sign 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 fare well 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 an 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 inchantment 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 pas Let sion. 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. 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 the 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. N° 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, White's Chocolate-house, May 31. P. 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 last 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 antient 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 the 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, "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 a few years after. The disconsolate soon pitched upon a very agreeable successor, whom she very prudently designed 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 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. 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 66 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 behalf, 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 towards the place of rendezvous with all expedition. The enemy seem also to prepare for the field, and have at present drawn together twenty-five thousand men in the plains of Lenz. Marshal Villars is at the head of those troops; and has given the generals under his command all possible assurances, that he will turn the fate of the war to the advantage of his master. They write from the Hague, of the seventh, that |