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LETTER VII.

Bath, 1714.

OU are to understand, Madam, that my paffion for your fair felf and your fifter, has been divided with the most wonderful regularity in the world. Even from my infancy. I have been in love with one after the other of you, week by week, and my journey to Bath fell out in the three hundred feventy-fixth week of the reign of my sovereign lady Sylvia. At the prefent writing hereof it is the three hundred eighty-ninth week of the reign of your inoft ferene majefty, in whofe fervice I was lifted fome weeks before I beheld your fifter. This information will account for my writing to. either of you hereafter, as either Chall happen to be Queen-regent at that time.

Pray tell your fifter, all the good qualities and virtuous inclinations fhe has, never gave me fo much pleasure in her converfation, as that one vice of her obftinacy will give me mortification this month. Ratcliffe coinmands her to the Bath, and she refuses! indeed if I were in Berkshire I should honour her for this obftinacy, and magnify her no lefs for disobedien, ce than we do the Barcelonians. But people change with the change of places (as we fee of late )`and virtues become vices when they cease to be for one's intereft, with me, as with others.

Yet let me tell her, fhe will never look fo finely while she is upon earth, as fhe would here in the water. It is not here as in most other instances, for

thofe ladies that would please extremely, must go out of their own element. She does not make half fo good a figure on horfeback as Chriftina Queen of Sweden; but were she once feen in the Bath, no man would part with her for the best mermaid in Christendom. You know I have feen you often, I perfectly know how you look in black and in white, I have experienced the utmost you can do in colours; but all your movements, all your graceful fteps, deferve not half the glory you night here attain, of a moving and easy behaviour in buckram: Something between swimming and walking, free enough, and more modeftly - halfnaked than you can appear any where elfe. You have conquer'd enough already by land; fhow your ambition, and vanquish alfo by water. The buckram I mention is a dress particularly useful at this time, when, we are told, they are bringing over the fashion of German ruffs: You ought to use yourselves to fome degrees of stiffness beforehand; and when our ladies chins have been tickled a- while with ftarched muflin and wire, they may poffibly bear the brush of a German beard and whisker.

I could tell you a delightful ftory of Doctor P. but want room to display it in all its fhining circumftances. He had heard it was an excellent cure for love, to kiss the Aunt of the person beloved, who is generally of years and experience enough to damp the fiercest flame; he try'd this course in his paffion, and. kiffed Mrs. E at Mr. D-'s, but, he says, it will not de, and that he loves you as much as ever.

Your, &c.

E

LETTER VIII.'

To the fame.

F you afk how the waters agree with me, I muft

If yowa, bove the waters agit question how you

and I should agree if we were in a room by ourfelves. Mrs. has honestly affured me, that but for fome whims which fhe can't entirely conquer, fhe would go and fee the world with me in man's cloaths. Even you, Madam, I fancy (if you would not partake in our adventures) would wait our coming in at the evening with fome impatience, and be well enough pleas'd to hear them by the fire - fide. That would be better than reading romances, unlefs lady M. would be our hiftorian. What 'raifes thefe defires in me, is an acquaintance I am beginning with my lady Sandwich, who has all the fpirit of the last age, and all the gay experience of a pleasurable life. It were as fcandalous an omiffion to come to the Bath and not to see my lady Sandwich, as it had formerly been to have travelled to Rome without vifiting the Queen of Sweden. She is, in a 'word, the belt thing this country has to boast of; and as fhe has been all that a woman of fpirit could be, fo fhe ftill continues that easy and independent creature that a fenfible woman always

will be.

I must tell you a truth, which is not, however, much to my credit. I never thought fo much of yourfelf and your fifter, as fince I have been fourscore miles diftance from you. In the Foreft I look'd upon

you as good neighbours, at London as pretty kind of women, but here as divinities, angels, goddeffes, or what you will. In the fane manner I never knew at what rate I valued your life, till you were upon the point of dying. If Mrs. and you will but fall very fick every feafon, I fhall certainly die for you. Serioufly I value you both so much, that I efteem others much the lefs for your fakes; you have robb'd me of the pleasure of efteeming a thousand pretty qua. lities in them, by fhowing me fo many finer in your. felves. There are but two things in the world which could make you indifferent to me, which, I believe, you are not capable of, I mean ill-nature and malice. I have feen enough of you, not to overlook any frailty you could have, and nothing less than a vice can make me like you lefs. I expect you should difcover by my conduct towards you both, that this is true, and that therefore you should, pardon a thousand things in me for that one difpofition. Expect nothing from mé but truth and freedom, and I fhall always be thought by you what I always am,

Your, &c.

I

LETTER IX.

To the fame.

1714.

Return'd home as flow and as contemplative after I had parted from you, as my Lord * retired from the Court and glory to his Country feat and wife, a

week ago. I found here a dsmal defponding letter from the son of another great courtier who expects the fame fate, and who tells me the great ones of the earth will now take it very kindly of the mean ones, if they will favour them with a vifit by day-light. With what joy would they lay down all their schemes of glory, did they but know you have the generofity to drink their healths once a day, as foon as they are fallen? Thus the unhappy, by the fole merit of their misfortunes, become the care of Heaven and you. I intended to have put this laft into verfe, but in this age of ingratitude my best friends forfake me, I mean my rhymes.

I defire Mrs. P- to ftay her ftomach with these half hundred Plays, till I can procure her a Romance big enough to fatisfy her great foul with adventures. As for Novels, I fear fhe can depend upon none from me but that of my Life, which I am ftill, as I have been, contriving all poffible methods to fhorten, for the grea ter ease both of the historian and the reader. May she believe all the passion and tenderness exprefs'd in these Romances to be but a faint image of what I bear her, and may you (who read nothing) take the fame truth upon hearing it from me. You will both injure me very much, if you don't think me a truer friend, than ever any romantic lover, or any imitator of their style could be.

The days of beauty are as the days of greatness, and fo long all the world are your adorers. I am one of thofe unambitious people, who will love you forty years hence when your eyes begin to twinkle in a reti