LETTER XII.

WALLER TO ST. EVREMOND.

To be reconciled implicitly to every event and to pass through life without anxiety or disappointment, is certainly a most valuable effect of philosophy. This is the object of your ambition, and this is what you would learn from me. No, no, St. Evremond, do not deceive yourself. You would not be without your anxieties; you' find a charm in your disappointments that flatters your vanity, when you consider the hardships of suffering merit; and your misfortunes serve to shew us how elegantly you can com-plain.

Would you lose the pleasure of painting to the Duchess of Mazarin, in such delicate colours, your mutual misfortunes? Would you be deprived of the honour of being a fellow sufferer with such a woman? A similarity of sufferings makes people friends. It draws them together, not only because they expect the mutual privilege of uttering their complaints, but because those complaints are best understoood, and most effectually felt. They look upon the world with equal jealousy. They consider fortune as their common enemy, and as such they conspire against

her. This conspiracy begets friendship, and friendship affection.

If I had your wit and brilliant fancy, I would write such an Eulogium on your misfortunes as should perfectly reconcile you to them, without the assistance of philosophy. I would shew you how much your fame, your wit, your merit, is indebted to them; I would convince you how much unmerited sufferings contribute to exalt us in the opinion of the world. I would describe your reputation stretching beyond the limits of one nation, and by its increasing lustre casting a shade on your disgrace. I would represent the latent seeds of fortitude as animated and called forth by this trying event, which, in a series of uninterrupted felicity, might have been totally destroyed. I would give its due encomiums to that magnanimity which could still look with kindness on the scene of its sufferings. I would ascribe the tender passions and milder sentiments, the influence of pity and benevolence, the prevailings of modesty and diffidence, to the occasional exercises of affliction. The imagination should have been found to have profited no less than the other faculties. It should appear to be enriched, and to have caught new impressions from variety of senti

ments and situations; to be softened and subdued by affecting sensations: Lastly, it should be employed in embellishing misfortune itself, and pour its harmonious complaint in the ear of sympathising beauty. The duchess of M— should be the object addressed, who, being something more than a mere mortal, might well assume the character and compassion of a guardian an gel.

LETTER XIII.

ST. EVREMOND TO WALLER,

So kind and yet so perplexing, so engaging yet so volatile a friend have I never found.

From the beginning of your last letter, I expected nothing less than a serious lecture in practical philosophy-But we have hardly got to the end of one sentence, till the philosopher, instead of instructing his friend how to bear with misfortune, writes an encomium on misfortune itself.

Indeed, had I reason to believe but half of what you have advanced in favour of that Monstrum horrendum, I should, at the same time, have suflicient reason to acquiesce in it. But alas! my dear Waller! your colourings are too high. The zeal of friendship has overborne your reason; has destroyed your sagacity in the discernment, and your ingenuity in the expres sion of truth. Were I certainly either wiser or better for my misfortunes, they would hardly deserve that name; but that time which I should have devoted to the acquisition of knowledge, and the improvement of the mind, has been, for the most part, spent in useless regret.

It must be confessed, notwithstanding, that what you have charged me with drawing from my disappointments to soothe my vanity, is not far from the truth; but I believe it is chargeable on all mankind. And surely nature acted altogether from her wisdom and benevolence, when she lent us self-love as an antidote to despair.

How artfully do you soothe and flatter me, when you mention the duchess of M— in such an interesting and affecting manner !—Oh, Waller! how well you know the heart! For that I at once forgave you all your levities, your extravagant compliments, and ironical praise.

You may smile, if you please; you may enjoy, with complaisancy, the power of your address; but I must confess to you, I was utterly unable to resist the inclination of shewing your letter to madam Mazarin.

It was imprudent in the last degree: my vanity overacted its part. Instead of giving me cre dit for the compliments you paid me, her whole attention was turned from the subject to the writer, and I was in danger of finding a rival, where I hoped to have found a friend.

Yet this produced one agreeable effect. I told