phronius would be as just as he is, if there were no law; and would be as discreet as he is, if there were no such thing as calumny. In imitation of this agreeable being, is made that animal we call a Pretty Fellow; who, being just able to find out, that what makes Sophronius acceptable, is a natural behaviour, in order to the same reputation, makes his own an artificial one. Jack Dimple is his perfect mimic, whereby he is, of course, the most unlike him of all men living. Sophronius just now passed into the inner room directly forward; Jack comes as fast after as he can for the right and left looking-glass, in which he had but just approved himself by a nod at each, and marched on. He will meditate within for half an hour, until he thinks he is not careless enough in his air, and come back to the mirror to recollect his forgetfulness. Will's Coffee-house, May 27. This night was acted the comedy called 'The Fox ;'* but I wonder the modern writers do not use their interest in the house to suppress such representations. A man that has been at this will hardly like any other play during the season: therefore I humbly move, that the writings, as well as dresses, of the last age should give way to the present fashion. We are come into a good method enough (if we were not interrupted in our mirth by such an apparition as a play of Jonson's) to be entertained at more ease, both to the spectator and the writer, than in the days of old. It is no difficulty to get hats and swords, and wigs and shoes, and every thing else from the shops in town; and make a man show himself by his habit, without more ado, to be a counsellor, a fop, a courtier, or a citizen, and not be obliged to make those characters talk in different dialects to be distinguished from each other. This is certainly the surest and best way of writing: but such a play as this makes a man for a month after over-run with criticism, and inquire, What every man on the stage said? what had such a one to do to meddle with such a thing? how came the other, who was bred after this or that manner, to speak so like a man conversant among a dif ferent people? These questions rob us of all our pleasure; for, at this rate, no sentence in a play should be spoken by any one character which could possibly enter into the head of any other man represented in it; but every sentiment should be peculiar to him only who utters it. Laborious Ben's works will bear this sort of inquisition; but if the present writers were thus examined, and the offences against this rule cut out, few plays would be long enough for the whole evening's entertainment. : But I do not know how they did in those old times this same Ben Jonson has made every one's passion in this play to be towards money; and yet not one of them expresses that desire, or endeavours to obtain it, any way but what is peculiar to him only one sacrifices his wife, another his profession, another his posterity, * Ben Jonson's Fox': first printed in 1605. from the same motive; but their characters are kept so skilfully apart, that it seems prodigious their discourses should rise from the invention of the same author. But the poets are a nest of hornets, and I will drive these thoughts no farther; but must mention some hard treatment I am likely to meet with from my brother-writers. I am credibly informed, that the author of a play, called 'Love in a Hollow Tree,'* has made some remarks upon my late discourse on The Naked Truth.' I cannot blame a gentlemen for writing against any error; it is for the good of the learned world. But I would have the thing fairly left between us two, and not under the protection of patrons. But my intelligence is, that he hath dedicated his treatise to the honourable Mr. Ed-rd H―rd.‡ : From my own Apartment, May 27. TO ISAAC BICKERSTAFF, ESQ. 'SIR,-Being convinced, as the whole world is, how infallible your predictions are, and having the honour to be your near relation of the Staffian family, I was under great concern at wherein you foretold your own death would hap one of your predictions relating to yourself, pen on the seventeenth instant, unless it were prevented by the assistance of well disposed people I have therefore prevailed on my own modesty to send you a piece of news, which may alive for two days, until nature be able to reserve instead of Goddard'st drops, to keep you cover itself, or until you meet with some better help from other hands. Therefore, without further ceremony, I will relate a singular adventure just happened in the place where I am writing, wherewith it may be highly useful for the pub lic to be informed. Saturday last indicted for witchcraft. The wit'Three young ladies of our town were on nesses against the first deposed upon oath before justice Bindover, that she kept spirits lockflames of blue fire; that she used magical herbs, ed up in vessels, which sometimes appeared in with some of which she drew in hundreds of men daily to her, who went out from her preshot steam issuing from them, attended with a ence all inflamed, their mouths parched, and a were by the force of that herb, metamorphosed grievous stench: that many of the said men into swine, and lay wallowing in the kennels for twenty-four hours, before they could reassume their shapes or their senses. 