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"I was lately at a tea-table, where some young ladies entertained the company with a relation of a coquette in the neighborhood, who had been discovered practicing before her glass. To turn the discourse, which from being witty grew to be malicious, the matron of the family took occasion from the subject to wish that there were to be found among men such faithful monitors to dress the mind by, as we consult to adorn the body. She added that, if a sincere friend were miraculously changed into a looking glass, she should not be ashamed to ask its advice very often. This whimsical thought worked so much upon my fancy the whole evening, that it produced a very odd dream. Methought that, as I stood before my glass, the image of a youth of an open ingenuous aspect appeared in it, who with a shrill voice spoke in the following manner:

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"The looking-glass you see was heretofore a man, even I the unfortunate Fidelio. I had two brothers, whose deformity in shape was made up by the clearness of their understandings. It must be owned, however, that (as it generally happens) they had each a perverseness of humor suitable to their distortion of body. The eldest, whose belly sunk in monstrously, was a great coward: and though his splenetic contracted temper made him take fire immediately, he made objects that beset him appear greater than they were. The second, whose breast swelled into a bold relievo, on the contrary, took great pleasure in lessening every thing, and was perfectly the reverse of his brother. These oddnesses pleased company once or twice, but disgusted when often seen; for which reason, the young gentlemen were sent from court to study mathematics at the university.

"I need not acquaint you; that I was very well made, and reckoned a bright polite gentleman. I was the confidant and darling of all the fair; and if the old and ugly spoke ill of me, all the world knew it was because I scorned to flatter them. No ball, no assembly was attended until I had been consulted. Flavia colored her hair before me, Celia showed me her teeth, Panthea heaved her bosom, Cleora brandished her diamond; I have seen Chloe's foot, and tied artificially the garters of Rhodope.

"It is a general maxim, that those who doat upon themselves can have no violent affection for another: but, on the contrary, I found that the women's passion rose for me in proportion to the love they bore to themselves. This was verified in my amour with Narcissa, who was so constant to me, that it was pleasantly said, had I been little enough, she would have hung me at her girdle. The most dangerous rival I had was a gay empty fellow, who by the strength of a long intercourse with Narcissa, joined to his natural endowments, had formed himself into a perfect resemblance with her I had been discarded, had she not observed the frequently asked my opinion about matters of the last consequence. This made me still more considerable in her eye.

"Though I was eternally caressed by the ladies, such was their opinion of my honor, that I was never envied by the men. A jealous lover of Narcissa one day thought he had caught her in an amorous conversation: for, though he was at such

a distance that he could hear nothing, he imagined strange things from her airs and gestures. Some times with a serene look she stepped back in a listening posture, and brightened into an innocent smile. Quickly after she swelled into an air of majesty and disdain, then kept her eyes half shut after a languishing manner, then covered her blushes with her hand, breathed a sigh, and seemed ready to sink down. In rushed the furious lover: but how great was his surprise to see no one there but the innocent Fidelio, with his back against the wall betwixt two windows.

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It were endless to recount all my adventures. Let me hasten to that which cost me my life, and Narcissa her happiness.

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She had the misfortune to have the small-pox, upon which I was expressly forbid her sight, it being apprehended that it would increase her distemper, and that I should infallibly catch it at the first look. As soon as she was suffered to leave her bed, she stole out of her chamber, and found me all alone in an adjoining apartment. She ran with transport to her darling, and without mixture of fear lest I should dislike her. But oh me! what was her fury when she heard me say, I was afraid and shocked at so loathsome a spectacle! She stepped back, swollen with rage, to see if I had the insolence to repeat it. I did, with this addition, that her ill-timed passion had increased her ugliness. Enraged, inflamed, distracted, she snatched a bodkin and with all her force stabbed me to the heart. Dying, I preserved my sincerity, and expressed the truth, though in broken words; and by reproachful grimaces to the last I mimicked the deformity of my murderess.

"Cupid, who always attends the fair, and pitied the fate of so useful a favorite as I was, obtained of the destinies, that my body should remain incorruptible, and retain the qualities my mind had possessed. I immediately lost the figure of man, and became smooth, polished, and bright, and to this day am the first favorite with the ladies.”—T.

No. 393.] SATURDAY, MAY 31, 1712.

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Nescio qua præter solitum dulcedine læti. VIRG. Georg. i. 412. Unusual sweetness purer joys inspires. LOOKING Over the letters that have been sent me, I chanced to find the following one, which I received about two years ago from an ingenious friend who was then in Denmark:"DEAR SIR,

Copenhagen, May 1, 1710.

