enters your prince, and says, they cannot defend him from his love. Why, pr'ythee, Isaac, who ever thought they could? Place me your loving monarch in a solitude; let him have no sense at all of his grandeur, but let it be eaten up with his passion. He must value himself as the greatest of lovers, not as the first of princes: and then let him say a more tender thing than ever man said before-for his feather and eagle's beak are nothing at all. The man lis to be expressed by his sentiments and affec tions, and not by his fortune or equipage. You are also to take care, that at his first entrance he says something, which may give us an idea of what we are to expect in a person of his way of thinking. Shakspeare is your pattern. In the tragedy of Cæsar he introduces his hero in his night-gown. He had at that time all the power of Rome: deposed consuls, subordinate generals, and captive princes might have preceded him; but his genius was above such mechanic methods of showing greatness. Therefore, he rather presents that great soul debating upon the subject of life and death with his inti. mate friends, without endeavouring to prepossess his audience with empty show and pomp. When those who attend him talk of the many omens which had appeared that day, he answers: "Cowards die many times before their deaths; 'When the hero has spoken this sentiment, there is nothing that is great which cannot be expected from one, whose first position is the contempt of death to so high a degree, as to make his exit a thing wholly indifferent, and not a part of his care, but that of heaven and fate.' St. James's Coffee-house, August 10. Letters from Brussels of the fifteenth instant, N. S. say, that major-general Ravignan returned on the eighth, with the French king's answer to the intended capitulation for the citadel of Tournay, which is, that he does not think fit to sign that capitulation, except the allies will grant a cessation of arms in general, during the time in which all acts of hostility were to have ceased between the citadel and the besiegers. Soon after the receipt of this news, the cannon on each side began to play. There are two attacks against the citadel, commanded by general Lottum and general Schuylemberg, which are both carried on with great success; and it is not doubted but the citadel will be in the hands of the allies before the last day of this month. Letters from Ipres say, that on the ninth instant part of the garrison of that place had mutinied in two bodies, each consisting of two hundred; who being dispersed the same day, a body of eight hundred appeared in the market-place at nine the night following, and seized all manner of provisions, but were with much difficulty quieted. The governor has not punished any of the offenders, the dissatisfaction being universal in that place; and it is thought the officers foment those disorders, that the ministry may WHEN labour was pronounced to be the portion of man, that doom reached the affections of his mind, as well as his person, the matter on which he was to feed, and all the animal and vegetable world about him. There is, therefore, an assiduous care and cultivation to be bestowed upon our passions and affections; for they, as they are the excrescences of our souls like our hair and beards, looks horrid or becoming, as we cut or let them grow. All this grave preface is meant to assign a reason in nature for the unaccountable behaviour of Duumvir, the husband and keeper. Ten thousand follies had this unhappy man escaped, had he made a compact with himself to be upon his guard, and not permitted his vagrant eye to let in so many dif ferent inclinations upon him, as all his days he has been perplexed with. But, indeed, at present, he has brought himself to be confined only to one prevailing mistress; between whom and his wife, Duumvir passes his hours in all the vicissitudes which attend passion and affection, without the intervention of reason. Laura his wife, and Phillis his mistress, are all with whom he has had, for some months, the least amorous commerce. Duumvir has passed the noon of life; but cannot withdraw from those entertainments which are pardonable only before that stage of our being, and which, after that season, are rather punishments than satisfactions: for palled appetite is humorous, and must be grati. fied with sauces rather than food. For which end Duumvir is provided with a haughty, imperious, expensive, and fantastic mistress, to whom he retires from the conversation of an affable, humble, discreet, and affectionate wife. Laura receives him after absence, with an easy and unaffected complacency; but that he calls insipid: Phillis rates him for his absence, and bids him return from whence he came; this he calls spirit and fire; Laura's gentleness is thought mean; Phillis's insolence, sprightly. Were you to see him at his own home, and his mistress's lodg ings; to Phillis