fosse, in order to attack them, they beat the chamade, and sent us charte blanche. Their commandant, with a great many other general officers, and troops without number, are made prisoners of war, and will I believe give you a visit in England, the cartel not being yet settled. Not questioning but these particulars will 5 be very welcome to you, I congratulate you upon them, and am your most dutiful son," etc. The father of the young gentleman upon the perusal of the letter found it contained great news, but could not guess what it was. He immediately 10 communicated it to the curate of the parish, who upon the reading of it, being vexed to see any thing he could not understand, fell into a kind of passion, and told him, that his son had sent him a letter that was neither fish, flesh, nor good red- 15 herring. "I wish," says he, "the captain may be compos mentis, he talks of a saucy trumpet, and a drum that carries messages; then who is this Charte Blanche? He must either banter us, or he is out of his senses." The father, who always looked upon 20 the curate as a learned man, began 10 to fret inwardly at his son's usage, and producing a letter which he had written to him about three posts afore, "You see here," says he, when he writes for money, he knows how to speak intelligibly 25 enough; there is no man in England can express himself clearer, when he wants a new furniture for his horse." In short, the old man was so puzzled upon the point, that it might have fared ill with his son, had he not seen all the prints about three days 30 after filled with the same terms of art, and that Charles only writ like other men. 66 No. 173. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18. [1711.] Remove fera monstra, tuæque Saxificos vultus, quæcunque ea tolle Medusa.-Ov. Met. IN a late paper I mentioned the project of an ingenious author for the erecting of several handicraft prizes to be contended for by our British. artisans, and the influence they might have towards 5 the improvement of our several manufactures. I have since that been very much surprised by the following advertisement, which I find in the Post Boy of the 11th instant, and again repeated in the Post Boy of the 15th: IO "On the 9th of October next will be run for upon Coleshill heath in Warwickshire, a plate of six guineas value, three heats, by any horse, mare, or gelding that hath not won about the value of £5, the winning horse to be sold for £10, to carry 10 stone weight, if 14 hands high; if above or under, to carry or be al15 lowed weight for inches, and to be entered Friday the 15th 2 at the Swan in Coleshill, before six in the evening. Also a plate of less value to be run for by asses. The same day a gold ring to be grinned for by men." The first of these diversions that is to be exhibited 20 by the £10 race-horses, may probably have its use; but the two last, in which the asses and men are concerned, seem to me altogether extraordinary and unaccountable. Why they should keep running asses at Coleshill, or how making mouths turns to 25 account in Warwickshire, more than in any other parts of England, I cannot comprehend. I have 1 1711, looked over all the Olympic games, and do not find anything in them like an ass-race, or a match at grinning. However it be, I am informed that several asses are now kept in body-clothes, and sweated every morning upon the heath and that all the 5 country-fellows within ten miles of the Swan grin an hour or two in their glasses every morning, in order to qualify themselves for the 9th of October. The prize which is proposed to be grinned for, has raised such an ambition among the common people 10 of out-grinning one another, that many very discerning persons are afraid it should spoil most of the faces in the county; and that a Warwickshire man will be known by his grin, as Roman Catholics imagine a Kentish man is by his tail. The gold 15 ring which is made the prize of deformity, is just the reverse of the golden apple that was formerly made the prize of beauty, and should carry for its posy the old motto inverted, Detur tetriori. Or to accommodate it to the capacity of the com- 20 batants, The frightfull'st grinner, Be the winner. In the meanwhile I would advise a Dutch painter to be present at this great controversy of faces, in order to make a collection of the most remarkable grins that shall be there exhibited. I must not here omit an account which I lately received of one of these grinning-matches from a 25 3 gentleman, who upon reading the above-mentioned advertisement, entertained a coffee-house with the following narrative. Upon the taking of Namur, amongst other public rejoicings made on that 5 occasion, there was a gold ring given by a Whig justice of peace to be grinned for. The first competitor that entered the lists, was a black swarthy Frenchman, who accidentally passed that way, and being a man naturally of a withered look, and hard to features, promised himself good success. He was placed upon a table in the great point of view, and looking upon the company like Milton's Death. Grinned horribly a ghastly smile. His muscles were so drawn together on each side of his face, that he showed twenty teeth at a 15 grin, and put the country 5 in some pain, lest a foreigner should carry away the honour of the day; but upon a further trial they found he was master only of the merry grin. The next that mounted the table was a malecontent in those days, and a great 20 master of the whole art of grinning, but particularly excelled in the angry grin. He did his part so well, that he is said to have made half a dozen women miscarry; but the justice being apprized by one who stood near him, that the fellow who grinned 25 in his face was a Jacobite, and being unwilling that a disaffected person should win the gold ring, and be looked upon as the best grinner in the country, he ordered the oaths to be tendered unto him upon his quitting the table, which the grinner refusing, 7 in the whole art. he was set aside as an unqualified person. There were several other grotesque figures that presented themselves, which it would be too tedious to describe. I must not however omit a ploughman, who lived in the further part of the country, and being 5 very lucky in a pair of long lanthorn-jaws, wrung his face into such a hideous grimace, that every feature of it appeared under a different distortion. The whole company stood astonished at such a complicated grin, and were ready to assign the prize 10 to him, had it not been proved by one of his antagonists, that he had practiced with verjuice for some days before, and had a crab found upon him at the very time of grinning; upon which the best judges of grinning declared it, as their opinion, that he was 15 not to be looked upon as a fair grinner, and therefore ordered him to be set aside as a cheat. The prize, it seems, fell at length upon a cobbler, Giles Gorgon by name, who produced several new grins of his own invention, having been used to cut 20 faces for many years together over his last. At the very first grin he cast every human feature out of his countenance, at the second he became the face of a spout, at the third a baboon, at the fourth the head of a bassviol, and at the fifth a pair of nut- 25 crackers. The whole assembly wondered at his accomplishments, and bestowed the ring on him unanimously; but, what he esteemed more than all the rest, a country-wench whom he had wooed in vain for above five years before, was so charmed 30 with his grins and the applauses which he received on all sides, that she married him the week follow 8 1711, such an. 9 1711, that he had wooed. |