"The spring with you has already taken possession of the fields and woods. Now is the season of solitude, and of moving complaints upon trivial sufferings. Now the griefs of lovers begin to flow, and their wounds to bleed afresh. I, too, at this distance from the softer climates, am not without my discontents at present. You perlaps may laugh at me for a most romantic wretch, when I have disclosed to you the occasion of my uneasiness; and yet I cannot help thinking my unhappiness real, in being confined to a region which is the very reverse of Paradise. The seasons here are all of them unpleasant, and the country quite destitute of rural charms. I have not heard a bird sing, nor a brook murmur, nor a breeze whisper, neither have I been blest with the sight of a flowery meadow, these two years. Every wind here 18 a tempest, and every water a turbulent ocean. I hope, when you reflect a little, you will not think the grounds of my complaint in the least frivolous and unbecoming a man of serious thought;

since the love of woods, of fields and flowers, of
rivers and fountains, seems to be a passion im-
planted in our natures the most early of any, even
efore the fair sex had a being.
"I am, Sir," etc.

Could I transport myself with a wish from one country to another, I should choose to pass my winter in Spain, my spring in Italy, my summer in England, and my autumn in France. Of all these seasons there is none that can vie with the spring for beauty and delightfulness. It bears the same figure among the seasons of the year, that the morning does among the divisions of the day, or youth among the stages of life. The English summer is pleasanter than that of any other country in Europe, on no other account but because it has a greater mixture of spring in it. The mildness of our climate, with those frequent refreshments of dews and rains that fall among us, keep up a perpetual cheerfulness in our fields, and fill the hottest months of the year with a lively ver

dure.

In the opening of the spring, when all nature begins to recover herself, the same animal plea sure which makes the birds sing, and the whole brute creation rejoice, rises very sensibly in the heart of man. I know none of the poets who flowings of gladness which diffuse themselves through the mind of the beholder, upon surveying the gay scenes of nature: he has touched upon it twice or thrice in his Paradise Lost, and describes very beautifully under the name of "vernal deight," in that passage where he represents the devil himself as almost sensible of it:

have observed so well as Milton these secret over

Blossoms and fruits at once of golden hue
Appear'd, with gay enamel'd colors mix'd:
On which the sun more glad impress'd his beams
Than in fair evening cloud, or humid bow,
When God had shower'd the earth; so lovely seem'd
That landscape: and of pure now purer air
Meets his approach, and to the heart inspires
Verual delight, and joy able to drive
All sadness, but despair, etc.

Many authors have written on the vanity of the creature, and represented the barrenness of everything in this world, and its incapacity of producing any solid or substantial happiness. As discourses of this nature are very useful to the sensual and voluptuous, those speculations which show the bright side of things, and lay forth those inno cent entertainments which are to be met with among the several objects that encompass us, are no less beneficial to men of dark and melancholy tempers. It was for this reason that I endeavored to recommend a cheerfulness of mind in my two last Saturday's papers, and which I would still inculcate, not only from the consideration of ourselves, and of that Being on whom we depend, nor from the general survey of that universe in which we are placed at present, but from reflections on the particular season in which this paper is written. The creation is a perpetual feast to the mind of a good man: everything he sees cheers and delights him. Providence has imprinted so many smiles on nature, that it is impossible for a mind which is not sunk in more gross and sensual delights, to take a survey of them without several secret sensations of pleasure. The Psalmist has, in several of his divine poems, celebrated those beautiful and agreeable scenes which make the heart glad, and produce in it that vernal delight which I have before taken notice of.

Natural philosophy quickens this taste of the creation, and renders it not only pleasing to the imagination, but to the understanding. It does not rest in the murmur of brooks and the melody

of birds, in the shade of groves and woods, or in the embroidery of fields and meadows; but considers the several ends of Providence which are served by them, and the wonders of divine wis dom which appear in them. It heightens the admiration in the soul, as is little inferior to devopleasures of the eye, and raises such a rational tion.

this kind of worship to the great Author of naIt is not in the power of every one to offer up ture, and to indulge these more refined meditations of heart, which are doubtless highly acceptable in his sight; I shall therefore conclude this short essay on that pleasure which the mind naturally conceives from the present season of the year, by the recommending of a practice for which every

one

has sufficient abilities.

