LETTER LIII.
To Lady—,

I FIND after all, by your letter of yesterday, that Mrs. D—is resolved to marry the old greasy Curate. She was always High Church in an excessive degree, and you know she used to speak of Sacheve­rel as an Apostolick Saint, who was wor­thy to sit in the same place with St. Paul, if not a step above him. It is a matter however very doubtful to me, whether it is not still more the man than the apostle that Mrs. D—looks to in the present alliance. Tho' at the age of forty, she is, I assure you, very far from being cold and insensible; her fire may be covered with ashes, but is not extinguished.—Don't be deceived my dear Lady, by that pru­dish and sanctified air—Warm devoti­ons are no equivocal marks of warm pas­sions; besides I know it is a fact, (of which I have proofs in hand, which I will tell you by word of mouth) that our learned and holy prude is exceedingly disposed to use the means, supposed in the primi­tive command, let what will come of th [...] end▪ the Curate in [...]eed is very filthy— [Page 4] Such a red, spungy, watry nose! Such a squint! in short, he is ugly beyond ex­pression; and what ought naturally to ren­der him peculiarly dipleasing to one of Mrs. D—'s constitution and propensities, he is stricken in years. Nor do I really know how they will live. He has but forty five pounds a year—she but a trifling sum; so that they are likely to feast upon love and ec­clesiastical history, which will be very empty food without a proper mixture of beef and pudding. I have, however, en­gaged our friend, who is the curate's land­lord, to give them a good lease; and if Mrs. D—, instead of spending whole days in reading Collier, Hicks, and vile translations of Plato and Epictetus, will but form the resolution of taking care of her house and minding her dairy, things may go tolerably. It is not likely that their tender loves will give them many sweet babes to provide for.

I met the lover yesterday, going to the alehouse in his dirty night-gown, with a book under his arm to entertain the club; and as Mrs. D—was with me at the time, I pointed out to her the charming creature: she blushed and looked prim; but quoted a passage out of Herodotus, in which it is said that the Persians wore long right gowns. There is really no more ac­counting for the taste in marriage of ma­ [...]y of our sex than there is for the ape­tite [Page 5] of your neighbour Miss S—y, who makes such waste of chalk and charcoal when they fall in her way.

As marriage produces children, so chil­dren produce care, disputes and wrang­ling, as it is said (at least by old batche­lors and old maids) is one of the sweets of the conjugal state: you tell me that our friend Mrs.—is, at length, blessed with a son; and that her husband who is a great philosopher, [if his own testimony is to be depended upon] insists on her suckling it herself. You ask my advice on this mat­ter; and to give it you frankly, I really think that Mr—'s demand is unreason, able, as his wife's constitution is tender, and her temper fretful. A true philosopher would consider these circumstances, but a pedant is always throwing his system in your face, and applies it equally to all things, times and places, just like a taylor, who would make a coat out of his own head, without any regard to the bulk or figure of the person that must wear it. All those fine▪ spun arguments that he has drawn from na­ture to stop your mouths, weigh, I must own to you, but very little with me. This same Nature is indeed a specious word, nay there is a great deal in it if it is properly understood and applied, but I cannot bear to hear people using it to justify what com­mon sense must disavow. Is not nature modified by art in many things? Was it [Page 6] not designed to be so? And is it not hap­py for human society, that it is so? Would you like to see your husband let his beard grow until he would be obliged to put the end of it in his pocket, because this beard is the gift of Nature? The instincts of nature point out neither tailors, nor weavers, nor mantua makers, nor semp­ [...]resses, nor milliners: And yet I am very glad that we do not run naked like the Hottentots. But not to wander from the subject—I grant that Nature has fur­nished the mother with milk to nourish her child; but I maintain at the same time that if she can find better milk elsewhere, she ought to prefer it without hesitation. I dont see why she should have more scru­ple to do this, than her husband has to [...]ve the clear fountain, which Nature gave him to quench his thirst, for stout Octo­ber, Port, or Claret. Indeed if Mrs.—was a buxom, sturdy woman, who lived on plain food, took regular exercise, en­joyed proper returns of rest, and was free from violent passions (which you and I know is not the case) she might be a good nurse for her child; but as matters stand, I do verily think that the milk of a good comely cow, who seeds quietly in her meadow, never devours ragouts, nor drinks ratafia: nor frets at quadrille, nor sits up till three in the morning elat­ed with gain or dejected with loss, [Page 7] I do think that the milk of such a cow or of a nurse that came as near it as possible, would be likely to nourish the young squire much better than hers. If it be true that the child sucks in the mo­ther's passions with her milk, this is a strong argument in favour of the cow, unless you may be afraid that the young squire may become a calf; but how many calves are there both in state and church, who have been brought up with their mother's milk?

