Imatges de pàgina
PDF
EPUB

favour, and he treats me at present the most unreasonably. If you could make him return an obligation which he owes me, in liking a person that is not amiable-But there is, I fear, no possibility of making passion move by the rules of reason and gratitude. But say what you can to one who has survived herself, and knows not how to act in a new being. My lovers are at the feet of my rivals, my rivals are every day bewailing me, and I cannot enjoy what I am, by reason of the distracting reflection upon what I was. Consider the woman I was did not die of old age, but I was taken off in the prime of youth, and according to the course of nature may have forty years after-life to come. I have nothing of myself left, which I like, but that

I am, SIR,

Your most humble servant,

PARTHENISSA.'

When Lewis of France had lost the battle of Ramilies, the addresses to him at that time were full of his fortitude, and they turned his misfortune to his glory; in that, during his prosperity, he could never have manifested his heroic constancy under distresses, and so the world had lost the most eminent part of his character, Parthenissa's condition gives her the same opportunity: and to resign conquests is a task as difficult in a beauty as an hero. In the very entrance upon this work she must burn all her love-letters; or since she is so candid as not to call her lovers, who follow her no longer, unfaithful, it would be a very good beginning of a new life from that of a beauty, to send them back to those who writ them, with this honest inscription, 'Articles of a marriage treaty broken off by the small-pox.' I have known but one instance where a matter of this

kind went on after a like misfortune, where the lady, who was a woman of spirit, writ this billet to her lover:

SIR,

IF you flattered me before I had this terrible malady, pray come and see me now: but, if you sincerely liked me, stay away, for I am not the

same

CORINNA.'

The lover thought there was something so sprightly in her behaviour, that he answered:

[ocr errors][merged small]

I

'I AM not obliged, since you are not the same woman, to let you know whether I flattered you or not; but I assure you I do not, when I tell you now like you above all your sex, and hope you will bear what may befal me when we are both one, as well as you do what happens to yourself now you are single; therefore I am ready to take such a spirit for my companion as soon as you please.

AMILCAR.'

If Parthenissa can now possess her own mind, and think as little of her beauty as she ought to have done when she had it, there will be no great diminution of her charms; and if she was formerly af fected too much with them, an easy behaviour will more than make up for the loss of them. Take the whole sex together, and you find those who have the strongest possession of men's hearts are not eminent for their beauty. You see it often happen that those who engage men to the greatest violence, are such

[ocr errors]

as those who are strangers to them would take to be remarkably defective for that end. The fondest lover I know, said to me one day in a crowd of wo- men at an entertainment of music, You have often heard me talk of my beloved: that woman there,' continued he, smiling, when he had fixed my eye, is her very picture. The lady he shewed me was by much the least remarkable for beauty of any in the whole assembly; but having my curiosity extremely raised, I could not keep my eyes off her. Her eyes at last met mine, and with a sudden surprise she looked round her to see who near her was remarkably handsome that I was gazing at. This little act explained the secret. She did not understand herself for the object of love, and therefore she was so. The lover is a very honest plain man; and what charmed him was a person that goes along with him in the cares and joys of life, not taken up with herself, but sincerely attentive, with a ready and cheerful mind, to accompany him in either.

I can tell Parthenissa for her comfort, that the beauties, generally speaking, are the most impertinent and disagreeable of women. An apparent desire of admiration, a reflection upon their own merit, and a precise behaviour in their general conduct, are almost inseparable accidents in beauties. All you obtain of them, is granted to importunity and solicitation for what did not deserve so much of your time, and you recover from the possession of it, as out of a dream.

You are ashamed of the vagaries of fancy which so strangely misled you, and your admiration of a beauty, merely as such, is inconsistent with a tolerable reflection upon yourself. The cheerful goodhumoured creatures, into whose heads it never entered that they could make any man unhappy, are

the persons formed for making men happy. There is Miss Liddy can dance a jig, raise paste, write a good hand, keep an account, give a reasonable answer, and do as she is bid; while her eldest sister, Madam Martha, is out of humour, has the spleen, learns by reports of people of higher quality new ways of being uneasy and displeased. And this happens for no reason in the world, but that poor Liddy knows she has no such thing as a certain negligence that is so becoming; that there is not I know not what in her air; and that if she talks like a fool, there is no one will say, 'Well! I know not what it is, but every thing pleases when she speaks it.'

Ask any of the husbands of your great beauties, and they will tell you that they hate their wives nine hours of every day they pass together. There is such a particularity for ever affected by them, that they are encumbered with their charms in all they say or do. They pray at public devotions as they are beauties. They converse on ordinary occasions as they are beauties. Ask Belinda what it is o'clock, and she is at a stand whether so great a beauty should answer you. In a word, I think, instead of offering to administer consolation to Parthenissa, I should congratulate her metamorphosis; and however she thinks she was not the least insolent in the prosperity of her charms, she was enough so to find she may make herself a much more agreeable creature in her present adversity. The endeavour to please is highly promoted by a consciousness that the approbation of the person you would be agreeable to, is a favour you do not deserve; for in this case assurance of success is the most certain way to disappointment. Goodnature will always supply the absence of beauty, but beauty cannot long supply the absence of goodnature.

[ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small]

'I HAVE yours of this day, wherein you twice bid me not disoblige you, but you must explain yourself farther, before I know what to do.

[blocks in formation]

Often try what weight you can support,
And what your shoulders are too weak to bear.

ROSCOMMON.

I AM SO well pleased with the following letter, that I am in hopes it will not be a disagreeable present to the public.

6 SIR,

THOUGH I believe none of your readers more admire your agreeable manner of working up trifles than myself, yet as your speculations are now swelling into volumes, and will in all probability pass down to future ages, methinks I would have no single subject in them, wherein the general good of mankind is concerned, left unfinished.

'I have a long time expected with great impatience

« AnteriorContinua »