o me to receive letters, wherein
people tell me, without a name, they know I meant them in such and such
a passage; so that very accusation is an argument, that there are such
beings in human life, as fall under our description and our discourse,
is not altogether fantastical and groundless. But in this case I am
treated as I saw a boy was the other day, who gave out poxy bills: every
plain fellow took it that passed by, and went on his way without further
notice: at last came one with his nose a little abridged; who knocks the
lad down, with a, "Why, you son of a w----e, do you think I am p----d?"
But Shakespeare has made the best apology for this way of talking
against the public errors: he makes Jaques, in the play called "As You
Like It," express himself thus:

_Why, who cries out on pride,
That can therein tax any private party?
What woman in the city do I name,
When that I say the city woman bears
The cost of princes on unworthy shoulders?
Who can come in and say that I mean her,
When such a one as she, such is her neighbour?
Or, what is he of basest function,
That says his bravery is not on my cost?
Thinking that I mean him, but therein suits
His folly to the mettle of my speech.
There then! How then? Then let me see wherein
My tongue hath wronged him: if it do him right,
Then he hath wronged himself: if he be free,
Why then my taxing like a wild goose flies,
Unclaimed of any man._[404]

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

We have received, by letters of the 18th instant from the camp before
Tournay, an account, that we were in a fair prospect of being masters of
the town within seven days after that date. Our batteries had utterly
overthrown those of the enemy. On the 16th instant, N.S., General
Schuylemburg had made a lodgment on the counterscarp of the Tenaille;
which post was so weakly defended, that we lost but six men in gaining
it. So that there seems reason to hope, that the citadel will also be in
the hands of the Confederates about the 6th of August, O.S. These
advices inform us further, that Marshal Villars had ordered large
detachments to make motions towards Douay and Conde. The swift progress
of this siege has so much alarmed the other frontier towns of France,
that they were throwing down some houses in the suburbs of Valenciennes,
which they think may stand commodiously for the enemy in case that place
should be invested. Th