“From this period he seemed to decline in health, expressed a loathing for the place where he had once been so happy; change of air was prescribed, and he left the men whom he had deceived, chuckling at the success of his infamous scheme.”
Nowadays, everything insurable can be insured; you can be compensated for accidents; if your plate glass windows are broken, if hail spoils your crops, or if your cattle die; the fidelity of your servants can be guaranteed: in fact, this field of permissible gambling is fully covered—whilst betting on horse racing rears its head unchecked, stock jobbers thrive, bucket shops multiply, and so do their victims.
PRINTED BY TURNBULL AND SPEARS, EDINBURGH
Edited with Introduction and Notes by George A. Aitken, Author of “The Life of Richard Steele,” etc. Four volumes, small demy 8vo, with engraved frontispieces, bound in buckram, dull gold top, 7s. 6d. per vol., not sold separately.
“The original numbers of _The Tatler_ were re-issued in two forms in 1710-11; one edition, in octavo, being published by subscription, while the other, in duodecimo, was for the general public. The present edition has been printed from a copy of the latter issue, which, as recorded on the title-page, was ‘revised and corrected by the Author’; but I have had by my side, for constant reference, a complete set of the folio sheets, containing the ‘Lucubrations of Isaac Bickerstaff’ in the form in which they were first presented to the world. Scrupulous accuracy in the text has been aimed at, but the eccentricities of spelling—which were the printer’s, not the author’s—have not been preserved, and the punctuation has occasionally been corrected.
“The first and the most valuable of the annotated editions of _The Tatler_ was published by John Nichols and others in 1786, with notes by Bishop Percy, Dr John Calder, and Dr Pearce; and though these notes are often irrelevant and out of date, they contain an immense amount of information, and have been freely made use of by subsequent editors. I have endeavoured to preserve what is of value in the older editions, and to supplement it, as concisely as possible, by such further information as appeared desirable. The eighteenth century diaries and letters published of late years have in many cases enabled me to throw light on passages which have hitherto been obscure, and sometimes useful illustrations have been found in the contemporary newspapers and periodicals.”