SYLVIA to OCTAVIO.

I find, Octavio, this little gallantry of yours, of shewing me the lover, stands you in very great stead, and serves you upon all occasions for abundance of uses; amongst the rest, it is no small obligation you have to it, for furnishing you with handsome pretences to keep from those who importune you, and from giving them that satisfaction by your counsel and conversation, which possibly the unfortunate may have need of sometimes; and when you are pressed and obliged to render me the friendship of your visits, this necessary ready love of yours is the only evasion you have for the answering a thousand little questions I ask you of Philander; whose heart I am afraid you know much better than Sylvia does. I could almost wish, Octavio, that all you tell me of your passion were true, that my commands might be of force sufficient to compel you to resolve my heart in some doubts that oppress it. And indeed if you would have me believe the one, you must obey me in the other; to which end I conjure you to hasten to me, for something of an unusual coldness in Philander's letter, and some ominous divinations in yours, have put me on a rack of thought; from which nothing but confirmation can relieve me; this you dare not deny, if you value the repose of SYLVIA.

She read it over; and was often about to tear it, fancying it was too kind: but when she considered it was from no other inclination of her heart than that of getting the secrets out of his, she pardoned herself the little levity she found it guilty of; all which, considering as the effects of the violent passion she had for Philander, she found it easy to do; and sealing it she gave it to Antonet to deliver to the page, and set herself down to ease her soul of its heavy weight of grief by her complaints to the dear author of her pain; for when a lover is insupportably afflicted, there is no ease like that of writing to the person loved; and that, all that comes uppermost in the soul: for true love is all unthinking artless speaking, incorrect disorder, and without method, as 'tis without bounds or rules; such were Sylvia's unstudied thoughts, and such her following letter.

SYLVIA to PHILANDER.

Oh my Philander, how hard it is to bring my soul to doubt, when I consider all thy past tender vows, when I reflect how thou hast loved and sworn. Methinks I hear the music of thy voice still whispering in my bosom; methinks the charming softness of thy words remains like lessening echoes of my soul, whose distant voices by degrees decay, till they be heard no more! Alas, I've read thy letter over and over, and turned the sense a thousand several ways, and all to make it speak and look like love—Oh I have flattered it with all my heart. Sometimes I fancied my ill reading spoiled it, and then I tuned my voice to softer notes, and read it over again; but still the words appeared too rough and harsh for any moving air; I which way soever I changed, which way soever I questioned it of love, it answered in such language—as others would perhaps interpret love, or something like it; but I, who've heard the very god himself speak from thy wondrous lips, and known him guide thy pen, when all the eloquence of moving angels flowed from thy charming tongue! When I have seen thee fainting at my feet, (whilst all heaven opened in thy glorious face) and now and then sigh out a trembling word, in which there was contained more love, more soul, than all the arts of speaking ever found; what sense? Oh what reflections must I make on this decay, this strange—this sudden alteration in thee? But that the cause is fled, and the effect is ceased, the god retired, and all the oracles silenced! Confess—oh thou eternal conqueror of my soul, whom every hour, and every tender joy, renders more dear and lovely—tell me why (if thou still lovest me, and lovest as well) does love not dictate to thee as before? Dost thou want words? Oh then begin again, I repeat the old ones over ten thousand times; such repetitions are love's rhetoric! How often have I asked thee in an hour, when my fond soul was doting on thy eyes, when with my arms clasping thy yielding neck, my lips imprinting kisses on thy cheeks, and taking in the breath that sighed from thine? How often have I asked this little but important question of thee? 'Does my Philander love me?' Then kiss thee for thy 'Yes' and sighs, and ask again; and still my soul was ravished with new joy, when thou wouldst answer, 'Yes, I love thee dearly!' And if I thought you spoke it with a tone that seemed less soft and fervent than I wished, I asked so often, till I made thee answer in such a voice as I would wish to hear it; all this had been impertinent and foolish in any thing but love, to any but a lover: but oh—give me the impertinence of love! Talk little nonsense to me all the day, and be as wanton as a playing Cupid, and that will please and charm my love-sick heart better than all fine sense and reasoning.

Tell me, Philander, what new accident, what powerful misfortune has befallen thee, greater than what we have experienced yet, to drive the little god out of thy heart, and make thee so unlike my soft Philander? What place contains thee, or what pleasures ease thee, that thou art now contented to live a tedious day without thy Sylvia? How then the long long age of forty more, and yet thou livest, art patient, tame and well; thou talkest not now of ravings, or of dying, but look'st about thee like a well pleased conqueror after the toils of battle—oh, I have known a time—but let me never think upon it more! It cannot be remembered without madness! What, think thee fallen from love! To think, that I must never hear thee more pouring thy soul out in soft sighs of love? A thousand dear expressions by which I knew the story of thy heart, and while you tell it, bid me feel it panting—never to see thy eyes fixed on my face—till the soft showers of joy would gently fall and hang their shining dew upon thy looks, then in a transport snatch me to thy bosom, and sigh a thousand times ere thou couldst utter—'Ah Sylvia, how I love thee'—oh the dear eloquence those few short words contain, when they are sent with lovers' accents to a soul all languishing! But now—alas, thy love is more familiar grown—oh take the other part of the proverb too, and say it has bred contempt, for nothing less than that your letter shews, but more it does, and that is indifference, less to be borne than hate, or any thing—

At least be just, and let me know my doom: do not deceive the heart that trusted all thy vows, if thou be'st generous—if thou lettest me know—thy date of love—is out (for love perhaps as life has dates) and equally uncertain, and thou no more canst stay the one than the other; yet if thou art so kind for all my honour lost, my youth undone, my beauty tarnished, and my lasting vows, to let me fairly know thou art departing, my worthless life will be the only loss: but if thou still continuest to impose upon my easy faith, and I should any other way learn my approaching fate—look to it Philander,—she that had the courage to abandon all for love and faithless thee, can, when she finds herself betrayed and lost, nobly revenge the ruin of her fame, and send thee to the other world with SYLVIA.

She having writ this, read it over, and fancied she had not spoke half the sense of her soul—fancied if she were again to begin, she could express herself much more to the purpose she designed, than she had done. She began again, and writ two or three new ones, but they were either too kind or too rough; the first she feared would shew a weakness of spirit, since he had given her occasion of jealousy; the last she feared would disoblige if all those jealousies were false; she therefore tore those last she had writ, and before she sealed up the first she read Philander's, letter again, but still ended it with fears that did not lessen those she had first conceived; still she thought she had more to say, as lovers do, who are never weary of speaking or writing to the dear object of their vows; and having already forgotten what she had just said before—and her heart being by this time as full as ere she began, she took up her complaining pen, and made it say this in the covert of the letter.

Oh Philander! Oh thou eternal charmer of my soul, how fain I would repent me of the cruel thoughts I have of thee! When I had finished this enclosed I read again thy chilling letter, and strove with all the force of love and soft imagination, to find a dear occasion of asking pardon for those fears which press my breaking heart: but oh, the more I read, the more they strike upon my tenderest part,—something so very cold, so careless and indifferent you end your letter with—I will not think of it—by heaven it makes me rave—and hate my little power, that could no longer keep thee soft and kind. Oh if those killing fears (bred by excess of love) are vainly taken up, in pity, my adorable—in pity to my tortured soul convince them, redress the torment of my jealous doubts, and either way confirm me; be kind to her that dies and languishes for thee, return me all the softness that first charmed me, or frankly tell me my approaching fate. Be generous or be kind to the unfortunate and undone

SYLVIA.

She thought she had ended here, but here again she read Philander's letter, as if on purpose to find new torments out for a heart too much pressed already; a sour that is always mixed with the sweets of love, a pain that ever accompanies the pleasure. Love else were not to be numbered among the passions of men, and was at first ordained in heaven for some divine motion of the soul, till Adam, with his loss of Paradise, debauched it with jealousies, fears and curiosities, and mixed it with all that was afflicting; but you'll say he had reason to be jealous, whose woman, for want of other seducers, listened to the serpent, and for the love of change, would give way even to a devil; this little love of novelty and knowledge has been entailed upon her daughters ever since, and I have known more women rendered unhappy and miserable from this torment of curiosity, which they bring upon themselves, than have ever been undone by less villainous men. One of this humour was our haughty and charming Sylvia, whose pride and beauty possessing her with a belief that all men were born to die her slaves, made her uneasy at every action of the lover (whether beloved or not) that did but seem to slight her empire: but where indeed she loved and doted, as now in Philander, this humour put her on the rack at every thought or fancy that he might break his chains, and having laid the last obligation upon him, she expected him to be her slave for ever, and treated him with all the haughty tyranny of her sex, in all those moments when softness was not predominant in her soul. She was chagrin at every thing, if but displeased with one thing; and while she gave torments to others, she failed not to feel them the most sensibly herself; so that still searching for new occasion of quarrel with Philander, she drew on herself most intolerable pains, such as doubting lovers feel after long hopes and confirmed joy; she reads and weeps, and when she came to that part of it that inquired of the health and being of the pledge of love—she grew so tender that she was almost fainting in her chair, but recovering from the soft reflection, and finding she had said nothing of it already, she took her pen again and writ.