I promise faithfully to communicate to no mortal the letter you wrote me last—What you say of the two rebel Lords, I believe to be true; but I can do nothing in the matter.—If my projects don't fail in the execution, I shall see you before a month passes. Give my service to Dr. Blackbeard—He is a good man, but I never saw in my life such a persecuting face cover a humane and tender heart. I imagine (within myself) that the Smith­field priests, who burned the protestants in the time of Queen Mary, had just such faces as the Doctor's. If we were papists I should like him very much for my con­fessor: his seeming austerity would give you and me a great reputation for sanctity, and his good, indulgent heart, would be the very thing that would suit us in the affair of penance and ghostly direction.

Farewel, my dear Lady, &c. &c.

LETTER LIV.
To the Abbot—.

I AM really almost tired with the life of Vienna. I am not, indeed, an enemy to dissipation and hurry, much less to amuse­ment and pleasure; but I cannot endure long, even pleasure, when it is fettered, with formality, and assumes the air of sys­tem. 'Tis true, I have had here some ve­ry agreeable connexions, and what will per­haps surprise you. I have particular plea­sure in my Spanish acquaintances. Count Oropesa and General Puebla these two noblemen are much in the good graces of the Emperor, and yet they seem to be brewing mischief. The court of Madrid cannot reflect without pain upon the terri­tories that were cut off from the Spanish monarchy by the peace of Utrecht, and it seems to be looking wishfully out for an opportunity of getting them back again. That is a matter about which I trouble myself very little; let the court be in the right or in the wrong, I like mightily the two Counts its ministers. I dined with them both some days ago at Count Wurm­brand's, an Aulic counsellor and a man of [Page 9] letters, who is universally esteemed here. But the first man in this court, in point of knowledge and abilities, is certainly the Count Schsick, High Chancellor of Bohe­mia, whose immense reading is accompa­nied with a fine taste and a solid judgment; he is a declared enemy to Prince Eugene, and a warm firiend to the honest hot head­ed Marshal Staremberg. One of the most accomplished men I have seen at Vienna is the young Count Tarrocco, who accom­panies the amiable Prince of Portugal. I am almost in love with them both and won­der to see such elegant manners, and such free and generous sentiments in two young men who have hitherto seen nothing but their own country. The count is just such a Roman Ca­tholick as you; he succeeds greatly with the-devout beauties here; his first overtures in gal­lantry are disguised under the luscious strains of spiritual love, that were sung formerly by the sublimely voluptuous Fenelon and the tender madam Guion, who turned the fire of carnal love to divine objects; thus the Count begins with the spirit, and ends ge­nerally with the flesh, when he makes his addresses to holy virgins.

I made acquaintance yesterday with the famous poet Rousseau, who lives here un­der the peculiar protection of Prince Eu­gene, by whose liberality he subsists. He passes here for a free thinker, and, what is still worse in my esteem, for a man whose [Page 10] heart does not feel the encomiums he gives to virtue and honour in his poems. I like his odes mightily they are much superior to the lyrick productions of our English po­ets, few of whom have made any figure in that kind of poetry. I don't find that learn­ed men abound here; there is indeed a prodigious number of Alchymists at Vien­na; the philosophers stone is the great ob­ject of zeal and science; and those who have more reading and capacity than the vulgar, have transported their superstition (shall I call it?) or fanaticism from religi­on to chymistry; and they believe in a new kind of transubstantiation, which is designed to make the laity as rich as the other kind has made the priesthood. This pestilential passion has already ruin­ed several great houses. There is scarcely a man of opulence or fashion, that has not an Alchymist in his service, and even the emperor is supposed to be no enemy to this folly in secret, tho' he has pretended to discourage it in publick.

Prince Eugene was so polite as to shew me his library yesterday; we found him attended by Rousseau, and his favourite Count Bonneval, who is a man of wit, and is here thought to be a very bold enter prizing spirit. The library, tho' not very ample, is well chosen; but as the prince will admit into it no editions but what are beautiful and pleasing to the eye, and there [Page 11] are nevertheless numbers of excellent books that are but indifferently printed, this finikin and fopish taste makes many disagreeable chasms in this collection. The books are pompously bound in Turkey leather, and two of the most famous bookbinders of Paris were expressly sent for to do this work Bonneval pleasantly told me that there were several quarto's on the art of war, that were bound with the skins of Spahis and Janissaries; and this jest, which was indeed elegant, raised a smile of pleasure on the grave countenance of the famous warrior. The Prince, who is a connoiseur in the fine arts, shewed me, with particu­lar pleasure, the famous collection of portraits that formerly belonged to Fou­quet, and which he purchased at an exces­sive price. He has augmented it with a considerable number of new acquisitions, so that he has now in his possession such a collection in that kind as you will scarcely find in any ten cabinets in Europe. If I told you the number, you would say that I made an indiscreet use of the permission to lie, which is more or less given to tra­vellers by the indulgence of the candid.

