don, and had not preserved one acquaintance in || it, it was no wonder he had not met with me; that even my dress would let him see that I did not desire to be known by anybody. not know whether it was dead or alive; he then went on" Those resentments wearing off, he sent me several letters, I think he said seven or eight, but received no answer; that then his business obliging him to go to Holland, he came to England as in his way, but found, as above, that his letters had not been called for, but that he left them at the house after paying the postage of them; and going then back to France, he was yet uneasy, and could not refrain the knighterrantry of coming to England again to seek me, though he knew neither where, or of who, to inquire for me, being disappointed in all his inquiries before; that he had yet taken up his residence here, firmly believing that one time or other he should meet me, or hear of me, and that some kind chance would at last throw him in my way; that he had lived thus above four years, and though his hopes were vanished, yet he had not any thoughts of removing any more in the world, unless it should be at last, as it is with other old men, he might have some inclination to go home to die in his own country, but that he had not thought of it yet; that if I would consider all these steps, I would find some reasons to forget his first resentments, and to think that penance, as he called it, which he had undergone in search of me an amende honorable, in reparation of the affront given to the kindness of my letter of invitation; and that we might at last make ourselves some satisfaction on both sides for the mortification past." Then he asked if I had not received some letters from him? I told him, No, he had not thought fit to give me the civility of an answer to the last I wrote to him; and he could not suppose I should expect a return, after a silence in a case where I had laid myself so low, and exposed myself in a manner I had never been used to; that indeed I had never sent for any letters after that to the place where I had ordered his to be directed; and that being so justly, as I thought, punished for my weakness, I had nothing to do but to repent of being a fool, after I had strictly adhered to a just principle before. That however, as what I did was rather from motives of gratitude than from real weakness, however it might be construed by him, I had the satisfaction in myself of having fully discharged the debt. I added, that I had not wanted occasions of all the seeming advancements which the pretended felicity of a marriage life was usually set off with, and might have been what I desired not to name; but that however low I had stooped to him, I had maintained the dignity of female liberty against all the attacks, either of pride or avarice; and that I had been infinitely obliged to him for giving me an opportunity to discharge the only obligation that endangered me without subjecting me to the consequence; and that I hoped he was satisfied I had paid the debt, by offering myself to be I confess I could not hear all this without be. chained, but was infinitely debtor to him anothering moved very much, and yet I continued a little way for letting me remain free. stiff and formal, too, a good while. I told him He was so confounded at this discourse that that before I could give him any reply to the rest he knew not what to say, and for a good while he of his discourse, I ought to give him the satisstood mute indeed; but recovering himself a little, faction of telling him that his son was alive, and he said, "I run out into a discourse he hoped was that indeed, since I saw him so concerned about over and forgotten, and he did not intend to re-it, and mention it with such affection, I was sorry vive it; that he knew I had not had his letters, for that I had not found out some way or other to that when he first came to England he had been let him know it sooner; but that I thought, after at the place to which they were directed, and his slighting the mother, as above, he had sumfound them all lying there but one; and that themed up his affection to the child, in the letter he people had not known how to deliver them; that he thought to have had a direction there how to find me, but had the mortification to be told that they did not so much as know who I was; that he was under a great disappointment, and that I ought to know, in answer to all my resentments, that he had done a long and (he hoped) a sufficient penance for the slight that I had supposed He answered me, that he should have been he had put upon me; that it was true (and I very glad if I had been so good but to have given could not suppose any other) that upon the re-him the satisfaction of knowing the poor unforpulse I had given him in a case so circumstanced tunate creature was yet alive, and he would have as his was, and after such earnest entreaties, and taken some care of it upon himself, and partisuch offers as he had made me, he went away cularly, by owning it for a legitimate child, which, with a mind heartily grieved and full of resent-where nobody had known to the contrary, would ment; that he had looked back on the crime he have taken off the infamy which would otherwise had committed with some