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think I love you as well as King Herod did Herodias (tho' I never had fo much as one dance with you) and would as freely give you my heart in a dish, as he did anothers head. But fince Jupiter will not have it fo, I must be content to thew my tafte in life, as I do my tafte in painting, by loving to have as little drapery as poffible. Not that I think every body naked altogether fo fine a fight as your felf and a few more would be; but becaufe 'tis good to use people to what they must be acquainted with; and there will certainly come fome.day of judgment or other, to uncover every foul of us. We shall then fee that the Prues of this world ow'd all their fine figure only to their being ftrater-lac'd than the reft, and that they are naturally as arrant Squabs as thofe that never girded their loins at all. But a particular reafon that may engage you to write your thoughts the more freely to me, is, that I am confident no one knows you better; for I find, when others exprefs their thoughts of you, they fall very fhort of mine; and I know at the fame time theirs. are fuch as you would think fufficient in your fa

vour.

You may eafily imagine how defirous I must be of a correfpondence with a perfon, who had taught me long ago, that it was as poffible to esteem at first fight, as to love; and who has fince ruined me for all the converfation of one fex, and almost all the friendship of the other. I am but to fenfible thro' your means, that the company of men wants a certain foftness to recommend it, and that of women wants every thing else. How often have I been quietly going to take poffeffion of that tranquility and indolence I had fo long found in the country, when one evening of your converfation has spoiled me for a Solitaire! Books have loft their effect upon me; and I was convinced, fince I faw you, that there is one alive wifer

than

than all the Sages. A plague of female wisdom! It makes a man ten times more uneafy than his own. What is very strange, Virtue herself (when you have the dreffing her) is to aimable for ones repose. You might have done a world of good in your time, if you had allowed half the fine gentlemen who have feen you, to have converfed with you; they would have been strangely bit, while they thought only to fall in love with a fair Lady, and you had bewitched them with Reason and Virtue (two Beauties that the very Fops pretend to have no acquaintance with.)

The unhappy distance at which we correfpond, removes a great many of those restrictions and punЄtilious decorum, that oftentimes in nearer converfation prejudice truth, to fave good breeding. I may now hear of my faults, and you of your good qualities, without a blush; we converfe upon fuch unfortunate generous terms, as exclude the regards of fear, fhame, or defign in either of us. And methinks it would be as paltry a part to impofe (even in a fingle thought) upon each other in this state of feparation, as for fpirits of a different sphere, who have fo little intercourfe with us, to employ that little (as fome would make us think they do) in putting tricks and delufions upon poor mortals.

Let me begin then, Madam, by asking you a question, that may enable me to judge better of my own conduct than most inftances of my Life. In what manner did I behave the last hour I faw you? What degree of concern did I difcover, when I felt a misfortune which I hope you will never feel, that of parting from what one most esteems? for if my parting looked but like that of your common acquaintance, I am the greatest of all the hypocrites that ever decency made.

I never fince pafs by your house but with the fame fort of melancholy that we feel upon feeing the Tomb of a friend, which only ferves to put us in

mind

mind of what we have loft. I reflect upon the circumstances of your departure, which I was there a witnefs of (your behaviour in what I may call your last moments) and I indulge a gloomy kind of pleasure in thinking that those last moments were given to me. I would fain imagine this was not accidental, but proceeded from a penetration which I know you have, in finding out the truth of people's fentiments; and that you were willing, the last man that would have parted from you, fhould be that last that did. I really looked upon you just as the friends of Curtius might have done upon that Hero, at the inftant when he was devoting himfelf to Glory, and running to be loft out of generofity. I was obliged to admire your refolution, in as great a degree as I deplored it; and had only to wifh, that Heaven would reward fo much Virtue as was to be taken from us, with all the felicities it could enjoy elfewhere!

Your, &c.

LET

XVI.

γου

LETTER

You will find me more troublesome than ever Brutus did his Evil Genius; I fhall meet you in more places than one, and often refresh your memory before you arrive at your Philippi. Thefe fhadows of me (my letters) will be haunting you from time to time, and putting you in mind of the man who has really fuffered very much from you; and whom you have robbed of the most valuable of his enjoyments, your converfation. The advantage of hearing your fentiments by discovering mine, was what I always thought a great one, and even worth the rifque I generally run of manifefting my own indifcretion. You then rewarded my trust in you the moment it was given, for you pleafed or informed me the minute you anfwered. I must now be contented with more flow returns. However 'tis fome pleasure, that your thoughts upon Paper will be a more lafting poffeffion to me; and that I fhall no longer have caufe to complain of a lofs I have fo often regretted, that of any thing you faid, which I happened to forget. In earneft, Madam, if I were to write to you as often as I think of you, it must be every day of my life. Iattend you in fpirit through all your ways, I follow you thro' every ftage in books of travels, and fear for you thro' whole folio's; you make me fhrink at the paft dangers of dead travellers; and if I read of a delightful profpect, or agreeable place, I hope it yet fubfifts to please you. I enquire the roads, the amufements, the company, of every town and country thro' which you pass, with as much diligence, as if I were to fet out next week to overtake you. In a word, no one can have you more conftantly in mind, not even your guardian Angel (if you have one,) and I am willing to indulge fo

much

much Popery, as to fancy fome Being takes care of you, who knows your value better than you do your felf. I am willing to think that Heaven never gave fo much felf-neglected and refolution to a woman, to occafion her calamity; but am pious enough to believe those qualities. must be intended to conduce to her benefit and her glory. ́..

Your first short letter only ferves to show me you are alive. It puts me in mind of the firft Dove that returned to Noah, and just made him know it had found no reft abroad.

There is nothing in it that pleafes me, but when you tell me you had no Sea-fickness. I beg your next may give me all the pleasure it can, that is, tell me any that you receive. You can make no

discoveries that will be half fo valuable to me as thofe of your own mind: Nothing that regards the States or Kingdoms you pafs through, will engage fo much of my curiofity or concern, as what' relates to your felf Your welfare, to fay truth, is more at my heart than that of Christendom.

I am fure I may defend the truth, though perhaps not the virtue of this declaration. One is ignorant, or doubtful at best, of the merits of differing religions and governments; but private virtues one can be fure of. I therefore know what particular person has defert enough to merit being happier than others, but not what nation deferves to conquer or oppress another. You will fay, I am not Publick-fpirited: let it be fo: I may have too many tenderneffes, particular regards, or narrow views; but at the fame time I am certain that whoever wants thefe, can never have a Publick-fpirit; for (as a friend of mine fays) how is it poffible for that man to love twenty thousand people, who never loved one?

I communicated your letter to Mr. C. He thinks of you and talks of you as he ought, I mean as I do; and one always thinks that to be just as it

ought

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