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my reader that this princess was then under prosecution for disloyalty to the king's bed, and that she was afterward publicly beheaded upon the same account; though this prosecution was believed by many to proceed, as she herself intimates, rather from the king's love to Jane Seymour, than from any actual erime in Ann of Boulogne.

"SIR,

Queen Ann Boleyn's last Letter to King Henry. Cotton Lib. Otho. C. 10. "Your grace's displeasure and my imprisonment, are things so strange unto me, as what to write, or what to excuse, I am altogether ignorant. Whereas you send unto me (willing me to confess a truth, and so obtain your favour), by such a one, whom you know to be mine ancient professed enemy, I no sooner received this message by him, than I rightly conceived your meaning; and if, as you say, confessing a truth indeed may procure my safety, I shall with all willingness and duty perform your command.

"But let not your grace ever imagine, that your apoor wife will ever be brought to acknowledge a fault where not so much as a thought thereof preceded. And to speak a truth, never prince had wife more loyal in all duty, and in all true affection, than you have ever found in Ann Boleyn: with which name and place I could willingly have contented myself, if God and your grace's pleasure had been so pleased. Neither did I at any time so far forget myself in my exaltation or received queenship, but that I always looked for such an alteration as now I find; for the ground of my preferment being on no surer foundation than your grace's fancy, the least alteration I knew was fit and sufficient to draw that fancy to some other subject. You have chosen me from a low estate to be your queen and companion, far beyond my desert or desire. If, then, you found me worthy of such honour, good your grace, let not any light fancy, or bad counsel of mine enemies, withdraw your princely favour from me; neither let that stain, that unworthy stain, of a disloyal heart towards your good grace, ever cast so foul a blot on your most dutiful wife, and the infant princess your daughter. Try me, good king, but let me have a lawful trial, and let not my sworn enemies sit as my accusers and judges; yea, let me receive an open trial, for my truth shall fear no open shame; then shall you see either mine innocency cleared, your suspicion and conscience satisfied, the ignominy and slander of the world stopped, or my guilt openly declared. So that, whatsoever God or you may determine of me, your grace may be freed from an open censure; and mine offence being so lawfully proved, your grace is at liberty both before God and man, not only to execute worthy punishment on me as an unlawful wife, but to follow your affection already settled on that party, for whose sake I am now as I am, whose name I could some good while since have pointed unto, your grace being not ignorant of my suspicion therein.

may think of me) mine innocence shall be openly known, and sufficiently cleared.

"My last and only request shall be, that myself may only bear the burden of your grace's displeasure, and that it may not touch the innocent souls of those poor gentlemen, who (as I understand) are likewise in strait imprisonment for my sake. I ever I have found favour in your sight, if ever the name of Ann Boleyn hath been pleasing in your ears, then let me obtain this request, and I will so leave to trouble your grace any further, with mine earnest prayers to the Trinity, to have your grace in his good keeping, and to direct you in all your actions. From my doleful prison in the Tower, this sixth of May;

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Your most loyal, and ever faithful wife,
"ANN BOLEYN."

