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compaffion; as it is the part of improved humanity to humor this honeft pride in our nature, and to relieve the neceffities without offending the delicacy of the diftreffed.

I HAVE feen charity (if charity it might be called) infult with an air of pity, and wound at the fame time that it healed. But I have seen too the highest munificence difpensed with the most refined tenderness, and a bounty conferred with as much address as the most artful would employ in foliciting one. Suffer me, Orontes, upon this fingle occafion, to gratify my own inclinations in violence to yours, by pointing out the particular inftance I have in my view; and allow me, at the fame time, to join my acknowledgments with those of the unfortunate perfon I recommended to your protection, for the generous affistance you lately afforded him. I am, &c.

LETTER

LETTER LXVI.

SHALL

To CLEOR a.

Sept. 5, 1737.

HALL I own to you that I cannot repent of an offence which occafioned me fo agreeable a reproof? A cenfure conveyed in fuch genteel terms, charms more than it corrects, and tempts rather than reforms. I am fure at least, tho' I fhould regret the crime, I shall always admire the rebuke, and long to kifs the hand that chasteneth in fo pleafing a manner. However, I fhall for the future ftrictly pursue your orders, and have sent you in this second parcel no other books than what my own library supplied. Among these you will find a collection of letters. I do not recommend them to you, having never read them; nor indeed am I acquainted with their characters: but they presented themselves to my hands as I was tumbling over fome others; fo I threw them in with the reft, and gave them a chance of adding to your amusement. I wish I could meet with any thing that had

even the least probability of contributing to mine.

But

forlorne of thee,

MILT.

Whether fhall I betake me, where subsist?

Time that reconciles one to most things, has not been able to render your abfence in any degree less uneafy to me. I may rather be faid to haunt the house in which I live, than to make one of the family. I walk in and out of the rooms like a restless spirit : for I never speak till I am spoken to, and then generally answer, like Banquo's ghoft in Macbeth, with a deep figh and a nod. Thus abftracted from every thing about me, I am yet quite ruined for a hermit, and find no more fatisfaction in retirement than you do in the company of ***.

How often do I wish myfelf in poffeffion of that famous ring you were mentioning the other day, which had the property of rendering those who wore it invifible! I would rather be mafter of this wonderful unique, than of the kingdom which Gyges gained by means of it; as I might then attend you like your guardian angel, with

out

like

out cenfure or obftruction. How agreeable would it be to break out upon you, Æneas from his cloud, where you least expected me; and join again the dear companion of my fortunes, in fpite of that relentless power who has raised so many cruel ftorms to destroy us! But whilft I employed this extraordinary ring to these and a thousand other pleasing purposes, you would have nothing to apprehend from my being invested with such an invifible faculty. That innocence which guards and adorns my Cleora in her moft gay and public hours, attends her, I well know, in her most private and retired ones; and the who always acts as under the eye of the Beft of Beings; has nothing to fear from the fecret inspection of any mortal. mortal. Adieu.

LET

LETTER

To EUPHRONIUS.

LXVII.

May 5, 1743

I

my

you received the first account of lofs from other hands than mine; you muft impute it to the dejection of mind into which that accident threw me. The blow, indeed, fell with too much severity, to leave me capable of recollecting myself enough to write to you immediately; as there cannot, perhaps, be a greater shock to a breast of any fenfibility, than to see its earliest and most valuable connexions irreparably broken; than to find itself for ever torn from the first and most endeared object of its highest veneration. At least, the affection and esteem I bore to that excellent

parent, were founded upon fo many and fuch

uncommon motives, that his death has given me occasion to lament not only a most tender father, but a most valuable friend.

THAT I can no longer enjoy the benefit of his animating example, is one among the many aggravating circumftances of my affliction ;

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