this natural pleasure of the soul, and to improve I would have my readers endeavor to moralize this vernal delight, as Milton calls it, into a Christian virtue. When we find ourselves inspired with this pleasing instinct, this secret satisfacof the creation, let us consider to whom we stand tion and complacency, arising from the beauties indebted for all these entertainments of sense, and who it is that thus opens his hand, and fills the world with good. The Apostle instructs us to take advantage of our present temper of mind, to graft upon it such a religious exercise as is particvises those who are sad to pray, and those who ularly conformable to it, by that precept which adheart which springs up in us from the survey of are merry to sing psalms. The cheerfulness of nature's works, is an admirable preparation for gratitude. The mind has gone a great way toward praise and thanksgiving, that is filled with such a secret gladness-a grateful reflection on the Supreme Cause who produces it, sanctifies it in the soul, and gives it its proper value. Such an habitual disposition of mind consecrates every field and wood, turns an ordinary walk into a morning or evening sacrifice, and will improve those transient gleams of joy which naturally brighten up and refresh the soul on such occasions, into an inviolable and perpetual state of bliss and happiness.-I.

No. 394.] MONDAY, JUNE 2, 1712.

Bene colligitur hæc pueris et mulierculis et servis et servorum simillimis liberis esse grata: gravi vero homini et ea, quæ fiunt, indicio certo ponderanti, probari posse nullo modo.-TULL.

It is obvious to see, that these things are very acceptable to

children, young women, and servants, and to such as most resemble servants; but they can by no means meet with the approbation of people of thought and consideration. I HAVE been considering the little and frivolous things which give men access to one another, and power with each other, not only in the common and indifferent accidents of life, but also in matters of greater importance. You see in elections for members of parliament, how far saluting rows of old women, drinking with clowns, and being upon a level with the lowest part of mankind, ir that wherein they themselves are lowest, their di versions, will carry a candidate. A capacity for prostituting a man's self in his behavior, and de scending to the present humor of the vulgar, is perhaps as good an ingredient as any other for making a considerable figure in the world; and if a man has nothing else or better to think of, he could not make his way to wealth and distinction by properer methods, than studying the particular bent or inclination of people with whom he converses, and working from the observation of such their bias in all matters wherein he has any inter

course with them for his ease and comfort he | The island of Barbadoes (a shrewd people, mamay assure himself, he need not be at the expense nage all their appeals to Great Britain by a skillful. of any great talent or virtue to please even those distribution of citron water* among the whisper-who are possessed of the highest qualifications. ers about men in power. Generous wines do every Pride, in some particular disguise or other (often day prevail, and that in great points, where ten. a secret to the proud man himself), is the most or- thousand times their value would have been re-dinary spring of action among men. You need jected with indignation.

no more than to discover what a man values himself for: then of all things admire that quality, but be sure to be failing in it yourself in comparison of the man whom you court. I have heard or read of a secretary of state in Spain, who served a prince who was happy in an elegant use of the Latin tongue, and often wrote dispatches in it with his own hand. The king showed his secretary a letter he had written to a foreign prince, and under the color of asking his advice, laid a trap for his applause. The honest man read it as a faithful counselor, and not only excepted against his tying himself down too much by some expressions, but mended the phrase in others. You may guess the dispatches that evening did not take much longer time. Mr. Secretary, as soon as he came to his own house, sent for his eldest son, and communicated to him that the family must retire out of Spain as soon as possible; for," said he, "the king knows I understand Latin better than he does."

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This egregious fault in a man of the world, should be a lesson to all who would make their fortunes but a regard must be carefully had to the person with whom you have to do; for it is not to be doubted but a great man of common sense must look with secret indignation, or bridled laughter, on all the slaves who stand round him with ready faces to approve and smile at all he says in the gross. It is good comedy enough to observe a superior talking half sentences, and playing a humble admirer's countenance from one thing to another, with such perplexity, that he knows not what to sneer in approbation of. But this kind of complaisance is peculiarly the manner of courts; in all other places you must constantly go further in compliance with the persons you have to do with, than a mere conformity of looks and gestures. If you are in a country life, and would be a leading man, a good stomach, a loud voice, and a rustic cheerfulness, will go a great way, provided you are able to drink, and drink anything. But I was just now going to draw the manner of behavior I would advise people to practice under some maxim; and intimated, that every one almost was governed by his pride. There was an old fellow about forty years ago so peevish and fretful, though a man of business, that no one could come at him: but he frequented a particular little coffee-house. where he triumphed over everybody at trick-track and backgaminon. The way to pass his office well, was first to be insulted by him at one of those games in his leisure hours; for his vanity was to show that he was a man of pleasure as well as business. Next to this sort of insinuation, which is called in all places from its taking its birth in the households of princes) making one's court, the most prevailing way is, by what better-bred people call a present, the vulgar a bribe. I humbly conceive that such a thing is conveyed with more gallantry in a billet-doux that should be understood at the Bank, than in gross money, but as to stubborn people, who are so surly as to accept of neither note nor cash, having formerly dabbled in chemistry, I can only say, that one part of matter asks one thing, and another another, to make it fluent; but there is nothing but may be dissolved by a proper mean. Thus, the virtue which is too obdurate for gold or paper, shall melt away very kindly in a liquid.