'It was proved against the second, That she cut off by night the limbs from dead bodies The Lawyer's Fortune,' (see Tatler, No. 17.) was pub*The comedy, called Love in a Hollow Tree,' or lished by William lord viscount Grimston, when he was only thirteen years of age, which is some apology for the many absurdities in it. Hon. Edward Howard, author of seven plays, and of an epic poem called The British Princess." dant of Cromwell, a member of the Royal Society, and Dr. Jonathan Goddard was the physician and confimedical professor of Gresham College. He was the first Englishman who made telescopes; and, in the course of his accurate chemical experiments, discovered the fa mous elixir, called here, his drops. that were hanged, and was seen to dig holes in | the ground, to mutter some conjuring words, and bury pieces of the flesh after the usual manner of witches. "The third was accused for a notorious piece of sorcery, long practised by hags, of moulding up pieces of dough into the shapes of men, women, and children; then heating them at a gentle fire, which had a sympathetic power to torment the bowels of those in the neighbour hood. This was the sum of what was objected against the three ladies, who indeed had nothing to say in their own defence but downright deny the facts, which is like to avail very little when they come upon their trials. ་ port; and admiral Byng was suddenly expected. Their squadrons being joined, they designed to sail directly for Final, to transport the reinforcements lodged in those parts to Barcelona. They write from Milan, that count Thaun arrived there on the sixteenth instant, N. S. and proceeded on his journey to Turin on the twenty-first, in order to concert such measures with his royal highness, as shall appear necessary for the operations of the ensuing campaign. Advices from Dauphiné say, that the troops of the duke of Savoy begin already to appear in those valleys, whereof he made himself master the last year; and that the duke of Berwick applied himself with all imaginable diligence to secure the passes of the mountains, by ordering Tourneau, and the valley of Queiras. That general has also been at Marseilles and Toulon, to hasten the transportation of the corn and provisions designed for his army. "But the parson of our parish, a strange re-intrenchments to be made towards Briançon, fractory man, will believe nothing of all this: so that the whole town cries out Shame, that one of his coat should be such an atheist!' and design to complain of him to the bishop. He goes about very oddly to solve the matter. He supposes, that the first of these ladies keeping a brandy and tobacco shop, the fellows went out smoking; and got drunk towards evening, and made themselves beasts. He says, the second is a butcher's daughter, and sometimes brings a quarter of mutton from the slaughter-house over-night against a market-day, and once buried a bit of beef in the ground, as a known receipt to cure warts on her hands. The parson affirms, that the third sells gingerbread, which, to please the children, she is forced to stamp with images before it is baked; and if it burns their guts, it is because they eat too much, or do not drink after it. Letters from Vienna bearing date May the twenty-third, N. S. import, that the cardinal of Saxe Zeits and the prince of Lichtenstein were preparing to set out for Presburg, to assist at the diet of the States of Hungary, which is to be assembled at that place on the twenty-fifth of this month. General Heister will shortly appear at the head of his army at Trenchin, which place is appointed for the general rendezvous of the imperial forces in Hungary; from whence he will advance to lay siege to Newhausel. In the mean time reinforcements, with a great train of artillery, are marching the same way. The king of Denmark arrived on the tenth instant at Inspruck, and on the twenty-fifth at Dresden, under a triple discharge of the artillery of that place; but his majesty refused the ceremonies of a public entry. 'These are the answers he gives to solve those wonderful phenomena; upon which I shall not animadvert, but leave it among philosophers and so, wishing you all success in Our letters from the Upper Rhine say, that your undertakings for the amendment of the the imperial army began to form itself at Etlinworld, I remain, dear cousin, your most affec-gen; where the respective deputies of the electionate kinsman, and humble servant, EPHRAIM BEDSTAFF.' 'P. S. Those who were condemned to death among the Athenians were obliged to take a dose of poison, which made them die upwards; seizing first upon their feet, making them cold and insensible, and so ascending gradually, until it reached the vital parts. I believe your death, which you foretold would happen on the seventeenth instant will fall out the same way, and that your distemper hath already seized on you, and makes progress daily. The lower part of you, that is, the advertisements, is dead; and these have risen for these ten days last past, so that they now take up almost a whole paragraph. Pray, sir, do you endeavour to drive this distemper as much as possible to the extreme parts, and keep it there, as wise folks do the gout: for if it once gets into your stomach it will soon fly up into your head, and you are a dead man.' St. James's Coffee-house, May 27. We hear from Leghorn, that sir Edward Whitaker, with five men-of-war, four transports, and two fire ships, were arrived at that tor Palatine, the prince of Baden Durlach, the bishoprick of Spires, &c. were assembled, and had taken the necessary measures for the provision of forage, the security of the country 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. Our last advices from the Hague, dated June the fourth, N. S. say, that they expected a courier from the French court, with a ratification of the preliminaries, that night or the day following. His grace the duke of Marlborough will set out for Brussels on Wednesday or Thursday next, if the despatches which are expected from Paris do not alter his resolutions. Letters from Majorca confirm the honourable capitulation of the castle of Alicant, and also the death of the governor, major-general Richards, colonel Sibourg, and major Vignolles, who were all buried in the ruins of that place by the springing of the great P. I CAME hither this evening to see fashions; 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 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 hers; 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 twinkle of her eye for its next motion.' Here the good company sneered; but he goes on. 