In 1709 he took up his residence in Spalding, and the same year married Elizabeth, daughter of Joseph Ambler, and granddaughter of Anthony Oldfield, who was lineally descended from Sir Thomas Gresham. He, perforce, exchanged the society of the wits at Buttons’ Coffee-house and of antiquaries at the Temple ’Change, for the ordinary society of a small country town. So great, however, was his love of learning and science that he at once entertained the bold design of establishing a literary society in the very heart of the Fens of Lincolnshire. It was, as he very truly said, “an endeavour new and untried before.” Those to whom he looked for assistance “were unaccustomed to such a mode of spending an evening.” He took care not to alarm the country gentlemen by premature mention of antiquities, but endeavoured to allure them into the more flowery paths of literature. The _Tatler_ came into service; it was read at a coffee-house in the Abbey Yard to some friends who were induced to meet him there. “These papers being universally approved as both instructive and entertaining, they order’d ’em to be sent down thither when they were read every Post-day, generally aloud to the whole company, who could sit and talk over the subject afterwards. This insensibly drew the men of sense and letters into a sociable way of conversing, and continued ye next yeare, 1710, until the publisher desisted to their great regret, whose thoughts being by this means bent towards their own improvement in knowledge, they again in like manner heard some of the _Tatlers_ read over, and now and then, a Poem, Letter, or Essay upon some subject in polite literature; and it being hapily suggested that as they take care to have these papers kept together, it would be well worth their while to take into consideration the state of the Parochial Library, where there were some valuable editions of the best authors in no very good condicon, and they did accordingly agree to contribute towards the repairing of the old and adding new books to it. But being by ye two worst enemies to understanding, Ignorance & Indolence, prevented doing much for it, they turned their beneficial intention towards the royal and ffree Grammar School, in which there was at that time a large but empty desk capable of being made a press or class on wᶜʰ ye one only solitary volume then belonging to the school lay (viz.) ‘Langius Polyanthæa,’ bestowed upon it by Sir John Oldfield, Bart., some years before, & to this these Gentlemen did now voluntarily add several other Authors in Gram̅atical, Critical, or Classic learning, wᶜʰ was to ye great pleasure & convenience of the worthy Master.” The use of both these Libraries was, however, reserved for the members of the Society.