the Colonel says, “She talks the best of any woman.”  At the same time, he understands wit just as she does horsemanship.  You are to know, these extraordinary persons see each other daily; and they themselves, as well as the town, think it will be a match:  but it can never happen that they can come to the point; for instead of addressing to each other, they spend their whole time in reports of themselves.  He is satisfied if he can convince her he is a fine gentleman, and a man of consequence; and she, in appearing to him an accomplished lady and a wit, without further design.  Thus he tells her of his manner of posting his men at such a pass, with the numbers he commanded on that detachment:  she tells him, how she was dressed on such a day at Court, and what offers were made her the week following.  She seems to hear the repetition of his men’s names with admiration; and waits only to answer him with as false a muster of lovers.  They talk to each other not to be informed, but approved.  Thus they are so like, that they are to be ever distant, and the parallel lines may run together for ever, but never meet.

Will’s Coffee-house, April 25.

This evening, the comedy, called “Epsom Wells,"[141] was acted for the benefit of Mr. Bullock,[142] who, though he is a person of much wit and ingenuity, has a peculiar talent of looking like a fool, and therefore excellently well qualified for the part of Biskett in this play.  I cannot indeed sufficiently admire his way of bearing a beating, as he does in this drama, and that with such a natural air and propriety of folly, that one cannot help wishing the whip in one’s own hand; so richly does he seem to deserve his chastisement.  Skilful actors think it a very peculiar happiness to play in a scene with such as top their parts.  Therefore I cannot but say, when the judgment of any good author directs him to write a beating for Mr. Bullock from Mr. William Pinkethman, or for Mr. William Pinkethman from Mr. Bullock, those excellent players seem to be in their most shining circumstances, and please me more, but with a different sort of delight, than that which I receive from those grave scenes of Brutus and Cassius, or Antony and Ventidius.  The whole comedy is very just, and the low part of human life represented with much humour and wit.

St. James’s Coffee-house, April 25.

We are advised from Vienna, by letters of the 20th instant, that the Emperor hath lately added twenty new members to his Council of State, but they have not yet taken their places at the board.  General Thaun is returned from Baden, his health being so well re-established by the baths of that place, that he designs to set out next week for Turin, to his command of the Imperial troops in the service of the Duke of Savoy.  His Imperial Majesty has advanced his brother Count Henry Thaun to be a brigadier, and a Councillor of the Aulic Council of War.  These letters import, that King Stanislaus and the Swedish