No. 398.] FRIDAY, JUNE 6, 1712. Insanire pares certa ratione modoque.-HOR. 2 Sat. iii. 271 You'd be a fcol With art and wisdom, and be mad by rule.-CRELCH, CYNTHIO and Flavia are persons of distinction in this town, who have been lovers these ten months last past, and writ to each other for gallantry-sake under those feigned names; Mr. Such-a-one and Mrs. Such-a-one not being capable of raising the soul out of the ordinary tracts and passages of life, up to that elevation which makes the life of the enainoured so much superior to that of the rest of the world. But ever since the beauteous Cecilia has made such a figure as she now does in the circle of charming women, Cynthio has been secretly one of her adorers. Lætitia has been the finest woman in town these three months, and so long Cynthio has acted the part of a lover very awkwardly in the presence of Flavia. Flavia has been too blind towards him, and has too sincere a heart of her own to observe a thousand things which would have discovered this change of mind to any one less engaged than she was. Cynthio was musing yesterday in the piazza in Covent-garden, and was saying to himself that he was a very ill man to go on in visiting and professing love to Flavia, when his heart was enthralled to another. "It is an infirmity that I am not constant to Flavia; but it would be still a greater crime, since I cannot continue to love her, to profess that I do. To marry a woman with the coldness that usually indeed comes on after marriage, is ruining one's self with one's eyes open; besides, it is really doing her an injury." This last consideration forsooth, of injuring her in persisting, made him resolve to break off upon the first favourable opportunity of making her angry. When he was in this thought, he saw Robin the porter, who waits at Will's coffee-house, passing by. Robin, you must know, is the best man in town for carrying a billet; the fellow has a thin body, swift step, demure looks, sufficient sense, and knows the town. This man carried Cynthio's first letter to Flavia, and, by frequent visits ever since, is well known to her But if you have already determined of me, and The fellow covers his knowledge of the nature of his that not only my death, but an infamous slander, messages with the most exquisite low humour imamust bring you the enjoying of your desired happi- ginable. The first he obliged Flavia to take, was ness; then I desire of God, that he will pardon your by complaining to her that he had a wife and three great sin therein, and likewise mine enemies, the children; and if she did not take that letter, which nstruments thereof; and that he will not call you he was sure there was no harm in, but rather love, to a strict account for your unprincely and cruel his family must go supperless to bed, for the gentleusage of me, at his general judgment-seat, where man would pay him according as he did his busiboth you and myself must shortly appear, and in ness. Robin, therefore, Cynthio now thought fit to whose judgment I doubt not (whatsoever the world make use of, and gave him orders to wait before

very unaccountable, and alarms one that has had
thoughts of passing his days with you. But I am
born to admire you with all your imperfections.
"CYATHIO."

Robin ran back and brought for answer:
"Exact Sir, there are at Will's Coffee-house six

Flavia's door, and if she called him to her, and asked whether it was Cynthio who passed by, he should at first be loath to own it was, but upon importunity confess it There needed not much search into that part of the town to find a well-dressed bussy fit for the purpose Cynthio designed her. As soon as he believed Robin was posted, he drove by Flavia's ledgings in a hackney-coach and a wo-minutes after three, June 4; one that has hid man in it. Robin was at the door talking with thoughts, and all my little imperfections. Sir, come Flavia's maid, and Cynthio pulled up the glass as to me immediately, or I shall determine what may surprised, and hid his associate. The report of this perhaps not be very pleasing to you. circumstance soon flew up stairs, and Robin could not deny but the gentleman favoured his master; yet if it was he, he was sure the lady was but his cousin whom he had seen ask for him, adding that he believed she was a poor relation, because they made her wait one morning till he was awake. Flavia immediately writ the following epistle, which Robin brought to Will's :

"SIR,

June 4, 1712.

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"That your maid and the bearer have seen me very often is very certain; but I desire to know, being engaged at piquet, what your letter means by ''tis in vain to deny it.' I shall stay here all the evening.

"Your amazed CYNTHIO."

"FLAVIA,"

Robin gave an account that she looked excessive angry when she gave him the letter; and that be told her, for she asked, that Cynthio only looked at the clock, taking snuff, and writ two or three words on the top of the letter when he gave him his.

Now the plot thickened so well, as that Cyeth's saw he had not much more to do, to accomplet being irreconcilably banished; he writ,

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MADAM,

"Your credulity when you are to gain your point, and suspicion when you fear to lose it, make it a As soon as Robin arrived with this, Flavia an- very hard part to behave as becomes your humble

swered:

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"DEAR CYNTHIO,

I have walked a turn or two in my anti-chamber since I writ to you, and have recovered myself from an impertinent fit which you ought to forgive me, and desire you would come to me immediately to laugh off a jealousy that you and a creature of the town went by in a hackney-coach an hour ago.

"I am your most humble Servant,

"FLAVIA." "I will not open the letter which my Cynthio writ upon the misapprehension you must have been under, when you writ, for want of hearing the whole circumstance."

Robin came back in an instant, and Cynthio answered:

"Half-an-hour six minutes after three, "MADAM, June 4, Will's Coffee-house. "It is certain I went by your lodging with a gentlewoman to whom I have the honour to be known; she is indeed my relation, and a pretty sort of woman. But your starting manner of writing, and owning you have not done me the honour so much as to open my letter, has in it something

*Resembled.

slave,

"CYNTHIO."

