reduced low enough really to desire to do it. The duke of Anjou has had leisure to take off those whom he suspected, to confirm his friends, to regulate his revenues, to increase and form his troops, and ...ove all, to rouse that spirit in the Spanish nation, which a succession of lazy and indolent princes had lulled asleep. From hence it appears probable enough, that if the war continue much longer on the present foot, instead of regaining Spain, we shall find the duke of Anjou in a condition to pay the debt of gratitude, and support the grand-father in his declining years: by whose arms, in the days of his infancy, he was upheld.' What expressions of tenderness, duty, and submission! the panegyric on the duke of Anjou, is by much the best written part of this whole letter; the apology for the French king is indeed the same which the Post-boy has often made, but worded with greater deference and respect to that great prince. There are many strokes of the author's good-will to our confederates, the Dutch and the emperor, in several parts of this notable epistle; I shall only quote one of them, alluding to the concern which the bank, the statesgeneral, and the emperor expressed for the ministry, by their humble applications to her majesty, in these words. 'Not daunted yet, they resolve to try a new expedient, and the interest of Europe is to be represented as inseparable from that of the ministers. Haud dubitant equidem implorare quod usquam est; The members of the Bank, the Dutch, and the court of Vienna, are called in as confederates to the ministry.' This, in the mildest English it will bear, runs thus. They are resolved to look for help wherever they can find it; if they cannot have it from heaven, they will go to hell for it;' that is, to the members of the Bank, the Dutch, and the court of Vienna. The French king, the pope, and the devil, have been often joined together by a well-meaning Englishman; but I am very much surprised to see the Bank, the Dutch, and the court of Vienna, in such company. We may still see this gentleman's principles in the accounts which he gives of his own country; speaking of the G-1, the quondam T-r, and the J-to,' which every one knows comprehends the Whigs, in their utmost extent; he adds, in opposition to them, For the queen and the whole body of the British nation, Nos numerus sumus. In English, We are cyphers. How properly the Tories may be called the whole body of the British nation, I leave to any one's judging; and wonder how an author can be so disrespectful to her majesty, as to separate her in so saucy a manner from that part of her people, who, according to the Examiner himself, have engrossed the riches of the nation;' and all this to join her, with so much impudence, under the common denomination of We; that is, We queen and Tories are cyphers.' Nos numerus sumus is a scrap of Latin, more impudent than Cardinal Wolsey's Ego et Rex meus. We find the same particle, WE, used with great emphasis and significancy in the eighth page of this letter: 'But nothing decisive, nothing which had the appearance of earnest, has been so much as attempted, except that wise expedition to Toulon, which we suffered to be defeated before it began.' Whoever did, God for give them there were indeed several stories of discoveries made, by letters and messengers that were sent to France. Having done with the author's party and principles, we shall now consider his performance, under the three heads of wit, language, and argument. The first lash of his satire falls upon the censor of GreatBritain, who, says he, resembles the famous censor of Rome, in nothing but espousing the cause of the vanquished. Our letter-writer here alludes to that known verse in Lucan, Victrix causa Diis placuit, sed victa Catoni. The Gods espoused the cause of the conquerors, but Cato espoused the cause of the vanquished.' The misfortune is, that this verse was not written of Cato the Censor, but of Cato of Utica. How Mr. Bickerstaffe, who has written in favour of a party that is not vanquished, resembles the younger Cato, who was not a Roman censor, I do not well conceive, unless it be in struggling for the liberty of his country. To say therefore that the censor of Great-Britain resembles that famous censor of Rome in nothing but espousing the cause of the vanquished, is just the same as if one should say, in regard to the many obscure truths and secret histories that are brought to light in this letter, that the author of these new revelations resembles the ancient author of the Revelations in nothing but venturing his head. Besides that there would be no ground for such a resemblance, would not a man be laughed at by every common reader, should he thus mistake one St. John for another, and apply that to St. John the Evangelist which relates to St. John the Baptist, who died many years before him. Another smart touch of the author we meet with in the fifth page, where, without any preparation, he 1 So breaks out all on a sudden into a vein of poetry; and, instead of writing a letter to the Examiner, gives advice to a painter in these strong lines: 'Paint, Sir, with that force which you are master of, the present state of the war abroad; and expose to the public view those principles upon which, of late, it has been carried on, so different from those upon which it was originally entered into. Collect some few of the indignities which have been this year offered to her majesty, and of those unnatural struggles which have betrayed the weakness of a shattered constitution.' By the way, a man may be said to paint a battle, or, if you please, a war; but I do not see how it is possible to paint the present state of a war. a man may be said to describe or to collect accounts of indignities and unnatural struggles; but to collect the things themselves is a figure which this gentleman has introduced into our English prose. Well, but what will be the use of this picture of a state of the war? and this collection of indignities and struggles? It seems the chief design of them is to make a dead man blush, as we may see in those inimitable lines which immediately follow: And when this is done, D- -n shall blush in his grave among the dead, W- -le among the living, and even Vol-e shall feel some remorse.' Was there ever any thing, I will not say so stiff and so unnatural, but so brutal and so silly! this is downright hacking and hewing in satire. But we see a master-piece of this kind of writing in the twelfth page; where, without any réspect to a duchess of Great-Britain, a princess of the empire, and one who was a bosom friend of her royal mistress, he calls a great lady an insolent woman, the worst of her sex, a fury, an executioner of divine vengeance, a plague;' and applies to her a line which Virgil writ originally upon Alecto. One would think this foul-mouthed writer must have received some particular injuries, either from this great lady or from her husband; and these the world shall be soon acquainted with, by a book which is now in the press, entitled, An Essay towards proving that Gratitude is no Virtue.' This author is so full of satire, and is so angry with every one that is pleased with the Duke of Marlborough's victories, that he goes out of his way to abuse one of the queen's singing men, who, it seems, did his best to celebrate a thanksgiving day in an anthem; as you may see in that passage: Towns have been taken, and battles have been won; the mob has huzzaed round bonfires, the stentor of the chapel has strained his throat in the gallery, and the stentor of Sm has deafened his audience from the pulpit.' Thus you see how like a true son of the high-church he falls upon a learned and reverend prelate, and for no other crime, but for preaching with an audible voice. If a man lifts up his voice like a trumpet to preach sedition, he is received by some men as a confessor; but if he cries aloud, and spares not to animate people with devotion and gratitude, for the greatest public blessings that ever were bestowed on a sinful nation, he is reviled as a Stentor. I promised in the next place to consider the language of this excellent author, who, I find, takes himself for an orator. In the first page he censures several for the poison which they profusely scatter' through the nation; that is, in plain English, for squandering away their poison. In the second, he talks of carrying probability through the thread of a fable; and, in the third, of laying an odium at a man's door. In the fourth he rises in his expres |