You ask me, oh charming Philander, how the pledge of our soft hours thrives: alas, as if it meant to brave the worst of fate! It does advance my sorrows, and all your cruelties have not destroyed that: but I still bear about me the destiny of many a sighing maid, that this (who will, I am sure, be like Philander) will ruin with his looks.

Thou sacred treasure of my soul, forgive me, if I have wronged thy love, adieu.

She made an end of writing this, just when Antonet arrived, and told her Octavio was alighted at the gate, and coming to visit her, which gave her occasion to say this of him to Philander.

I think I had not ended here, but that Octavio, the bravest and the best of friends, is come to visit me. The only satisfaction I have to support my life in Philander's absence. Pay him those thanks that are due to him from me; pay him for all the generous cares he has taken of me; beyond a friend! Almost Philander in his blooming passion, when it was all new and young, and full of duty, could not have rendered me his service with a more awful industry: sure he was made for love and glorious friendship. Cherish him then, preserve him next your soul, for he is a jewel fit for such a cabinet: his form, his parts, and every noble action, shews us the royal race from whence he sprung, and the victorious Orange confesses him his own in every virtue, and in every grace; nor can the illegitimacy eclipse him: sure he was got in the first heat of love, which formed him so a hero—but no more. Philander is as kind a judge as

SYLVIA.

She had no sooner finished this and sealed it, but Octavio came into the chamber, and with such an air, with such a grace and mien he approached her—with all the languishment of soft trembling love in his face, which with the addition of the dress he was that day in, (which was extremely rich and advantageous, and altogether such as pleases the vanity of women,) I have since heard the charming Sylvia say, in spite of her tenderness for Philander, she found a soft emotion in her soul, a kind of pleasure at his approach, which made her blush with some kind of anger at her own easiness. Nor could she have blushed in a more happy season; for Octavio saw it, and it served at once to add a lustre to her paler beauty, and to betray some little kind sentiment, which possessed him with a joy that had the same effects on him: Sylvia saw it; and the care she took to hide her own, served but to increase her blushes, which put her into a confusion she had much ado to reclaim: she cast her eyes to earth, and leaning her cheek on her hand, she continued on her seat without paying him that usual ceremony she was wont to do; while he stood speechless for a moment, gazing on her with infinite satisfaction: when she, to assume a formality as well as she could, rose up and cried, (fearing he had seen too much) 'Octavio, I have been considering after what manner I ought to receive you? And while I was so, I left those civilities unpaid, which your quality and my good manners ought to have rendered you.' 'Ah, madam,' replied he sighing, 'if you would receive me as I merited, and you ought, at least you would receive me as the most passionate lover that ever adored you.' 'I was rather believing,' said Sylvia, 'that I ought to have received you as my foe; since you conceal from me so long what you cannot but believe I am extremely impatient of hearing, and what so nearly concerns my repose.' At this, he only answering with a sigh, she pursued, 'Sure, Octavio, you understand me: Philander's answer to the letter of your confessing passion, has not so long been the subject of our discourse and expectation, but you guess at what I mean?' Octavio, who on all occasions wanted not wit, or reply, was here at a loss what to answer; notwithstanding he had considered before what he would say: but let those in love fancy, and make what fine speeches they please, and believe themselves furnished with abundance of eloquent harangues, at the sight of the dear object they lose them all, and love teaches them a dialect much more prevailing, without the expense of duller thought: and they leave unsaid all they had so floridly formed before, a sigh a thousand things with more success: love, like poetry, cannot be taught, but uninstructed flows without painful study, if it be true; it is born in the soul, a noble inspiration, not a science! Such was Octavio's, he thought it dishonourable to be guilty of the meanness of a lie; and say he had no answer: he thought it rude to say he had one and would not shew it Sylvia; and he believed it the height of ungenerous baseness to shew it. While he remained this moment silent, Sylvia, whose love, jealousy, and impatience endured no delay, with a malicious half smile, and a tone all angry, scorn in her eyes, and passion on her tongue, she cried—'It is well, Octavio, that you so early let me know, you can be false, unjust, and faithless; you knew your power, and in pity to that youth and easiness you found in me, have given a civil warning to my heart. In this I must confess,' continued she, 'you have given a much greater testimony of your friendship for Philander, than your passion for Sylvia, and I suppose you came not here to resolve yourself which you should prefer; that was decided ere you arrived, and this visit I imagine was only to put me out of doubt: a piece of charity you might have spared.' She ended this with a scorn, that had a thousand charms, because it gave him a little hope; and he answered with a sigh, 'Ah, madam, how very easy you find it to entertain thoughts disadvantageous of me: and how small a fault your wit and cruelty can improve to a crime! You are not offended at my friendship for Philander. I know you do not value my life, and my repose so much, as to be concerned who, or what shares this heart that adores you! No, it has not merited that glory; nor dare I presume to hope, you should so much as wish my passion for Sylvia, should surmount my friendship to Philander.' 'If I did,' replied she with a scorn, 'I perceive I might wish in vain.' 'Madam,' answered he, 'I have too divine an opinion of the justice of the charming Sylvia to believe I ought, or could make my approaches to her heart, by ways so base and ungenerous, the result of even tolerated treason is to hate the traitor.' 'Oh, you are very nice, Octavio,' replied Sylvia, 'in your punctilio to Philander; but I perceive you are not so tender in those you ought to have for Sylvia: I find honour in you men, is only what you please to make it; for at the same time you think it ungenerous to betray Philander, you believe it no breach of honour to betray the eternal repose of Sylvia. You have promised Philander your friendship; you have avowed yourself my lover, my slave, my friend, my every thing; and yet not one of these has any tie to oblige you to my interest: pray tell me,' continued she, 'when you last writ to him; was it not in order to receive an answer from him? And was not I to see that answer? And here you think it no dishonour to break your word or promise; by which I find your false notions of virtue and honour, with which you serve yourselves, when interest, design, or self-love makes you think it necessary.' 'Madam,' replied Octavio, 'you are pleased to pursue your anger, as if indeed I had disobeyed your command, or refused to shew you what you imagine I have from Philander:' 'Yes, I do,' replied she hastily; 'and wonder why you should have a greater friendship for Philander, than for Sylvia; especially if it be true that you say, you have joined love to friendship: or are you of the opinion of those that cry, they cannot be a lover and a friend of the same object.' 'Ah, madam,' cried our perplexed lover, 'I beg you to believe, I think it so much more my duty and inclination to serve and obey Sylvia, than I do Philander, that I swear to you, oh charming conqueress of my soul, if Philander have betrayed Sylvia, he has at the same time betrayed Octavio, and that I would revenge it with the loss of my life: in injuring the adorable Sylvia, believe me, lovely maid, he injures so much more than a friend, as honour is above the inclinations; if he wrong you, by heaven he cancels all! He wrongs my soul, my honour, mistress, and my sister:' fearing he had said too much, he stopped and sighed at the word sister, and casting down his eyes, blushing with shame and anger, he continued. 'Oh give me leave to say a sister, madam, lest mistress had been too daring and presumptuous, and a title that would not justify my quarrel half so well, since it would take the honour from my just resentment, and blast it with the scandal of self-interest or jealous revenge.' 'What you say,' replied she, 'deserves abundance of acknowledgement; but if you would have me believe you, you ought to hide nothing from me; and he, methinks, that was so daring to confess his passion to Philander, may after that, venture on any discovery: in short, Octavio, I demand to see the return you have from Philander, for possibly—' said she, sweetening her charming face into a smile designed, 'I should not be displeased to find I might with more freedom receive your addresses, and on the coldness of Philander's reasoning may depend a great part of your fate, or fortune: come, come, produce your credentials, they may recommend your heart more effectually than all the fine things you can say; you know how the least appearance of a slight from a lover may advance the pride of a mistress; and pride in this affair will be your best advocate.' Thus she insinuated with all her female arts, and put on all her charms of looks and smiles, sweetened her mouth, softened her voice and eyes, assuming all the tenderness and little affectations her subtle sex was capable of, while he lay all ravished and almost expiring at her feet; sometimes transported with imagined joys in the possession of the dear flattering charmer, he was ready to unravel all the secrets of Philander's letter; but honour yet was even above his passion, and made him blush at his first hasty thought; and now he strove to put her off with all the art he could, who had so very little in his nature, and whose real love and perfect honour had set him above the little evasions of truth, who scorned in all other cases the baseness and cowardice of a lie; and so unsuccessful now was the little honest cheat, which he knew not how to manage well, that it was soon discovered to the witty, jealous, and angry Sylvia: so that after all the rage a passionate woman could express, who believed herself injured by the only two persons in the world from whom she expected most adoration; she had recourse to that natural and softening aid of her sex, her tears; and having already reproached Octavio with all the malice of a defeated woman, she now continued it in so moving a manner, that our hero could no longer remain unconquered by that powerful way of charming, but unfixed to all he had resolved, gave up, at least, a part of the secret, and owned he had a letter from Philander; and after this confession knowing very well he could not keep her from the sight of it; no, though an empire were rendered her to buy it off; his wit was next employed how he should defend the sense of it, that she might not think Philander false. In order to this, he, forcing a smile, told her, that Philander was the most malicious of his sex, and had contrived the best stratagem in the world to find whether Sylvia still loved, or Octavio retained his friendship for him: 'And but that,' continued he, 'I know the nature of your curious sex to be such, that if I should persuade you not to see it, it would but the more inflame your desire of seeing it; I would ask no more of the charming Sylvia, than that she would not oblige me to shew what would turn so greatly to my own advantage: if I were not too sensible, it is but to entrap me, that Philander has taken this method in his answer. Believe me, adorable Sylvia, I plead against my own life, while I beg you not to put my honour to the test, by commanding me to shew this letter, and that I join against the interest of my own eternal repose while I plead thus.' She hears him with a hundred changes of countenance. Love, rage, and jealousy swell in her fierce eyes, her breath beats short, and she was ready to burst into speaking before he had finished what he had to say; she called up all the little discretion and reason love had left her to manage herself as she ought in this great occasion; she bit her lips, and swallowed her rising sighs; but he soon saw the storm he had raised, and knew not how to stand the shock of its fury; he sighs, he pleads in vain, and the more he endeavours to excuse the levity of Philander, the more he rends her heart, and sets her on the rack; and concluding him false, she could no longer contain her rage, but broke out into all the fury that madness can inspire, and from one degree to another wrought her passion to the height of lunacy: she tore her hair, and bit his hands that endeavoured to restrain hers from violence; she rent the ornaments from her fair body, and discovered a thousand charms and beauties; and finding now that both his strength and reason were too weak to prevent the mischiefs he found he had brought on her, he calls for help: when Brilliard was but too ready at hand, with Antonet, and some others who came to his assistance. Brilliard, who knew nothing of the occasion of all this, believed it the second part of his own late adventure, and fancied that Octavio had used some violence to her; upon this he assumes the authority of his lord, and secretly that of a husband or lover, and upbraiding the innocent Octavio with his brutality, they fell to such words as ended in a challenge the next morning, for Brilliard appeared a gentleman, companion to his lord; and one whom Octavio could not well refuse: this was not carried so silently but Antonet, busy as she was about her raving lady, heard the appointment, and Octavio quitted the chamber almost as much disturbed as Sylvia, whom, with much ado they persuaded him to leave; but before he did so, he on his knees offered her the letter, and implored her to receive it; so absolutely his love had vanquished his nobler part, that of honour. But she attending no motions but those of her own rage, had no regard either to Octavio's proffer, or his arguments of excuse; so that he went away with the letter in all the extremity of disorder. This last part of his submission was not seen by Brilliard; who immediately left the chamber, upon receiving Octavio's answer to his challenge; so that Sylvia was now left with her woman only; who by degrees brought her to more calmness; and Brilliard, impatient to hear the reproaches he hoped she would give Octavio when she was returned to reason, being curious of any thing that might redound to his disadvantage, whom he took to be a powerful rival, returned again into her chamber: but in lieu of hearing what he wished, Sylvia being recovered from her passion of madness, and her soul in a state of thinking a little with reason, she misses Octavio in the crowd, and with a voice her rage had enfeebled to a languishment, she cried—surveying carefully those about her, 'Oh where is Octavio? Where is that angel man: he who of all his kind can give me comfort?' 'Madam,' replied Antonet, 'he is gone; while he was here, he kneeled and prayed in vain, but for a word, or look; his tears are yet remaining wet upon your feet, and all for one sensible reply, but rage had deafened you; what has he done to merit this?' 'Oh Antonet,' cried Sylvia——'It was what he would not do, that makes me rave; run, haste and fetch him back——but let him leave his honour all behind: tell him he has too much consideration for Philander, and none for my repose. Oh, Brilliard,——Have I no friend in view dares carry a message from me to Octavio? Bid him return, oh instantly return——I die, I languish for a sight of him——descending angels would not be so welcome——Why stand ye still——have I no power with you——Will none obey——' Then running hastily to the chamber door, she called her page to whom she cried——'Haste, haste, dear youth, and find Octavio out, and bring him to me instantly: tell him I die to see him.' The boy, glad of so kind a message to so liberal a lover, runs on his errand, while she returns to her chamber, and endeavours to recollect her senses against Octavio's coming as much as possibly she could: she dismisses her attendant with different apprehensions; sometimes Brilliard believed this was the second part of her first raving, and having never seen her thus, but for Philander, concludes it the height of tenderness and passion for Octavio; but because she made so public a declaration of it, he believed he had given her a philtre, which had raised her flame so much above the bounds of modesty and discretion; concluding it so, he knew the usual effects of things of that nature, and that nothing could allay the heat of such a love but possession; and easily deluded with every fancy that flattered his love, mad, stark-mad, by any way to obtain the last blessing with Sylvia, he consults with Antonet how to get one of Octavio's letters out of her lady's cabinet, and feigning many frivolous reasons, which deluded the amorous maid, he persuaded her to get him one, which she did in half an hour after; for by this time Sylvia being in as much tranquillity as it was possible a lover could be in, who had the hopes of knowing all the secrets of the false betrayer, she had called Antonet to dress her; which she resolved should be in all the careless magnificence that art or nature could put on; to charm Octavio wholly to obedience, whom she had sent for, and whom she expected! But she was no sooner set to her toilet, but Octavio's page arrived with a letter from his master, which she greedily snatched, and read this:

OCTAVIO to SYLVIA.

By this time, oh charming Sylvia, give me leave to hope your rage is abated, and your reason returned, and that you will hear a little from the most unfortunate of men, whom you have reduced to this miserable extremity of losing either the adorable object of his soul, or his honour: if you can prefer a little curiosity that will serve but to afflict you, before either that or my repose, what esteem ought I to believe you have for the unfortunate Octavio: and if you hate me, as it is evident, if you compel me to the extremity of losing my repose or honour, what reason or argument have I to prefer so careless a fair one above the last? It is certain you neither do nor can love me now; and how much below that hope shall the exposed and abandoned Octavio be, when he shall pretend to that glory without his honour? Believe me, charming maid, I would sacrifice my life, and my entire fortune at your least command to serve you; but to render you a devoir that must point me out the basest of my sex, is what my temper must resist in spite of all the violence of my love; and I thank my happier stars, that they have given me resolution enough, rather to fall a sacrifice to the last, than be guilty of the breach of the first: this is the last and present thought and pleasure of my soul; and lest it should, by the force of those divine ideas which eternally surround it, be soothed and flattered from its noble principles, I will to-morrow put myself out of the hazard of temptation, and divert if possible, by absence, to the campaign, those soft importunate betrayers of my liberty, that perpetually solicit in favour of you: I dare not so much as bid you adieu, one sight of that bright angel's face would undo me, unfix my nobler resolution, and leave me a despicable slave, sighing my unrewarded treason at your insensible feet: my fortune I leave to be disposed by you; but the more useless necessary I will for ever take from those lovely eyes, you can look on nothing with joy, but the happy Philander: if I have denied you one satisfaction, at least I have given you this other, of securing you eternally from the trouble and importunity of, madam, your faithful

OCTAVIO.

This letter to any other less secure of her power than was our fair subject, would have made them impatient and angry; but she found that there was something yet in her power, the dispensation of which could soon recall him from any resolution he was able to make of absenting himself. Her glass stood before her, and every glance that way was an assurance and security to her heart; she could not see that beauty, and doubt its power of persuasion. She therefore took her pen, and writ him this answer, being in a moment furnished with all the art and subtlety that was necessary on this occasion.

SYLVIA to Octavio.

My Lord,

Though I have not beauty enough to command your heart; at least allow me sense enough to oblige your belief, that I fancy and resent all that the letter contains which you have denied me, and that I am not of that sort of women, whose want of youth or beauty renders so constant to pursue the ghost of a departed love: it is enough to justify my honour, that I was not the first aggressor. I find myself pursued by too many charms of wit, youth, and gallantry, to bury myself beneath the willows, or to whine away my youth by murmuring rivers, or betake me to the last refuge of a declining beauty, a monastery: no, my lord, when I have revenged and recompensed myself for the injuries of one inconstant, with the joys a thousand imploring lovers offer, it will be time to be weary of a world, which yet every day presents me new joys; and I swear to you, Octavio, that it was more to recompense what I owed your passion, that I desired a convincing proof of Philander's falsehood, than for any other reason, and you have too much wit not to know it; for what other use could I make of the secret? If he be false he is gone, unworthy of me, and impossible to be retrieved; and I would as soon dye my sullied garments, and wear them over again, as take to my embraces a reformed lover, the native first lustre of whose passion is quite extinct, and is no more the same; no, my lord, she must be poor in beauty, that has recourse to shifts so mean; if I would know the secret, by all that is good it were to hate him heartily, and to dispose of my person to the best advantage; which in honour I cannot do, while I am unconvinced of the falseness of him with whom I exchanged a thousand vows of fidelity; but if he unlink the chain, I am at perfect liberty; and why by this delay you should make me lose my time, I am not able to conceive, unless you fear I should then take you at your word, and expect the performance of all the vows of love you have made me——If that be it—my pride shall be your security, or if other recompense you expect, set the price upon your secret, and see at what rate I shall purchase the liberty it will procure me; possibly it may be such as may at once enfranchise me, and revenge me on the perjured ingrate, than which nothing can be a greater satisfaction to

SYLVIA.

