Mr. Couranto,
Since Mrs. DOGOOD has kept SILENCE for so long a Time, you have no doubt lost a very valuable Correspondent, and the Publick been depriv’d of many profitable Amusements, for which reason I desire you to convey the following Lines to Her, that so if she be in the Land of the Living we may know the Occasion of her Silence.
Mrs. Dogood.
I greatly wonder why you have so soon done exercising your Gifts, and hid your Talent in a Napkin. You told us at first that you intended to favour the Publick with a Speculation once a Fortnight, but how comes it to pass that you have laid aside soGood a Design? Why have you so soon withdrawn your Hand from the Plough (with which you tax’d some of the Scholars) and grown weary of Doing Good?
Is your Common-Place Wit all Exhausted, your stock of matter all spent? We thought you were well stor’d with that by your striking your first blow at the College. You say (in your No 2.) that you have an Excellent Faculty at observing and reproving the Faults of others, and are the Vices of the Times all mended? Is there not Whoring, Drinking, Swearing, Lying, Gaming, Cheating and Oppression, and many other Sins prevailing in the Land? Can you observe no faults in others (or your self) to reprove? Or are you married and remov’d to some distant Clime, that we hear nothing from you? Are you (as the Prophet supposed Baal that sottish Deity) asleep, or on a Journey, and cannot write? Or has the Sleep of inexorable unrelenting Death procur’d yourSilence? and if so you ought to have told us of it, and appointed your Successor. But if you are still in Being, and design to amuse the Publick any more, proceed in your usual Course; or if not, let us know it, that some other hand may take up your Pen.
Your Friend,
HUGO GRIM.
ADVERTISEMENT.
If any Person or Persons will give a true Account of Mrs. Silence Dogood, whether Dead or alive, Married or unmarried, in Town or Countrey, that so, (if living) she may be spoke with, or Letters convey’d to her, they shall have Thanks for their Pains.
The New-England Courant, December 3, 1722