morse and confusion of my soul. The negligence and contempt with which you treated the best of women, sunk my youthful spirits, damped my noblest designs, and clouded the gayest season of my life. While death made its slow and silent approaches, the last favour I begged of you was to be just to your unhappy wife, in breaking all engagements with the lewd and infamous Amoret. This you promised me with religious solemnity. But I know her present distress, (though the just effect and reward of her crimes,) will be your snare.-She is all enchantment, and will, I fear, be your ruin. But if you reject my advice, take this caution from the royal penitent, her house is the way to death, and her gates lead down to hell. And I desire you to consider seriously, that this admonition must rescue you from, or double your guilt. CLEANDER

To

LETTER XIII.

HOWEVER different my present manner of existence is from my former state, my affection to the fair Cli mene is unchanged. As I live and act in a way inexpressibly superior to mortal life, so the beneficent dispositions of my nature rise to a more noble and generous height. My concern for your happiness is more tender, and disinterested than ever. I have guarded your nightly slumbers, waited on your solitary walks, and followed you like. like your attendant angel; who, pleased with my officious care, has often left you to my charge. Your present danger gives me as much anxiety as consists with a state of happiness. I could not refrain from giving you this warning, which, to your surprise, you will find on your toilet, among trifles the most its re

verse...

You are, O too credulous fair! on the very brink of ruin. Treachery and delusion are in Alcander's eyes and tongue; and if you keep this night's appointment with him, you are undone, Infamy and perdition are

fly the celestial morning dawns, and charming scenes arise. But, oh how boundless, how various, how transporting the prospect!

Still lost in joy and wonder, Tell me, said I, ye angels, ye smiling forms that surround me, what easy passage has my spirit found from its mortal prison? what gentle hand has unlocked my earthly fetters, and brought me out of darkness and confinement into immense light and liberty? Who was the kind messenger that conveyed the welcome invitation to my ear? What melodious voice called me away from yonder cold tempestuous regions to these soft and peaceful habitations? How have I found my passage through the trackless æther, and gained the summit of the everlasting hills? Am I awake? Do I dream? Is this a gay, a flattering vision? Oh, no! it is all blissful and transporting certainty! I see, I hear things unutterable, such as never entered into the heart of mortal man to conceive,-Read and believe; believe, and be happy..

You see, my dear sister, how blindly you repine at the decrees of heaven, and how unreasonably you lament what you call my early and untimely fate. Could I be -happy too soon? I left the world indeed in the full pride of my youthful years, in the height of greatness and reputation, surrounded with the blandishments and flatteries of pleasure. But these advantages might have been fatal snares to my virtue in a longer trial. It was indulgent in Heaven, after a short probation, to crown me with the rewards of victory. It is past the toil, the danger; and all to come is endless peace and triumph.

If you could see as far into futurity now, and think, as justly of it as you will certainly do on your death-bed, this letter from me had been superfluous. I only can. design it beneficial; you may make it so.

LETTER XV.

To

IT is past the voyage of life is finished! Instead of informing you that I am safe arrived at the Indian coasts,

this is to let you know that I am safely landed on the celestial shores. The vessel in which I was embarked, by a tempest, sunk to the bottom of the ocean, and the angel of the waters received my newly unembodied soul.

I was surprised at the different manner of my existence. I breathed indeed no longer; but I lived, I heard, I saw, with a more exquisite sense than before. But a few moments were past since the raging billows carried destruction in their appearance; and now I moved un-, terrified through the deeps, and surveyed the foundation of the ancient hills. The regent of the waters, pleased with my curiosity, led me through his chrystal palaces and coral groves; showed me the pearly grottoes, and alcoves of amber, with a thousand wonders, kept secret from the race of men since the bases of the mountains were laid.

I

As soon as I had gone the round of the liquid regions, an æthereal messenger took me under his conduct. followed my gentle guide through the airy spaces; and here all was novelty and surprise. I made the tour of the universe, and explored the limits of the creation with unspeakable agility. I moved from star to star, and met ten thousand suns blazing in full glory without fear or consternation. I followed the track of prodigious comets that drew their flaming tails over half the sky. From the planetary regions I ascended, with the ease and swiftness of a thought, to the superior heaven, the imperial palace of the Most High. But here description fails, and all beyond is unutterable.

This is the only account you can possibly receive of my death, which your own fears had so truly presaged at our parting. And this, my much loved Henrietta, I hope, will put an end to your anxiety; for since the change is proved so happy for me, you are too much my friend to be concerned thereat.

PHILANDER.

LETTER

LETTER XVI,

To my Lord

My dear brother,

As immaterial beings mingle unseen in what society they please, I had the curiosity last night to know your thoughts of what had happened to you the night before; and I heard you make a very gay declamation to some of your free companions, on the power of fancy, and the strength of your own imagination. But really, my Lord, you are not so visionary and extravagant as you represented yourself. There is nothing more certain than what you saw and heard; and you might have credited your senses without so much diffidence and modesty, which you turn into a vice.

You have but a few weeks, my dear brother, to live: your sands are numbered, and your last hour is determined. I obtained a permission, seldom allowed, to give you some warning of your approaching fate. I chose the opportunity, when I found you, in a clear moonlight night, sitting in a pensive posture by the side of a fountain in your garden. To gain credit to my message, I stood before you in the splendour of a heavenly form, and the bloom of immortal beauty; but so resembling my former self, that, in your surprise, you called me sister, and stepped forward to embrace me. I durst not profane myself by a mortal touch; but, eluding your arms, placed myself before you on the opposite side of the canal. I stood silent some time that you might be recollected; and then setting a golden lute, which I had in my hand, to one of the melodious strains which angels sing to expiring saints, when they would soften the agonies of death, and make its terrors smile; in those languishing and melting notes I gave you an invitation to the starry mansions, believing this would have a much better effect than any thing terrible to one of your undaunted temper. I delivered my message, and in an instant disappeared.

I have repeated these circumstances to you, as a proof

that all was real, and neither a dream nor a waking reverie, as you have persuaded yourself. But since no mortal knows this but yourself, and you concealed the greatest part of this relation from your gay friends, when you were so eloquent on the wonders of imagination; I hope this will find its wished success, and put you on the most exact preparation to meet, with a Christian fortitude, the greatest terror that mortal man can encounter. Though your life has been unstained with any base or unjust action, there are some levities in your conversation that require your speedy penitence and reformation; or seeming trifles will enlarge themselves into the greatest terrons.

It is a serious thing, my Lord, to die. You thought so, when, with the most tender concern, you saw me shivering and pale, anxious and fearful, on the very borders of death, doubtful to enter, and terrified at the darkness that hung on the gloomy valley; when even the follies of my childhood, which was hardly past, and the slightest errors of my youth, sat heavy on my soul. And, oh! how unwillingly did my soul quit its agreeable mansion how many soft engagements made me fond of life! the charming youth to whom I was contracted by my parents, detained me with his tears. Had angels beckoned me to the skies, that melting language would have tempted me back.

You little think, my dear brother, what regularity of the passions, what sanctity of manners, are necessary to take off the horrors of death, and make that gloomy monarch wear a smiling aspect.

Take this friendly admonition, and be for ever happy. Then will that relation which is now between us, still subsist; and I shall be, in joys inexpressible, your sister to all eternity.

LETTER XVII

SERENA.

To Philocles from Ibrahim, a Turkish Bassa.

Ir was you, my dear Philocles, that Heaven made the instrument of my conversion to Christianity. But while