if you will Appear at my Auction
on _Friday_ next. A Sight is, I suppose, as grateful to a SPECTATOR,
as a Treat to another Person, and therefore I hope you will pardon
this Invitation from,

SIR,

Your most Obedient
Humble Servant,

J. GRAHAM.

[Footnote 1: Eustace Budgell, the contributor of this and of about three
dozen other papers to the _Spectator_, was, in 1711, twenty-six years
old, and by the death of his father, Gilbert Budgell, D.D., obtained, in
this year, encumbered by some debt, an income of L950. He was first
cousin to Addison, their mothers being two daughters of Dr. Nathaniel
Gulstone, and sisters to Dr. Gulstone, bishop of Bristol. He had been
sent in 1700 to Christ Church, Oxford, where he spent several years.
When, in 1709, Addison went to Dublin as secretary to Lord Wharton, in
his Irish administration, he took with him his cousin Budgell as a
private secretary. During Addison's first stay in Ireland Budgell lived
with him, and paid careful attention to his duties. To this relationship
and friendship Budgell was indebted for the insertion of papers of his
in the _Spectator_. Addison not only gratified his literary ambition,
but helped him to advancement in his service of the government. On the
accession of George I, Budgell was appointed Secretary to the Lords
Justices of Ireland and Deputy Clerk of the Council; was chosen also
Honorary Bencher of the Dublin Inns of Court and obtained a seat in the
Irish Parliament. In 1717, when Addison became Secretary of State for
Ireland, he appointed Eustace Budgell to the post of Accountant and
Comptroller-General of the Irish Revenue, which was worth nearly L400
a-year. In 1718, anger at being passed over in an appointment caused
Budgell to charge the Duke of Bolton, the newly-arrived Lord-Lieutenant,
with folly and imbecility. For this he was removed from his Irish
appointments. He then ruined his hope of patronage in England, lost
three-fourths of his fortune in the South Sea Bubble, and spent the
other fourth in a fruitless attempt to get into Parliament. While
struggling to earn bread as a writer, he took part in the publication of
Dr. Matthew Tindal's _Christianity as Old as the Creation_, and when, in
1733, Tindal died, a Will was found which, to the exclusion of a
favourite nephew, left L2100 (nearly all the property) to Budgell. The
authenticity of the Will was successfully contested, and thereby Budgell
disgraced. He retorted