soldiery blasphem’d, says_ Thalestris, _in a mighty passion, I tell thee, thou insignificant north country trollop, thou foolish affected grammarian-ridden she-pedant, that one soldier is better than a thousand of your stiff-rump’d parsons_; and immediately saluted her with a discourteous reprimand a cross the mazzard. The blood of _Gustavus Adolphus_ began to be rous’d in _Christiana_, and my glasses, globes, and crocodile and all, were infallibly going to rack between these two furious heroines, when my wife luckily stept in to put an end to the fray. In short the matter was amicable made up, and so they follow’d my spouse into her closet, where I’ll leave them. Thus, _gentlemen_, you may perceive what sort of customers resort to me, I could tell you a hundred more stories to the same purpose, but why should I pretend to entertain persons of your worth with so mean and unworthy a subject as my self? therefore to diversify the scene, I will endeavour to divert you with some occurences of a more publick importance, which have happen’d in our _Acherontic_ dominions since I writ to you last. But before I proceed any farther I am to inform you, that we have a spacious noble room in the middle of _Brandinopolis_, where the virtuosos of former ages as well as of the present, use to resort and entertain one another with learned or facetious conversation, according as it happens. Of late we have had the same controversy debated among us, which so long employ’d monsieur _Perault_ and the famous wits of _France_, I mean, whether the antients are preferable to the moderns in the learned arts and sciences. The question had been discuss’d one afternoon with a great deal of heat on both sides, when an honest merry gentleman and a new comer among us, whose name I have unluckily forgot, interpos’d in the dispute, and express’d himself to this effect. Gentlemen, says he, I think you may e’en drop this controversy, for I can make it appear, that little _England_ alone affords a set of men at present, that much out-do any of the antients in whatever they pretend to. There’s honest Mr. _Edmund Whiteaker_, late of the admiralty office, that in the mystery of making up accounts out-does _Archimedes_; and my lord _Puzzlechalk_, who told his master’s money over a gridiron, understands numbers better than _Archytas_ or _Euclid_. Mr. _Burgess_ of _Covent-Garden_, and indeed most of the _dissenting parsons_, go infinitely beyond _Tully_ and _Demosthenes_ in point of eloquence; for those old fashion’d orators could only raise joy and sadness successively, whereas the latter so manage matters, that they can make their congregations laugh and weep both at once. The antients were forc’d to drudge and take pains to make themselves masters of any tongue before they pretended to write in it; but here’s _your old friend Dr._ Case _by Ludgate_, writ a system of anatomy in _Latin_, and does not understand a syllable of the language. As for musick you may talk till