The emperor was composing anthems for his chapel at _Vienna_, when he shou’d have appeared at the head of his troops on the _Rhine_. The princes of _Germany_ were either divided from the common interest by the underhand management of _France_, or not at all concerned at the impending storm that threatned them. The _Hollanders_ within an ace of losing their liberty by the preposterous care they took to secure it; I mean, by diverting that family of all power in their government, which, as it had formerly erected their republick, so now was the only one that cou’d help to protect it. The little states and principalities of _Italy_, looking on at a distance, and not daring to declare themselves in so critical a conjuncture, when the two keys of their country, _Pignerol_ and _Casal_ hung at the girdle of _France_. In short, the dispeopl’d monarchy of _Spain_, governed by a soft unactive prince, equally unfit for the cabinet and the field; his counsellors, who manag’d all under him, taking no care to lay up magazines, and put their towns in a posture of defence, but wholly relying as for that, upon their neighbours; like some inconsiderate spend-thrift thrown into a jail by his creditors, that smoakes and drinks, and talks merrily all the while, but never advances one step to make his circumstances easy to him, leaving the burthen of that affair to his friends and relations, whom perhaps he never obliged so far in his prosperity, as to deserve it from their hands. Here now, says he, was the fairest opportunity that ever presented itself for a prince of gallantry and resolution, for a _Tamerlane_ and a _Scanderbeg_, to have done something eminently signal in his generation; and if in the last century, a little king of _Sweden_, with a handful of men, cou’d force his way from the _Baltick_ to the _Rhine_, and fill all _Germany_ with terror and consternation, what might we not have expected from a powerful king of _France_, in the flower of his youth, and at the head of two hundred thousand effective men, especially when there was no visible power to oppose him? But this wonderful monarch of yours, instead of carrying his arms beyond the _Danube_, and performing any one action worthy for his historians to record in the annals of his reign, has humbly contented himself, now and then, in the beginning of the year, when he knew his neighbours were unprepared for such a visit, to invest some little market-town in _Flanders_, with his invincible troops; and when a parcel of silly implicit fools had done the business for him; then, forsooth, he must appear at the head of his court harlots and minstrels, and make a magnificent entry thro’ the breach: And after this ridiculous piece of pageantry is over, return back again to _Versailles_, with the fame equipage, order’d new medals, operas, and sonnets to be made upon the occasion; and what ought by no means to be omitted, our most trusty and well-beloved counsellor and cousin, the