She seals this letter with a wafer, and giving it to Antonet to give the page, believing she had writ what would not be in vain to the quick-sighted Octavio; Antonet takes both that and the other which Octavio had sent, and left her lady busy in dressing her head, and went to Brilliard's chamber, who thought every moment an age till she came, so vigorous he was on his new design. That which was sent to Octavio, being sealed with a wet wafer, he neatly opens, as it was easy to do, and read, and sealed again, and Antonet delivered it to the page. After receiving what pay Brilliard could force himself to bestow upon her, some flatteries of dissembled love, and some cold kisses, which even imagination could not render better, she returned to her lady, and he to his stratagem, which was to counterfeit a letter from Octavio; she having in hers given him a hint, by bidding him set a price upon the secret, which he had heard was that of a letter from Philander, with all the circumstances of it, from the faithless Antonet, whom love had betrayed; and after blotting much paper to try every letter through the alphabet, and to produce them like those of Octavio, which was not hard for a lover of ingenuity, he fell to the business of what he would write; and having finished it to his liking, his next trouble was how to convey it to her; for Octavio always sent his by his page, whom he could trust. He now was certain of love between them; for though he often had persuaded Antonet to bring him letters, yet she could not be wrought on till now to betray her trust; and what he long apprehended, he found too true on both sides, and now he waited but for an opportunity to send it seasonably, and in a lucky minute. In the mean time Sylvia adorns herself for an absolute conquest, and disposing herself in the most charming, careless, and tempting manner she could devise, she lay expecting her coming lover, on a repose of rich embroidery of gold on blue satin, hung within-side with little amorous pictures of Venus descending in her chariot naked to Adonis, she embracing, while the youth, more eager of his rural sports, turns half from her in a posture of pursuing his dogs, who are on their chase: another of Armida, who is dressing the sleeping warrior up in wreaths of flowers, while a hundred little Loves are playing with his gilded armour; this puts on his helmet too big for his little head, that hides his whole face; another makes a hobby-horse of his sword and lance; another fits on his breast-piece, while three or four little Cupids are seeming to heave and help him to hold it an end, and all turned the emblems of the hero into ridicule. These, and some either of the like nature, adorned the pavilion of the languishing fair one, who lay carelessly on her side, her arm leaning on little pillows of point of Venice, and a book of amours in her other hand. Every noise alarmed her with trembling hope that her lover was come, and I have heard she said, she verily believed, that acting and feigning the lover possessed her with a tenderness against her knowledge and will; and she found something more in her soul than a bare curiosity of seeing Octavio for the letter's sake: but in lieu of her lover, she found herself once more approached with a billet from him, which brought this.

OCTAVIO to SYLVIA.

Ah, Sylvia, he must be more than human that can withstand your charms; I confess my frailty, and fall before you the weakest of my sex, and own I am ready to believe all your dear letter contains, and have vanity enough to wrest every hopeful word to my own interest, and in favour of my own heart: what will become of me, if my easy faith should only flatter me, and I with shame should find it was not meant to me, or if it were, it was only to draw me from a virtue which has been hitherto the pride and beauty of my youth, the glory of my name, and my comfort and refuge in all extremes of fortune; the eternal companion, guide and counsellor of all my actions: yet this good you only have power to rob me of, and leave me exposed to the scorn of all the laughing world; yet give me love! Give me but hope in lieu of it, and I am content to divest myself of all besides.

Perhaps you will say I ask too mighty a rate for so poor a secret. But even in that there lies one of my own, that will more expose the feebleness of my blood and name, than the discovery will me in particular, so that I know not what I do, when I give you up the knowledge you desire. Still you will say all this is to enhance its value, and raise the price: and oh, I fear you have taught my soul every quality it fears and dreads in yours, and learnt it to chaffer for every thought, if I could fix upon the rate to sell it at: and I with shame confess I would be mercenary, could we but agree upon the price; but my respect forbids me all things but silent hope, and that, in spite of me and all my reason, will predominate; for the rest I will wholly resign myself, and all the faculties of my soul, to the charming arbitrator of my peace, the powerful judge of love, the adorable Sylvia; and at her feet render all she demands; yes, she shall find me there to justify all the weakness this proclaims; for I confess, oh too too powerful maid, that you have absolutely subdued

Your OCTAVIO.

She had no sooner read this letter, but Antonet, instead of laying it by, carried it to Brilliard, and departed the chamber to make way for Octavio, who she imagined was coming to make his visit, and left Sylvia considering how she should manage him to the best advantage, and with most honour acquit herself of what she had made him hope; but instead of his coming to wait on her, an unexpected accident arrived to prevent him; for a messenger from the Prince came with commands that he should forthwith come to His Highness, the messenger having command to bring him along with him: so that not able to disobey, he only begged time to write a note of business, which was a billet to Sylvia to excuse himself till the next day; for it being five leagues to the village where the Prince waited his coming, he could not return that night; which was the business of the note, with which his page hasted to Sylvia. Brilliard, who was now a vigilant lover, and waiting for every opportunity that might favour his design, saw the page arrive with the note; and, as it was usual, he took it to carry to his conqueress; but meeting Antonet on the stairs, he gave her what he had before counterfeited with such art, after he had opened what Octavio had sent, and found fortune was wholly on his side, he having learned from the page besides, that his lord had taken coach with Monsieur——to go to His Highness, and would not return that night: Antonet, not knowing the deceit, carried her lady the forged letter, who opened it with eager haste, and read this.

To the Charming SYLVIA.

Madam,

Since I have a secret, which none but I can unfold, and that you have offered at any rate to buy it of me, give me leave to say, that you, fair creature, have another secret, a joy to dispense, which none but you can give the languishing Octavio: if you dare purchase this of mine, with that infinitely more valuable one of yours, I will be as secret as death, and think myself happier than a fancied god! Take what methods you please for the payment, and what time, order me, command me, conjure me, I will wait, watch, and pay my duty at all hours, to snatch the most convenient one to reap so ravishing a blessing. I know you will accuse me with all the confidence and rudeness in the world: but oh! consider, lovely Sylvia, that that passion which could change my soul from all the course of honour, has power to make me forget that nice respect your beauty awes me with, and my passion is now arrived at such a height, it obeys no laws but its own; and I am obstinately bent on the pursuit of that vast pleasure I fancy to find in the dear, the ravishing arms of the adorable Sylvia: impatient of your answer, I am, as love compels me, madam, your slave,

OCTAVIO.

