Of bright or fair, or justly regular, Still thou art fairer, and more perfect still. I know, my Lord, you will pardon this poetical excursion, since I have been led to it by your example. I need not make an apology for continuing to insult you with my privileges, since I have no design in it but what is abstractedly disinterested and charitable. A place of trust or honour employs your thoughts, and calls for your perpetual attendance; and when you think yourself secure of the gaudy trifle, your pretensions may be lost by a momentary caprice. But my expectations run higher than any dignity this world can boast. It is a celestial crown and kingdom that fires my ambition; I am in pursuit of infinite honours, and grasp the glories of immortality. You see, my Lord, in every respect, in love and glory, I have the advantage of you. Suppose my pretensions as visionary as you will, nothing can be more exalted than such a notion of happiness. It is endless and complete, unclouded with pain or sorrow; whereas you can never boast of being perfectly at ease, nor of tasting pleasure unmingled with many mortifying evils. your gayest flights, you cannot flatter yourself with such views. In But this prospect is all peaceful and serene; not a moment's anxiety shall rise, to break the series of eternal joy. Whatever holy cheat laid the plan, it is no dishonour to be thus deluded. Let poets, priests, or politicians, be the inventors, a thousand times blessed be the happy genius that provided this relief to soften the chagrin of mortal life; when, tired and sick of all mortal vanities, the mind reposes itself in fragrant bowers, sports on flowery lawns, and wanders through Elysian groves; when the raptured fancy drinks at the fountains of life, and bathes in rivers of immortal pleasure! Death, the gloomy period of all your hopes, in the height of your luxury, and most jovial entertainments, insults your imagination with his horrid aspect. But this ghastly phantom, this universal terror, brightens into a smile; and in an angel's form, beckons me away to endless rest. That untried gulf, that you expect will at once swallow up your joys and your existence, appears to me a passage to undecaying life and pleasure. And let it still be granted, that my expectation of future bliss proves a fiction, and Christianity a 'mere delusion; I shall be insensible of remorse or shame for my credulity; and shall lie down as gloriously with the clods of the valley, and sleep as sweetly in my primitive dust as your Lordship. But, oh! should the objects of the Christian faith prove true, what a wild hazard do you run! What limits will your confusion find! Your shame will be as lasting as your misery. You will reproach yourself for ever, and be exposed to the derision of the wretched society to which you are joined.-Il n'y a rien plus reet cela, ni de plus terrible, faisons tant que nous voudrons les braves. There is nothing more real than that, nothing 'more terrible, let us put on ever so many stout airs.' que I have, you find, obeyed your commands, and sent you my thoughts on this subject; to convince your Lordship how much I am, Your devoted humble servant, EVANDER. LETTER VII. From Herminius to his sister, acquainting her with the happy effects of his passion for Cleora. My dear Sister, IT is with great pleasure I obey your command, in letting you know the disposition of my heart to the charming Cleora. To one whose thoughts were less refined than yours, my discourse would be incredible; but you are a sort of Platonic, and may perhaps approve the effects of a generous passion, and give credit to the reformation it has made in my life. You will forgive me, Madam, for being once in the right, when I have dissented from you, since it is the only instance I have to boast of. Had I been governed by your advice, and fled the fair Cleora, instead of conversing with her, I might have been an unreformed li bertine. But she set virtue in my view with its most charming advantages: I saw an angel in her form, and heard celestial music in her voice: She was the messen ger of the skies sent to convert me; I owned the credentials, and yielded to the heavenly inspiration. You know, my dear sister, that her dawning beauty had made an impression on my heart before I went to travel. "I watch'd the early glories of her eyes, "As men for day-break watch the eastern skies.” DRYDEN, I left England with the flattering hopes of finding her free at my return, and with full intention to make my addresses to her. While I staid at Rome, that imperial seat of vice, the only loose amour I had was with a beau tiful Italian, who something resembled the matchless Cleora, who was still the mistress of my reasonable affections. But how great was the anguish of my soul, when, after all my expectations, the first news that surprised me at my return was, that she was just married to Philaret the man that of all the world I would not have hated or injured; a man that had every amiable quality, and was the pride and joy of all his acquaintance; nor could I forget some former obligations his popular interest had laid on me. In this exigence, I resolved to dispense with the ceremony of paying my compliments to him, that I might avoid the sight of his lovely bride; nor did I frequent any public place where I was likely to meet her. But at last the fatal interview came; and in the drawing room, sparkling as an angel, I saw the lovely creature. From this moment, I became an apostate from virtue; and, secretly renouncing all the ties of truth and honour, resolved, with great deliberation, to be a villain. H This noble design was the subject of my retired contemplations. With what wild, what impious soliloquies, have I whispered to the groves and streams, wishing the laws of Heaven cancelled, and the state of nature in the fiction of a golden age, real: these senseless lines have often expressed my infamous raptures. O siecle plus heureux mille fois pour les boîmes, Que le siecle dur ou nous sommes ! Non parceque la terre en cet age parfuit, Que le miel dans nos bois couloit sur la verdure; Then to our am'rous flames no bounds consign'd, Such were my secret extravagances, the entertainments of my solitary walks; but in the height of my folly, Heaven did not entirely abandon me. I at I took all handsome opportunities to follow and converse with the fair Cleora; a favour she never refused me; if she had, I should have entertained more hopes, than from the manner in which she treated me. tended her coach, her chair, haunted her at public places, ogled, stared, sighed, and practised all the modern fopperies of love; which she never thought it worth her while to observe; and, to my great mortification, I found I neither pleased nor molested her. All my dumb eloquence and mute address was lost on her; she minded it no more, nor perhaps so much, as she would the frolics of a monkey. I might give myself what postures and airs I thought most becoming, and act the indolent or languishing lover without interruption: she looked as if she had no manner of apprehension what I was do ing, or what I intended. My breath had been as well employed in talking of darts and flames, to the plants and trees; the jargon was so perfectly unintelligible to her, that she either answered nothing to the purpose, or turned the discourse to some grave moral subject. And as she had the finest turn of wit, and the most graceful manner of speaking in the world, every thing she said made an impression on my soul; every vice on which she set a mark of infamy, though ever so modish,' lost its credit with me; and every virtue though ever so severe seemed practicable with her applause. The manner in which she treated my passion set me in a very ridiculous light to myself. The vanity appeared unpardonable, that inspired me with the hopes of rivalling the happy man, to whom, in the sight of Heaven, with her vows, she had sincerely given her esteem and tenderest affections. Whatever regard was due to such distinguishing merit as Philaret's, she gave him. Nothing could be more soft and engaging than her whole behaviour to him. Her modesty was unaffected, truth and justice appeared in all her actions. In the gayest bloom of youth, and triumph of beauty, she practised the strictest rules of piety. This, joined to the most gentle disposition, and a genius turned to everything that is beautiful and polite, makes her one of the brightest characters of the age. A thousand times blessed be the heavenly Power that kept me back from the ruin I courted; and, by the example and conversation of the lovely woman, made me a proselyte to virtue, and guided me to a rational and lasting happiness! But, my dear sister, this fortunate event shall not encourage me to contemn your advice on any future occasion; and in this instance I know you will forgive, Madam, Your obedient humble servant, HERMINIUS. LETTER |