fess my Friend _Sampson Bentstaff_ has quite
puzzled me, and writ me a long Letter which I cannot comprehend one Word
of.

_Collidan_ must also explain what he means by his _Drigelling_.

I think it beneath my _Spectatorial_ Dignity, to concern my self in the
Affair of the boiled Dumpling.

I shall consult some _Litterati_ on the Project sent me for the
Discovery of the Longitude.

I know not how to conclude this Paper better, than by inserting a Couple
of Letters which are really genuine, and which I look upon to be two of
the smartest Pieces I have received from my Correspondents of either Sex.

_Brother_ SPEC.

'While you are surveying every Object that falls in your way, I am
wholly taken up with one. Had that Sage, who demanded what Beauty was,
lived to see the dear Angel I love, he would not have asked such a
Question. Had another seen her, he would himself have loved the Person
in whom Heaven has made Virtue visible; and were you your self to be
in her ompany, you could never, with all your Loquacity, say enough of
her good Humour and Sense. I send you the Outlines of a Picture, which
I can no more finish than I can sufficiently admire the dear Original.
I am

_Your most Affectionate Brother,_
Constantio Spec.

_Good Mr._ Pert,

'I will allow you nothing till you resolve me the following Question.
Pray what's the Reason that while you only talk now upon _Wednesdays_,
_Fridays_, and _Mondays_, you pretend to be a greater Tatler, than
when you spoke every Day as you formerly used to do? If this be your
plunging out of your Taciturnity, pray let the Length of your Speeches
compensate for the Scarceness of them.

_I am_,
_Good Mr_. Pert,
_Your Admirer, if you will be long enough for Me_,
Amanda Lovelength.

* * * * *

No. 582. Wednesday, August 18, 1714.

'--Tenet insanabile multos
Scribendi Cacoethes--'

Juv.

There is a certain Distemper, which is mentioned neither by _Galen_ nor
_Hippocrates_, nor to be met with in the _London Dispensary_. _Juvenal_,
in the Motto of my Paper, terms it a _Cacoethes_; which is a hard Word
for a Disease called in plain _English_, the _Itch of Writing_. This
_Cacoethes_ is as Epidemical as the Small-Pox, there being very few who
are not seized with it some time or other in their Liv