against the incursions of the enemy, and laying a bridge over the Rhine. Several vessels laden with corn are daily passing before Frankfort for the Lower Rhine.

Letters from Poland inform us, that a detachment of Muscovite cavalry, under the command of general Instand, had joined the confederate army; and the infantry, commanded by general Goltz, was expected to come up within few days. These succours will amount to twenty thousand men.

a thousand that can dress genteelly at a mistress, where there is one that can gaze skilfully. This requires an exquisite judgment, to take the language of her eyes to yours exactly, and not let yours talk too fast for bers; as at a play between the acts, when beau Frisk stands upon a bench full in Lindamira's face and her dear eyes are searching round to avoid that flaring open fool; she meets the watchful glance of her true lover, and sees his heart attentive on her charms, and waiting for a second Our last advices from the Hague, dated June twinkle of her eye for it's next motion.' Here the fourth, N. S. say, that they expected a the good company sneered ; but he goes on. 'Nor courier from the French court, with a ratifica- is this attendance a slavery, when a mau meets tion of the preliminaries, that night or the day with encouragement, and her eye comes often following. His grace the duke of Marlborough in his way: for after an evening so spent, and will set out for Brussels on Wednesday or Thurs- the repetition of four or five significant looks day next, if the dispatches which are expected at him, the happy man goes home to his lodgfrom Paris do not alter his resolutions. Letters ing full of ten thousand pleasing images; his from Majorca confirm the honourable capitula-brain is dilated, and gives him all the ideas and tion of the castle of Alicant, and also the death prospects which it ever lets into its seat of pleaof the governor, major-general Richards, colonel sure. Thus a kind look from Lindamira revives Sibourg, and major Vignolles, who were all in his imagination all the beauteous lawns, buried in the ruins of that place by the spring-green fields, woods, forests, rivers, and soli

tudes, which he had ever before seen in picture, description, or real life and all with this addition, that he now sees them with the eyes of a happy lover, as before only with those of a common man. You laugh, gentlemen, but consider yourselves (you common people that were never in love) and compare yourselves in good humour with yourselves out of humour, and ye will then acknowledge, that all external objects affect you according to the dispositions ye are in to receive their impressions, and not as those objects are in their own nature. How

'N. B. Mr. How'd'yecall is desired to leave much more shall all that passes within his view

off those buttons.'

and observation touch with delight a man who is prepossessed with successful love, which is an assemblage of soft affection, gay desires, and hopeful resolutions ?!

ing of the great mine, which did, it seems, more execution than was reported. Monsieur Torey passed through Mons in his return, and had there a long conference with the elector of Bavaria; after which, the prince spoke publicly of the treatment he had received from France, with the utmost indignation.

'Any person that shall come publicly abroad in a fantastical habit, contrary to the present mode and fashion, except Don Diego Dismallo,* or any other out of poverty, shall have his naine and dress inserted in our next.'

No. 22.] Tuesday May 31, 1709

Quicquid agunt homines

nostri est farrago libelli. Juv. Sat. i. 85, 86. Whate'er men do, or sy, or think, or dream, Our motley paper seizes for its theme.

P.

White's Chocolate-house, May 28.

I CAME hither this evening to see fashious; and who should I first encounter but my old friend Cynthio (encompassed by a crowd of young fellows) dictating on the passion of love with the gayest air imaginable! Well,' says he, 'as to what I know of the matter, there is nothing but ogling with skill carries a woman; but indeed it is not every fool that is capable of this art; you will find twenty can speak eloquently, fifty that can fight manfully, and

This is well known to have been a nick-name given, in the rage of party, to a very respectable nobleman, the earl

of Nottingham, who is mentioned under that name in the History of John Bull,' in the Examiner,' and in Swift's works, vol. xix. p. 168. and vol. xx. p. 22. an Examiner,' fol. iii. No. 44

Poor Cynthio went on at this rate to the crowd about him, without any purpose in his talk, but to vent a heart overflowing with sense of success. I wondered what could exalt him from the distress in which he had long appeared, to so much alacrity: but my familiar has given me the state of his affairs. It seems, then, that lately coming out of the play-house, his mistress, who knows he is in her livery, as the manner of insolent beauties is, is resolved to keep him still so, and gave him so much wages as to complain to him of the crowd she was to pass through. He had his wits and resolution enough about him to take her hand, and say, he would attend her to the coach. All the way thither my good young inan stammered at every word, and stumbled at every step. His mistress, wonderfully pleased with her triumph, put to him a thousand questions, to make a man of his natural wit speak with hesitation; and let drop her fan, to see him recover it aukwardly. This is the whole foundation of

Cynthio's recovery to the sprightly air he appears with at present.

