charity in you to lend me your assistance in this conjuncture. If after the reading of this letter you find yourself in a humour, rather to rally and ridicule, than to comfort me, I desire you would throw it into the fire, and think no more of it; but if you are touched with my misfortune, which is greater than I know how to bear, your counsels may very much support, and will infinitely oblige the afflicted

LEONORA ''

A disappointment in love is more hard to get over than any other; the passion itself so softens and subdues the heart, that it disables it from struggling or bearing up against the woes and distresses which befal it. The mind meets with other misfortunes in her whole strength; she stands collected within herself, and sustains the shock with all the force which is natural to her; but a heart in love has its foundation sapped, and immediately sinks under the weight of accidents that are disagreeable to its favourite passion.

In afflictions men generally draw their consolations out of books of morality, which indeed are of great use to fortify and strengthen the mind against the impressions of sorrow. Monsieur St. Evremont, who does not approve of this method, recommends authors who are apt to stir up mirth in the mind of the readers, and fancies Don Quixote can give more relief to a heavy heart than Plutarch or Seneca, as it is much easier to divert grief than to conquer it. This doubtless may have its effects on some tempers. I should rather have recourse to authors of a quite contrary kind, that give us instances of calamities and

• Miss Shepheard.

misfortunes, and shew human nature in its greatest distresses.

If the afflictions we groan under be very heavy, we shall find some consolation in the society of as great sufferers as ourselves, especially when we find our companions men of virtue and merit. If our afflictions are light, we shall be comforted by the comparison we make between ourselves and our fellow-sufferers. A loss at sea, a fit of sickness, or the death of a friend, are such trifles when we consider whole kingdoms laid in ashes, families put to the sword, wretches shut up in dungeons, and the like calamities of mankind, that we are out of counte nance for our own weakness, if we sink under such little strokes of fortune.

Let the disconsolate Leonora consider, that at the very time in which she languishes for the loss of her deceased lover, there are persons in several parts of the world just perishing in shipwreck; others cry, ing out for mercy in the terrors of a death-bed repentance; others lying under the tortures of an infamous execution, or the like dreadful calamities; and she will find her sorrows vanish at the appearance of those which are so much greater and more astonishing.

I would further propose to the consideration of my afflicted disciple, that possibly what she now looks upon as the greatest misfortune, is not really such in itself. For my own part, I question not but our souls in a separate state will look back on their lives in quite another view, than what they had of them in the body; and that what they now consider as misfortunes and disappointments, will very often appear to have been escapes and blessings.

The mind that hath any cast towards devotion, paturally flies to it in its afflictions.

When I was in France I heard a very remarkable story of two lovers, which I shall relate at length in my to-morrow's paper, not only because the circumstances of it are extraordinary, but because it may serve as an illustration to all that can be said on this last head, and shew the power of religion in abating that particular anguish which seems to lie so heavy on Leonora. The story was told me by a priest, as I travelled with him in a stage-coach. I shall give it my reader, as well as I can remember, in his own words, after having premised, that if consolations may be drawn from a wrong religion and a misguided devotion, they cannot but flow much more naturally from those which are founded upon reason, and established in good sense.

ADDISON.

L.

N° 164. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 1711.

Alla, quis et me, inquit, miseram, et te perdidit, Orpheu ?
Jamque vale: feror ingenti circumdata nocte,

Invalidasque tibi tendens, heu! non tua, palmas.

VIRG. Georg. iv. ver. 494.

Then thus the bride: What fury seiz'd on thee,
Unhappy man! to lose thyself and me?
And now farewel! involv'd in shades of night,
For ever I am ravish'd from thy sight:
In vain I reach my feeble hands to join
In sweet embraces, ah! no longer thine.

DRYDEN.

CONSTANTIA was a woman of extraordinary wit and beauty, but very unhappy in a father, who, having

arrived at great riches by his own industry, took de-
light in nothing but his money. Theodosius' was
the younger son of a decayed family, of great parts
and learning improved by a genteel and virtuous edu-
cation. When he was in the twentieth year of his
age he became acquainted with Constantia, who had
not then passed her fifteenth. As he lived but a few
miles distant from her father's house, he had frequent
opportunities of seeing her; and by the advantages
of a good person and a pleasing conversation, made
such an impression in her heart as it was impossible
for time to efface. He was himself no less smitten
with Constantia. A long acquaintance made them
still discover new beauties in each other, and by de-
grees raised in them that mutual passion which had
an influence on their following lives. It unfortunately
happened, that in the midst of this intercourse of
love and friendship between Theodosius and Constan-
tia, there broke out an irreparable quarrel between
their parents, the one valuing himself too much upon
his birth, and the other upon his possessions. The
father of Constantia was so incensed at the father of
Theodosius, that he contracted an unreasonable aver-
sion towards his son, insomuch that he forbade him
his house, and charged his daughter upon
her duty
never to see him more. In the mean time, to break
off all communication between the two lovers, who
he knew entertained secret hopes of some favourable
opportunity that should bring them together, he found
out a young gentleman of a good fortune and an
agreeable person, whom he pitched upon as a hus-

"The correspondence of Theodosius and Constantia,” by Dr. Langhorne, was avowedly founded on this paper of the Spectator.

band for his daughter. He soon concerted this affair so well, that he told Constantia it was his design to marry her to such a gentleman, and that her wedding should be celebrated on such a day. Constantia, who was overawed with the authority of her father, and unable to object any thing against so advantageous a match, received the proposal with a profound silence, which her father commended in her, as the most decent manner of a virgin's giving her consent to an overture of that kind. The noise of this intended marriage soon reached Theodosius, who after a long tumult of passions, which naturally rise in a lover's heart on such an occasion, writ the following letter to Constantia,

THE thought of my Constantia, which for some years has been my only happiness, is now become a greater torment to me than I am able to bear. Must I then live to see you another's? The streams, the fields and meadows, where we have so often talked together, grow painful to me; life itself is become a burden. May you long be happy in the world, but forget that there was ever such a man in it as

This letter was conveyed to Constantia that very evening, who fainted at the reading of it; and the next morning she was much more alarmed by two or three. messengers, that came to her father's house one after another to inquire if they had heard any thing of Theodosius, who it seems had left his chamber about midnight, and could no where be found. The deep melancholy which had hung upon his mind some time before made them apprehend the worst that