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The

No. 399.] SATURDAY, JUNE 7, 1712. Ut nemo in sese tentat descendere !-PERS. Sat. iv. 23 None, none descends into himself to find The secret imperfections of his mind.-DRYDEN. HYPOCRISY at the fashionable end of the town is very different from hypocrisy in the city. modish hypocrite endeavours to appear more vicious than he really is, the other kind of hypocrite more virtuous. The former is afraid of every thing that has the show of religion in it, and would be thought engaged in many criminal gallantries and amours which he is not guilty of. The latter assumes a face of sanctity, and covers a multitude of vices under a seeming religious deportment.

But there is another kind of hypocrisy, which di fers from both these, and which I intend to make the subject of this paper; I mean that hypocrisy, by which a man does not only deceive the world, but very often imposes on himself; that hypocrisy which conceals his own heart from him, and makes him believe he is more virtuous than he really is, and either not attend to his vices, or mistake even his vices for virtues. It is this fatal hypocrisy, and self-deceit, which is taken notice of in those words, "Who can understand his errors? cleanse thou me from secret faults."

In the next place, that we may not deceive ourselves in a point of so much importance, we should not lay too great a stress on any supposed virtues we possess that are of a doubtful nature: and such we may esteem all those in which multitudes of men dissent from us, who are as good and wise as ourselves. We should always act with great cautiousness and circumspection in points where it is not impossible that we may be deceived. Intempe. rate zeal, bigotry, and persecution for any party or opinion, how praiseworthy soever they may appear to weak men of our own principles, produce infinite calamities among mankind, and are highly criminal in their own nature; and yet how many persons eminent for piety suffer such monstrous and absurd principles of action to take root in their minds under the colour of virtues! For my own part, I must own I never yet knew any party so just and reasonable, that a man could follow it in its height and violence, and at the same time be innocent.

If the open professors of impiety deserve the utmost application and endeavours of moral writers to recover them from vice and folly, how much more may those lay a claim to their care and compassion, who are walking in the paths of death, while they fancy themselves engaged in a course of virtue! I shall endeavour therefore to lay down some rules for the discovery of those vices that lurk in the secret corners of the soul, and to show my We should likewise be very apprehensive of those reader those methods by which he may arrive at a actions which proceed from natural constitution, fatrue and impartial knowledge of himself. The vourite passions, particular education, or whatever usual means prescribed for this purpose are, to ex-promotes our worldly interest and advantage. In amine ourselves by the rules which are laid down these and the like cases, a man's judgment is easily for our direction in sacred writ, and to compare our perverted, and a wrong bias hung upon his mind. lives with the life of that person who acted up to the These are the inlets of prejudice, the unguarded perfection of human nature, and is the standing avenues of the mind, by which a thousand errors example, as well as the great guide and instructor, and secret faults find admission, without being obof those who receive his doctrines. Though these served or taken notice of. A wise man will suspect two heads cannot be too much insisted upon, I shall those actions to which he is directed by something but just mention them, since they have been handled besides reason, and always apprehend some concealed by many great and eminent writers. evil in every resolution that is of a disputable nature, when it is conformable to his particular temper, his age, or way of life, or when it favours his pleasure or his profit.

There is nothing of greater importance to us than thus diligently to sift our thoughts, and examine a these dark recesses of the mind, if we should establish our souls in such a solid and substantial virtue, as will turn to account in that great day when it must stand the test of infinite wisdom and justice.

I would therefore propose the following methods to the consideration of such as would find out their secret faults, and make a true estimate of themselves:In the first place, let them consider well what are the characters which they bear among their enemies. Our friends very often flatter us, as much as our own hearts. They either do not see our faults, or conceal them from us, or soften them by their representations, after such a manner that we think them too trivial to be taken notice of. An adver- I shall conclude this essay with observing that the sary, on the contrary, makes a stricter search into two kinds of hypocrisy I have here spoken of, us, discovers every flaw and imperfection in our namely, that of deceiving the world, and that of imtempers; and though his malice may set them in posing on ourselves, are touched with wonderful too strong a light, it has generally some ground for beauty in the hundred and thirty-ninth psalm. The what it advances. A friend exaggerates a man's folly of the first kind of hypocrisy is there set forth Virtues, an enemy inflames his crimes. A wise man by reflections on God's omniscience and omnipre, should give a just attention to both of them, so far sence, which are celebrated in as noble strains of as they may tend to the improvement of the one, poetry as any other I ever met with, either sacred and diminution of the other. Plutarch has written or profane. The other kind of hypocrisy, whereby an essay on the benefits which a man may receive a man deceives himself, is intimated in the two last fm his enemies, and among the good fruits of en- verses, where the Psalmist addresses himself to the ity, mentions this in particular, that by the re-great Searcher of hearts in that emphatical petition, Froaches which it casts upon us we see the worst side of ourselves, and open our eyes to several blemishes and defects in our lives and conversations, which we should not have observed without the help of such ill-natured monitors.

