LETTER VIL

To Lucius.

It was you that proposed this subject to my muse, but I have hardly the vanity to hope the performance will please a judgment so exact as yours. However, it is entirely submitted to your censure, by

Your most humble servant,

LINDAMOR.

AN ODE ON LOVE.

AssIsT my doubtful muse, propitious Love,
Let all my soul the sacred impulse prove:
For thine's a holy unpolluted flame,
Howe'er the libertines profane thy name;
Howe'er, with impious cant, hypocrisy
And senseless superstition blemish thee.

The pure result of sober reason thou;
Thy laws the strictest honour must allow :
Thy laws each vicious thought controul;
From thee devotion takes its flaming wings:
Thou giv'st the noblest motion to the soul,
And govern'st all its springs.

To great attempts thou gen'rous minds dost move,
And only such are privileg'd to love;
Th' heroic race, the brightest names of old,
Were all thy glorious votaries enroll'd.
Without thee, human life

A tedious round of circling cares would be,
A curs'd fatigue, continual strife,
And tiresome vanity.

Thy charms our restless griefs controul,
And calm the stormy motions of the soul:
Before thee pride and enmity,

With all infernal passions, fly..

And couldst thou, in the realms below,

But once display thy beauteous face,
The damn'd a short redress might know,
And ev'ry terror fly the place.
From thee one bright unclouded smile
Would all the torments there beguile;
Thy smiles th' eternal tempest could assuage,
And make the damn'd forget their rage;
The sulph'rous waves would cease to roar,
And calmly glide along the silent shore.

Had Orpheus, (as 'tis fabl'd,) thro' the ground,
To hell the gloomy passage found,
His warbling voice his melting lyre,
Nor artful touches on the trembling string,
Had ne'er obtain'd his bold desire,

Nor charm'd the furies with their sullen king;
But love, his tender theme, had love been nam'd,
That potent sound alone had all their malice tam'd.
On thee the graces and delights attend,
On thy propitious influence
Our gayest hours depend;
Whatever charms the soul or sense,
Beauty and sacred harmony,

Accomplish'd Love! belongs to thee

To thee his shining genius Strephon owes,
His just ideas, and expressions fit;
To thee Cleora owes that sprightly wit,
Which from her lips in easy language flows.

The mute creation owns thy sway,
And things inanimate thy laws obey;
At thy command the first confusion ceas'd,
Chaos and wild disorder were appeas'd:
Discord and fierce antipathy grew mild,
The gleams of light thro' yielding darkness smil'd,
And warring elements were reconcil'd:

Nature begun a steady course,

}

Govern'd by central charms, and sympathetice force.

But in the blissful skies alone,

Almighty Love! thy pow'r is fully known:

There they view thy charming face,

Painted with endless smiles, and ever-blooming grace,
Thy gentle torch burns there for ever bright,
And scatters round a mild propitious light;
All feel its pleasing influence,

While pure desires thy golden shafts dispense.

Th' immortal lovers crown'd with fragrant flow'rs, In rosy shades, and blissful bow'rs,

To thee devote their happy hours, While active joys too noble for disguise, And vital pleasures sparkle in their eyes;

To thee alone, great Love, their heav'n they owe, The boundless source whence all their blessings flow. Thy sacred flame

Does ev'ry heav'nly breast inspire,

And tune the strings of each celestial lyre;
In flow'ry vales to ev'ry blissful stream
With melting notes they celebrate thy name;
Backward they roll the long extent

Of ages infinite, and sing thy great descent.

No fabl'd Venus gave thee birth;

!

At Cyprus yet the goddess was not nam'd,
Nor Idalia, nor at Paphos fam'd;

Nor yet was feign'd from foaming seas to rise
For yet no seas appear'd or fountains flow'd,
Nor yet, distinguish'd in the skies,

Her radiant planet glow'd.

But thou wast long ere motion sprung
Ere chaos and immeasurable space

its race,

Resign'd their useless rights to elemental place;
Before the sparkling lamps on high

Were kindled up, and hung around the sky;
Before the sun led on the circling hours,
Or vital seeds produc'd their active pow'rs;
Before the first intelligences strung

Their golden harps, and soft preludiums sung
To Love, the mighty cause whence their existence

sprung,

}

Th' ineffable DIVINITY,

His own resemblance meets in thee.

By this thy glorious lineage thou dost prove
Thy high descent; for GOD himself is Love.

LETTER VIII.

From Sylviana; giving an account of her manner of life before her marriage with the earl of

Madam,

YOUR curiosity is very obliging, in desiring to know my manner of life, till I had the honour of being married to my Lord The account indeed would be perfectly insignificant without that circumstance; it is only my relation to him that gives me a concern for the decorum and propriety of my conduct, in the high sta tion to which he has advanced me.,

I must own that my scrupulous dissent from some fashionable freedoms makes my behaviour appear somewhat singular and precise among the gallant part of the world; but I hope, in this general toleration, I may, with indemnity, be a Christian, (though not a prude,) at sixteen. If this is an error, the prejudice of education must be my excuse, which keeps me from giving my assent to many of the genteel maxims of the age. Nor will you be surprised at my nicety, when you know by what strict precepts the early part of my life has been governed.

My father was a country clergyman, a person of exemplary piety; who, with a benefice of three hundred a-year, treated his poor parishioners with great hospitality, and made a decent provision for his own family. My mother was bred a dissenter; and continued such, till either her esteem for my father, or the force of his arguments, prevailed with her to join in communion with the national church.

I was the eldest of three daughters, which were all the children they had. We were carefully instructed in

the rules of justice and truth; and bred in the greatest sanctity of manners. No excuse, but sickness, ever detained us on Sundays from the public worship; nor were the intervals spent in any idle amusements. The whole day was sacred, and observed with a just solemnity. Through the rest of the week, prayers were constantly read mornings and evenings in the family; nor would my mother ever suffer cards or dancing in the house.

My two sisters were the prettiest demure things that ever were seen. They applied themselves with great diligence to assist my mother in any of her domestic concerns: But my temper being more sprightly, housewifery and plain-work were my aversion. Reading was my prevailing attachment; and I had turned over every book in my father's library, except Latin and Greek. But here was not one play or novel for my entertainment. However, I was supplied with amusements of this kind by my Lady Worthy's youngest daughter; who was our neighbour, and was pleased to honour me with some degree of intimacy. But I perused these authors with great secrecy, and not without some inward remorse; this sort of reading being against my father's severe injunctions, and the pious rules I had been taught.

This was my manner of life till I was fifteen; when a brother of my mother's, a Turky merchant, died, and, having no child, left me twenty thousand pounds, with only some small legacies to my sisters. This advance of fortune gave me some distinction with my Lady Worthy; who, about the same time, had a fine summer-house painting. The story was Diana hunting with her nymphs. Her Ladyship desired my mother that I might be drawn for one of the virgin train. (Some time after this painting was finished, my

Lord

came accidentally into these parts of the country; and waiting on my Lady Worthy, as they were in the summer house, he took particular notice (I know not why) of the nymph for whom I had sat to the painter. Her Ladyship, finding my Lord a little inquisitive, ordered a servant to call me to drink tea with them. I