mightily mistaken; you may, if you please, make what noife you will, and no body can hinder an English Gentleman from putting his face into what posture he thinks fit; but, take my word for it, that motion which you now make with your mouth open, and the agitation of your ftomach, which you relieve by holding your fides, is not laughter: Laughter is a more weighty thing than you imagine; and I will tell you a fecret, you never did laugh in your life: and truly I am afraid you never will, except you take great care to be cured of thofe convalfive fits. Truby left us, and when he had got two yards from us, Well, faid he, you are strange fellows! and was immediately taken with another fit. The Trubies are a well-natured family, whofe partieular make is fuch, that they have the fame pleasure out of good-will, which other people have in that fcorn which is the cause of laughter: Therefore their barsting into the figures of men, when laughing, proceeds only from a general benevolence they are born with; as the Slyboots fmile only on the greatest occafion of mirth; which difference is caused rather from a different ftructure of their organs, than that one is lefs moved than the other. I know Sourly frets inwardly, when Will Truby laughs at him; but when I meet him, and he bursts out, I know it is out of his abundant joy to fee me, which he expreffes by that vociferation which is in others laughter. But I fhall defer confidering this fubject at large, until I come to my Treatife of ofcitation, laughter, and ridicule. From my own Apartment, September 2. The following Letter being a panegyric upon me for a quality which every man may attain, an acknowledgment of his faults; I thought it for the good of my fellow-writers to publish it. SIR, I must be allowed, that Esquire Bickerstaff is of all Authors the most ingenuous. There are few, very few, that will own themfelves in a mistake, VOL. II. E though 66 66 66 though all the world fee them to be in downright "nonfenfe. You will be pleased, Sir, to pardon this expreffion, for the fame reafon for which you once de"fired us to excufe you, when you feemed any thing dull. Moft Writers, like the generality of Claude "Lorraine's Saints, feem to place a peculiar vanity in dying hard. But you, Sir, to fhew a good example " to your brethren, have not only confeffed, but of your own accord mended the indictment. Nay, you have "been fo good-natured as to difcover beauties in it, "which, I wili affure you, he that drew it never "dreamed of. And, to make your civility the more "accomplished, you have honoured him with the title "of your kinfman, which, though derived by the lefthand, he is not a little proud of. My brother, for fuch Obadiah is, being at prefent very bufy about nothing, has ordered me to return you his intere "thanks for all thefe favours; and, as a fmall token of "his gratitude, to communicate to you the following piece of intelligence, which, he thinks, belongs more properly to you, than to any others of our modern * hiftorians. "Madonella, who, as it was thought, had long fince "taken her flight towards the etherial manfions, still walks, it seems, in the regions of mortality; where' "the has found, by deep reflections on the revolution "mentioned in yours of Jane the twenty-third, that where early inftructions have been wanting to imprint "true ideas of things on the tender Souls of thofe of "her Sex, they are never after able to arrive at such a pitch of perfection, as to be above the laws of matter and motion; laws which are confiderably enforced by "the principles ufually imbibed in nurferies and boarding fchools. To remedy this evil, fhe has laid the "fcheme of a college for young damfels; where, inftead of fciflars, needles, and famplers; pens, compaffes, quadrants, books, manufcripts, Greek, Latin, and "Hebrew, are to take up their whole time. Only on holidays the ftudents will, for moderate exercife, be "allowed to divert themselves with the ufe of fome of the lightest and moft voluble weapons; and proper care will be taken to give them at leaft a fuperficial " tincture "tincture of the ancient and modern Amazonian tactics. "Of these military performances, the direction is un"dertaken by Epicene, the writer of Memoirs from the "Mediterranean, who, by the help of fome artificial "poifons conveyed by fmells, has within these few "weeks brought many perfons of both fexes to an un"timely fate; and, what is more furprifing, has, con"trary to her profeffion, with the fame odours, revived "others who had long fince been drowned in the whirl"pools of Lethe. Another of the profeffors is to be a "certain Lady, who is now publishing two of the "choiceft Saxon novels, which are faid to have been in as great repute with the Ladies of Queen Emma's "Court, as the Memoirs from the New Atalantis are "with thofe of ours. I fhall make it my business to inquire into the progrefs