4

paper. Our warriors are very industrious in propagating the French language, at the same time that they are so gloriously successful in beating down their power. Our soldiers are men of strong 5 heads for action, and perform such feats as they are not able to express. They want words in their own tongue to tell us what it is they achieve, and therefore send us over accounts of their performances in a jargon of phrases, which they learn 10 among their conquered enemies. They ought however to be provided with secretaries and assisted by our foreign ministers,3 to tell their story for them in plain English, and to let us know in our mothertongue what it is our brave countrymen are about. 15 The French would indeed be in the right to publish the news of the present war in English phrases, and make their campaigns unintelligible. Their people might flatter themselves that things are not so bad as they really are, were they thus palliated with 20 foreign terms, and thrown into shades and obscurity: But the English cannot be too clear in their narrative of those actions, which have raised their country to a higher pitch of glory than it ever yet arrived at, and which will be still the more admired 25 the better they are explained.

5

For my part, by that time a siege is carried on two or three days, I am altogether lost and bewildered in it, and meet with so many inexplicable difficulties, that I scarce know which side has the 30 better of it, till I am informed by the Tower guns that the place is surrendered. I do indeed make

some allowances for this part of the war, fortifications having been foreign inventions, and upon that account abounding in foreign terms. But when we have won battles which may be described in our own language, why are our papers filled 5 with so many unintelligible exploits, and the French obliged to lend us a part of their tongue before we can know how they are conquered? They must be made accessary to their own disgrace, as the Britons were formerly so artificially wrought in 10 the curtain of the Roman theatre, that they seemed to draw it up, in order to give the spectators an opportunity of seeing their own defeat celebrated upon the stage: for so Mr. Dryden has translated that verse in Virgil:

Atque intertexti tollant aulæa Britanni.

Which interwoven Britons seem to raise,

And show the triumph that their shame displays.

15

The histories of all our former wars are transmitted to us in our vernacular idiom, to use the phrase of a great modern critic. I do not find in any of our chronicles, that Edward III. ever reconnoitered the enemy, though he often discovered 20 the posture of the French, and as often vanquished them in battle. The Black Prince passed many a river without the help of pontoons, and filled a ditch with faggots as successfully as the generals of our times do it with fascines. Our commanders 25 lose half their praise, and our people half their joy, by means of those hard words and dark expressions

7 1711, that may be.

5

in which our newspapers do so much abound. I have seen many a prudent citizen, after having read every article, enquire of his next neighbour what news the mail had brought.

I remember in that remarkable year when our country was delivered from the greatest fears and apprehensions, and raised to the greatest height of gladness it had ever felt since it was a nation; I mean the year of Blenheim, I had the copy of a 10 letter sent me out of the country, which was written from a young gentleman in the army to his father, a man of a good estate and plain sense: as the letter was very modishly chequered with this modern military eloquence, I shall present my reader with a 15 copy of it.

"SIR,

"Upon the junction of the French and Bavarian armies they took post behind a great morass which they thought impractica ble. Our general the next day sent a party of horse to recon20 noitre them from a little hauteur, at about a quarter of an hour's distance from the army, who returned again to the camp unobserved through several defiles, in one of which they met with a party of French that had been marauding, and made them all prisoners at discretion. The day after a drum arrived at our 25 camp, with a message which he would communicate to none but the general; he was followed by a trumpet, who they say behaved himself very saucily, with a message from the duke of Bavaria. The next morning our army being divided into two corps, made a movement towards the enemy: you will hear in the public prints 30 how we treated them, with the other circumstances of that glorious day. I had the good fortune to be in the regiment that pushed the Gens d'Arms. Several French battalions, who some say were a corps de réserve, made a show of resistance; but it only proved a gasconade. for upon our preparing to fill up a little

fösse, in order to attack them, they beat the chamade, and sent us charte blanche. Their commandant, with a great many other general officers, and troops without number, are made prisoners of war, and will I believe give you a visit in England, the cartel not being yet settled. Not questioning but these particulars will 5 be very welcome to you, I congratulate you upon them, and am your most dutiful son," etc.

66

The father of the young gentleman upon the perusal of the letter found it contained great news, but could not guess what it was. He immediately 10 communicated it to the curate of the parish, who upon the reading of it, being vexed to see any thing he could not understand, fell into a kind of passion, and told him, that his son had sent him a letter that was neither fish, flesh," nor good red- 15 herring. "I wish," says he, the captain may be compos mentis, he talks of a saucy trumpet, and a drum that carries messages; then who is this Charte Blanche? He must either banter us, or he is out of his senses." The father, who always looked upon 20 the curate as a learned man, began to fret inwardly at his son's usage, and producing a letter which he had written to him about three posts afore, "You see here," says he, "when he writes for money, he knows how to speak intelligibly 25 enough; there is no man in England can express himself clearer, when he wants a new furniture for his horse." In short, the old man was so puzzled upon the point, that it might have fared ill with his son, had he not seen all the prints about three days 30 after filled with the same terms of art, and that Charles only writ like other men.

10

No. 173. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18. [1711.]

Remove fera monstra, tuæque

Saxificos vultus, quæcunque ea tolle Medusa.-Ov. Met.

1

IN a late paper I mentioned the project of an ingenious author for the erecting of several handicraft prizes to be contended for by our British artisans, and the influence 1 they might have towards 5 the improvement of our several manufactures. I have since that been very much surprised by the following advertisement, which I find in the Post Boy of the 11th instant, and again repeated in the Post Boy of the 15th:

"On the 9th of October next will be run for upon Coleshill heath in Warwickshire, a plate of six guineas value, three heats, by any horse, mare, or gelding that hath not won about the value of £5, the winning horse to be sold for £10, to carry 10 stone weight, if 14 hands high; if above or under, to carry or be al15 lowed weight for inches, and to be entered Friday the 15th 2 at the

Swan in Coleshill, before six in the evening. Also a plate of less value to be run for by asses. The same day a gold ring to be grinned for by men."

The first of these diversions that is to be exhibited 20 by the £10 race-horses, may probably have its use; but the two last, in which the asses and men are concerned, seem to me altogether extraordinary and unaccountable. Why they should keep running asses at Coleshill, or how making mouths turns to 25 account in Warwickshire, more than in any other parts of England, I cannot comprehend. I have

11711, the tendency they might have. 2 1711, Friday the 5th.