But, to wave the enumeration of the sundry ways of applying by presents, bribes, management of people's passions and affections, in such a manner as it shall appear that the virtue of the best. man is by one method or other corruptible, let us look out for some expedient to turn those passions. and affections on the side of truth and honor. When a man has laid it down for a position, that parting with his integrity, in the minutest circumstance, is losing so much of his very self, self-love will become a virtue. By this means, good and evil will be the only objects of dislike and approbation; and he that injures any man, has effectually wounded the man of this turn as much as if the harm had been to himself. This seems to be the only expedient to arrive at an impartiality: and a man who follows the dictates of truth and right reason, may by artifice be led into error, but never can into guilt.-T.

No. 395.] TUESDAY, JUNE 3, 1712.
Quod nunc ratio est, impetus ante fuit.
OVID. Rem. Amor. 10.

"

"Tis reason now, 'twas appetite before. "BEWARE of the ides of March," said the Roman augur to Julius Cæsar: Beware of the month of May," says the British Spectator to his fair country women. The caution of the first was unhappily neglected, and Cæsar's confidence cost him his life. I am apt to flatter myself that my pretty readers had much more regard to the advice I gave them, since I have yet received very few accounts of any notorious trips made in the last month.

But though I hope for the best, I shall not pronounce too positively on this point, till I have seen forty weeks well over; at which period of time, as my good friend Sir Roger has often told me, he has more business as a justice of peace, among the dissolute young people in the country, than at any other season of the year.

Neither must I forget a letter which I received near a fortnight since from a lady, who, it seems, could hold out no longer, telling me she looked upon the month as then out, for that she had all along reckoned by the new style.

On the other hand, I have great reason to be lieve, from several angry letters which have been sent to me by disappointed lovers, that my advice has been of very signal service to the fair sex, who, according to the old proverb, were "forewarned, forearmed."

One of these gentlemen tells me, that he would have given me a hundred pounds, rather than I should have published that paper; for that his mistress, who had promised to explain herself to him about the beginning of May, upon reading that discourse told him, that she would give him her answer in June,

Thyrsis acquaints me, that when he desired Sylvia to take a walk in the fields, she told him, the Spectator had forbidden her.

Another of my correspondents, who writes himself Mat Meager, complains that, whereas he constantly used to breakfast with his mistress upon

*Then commonly called Barbadoes water.

chocolate, going to wait upon her the first of May, | them against the opposite vice, as they may be he found his usual treat very much changed for overpowered by temptations. It is sufficient for the worse, and has been forced to feed ever since me to have warned them against it, as they may upon green tea. be led astray by instinct.

As I began this critical season with a caveat to I desire this paper may be read with more than the ladies, I shall conclude it with a congratula-ordinary attention, at all tea-tables within the tion, and do most heartily wish them joy of their cities of London and Westminster.-X. happy deliverance.

They may now. reflect with pleasure on the dangers they have escaped, and look back with as much satisfaction on the perils that threatened them, as their great-grandmothers did formerly on the buruing plowshares, after having passed through the ordeal trial. The instigations of the spring are now abated. The nightingale gives over her "lovelabor'd song," as Milton phrases it; the blossoms are fallen, and the beds of flowers swept away by the scythe of the mower.

No. 396.] WEDNESDAY, JUNE 4, 1712.

To MR. SPECTATOR

"From St. John's College, Cambridge, Feb. 3, 1712.

