sudoris minimum--

Hor.

Mr. SPECTATOR,

Your Speculations do not so generally prevail over Mens Manners as I
could wish. A former Paper of yours [1] concerning the Misbehaviour of
People, who are necessarily in each others Company in travelling,
ought to have been a lasting Admonition against Transgressions of that
Kind: But I had the Fate of your Quaker, in meeting with a rude Fellow
in a Stage-Coach, who entertained two or three Women of us (for there
was no Man besides himself) with Language as indecent as was ever
heard upon the Water. The impertinent Observations which the Coxcomb
made upon our Shame and Confusion were such, that it is an unspeakable
Grief to reflect upon them. As much as you have declaimed against
Duelling, I hope you will do us the Justice to declare, that if the
Brute has Courage enough to send to the Place where he saw us all
alight together to get rid of him, there is not one of us but has a
Lover who shall avenge the Insult. It would certainl