irably
said of him who first took notice, that (_res est severa voluptas_)
there is a certain severity in pleasure. Without that, all decency is
banished; and if reason is not to be present at our greatest
satisfactions, of all the races of creatures, the human is the most
miserable. It was not so of old; when Virgil describes a wit, he always
means a virtuous man; and all his sentiments of men of genius are such
as show persons distinguished from the common level of mankind; such as
placed happiness in the contempt of low fears, and mean gratifications:
fears, which we are subject to with the vulgar; and pleasures, which we
have in common with beasts. With these illustrious personages, the
wisest man was the greatest wit; and none was thought worthy of that
character, unless he answered this excellent description of the poet:

_Qui--metus omnes et inexorabile fatum
Subjecit pedibus, strepitumque Acherontis avari._[207]

St. James's Coffee-house, May 13.

We had this morning advice, that some English merchant-ships, convoyed
by the _Bristol_ of fifty-four guns, were met with by a part of Mons. du
Guy Trouin's squadron, who engaged the convoy. That ship defended itself
till the English merchants got clear of the enemy, but being disabled
was herself taken. Within few hours after, my Lord Dursley[208] came up
with part of his squadron and engaging the French, retook the _Bristol_
(which being very much shattered, sunk), and took the _Glorieux_, a ship
of forty-four guns, as also a privateer of fourteen. Before this action,
his lordship had taken two French merchant-men; and had, at the despatch
of these advices, brought the whole safe into Plymouth.

[Footnote 205: Probably William Oliver, M.D., F.R.S., who published a
Dissertation on Bath waters, and cold baths, in 1709 (_Flying Post_,
Feb. 10 to 12, 1709). Sir John Floyer's "Inquiry into the right Use and
Abuses of the Hot, Cold, and Temperate Baths in England, &c.," appeared
in 1697.]

[Footnote 206: By Mrs. Susannah Centlivre, a lady of Whig views, who was
possessed of considerable beauty. (See also No. 19.) Isaac Bickerstaff
had promised a prologue to "The Busy Body" before it was to be first
played, as appears from a poetical epistle of Mrs. Centlivre, claiming
the performance of such a promise, printed by Charles Lillie ("Orig.
Letters to _Tatler_ and _Spectator_" vol. ii. pp. 33, 34). Leigh Hunt
("The Town") suggests that Pope put Mrs. Centlivre