Count Tarrocco is just come in—He is the only person I have excepted this morning in my general order to receive no company.—I think I see you smile,—but I am not so far gone as to stand in need of absolution; tho', as the human [Page 12] heart is deceitful, and the Count very a­greeable, you may think that even tho' I should not want an absolution, I would nevertheless be glad to have an indul­gence.—No such thing.—However, as I am a heretick, and you no confes­sor, I shall make no declarations on this head.—The design of the Count's visit is a ball;—more pleasure—I shall be surfeited.

Adieu, &c▪

LETTER LV,
TO Mr. P—.

WHEN I wrote to you last, Belgrade was in the hands of the Turks; but at this present moment, it has changed masters, and is in the hands of the Im­perialists. A Janissary who in nine days, and yet without any wings but what a pannick terror seems to have furnished, arrived at Constantinople from the army of the Turks before Belgrade, brought Mr. W—the news of a compleat vic­tory obtained by the imperialists, com­manded by prince Eugene, over the Ot­toman troops. It is said the Prince has discovered great conduct and valour in this action, and I am particularly glad [Page 13] that the voice of glory and duty has call'd him from the— (here several words of the manuscript are effaced.)—Two days after the battle the town surrendered. The consternation, which this defeat has occasion­ed here, is inexpressible; and the Sultan apprehending a revolution from the re­sentment and indignation of the people, fomented by certain leaders, has begun his goodly precautions after the goodly fashi­on of his blessed government, by order­ing several persons to be strangled who were the objects of his royal suspicion. He has also ordered his treasurer to ad­vance some months pay to the Janissaries, which seems the less necessary, as their con­duct has been bad in this campaign, and their licentious ferocity seems pretty well tamed by the publick contempt, such of them as return in straggling and fugitive parties to the metropolis, have not spirit nor credit enough to defend themselves from the insults of the mob; the very chil­dren taunt them and the populace spit in their faces as they pass. They refused during the battle to lend their assistance to save the baggage and the military chest, which however were defended by the Ba­shaws and their retinue while the Janis­saries and spahis were nobly employed in plundering their own camp.

You see here that I give you a very handsome return for your obliging letter. [Page 14] You entertain me with a most agreeable ac­count of your amiable connexions with men of letters and taste, and of the deliscious mo­ments you pass in their society under the rural shade; and I exhibit to you in return the barbarous spectacles of Turks and Ger­mans cutting one another's throats. But what can you expect from such a country as this from which the muses have fled, from which letters seem eternally banish­ed, and in which you see, in private scenes, nothing pursued as happiness but the refinements of an indolent voluptuousness, and where those who act upon the pub­lick theatre live in uncertainty, suspicion, and terror. Pleasure to which I am no e­nemy, when it is duly seasoned and o [...] a good composition, is surely here of the cloying kind. Veins of wit, elegant con­versation easy commerce, are unknown among the Turks; and yet they seem ca­pable of all these, if the vile spirit of their government did not stifle genius, damp curiosity, and suppress an hundred passions, that embellish and render life agreeable. The luscious passion of the Seraglio is the only one almost that is gratified here to the full, but it is blended so with the surly spirit of despotism in one of the parties, and with the dejection and anxiety which this spirit produces in the other, that to one of my way of thinking it cannot appear otherwise than as a very mixed kind of [Page 15] enjoyment. The women here are not in­deed, so closely confined as many have related; they enjoy a high degree of li­berty even in the bosom of servitude, and they have methods of evasion and disguise that are very favourable to gallanty; but after all, they are still under uneasy ap­prehensions of being discovered; and a dis­covery exposes them to the most mer­ciless rage of jealousy, which is here a monster that cannot be satiated but with blood. The magnificence and riches that reign in the apartments of the ladies of fashion here, seem to be one of their chief pleasures, joined with their retinue of fe­male slaves, whose musick dancing and dress amuse them highly; but there is such an air of form and stiffness amidst this grandeur, as hinders it from pleasing me at long run, however I was dazzled with it at first sight. This stiffness and formality of manners are peculiar to the Turkish ladies; for the Grecian belles are of quite another character and complex­ion; with them pleasure appears in more engaging forms, and their persons, man­ners, conversation, and amusements are ve­ry far from being destitute of elegance and ease,—