I grew mighty curious to know something more of that lady's affairs, as being amazed how she could dally with an offer of one of his merit and fortune. I sent Pacolet to her lodgings, who immediately brought me back the following letter to her friend and confidant, Amanda, in the country, wherein she has opened her heart and all its folds.

so many bars to my happiness with any other
man. However, since Frisk can wait, I shall
enjoy a summer or two longer, and remain a
single woman, in the sublime pleasure of being
followed and admired; which nothing can equal,
except that of being beloved by you. I am, &c.

Will's Coffee-house, May 30.

My chief business here this evening was to speak to my friends in behalf of honest Cave Underhill, who has been a comic for three generations: my father admired him extremely when he was a boy. There is certainly nature excellently represented in his manner of action; in which he ever avoided that general fault in players, of doing too much. It must be confessed, he has not the merit of some ingenious persons now on the stage, of adding to his authors; for the actors were so dull in the last age, that many of them have gone out of the world, without having ever spoke one word of their own in the theatre. Poor Cave is so mortified, that he quibbles and teils you, he pretends only to act a part fit for a man who has one foot in the grave, viz. a grave-digger. All admirers of true comedy, it is hoped, will have the gratitude to be present on the last day of his acting, who, if he does not happen to please them, will have it even then to say, that it is his first offence.

DEAR AMANDA,

'The town grows so empty, that you must expect my letter so too, except you will allow me to talk of myself instead of others: you cannot imagine what pain it is, after a whole day spent in public, to want your company, and the ease which friendship allows in being vain to each other, and speaking all our minds. An account of the slaughter which these unhappy eyes have made within ten days last past, would make me appear too great a tyrant to be allowed in a christian country. I shall therefore confine myself to my principal conquests, which are the hearts of beau Frisk and Jack Freeland, besides Cynthio, who you know, wore my fetters before you went out of town. Shall I tell you my weakness? I begin to love Frisk: it is the best-humoured impertinent thing in the world: he is always too in waiting, and will certainly carry me off one time or other. Freeland's father and mine have been upon treaty without consulting me; and Cynthio has been eternally watching my eyes, without approaching me, my friends, my maid, or any one about me: he hopes to get me, I believe, as they say the rattle-snake does the squirrel, by staring at me until I drop into his mouth. Freeland demands me for a jointure, which he thinks deserves me: Cynthio thinks nothing high enough to be my value: Freeland therefore will take it for no obligation to have me; and Cynthio's idea of me is what will vanish by knowing me better. Familiarity will equally turn the veneration of the one, and the indifference of the other, into contempt. I will stick therefore to my old maxim, to have that sort of man, who can have no greater views than what are in my power to give him possession of. The utmost of my dear Frisk's ambition is, to be thought a man of fashion; and therefore has been so much in mode, as to resolve upon me, because the whole town likes me. Thus I choose rather a man who loves me because others do, than one who approves me on his own judgment. He that judges for himself in love will often change his opinion; but he that follows the sense of others must be constant, as long as a woman can make advances. The visits I make, the entertainments I give, and the addresses I receive, will be all arguments for me with a man of Frisk's second-hand genius; but would be

But there is a gentleman here, who says he
has it from good hands, that there is actually
a subscription made by many persons of wit
and quality for the encouragement of new
comedies. This design will very much contri-
bute to the improvement and diversion of the
town: but as every man is most concerned for
himself, I, who am of a saturnine and melan-
choly complexion, cannot but murmur, that
there is not an equal invitation to write tra-
gedies; having by me, in my book of common
places, enough to enable me to finish a very
sad one by the fifth of the next month. I have
the farewell of a general, with a truncheon in
his hand, dying for love, in six lines. I bave
the principles of a politician (who does all the
mischief in the play,) together with his decla
ration on the vanity of ambition in his last
moments expressed in a page and a half. I have
all my oaths ready, and my similies want no-
thing but application. I will not pretend to

Colley Cibber says, Underhill was a correct and na tural comedian; his particular excellence was in characters that may be called still-life, I mean the stiff, the heavy, and

colours, and in some of them looked as if it were not in the

the stupid; to these he gave the exactest and most expressive
power of human passions to alter a feature of him. A conn-
tenance of wood could not be more fixed than his, when the
blockhead of a character required it: his face was full and
long; from his crown to the end of his nose, was the shorter
half of it, so that the disproportion of his lower features,
when soberly composed, threw him into the most lumpish,
moping mortal, that ever made beholders merry! not but,
at other times, he could be awakened into spirit equally ridi
culous."

