As we were going out of the Garden, my old Friend, thinking himself obliged, as a Member of the Quorum, to animadvert upon the Morals of the Place, told the Mistress of the House, who sat at the Bar, That he should be a better Customer to her Garden, if there were more Nightingales, and fewer Strumpets.

[Footnote 1:  [in Bantry Bay] In Bantry Bay, on May-day, 1689, a French Fleet, bringing succour to the adherents of James II., attacked the English, under Admiral Herbert, and obliged them to retire.  The change of name in the text was for one with a more flattering association.  In the Battle of La Hogue, May 19, 1692, the English burnt 13 of the enemy’s ships, destroyed 8, dispersed the rest, and prevented a threatened descent of the French upon England.]

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No. 384.  Wednesday, May 21, 1712.  Steele.

  Hague, May 24.  N. S.

The same Republican Hands, who have so often since the Chevalier de St. George’s Recovery killed him in our publick Prints, have now reduced the young Dauphin of France to that desperate Condition of Weakness, and Death it self, that it is hard to conjecture what Method they will take to bring him to Life again.  Mean time we are assured by a very good Hand from Paris, That on the 2Oth Instant, this young Prince was as well as ever he was known to be since the Day of his Birth.  As for the other, they are now sending his Ghost, we suppose, (for they never had the Modesty to contradict their Assertions of his Death) to Commerci in Lorrain, attended only by four Gentlemen, and a few Domesticks of little Consideration.  The Baron de Bothmar having delivered in his Credentials to qualify him as an Ambassador to this State, (an Office to which his greatest Enemies will acknowledge him to be equal) is gone to Utrecht, whence he will proceed to Hanover, but not stay long at that Court, for fear the Peace should be made during his lamented Absence.

  Post-Boy, May 20.

I should be thought not able to read, should I overlook some excellent Pieces lately come out.  My Lord Bishop of St. Asaph has just now published some Sermons, the Preface to which seems to me to determine a great Point. [1]—­He has, like a good Man and a good Christian, in opposition to all the Flattery and base Submission of false Friends to Princes, asserted, That Christianity left us where it found us as to our Civil Rights.  The present Entertainment shall consist only of a Sentence out of the Post-Boy, and the said Preface of the Lord of St. Asaph.  I should think it a little odd if the Author of the Post-Boy should with Impunity call Men Republicans for a Gladness on Report of the Death of the Pretender; and treat Baron Bothmar, the Minister of Hanover, in such a manner as you see in my Motto.  I must own, I think every Man in England concerned to support the Succession of that Family.