The page, who waited no answer, was departed: but Sylvia, who believed he attended, was in a thousand minds what to say or do: she blushed, as she read, and then looked pale with anger and disdain, and, but that she had already given her honour up, it would have been something more surprising: but she was used to questions of that nature, and therefore received this with so much the less concern; nevertheless, it was sufficient to fill her soul with a thousand agitations; but when she would be angry, the consideration of what she had writ to him, to encourage him to this boldness, stopped her rage: when she would take it ill, she considered his knowledge of her lost fame, and that took off a great part of her resentment on that side; and in midst of all she was raving for the knowledge of Philander's secret. She rose from the bed, and walked about the room in much disorder, full of thought and no conclusion; she is ashamed to consult of this affair with Antonet, and knows not what to fix on: the only thing she was certain of, and which was fully and undisputably resolved in her soul, was never to consent to so false an action, never to buy the secret at so dear a rate; she abhors Octavio, whom she regards no more as that fine thing which before she thought him; and a thousand times she was about to write her despite and contempt, but still the dear secret stayed her hand, and she was fond of the torment: at last Antonet, who was afflicted to know the cause of this disorder, asked her lady if Octavio would not come; 'No,' replied Sylvia, blushing at the name, 'nor never shall the ungrateful man dare to behold my face any more.' 'Jesu,' replied Antonet, 'what has he done, madam, to deserve this severity?' For he was a great benefactor to Antonet, and had already by his gifts and presents made her a fortune for a burgomaster. 'He has,' said Sylvia, 'committed such an impudence as deserves death from my hand:' this she spoke in rage, and walked away cross the chamber. 'Why, madam,' cried Antonet,'does he deny to give you the letter?' 'No,' replied Sylvia, 'but asks me such a price for it, as makes me hate myself, that am reduced by my ill conduct to addresses of that nature:' 'Heavens, madam, what can he ask you to afflict you so!' 'The presumptuous man,' said she, (in rage) 'has the impudence to ask what never man, but Philander, was ever possessed of——' At this, Antonet laughed—'Good lord, madam,' said she, 'and are you angry at such desires in men towards you? I believe you are the first lady in the world that was ever offended for being desirable: can any thing proclaim your beauty more, or your youth, or wit? Marry, madam, I wish I were worthy to be asked the question by all the fine dancing, dressing, song-making fops in town.' 'And you would yield,' replied Sylvia. 'Not so neither,' replied Antonet, 'but I would spark myself, and value myself the more upon it.' 'Oh,' said Sylvia, 'she that is so fond of hearing of love, no doubt but will find some one to practise it with.' 'That is as I should find myself inclined,' replied Antonet. Sylvia was not so intent on Antonet's raillery, but she employed all her thought the while on what she had to do: and those last words of Antonet's jogged a thought that ran on to one very advantageous, at least her present and first apprehension of it was such: and she turned to Antonet, with a face more gay than it was the last minute, and cried, 'Prithee, good wench, tell me what sort of man would soonest incline you to a yielding:' 'If you command me, madam, to be free with your ladyship,' replied Antonet, 'I must confess there are two sorts of men that would most villainously incline me: the first is he that would make my fortune best; the next, he that would make my pleasure; the young, the handsome, or rather the well-bred and good-humoured; but above all, the man of wit.' 'But what would you say, Antonet,' replied Sylvia, 'if all these made up in one man should make his addresses to you?' 'Why then most certainly, madam,' replied Antonet, 'I should yield him my honour, after a reasonable siege.' This though the wanton young maid spoke possibly at first more to put her lady in good humour, than from any inclination she had to what she said; yet after many arguments upon that subject, Sylvia, cunning enough to pursue her design, brought the business more home, and told her in plain terms, that Octavio was the man who had been so presumptuous as to ask so great a reward as the possession of herself for the secret she desired; and, after a thousand little subtleties, having made the forward girl confess with blushes she was not a maid, she insinuated into her an opinion, that what she had done already (without any other motive than that of love, as she confessed, in which interest had no part) would make the trick the easier to do again, especially if she brought to her arms a person of youth, wit, gallantry, beauty, and all the charming qualities that adorn a man, and that besides she should find it turn to good account; and for her secrecy she might depend upon it, since the person to whose embraces she should submit herself, should not know but that she herself was the woman: 'So that,' says Sylvia, 'I will have all the infamy, and you the reward every way with unblemished honour.' While she spoke, the willing maid gave an inward pleasing attention, though at first she made a few faint modest scruples: nor was she less joyed to hear it should be Octavio, whom she knew to be rich, and very handsome; and she immediately found the humour of inconstancy seize her; and Brilliard appeared a very husband lover in comparison of this new brisker man of quality; so that after some pros and cons the whole matter was thus concluded on between these two young persons, who neither wanted wit nor beauty; and both crowed over the little contrivance, as a most diverting piece of little malice, that should serve their present turn, and make them sport for the future. The next thing that was considered was a letter which was to be sent in answer, and that Sylvia being to write with her own hand begot a new doubt, insomuch as the whole business was at a stand: for when it came to that point that she herself was to consent, she found the project look with a face so foul, that she a hundred times resolved and unresolved. But Philander filled her soul, revenge was in her view, and that one thought put her on new resolves to pursue the design, let it be never so base and dishonourable: 'Yes,' cried she at last, 'I can commit no action that is not more just, excusable and honourable, than that which Octavio has done to me, who uses me like a common mistress of the town, and dares ask me that which he knows he durst not do, if he had not mean and abject thoughts of me; his baseness deserves death at my hand, if I had courage to give it him, and the least I can do is to deceive the deceiver. Well then, give me my escritoire,' says she; so, sitting down, she writ this, not without abundance of guilt and confusion; for yet a certain honour, which she had by birth, checked the cheat of her pen.

* * * * *

SYLVIA to OCTAVIO.

The price, Octavio, which you have set upon your secret, I (more generous than you) will give your merit, to which alone it is due: if I should pay so high a price for the first, you would believe I had the less esteem for the last, and I would not have you think me so poor in spirit to yield on any other terms. If I valued Philander yet—after his confirmed inconstancy, I would have you think I scorn to yield a body where I do not give a soul, and am yet to be persuaded there are any such brutes amongst my sex; but as I never had a wish but where I loved, so I never extended one till now to any but Philander; yet so much my sense of shame is above my growing tenderness, that I could wish you would be so generous to think no more of what you seem to pursue with such earnestness and haste. But lest I should retain any sort of former love for Philander, whom I am impatient to rase wholly from my soul, I grant you all you ask, provided you will be discreet in the management: Antonet therefore shall only be trusted with the secret; the outward gate you shall find at twelve only shut to, and Antonet wait you at the stairs-foot to conduct you to me; come alone. I blush and gild the paper with their reflections, at the thought of an encounter like this, before I am half enough secured of your heart. And that you may be made more absolutely the master of mine, send me immediately Philander's letter enclosed, that if any remains of chagrin possess me, they may be totally vanquished by twelve o'clock.

SYLVIA.

She having, with much difficulty, writ this, read it to her trusty confidante; for this was the only secret of her lady's she was resolved never to discover to Brilliard, and to the end he might know nothing of it she sealed the letter with wax: but before she sealed it, she told her lady, she thought she might have spared abundance of her blushes, and have writ a less kind letter; for a word of invitation or consent would have served as well. To which Sylvia replied, her anger against him was too high not to give him all the defeat imaginable, and the greater the love appeared, the greater would be the revenge when he should come to know (as in time he should) how like a false friend she had treated him. This reason, or any at that time would have served Antonet, whose heart was set upon a new adventure, and in such haste she was (the night coming on a-pace) to know how she should dress, and what more was to be done, that she only went out to call the page, and meeting Brilliard (who watched every body's motion) on the stair-case, he asked her what that was; and she said, to send by Octavio's page: 'You need not look in it,' said she (when he snatched it hastily out of her hand:) 'For I can tell you the contents, and it is sealed so, it must be known if you unrip it.' 'Well, well,' said he, 'if you tell it me, it will satisfy my curiosity as well; therefore I'll give it the page.' She returns in again to her lady, and he to his own chamber to read what answer the dear object of his desire had sent to his forged one: so opening it, he found it such as his soul wished, and was all joy and ecstasy; he views himself a hundred times in the glass, and set himself in order with all the opinion and pride, as if his own good parts had gained him the blessing; he enlarged himself as he walked, and knew not what to do, so extremely was he ravished with his coming joy; he blessed himself, his wit, his stars, his fortune; then read the dear obliging letter, and kissed it all over, as if it had been meant to him; and after he had forced himself to a little more serious consideration, he bethought himself of what he had to do in order to this dear appointment: he finds in her letter, that in the first place he was to send her the letter from Philander: I told you before he took Octavio's letter from the page, when he understood his lord was going five leagues out of town to the prince. Octavio could not avoid his going, and wrote to Sylvia; in which he sent her the letter Philander writ, wherein was the first part of the confession of his love to Madam the Countess of Clarinau: generously Octavio sent it without terms; but Brilliard slid his own forged one into Antonet's hand in lieu of it, and now he read that from Philander, and wondered at his lord's inconstancy; yet glad of the opportunity to take Sylvia's heart a little more off from him, he soon resolved she should have the letter, but being wholly mercenary, and fearing that either when once she had it, it might make her go back from her promised assignation, or at least put her out of humour, so as to spoil a great part of the entertainment he designed: he took the pains to counterfeit another billet to her, which was this.

* * * * *

To SYLVIA.

Madam,

Since we have begun to chaffer, you must give me leave to make the best of the advantage I find I have upon you; and having violated my honour to Philander, allow the breach of it in some degree on other occasions; not but I have all the obedience and adoration for you that ever possessed the soul of a most passionate and languishing lover: but, fair Sylvia, I know not whether, when you have seen the secret of the false Philander, you may not think it less valuable than you before did, and so defraud me of my due. Give me leave, oh wondrous creature! to suspect even the most perfect of your sex; and to tell you, that I will no sooner approach your presence, but I will resign the paper you so much wish. If you send me no answer, I will come according to your directions: if you do, I must obey and wait, though with that impatience that never attended a suffering lover, or any but, divine creature, your OCTAVIO.