I received the news of Mr. Addison's being declared Secretary of State with the less surprise, in that I know that post was almost offered to him before. At that time [Page 16] he declined it, and I really believe that he would have done well to have declin­ed it now. Such a post as that, and such a wife as the Countess, do not seem to be, in prudence eligible, for a man that is asthmatick; and we may see the day when he will be heartily glad to resign them both. It is well that he laid aside the thoughts of the voluminous dictionary of which I have heard you or somebody else frequently make mention. But no more on that subject; I would not have said so much, were I not assured that this letter will come safe and unopened to hand. I long much to tread upon English ground, that I may see you and Mr. Co [...] ­greve, who render that ground classick; nor will you refuse our present Secretary a part of that merit, whatever reasons you may may have to be dissatisfied with him in other respects. Ye are the three hap­piest poets I ever heard of; one a secre­tary of state the other enjoying leisure with dignity in two lucrative employ­ments; and you, tho' your religious pro­fession is an obstacle to court promotion, and disqualifies you from filling civil em­ployments, have found the Philosophers stone since by making the Iliad pass through your poetical crucible into an English form without losing aught of its original beau­ty, you have drawn the golden current of Pactolus to Twickenham. I call this find­ing [Page 17] the Philosophers stone, since you alone found out the secret, and nobody else has got into it. Addison and Tickell tried it, but their experiments failed; and they lost if not their money, at least a certain por­tion of their fame in the trial—while you touched the mantle of the divine Bard, and imbibed his spirit. I hope we shall have the Odyssey soon from your happy hand, and I think I shall follow with sin­gular pleasure the traveller Ulysses, who was an observer of Men and manners, when he travels in your harmonious numbers, I love him much better than the hot head­ed son of Peleus, who bullied his general, cried for his mistress, and so on. It is true, the excellence o [...] the Iliad does not depend, upon his merit or dignity, but I wish ne­vertheless that Homer had chosen a hero somewhat less pettish and less fantastick: a perfect hero is chimerical and unnatural, and consequently uninstructive; but it is also true that while the epick hero ought to be drawn with the infirmities that are the lot of humanity, he ought never to be represented as extremely absurd. But it becomes me ill to play the critick; so I take my leave of you for this time, and desire you will believe me with the high­est esteem,

^*LETTER LVI.
To the Countess of—.

I SET out from Bologna the moment I had finished the letter I wrote you on Mon­day last, and shall now continue to inform you of the things that have struck me most in this excursion. Sad roads—hilly and rocky—between Bologna and Fierenzuola. Between this latter place and Florence I went out of my road to visit the monastery of La Trappe, which is of French origin and one of the most austere and self-denying orders I have met with. In this gloomy retreat it gave me pain to observe the infatuation of men, who have devoutly reduced themselves to a much worse condi­tion than that of the beasts▪ Folly, you see, is the lot of humanity, whether it arises in the flowry paths of pleasure or the thorny ones of an ill-judged devotion. But of the two sorts of fools, I shall always think that the merry one has the most eligible [Page 19] fate; and I cannot well form a notion of that spiritual and extatick joy that is mixed with sighs, groans, hunger and the other complicated miseries of mo­nastick discipline. It is a strange way of go­ing to work for happiness to excite an enmity between soul and body, which nature and providence have designed to live together in union and friendship, and which we cannot separate like man and wife when they happen to disagree. The pro­found silence that is enjoined upon the monks of La Trappe, is a singular cir­cumstance of their unsociable and unnatu­ral discipline; and were this injunction ne­ver to be dispensed with, it would be needless to visit them in any other cha­racter than as a collection of statues; but the superior of the convent suspended, in our favour, that rigorous law, and allow­ed 'one of the mutes to converse with me, and answer a few discreet questions. He told me that the monks of this or­der in France are still more austere than those of Italy, as they never taste wine, flesh, fish or eggs; but live entirely up­on vegetables. The story that is related of the institution of this order is remark­able, and is well attested if my informa­tion be good. Its founder was a French nobleman whose name was B [...]thillier de Rancé a man of pleasure and [...] which were [...] [Page 20] gloom of devotion By the following in­cident. His affairs obliged him to absent himself, for some time, from a lady with whom he had lived in the most intimate and tender connexions of successful love. At his return to Paris he proposed to surprise her agreeably, and at the same time, to satisfy his own impatient desire of seeing her, by going directly and with­out ceremony to her apartment by a back stair, which he was well acquainted with—but think of the spectacle that pre­sented itself to him at his entrance into the chamber that had so often been the scene of loves highest raptures! his mistress dead—dead of the small pox—disfigured beyond expression—a loathsome mass of putrified matter—and the surgeon sepa­rating the head from the body, because the coffin had been made too short! He stood for a moment motionless in amaze­ment, and filled with horror—and then retired from the world, shut himself up in the convent of La Trappe, where he passed the remainder of his days in the most cruel and disconsolate devotion.—Let us quit this sad subject.

