these various conjectures, there are men of superstitious
tempers who look upon the hoop-petticoat as a kind of prodigy. Some
will have it that it portends the downfall of the _French_ king, and
observe, that the farthingale appeared in _England_ a little before
the ruin of the _Spanish_ monarchy. Others are of opinion that it
foretells battle and bloodshed, and believe it of the same
prognostication as the toil of a blazing star. For my part, I am apt
to think that it is a sign that multitudes are coming into the world
rather than going out of it," &c. &c.--_Spectator_, No. 127.

91 "Mr. Addison has not had one epithalamium that I can hear of, and
must even be reduced, like a poorer and a better poet, Spenser, to
make his own."--POPE'S _Letters_.

92 "I have observed that a reader seldom peruses a book with pleasure
till he knows whether the writer of it be a black or a fair man, of
a mild or a choleric disposition, married or a bachelor; with other
particulars of a like nature, that conduce very much to the right
understanding of an author. To gratify this curiosity, which is so
natural to a reader, I design this paper and my next as prefatory
discourses to my following writings; and shall give some account in
them of the persons that are engaged in this work. As the chief
trouble of compiling, digesting, and correcting will fall to my
share, I must do myself the justice to open the work with my own
history.... There runs a story in the family, that when my mother
was gone with child of me about three months, she dreamt that she
was brought to bed of a judge. Whether this might proceed from a
lawsuit which was then depending in the family, or my father's being
a justice of the peace, I cannot determine; for I am not so vain as
to think it presaged any dignity that I should arrive at in my
future life, though that was the interpretation which the
neighbourhood put upon it. The gravity of my behaviour at my very
first appearance in the world, and all the time that I sucked,
seemed to favour my mother's dream; for, as she has often told me, I
threw away my rattle before I was two months old, and would not make
use of my coral till they had taken away the bells from it.

"As for the rest of my infancy, there being nothing in i