regret, but on the cleave to it; and so the child should not, itself, cruelty of my treatment of the poor infant I went have known anything of its own disaster, but that with at that time with the utmost detestation; he feared it was now too late. and that this made him unable to send an agreeable answer to me; for which reason he had sent none at all for some time; but that in about six or seven months those resentments wearing off by the return of his affection to me, and his concern for the poor child-" there he stopped, and indeed tears stood in his eyes, while in a parenthesis he only added, and to this minute he did had wrote to me about providing for it; and that he had, as other fathers often do, looked upon it as a birth which, being out of the way, was to be forgotten, as its beginning was to be repented of; that in providing sufficiently for it, he had done more than all such fathers used to do, and might be well satisfied with it. He added, that I might see by all his conduct since that what unhappy mistake drew him into the thing at first; and that he would have been very far from doing the injury to me, or being instrumental to add une miserable (that was his word) to the world, if he had not been drawn into it by the hopes he had of making me his own; but that, if it was possible to rescue the child from the consequences of its unhappy birth, he hoped I would give him leave to do it, and he would let me see that he had both means and affection still to do it; and that, notwithstanding all the misfortunes that had befallen him, nothing that belonged to him, especially by a mother he had such a concern for as he had for me, should ever want what he was in a condition to do for it. I could not hear this without being sensibly touched with it; I was ashamed that he should show that he had more real affection for the child, though he had never seen it in his life, than I that bore it, for indeed I did not love the child, nor love to see it; and though I had provided for it, yet I did it by Amy's hand, and had not seen it above twice in four years, being privately resolved that when it grew up it should not be able to call me mother. However I told him the child was taken care of, and that he need not be anxious about it, unless he suspected that I had less affection for it than he that had never seen it in his life; that he knew what I had promised him to do for it, namely, to give it the 1,000 pistoles which I had offered him, and which he had declined; that I assured him I had made my will, and that I had left it 5,000l. and the interest of it till he should come of age, if I died before that time; that I would still be as good as that to it; but if he had a mind to take it from me into his government I would not be against it; and to satisfy him that I would perform what I said, I would cause the child to be delivered to him, and the 5,000l. also for its support, depending upon it that he should show himself a father to it by what I saw of his affection to it now. I had observed that he had hinted two or three times in his discourse his having had misfortunes in the world, and I was a little surprised at the expression, especially at the repeating it so often, but I took no notice of that part yet. child away, though the proposal was infinitely to the child's advantage, unless he would promise me that the whole expense should be mine, and that if he did not think 5,000l. enough for the child I would give it more. We had so much discourse upon this and the old affairs, that it took up all our time at his first visit. I was a little importunate with him to tell me how he came to find me out, but he put it off for that time, and only obtaining my leave to visit me again, he went away; and indeed my heart was so full of what he had said already that I was glad when he went away. Sometimes I was full of tenderness and affection for him, and especially when he expressed himself so earnestly and passionately about the child; other times I was crowded with doubts about his circumstances; sometimes I was terrified with apprehensions lest if I should come into a close correspondence with him he should in any way come to hear what kind of life I had led at Pallmall and in other places, and it might make me miserable afterwards; from which last thought I concluded that I had better repulse him again than receive him. All these thoughts and many more crowded in so fast, I say, upon me, that I wanted to give vent to them and get rid of him, and was very glad when he was gone away. We had several meetings after this, in which still we had so many preliminaries to go through that we scarce ever bordered upon the main subject; once, indeed, he said something of it, and I put it off with a kind of jest. "Alas!" says I, "those things are out of the question now; 'tis almost two ages since those things were talked between us," says I. "You see I am grown an old woman since that." Another time he gave a little push at it again, and I laughed again. "Why, what dost thou talk of?" said I, in a formal way, "Dost thou not see I am turned Quaker? I cannot speak of those things now." "Why," says he, "the Quakers marry as well as other people, and love one another as well; besides," says he, "the Quaker's dress does