This he sealed, and after a convenient distance of time carried as from the page to Antonet, who was yet contriving with her lady, to whom she gives it, who read it with abundance of impatience, being extremely angry at the rudeness of the style, which she fancied much altered from what it was; and had not her rage blinded her, she might easily have perceived the difference too of the character, though it came as near to the like as possible so short a practice could produce; she took it with the other, and tore it in pieces with rage, and swore she would be revenged; but, after calmer thoughts, she took up the pieces to keep to upbraid him with, and fell to weeping for anger, defeat and shame; but the April shower being past, she returned to her former resentment, and had some pleasure amidst all her torment of fears, jealousies, and sense of Octavio's disrespect in the thoughts of revenge; in order to which she contrives how Antonet shall manage herself, and commanding her to bring out some fine point linen, she dressed up Antonet's head with them, and put her on a shift, laced with the same; for though she intended no light should be in the chamber when Octavio should enter, she knew he understood by his touch the difference of fine things from other. In fine, having dressed her exactly as she herself used to be when she received Octavio's visits in bed, she embraced her, and fancied she was much of her own shape and bigness, and that it was impossible to find the deceit: and now she made Antonet dress her up in her clothes, and mobbing her sarsenet hood about her head, she appeared so like Antonet (all but the face) that it was not easy to distinguish them: and night coming on they both long for the hour of twelve, though with different designs; and having before given notice that Sylvia was gone to bed, and would receive no visit that night, they were alone to finish all their business: this while Brilliard was not idle, but having a fine bath made, he washed and perfumed his body, and after dressed himself in the finest linen perfumed that he had, and made himself as fit as possible for his design; nor was his shape, which was very good, or his stature, unlike to that of Octavio: and ready for the approach, he conveys himself out of the house, telling his footman he would put himself to bed after his bathing, and, locking his chamber door, stole out; and it being dark, many a longing turn he walked, impatient till all the candles were out in every room of the house: in the mean time, he employed his thoughts on a thousand things, but all relating to Sylvia; sometimes the treachery he shewed in this action to his lord, caused short-lived blushes in his face, which vanished as soon, when he considered his lord false to the most beautiful of her sex: sometimes he accused and cursed the levity of Sylvia that could yield to Octavio, and was as jealous as if she had indeed been to have received that charming lover; but when his thought directed him to his own happiness, his pulse beat high, his blood flushed apace in his cheeks, his eyes languished with love, and his body with a feverish fit! In these extremes, by turns, he passed at least three tedious hours, with a striking watch in his hand; and when it told it was twelve, he advanced near the door, but finding it shut walked yet with greater impatience, every half minute going to the door; at last he found it yield to his hand that pushed it: but oh, what mortal can express his joy! His heart beats double, his knees tremble, and a feebleness seizes every limb; he breathes nothing but short sighs, and is ready in the dark hall to fall on the floor, and was forced to lean on the rail that begins the stairs to take a little courage: while he was there recruiting himself, intent on nothing but his vast joy; Octavio, who going to meet the Prince, being met halfway by that young hero, was dispatched back again without advancing to the end of his five leagues, and impatient to see Sylvia, after Philander's letter that he had sent her, or at least impatient to hear how she took it, and in what condition she was, he, as soon as he alighted, went towards her house in order to have met Antonet, or her page, or some that could inform him of her welfare; though it was usual for Sylvia to sit up very late, and he had often made her visits at that hour: and Brilliard, wholly intent on his adventure, had left the door open; so that Octavio perceiving it, believed they were all up in the back rooms where Sylvia's apartment was towards a garden, for he saw no light forward. But he was no sooner entered (which he did without noise) but he heard a soft breathing, which made him stand in the hall: and by and by he heard the soft tread of some body descending the stairs: at this he approaches near, and the hall being a marble floor, his tread was not heard; when he heard one cry with a sigh—'Who is there?' And another replied, 'It is I! Who are you?' The first replied, 'A faithful and an impatient lover.' 'Give me your hand then,' replied the female voice, 'I will conduct you to your happiness.' You may imagine in what surprise Octavio was at so unexpected an adventure, and, like a jealous lover, did not at all doubt but the happiness expected was Sylvia, and the impatient lover some one, whom he could not imagine, but raved within to know, and in a moment ran over in his thoughts all the men of quality, or celebrated beauty, or fortune in the town, but was at as great a loss as at first thinking: 'But be thou who thou wilt,' cried he to himself; 'traitor as thou art, I will by thy death revenge myself on the faithless fair one.' And taking out his sword, he had advanced towards the stairs-foot, when he heard them both softly ascend; but being a man of perfect good nature, as all the brave and witty are, he reflected on the severe usage he had from Sylvia, notwithstanding all his industry, his vast expense, and all the advantages of nature. This thought made him, in the midst of all his jealousy and haste, pause a little moment; and fain he would have persuaded himself, that what he heard was the errors of his sense; or that he dreamed, or that it was at least not to Sylvia, to whom this ascending lover was advancing: but to undeceive him of that favourable imagination, they were no sooner on the top of the stairs, but he not being many steps behind could both hear and see, by the ill light of a great sash-window on the stair-case, the happy lover enter the chamber-door of Sylvia, which he knew too well to be mistaken, not that he could perceive who, or what they were, but two persons not to be distinguished. Oh what human fancy, (but that of a lover to that degree that was our young hero,) can imagine the amazement and torture of his soul, wherein a thousand other passions reigned at once, and, maugre all his courage and resolution, forced him to sink beneath their weight? He stood holding himself up by the rails of the stair-case, without having the power to ascend farther, or to shew any other signs of life, but that of sighing; had he been a favoured lover, had he been a known declared lover to all the world, had he but hoped he had had so much interest with the false beauty, as but to have been designed upon for a future love or use, he would have rushed in, and have made the guilty night a covert to a scene of blood; but even yet he had an awe upon his soul for the perjured fair one, though at the same time he resolved she should be the object of his hate; for the nature of his honest soul abhorred an action so treacherous and base: he begins in a moment from all his good thoughts of her to think her the most jilting of her sex; he knew, if interest could oblige her, no man in Holland had a better pretence to her than himself; who had already, without any return, even so much as hope, presented her the value of eight or ten thousand pounds in fine plate and jewels: if it were looser desire, he fancied himself to have appeared as capable to have served her as any man; but oh! he considers there is a fate in things, a destiny in love that elevates and advances the most mean, deformed or abject, and debases and condemns the most worthy and magnificent: then he wonders at her excellent art of dissembling for Philander; he runs in a minute over all her passions of rage, jealousy, tears and softness; and now he hates the whole sex, and thinks them all like Sylvia, than whom nothing could appear more despicable to his present thought, and with a smile, while yet his heart was insensibly breaking, he fancies himself a very coxcomb, a cully, an imposed on fool, and a conceited fop; values Sylvia as a common fair jilt, whose whole design was to deceive the world, and make herself a fortune at the price of her honour; one that receives all kind bidders, and that he being too lavish, and too modest, was reserved the cully on purpose to be undone and jilted out of all his fortune! This thought was so perfectly fixed in him, that he recovered out of his excess of pain, and fancied himself perfectly cured of his blind passion, resolves to leave her to her beastly entertainment, and to depart; but before he did so, Sylvia, (who had conducted the amorous spark to the bed, where the expecting lady lay dressed rich and sweet to receive him) returned out of the chamber, and the light being a little more favourable to his eyes, by his being so long in the dark, he perceived it Antonet, at least such a sort of figure as he fancied her, and to confirm him saw her go into that chamber where he knew she lay; he saw her perfect dress, and all confirmed him; this brought him back almost to his former confusion; but yet he commands his passion, and descended the stairs, and got himself out of the hall into the street; and Sylvia, remembering the street-door was open, went and shut it, and returned to Antonet's chamber with the letter which Brilliard had given to Antonet, as she lay in the bed, believing it Sylvia: for that trembling lover was no sooner entered the chamber, and approached the bed-side, but he kneeled before it, and offered the price of his happiness, this letter, which she immediately gave to Sylvia, unperceived, who quitted the room: and now with all the eager haste of impatient love she strikes a light, and falls to reading the sad contents; but as she read, she many times fainted over the paper, and as she has since said, it was a wonder she ever recovered, having no body with her. By that time she had finished it, she was so ill she was not able to get herself into bed, but threw herself down on the place where she sat, which was the side of it, in such agony of grief and despair, as never any soul was possessed of, but Sylvia's, wholly abandoned to the violence of love and despair: it is impossible to paint a torment to express hers by; and though she had vowed to Antonet it should not at all affect her, being so prepossessed before; yet when she had the confirmation of her fears, and heard his own dear soft words addressed to another object, saw his transports, his impatience, his languishing industry and endeavour to obtain the new desire of his soul, she found her resentment above rage, and given over to a more silent and less supportable torment, brought herself into a high fever, where she lay without so much as calling for aid in her extremity; not that she was afraid the cheat she had put on Octavio would be discovered; for she had lost the remembrance that any such prank was played; and in this multitude of thoughts of more concern, had forgot all the rest of that night's action.