I must not forget to tell you that be­fore I came to this monastery I went to see the burning mountains near Fie­renzuola, of which the naturalists speak as a great curiosity. The flame it sends [Page 21] forth is without smoke, and resembles brandy set on fire. The ground about it is well cultivated, and the fire appears on­ly in one spot where there is a cavity, whose circumference is but small, but in it are several crevices whose depths are unknown. It is remarkable that when a piece of wood is thrown into this cavi­ty, tho it cannot pass thro' the crevices, yet it is consumed in a moment, and that though the ground about it be perfectly cold, yet if a stick be rubbed with any force against it, it emits a flame, which how­ever, is neither hot nor durable like that of the volcano. If you desire a more cir­cumstantial account of this phenomenon, and have made a sufficient progress in Ita­lian to read father Carazzi's description of it, you need not be at a loss, for I have sent this description to Mr. F—, and you have only to ask it of him. After observing the volcano, I scrambled up all the neighbouring hills, partly on horse­back, partly on foot, but could find no vestige of fire in any of them; though common report would make one believe that they all contain volcano's,

I hope you have not taken it in your head to expect from me a description of the famous gallery here, where I arrived on Thursday at noon; this would be requir­ing a volume instead of a letter; besides I have as yet seen but a part of this im­mense [Page 22] treasure, and I propose employing some weeks more to survey the whole. You cannot imagine any situation more agreeable than Florence. It lies in a fertile and smiling valley watered by the Arno which runs thro' the city, and nothing can surpass the beauty and magnificence of its publick buildings, particularly the ca­thedral, whose grandeur filled me with a­stonishment. The palaces, squares, foun­tains, statues, bridges, do not only carry an aspect full of elegance and greatness, but discover a taste quite different, in kind, from that which reigns in the publick edifices in other countries. The more I see of Italy, the more I am persuaded that the Italians have a stile (if I may use that expression) in every thing, which distinguishes them almost essentially from all other Europeans. Where they have got it,—whether from natural genius or ancient imitation and inheritance, I shall not examine; but the fact is cer­tain. I have been but one day in the gallery, that amazing repository of the most precious remains of antiquity, and which alone is sufficient to immortalize the illustrious house of Medicis, by whom it was built and enriched as we now see it. I was so impatient to see the fa­mous Venus of Medicis, that I went hastily thro' six apartments in order to get a sight of this divine figure, purposing [Page 23] when I had satisfied this ardent curiosity, to return and view the rest at my leisure. As I indeed passed thro' the great room which contains the ancient statues, I was stopped short at viewing the Antinous, which they had placed near that of Adrian, to revive the remembrance of their pre­posterous loves, which I suppose the Flo­rentines rather look upon as an object of envy, than of horror and disgust. This sta­tue, like that of the Venus de Medicis, spurns description: such figures my eyes never beheld—I can now understand that Ovid's comparing a fine woman a fine woman to a statue, which I formerly thought a very disobliging similitude, was the nicest and highest piece of flattery. The Antinous is entirely naked, alll its parts are bigger than nature; but the whole, taken together, and the fine attitude of the figure carry such an expression of ease, elegance and grace, as no words can describe. When I saw the Venus I was wrapt in wonder,—and I could not help casting a thought back upon Antinous. They ought to be placed together. They are worthy of each other—If marble could see and feel, the separation might be prudent,—if it could only see, it would certainly lose its coldness and learn to feel, and in such a case the charms of these two figures would produce an effect quite opposite to that of the Gor­gon's [Page 24] head, which turned flesh into stone. Did I pretend to describe to you the Ve­nus, it would only set your imagination at work to form ideas of her figure, and your idea's would no more resemble that figure, than the Portuguese face of Miss N—who has enchanted our knight, resembles the sweet and graceful countenance of la­dy—his former flame. The description of a face or figure is a needless thing as it never conveys a true idea, it only gra­tifies the imagination with a fantastick one, until the real one is seen. So, my dear, if you have a mind to form a true notion of the divine form, and features of the Venus and Antinous, come to Florence.