of this learned inftitution, " and give you the first notice of their Philofophical Tranfactions, and fearches after Nature. Yours, &c. Tobiah Greenbat. St. James's Coffee-houfe, September 2. This day we have received advices by the way of Oftend, which give an account of an engagement between the French and the Allies on the eleventh inftant, N. S. Marshal Boufflers arrived in the enemy's camp on the fifth, and acquainted Marfhal Villars, that he did not oome in any character, but to receive his commands for the King's fervice, and communicate to him his orders upon the prefent pofture of affairs. On the ninth, both armies advanced towards each other, and cannonaded all the enfuing day until the clofe of the evening, and stood on their arms all that night. On the day of battle the cannonading was renewed about feven: The Duke of Argyle had orders to attack the wood Sart on the right, which he executed fo fuccefsfully, that he pierced through it, and won a confiderable poft. The Prince of Orange had the fame good fortune in a wood on the left: After which the whole body of the confederates, joined by the E 2 forces forces from the fiege, marched up and engaged the enemy, who were drawn up at fome diftance from thefe woods." The difpute was very warm for fome time; but towards noon, the French began to give ground from one wing to the other; which advantage being obferved by our Generals, the whole army was urged on with fresh vigour, and in a few hours the day ended with the entire defeat of the enemy. N° 64. Thursday, September 6, 1709. Quæ caret ora cruore noftro? HOR. Od. 1. 1. What coaft, encircled by the briny flood, W 2. ver. 36. From my own Apartment, September §. HEN I lately spoke of triumphs, and the behaviour of the Romans on those occafions, I knew by my kill in aftrology, that there was a great event approaching to our advantage; but not having yet taken upon me to tell fortunes, I thought fit to defer the mention of the battle near Mons until it happened; which moderation was no small pain to me: But I fhould wrong my art, if I concealed that some of my ærial intelligencers had fignified to me the news of it even from Paris, before the arrival of Lieutenant-Colonel Graham in England. All nations, as well as perfons, have their good and evil Genius attending them; but the kingdom of France has three, the laft of which is neither for it nor against it in reality; but has for fome months paft acted an ambiguous part, and attempted to fave its Ward from the incurfion of its powerful enemies, by little fubterfuges and tricks, which a nation is more than undone when it is reduced to practise. Thus, instead of giving > 77 exact accounts and reprefentations of things, they tell what is indeed true, but at the fame time a falfhood, when all the circumftances come to be related. Pacolet was at the Court of France on Friday night last, when this Genius of that kingdom came thither in the shape of a post-boy, and cried out, that Mons was relieved, and the Duke of Marlborough marched. Pacolet was much aftonished at this account, and immediately changed his form, and flew to the neighbourhood of Mons, from whence he found the Allies had really marched; and began to enquire into the reafons of this fudden change, and half-feared he had heard a truth of the posture of the French affairs, even in their own country. But upon diligent enquiry among the ærials who attend thofe regions, and confultation with the neighbouring peasants, he was able to bring me the following account of the motions of the armies fince they retired from about that place, and the action which followed thereupon. The On Saturday the feventh of September, N. S. the Confederate army was alarmed in their camp at Havre, by intelligence, that the enemy were marching to attack the Prince of Heffe. Upon this advice, the Duke of Marlborough commanded that the troops fhould immediately move; which was accordingly performed, and they were all joined on Sunday the eighth at noon. On that: day in the morning it appeared, that inftead of being attacked, the advanced guard of the detachment, commanded by the Prince of Heffe, had difperfed and taken prifoners a party of the enemy's horfe, which was fent out to obferve the march of the Confederates. French moved from Quiverain on Sunday in the morning, and inclined to the right from thence all that day. The inth, the Monday following, they continued their march, until on Tuesday, the tenth, they poffeffed themselves of the woods of Dour and Blaugies. As foon as they came into that ground, they threw up intrenchments with allexpedition. The Allies arrived within few hours after the enemy was pofted; but the Duke of Marlborough thought fit to wait for the arrival of the reinforcement which he expected from the fiege of Tournay. Upon no❤tice that these troops were fo far advanced, as to be de E 3 pended |