Is there no expedient to return you in peace to the bofom of your country? I hear you are come as far as: do you only look back to die twice? is If ever Eurydice once more fnatch'd to the shades? mortal had reason to hate the King, it is I, whose particular misfortune it is, to be almost the only innocent perfon he has made to fuffer, both by his Government at home, and his Negotiations abroad.

you

If muft from us, go I wish at least you might pass to your banifhment by the most pleasant way; that all the road might be rofes and myrtles, and a thousand objects rife round you, agreeable enough to make England less defirable to you. It is not now my intereft to wish England agreeable: It is highly probable, it may use me ill enough to drive me from it. Can I think that place my country, where I cannot now call a foot of paternal Earth my own? Yet it may seem some alleviation, that when the wifeft thing I can do is to leave my country, what was most agreeable in it fhould first be fnatched away from it.

and

I could overtake you with pleasure in make that tour in your company. Every reasonable entertainment and beautiful view would be doubly engaging when you partook of it. I fhould at leaft attend you to the fea coafts, and cast a last look after the fails that tranfported you. But perhaps I might care as little to ftay behind you; and be full as uneafy to live in a country where I faw others perfecuted by the rogues of my own religion, as where I was perfecuted myself by the rogues of yours. And it is not impoffible I might run into Afia in fearch of liberty; for who would not rather live a freeman among

a nation of flaves, than a flave among a nation of freemen ?

In good earnest, if I knew your motions, and your exact time; I verily think, I should be once more happy in a fight of you next spring.

I'll conclude with a wifh, God fend you with us, or me with

you.

LETTER XXII.

will find me more troublefome 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 (hadows 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 robb'd of the most valuable of his enjoyments, your converfation. The advantage of hearing your fentiments by difcovering mine, was what I always thought a great one, and even worth the rifque I ge. nerally run of manifefting my own indifcretion. You then rewarded the moment it was gitrust in you my ven, for you pleas'd or inform'd me the minute you anfwer'd 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 caule to complain of a lofs I have so often regretted, that of any thing you faid, which I happen'd 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. I attend you in fpirit

thro' all your ways, I follow you thro' every stage in books of travels, and fear for you thro' whole folio's; you make me shrink at the past 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 amusements, the company, of every town and country through 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 constantly in mind, not even your Guardian angel (if you have one) and I am willing to indulge fo much Popery as to fancy fome Being takes care of you, who knows your value better than you do yourself: I am willing to think that heaven never gave fo much felf-neglect and refolution to a woman, to occafion her calamity; but am pious enough to believe thofe qualities must be intended to conduce to her benefit and her glory.

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

There is nothing in it that pleases me, but when you tell me you had no fea-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 difcoveries that" will be half fo valuable to me as those of your own mind. Nothing that regards the ftates or kingdoms you pass thro', will engage fo much of my curiofity or concern, as what relates to yourself: Your welfare, to say truth, is more at my heart than that of Christendom.

I am fure I may defend the truth, tho' perhaps not the virtue of this declaration. One is ignorant, or doubtful at beft, 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 opprefs another. You will fay, I am not public 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 Public 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. His health and mine are now fo good, that we wish with all our fouls you were a witness of it. We never meet but we lament over you: we pay a kind of weekly rites to your memory, where we ftrow flowers of rhetoric, and offer fuch libations to your name, as it would be prophane to call Toafting. The Duke of B m is fometimes the High Priest of your praises; and upon the whole, I believe there are as few men that are not forry at your departure, as women that are; for, you know, most of your fex want good fenfe, and therefore muft want generofity: You have fo much of both, that, I am fure, you pardon them: for one cannot but forgive whatever one defpifes. For my part, I hate a great many

women for your fake, and undervalue all the reft. 'Tis you are to blame, and may God revenge it upon you, with all thofe bletfings and earthly profperities, which, the divines tell us, are the cause of our perdition; for if he makes you happy in this world, I dare trust your own virtue to do it in the other. I

OU are by this time satisfied how much the ten

YOU

derness of one man of merit is to be preferred to the addreffes of a thousand. And by this time the Gentleman you have made choice of is fenfible, how great is the joy of having all thofe charms and good qualities which have pleased so many, now applied to please one only. It was but juft, that the fame Virtues which gave you reputation, fhould give you happinefs; and I can wish you no greater, than that you may receive it in as high a degree yourself, as fo much good humour muft infallibly give it to your husband.

It may be expected, perhaps, that one who has the title of Poet should fay fomething more polite on this occafion: But I am really more a wellwifher to your felicity, than a celebrater of your beauty. Befides, you are now a married woman, and in a way to be a Y

VOL. V.