medies: he sees Constantinople in a raree-show, vows it is the finest thing upon earth, and protests it is prodigiously like. Ay, Sir, says the man of the show, you have been at Constantinople, I perceive. No indeed, says Harlequin, I was never there myself, but I had a brother I loved dearly, who had the greatest mind in the world to have gone thither.

This is what I really wish from my soul, though it would ruin the best project I ever laid, that of obtaining through your means, my fair Circassian slave; she whom my imagination had drawn more amiable than angels, as beautiful as the lady who was to choose her by a resemblance to so divine a face; she whom my hopes had already transported over so many seas and lands, and whom my eager wishes had already lodged in my arms and heart; she, I say, upon this condition, may remain under the cedars of Asia, and weave a garland of palms for the brows of a Turkish tyrant, with those hands which I had destined for the soft offices of love, or at worst for transcribing amorous madrigals: let that breast,

say, be now joined to some savage heart, that never beat with lust or rage; that breast, inhabited by far more truth, fidelity, and innocence, than those that heave with pride and glitter with diamonds; that breast, whose very conscience would have been love, where duty and rapture made but one thought, and honour must have been the same with pleasure.

I can't go on in this stile: I am not able to think of you without the utmost seriousness; and, if I did not take a particular care to disguise it, my letters

would be the most melancholy things in the world. I believe you see my concern through all this affectation of gaiety, which is but like a fit of laughing in the deepest spleen or vapours. I am just alarmed with a piece of news, that Mr. Wortley thinks of passing through Hungary, notwithstanding the war there. If ever any man loved his wife, or any mother her child, this offers you the strongest reason imaginable for staying at Vienna, at least this winter. For God's sake, value yourself a little more; and don't give us cause to imagine that such extravagant virtue can exist any where else than in a romance. I tremble for you the more, because (whether you believe it or not) I am capable myself of following one I loved, not only to Constantinople, but to those parts of India, where, they tell us, the women best like the ugliest fellows, as the most admirable production of nature, and look upon deformities as the signatures of divine favour. But (so romantic as I am) I should scarce take these rambles, without greater encouragement than I fancy any one who has been long married can expect. You see what danger I shall be in, if ever I find a fair one born under the same planet with Astolfo's wife. If, instead of Hungary, you past through Italy, and I had any hopes that lady's climate might give a turn to your inclinations, it is but your sending me the least notice, and I'll certainly meet you in Lombardy, the scene of those celebrated amours between the fair princess and her dwarf. From thence, how far you might draw me, and I might run after more know than the spouse in the Song of Solomon:

you,

I no

this I know, that I could be so very glad of being with you in any pleasure, that I could be content to be with you in any danger. Since I am not to partake either, adieu : but may God, by hearing my prayers and preserving you, make me a better Christian than any modern poet is at present.

I am, Madam,

Your, etc.

MADAM,

LETTER IV.

TO THE SAME.

I No more think I can have too many of your letters, than that I could have too many writings to entitle me to the greatest estate in the world; which I think so valuable a friendship as yours is equal to. I am angry at every scrap of paper lost, as at something that interrupts the history of my title; and though it is but an odd compliment to compare a fine lady to Sybil, your leaves, methinks, like hers, are too good to be committed to the winds; though I have no other way of receiving them but by those unfaithful messengers. I have had but three, and I reckon in that short one from Dort, which was rather a dying ejaculation than a letter. But I have so great an opinion of your goodness, that had I received none, I should not have accused you of neglect or insensibility. I am not so wrong-headed as to quarrel with my friends the minute they don't write; I'd as soon quarrel at the sun the minute he

did not shine, which he is hindered from by accidental causes, and is in reality all that time performing the same course, and doing the same good offices

as ever.

You have contrived to say in your last, the two most pleasing things to me in nature; the first is, that whatever be the fate of your letters, you will continue to write in the discharge of your conscience. This is generous to the last degree, and a virtue you ought to enjoy. Be assured in return, my heart shall be as ready to think you have done every good thing, as yours can be to do it; so that you shall never be able to favour your absent friend, before he has thought himself obliged to you for the very favour you are then conferring.

The other is, the justice you do me in taking what I writ to you in the serious manner it was meant: it is the point upon which I can bear no suspicion, and in which, above all, I desire to be thought serious: it would be the most vexatious of all tyranny, if you should pretend to take for raillery, what is the mere disguise of a discontented heart, that is unwilling to make you as melancholy as itself; and for wit, what is really only the natural overflowing and warmth of the same heart, as it is improved and awakened by an esteem for you: but since you tell me you believe me, I fancy my expressions have not at least been entirely unfaithful to those thoughts, to which I am sure they can never be equal. May God increase your faith in all truths that are as great as this; and depend upon it, to whatever degree your belief may extend, you can never be a bigot.

If you could see the heart I talk of, you would really think it a foolish good kind of thing, with some qualities as well deserving to be half laughed at, and half esteemed, as any in the world: its grand foible, in regard to you, is the most like reason of any foible in nature. Upon my faith, this heart is not, like a great warehouse, stored only with my own goods, with vast empty spaces to be supplied as fast as interest or ambition can fill them up; but it is every inch of it let out into lodgings for its friends, and shall never want a corner at your service; where I dare affirm, Madam, your idea lies as warm and as close as any idea in Christendom.

If I don't take care, I shall write myself all out to you; and if this correspondence continues on both sides at the free rate I would have it, we shall have very little curiosity to encourage our meeting at the day of judgment. I foresee that the further you go from me, the more freely I shall write; and if (as I earnestly wish) you would do the same, I can't guess where it will end: let us be like modest people, who, when they are close together keep all decorums; but if they step a little aside, or get to the other end of a room, can untie garters, or take off shifts without scruple.

If this distance (as you are so kind as to say) enlarges your belief of my friendship, I assure you it has so extended my notion of your value, that I begin to be impious on your account, and to wish that even slaughter, ruin, and desolation, might interpose between you and Turkey; I wish you restored to us at the expence of a whole people: I barely hope you