give you an account of the plot, it being the same design upon which all tragedies have been writ for several years last past; and from the Deginning of the first scene, the frequenters of the house may know as well as the author, when the battle is to be fought, the lady to yield, and the hero proceed to his wedding and coronation. Besides these advantages which I have in readiness, I have an eminent tragedian very much my friend, who shall come in and go through the whole five acts, without troubling me for one sentence, whether he is to kill or be killed, love or be loved, win battles or lose them, or whatever other tragical performance I shall please to assign him.

From my own Apartment, May 30.

I have this day received a letter, subscribed Fidelia, that gives me an account of an enchantment under which a young lady suffers, and desires my help to exorcise her from the power of the sorcerer. Her lover is a rake of sixty; the lady a virtuous woman of twentyfive her relations are to the last degree afflicted and amazed at this irregular passion: their sorrow I know not how to remove, but can their astonishment; for there is no spirit in woman half so prevalent as that of contradietion, which is the sole cause of her perseverance. Let the whole family go dressed in a body, and call the bride to-morrow morning to her nuptials, and I will undertake the inconstant will forget her lover in the midst of all his aches. But if this expedient does not succeed, I must be so just to the young lady's distinguishing sense, as to applaud her choice. A fine young woman, at last, is but what is due from fate to an honest fellow, who has suffered so unmercifully by the sex; and I think we cannot enough celebrate her heroic virtue, who (like the patriot that ended a pestilence by plunging himself into a gulph) gives herself up to gorge that dragon which has devoured so many virgins before her.

"

A letter directed To Isaac Bickerstaff, esquire, Astrologer and Physician in Ordinary to her majesty's subjects of Great-Britain, with respect,' is come to hand.

C

I have lost two coach-horses this spring Madam, you know my income; you know down she fell.- - Hartshorn! Betty, Susan, Alice, throw water in her face.' With much care and paius, she was at last brought to herself, and the vehicle in which she visited was amended in the nicest manner, to prevent relapses; but they frequently happened during that husband's whole life, which he had the good fortune to end in few years after. The disconsolate soon pitched upon a very agreeable successor, whom she very prudently designed White's Chocolate-house, May 31. to govern by the same method. This man THE generality of mankind are so very fond knew her little arts, and resolved to break of this world, and of staying in it, that a man through all tenderness, and be absolute master cannot have eminent skill in any one art, but as soon as occasion offered. One day it hapthey will, in spite of his teeth, make him a pened, that a discourse arose about furniture. physician also, that being the science the world- I he was very glad of the occasion, and fell into

No. 23.] Thursday, June, 2, 1709.

Quicquid agunt homines

― nostri est farrago libelli. Juv. Sat. i. 85, 86.
Whate'er men do, or say, or think, or dream,
Our motley paper seizes for its theme.

lings have most need of. I pretended, when I first set up, to astrology only; but, I am told, I have deep skill also in medicine. I am applied to now by a gentleman for my advice in behalf of his wife, who upon the least matrimonial difficulty, is excessively troubled with fits, and can bear no manner of passion without falling into immediate convulsions. I must confess it is a case I have known before, and remember the party was recovered by certain words pronounced in the midst of the fit, by the learned doctor who performed the cure. These ails have usually their beginning from the affections of the mind: therefore you must have patience to let me give you an instance, whereby you may discern the cause of the distemper, and then proceed in the cure as follows:

P.

A fine town-lady was married to a gentleman of ancient descent in one of the counties of Great-Britain, who had good-humour to a weakness, and was that sort of person, of whom it is usually said, is no man's enemy but his own : one who had too much tenderness of soul to have any authority with his wife; and she too little sense to give him any authority, for that reason. His kind wife observed this temper in him, and made proper use of it. But, knowing it was below a gentlewoman to wrangle, she resolved upon an expedient to save decorum, and wear her dear to her point at the same time. She therefore took upon her to govern him, by falling into fits whenever she was repulsed in a request, or contradicted in a discourse. It was a fish-day, when, in the midst of her husband's good-humour at table, she bethought herself to try her project. She made signs that she had swallowed a bone. The man grew pale as ashes, and ran to her assistance, calling for drink. 'No, my dear,' said she, recovering, it is down; do not be frightened.' This accident betrayed his softness enough. The next day she complained, a lady's chariot, whose husband had not half his estate, had a crane-neck, and hung with twice the air that hers did. He answered,

an invective against china, protesting, he would never let five pounds more of his money be laid but that way as long as he breathed.* She immediately fainted. He starts up as amazed, and calls for help.-The maids run to the closet. He chafes her face, bends her forward, and beats the palms of her hands: her convulsions increase, and down she tumbles on the floor, where she lies quite dead, in spite of what the whole family, from the nursery to the kitchen, could do for her relief.

turn the fate of the war to the advantage of
his master.