I would be glad to oblige you and your friend Vertue by executing your commis­sion with respect to the sketches of Ra­phaels cartoons at Hampton-Court; but I cannot do it to my satisfaction. I have, indeed, seen in the Grand Dukes collection, four pieces, in which that won­derful artist had thrown freely from his pencil the first thoughts and rude lines of some of these compositions; and as the first thoughts of a great genius are preci­ous, these pieces attracted my curiosity in a particular manner; but when I went to examine them closely, I found them so damaged and effaced, that they did not at all answer my expectation. Whether this be owing to negligence or envy, I can­not [Page 25] say; I mention the lattter, because it is notorious that many of the modern painters have discovered ignoble marks of envy at a view of the inimitable produc­tions of the ancients. Instead of employ­ing their art to preserve the masterpieces of antiquity, they have endeavoured to de­stroy and efface many of them. I have seen with my own eyes an evident proof of this at Bologna, where the greatest part of the paintings in fresco on the walls of the convent of St. Michael in Bosco, done by the Carracci, and Guido Rheni, have been ruined by the painters, who after having copied some of the finest heads, scraped them almost entirely out with nails. Thus you see nothing is exempt from human malignity

The word Malignity, and a passage in your letter, call to my mind the wicked wasp of Twickenham: his lies affect me now no more; they will be all as much despised as the story of the seraglio and the handkerchief, of which I am persuad­ed he was the only inventor. That man has a malignant and ungenerous heart; and he is base enough to assume the mask of a moralist in order to decry human nature, and to give a decent vent to his hatred of man and woman kind.—But I must quit this contemptible subject, on which a just indignation would render my pen so fertile, that alter having fatigued you [Page 26] with a long letter, I would surfeit you with a supplement twice as long Besides a violent headach advertises me that it is time to lay down my pen and get me to bed. I shall say some things to you in my next that I would have you to impart to the strange man, as from yourself. My mind is at present tolerably quiet; if it were as dead to sin, as it is to certain connexions, I should be a great saint. Adieu, my dear Madam.

LETTER LVII.
TO Mr. P—.

I Have been running about Paris at a strange rate with my sister, and strange sights have we seen. They are at least strange sights to me, for after having been accustomed to the gravity of Turks, I can scarcely look with an easy and familiar aspect at the levi­ty and agility of the airy phantoms that are dancing about me here, and I often think that I am at a puppet-shew amidst the representations of real life. I stare pro­digiously but no body remarks it, for eve­ry body stares here; staring is alamode—there is a stare of attention and interét, a stare of curiosity, a stare of expectation, a [Page 27] stare of surprize, it would greatly amuse you to see what trifling objects excite all this staring. This staring would have rather a solemn kind of air, were it not alleviated by grinning, for at the end of a stare there comes always a grin, and very com­monly the entrance of a gentleman or la­dy into a room is accompanied with a grin, which is designed to express compla­cence and social pleasure, but really shews nothing more than a certain contortion of muscles that must make a stranger laugh really, as they laugh artificially. The French grin is equally remote from the chearful serenity of a smile, and the cordial mirth of an honest English horse-laugh. I shall not perhaps stay here long enough to form a just idea of French manners and characters, tho' this I believe would require but little study, as there is no great depth in either. It appears, on a superficial view to be a frivolous restless and agreeable people. The Abbot is my guide, and I could not easily light upon a better; he tells me that here the women form the character of the men, and I am convinc­ed in the persuasion of this by every com­pany into which I enter. There seems here to be no intermediate state between infancy and manhood; for as soon as the boy has quit his leading-strings, he is set agog in the world; the ladies are his tu­tors, they make the first impressions, which [Page 28] generally remain, and they render the men ridiculous by the imitation of their humours and graces, so that dignity in manners is a rare thing here before the age of sixty. Does not King David say somewhere, that Man walketh in a vain shew? I think he does, and I am sure this is peculiarly true of the French man,—but he walks merrily and seems to enjoy the vision, and may he not therefore be esteemed more happy than many of our solid thinkers whose brows are furrowed by deep reflection, and whose wisdom is so often clothed with a misty mantle of spleen and vapours?

What delights me most here is a view of the magnificence often accompanied with taste that reigns in the King's palaces and gardens; for tho' I don't admire much the architecture, in which there is great irregularity amd want of proportion, yet the statues, paintings and other deco­rations afford me high entertainment. One of the pieces of antiquity that struck me most in the gardens of Versailles was the famous Coloss [...]an statue of Jupi­ter, the workmanship of Myron, which Mark Anthony carried away from Samos, and Augustus ordered to be placed in the Capitol. It is of pariah marble, and tho' it has suffered in the ruin of time it still preserves striking lines of majesty. But surely if marble could feel, the God would [Page 29] frown with a generous indignation to see himself transported from the Capi­tol into a French garden; and after hav­ing received the homage of the Roman emperors who laid their laurels at his feet when they returned from their conquests, to behold now nothing but frizzled beaus passing by him with indifference.