Octavio this while was traversing the street, wrapped in his cloak, just as if he had come from horse; for he was no sooner gone from the door, but his resenting passion returned, and he resolved to go up again, and disturb the lovers, though it cost him his life and fame: but returning hastily to the door, he found it shut; at which being enraged, he was often about to break it open, but still some unperceivable respect for Sylvia prevented him; but he resolved not to stir from the door, till he saw the fortunate rogue come out, who had given him all this torment. At first he cursed himself for being so much concerned for Sylvia or her actions to waste a minute, but flattering himself that it was not love to her, but pure curiosity to know the man who was made the next fool to himself, though the more happy one, he waited all night; and when he began to see the day break, which he thought a thousand years; his eye was never off from the door, and wondered at their confidence, who would let the day break upon them; 'but the close-drawn curtains there,' cried he, 'favour the happy villainy.' Still he walked on, and still he might for any rival that was to appear, for a most unlucky accident prevented Brilliard's coming out, as he doubly intended to do; first, for the better carrying on of his cheat of being Octavio; and next that he had challenged Octavio to fight; and when he knew his error, designed to have gone this morning, and asked him pardon, if he had been returned; but the amorous lover over night, ordering himself for the encounter to the best advantage, had sent a note to a doctor, for something that would encourage his spirits; the doctor came, and opening a little box, wherein was a powerful medicine, he told him that a dose of those little flies would make him come off with wondrous honour in the battle of love; and the doctor being gone to call for a glass of sack, the doctor having laid out of the box what he thought requisite on a piece of paper, and leaving the box open, our spark thought if such a dose would encourage him so, a greater would yet make him do greater wonders; and taking twice the quantity out of the box, puts them into his pocket, and having drank the first with full directions, the doctor leaves him; who was no sooner gone, but he takes those out of his pocket, and in a glass of sack drinks them down; after this he bathes and dresses, and believes himself a very Hercules, that could have got at least twelve sons that happy night; but he was no sooner laid in bed with the charming Sylvia, as he thought, but he was taken with intolerable gripes and pains, such as he had never felt before, insomuch that he was not able to lie in the bed: this enrages him; he grows mad and ashamed; sometimes he had little intermissions for a moment of ease, and then he would plead softly by her bed-side, and ask ten thousand pardons; which being easily granted he would go into bed again, but then the pain would seize him anew, so that after two or three hours of distraction he was forced to dress and retire: but, instead of going down he went softly up to his own chamber, where he sat him down, and cursed the world, himself and his hard fate; and in this extremity of pain, shame and grief, he remained till break of day: by which time Antonet, who was almost as violently afflicted, got her coats on, and went to her own chamber, where she found her lady more dead than alive. She immediately shifted her bed-linen, and made her bed, and conducted her to it, without endeavouring to divert her with the history of her own misfortune; and only asked her many questions concerning her being thus ill: to which the wretched Sylvia only answered with sighs; so that Antonet perceived it was the letter that had disordered her, and begged she might be permitted to see it; she gave her leave, and Antonet read it; but no sooner was she come to that part of it which named the Countess of Clarinau, but she asked her lady if she understood who that person was, with great amazement: at this Sylvia was content to speak, pleased a little that she should have an account of her rival. 'No,' said she, 'dost thou know her?' 'Yes, madam,' replied Antonet, 'particularly well; for I have served her ever since I was a girl of five years old, she being of the same age with me, and sent at six years old both to a monastery; for she being fond of my play her father sent me at that age with her, both to serve and to divert her with babies and baubles; there we lived seven years together, when an old rich Spaniard, the Count of Clarinau, fell in love with my lady, and married her from the monastery, before she had seen any part of the world beyond those sanctified walls. She cried bitterly to have had me to Cologne with her, but he said I was too young now for her service, and so sent me away back to my own town, which is this; and here my lady was born too, and is sister to——' Here she stopped, fearing to tell; which Sylvia perceiving, with a briskness (which her indisposition one would have thought could not have allowed) sat up in bed, and cried, 'Ha! sister to whom? Oh, how thou wouldst please me to say to Octavio.' 'Why, madam, would it please you?' said the blushing maid. 'Because,' said Sylvia, 'it would in part revenge me on his bold addresses to me, and he would also be obliged, in honour to his family, to revenge himself on Philander.' 'Ah, madam,' said she, 'as to his presumption towards you, fortune has sufficiently revenged it;' at this she hung down her head, and looked very foolishly. 'How,' said Sylvia, smiling and rearing herself yet more in her bed, 'is any misfortune arrived to Octavio? Oh, how I will triumph and upbraid the daring man!——tell me quickly what it is; for nothing would rejoice me more than to hear he were punished a little.' Upon this Antonet told her what an unlucky night she had, how Octavio was seized, and how he departed; by which Sylvia believed he had made some discovery of the cheat that was put upon him; and that he only feigned illness to get himself loose from her embraces; and now she falls to considering how she shall be revenged on both her lovers: and the best she can pitch upon is that of setting them both at odds, and making them fight and revenge themselves on one another; but she, like a right woman, could not dissemble her resentment of jealousy, whatever art she had to do so in any other point; but mad to ease her soul that was full, and to upbraid Philander, she writes him a letter; but not till she had once more, to make her stark-mad, read his over again, which he sent Octavio.

SYLVIA to PHILANDER.

Yes, perjured villain, at last all thy perfidy is arrived to my knowledge; and thou hadst better have been damned, or have fallen, like an ungrateful traitor, as thou art, under the public shame of dying by the common executioner, than have fallen under the grasp of my revenge; insatiate as thy lust, false as thy treasons to thy prince, fatal as thy destiny, loud as thy infamy, and bloody as thy party. Villain, villain, where got you the courage to use me thus, knowing my injuries and my spirit? Thou seest, base traitor, I do not fall on thee with treachery, as thou hast with thy king and mistress; to which thou hast broken thy holy vows of allegiance and eternal love! But thou that hast broken the laws of God and nature! What could I expect, when neither religion, honour, common justice nor law could bind thee to humanity? Thou that betrayest thy prince, abandonest thy wife, renouncest thy child, killest thy mother, ravishest thy sister, and art in open rebellion against thy native country, and very kindred and brothers. Oh after this, what must the wretch expect who has believed thee, and followed thy abject fortunes, the miserable out-cast slave, and contempt of the world? What could she expect but that the villain is still potent in the unrepented, and all the lover dead and gone, the vice remains, and all the virtue vanished! Oh, what could I expect from such a devil, so lost in sin and wickedness, that even those for whom he ventured all his fame, and lost his fortune, lent like a state-cully upon the public faith, on the security of rogues, knaves and traitors; even those, I say, turned him out of their councils for a reprobate too lewd for the villainous society? Oh cursed that I was, by heaven and fate, to be blind and deaf to all thy infamy, and suffer thy adorable bewitching face and tongue to charm me to madness and undoing, when that was all thou hadst left thee, thy false person, to cheat the silly, easy, fond, believing world into any sort of opinion of thee; for not one good principle was left, not one poor virtue to guard thee from damnation, thou hadst but one friend left thee, one true, on real friend, and that was wretched Sylvia; she, when all abandoned thee but the executioner, fled with thee, suffered with thee, starved with thee, lost her fame and honour with thee, lost her friends, her parents, and all her beauty's hopes for thee; and, in lieu of all, found only the accusation of all the good, the hate of all the virtuous, the reproaches of her kindred, the scorn of all chaste maids, and curses of all honest wives; and in requital had only thy false vows, thy empty love, thy faithless embraces, and cold dissembling kisses. My only comfort was, (ah miserable comfort,) to fancy they were true; now that it is departed too, and I have nothing but a brave revenge left in the room of all! In which I will be as merciless and irreligious as even thou hast been in all thy actions; and there remains about me only this sense of honour yet, that I dare tell thee of my bold design, a bravery thou hast never shewed to me, who takest me unawares, stabb'st me without a warning of the blow; so would'st thou serve thy king hadst thou but power; and so thou servest thy mistress. When I look back even to thy infancy, thy life has been but one continued race of treachery, and I, (destined thy evil genius) was born for thy tormentor; for thou hast made a very fiend of me, and I have hell within; all rage, all torment, fire, distraction, madness; I rave, I burn, I tear myself and faint, am still a dying, but can never fall till I have grasped thee with me: oh, I should laugh in flames to see thee howling by: I scorn thee, hate thee, loathe thee more than ever I have loved thee; and hate myself so much for ever loving thee, (to be revenged upon the filthy criminal) I will expose myself to all the world, cheat, jilt and flatter all as thou hast done, and having not one sense or grain of honour left, will yield the abandoned body thou hast rifled to every asking fop: nor is that all, for they that purchase this shall buy it at the price of being my bravoes. And all shall aid in my revenge on thee; all merciless and as resolved as I; as I! The injured

SYLVIA.