he appears an obsequious lover, to Laura an imperious master. Nay, so unjust is the taste of Duumvir, that he owns Laura has no ill quality, but that she is his wife; Phillis no good one, but that she is his mistress. And From my own Apartment, August 11. As we have professed that all the actions of men are our subject, the most solemn are not to be omitted, if there happens to creep into their behaviour any thing improper for such occasions. Therefore, the offence mentioned in the following epistles, though it may seem to be committed in a place sacred from observation, is such, that it is our duty to remark upon it; for though he who does it is himself only guilty of an inde corum, he occasions a criminal levity in all others who are present at it. ་ St. Paul's Church-Yard, August 11. he has himself often said, were he married to any one else, he would rather keep Laura than any woman living; yet allows, at the same time, that Phillis, were she a woman of honour, would have been the most insipid animal breathing. The other day Laura, who has a voice like an angel, began to sing to him. 'Fie, madam,' he cried, we must be past all these gayeties.' Phillis has a note as rude and as loud as that of a milk-maid: when she begins to warble, Well,' says he, there is such a pleasing simplicity in all that wench docs.' In a word, the affectionate part of his heart being corrupted, and his true taste that way wholly lost, he has contracted a prejudice to all the behaviour of Laura, and a general partiality in favour of 'Mr. BickerstaFF,-It being mine as well Phillis. It is not in the power of the wife to do as the opinion of many others that your papers a pleasing thing, nor in the mistress to commit are extremely well fitted to reform any irregular one that is disagreeable. There is something or indecent practice, I present the following as too melancholy in the reflection on this circum- one which requires your correction. Myself, stance, to be the subject of raillery. He said a and a great many good people who frequent the sour thing to Laura at dinner the other day; divine service at St. Paul's, have been a long upon which she burst into tears. What the time scandalized by the imprudent conduct of devil, madam,' says he, cannot I speak in my Stentor* in that cathedral. This gentleman, own house?' He answered Phillis a little ab- you must know, is always very exact and zealruptly at supper the same evening, upon which ous in his devotion, which I believe nobody she threw his periwig into the fire. Well,' blames; but then he is accustomed to roar and said he, thou art a brave termagant jade: do bellow so terribly loud in the responses, that he you know, hussy, that fair wig cost forty gui- frightens even us of the congregation who are neas?' Oh Laura! is it for this that the faithful daily used to him; and one of our petty canons, Cromius sighed for you in vain? How is thy a punning Cambridge scholar, calls his way of condition altered, since crowds of youth hung worship a Bull-offering. His harsh untuneable on thy eye, and watched its glances? It is not pipe is no more fit than a raven's to join with many months since Laura was the wonder and the music of a choir; yet, nobody having been pride of her own sex, as well as the desire and enough his friend, I suppose, to inform him of passion of ours. At plays and at balls, the just it, he never fails, when present, to drown the turn of her behaviour, the decency of her virgin harmony of every hymn and anthem, by an incharms, chastised, yet added to diversion. At undation of sound beyond that of the bridge at public devotions, her winning modesty, her re- the ebb of the tide, or the neighbouring lions in signed carriage, made virtue and religion appear the anguish of their hunger. This is a griev with new ornaments, and in the natural apparel ance, which, to my certain knowledge, several of simplicity and beauty. In ordinary conver-worthy people desire to see redressed; and if, sations, a sweet conformity of manners, and a humility which heightened all the complacencies of good-breeding and education, gave her more slaves than all the pride of her sex ever made women wish for. Laura's hours are now spent in the sad reflection on her choice, and that deceitful vanity, almost inseparable from the sex, of believing she could reclaim one that had so often ensnared others; as it now is, it is not even in the power of Duumvir himself to do her justice for though beauty and merit are things real, and independent on taste and opinion, yet agreeableness is arbitrary, and the mistress has much the advantage of the wife. But whenever fate is so kind to her and her spouse as to end her days, with all this passion for Phillis and indifference for Laura, he has a second wife in view, who may avenge the injuries done to her predecessor. Aglaura is the destined lady, who has lived in assemblies, has ambition and play for her entertainment, and thinks of a man, not as the object of love, but the tool of her interest or pride. If ever Aglaura comes to the empire of this inconstant, she will endear the memory of her predecessor. But, in the mean time, it is melancholy to consider that the virtue of a wife is like the merit of a poet, never justly valued until after death. Q by inserting this epistle in your paper, or by re presenting the matter your own way, you can convince Stentor, that discord in a choir is the same sin that schism is in the church in general, you would lay a great obligation upon us; and make some atonement for certain of your paragraphs which have not been highly approved by us.