Barbara, Celarent, Darii, Ferio, Baralipton. HAVING a great deal of business upon my hands at present, I shall beg the reader's leave to present him with a letter that I received about half a year ago from a gentleman at Cambridge, who styles himself Peter de Quir. I have kept it by me some I shall now allow my fair readers to return to months; and though I did not know at first what their romances and chocolate, provided they make to make of it, upon my reading it over very freuse of them with moderation, till about the mid-quently I have at last discovered several conceits dle of the month, when the sun shall have made in it: I would not therefore have my reader dissome progress in the Crab. Nothing is more couraged if he does not take them! at the first dangerous than too much confidence and security. perusal. The Trojans, who stood upon their guard all the while the Grecians lay before their city, when they fancied the siege was raised, and the danger past, were the very next night burnt in their beds. I must also observe, that as in some climates there is a perpetual spring, so in some female constitutions there is a perpetual May. These are a kind of valetudinarians in chastity whom I would continue in a constant diet. I cannot think these wholly out of danger, till they have looked upon the other sex at least five years through a pair of spectacles. Will Honeycomb has often assured me that it is easier to steal one of this species, when she is passed her grand climateric, than to carry off an icy girl on this side five-and-nical account of his lapse to punning, for he betwenty and that a rake of his acquaintance, who had in vain endeavored to gain the affections of a young lady of fifteen, had at last made his fortune by running away with her grandmother. But as I do not design this speculation for the evergreens of the sex, I shall again apply myself to those who would willingly listen to the dictates of reason and virtue, and can now hear me in cold blood. If there are any who have forfeited their innocence, they must now consider themselves under that melancholy view in which Chamont regards his sister, in those beautiful

lines.

-Long she flourish'd,

Grew sweet to sense, and lovely to the eye,
Till at the last a cruel spoiler came,

Cropt this fair rose, and rifled all its sweetness,
Then cast it, like a loathsome weed, away.

"The monopoly of puns in this university has been an immemorial privilege of the Johnians; and we cannot help resenting the late invasion of our ancient right as to that particular, by a little pretender to clenching in a neighboring college, who in application to you by way of letter, a while ago, styled himself Philobrune. Dear Sir, as you are by character a professed well-wisher to speculation you will excuse a remark which this gentleman's passion for the brunette has suggested to

a brother theorist: it is an offer toward a mecha

longs to a set of mortals who value themselves upon an uncommon mystery in the more humane and polite parts of letters.

gives a very odd turn to the intellectuals of the "A conquest by one of this species of females captivated person, and very different from that of another, more emphatically of the fair sex, does way of thinking which a triumph from the eyes generally occasion. It fills the imagination with an assemblage of such ideas and pictures as are hardly anything but shade, such as night, the devil, etc. These portraitures very near overpower the light of the understanding, almost benight the faculties, and give that melancholy tineture to the most sanguine complexion, which this gentleman calls an inclination to be in a brownstudy, and is usually attended with worse conse. On the contrary she who has observed the timely quences, in case of a repulse. During this wicautions I gave her, and lived up to the rules of light of intellects, the patient is extremely apt, as modesty, will now flourish like "a rose in June," love is the most witty passion in nature, to offer with all her virgin blushes and sweetness about at some pert sallies now and then, by way of her. I must, however, desire these last to consi-flourish, upon the amiable enchantress, and under, how shameful it would be for a general, who created (to speak in Miltonic) kind of wit, vul fortunately stumbles upon that mongrel mis has made a successful campaign, to be surprised in his winter quarters. It would be no less dis- garly termed the pun. It would not be much amiss to consult Dr. T- W (who is honorable for a lady to lose, in any other month of the year, what she has been at the pains to pre- of divinity and spiritual mechanics obtains very certainly a very able projector, and whose system serve in May. much among the better part of our under graduates) whether a general intermarriage, enjoined olive-beauties and the fraternity of the people by parliament, between this sisterhood of the called Quakers, would not be a very serviceable expedient, and abate the overflow of light which shines with them so powerfully, that it dazzles

There is no charm in the female sex that can

supply the place of virtue. Without innocence beauty is unlovely, and quality contemptible; good breeding degenerates into wantonness, and wit into impudence. It is observed, that all

the virtues are represented by both painters and statuaries under female shapes; but if any one of them has a more particular title to that sex, it is modesty. I shall leave it to the divines to guard

* The students of St. John's College.

