That you may not wonder at an address from hell, or be scandaliz’d at the correspondence, I must let you know first, that by the uncertainty of the road, and the forgetfulness of my old acquaintance, all my former letters are either miscarried, or have been neglected by my correspondents, who, tho’ they were fond enough of my scandal, nay, courted my favours when living, now I am past gratifying their vices, like true men, they think no more of me. The conscious tub-tavern can witness, and my _Berry-street_ apartment testify the sollicitations I have had, for the first copy of a new lampoon, from the greatest lords of the court; tho’ their own folly, and their wives vices were the subject. My person was so sacred, that the terrible scan-man had no terrors for me, whose business was so publick and so useful, as conveying about the faults of the great and the fair; for in my books the lord was shewn a knave or fool, tho’ his power defended the former, and his pride would not see the latter. The antiquitated coquet was told of her age and ugliness, tho’ her vanity plac’d her in the first row in the king’s box at the play-house, and in the view of the congregation at St. _James_’s church. The precise countess that wou’d be scandaliz’d at a double _entendre_, was shewn betwixt a pair of sheets with a well made footman, in spite of her quality and conjugal vow. The formal statesman that set up for wisdom and honesty, was exposed as a dull tool, and yet a knave, losing at play his own revenue, and the bribes incident to his post, besides enjoying the infamy of a poor and fruitless knavery without any concern. The demure lady, that wou’d scarce sip off the glass in company, carousing her bottles in private, of cool _Nantz_ too, sometimes to correct the crudities of her last night’s debauch. In short, in my books were seen men and women as they were, not as they wou’d seem; stripp’d of their hypocrisy, spoil’d of their fig-leaves of their quality. A knave was a call’d a knave, a fool a fool, a jilt a jilt, and a whore a whore. And the love of scandal and native malice that men and women have to one another, made me in such request when alive, that I was admitted to the lord’s closet, when a man of letters and merit would be thrust out of doors. And I was as familiar with the ladies as their lap-dogs; for to them I did often good services, under a pretence of a lampoon, I conveying a _Billet-deux_; and so whilst I expos’d their past vices in the present, I prompted matter for the next lampoon. After all these services, believe me, Sir, I was no sooner dead, than forgotten: I have writ many letters to the brib’d countries, of their fore-runner’s arrival in these parts, but not one word of answer. I sent word to my lord _Squeezall_ that his good friend Sir _Parcimony Spareall_ was newly arriv’d, and clapp’d into the bilbows for a fool as well as a knave, that starv’d himself to supply the prodigality of his heirs. But he despises good counsel I hear, and