-I am, sir, your most humble servant, JEOFFRY CHANTICLEER.' It is wonderful that there should be such a general lamentation, and the grievances so frequent, and yet the offender never knew any thing of it. I have received the following letter from my kinsman at the Heralds-office, near the same place. its share in the impartial justice of your cen'DEAR COUSIN,-This office, which has had their rights and privileges. There are certain sures, demands at present your vindication of hours when our young heralds are exercised in the faculties of making proclamation, and other vociferations, which of right belong to us only to utter: but, at the same hours, Stentor, in St. Paul's Church, in spite of the coaches, carts, London cries, and all other sounds between us, * Dr. William Stanley, dean of St. Paul's. exalts his throat to so high a key, that the most noisy of our order is utterly unheard. If you please to observe upon this, you will ever oblige, &c.' There have been communicated to me some other ill consequences from the same cause; as, the overturning of coaches by sudden starts of the horses as they passed that way, women pregnant frightened, and heirs to families lost; which are public disasters, though arising from a good intention: but it is hoped, after this admonition, that Stentor will avoid an act of so great supererogation, as singing without a voice. friends and relations, among others the reverend Mr. Caswell, minister of the place, that it was highly probable that he should remove the obstacle which prevented the use of his sight; the young man, or curiosity to be present when all his acquaintance, who had any regard for one of full age and understanding received a new sense, assembled themselves on this occasion. Mr. Caswell, being a gentleman particularly curious, desired the whole company, in case the blindness should be cured, to keep silence; and let the patient make his own obserhad received by his other senses, or the advanvations, without the direction of any thing he tage of discovering his friends by their voices. Among several others, the mother, brethren, had a passion, were present. The work was sisters, and a young gentlewoman, for whom he the patient first received the dawn of light, there performed with great skill and dexterity. When has been twice a day at the chocolate-house, appeared such an ecstasy in his action, that he visits in every circle, is missing four hours in seemed ready to swoon away in the surprise of four-and-twenty, and will give no account of joy and wonder. The surgeon stood before himself. These are undoubted proofs of the de-him with his instruments in his hands. The parture of a lover; and consequently Coriana is also dead as a mistress. I have written to Stentor, to give this couple three calls at the church-door, which they must hear if they are living within the bills of mortality; and if they do not answer at that time, they are from that moment added to the number of my defunct. But I am diverted from prosecuting Stentor's reformation, by an account, that the two faithful lovers, Lisander and Coriana, are dead; for, no longer ago than the first day of the last month, they swore eternal fidelity to each other, and to love until death. Ever since that time Lisander WHILE others are busied in relations which concern the interest of princes, the peace of nations, and revolutions of empire;* I think, though these are very great subjects, my theme of discourse is sometimes to be of matters of a yet higher consideration. The slow steps of providence and nature, and strange events which are brought about in an instant, are what, as they come within our view and observation, shall be given to the public. Such things are not accompanied with show and noise, and therefore seldom draw the eyes of the unattentive part of mankind; but are very proper at once to exercise our humanity, please our imaginations, and improve our judgments. It may not therefore, be unuseful to relate many circumstances, which were observable upon a late cure done upon a young gentleman who was born blind, and on the twenty-ninth of June last received his sight, at the age of twenty years, by the operation of an oculist. This happened no farther off