not ill become you," and so jested with me again, and so it went on for a third time; however, I began to be kind to him in process of time, as they call it, and we grew very intimate; and had not the following accident unluckily intervened I had certainly married him, or consented to marry him, the very next time he had asked me. He thanked me for my kindness to the child with a tenderness which showed the sincerity of all he had said before, and which increased the regret with which, as I said, I looked back on the litte affection I had shown to the poor child. He told me he did not desire to take him from me, but so as to introduce him into the world as his own, which he could still do, having lived absent from his other children (for he had two sons and a daughter which were brought up at Nimeguen in Holland with a sister of his) so long that he might very well send another son of ten years old to be bred up with them, and suppose his mother to be dead or alive as he found occasion; and that as I had resolved to do so hand-my business. somely for the child, he would add to it something considerable, though, having had some great disappointments (repeating the words), he could not do for it as he would otherwise have done. I had long waited for a letter from Amy, who, it seems, was just at that time gone to Rouen the second time to make her inquiries about him; and I received a letter from her at this unhappy juncture, which gave me the following account of I I. That for my gentleman whom I had now, as may say, in my arms, she said he had been gone from Paris, as I have hinted, having met with some great losses and misfortunes; that he had been in Holland on that very account, whither he I then thought myself obliged to take notice of had also carried his children; that he was after his having so often mentioned his having met that settled for some time at Rouen; that she with disappointments. I told him I was very had been at Rouen, and found there (by a mere sorry to hear he had met with anything afflicting accident), from a Dutch skipper, that he was at to him in the world; that I would not have any- London, and had been there above three years; thing belonging to me add to his loss, or weaken that he was to be found upon the Exchange, on him in what he might do for his other children; the French Walk, and that he lodged at St Lawand that I would not agree to his having therence Pountney's lane, and the like; so Amy said she supposed I might soon find him out, but that she doubted he was poor, and not worth looking after. This she did because of the next clause, which the jade had most mind to on many accounts. cleared up my doubts too, as to his circumstances, and the misfortunes he had spoken of, I had gone so far, that we had begun to consider where we should live, and in what figure, what equipage, what house, and the like. II. That as to the Prince ; that, as above, he was gone into Germany, where his estate lay; that he had quitted the French service, and lived retired; that she had seen his gentleman, who remained at Paris to solicit his arrears, &c.; that he had given her an account how his lord had employed him to inquire for me, and find me out, as above, and told her what pains he had taken to find me; that he had understood that I was gone to England; that he once had orders to go to England to find me; that his lord had resolved, if he could have found me, to have called me a countess, and so have married me and carried me into Germany with him; and that his commission was still to assure me that the prince would marry me if I would come to him, and that he would send him an account that he had found me, and did not doubt but he would have orders to come over to Eng-how it fared with his friends and his children. land to attend me in a figure suitable to my quality. I had made some harangues upon the delightful retirement of a country life, and how we might enjoy ourselves effectually without the incumbrances of business and the world; but all this was grimace, and purely because I was afraid to make any public appearance in the world, for fear some impertinent person of quality should chop upon me again, and cry out, "Roxana, Roxana, by," with an oath, as had been done before. Amy, an ambitious jade, who knew my weakest part, namely, that I loved great things, and that I loved to be flattered and courted, said abundance of kind things upon this occasion, which she knew were suitable to me, and would prompt my vanity; and talked big of the prince's gentleman having orders to come over to me, with a procuration to marry me by proxy (as princes usually do in like cases), and to furnish me with an equipage, and I know not how many fine things; but told me withal that she had not yet let him know that she belonged to me still, or that she knew where to find me, or to write me; because she was willing to see the bottom of it, and whether it was a reality or a gasconade. She had indeed told him that if he had any such commission she would endeavour to find me out, || but no more. III. For the Jew, she assured me, that she had not been able to come at a certainty what was become of him, or in what part of the world he was; but that thus much she had learned from good hands, that he