_Sable._ Well, come, you that are to be mourners in this house, put on your sad looks, and walk by me that I may sort you. Ha, you! a little more upon the dismal--(_forming their countenances_)--this fellow has a good mortal look--place him near the corpse; that wainscot face must be o' top of the stairs; that fellow's almost in a fright (that looks as if he were full of some strange misery) at the entrance of the hall--so--but I'll fix you all myself. Let's have no laughing now on any provocation, (_makes faces_.) Look yonder, that hale, well-looking puppy! You ungrateful scoundrel, did not I pity you, take you out of a great man's service, and show you the pleasure of receiving wages? Did not I give you ten, then fifteen, now twenty shillings a week to be sorrowful? and the more I give you, I think the gladder you are. At the first commencement of the "Tatler," Steele seems to have intended, as was usual at the time, to write almost the whole newspaper himself, and he always continued nominally to do so under the name of Isaac Bickerstaff. The only assistance he could have at all counted upon was that of Addison--his old schoolfellow at Charterhouse--whose contributions proved to be very scanty. We soon find him falling short of material and calling upon the the public for contributions. Thus he makes at the ends of some of the early numbers such suggestions as "Mr. Bickerstaff thanks Mr. Quarterstaff for his kind and instructive letter," and "Any ladies, who have any particular stories of their acquaintance, which they are willing privately to make public, may send them to Isaac Bickerstaff." This application seems to have met with some response, for although we have only before us the perpetual Isaac Bickerstaff, he soon tells us that "he shall have little to do but to publish what is sent him," and finally that some of the best pieces were not written by himself. Two or three were from the hand of Swift, who does not seem to have much appreciated the gentle periodical--says that as far as he is concerned, the editor may "fair-sex it to the world's end," and asserts with equal ill-nature and falsity that the publication was finally given up for want of materials. Probably it was to the solicitude of Addison, who was at that time employed in Ireland, that we are indebted for the few productions of Swift's bold genius which adorn this work. One of these is upon the peculiar weakness then prevalent among ladies for studding their faces with little bits of black plaster.