I propose setting out soon from this place, so that you are to expect no more letters from this side of the water; besides I am hurried to death, and and my head swims with that vast variety of objects which I am obliged to view with such rapidity the shortness of my time not allowing me to examine them at my leisure. There is here an excessive prodigality of ornaments and decorations, that is just the opposite extreme to what appears in our royal gar­dens; this prodigality is owing to the le­vity and inconstancy of the French taste, which always pants after something new, and thus heaps ornament upon ornament without end or measure. It is time, how­ever, that I should put an end to my letter; so I wish you good night,

And am, &c.

LETTER LVIII. To Count—.
Translated from the French.

I AM charmed, sir, with your obliging letter; and you may perceive by the largeness of my paper, that I intend to give punctual answers to all your questi­ons, at least if my French will permit me; for as it is a language I do not understand to perfection, so I much fear, that, for want of expressions, I shall be quickly o­bliged to finish. Keep in mind, therefore, that I am writing in a foreign language; and be sure to attribute all the impertinen­cies and triflings dropping from my pen, to the want of proper words for declaring my thoughts, but by no means to dulness or natural levity.

These conditions being thus agreed and settled, I begin with telling you, that you have a true notion of the Alcoran, con­cerning which the Greek priests (who are the greatest scoundrels in the universe) have invented out of their own heads a thousand ridiculous stories, in order to decry the law of Mahomet; to run it down, I say, without any examination, [Page 31] or so much as letting the people read it; being afraid that if once they began to sift the defects of the Alcoran, they might not stop there, but proceed to make use of their judgment, about their own legends and fictions. In effect, there is nothing so like as the fables of the Greeks and of the Mahometans; and the last have multitudes of saints, at whose tombs miracles are by them said to be daily performed; nor are the accounts of the lives of those blessed Musselmen much less stuffed with extravagancies, than the spiritual romances of the Greek Pa­pas.

As to your next enquiry, I assure you 'tis certainly false, though commonly be­lieved in our parts of the world, that Ma­homet excludes women from any share in a future happy state. He was too much a gentleman, and loved the fair sex too well, to use them so barbarously. On the con­trary, he promises a very fine paradise to the Turkish women. He says, indeed, that this paradise will be a separate place from that of their husbands; but I, fancy the most part of them won't like it the worse for that; and that the re­gret of this separation will not rende their paradise the less agreeable. It re­mains to tell you, that the virtues which Mahomet requires of the women, to me­rit the enjoyment of future happiness, are [Page 32] not to live in such a manner as to be­come useless to the world, but to employ themselves as much as possible, in making little Mussulmans, The virgins who die virgins, and the widows who marry not again, dying in mortal sin, are excluded out of paradise: For women, says he not being capable to manage the affairs of state, nor to support the fatigues of war, God has not ordered them to govern or reform the world; but he has entrusted them with an office which is no less honou­ble, even that of multiplying the human race: and such as▪ out of malice or la­ziness, do not make it their business to bear or breed children, fulfill not the duty of their vocation, and rebel against the commands of God. Here are maxims for you, prodigiously contrary to those of your convents. What will become of your St. Catharines, your St. Theresas, your St. Claras, and the whole bead roll of your holy virgins and widows? who, if they are to be judged by this system of virtue, will be found to have been infamous creatures, that passed their whole lives in the most abominable libertinism.

I know not what your thoughts may be concernin a doctrine so extraordinary with respect to us; but I can truly inform you, sir, that the Turks are not so igno­rant as we fancy them to be, in mat­ters of politicks, or philosophy, or even [Page 33] of gallantry. 'Tis true that military dis­cipline, such as is now practised in Chri­stendom, does not mightily suit them. A long peace has plunged them into an uni­versal sloth. Content with their condition, and accustomed to boundless luxury, they are become great enemies to all manner of fatigues. But to make amends, the sci­ences flourish among them. The effendis (that is to say, the learned) do very well deserve this name: They have no more faith in the inspirations of Mahomet, than in the infallibility of the Pope. They make a frank profession of deism among themselves, or to those they can trust, and never speak of their law but as of a po­litick institution, fit now to be observed by wise men, however at first introduced by politicians and enthusiasts.

