g uneasy to be without any command,
has desired leave to come to Court to communicate a certain project to
his Majesty. Whatever it be, it is said that prince is suddenly
expected, and then we shall have a more certain account of his project,
if this report has any foundation." ("Nay, this paper never imposes upon
us, he goes upon sure grounds; for he won't be positive the Elector has
a project, or that he will come, or if he does come at all; for he
doubts, you see, whether the report has any foundation.")

What makes this the more lamentable is, that this way of writing falls
in with the imagination of the cooler and duller part of her Majesty's
subjects. The being kept up with one line contradicting another, and the
whole, after many sentences of conjecture, vanishing in a doubt whether
there is anything at all in what the person has been reading, puts an
ordinary head into a vertigo, which his natural dulness would have
secured him from. Next to the labours of the _Postman_, the upholsterer
took from under his elbow honest Ichabod Dawks' _Letter_,[289] and
there, among other speculations, the historian takes upon him to say
that "it is discoursed that there will be a battle in Flanders before
the armies separate, and many will have it to be to-morrow, the great
battle of Ramillies being fought on a Whit Sunday." A gentleman who was
a wag in this company laughed at the expression, and said, "By Mr.
Dawks' favour, I warrant ye, if we meet them on Whit Sunday, or Monday,
we shall not stand upon the day[290] with them, whether it be before or
after the holidays." An admirer of this gentleman stood up, and told a
neighbour at a distant table the conceit, at which indeed we were all
very merry. These reflections in the writers of the transactions of the
times, seize the noddles of such as were not born to have thoughts of
their own, and consequently lay a weight upon everything which they read
in print. But Mr. Dawks concluded his paper with a courteous sentence,
which was very well taken and applauded by the whole company. "We wish,"
says he, "all our customers a merry Whitsuntide, and many of them."
Honest Ichabod is as extraordinary a man as any of our fraternity, and
as particular. His style is a dialect between the familiarity of talking
and writing, and his letter such as you cannot distinguish whether print
or manuscript, which gives us a refreshment[291] of the idea from what
has been told us from the press by othe