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intimate friend, who for certain reasons was given out to be dead, while he was preparing to leave his country in quest of adventures. The hero having heard of his friend's death, immediately repaired to his mistress to condole with her and comfort her. Upon his arrival in her garden, he discovered at a distance a man clasped in her arms, and embraced with the most endearing tenderness. What should he do? It did not confist with the gentleness of a knight errant either to kill his mistress, or the man whom she was pleased to favour. At the fame time, it would have spoiled a romance, fhould he have laid violent hands on himself. In short, he immediately entered upon his adventures, and after a long feries of exploits, found out by degrees, that the perfon he faw in his mistress's arms was her own brother, taking leave of her before he left his country, and the embrace fhe gave him nothing else but the affectionate farewell of a fifter: fo that he had at once the two greatest fatisfactions that could enter into the heart of man, in finding his friend alive, whom he thought dead and his miftress faithful, whom he had believed inconftant.

There are indeed some disasters so very fatal, that it is impoffible for any accidents to rectify them. Of this kind was that of poor Lucretia; and yet we fee Ovid has found an expedient even in this cafe. He describes a beautiful and royal virgin walking on the fea-fhore, where she was discovered by Neptune, and violated after a long and unsuccessful importunity. To mitigate her forrow, he offers her whatever she could wish for. Never certainly was the wit of woman more puzzled in finding out a ftratagem to retrieve her honour. Had the defired to be changed into a stock or stone, a beast, fish, or fowl, she would have been a lofer by it or had she defired to have been made a fea-nymph, or a goddess, her immortality would but have perpetuated her difgrace. Give me, therefore, said she, such a shape as may make me incapable of fuffering again the like calamity, or of being reproached for what I have already fuffered. To be short, she was turned into a man, and by that only means avoided the danger and imputation fhe fo much dreaded.

I was once myself in agonies of grief that are unutterable,

and in fo great a distraction of mind, that I thought myself even out of the poffibility of receiving comfort. The occafion was as follows: When I was a youth in a part of the army which was then quartered at Dover, I fell in love with an agreeable young woman, of a good family in those parts, and had the fatisfaction of feeing my addreffes kindly received. which occafioned the perplexity I am going to relate.

We were, in a calm evening, diverting ourselves upon the top of the cliff with the prospect of the fea, and trifling away the time in fuch little fondneffes as are most ridiculous to people in business and most agreeable to those in love.

In the midst of these our innocent endearments, she snatched a paper of verses out of my hand and ran away with them. I was following her, when on a fudden the ground, though at a confiderable distance from the verge of the precipice, funk under her, and threw her down from fo prodigious a height, upon fuch a range of rocks, as would have dashed her into ten thousand pieces, had her body been made of adamant. It is much easier for my reader to imagine my state of mind upon fuch an occafion than for me to exprefs it. I faid to myself, "It is not in the power of heaven to relieve me!" When I awoke, equally transported and astonished, to see myself drawn out of an affliction which, the very moment before, appeared to me altogether inextricable.

The impreffions of grief and horror were fo lively on this occafion, that, while they lafted, they made me more miserable than I was at the real death of this beloved person (which happened a few months after, at a time when the match between us was concluded), inafmuch as the imaginary death was untimely, and I myself in a fort an acceffory; whereas her real decease had at least these alleviations, of being natural and inevitable.

The memory of the dream I have related still dwells fo ftrongly upon me, that I can never read the description of Dover cliff in Shakespeare's tragedy of King Lear, without a fresh sense of my escape. The profpect from that place is drawn with fuch proper incidents, that whoever can read it without growing giddy must have a good head or a very bad or

"Come on, fir, here's the place; ftand ftill! how fearful And dizzy 'tis to caft one's eyes fo low?

The crows and choughs that wing the midway air,
Show fcarce as grofs as beetles. Half-way down
Hangs one that gathers famphire-dreadful trade!
Methinks he feems no bigger than his head.
The fishermen that walk upon the beach
Appear like mice; and yon tall anchoring bark
Diminish'd to her boat; her boat, a buoy
Almoft too fmall for fight. The murmuring furge
(That on th' unnumber'd idle pebble beats)
Cannot be heard fo high. I'll look no more,
Left my brain turn."

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CHAPTER VI.

MARIA DECLARES HER TENDERNESS FOR MR. BICKERSTAFF.

Senilis ftultitia, quæ deliratio appellari folet, fenum levium eft, non omnium.-M. T. Cic.

That which is ufually called dotage is not the foible of all old men, but only of fuch as are remarkable for their levity and incon fancy.

T is my frequent practice to vifit places of refort in this town where I am least known, to obferve what reception my works meet with in the world, and what good effects I may promise myself from my labours; and it being a privilege afferted by Monfieur Montaigne and others, of vain-glorious memory, that we writers of effays may talk of ourselves, I take the liberty to give an account of the remarks which I find are made by fome of my gentle readers upon these my differtations.

I happened this evening to fall into a coffee-house near the 'Change, where two perfons were reading my account of the "Table of Fame." The one of these was commenting as he read, and explaining who was meant by this and the other worthy, as he paffed on. I obferved the perfon over against him wonderfully intent and fatisfied with his explanation. When he came to Julius Cæfar, who is faid to have refused any conductor to the table, "No, no,” said he, "he is in the right of it, he has money enough to be welcome wherever he comes;" and then whispered, "he means a certain colonel of the Train Bands." Upon reading that Aristotle made his

claim with fome rudeness, but great strength of reason, "Who can that be, fo rough and fo reasonable? It must be some Whig, I warrant you. There is nothing but party in these public papers." Where Pythagoras is faid to have a golden thigh, "Ay, ay," faid he, "he has money enough in his breeches; that is the alderman of our ward." You must know, whatever he read, I found he interpreted from his own way of life and acquaintance. I am glad my readers can con ftrue for themselves these difficult points; but, for the benefit of posterity, I defign, when I come to write my last paper of this kind, to make it an explanation of all my former. In that piece you shall have all I have commended, with their proper names. The faulty characters must be left as they are, because we live in an age wherein vice is very general and virtue very particular, for which reafon the latter only wants explanation.

But I must turn my prefent discourse to what is of yet greater regard to me than the care of my writings, that is to fay, the preservation of a lady's heart. Little did I think I should ever have business of this kind on my hands more; but as little as any one who knows me would believe it, there is a lady at this time who profeffes love to me. Her paffion and good humour you shall have in her own words.

"MR. BICKERSTAFF,

“I had formerly a very good opinion of myself, but it is now withdrawn, and I have placed it upon you, Mr. Bickerstaff, for whom I am not afhamed to declare, I have a very great paffion and tenderness. It is not for your face, for that I never faw; your shape and height I am equally a stranger to; but your understanding charms me, and I am loft if you do not diffemble a little love for me. I am not without hopes, because I am not like the tawdry gay things that are fit only to make bone-lace. I am neither childish-young nor bedlamold, but (the world fays) a good agreeable woman.

"Speak peace to a troubled heart, troubled only for you; and in your next paper let me find your thoughts of me.

"Do not think of finding out who I am, for, notwithstand

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