By Sir _JOHN FALSTAFFE_.

_To be Continued every_ Tuesday _and_ Saturday.

Price Two-pence.

_--Jam nunc debentia dici
Pleraq; differat, & præsens in tempus omittat._

Hor.

Saturday, _May 14. 1720._


My first Entertainment in a Morning is to throw my Eyes over the Papers of
the Day, by which I am informed, with very little Trouble, how Things are
carried in the great World. I look upon the printed News to be the
Histories of the Times, in which the candid and ingenious Authors, out of a
strict Regard to Truth, deliver Facts in such ambiguous Terms, that when
you read of a Battle betwixt Count _Mercy_, and the Marquis _De Lede_, you
may give the Victory to that Side, which your private Inclination most
favours. I have seen in one Paragraph the precise number of the _kill'd_
and _wounded_ adjusted; and in the next, the Author seems doubtful in his
Opinion, whether there has been any Battle fought. In Domestick Affairs,
our Writers are somewhat more bold in their Intelligence; and relate Things
with a greater Air of Certainty, when they lie most under the Suspition of
delivering false History. Thus it happens, that I have seen a great Fortune
_married_ in the _Evening Post_ two Years after her _Death_; and a Man of
Quality has had an _Heir laid to him_, before he himself, or the Town, ever
knew that he was married. Thus they _kill_ and _marry_ whom they please,