[Footnote 3: Balloon was a game like tennis
played with a foot-ball; but the word may be applied
here to a person. It had not the sense which
now first occurs to the mind of a modern reader.
Air balloons are not older than 1783.]
[Footnote 4: Describing perhaps one form of reaction
against the verbal pedantry and Phebus of the
Precieuses.]
[Footnote 5: that]
[Footnote 6: with]
* * * * *
Non bene junctarum
discordia semina rerum.
Ovid.
When I want Materials for this Paper, it is my Custom
to go abroad in quest of Game; and when I meet any
proper Subject, I take the first Opportunity of setting
down an Hint of it upon Paper. At the same time
I look into the Letters of my Correspondents, and
if I find any thing suggested in them that may afford
Matter of Speculation, I likewise enter a Minute of
it in my Collection of Materials. By this means
I frequently carry about me a whole Sheetful of Hints,
that would look like a Rhapsody of Nonsense to any
Body but myself: There is nothing in them but
Obscurity and Confusion, Raving and Inconsistency.
In short, they are my Speculations in the first Principles,
that (like the World in its Chaos) are void of all
Light, Distinction, and Order.
About a Week since there happened to me a very odd
Accident, by Reason of one of these my Papers of Minutes
which I had accidentally dropped at Lloyd’s
[1] Coffee-house, where the Auctions are usually kept.
Before I missed it, there were a Cluster of People
who had found it, and were diverting themselves with
it at one End of the Coffee-house: It had raised
so much Laughter among them before I had observed what
they were about, that I had not the Courage to own
it. The Boy of the Coffee-house, when they had
done with it, carried it about in his Hand, asking
every Body if they had dropped a written Paper; but
no Body challenging it, he was ordered by those merry
Gentlemen who had before perused it, to get up into
the Auction Pulpit, and read it to the whole Room,
that if any one would own it they might. The Boy
accordingly mounted the Pulpit, and with a very audible
Voice read as follows.
MINUTES.
Sir Roger de Coverly’s Country
Seat—Yes, for I hate long Speeches—Query,
if a good Christian may be a Conjurer—Childermas-day,
Saltseller, House-Dog, Screech-owl, Cricket—Mr.
Thomas Inkle of London, in the good Ship called
The Achilles. Yarico—AEgrescitique
medendo—Ghosts—The Lady’s
Library—Lion by Trade a Taylor—Dromedary
called Bucephalus—Equipage the
Lady’s summum bonum—Charles
Lillie to be taken notice of [2]—Short
Face a Relief to Envy—Redundancies in the
three Professions—King Latinus a
