thing of
fact for his? What with Clement, what with this Heidelberg business, the
Court of Berlin has fallen wrong with Dresden, with Vienna itself, and
important clouds have risen.

_There is an absurd Flame of War, blown out by Admiral Byng; and a new
Man of Genius announces himself to the dim Populations._

The poor Kaiser himself is otherwise in trouble of his own, at this
time. The Spaniards and he have fallen out, in spite of Utrecht Treaty
and Rastadt ditto; the Spaniards have taken Sicily from him; and
precisely in those days while Karl Philip took to shutting up the
HEILIGE-GEIST Church at Heidelberg, there was, loud enough in all the
Newspapers, silent as it now is, a "Siege of Messina" going on; Imperial
and Piedmontese troops doing duty by land, Admiral Byng still more
effectively by sea, for the purpose of getting Sicily back. Which
was achieved by and by, though at an extremely languid pace. [Byng's
Sea-fight, 10th August, 1718 (Campbell's _Lives of the Admirals,_
iii. 468); whereupon the Spaniards, who had hardly yet completed their
capture of Messina, are besieged in it;--29th October, 1719, Messina
retaken (this is the "Siege of Messina"): February, 1720, Peace is
clapt up (the chief article, that Alberoni shall be packed away), and
a "Congress of Cambrai" is to meet, and settle everything.] One of
the most tedious Sieges; one of the paltriest languid Wars (of extreme
virulence and extreme feebleness, neither party having any cash left),
and for an object which could not be excelled in insignificance. Object
highly interesting to Kaiser Karl VI. and Elizabeth Farnese Termagant
Queen of Spain. These two were red, or even were pale, with interest in
it; and to the rest of Adam's Posterity it was not intrinsically worth
an ounce of gunpowder, many tons of that and of better commodities as
they had to spend upon it. True, the Spanish Navy got well lamed in the
business; Spanish Fleet blown mostly to destruction,--"Roads of Messina,
10th August, 1718," by the dexterous Byng (a creditable handy figure
both in Peace and War) and his considerable Sea-fight there:--if that
was an object to Spain or mankind, that was accomplished. But the "War,"
except that many men were killed in it, and much vain babble was uttered
upon it, ranks otherwise with that of Don Quixote, for conquest of the
enchanted Helmet of Mambrino, which when looked into proved to be a
Barber's Basin.

Congress of Cambrai, and other high Gath