Volume I Part 112 (1/2)

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 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 Copy of it.

_SIR_,

Upon the Junction of the _French_ and _Bavarian_ Armies they took Post behind a great Mora.s.s which they thought impracticable. Our General the next Day sent a Party of Horse to reconnoitre them from a little Hauteur, at about a [Quarter of an Hour's [5]] distance from the Army, who returned again to the Camp un.o.bserved 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 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 Publick Prints how we treated them, with the other Circ.u.mstances of that glorious Day. I had the good Fortune to be in that Regiment that pushed the _Gens d'Arms_. Several _French_ Battalions, who some say were a Corps de Reserve, made a Show of Resistance; but it only proved a Gasconade, for upon our preparing to fill up a little Fosse, 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 be very welcome to you, I congratulate you upon them, and am your most dutiful Son, &c.'

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 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 a Pa.s.sion, and told him that his Son had sent him a Letter that was neither Fish, nor Flesh, nor good Red-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 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 Mony he knows how to speak intelligibly 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 after filled with the same Terms of Art, and that _Charles_ only writ like other Men.

L.

[Footnote 1: The motto in the original edition was

'Semivirumque bovem Semibovemque virum.'

Ovid.]

[Footnote 2: that]

[Footnote 3: _Atique_]

[Footnote 4: Dr Richard Bentley]

[Footnote 5: Mile]

No. 166. Monday, September 10, 1711. Addison.

'... Quod nec Jovis ira, nec ignis, Nec poterit ferrum, nec edax abolere vetustas.'

Ovid.

Aristotle tells us that the World is a Copy or Transcript of those Ideas which are in the Mind of the first Being, and that those Ideas, which are in the Mind of Man, are a Transcript of the World: To this we may add, that Words are the Transcript of those Ideas which are in the Mind of Man, and that Writing or Printing are the Transcript of words.

As the Supreme Being has expressed, and as it were printed his Ideas in the Creation, Men express their Ideas in Books, which by this great Invention of these latter Ages may last as long as the Sun and Moon, and perish only in the general Wreck of Nature. Thus _Cowley_ in his Poem on the Resurrection, mentioning the Destruction of the Universe, has those admirable Lines.