In order likewise to come at a true knowledge of ourselves, we should consider on the other hand how far we may deserve the praises and approbations which the world bestow upon us; whether the actions they Lelebrate proceed from laudable and worthy motives; and how far we are really possessed of the virtues which gain us applause among those with Such a reflection is absolutely necessary, if we consider how apt we are either to Vue or condemn ourselves by the opinions of others, ad to sacrifice the report of our own hearts to the Jagment of the world.

whom we converse.

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Try me, O God! and seek the ground of my heart: prove me, and examine my thoughts. Look well if there be any way of wickedness in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."

L.

No. 400.] MONDAY, JUNE 9, 1712. -Latet anguis in herba.-VIRG. Ecl. iii. 93. There's a snake in the grass.-ENGLISH PROVERBS. It should, methinks, preserve modesty and its interests in the world, that the transgression of t always creates offence; and the very purposes of wantonness are defeated by a carriage which has in it so much boldness, as to intimate that fear and reluctance are quite extinguished in an object which

would be otherwise desirable. It was said of a wit admirers. They are honest arts when their purpose of the last age,

Sedley has that prevailing gentle art
Which can with a resistless charm impart
The loosest wishes to the chastest heart;
Raise such a conflict. kindle such a fire,
Between declining virtue and desire,

That the poor vanquish'd maid dissolves away
In dreams all night, in sighs and tears all day.

is such, but infamous when misapplied. It is certain that many a young woman in this town has had her heart irrecoverably won, by men who have not made one advance which ties their admirers, though the females languish with the utmost anxiety, I have often, by way of admonition to my female readers, given them warning against agreeable com

This prevailing gentle art was made up of company of the other sex, except they are well atplaisance, courtship, and artful conformity to the quainted with their characters. Women may dismodesty of a woman's manners. Rusticity, broad guise it if they think fit; and the more to do it, expression, and forward obtrusion, offend those of is natural to them, that they have no manner of they may be angry at me for saying it; but I say it education, and make the transgressors odious to all probation of men. without some degree of love. ap who have merit enough to attract regard. It is in For this reason he is dangerous to be entertained as this taste that the scenery is so beautifully ordered in the description which Antony makes, in the dia-eminent esteem or observation, though it be never a friend or a visitant, who is capable of gaining any logue between him and Dolabella, of Cleopatra in her barge.

Her galley down the silver Cidnos row'd;

The tackling silk, the streamers wav'd with gold;
The gentle winds were lodg'd in purple sails;

Her nymphs, like Nereids, round her couch were plac'd,
Where she, another sea-born Venus, lay;
She lay, and lean'd her cheek upon her hand,
And cast a look so languishingly sweet,
As if, secure of all beholders' hearts.
Neglecting she could take them. Boys, like Cupids,
Stood fanning with their painted wings the wind
That play'd about her face; but if she smil'd,

A darting glory seem'd to blaze abroad,

That men's desiring eyes were never weary'd,

But hung upon the object. To soft flutes

The silver oars kept time: and while they play'd,
The hearing gave new pleasure to the sight;
And both to thought-

Here the imagination is warmed with all the objects presented, and yet is there nothing that is luscious, or what raises any idea more loose than that of a beautiful woman set off to advantage. The like, or a more delicate and careful spirit of modesty, appears in the following passage in one of Mr. Phillips's pastorals:

Breathe soft; ye winds! ye waters, gently flow!
Shield her, ye trees! ye flowers, around her grow!
Ye swains, I beg you, pass in silence by!
My love in yonder vale asleep does lie.