Having shot this flash of the lightning of her soul, and finished her rant, she found herself much easier in the resolves on revenge she had fixed there: she scorned by any vain endeavour to recall him from his passion; she had wit enough to have made those eternal observations, that love once gone is never to be retrieved, and that it was impossible to cease loving, and then again to love the same person; one may believe for some time one's love is abated, but when it comes to a trial, it shews itself as vigorous as in its first shine, and finds its own error; but when once one comes to love a new object, it can never return with more than pity, compassion, or civility for the first: this is a most certain truth which all lovers will find, as most wives may experience, and which our Sylvia now took for granted, and gave him over for dead to all but her revenge. Though fits of softness, weeping, raving, and tearing, would by turns seize the distracted abandoned beauty, in which extremities she has recourse to scorn and pride, too feeble to aid her too often: the first thing she resolved on, by the advice of her reasonable counsellor, was to hear love at both ears, no matter whether she regard it or not, but to hear all, as a remedy against loving one in particular; for it is most certain, that the use of hearing love, or of making love (though at first without design) either in women or men, shall at last unfix the most confirmed and constant resolution. 'And since you are assured,' continued Antonet, 'that sighs nor tears bring back the wandering lover, and that dying for him will be no revenge on him, but rather a kind assurance that you will no more trouble the man who is already weary of you, you ought, with all your power, industry and reason, rather to seek the preservation of that beauty, of that fine humour, to serve you on all occasions, either of revenge or love, than by a foolish and insignificant concern and sorrow reduce yourself to the condition of being scorned by all, or at best but pitied.' 'How pitied!' cried the haughty Sylvia. 'Is there any thing so insupportable to our sex as pity!' 'No surely,' replied the servant, 'when 'tis accompanied by love: oh what blessed comfort 'tis to hear people cry—"she was once charming, once a beauty." Is any thing more grating, madam?' At this rate she ran on, and left nothing unsaid that might animate the angry Sylvia to love anew, or at least to receive and admit of love; for in that climate the air naturally breeds spirits avaricious, and much inclines them to the love of money, which they will gain at any price or hazard; and all this discourse to Sylvia, was but to incline the revengeful listening beauty to admit of the addresses of Octavio, because she knew he would make her fortune. Thus was the unhappy maid left by her own unfortunate conduct, encompassed in on every side with distraction; and she was pointed out by fate to be made the most wretched of all her sex; nor had she left one faithful friend to advise or stay her youth in its hasty advance to ruin; she hears the persuading eloquence of the flattering maid, and finds now nothing so prevalent on her soul as revenge, and nothing soothes it more; and among all her lovers, or those at least that she knew adored her, none was found so proper an instrument as the noble Octavio, his youth, his wit, his gallantry, but above all his fortune pleads most powerfully with her; so that she resolves upon the revenge, and fixes him the man; whom she now knew by so many obligations was obliged to serve her turn on Philander: thus Sylvia found a little tranquillity, such as it was, in hope of revenge, while the passionate Octavio was wrecked with a thousand pains and torments, such as none but jilted lovers can imagine; and having a thousand times resolved to hate her, and as often to love on, in spite of all——after a thousand arguments against her, and as many in favour of her, he arrived only to this knowledge, that his love was extreme, and that he had no power over his heart; that honour, fame, interest, and whatever else might oppose his violent flame, were all too weak to extinguish the least spark of it, and all the conquest he could get of himself was, that he suffered all his torment, all the hell of raging jealousy grown to confirmation, and all the pangs of absence for that whole day, and had the courage to live on the rack without easing one moment of his agony by a letter or billet, which in such cases discharges the burden and pressures of the love-sick heart; and Sylvia, who dressed, and suffered herself wholly to be carried away by her vengeance, expected him with as much impatience as ever she did the coming of the once adorable Philander, though with a different passion; but all the live-long day passed in expectation of him, and no lover appeared; no not so much as a billet, nor page at her up-rising to ask her health; so that believing he had been very ill indeed, from what Antonet told her of his being so all night, and fearing now that it was no discovery of the cheat put upon him by the exchange of the maid for the mistress, but real sickness, she resolved to send to him, and the rather because Antonet assured her he was really sick, and in a cold damp sweat all over his face and hands which she touched, and that from his infinite concern at the defeat, the extreme respect he shewed her in midst of all the rage at his own disappointment, and every circumstance, she knew it was no feigned thing for any discovery he had made: on this confirmation, from a maid cunning enough to distinguish truth from flattery, she writ Octavio this letter at night.

SYLVIA to OCTAVIO.

After such a parting from a maid so entirely kind to you, she might at least have hoped the favour of a billet from you, to have informed her of your health; unless you think that after we have surrendered all, we are of the humour of most of your sex, who despise the obliger; but I believed you a man above the little crimes and levities of your race; and I am yet so hard to be drawn from that opinion, I am willing to flatter myself, that 'tis yet some other reason that has hindered you from visiting me since, or sending me an account of your recovery, which I am too sensible of to believe was feigned, and which indeed has made me so tender, that I easily forgive all the disappointment I received from it, and beg you will not afflict yourself at any loss you sustained by it, since I am still so much the same I was, to be as sensible as before of all the obligations I have to you; send me word immediately how you do, for on that depends a great part of the happiness of

SYLVIA.

You may easily see by this letter she was not in a humour of either writing love or much flattery; for yet she knew not how she ought to resent this absence in all kinds from Octavio, and therefore with what force she could put upon a soul, too wholly taken up with the thoughts of another, more dear and more afflicting, she only writ this to fetch one from him, that by it she might learn part of his sentiment of her last action, and sent her page with it to him; who, as was usual, was carried directly up to Octavio, whom he found in a gallery, walking in a most dejected posture, without a band, unbraced, his arms a-cross his open breast, and his eyes bent to the floor; and not taking any notice when the pages entered, his own was forced to pull him by the sleeve before he would look up, and starting from a thousand thoughts that oppressed him almost to death, he gazed wildly about him, and asked their business: when the page delivered him the letter, he took it, but with such confusion as he had much ado to support himself; but resolving not to shew his feebleness to her page, he made a shift to get a wax-light that was on the table, and read it; and was not much amazed at the contents, believing she was pursuing the business of her sex and life, and jilting him on; (for such was his opinion of all women now); he forced a smile of scorn, though his soul were bursting, and turning to the page gave him a liberal reward, as was his daily use when he came, and mustered up so much courage as to force himself to say—'Child, tell your lady it requires no answer; you may tell her too, that I am in perfect good health—' He was oppressed to speak more, but sighs stopped him, and his former resolution, wholly to abandon all correspondence with her, checked his forward tongue, and he walked away to prevent himself from saying more: while the page, who wondered at this turn of love, after a little waiting, departed; and when Octavio had ended his walk, and turned, and saw him gone, his heart felt a thousand pangs not to be borne or supported; he was often ready to recall him, and was angry the boy did not urge him for an answer. He read the letter again, and wonders at nothing now after her last night's action, though all was riddle to him: he found it was writ to some happier man than himself, however he chanced to have it by mistake; and turning to the outside, viewed the superscription, where there happened to be none at all, for Sylvia writ in haste, and when she did it, it was the least of her thoughts: and now he believed he had found out the real mystery, that it was not meant to him; he therefore calls his page, whom he sent immediately after that of Sylvia, who being yet below (for the lads were laughing together for a moment) he brought him to his distracted lord; who nevertheless assumed a mildness to the innocent boy, and cried, 'My child, thou hast mistaken the person to whom thou shouldst have carried the letter, and I am sorry I opened it; pray return it to the happy man it was meant to,' giving him the letter. 'My lord,' replied the boy, 'I do not use to carry letters to any but your lordship: it is the footmen's business to do that to other persons.' 'It is a mistake, where ever it lies,' cried Octavio, sighing, 'whether in thee, or thy lady——' So turning from the wondering boy he left him to return with his letter to his lady, who grew mad at the relation of what she heard from the page, and notwithstanding the torment she had upon her soul, occasioned by Philander, she now found she had more to endure, and that in spite of all her love-vows and resentments, she had something for Octavio to which she could not give a name; she fancies it all pride, and concern for the indignity put on her beauty: but whatever it was, this slight of his so wholly took up her soul, that she had for some time quite forgot Philander, or when she did think on him it was with less resentment than of this affront; she considers Philander with some excuse now; as having long been possessed of a happiness he might grow weary of; but a new lover, who had for six months incessantly lain at her feet, imploring, dying, vowing, weeping, sighing, giving and acting all things the most passionate of men was capable of, or that love could inspire, for him to be at last admitted to the possession of the ravishing object of his vows and soul, to be laid in her bed, nay in her very arms (as she imagined he thought) and then, even before gathering the roses he came to pluck, before he had begun to compose or finished his nosegay, to depart the happy paradise with a disgust, and such a disgust, as first to oblige him to dissemble sickness, and next fall even from all his civilities, was a contempt she was not able to bear; especially from him, of whom all men living, she designed to make the greatest property of, as most fit for her revenge of all degrees and sorts: but when she reflected with reason, (which she seldom did, for either love or rage blinded that) she could not conceive it possible that Octavio could be fallen so suddenly from all his vows and professions, but on some very great provocation: sometimes she thinks he tempted her to try her virtue to Philander, and being a perfect honourable friend, hates her for her levity; but she considers his presents, and his unwearied industry, and believes he would not at that expense have bought a knowledge which could profit neither himself nor Philander; then she believes some disgusted scent, or something about Antonet, might disoblige him; but having called the maid, conjuring her to tell her whether any thing passed between her and Octavio; she again told her lady the whole truth, in which there could be no discovery of infirmity there; she embraced her, she kissed her bosom, and found her touches soft, her breath and bosom sweet as any thing in nature could be; and now lost almost in a confusion of thought, she could not tell what to imagine; at last she being wholly possessed that all the fault was not in Octavio, (for too often we believe as we hope) she concludes that Antonet has told him all the cheat she put upon him: this last thought pleased her, because it seemed the most probable, and was the most favourable to herself; and a thought that, if true, could not do her any injury with him. This set her heart a little to rights, and she grew calm with a belief, that if so it was, as now she doubted not, a sight of her, or a future hope from her, would calm all his discontent, and beget a right understanding; she therefore resolves to write to him, and own her little fallacy: but before she did so, Octavio, whose passion was violent as ever in his soul, though it was oppressed with a thousand torments, and languished under as many feeble resolutions, burst at last into all its former softness, and he resolves to write to the false fair one, and upbraid her with her last night's infidelity; nor could he sleep till he had that way charmed his senses, and eased his sick afflicted soul. It being now ten at night, and he retired to his chamber, he set himself down and writ this.