than Newington, and the work was prepared for in the following manner. The operator, Mr. Grant, having observed the eyes of his patient, and convinced his *The name of the young man, who is the principal subject of this paper, was William Jones of Newington Butts, who, it is said, was born blind, and brought to Lis sight at the age of twenty. young man observed him from head to foot; and seemed to compare him to himself; and, after which he surveyed himself as carefully, observing both their hands, seemed to think which he took for parts of his hands. When they were exactly alike, except the instruments, he had continued in this amazement some time, his mother could not longer bear the agitations of so many passions, as thronged upon her; but fell upon his neck, crying out, My son! my son!' The youth knew her voice, and could speak no more than Oh me! are you my mother?' and fainted. The whole room, you will easily conceive, were very affectionately em. ployed in recovering him; but, above all, the young gentlewoman who loved him, and whom he loved, shrieked in the loudest manner. That voice seemed to have a sudden effect upon him as he recovered, and he showed a double curiosity in observing her as she spoke and called to him, until at last he broke out, 'What has been done to me? Whither am I carried? Is all this about me the thing I have heard so often of? Is this the light? Is this seeing? Were you always thus happy, when you said you were glad to see each other? Where is Tom, who used to lead me? But I could now, methinks, go any where without him.' He offered to move, but seemed afraid of every thing around him. When they saw his difficulty, they told him, until he became better acquainted with his new being, he must let the servant still lead him. The boy was called for, and presented to him. Mr. Caswell asked him, what sort of thing he took Tom to be before he had seen him?' He answered, 'he belieeved there was not so much of him as of himself; but he fancied him the same sort of creature.' The noise of this sudden change made all the neighbourhood throng to the place where he was. As he saw the crowd thickening he desired Mr. Caswell to tell him how many there were in all to be seen. The gentleman, smiling, answered him, that it would be very proper for him to return to his late condition, and suffer his eyes to be covered, until they had received strength: for he might 6 St. James's Coffee-house, August 15. remember well enough, that by degrees he had I had not been received at the ears; and closed from little and little come to the strength he his protestation to her, by saying, that if he had at present in his ability of walking and were to see Valentia and Barcelona, whom he moving; and that it was the same thing with supposed the most esteemed of all women, by his eyes, which,' he said, 'would lose the power the quarrel there was about them, he would of continuing to him that wonderful transport never like any but Lidia. he was now in, except he would be contented to lay aside the use of them, until they were strong enough to bear the light without so much feeling as he knew he underwent at present.' With much reluctance he was prevailed upon to have his eyes bound; in which condition they kept him in a dark room, until it was proper to let the organ receive its objects without further precaution. During the time of this darkness, he bewailed himself in the most distressed manner; and accused all his friends, complaining that some incantation had been wrought upon him, and some strange magic used to deceive him into an opinion that he had enjoyed what they called sight.' He added, 'that the impressions then let in upon his soul would certainly distract him, if he were not so at that present. At another time, he would strive to name the persons he had seen among the crowd after he was couched, and would pretend to speak, in perplexed terms of his own making, of what he in that short time observed. But, on the sixth instant, it was thought fit to unbind his head, and the young woman whom he loved was instructed to open his eyes accordingly as well to endear herself to him by such a circumstance, as to moderate his ecstasies by the persuasion of a voice which had so much power over him as hers ever had. When this beloved young woman began to take off the binding of his eyes, she talked to him as follows. * Mr. William, I am now taking the binding off, though, when I consider what I am doing, I tremble with the apprehension, that though I have from my very childhood loved you, dark as you were, and though you had conceived so strong a love for me, you will find there is such a thing as beauty, which may ensnare you into a thousand passions of which you are now innocent, and take you from me for ever. But, before I put myself to the hazard, tell me in what manner that love, you always professed to me, entered into your heart; for its