Fantasy Football Challenge - Football Fanatics Library

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Fantasy Football Challenge presents
The Tatler

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and observing him look often at the King on horseback, and then double his oaths, that he was sure he was right, found he mistook that for Charing Cross, by the erection of the like statue in each place. I grant, private men may distinguish their abodes as they please; as one of my acquaintance who lives at Marylebone, has put a good sentence of his own invention upon his dwelling-place, to find out where he lives: he is so near London, that his conceit is this, "The country in town; or, the town in the country"; for you know, if they are both in one, they are all one. Besides that, the ambiguity is not of great consequence; if you are safe at the place, it is no matter if you do not distinctly know where to say the place is. But to return to the orthography of public places: I propose that every tradesman in the cities of London and Westminster shall give me sixpence a quarter for keeping their signs in repair, as to the grammatical part; and I will take into my house a Swiss Count[221] of my acquaintance, who can remember all their names without book, for despatch sake, setting up the head of the said foreigner for my sign; the features being strong, and fit for hanging high. St. James's Coffee-house, May 20. This day a mail arrived from Holland, by which there are advices from Paris, that the kingdom of France is in the utmost misery and distraction. The merchants of Lyons have been at Court, to remonstrate their great sufferings by the failure of their public credit; but have received no other satisfaction, than promises of a sudden peace; and that their debts will be made good by funds out of the revenue, which will not answer, but in case of the peace which is promised. In the meantime, the cries of the common people are loud for want of bread, the gentry have lost all spirit and zeal for their country, and the king himself seems to languish under the anxiety of the pressing calamities of the nation, and retires from hearing those grievances which he hath not power to redress. Instead of preparations for war, and the defence of their country, there is nothing to be seen but evident marks of a general despair. Processions, fastings, public mournings, and humiliations, are become the sole employments of a people, who were lately the most vain and gay of any in the universe. The Pope has written to the French king on the subject of a peace, and his Majesty has answered in the lowliest terms, that he entirely submits his affairs to divine providence, and shall soon show the world, that he prefers the tranquillity of his people to the glory of his arms, and extent of his conquests. Letters from the Hague of the 24th say, that his Excellency the Lord Townshend delivered his credentials on that day to the States-General, as plenipotentiary from the Queen of Great Britain; as did also Count Zinzendorf, who bears the same character from the Emperor. Prince Eugene intended to set out the next day for Brussels, and his Grace the Duke of Marlborough on the Tuesday following. The Marquis de Torcy talks daily of going, but still continues here. The army of the Allies is to assemble on the 7th of the next month at Helchin; though it is generally believed, that the preliminaries to a treaty are fully adjusted. The approach of a peace[222] strikes a panic through our armies, though that of a battle could never do it, and they almost repent of their bravery, that made such haste to humble themselves and the French king. The Duke of Marlborough, though otherwise the greatest general of the age, has plainly shown himself unacquainted with the arts of husbanding a war. He might have grown as old as the Duke of Alva, or Prince Waldeck, in the Low Countries, and yet have got reputation enough every year for any reasonable man: for the command of general in Flanders hath been ever looked upon as a provision for life. For my part, I can't see how his grace can answer it to the world, for the great eagerness he hath shown to send a hundred thousand of the bravest fellows in Europe a begging. But the private gentlemen of the infantry will be able to shift for themselves; a brave man can never starve in a country stocked with hen-roosts. "There is not a yard of linen," says my honoured progenitor, Sir John Falstaff, "in my whole company; but as for that," says this worthy knight, "I am in no great pain, we shall find shirts on every hedge."[223] There is another sort of gentlemen whom I am much more concerned for, and that is, the ingenious fraternity of which I have the honour to be an unworthy member; I mean the news-writers of Great Britain, whether Postmen or Postboys,[224] or by what other name or title soever dignified or distinguished. The case of these gentlemen is, I think, more hard than that of the soldiers, considering that they have taken more towns, and fought more battles. They have been upon parties and skirmishes, when our armies have lain still; and given the general assault to many a place, when the besiegers were quiet in their trenches. They have made us masters of several strong towns many weeks before our generals could do it; and completed victories, when our greatest captains have been glad to come off with a drawn battle. Where Prince Eugene has slain his thousands, Boyer[225] has slain his ten thousands. This, gentleman can indeed be never enough commended for his courage and intrepidity during this whole war: he has laid about him with an inexpressible fury, and like the offended Marius of ancient Rome, made such havoc among his countrymen, as must be the work of two or three ages to repair. It must be confessed, the redoubted Mr. Buckley[226] has shed as much blood as the former; but I cannot forbear saying (and I hope it will not look like envy) that we regard our brother Buckley as a Drawcansir,[227] who spares neither friend nor foe, but generally kills as many of his own side as the enemy's. It is impossible for this ingenious sort of men to subsist after a peace: every one remembers the shifts they were driven to in the reign of King Charles II., when they could not furnish out a single paper of news, without lighting up a comet in Germany, or a fire in Moscow. There scarce appeared a letter without a paragraph on an earthquake. Prodigies were grown so familiar, that they had lost their name, as a great poet

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