They write from the Hague of the seventh,
that monsieur Rouille had received orders from
the court of France, to signify to the states-
general, and the ministers of the high allies,
that the king could not consent to the preli-
minaries of a treaty of peace, as it was offered
to him by monsieur Torcy. The great diffi
culty is the business of Spain, on which parti-
cular his ministers seemed only to say, during
the treaty, that it was not so immediately
under their master's direction, as that he could
engage for its being relinquished by the duke
of Anjou: but now he positively answers, that
he cannot comply with what his minister has
promised in his behalf, even in such points as
are wholly in himself to act in, or not. This
has had no other effect than to give the alli-
ance fresh arguments for being diffident of
engagements entered into by France. The
pensioner made a report of all which this mi-
nister had declared to the deputies of the states-
general, and all things turn towards a vigorous
war. The duke of Marlborough designed to
leave the Hague within two days, in order to
put himself at the head of the army, which is
to assemble on the seventeenth instant between
the Scheld and the Lis. A fleet of eighty sail,
laden with corn from the Baltic, is arrived in
the Texel. The states have sent circular let-
ters to all the provinces, to notify this change
of affairs, and animate their subjects to new
resolutions in defence of their country.

"

While every servant was thus helping or la. menting their mistress, he, fixing his cheek to hers, seemed to be following in a trance of sorrow; but secretly whispers her, My dear, this will never do what is within my power and fortune, you may always command; but none of your artifices: you are quite in other hands than those you passed these pretty passions upon,' This made her almost in the condition she pretended; her convulsions now came thicker, nor was she to be held down. The kind man doubles his care, helps the servants to throw water in her face by full quarts; and when the sinking part of the fit came again, 'Well, my dear,' said he, 'I applaud your action; but I must take my leave of you until you are more sincere with me; farewell for ever: you shall always know where to bear of me, and want for nothing.' With that he ordered the maids to keep plying her with hartshorn, while he went for a physician: he was scarce at the stair-head when she followed, and, pulling him into a closet, thanked him for her cure; which was so absolute, that she gave me this relation herself, to be communicated for the benefit of all the voluntary invalids of her sex.

From my own Apartment, May 31.
The public is not so little my concern,
though I am but a student, as that I should
not interest myself in the present great things
in agitation. I am still of opinion the French
king will sign the preliminaries. With that
view, I have sent him, by my familiar, the fol-
lowing epistle, and admonished him, on pain
of what I shall say of him to future genera-
tions, to act with sincerity on this occasion.

St. James's Coffee-house, June 1. Advices from Brussels of the sixth instant, N. S. say his highness prince Eugene had received a letter from monsieur Torcy, wherein that minister, after many expressions of great respect, acquaints him, that his master had absolutely refused to sign the preliminaries to the treaty which he had, in his majesty's behalf, consented to at the Hague. Upon the Isaac receipt of this intelligence, the face of things at that place was immediately altered, and the necessary orders were transmitted to the troops (which lay most remote from thence) to move toward the place of rendezvous with all expedition. The enemy seems also to prepare for the field, and have at present drawn together twenty-five thousand men in the plains of Lentz. Marshal Villars is at the head of those troops; and has given the generals under command all possible assurances, that he will

About this time a fashion of collecting useless pieces of

china began to be very prevalent. It was indulged for some year* ** great expense, and to astonishing degrees.

London, May 31.

Bickerstaff, esquire, of Great Britain,
to Lewis XIV. of France.

The surprizing news which arrived this day, of your majesty's having refused to sign the treaty your ministers have in a manner sued for, is what gives ground to this application to your majesty, from one, whose name perhaps, is too obscure to have ever reached your territories; but one, who, with all the European world, is affected with your determinahistions. Therefore, as it is mine and the common cause of mankind, I presume to expostulate with you on this occasion. It will, I doubt not, appear to the vulgar extravagant, that the actions of a mighty prince should be balanced by the censure of a private man, whose appro