Desire is corrected when there is a tenderness or
admiration expressed which partakes the passion.
Licentious language has something brutal in it,
which disgraces humanity, and leaves us in the con-
dition of the savages in the field. But it may be
asked, To what good use can tend a discourse of
this kind at all? It is to alarm chaste ears against
such as have, what is above called, the "prevailing
gentle art." Masters of that talent are capable of
clothing their thoughts in so soft a dress, and some-
thing so distant from the secret purpose of their
heart, that the imagination of the unguarded is
touched with a fondness, which grows too insensibly
to be resisted. Much care and concern for the lady's
welfare, to seem afraid lest she should be annoyed
by the very air which surrounds her, and this ut-
tered rather with kind looks, and expressed by an
interjection, an
66 ah," or an "oh," at some little
hazard in moving or making a step, than in any
direct profession of love, are the methods of skilful

Sedley (Sir Cha.), a writer of verses in the reign of Charles II., with whom he was a great favourite. The nobleman's verses quoted uere allude, it has been said, not to Sir Charles Sedley's writings, but to his personal address; for we are told that, by studying human nature, he had acquired to an eminent degree the art of making himself agreeable, parti cularly to the ladies.

↑ Dryden's "All for Love," act iii. sc. 1

so remote from pretensions as a lover. If a man's
heart has not the abhorrence of any treacherous de-
sign, he may easily improve approbation into kind-
ness, and kindness into passion. There may possibly
be no manner of love between them in the eyes of
all their acquaintance; no, it is all friendship; and
yet they may be as fond as shepherd and shepherdess
in a pastoral, but still the nymph and the swain may
be to each other, no other, I warrant you, than Py-
lades and Orestes.

When Lucy decks with flowers her swelling breast,
And on her elbow leans, dissembling rest;

Unable to refrain my adding mind.

Nor sheep nor pasture worth my care I find.

Once Delia slept, on easy moss reclin'd.

Her lovely limbs half bare, and rude the wind:
I smooth'd her coats, and stole a silent kiss:
Condemn me, shepherds, if I did amiss

Such good offices as these, and such friendly thoughts and concerns for one another, are what make up the amity, as they call it, between man and voman.

It is the permission of such intercourse that makes a young woman come to the arms of her husband, after the disappointment of four or five passions which she has successively had for different men, before she is prudentially given to him for whom she has neither love nor friendship. should a poor creature do that has lost all her friends? For what There's Marinet the agreeable has, to my knowledge, had a friendship for Lord Welford, which had like to break her heart: then she had so great a friendship for Colonel Hardy, that she could not endure any woman else should do any thing but rail at him. Many and fatal have been the disasters between friends who have fallen out, and their resentments are more keen than ever those of other men can possibly be but in this it happens unfortunately, that as there ought to be nothing concealed from one friend to another, the friends of different sexes very often find fatal effects from their unanimity.

innocence and tranquillity as I can, I shun the For my part, who study to pass life in as much company of agreeable women as much as possible; and must confess that I have, though a tolerable good philosopher, but a low opinion of Platonic love for which reason I thought it necessary to give my fair readers a caution against it, having, to my great concern, observed the waist of a Platonist lately swell to a roundness which is inconsistent with that philosophy.-T.

No. 401. TUESDAY, JUNE 10, 1712.
In amore hæc omnia insunt vitia: injuriæ,
Suspiciones, inimicitiæ, inducire,
Bellum, pax rursum.-

TER. Eun. act i. sc. I.
It is the capricious state of love, to be attended with injuries,
suspicious, eumities, truces, quarrelling, and reconcilement.
I SHALL publish, for the entertainment of this
day, an odd sort of a packet, which I have just re-
ceived from one of my female correspondents.

"MR. SPECTATOR,

says your favourite author, in an agreeable lover, where there is not too great a disparity in their circumstances, is the greatest blessing that can befal a person beloved; and, if overlooked in one, may per haps never be found in another.'

"I do not, however, at all despair of being very shortly much better beloved by you than Antenor is at present; since, whenever my fortune shall exceed his, you were pleased to intimate your passion would increase accordingly.