their eyes, and dances them into a thousand vagaries of error and enthusiasm. These reflections may impart some light toward a discovery of the origin of punning among us, and the foundation of its prevailing so long in this famous body. It is notorious, from the instance under consideration, that it must be owing chiefly to the use of brown jugs, muddy belch, and the fumes of a certain memorable place of rendezvous with us at meals, known by the name of Staincoat Hole: for the atmosphere of the kitchen, like the tail of a comet, predominates least about the fire, but resides behind, and fills the fragrant receptacle above-mentioned. Beside, it is further observable, that the delicate spirits among us, who declare against these nauseous proceedings, sip tea, and put up for critic and amour, profess likewise an equal abhorrence for punning, the ancient innocent diversion of this society. After all, Sir, though it may appear something absurd that I seem to approach you with the air of an advocate for punning (you who have justified your censures of the practice in a set dissertation upon that subject *) yet I am confident you will think it abundantly atoned for by observing, that this humbler exercise may be as instrumental in diverting us from any innovating schemes and hypotheses in wit, as dwelling upon honest orthodox logic would be in securing us from heresy in religion. Had Mr. Wn's researches been confined within the bounds of Ramus or Crackenthorp, that learned newsmonger might have acquiesced in what the holy oracles pronounced upon the de luge, like other Christians; and had the surprising Mr. Ly been content with the employment of refining upon Shakspeare's points and quibbles (for which he must be allowed to possess a superlative genius), and now and then penning a catch or a ditty, instead of inditing odes and sonnets, the gentlemen of the bon goût in the pit would never have been put to all that grimace in damning the frippery of state, the poverty and languor of thought, the unnatural wit, and inartificial structure of his dramas.

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Her grief inspired her then with eloquence.

As the Stoic philosophers discard all passions in general, they will not allow a wise man so much as to pity the afflictions of another. "If thou seest thy friend in trouble," says Epictetus, "thou mayest put on a look of sorrow, and condole with him, but take care that thy sorrow be not real." The more rigid of this sect would not comply so far as to show even such outward appearance of grief; but, when one told them of any calamity that had befallen even the nearest of their acquaintance, would immediately reply, "What is that to me?" If you aggravated the circumstances of the affliction, and showed how one misfortune was followed by another, the answer was still, "all this may be true, but what is

it to me!"

For my own part, I am of opinion compassion does not only refine and civilize human nature, but has something in it more pleasing and agree

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able than what can be met with in such an indolent happiness, such an indifference to mankind, as that in which the Stoics place their wisdom. As love is the most delightful passion, pity is nothing else but love softened by a degree of sorrow. In short, it is a kind of pleasing anguish, as well as generous sympathy, that knits man kind together, and blends them in the same com mon lot.

Those who have laid down rules for rhetoric or poetry advise the writer to work himself up, if possible to the pitch of sorrow which he endea vors to produce in others. There are none therefore who stir up pity so much as those who indite their own sufferings. Grief has a natural eloquence belonging to it, and breaks out in more moving sentiments than can be supplied by the finest imagination. Nature on this occasion dictates a thousand passionate things which cannot be supplied by art.

It is for this reason that the short speeches or sentences which we often meet with in histories make a deeper impression on the mind of the reader than the most labored strokes in a wellwritten tragedy. Truth and matter of fact sets the person actually before us in the one, whom fiction places at a greater distance from us in the other. I do not remember to have seen any ancient or modern story more affecting than a letter of Ann of Boulogne, wife to King Henry the Eighth, and mother to Queen Elizabeth, which is still extant in the Cotton library, as written by her own hand.

Shakspeare himself could not have made her talk in a strain so suitable to her condition and character. One sees in it the expostulations of a slighted lover, the resentments of an injured woman, and the sorrows of an imprisoned queen. I need not acquaint my reader that this princess was then under prosecution for disloyalty to the king's bed, and that she was afterward publicly beheaded upon the same account; though this prosecution was believed by many to proceed, as she herself intimates, rather from the king's love to Jane Seymour, than from any actual crime in Ann of Boulogne.

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Queen Ann Boleyn's last Letter to King Henry. SIR, Cotton Lib. Otho. C. 10. "Your grace's displeasure and my imprisonment, are things so strange unto me, as what to write, or what to excuse, I am altogether ignorant. Whereas you send unto me (willing me to confess a truth, and so obtain your favor), by such a one, whom you know to be mine ancient professed enemy, I no sooner received this message by him, than I rightly conceived your meaning; and if, as you say, confessing a truth indeed may procure my safety, I shall with all willingness and duty perform your command.

"But let not your grace ever imagine, that your poor wife will ever be brought to acknowledge a fault where not so much as a thought thereof preceded. And to speak a truth, never prince had wife more loyal in all duty, and in all true affection than you have ever found in Ann Boleyn: with which name and place I could willingly have contented myself, if God and your grace's pleasure had been so pleased. Neither did I at any time so far forget myself in my exaltation or received queenship, but that I always looked for such an alteration as now I find; for the ground than your grace's fancy, the least alteration I knew of my preferment being on no surer foundation was fit and sufficient to draw that fancy to some other subject. You have chosen me from a low

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