had committed a crime, in being concerned in a design to rob a rich banker at Paris; and that he was fled, and had not being heard of there for above six years. IV. For that of my husband the brewer, she learned that being commanded into the field upon an occasion of some action in Flanders, he was wounded at the battle of Mons, and died of his wounds in the hospital of the Invalids; so there was an end of my four inquiries, which I sent her over to make. This account of the Prince, and the return of his affection to me, with all the flattering great things which seemed to come along with it; and especially as they came gilded, and set out by my maid Amy; I say this account of the Prince came to me in a very unlucky hour, and in the very crisis of my affairs. The merchant and I had entered into close conferences upon the grand affair. I had left off talking my platonics, and of my independency, and being a free woman as before; and he having My merchant, bred to business, and used to converse among men of business, could hardly tell how to live without it; at least it appeared he would be like a fish out of water, uneasy and dying; but however he joined with me, only argued that we might live as near London as we could, that he might sometimes come to 'Change, and hear how the world should go abroad, and I answered, that if he chose still to embarrass himself with business, I supposed it would be more to his satisfaction to be in his own country, where his family was so well known, and where his children also were. He smiled at the thoughts of that, and let me know, that he should be very willing to embrace such an offer, but that he could not expect it of me, to whom England was, to be sure, so naturalized now, as that it would be carrying me out of my native country, which he would not desire by any means, however agrecable it might be to him. I told him he was mistaken in me; that as I had told him so much of a married state being a captivity, and the family being a house of bondage, that when I married I expected to be but an upper-servant; so if I did, notwithstanding, submit to it, I hoped he should see I knew how to act the servant's part, and do everything to oblige my master; that if I did not resolve to go with him wherever he desired to go, he might depend I would never leave him; “and did I not," said I, "offer myself to go with you to the East Indies?" All this while this was indeed but a copy of my countenance; for as my circumstances would not admit my stay at London, at least not so as to appear publicly, I resolved, if I took him, to live remote in the country, or go out of England with him. But in an evil hour, just now came Amy's letter, in the very middle of all these discourses; and the fine things she had said about the prince, began to make strange work with me; the notion of being a princess, and going over to live where all that happened here would have been quite sunk out of knowledge as well as out of memory (conscience excepted) was mighty taking; the thoughts of being surrounded with domestics, honoured with titles, be called her Highness, and live in all the splendour of a court, and what was still more, in the arms of a man of such rank, and who I knew loved and valued me; all this, in a word, dazzled my eyes, turned my head, and I was as truly crazed and distracted for about a fortnight as most of the people in Bedlam, though perhaps not quite so far gone. || When my gentleman came to me the next time, I had no notion of him, I wished I had never received him at all; in short, I resolved to have no more to say to him, so I feigned myself indisposed; and though I did come down to him,|| and speak to him a little, yet I let him see that I was so ill that I was (as we say) no company, and that it would be kind in him to give me leave to quit him for that time. The next morning he sent a footman to inquire how I did; and I let him know I had a violent cold, and was very ill with it; two days after he came again, and I let him see me again, but feigned myself so hoarse that I could not speak to be heard, and that it was painful to me but to whisper; and, in a word, I held him in this suspense near three weeks. During this time I had a strange elevation upon my mind; and the prince, or the spirit of him, had such a possession of me, that I spent most of this time in the realizing all the great things of a life with the prince to my mind, pleasing my fancy with the grandeur I was supposing myself to enjoy, and withall, wickedly studying in what manner to put off this gentleman, and be rid of him for ever. I cannot but say that sometimes the baseness of the action struck hard with me; the honour and sincerity with which he had always treated me, and, above all, the fidelity he had shewed me at Paris, and that I owed my life to him; I say, all these stared in my face, and I frequently argued with myself upon the obligation I was under to him, and how base would it be, now too, after many obligations and engagements, to cast him off. But the title of highness, and of a princess, and all those fine things, as they came in, weighed down all this; and the sense of gratitude vanished as if it had been a shadow. At other times I considered the wealth I was mistress of; that I was