usual admission is at the eyes.' The young man answered, 'Dear Lidia, if I am to lose by sight the soft pantings which I have always felt when I heard your voice; if I am no more to distinguish the step of her I love when she approaches me, but to change that sweet and frequent pleasure for such an amazement as I knew the little time I lately Baw; or if I am to have any thing besides, which may take from me the sense I have of what appeared most pleasing to me at that time, which apparition it seems was you; pull out these eyes, before they lead me to be ungrateful to you, or undo myself. I wished for them but to see you; pull them out, if they are to make me forget you.' Lidia was extremely satisfied with these assurances; and pleased herself with playing with his perplexities. In all his talk to her, he showed but very faint ideas of any thing which | We have repeated advices of the entire defeat of the Swedish army near Pultowa, on the twenty-seventh of June, O. S.; and letters from Berlin give the following account of the remains of the Swedish army since the battle: Prince Menzikoff, being ordered to pursue the victory, came up with the Swedish army, which was left to the command of general Lewenhaupt, on the thirteenth of June, O. S. on the banks of the Boristhenes; whereupon he sent general Lewenhaupt a summons to submit himself to his present fortune: Lewenhaupt immediately despatched three general officers to that prince, to treat about a capitulation; but the Swedes, though they consisted of fifteen thousand men, were in so great want of provision and ammunition, that they were obliged to surrender themselves at discretion. His czarish majesty despatched an express to general Goltz, with an account of these particulars, and also with instructions to send out detachments of his cavalry, to prevent the king of Sweden's joining his army in Poland. That prince made his escape with a small party by swimming over the Boristhenes; and it was thought he designed to retire into Poland by the way of Volhinia. Advices from Bern of the eleventh instant say, that the general diet of the Helvetic body held at Baden, concluded on the sixth; but the deputies of the six cantons, who are deputed to determine the affair of Tockenburg, continue their application to that business, notwithstanding some new difficulties started by the abbot of St. Gall. Letters from Geneva of the ninth, say, that the duke of Savoy's cavalry had joined count Thaun, as had also two imperial regiments of hussars; and that his royal highness's army was disposed in the following manner: the troops under the command of count Thaun are extended from Constans to St. Peter D'Albigni. Small parties are left in several posts from thence to Little St. Bernard, to preserve the communication with Piedmont by the valley of Aosta. Some forces are also posted at Taloir, and in the castle of Doin, on each side of the lake of Anneci. General Rhcbinder is encamped in the valley of Oulx with ten thousand foot, and some detachments of horse; his troops are extended from Exilles to Mount Genevre, so that he may easily penetrate into Dauphiné on the least motion of the enemy; but the duke of Berwick takes all necessary precautions to prevent such an enterprise. That general's head quarters are at Francin; and he hath disposed his army in several parties, to preserve a communication with the Maurienne and Briancon. He hath no provisions for his army but from Savoy; Provence and Dauphiné being unable to supply him with neces saries. He left two regiments of dragoons at Annen, who suffered very much in the late action at Tessons, where they lost fifteen hun- | tion, quality, merit, and industry, were laid dred who were killed on the spot, four standards, and three hundred prisoners, among whom were forty officers. The last letters from the duke of Marlborough's camp at Orchies of the nineteenth instant, advise, that monsieur Ravignon being returned from the French court with an account that the king of France had refused to ratify the capitulation for the surrender of the citadel of Tournay, the approaches have been carried on with great vigour and success: our miners have discovered several of the enemy's mines, who have sprung divers others, which did little execution; but for the better security of the troops, both assaults are carried on by the cautious way of sapping. On the eighteenth, the confederate army made a general forage without any loss. Marshal Villars continues in his former camp, and applies himself with great diligence in casting up new lines behind the old on the Scarp. The duke of Marlborough and prince Eugene designed to begin a general review of the army on the twentieth. No. 56.] Thursday, August 18, 1709. Quicquid agunt homines nostri est farrago libelli. Juv. Sat. i. 85, 86. Whatever good is done, whatever ill— By human kind, shall this collection fill.