you so far toward the next world as to make This lofe the fight of you, but you'll be like a Star, that while it is fix'd to Heaven fhines over all the Earth.

Wherefoever Providence shall dispose of the most valuable thing I know, I fhall ever follow you with my fincereft wishes, and my best thoughts will be perpetually waiting upon you, when you never hear of me or them. Your own guardian Angels cannot be more conftant, nor more filent. I beg you will never cease to think me your friend, that you may not be guilty of that which you never yet knew to commit, an Injuftice. As I have hitherto been fo in fpite of the world, so hereafter, if it be poffible you fhou'd ever be more oppofed, and more deferted, I should only be fo much the more

Your faithful, &c.&#

LETTER

I

LETTER XV.

Can fay little to recommend the Letters I fhall write to you, but that they will be the most impartial representations of a free heart, and the trueft copies you ever faw, tho' of a very mean original. Not a feature will be foften'd, or any advantagious light employ'd to make the ugly thing a little lefs hideous: but you shall find it in all respects, moft horribly like. You will do me an injuftice if you look upon any thing I fhall fay from this inftant, as a compliment, either to you or to my felf: Whatever I write will be the real thought of that hour; and I know you'll no more expect it of me to perfevere till death in every fentiment or notion I now fet down, than you would imagine a man's face fhould never change when once his picture was drawn.

The freedom I fhall ufe in this manner of thinking aloud, may indeed prove me a fool; but it will prove me one of the best fort of fools, the honeft ones. And fince what folly we have, will infallibly buoy up

at

at one time or other in fpight of all our art to keep it down; methinks 'tis almost foolish to take any pains to conceal it at all, and almoft knavish to do it from thofe that are our friends. If Momus's project had taken, of having windows in our breafts, I fhou'd be for carrying it further, and making those windows, cafements; that while a man thow'd his heart to all the world, he might do fomething more for his friends, even give it them, and trust it to their handling. I 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 difh, as he did another's head. But fince Jupiter will not have it fo, I must be content to fhew 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 fhall then fee that the Prudes of this world ow'd all their fine figure only to their being ftraiter-lac'd than the reft; and that they are naturally as arrant Squabs as thofe that went more loofe, nay as thofe

that

But

that never girded their loins at all. 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 fufficiently in your favour.

:

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 ruin'd me for all the converfation of one fex, and almost all the friendship of the other. I am but too fenfible thro' your means, that the company of men wants a certain foftnefs to recommend it, and that of women wants every thing elfe. 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 fpoil'd me for a Solitaire! Books have loft their ef fect upon me, and I was convinced fince I saw you, that there is one alive wifer than all the Sages: a plague of female wildom! it makes a man ten times more uneafy than his own. What is very strange, Virtue herself, (when you have the dref

fing her) is too amiable for one's repofe. You might have done a world of good in your time, if you had allow'd half the fine gentlemen who have feen you to have con verfed with you; they would have been ftrangely Bitt, while they thought only to fall in love with a fair Lady, and you had bewitch'd them with Reason and Virtue (two Beauties that the very fops pretend to no acquaintance with.)

The unhappy distance at which we correfpond, removes a great many of thofe reftrictions and punctilious decorums, 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 blufh; we converse 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 impose (even in a fingle thought) upon each other in this state of feparation, as for Spirits of a different fphere 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 queftion, that may enable me to judge better of my own conduct than most inftances