'Nor is this attendance a slavery, when a man meets with encouragement, and her eye comes often in his way: for after an evening so spent, and the repetition of four or five significant looks at him, the happy man goes home to his lodging full of ten thousand pleasing images; his brain is dilated, and gives him all the ideas and prospects which it ever lets into its seat of pleasure. Thus a kind look from Lindamira revives in his imagination all the beauteous lawns, green fields, woods, forests, rivers, and solitudes, 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 your*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. and • Examiner,' vol. iii. No. 44. selves 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 much more shall all that passes within his view and observation touch with delight a man who is prepossessed with successful love, which and hopeful resolutions?' is an assemblage of soft affection, gay desires, : about him, without any purpose in his talk, but Poor Cynthio went on at this rate to the crowd 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 man 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 awkwardly. 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. 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 be. lieve, 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 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 tells 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, i he does not happen to please them, will have it even then to say, that it is his first offence. But there is a gentleman here, who says he has it from good hands, that there is actually *Colley Cibber says, 'Underhill was a correct and natural comedian; his particular excellence was in characters that may be called still-life, I mean the stiff, the heavy, and the stupid; to these he gave the exactest and most expressive colours, and in some of them looked as if it were not in the power of human passions to alter a subscription made by many persons of wit and quality for the encouragement of new comedies. This design will very much contribute to the improvement and diversion of the town: but as every man is most concerned for himself, I, who am of a saturnine and melancholy complexion, cannot but murmur, that there is not an equal invitation to write tragedies; 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 have the principles of a politician, (who does all the mischief in the play,) together with his declaration 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 nothing but application. I will not pretend to 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 beginning 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 twenty-five: 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 contradiction, 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 feature of him. A countenance 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 A letter directed To Isaac Bickerstaff, composed, threw him into the most lumpish, moping esquire, Astrologer, and Physician in Ordinary mortal, that ever made beholders merry! not but, at other times, he could be awakened into spirit equally to her majesty's subjects of Great-Britain, with respect,' is come to hand. ridiculous.' H THE generality of mankind are so very fond of this world, and of staying in it, that a man cannot have eminent skill in any one art, but they will, in spite of his teeth, make him a physician also, that being the science the worldlings 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: 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, he 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 her's did. He answered, Madam, you know my income; you know I have lost two coach-horses this spring down she fell. Hartshorn! Betty, Susan, Alice, throw water in her face.' With much care and pains, 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 6 to govern by the same method. This man knew her little arts, and resolved to break through all tenderness, and be absolute master as soon as occasion offered. One day it happened, that a discourse arose about furniture, he was very glad of the occasion, and fell into an invective against china, protesting, he would never let five pounds more of his money be laid out 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 convul sions 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. While every servant was thus helping or lamenting 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 hear 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. 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 be. half, consented to at the Hague. Upon the 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 his command all possible assurances, that he will * About this time a fashion of coilecting useless pieces, of china began to be very prevalent. It was indulged for some years at great expense, and to astonishing degrees. |