* White's Chocolate-house, August 17. aside among us by the incursions of these civil hussars; who had got so much countenance, that the breeding and fashion of the age turned their way to the ruin of order and economy in all places where they are admitted.' But Sophronius, who never falls into heat upon any subject, but applies proper language, temper, and skill, with which the thing in debate is to be treated, told the youth, that gentleman had spoken nothing but what was literally true, but fell upon it with too much earnestness to give a true idea of that sort of people he was declaiming against, or to remedy the evil which he bewailed: for the acceptance of these men being an ill which had crept into the conversation-part of our lives, and not into our constitution itself, it must be corrected where it began; and, consequently, is to be amended only by bringing raillery and derision upon the persons who are guilty, or those who converse with them. For the sharpers,' continued he, at present, are not as formerly, under the acceptation of pick pockets: but are by custom erected into a real and venerable body of men, and have subdued us to so very particular a deference to them, that though they were known to be men with out honour or conscience, no demand is called a debt of honour so indisputably as theirs. You may lose your honour to them, but they lay none against you: as the priesthood in Roman Catholic countries can purchase what they please for the church; but they can alienate nothing from it. It is from this toleration, that sharpers are There is a young foreigner committed to my to be found among all sorts of assemblies and care, who puzzles me extremely in the questions companies; and every talent among men is he asks about the persons of figure we meet in made use of by some one or other of the society, public places. He has but very little of our for the good of their common cause: so that an language, and therefore I am mightily at a loss unexperienced young gentleman is as often ento express to him things for which they have no snared by his understanding as his folly; for word in that tongue to which he was born. It who could be unmoved, to hear the eloquent has been often my answer, upon his asking who Dromio explain the constitution, talk in the key such a fine gentlemen is? That he is what we of Cato, with the severity of one of the ancient call a sharper; and he wants my explication. sages, and debate the greatest question of state I thought it would be very unjust to tell him, in a common chocolate or coffee-house? who he is the same the French call Coquin; the could, I say, hear this generous declamator, Latins, Nebulo; or the reeks, Part for, as without being fired at his noble zeal, and becustom is the most p rful of all laws, and coming his professed follower, if he might be that the order of mer e call sharpers are re-admitted? Monoculus's gravity would be no ceived amongst us, only with permission, less inviting to a beginner in conversation; and but favour, I thought it unjust to use them like the snare of his eloquence would equally catch persons upon no s'ablishment; besides that it one who had never seen an old gentleman so would be an ung rdonable dishonour to our very wise, and yet so little severe. Many other country to let hi leave us with an opinion, instances of extraordinary men among the brothat our nobility and gentry keep company with therhood might be produced; but every man, common thieves and cheats: I told him, they who knows the town, can supply himself with were a sort of tame hussars, that were allowed such examples without their being named. Will in our cities, like the wild ones in our camp; Vafer, who is skilful at finding out the ridiculous who had all the privileges belonging to us, but side of a thing, and placing it in a new and proat the same time, were not tied to our discipline per light, though he very seldom talks, thought or laws.' Aletheus, who is a gentleman of too fit to enter into this subject. He has lately lost much virtue for the age he lives in, would not certain loose sums, which half the income of let this matter be thus palliated; but told my his estate will bring in within seven years: bepupil, that he was to understand that distinc- sides which, he proposes to marry, to set all right. He was, therefore, indolent enough to speak of this matter with great impartiality. This is the first of some patriotic and excellent pa pes, in which Steele laudably employed his wit, in exposing the gainesters, sharpers, and swindlers, of his time, with a view to guard his unwary countrymen from their snares; and, to banish fraud and cozenage from the presence and conversation of gentlemen.' †The word rascal,' printed in Greek characters. When I look around me,' said this easy gentleman, and consider in a just balance us bubbles, elder brothers whose support our dull fathers contrived to depend upon certain acres, |