from there cursed trick and mischiefus ways good lord bless and deliver both you and me.

I think to be at york the 24 day."

""This is for madam mary norton to go to london for a lady that belongs to dishforth.

deare

"MADAM MARY, i hope you are well. i am soary that you went away from York. loving sweet lady, i writt to let you know that i do remain faithful; and if can let me know where i can meet you, i will wed you, and I will do any thing to my poor; for you are a good woman, and will be a loving Misteris. i am in troubel for you, so if will come to york i will wed you. so with speed come, and i will have none but you. so, sweet love, heed not what to say to me, and with speed come: heed not what none of them say to you; your maid makes you believe ought.

you

"So deare love think of Mr. george Nillson with speed; i sent you 2 or 3 letters before.

"I gave misteris elcock some nots, and thay put me in pruson all the night for me pains, and non new whear i was, and i did gat cold.

"But it is for mrs. Lucy to go a good way from home, for in york and round about she is known; to writ any more her deeds, the same will tell hor soul is black within, hor corkis stinks of hell.

"March 19, 1706."'

R.

No. 329. Tuesday, March 18, 1712

[ADDISON.

Ire tamen restat, Numa quo devenit et Ancus.

MY

-HOR., 1 Ep. vi. 27.

Y friend Sir Roger de Coverley told me t'other night, that he had been reading my paper upon Westminster Abbey,' in which, says he, there are a great many ingenious fancies. He told me at the same time that he observed I had promised another paper upon the tombs, and that he should be glad to go and see them with me, not having visited them since he had read history. I could not at first imagine how this came into the knight's head, till I recollected that he had been very busy all last summer upon Baker's Chronicle, which he has quoted several times in his disputes with Sir Andrew Freeport since his last coming to town. Accordingly I promised to call upon him the next morning, that we might go together to the abbey.

I found the knight under his butler's hands, who always shaves him. He was no sooner dressed, than he called for a glass of the widow Trueby's water,2 which he told me he always drank before he went abroad. He recommended to me a dram of it at the same time, with so much heartiness, that I could not forbear drinking it. As soon as I had got it down I found it very unpalatable, upon which the knight observing that I had made several wry faces, told me that he knew I should not like it at first,

1 No. 26.

2 Strong waters, electuaries, and elixirs were often advertised in the Spectator.

but that it was the best thing in the world against the stone or gravel.

I could have wished indeed that he had acquainted me with the virtues of it sooner; but it was too late to complain, and I knew what he had done was out of good-will. Sir Roger told me further, that he looked upon it to be very good for a man whilst he stayed in town, to keep off infection, and that he got together a quantity of it upon the first news of the sickness being at Dantzic; when of a sudden turning short to one of his servants, who stood behind. him, he bid him call an hackney-coach, and take care it was an elderly man that drove it.

He then resumed his discourse upon Mrs. Trueby's water, telling me that the widow Trueby was one who did more good than all the doctors and apothecaries in the county; that she distilled every poppy that grew within five miles of her; that she distributed her water gratis among all sorts of people: to which the knight added, that she had a very great jointure, and that the whole country would fain have it a match between him and her; and truly,' says Sir Roger, if I had not been engaged, perhaps I could not have done better.'

His discourse was broken off by his man's telling him he had called a coach. Upon our going to it, after having cast his eye upon the wheels, he asked the coachman if his axle-tree was good; upon the fellow's telling him he would warrant it, the knight turned to me, told me he looked like an honest man, and went in without further ceremony.

We had not gone far when Sir Roger, popping

1 Forty thousand persons died of the plague at Dantzic in 1709. In the Tatler (No. 97) Addison said that idleness destroyed 'more in every great town than the plague has done at Dantzic."

out his head, called the coachman down from his box, and upon his presenting himself at the window, asked him if he smoked; as I was considering what this would end in, he bid him stop by the way at any good tobacconist's, and take in a roll of their best Virginia. Nothing material happened in the remaining part of our journey, till we were set down at the west end of the abbey.

As we went up the body of the church, the knight pointed at the trophies upon one of the new monuments, and cried out, A brave man, I warrant him.' Passing afterwards by Sir Cloudesly Shovel, he flung his hand that way, and cried, 'Sir Cloudesly Shovel ! 1 a very gallant man!' As we stood before Busby's tomb, the knight uttered himself again after the same manner, Dr. Busby! a great man! he whipped my grandfather; a very great man! I should have gone to him myself, if I had not been a blockhead; a very great man!'

We were immediately conducted into the little chapel on the right hand. Sir Roger, planting himself at our historian's elbow, was very attentive to everything he said, particularly to the account he gave us of the lord who had cut off the King of Morocco's head. Among several other figures, he was very well pleased to see the statesman Cecil upon his knees; and, concluding them all to be great men, was conducted to the figure which represents that martyr to good housewifery, who died by the

1 See No. 26. The monument is in the fourth aisle of the choir; the sculptor was F. Bird.

2 See No. 313. This monument also is by Bird.

3 The chapel of St. Edmund.

4 On the base of the tomb erected by Lord Burleigh to the memory of his wife and daughter are kneeling figures of Sir Robert Cecil, their son, and three grand-daughters.

prick of a needle.1 Upon our interpreter's telling us that she was a maid of honour to Queen Elizabeth, the knight was very inquisitive into her name and family, and after having regarded her finger for some time, 'I wonder,' says he, that Sir Richard Baker has said nothing of her in his Chronicle.'

We were then conveyed to the two coronation chairs, where my old friend, after having heard that the stone underneath the most ancient of them, which was brought from Scotland,2 was called Jacob's Pillow, sat himself down in the chair, and looking like the figure of an old Gothic king, asked our interpreter what authority they had to say that Jacob had ever been in Scotland? The fellow, instead of returning him an answer, told him that he hoped his honour would pay his forfeit. I could observe Sir Roger a little ruffled upon becoming thus trapanned; but our guide not insisting upon his demand, the knight soon recovered his good humour, and whispered in my ear, that if Will Wimble were with us, and saw those two chairs, it would go hard but he would get a tobacco-stopper out of one or t'other of them.

Sir Roger, in the next place, laid his hand upon Edward III.'s sword, and leaning upon the pommel of it, gave us the whole history of the Black Prince; concluding, that in Sir Richard Baker's opinion Edward the Third was one of the greatest princes that ever sat upon the English throne.

We were then shown Edward the Confessor's tomb; upon which Sir Roger acquainted us, that he

1 An alabaster statue of Elizabeth Russell, of the Bedford family, was shown for many years as the lady who died by the prick of a needle.