able to live like a princess, though not a princess; and that my merchant (for he had told me all the affair of his misfortunes) was far from being poor, or even mean; that together, we were able to make up an estate of between three and four thousand pounds a year, which was in itself equal to some princes abroad. But though this was true, yet the name of princess, and the flutter of it, in a word, the pride weighed them down; and all these arguings generally ended to the disadvantage of my merchant; so that, in short, I resolved to drop him, and give him final answer at his next coming; namely, that something had happened in my affairs, which had caused me to alter my measures unexpected; and, in a word, to desire him to trouble himself no further. I think verily this rude treatment of him, was for some time the effect of a violent fermentation in my blood; for the very motion which the steady contemplation of my fancied greatness had put my spirits into, had thrown me into a kind of fever, and I scarce knew what I did. I have wondered since that it did not make me mad; nor do I now think it strange to hear of those who have been quite lunatic with the pride, that fancied themselves queens and empresses, and have made their attendants serve them upon the knee, given visitors their hand to kiss, and the like; for certainly if pride will not turn the brain nothing can. However, the next time my gentleman came I had not courage enough, or not ill-nature enough, to treat him in the rude manner I had resolved to do, and it was very well I did not; for soon after I had another letter from Amy, in which was the mortifying news, and indeed surprising to me, that my prince (as I with a secret pleasure had called him) was very much hurt by a bruise he had received in hunting and engaging with a wild boar; a cruel and desperate sport, which the noblemen in Germany, it seems, much delight in. This alarmed me indeed, and the more, because Amy wrote me word that his gentleman was gone away express to him, not without apprehensions that he should find his master was dead before his coming home; but that he (the gentleman) had promised her that so soon as he arrived he would send back the same courier to her with an account of his master's health, and of the main affair; and that he had obliged Amy to stay at Paris fourteen days for his return; she having promised him before to make it her business to go to England and to find me out for his lord if he sent her such orders; and he was to send her a bill for fifty pistoles for her journey. So Amy told me she waited for the answer. This was a blow to me several ways; for, first, I was in a state of uncertainty as to his person, whether he was alive or dead; and I was not unconcerned in that part, I assure you; for I had an inexpressible affection remaining for his person, besides the degree to which it was revived by the view of a firmer interest in him; but this was not all, for in losing him I for ever lost the prospect of all the gaiety and glory that had made such an impression upon my imagi nation. In this state of uncertainty, I say, by Amy's letter, I was like still to remain another fortnight; and had I now continued the resolution of using my merchant in the rude manner I once intended, indeed, and it was very well my heart failed me, I had made perhaps a sorry piece of work of it as it did. However, I treated him with a great many shuffles, and feigned stories to keep him off from any closer conferences than we had already bad, that I might act afterwards as occasion might offer, one way or other; but that which mortified me most was that Amy did not write, though the fourteen days were expired. At last, to my great surprise, when I was with the utmost impatience looking out at the window, expecting the postman that usually brought the foreign letters, I say, I was agreeably surprised to see a coach come to the yard-gate where we lived, and my woman, Amy, alight out of it and come towards the door, having the coachman bringing several bundles after her. "Is She I flew like lightning down stairs to speak to her, but was soon damped with her news. the prince alive or dead, Amy?" says I. spoke coldly and slightly: "He is alive, Madam," said she, but it is not much matter; I had as lieu he had been dead " So we went up stairs again to my chamber, and there we began a serious discourse of the whole matter. First, she told me a long story of his being hurt by a wild boar, and of the condition he was reduced to, so that every one expected he should die, the anguish of the wound having thrown him into a fever, with abundance of circumstances too long to relate here; how he recovered of that extreme danger, but continued very weak; how the gentleman had been homme de parole, and had sent back the courier as punctually as if it had been to the king; that he had given a long account of his lord, and of his illness and recovery; but the sum of the matter, as to me, was, that as to the lady, his lord was turned penitent, was under some vows for his recovery, and could not think any more on that affair; and especially, the lady being gone, and that it had not been offered to her, so there was no breach of honour, but that his lord was sensible of the good offices of Mrs