I last night sat very late in company with this select body of friends, who entertained me with several remarks (65: 5) which they and others had made upon these my speculations, as also with the various success which they[29] had met with among their several ranks and degrees of readers. Will Honeycomb told me, in the softest manner he could, that there were some ladies--"but for (10) your comfort," says Will, "they are not those of the most wit"--that were offended at the liberties I had taken with the opera and the puppet-show; that some of them were likewise very much surprised that I should think such serious points as the dress and equipage of (15) persons of quality proper subjects for raillery. [29] What is the antecedent? He was going on, when Sir Andrew Freeport took him up short, and told him that the papers he hinted at had done great good in the city, and that all their[30] wives and daughters were the better for them; and further added, (20) that the whole city thought themselves very much obliged to me for declaring my generous intentions to scourge vice and folly as they appear in a multitude, without condescending to be a publisher of particular intrigues. "In short," says Sir Andrew, "if you avoid that foolish beaten (25) road of falling upon aldermen and citizens, and employ your pen upon the vanity and luxury of courts, your paper must needs be of general use." [30] Whose? Upon this my friend the Templar told Sir Andrew that he wondered to hear a man of his sense talk after that manner; that the city had always been the province for satire; and that the wits of King Charles's time jested upon nothing else during his whole reign. He then (66: 5) showed, by the examples of Horace, Juvenal, Boileau, and the best writers of every age, that the follies of the stage and court had never been accounted too sacred for ridicule, how great soever the persons might be that patronized them. "But after all," says he, "I think your (10) raillery has made too great an excursion, in attacking several persons of the Inns of Court; and I do not believe you can show me any precedent for your behaviour in that particular." My good friend Sir Roger de Coverley, who had said (15) nothing all this while, began his speech with a "Pish!" and told us that he wondered to see so many men of sense so very serious upon fooleries. "Let our good friend," says he, "attack every one that deserves it; I would only advise you, Mr. Spectator,"--applying himself (20) to me,--"to take care how you meddle with country squires. They are the ornaments of the English nation,--men of good heads and sound bodies! and, let me tell you, some of them take it ill of you that you mention fox hunters with so little respect." (25)