fo extended my notion of your value, that I begin to be impious upon that account, and to wifh that even flaughter, ruin, and desolation may interpose between you and the place you defign for; and that you were reftored to us at the expence of a whole people.

Is there no expedient to return you in peace to the bofom of your country? I hear you are come as far as - do you only look back to die twice? is Eurydice once more fnatched to the fhades? If ever mortal had reason to hate the King, it is I, whofe particular misfortune it is, to be almost the only innocent perfon he has made to fuffer; both by his Government at home, and his Negotiations abroad.

If you must go from us, I wifh at least you might pass to your banishment by the most pleasant way; that all the road might be roles and myrtles, and a thousand objects rife round you, agreeable enough to make England less defireable to you. It is not now my intereft to wifh England agreeable: It is highly probable it may ufe me ill enough to drive me from it. Can I think that place my country, where I cannot now call a foot of paternal Earth my own? Yet it may feem fome alleviation, that when the wifest thing I can do is to leave my country, what was moft agreeable in it fhould first be fnatched away from it.

and make

I could overtake you with pleasure in that tour in your company. Every reasonable enter tainment and beautiful view would be doubly engaging when you partook of it. I fhould at least attend you to the fea coaltsy and caft a lait lock after the fails that tranfpotted you. But perhaps I might care as little to ftay behind you; and be full as uneafy to live in a

country where I saw others perfecuted by the rogues of my own religion, as where I was perfecuted myself by the rogues of yours. And it is not impoffible I might run into Afia in fearch of liberty; for who would not rather live a freeman among a nation of flaves, than a flave among a nation of freemen?

Id good earnest, if I knew your motions, and your exact time; I verily think, I fhould be once more happy in a fight of you next spring.

I'll conclude with a wifh, God fend you with us, or me with you.

You

LETTER XXII.

OU will find me more troublesome than ever Brurus did his evil Genius; I fhall meet you in more places than one, and often refresh your memory be fore you arrive at your Philippi. These shadows of me (my letters) will be haunting you from time to time, and putting you in mind of the man who has really fuffer'd very much from you, and whom you have robb'd of the most valuable of his enjoyments, your converfation. The advantage of hearing your fentiments by discovering mine, was what I always thought a great one, and even worth the rifque I generally run of manifefting my own indifcretion. You then rewarded my trust in you the moment it was given, for you pleas'd or inform'd me "the minute you anfwer'd. I must now be contended with more flow returns. However, 'tis fome pleasure, that your thoughts upon paper will be a more lasting poffeffion to me, and that

I fhall no longer have caufe to complain of a lofs I have fo often regretted, that of any thing you faid, which I happen'd to forget. In earnest, Madam, if I were to write to you as often as I think of you, it must be every day of my life. I attend you in spirit thro' all your ways, I follow you through every stage in books of travels, and fear for you thro' whole folio's; you make me fhrink at the paft dangers of dead travellers; and if I read of a delightful prospect, or agreeable place, I hope it yet fubfifts to please you. I enquire the roads, the amufements, the company, of every town and country thro' which you pass, with as much diligence, as if I were to fet out next week to overtake you. In a word, no one can have you more constantly in mind, not even your Guardan-angel (if you have one) and I am willing to indulge fo much Popery as to fancy fome Being takes care of you, who knows your value better than you do yourself: 1 am willing to think that Heaven never gave so much selfneglect and resolution to a woman to occafion her calamity; but am pious enough to believe those qualities must be intended to conduce to her benefit and her glory.

Your firft fhort letter only ferves to fhow me you are alive: it puts me in mind of the first dove that return'd to Noah, and just made him know it had found no rest abroad.

4

There is nothing in it that pleases me, but when you tell me you had no fea-fickness. I beg your next may give me all the pleasure it can, that is, tell me any that you receive. You can make no discoveries that will be half fo valuable to me as thofe of your own

mind. Nothing that regards the states or kingdoms you pass thro', will engage fo much of my curiofity, or concern, as what relates to yourself: Your-wel fare, to say thruth, is more at my heart than that of Christendom.

I am fure I may defend the truth, tho' perhaps not the virtue, of this declaration. One is ignorant, or doubtful at beft, of the merits of differing religions and governments: but private virtues one can be sure of I therefore know what particular Perfon has defert enough to merit being happier than others, but not what Nation deferves to conquer or opprefs another. You will fay, I am not public-spirited; let it be so, I may have too many tendernesses, particular regards, or narrow views; but at the fame time I am certain that whoever wants these, can never have a Public fpirit: for (as a friend of mine fays), how is it poffible for that man, to love twenty-thousand people, who never loved one?

I communicated your letter to Mr. C, he thinks of you and talks of you as he ought, I mean as I do, and one always thinks that to be just as it ought. His health and mine are now so good, that we wish with all our fouls you were a witness of it. We never meet but we lament over you: we pay a kind of weekly rites to your memory, where we ftrow flowers of rhetoric, and offer fuch libations to your name as it would be prophane to call Toafting. The Duke of B- -m`is fometimes the High Priest of your praises; and upon the whole, I believe there are as few men that are not forry at your departure, as women that are for, you know, most of your fex want good fsense, and there

LS

fore muft want generofity: You have so much of both; that, I am fure, you pardon them; for one cannot but forgive whatever one defpifes. For my part I hate a great many women for your fake, and undervalue all the reft. 'Tis you are to blame, and may God revenge it upon you, with all those bleffings and earthly prosperities, which, the Divines tell us, are the cause of our perdition; for if he makes you happy in this world, I dare trust your own virtue to do it in the other. I am

Your, &c.

LETTER XXIII.

To Mrs. ARABELLA

FERMOR.

On her Marriage.

OU are by this time fatisfied how much the ten

Yderners of the fan of merit is to be preferred to

the addreffes of a thoufand. And by this time the Gentlemen you have made choice of is fenfible, how great is the joy of having all those charms and good qualities which have pleased so many, now applied to please one only. It was but juft, that the fame Virtues which gave you reputation, fhould give you happinefs; and I can wifh you no grearer, than that you may receive it in as high a degree yourself, as fo much good humour mult infallibly give it to your hufband.

It may be expected, perhaps, that one who has the title of Poet fhould fay fomething more polite on this