Amy, and had sent her the fifty pistoles for her trouble, as if she had really gone the journey. I was, I confess, hardly able to bear the first surprise of this disappointment. Amy saw it, and gapes out (as was her way), "Law, madam ! never be concerned at it; you see he is gotten among the priests, and I suppose they have saucily imposed some penance upon him, and it may be, sent him of an errand barefoot to some Madonna or Notredame, or other; and he is off of his amours for the present. I'll warrant you he'll be as wicked again as ever he was when he is got thorough well, and gets but out of their hands again. I hate this out-o'-season repentance; what occasion had he, in his repentance, to be off of taking a good wife? I should have been glad to see you have been a princess, and all that; but if it can't be, never afflict yourself; you are rich enough to be a princess to yourself; you don't want him, that's the best of it." Well, I cried for all that, and was heartily vexed, and that a great while; but as Amy was always at my elbow, and always jogging it out of my head with her mirth and her wit, it wore off again. Then I told Amy all the story of my merchant, and how he had found me out when I was in such a concern to find him; how it was true that he lodged in St Lawrence Pountney's lane; and how I had had all the story of his misfortunes, which she had heard of, in which he had lost above 8,000l. sterling; and that he had told me frankly of it before she had sent me any account of it, or at least before I had taken any notice that I had heard of it. Amy was very joyful at that part. "Well, madam, then," says Amy, "what need you value the story of the prince; and going I know not whither into Germany to lay your bones in another world, and learn the devil's language called High Dutch? You are better here by half," says Amy. "Law, madam," says she, "why, are you not as rich as Crassus?" Well, it was a great while still before I could bring myself off of this fancied sovereignty; and I that was so willing once to be mistress to a king, was now ten thousand times more fond of being wife to a prince. So fast a hold has pride and ambition upon our minds that when once it gets admission, nothing is so chimerical, but, under this possession, we can form ideas in our fancy, and realize them to our imagination. Nothing can be so ridiculous as the simple steps we take in such cases; a man or a woman becomes a mere malade imaginaire, and I believe may as easily die with grief, or run mad with joy (as the affair in his fancy appears right or wrong), as if all was real, and actually under the management of the person. I had indeed two assistants to deliver me from this snare, and these were, first, Amy, who knew my disease, but was able to do nothing as to the remedy; the second, the merchant, who really brought the remedy, but knew nothing of the distemper. I remember when all these disorders were upon my thoughts, in one of the visits my friend the merchant made me, he took notice that he perceived I was under some unusual disorder; he believed, he said, that my distemper, whatever it was, lay much in my head, and it being summer weather, and very hot, proposed to me to go a little way into the air. I started at his expression: "What," says I, "do you think then that I am crazed? You should then propose a madhouse for my cure." "No, no," says he, "I do not mean anything like that; I hope the head may be distempered and not the brain." Well, I was too sensible that he was right, for I knew I had acted a strange wild kind of part with him; but he insisted upon it, and pressed me to go into the country. I took him short again, "What need you," says I, “send me out of your way? It is in your power to be less troubled with me, and with less inconvenience to us both." He took that ill, and told me I used to have a better opinion of his sincerity; and desired to know what he had done to forfeit my charity. I mention this only to let you see how far I had gone in my measures of quitting him, that is to say, how near I was of showing him how base, ungrateful, and how vilely I could act; but I found I had carried the jest far enough, and that a little matter might have made him sick of me again, as he was before; so I began, by little and little, to change my way of talking to him, and to come to discourse to the purpose again, as we had done before. A while after this, when we were very merry, and talking familiarly together, he called me with an air of particular satisfaction, his princess. I coloured at the word, for it indeed touched me to the quick; but he knew nothing of the reason of my being touched with it: "What_d'ye mean by that?" said I. "Nay," says he, "I mean nothing but that you are a princess to me. "Well," says 1, "as to that I am content, and yet I could tell you I might have been a princess if I would have quitted you, and believe I could be so still.""It is not in my power to make you a princess," says he, "but I can easily make you a lady here in England, and a countess toe if you will go out of it." I heard both with a great deal of satisfaction, for my pride remained though it had been baulked. and I thought with myself that this proposal would make some amends for the loss of the title |