about him; for I am knight of the shire, and represent you all.”  I wish the heralds would know as well as this man does, in his way, that they are to act for us in the case of our arms and appellations:  we should not then be jumbled together in so promiscuous and absurd a manner.  I design to take this matter into further consideration, and no man shall be received as an esquire, who cannot bring a certificate, that he has conquered some lady’s obdurate heart; that he can lead up a country dance, or carry a message between her and her lover, with address, secrecy and diligence.  A squire is properly born for the service of the sex, and his credentials shall be signed by three toasts, and one prude, before his title shall be received in my office.

Will’s Coffee-house, May 23.

On Saturday last was presented, “The Busy Body,” a comedy, written (as I have heretofore remarked) by a woman.[233] The plot and incidents of the play are laid with that subtlety of spirit which is peculiar to females of wit, and is very seldom well performed by those of the other sex, in whom craft in love is an act of invention, and not, as with women, the effect of nature and instinct.

To-morrow will be acted a play, called, “The Trip to the Jubilee."[234] This performance is the greatest instance that we can have of the irresistible force of proper action.  The dialogue in itself has something too low to bear a criticism upon it:  but Mr. Wilks enters into the part with so much skill, that the gallantry, the youth, and gaiety of a young man of a plentiful fortune, is looked upon with as much indulgence on the stage, as in real life, without any of those intermixtures of wit and humour, which usually prepossess us in favour of such characters in other plays.

St. James’s Coffee-house, May 23.

Letters from the Hague of the 23rd instant, N.S., say, Mr. Walpole[235] (who is since arrived) was going with all expedition to Great Britain, whither they doubted not but he carried with him the preliminaries to a treaty of peace.  The French Minister, Monsieur Torcy, has been observed in this whole negotiation to turn his discourse upon the calamities sent down by Heaven upon France, and imputed the necessities they were under to the immediate hand of Providence, in inflicting a general scarcity of provision, rather than the superior genius of the generals, or the bravery of the armies against them.  It would be impious not to acknowledge the indulgence of Heaven to us; but at the same time, as we are to love our enemies, we are glad to see them mortified enough to mix Christianity with their politics.  An authentic letter from Madame Maintenon to Monsieur Torcy has been stolen by a person about him, who has communicated a copy of it to some of the dependants of a Minister of the Allies.  That epistle is writ in the most pathetic manner imaginable, and in a style which shows her genius, that has so long engrossed the heart of this great monarch.[236]