"The world has seen me shamefully lose that "Since you have often confessed that you are not time to please a fickle woman, which might have displeased your papers should sometimes convey the been employed much more to my credit and advan complaints of distressed lovers to each other, I am tage in other pursuits. I shall therefore take the in hopes you will favour one who gives you an un- liberty to acquaint you, however harsh it may sound doubted instance of her reformation, and at the same in a lady's ears, that though your love-fit should time a convincing proof of the happy influence your happen to return, unless you could contrive a way labours have had over the most incorrigible part of to make your recantation as well known to the pubthe most incorrigible sex. You must know, Sir, Ilic, as they are already apprised of the manner with am one of that species of women, whom you have which you have treated me, you shall never more see often characterized under the name of jilts,' and that I send you these lines as well to do public pe"PHILANDER." nance for having so long continued in a known error, as to beg pardon of the party offended. I the rather choose this way, because it in some measure answers the terms on which he intimated the breach between us might possibly be made up, as you will see by the letter he sent me the next day after I had discarded him; which I thought fit to send you a copy of, that you might the better know the whole case.

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"SIR

"AMORET TO PHILANDER.

Upon reflection, I find the injury I have done both to you and myself to be so great, that, though the part I now act may appear contrary to that decorum usually observed by our sex, yet I purposely break through all rules, that my repentance may in some measure equal my crime, I assure you, that in my present hopes of recovering you, I look upon Antenor's estate with contempt. The fop was here yesterday in a gilt chariot and new liveries, but I refused to see him. Though I dread to meet your eyes after what has passed, I flatter myself, that, amidst all their confusion, you will discover such a tenderness in mine, as none can imitate but those who love. I shall be all this month at Lady D's in the country; but the woods, the fields, and gardens, without Philander, afford no pleasures to the unhappy

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"AMORET.

I must desire you, dear Mr. Spectator, to publish this my letter to Philander as soon as possible, and to assure him that I know nothing at all of the death of his rich uncle in Gloucestershire."—X.

"I must further acquaint you, that before I jilted him, there had been the greatest intimacy between us for a year and a half together, during all which time I cherished his hopes, and indulged his flame. I leave you to guess, after this, what must be his surprise, when upon his pressing for my full consent one day, I told him I wondered what could make him fancy he had ever any place in my affections. His own sex allow him sense, and all ours goodbreeding. His person is such as might, without vanity, make him believe himself not incapable of being beloved. Our fortunes, indeed, weighed in the nice scale of interest, are not exactly equal, which by the way was the true cause of my jilting him; and I had the assurance to acquaint him with the following maxim, that I should always believe that man's passion to be the most violent, who could offer me the largest settlement. I have since changed my opinion, and have endeavoured to let him know so much by several letters, but the bar- Ipse sibi tradit Spectatorbarous man has refused them all; so that I have no Sent by the Spectator to himself. way left of writing to him but by your assistance. If we can bring him about once more, I promise to ceive from different hands, and persons of different WERE I to publish all the advertisements I resend you all gloves and favours, and shall desire the circumstances and quality, the very mention of them, favour of Sir Roger and yourself to stand as god-without reflections on the several subjects, would fathers, to my first boy.

"I am, Sir,

"Your most obedient humble Servant,
"AMORET."

"PHILANDER TO AMORET.

No. 402.] WEDNESDAY, JUNE 11, 1712. et quæ

HOR. Ars Poet. 181

raise all the passions which can be felt by human minds. As instances of this, I shall give you two or three letters; the writers of which can have no recourse to any legal power for redress, and seem to have written rather to vent their sorrow than to receive consolation.

"MR. SPECTATOR,

"MADAM, "I am so surprised at the question you were pleased to ask me yesterday, that I am still at a loss "I am a young woman of beauty and quality, and what to say to it. At least my answer would be too suitably married to a gentleman who dotes on me. long to trouble you with, as it would come from a But this person of mine is the object of an unjust person, who it seems is so very indifferent to you. passion in a nobleman who is very intimate with my Instead of it, I shall only recommend to your consi- husband. This friendship gives him very easy ac deration, the opinion of one whose sentiments on cess, and frequent opportunities of entertaining me these matters I have often heard you say are ex-apart. My heart is in the utmost anguish, and my tremely just. A generous and constant passion,' face is covered over with confusion, when I impart

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