If I remember right, I think I have told you in some former letter, that at Belgrade we lodged with a great and rich Effendi, a man of wit and learning, and of a very agreeable humour. We were in his house about a month, and he did constantly eat with us, drinking wine with­out any scruple. As I rallied him a little on this subject, he answered me, smiling, that all creatures in the world were made for the pleasure of man; and that God would not have let the vine grow, were it a sin to taste of its juice: but that ne­vertheless the law, which forbids the use [Page 34] of it to the vulgar, was very wise, because such sort of folks have not sense enough to take it with moderation. This Effendi appeared no stranger to the parties that prevail among us: nay, he seemed to have some knowledge of our religious dis­putes, and even of our writers, and I was surprised to hear him ask among other things how Mr. Toland did?

My paper, large as it is, draws towards an end. That I may not go beyond its limits, I must leap from religions to tu­lips, concerning which you ask me news. Their mixture produces surprizing effects But what is to be observed most surpriz­ing, is the experiments of which you speak concerning animals, and which is tried here every day. The suburbs of Pera, Jophana, and Galata, are collecti­ons of strangers from all countries of the universe. They have so often intermar­ried, that this forms several races of peo­ple, the oddest imaginable, there is not one single family of natives, that can va­lue itself on being unmixed. You fre­quently see a person, whose father was born a Grecian, the mother an Italian, the grandfather a Frenchman, the grand­mother an Armenian, and their ancestors English, Muscovites, Asiaticks, &c.

This mixture produces creatures more extraordinary than you can imagine: nor could I ever doubt, but there were se­veral [Page 35] different species of men; since the whites, the woolly and the long hair'd blacks, the small-eyed Tartars and Chi­nese, the beardless Brasilians (and to name name no more) the oily-skinned yellow Nova Zemblians, have as specific differen­ces under the same general kind, as grey­hounds, mastiffs, spaniels, bull dogs, or the race of my little Diana, if nobody is of­fended at the comparison. Now as the va­rious intermixing of these later animals causes mungrels, so mankind have their mungrels too, divided and subdivided into endless sorts. We have daily proofs of it here, as I told you before. In the same animal is not seldom remarked the Greek perfidiousness, and the Italian diffidence, the Spanish arrogance and the French lo­quacity, and all of a sudden he is seized with a fit of English thoughtfulness, border­ing a little upon dullness, which many of us have inherited from the stupidity of our Saxon progenitors. But the family which charms me most, is that which proceeds from the fantastical conjunction of a Dutch male with a Greek female. As these are natures opposite in extremes, 'tis a plea­sure to observe how the differing attoms are perpetually jarring together in the chil­dren, even so as to produce effects visi­ble in their external form. They have the large black eyes of the country, with the fat, white, fishy flesh of Holland, and [Page 36] a lively air streaked with dullness. At one and the same time, they shew that love of expensiveness, so universal among the Greeks, and an inclination to the Dutch frugality. To give an example of this: young women ruin themselves to purchase jewels for adorning their heads, while they have not the heart to buy new shoes or rather slippers for their feet, which are commonly in a tattered con­dition; a thing so contrary to the taste of our English women that it is for shew­ing how neatly their feet are dressed, and for shewing this only they are so passio­nately enamoured with their hoop-peti­coats. I have abundance of other singu­larities to communicate to you, but I am at the end both of my French and my paper.

LETTER LIX.
ON MARRIAGE.
Containing a Refutation of one Maxim of the Duke De La Roche Foucault's—"That Marriage is sometimes con­venient, but never delightful."

IT may be thought a presumptuous at tempt in me to contravert a maxim advanced by such a celebrated geni­us [Page 37] us as Monsieur Rochefoucault, and re­ceived with such implicit faith by a nati­on which boasts of superior politeness to the rest of the world, and which for a long time past has prescribed the rules of gallantry to all Europe.

Nevertheless, prompted by that ardour which truth inspires, I dare to maintain the contrary, and resolutely insist, that there are some marriages formed by love, which may be delightful, where the affection are sympathetic. Nature has presented us with pleasures suitable to our species, and we need only to follow her impulse, re­fined by taste, and exalted by a lively and agreeable imagination, in order to attain the most perfect felicity of which human nature is susceptible: ambition, avarice, va­nity when enjoy [...]d in the most exquisite perfection, can yield but trifling and taste less pleasures, which will be too incon­siderable to affect a mind of d [...]l [...]a [...]e sensibility.

We may consider the gifts of fortune as so many steps necessary to arrive at fe­licity, which we can never attain, being obliged to set bounds to our desires, and being only gratified with some of her frivolous favours; which are nothing more than the torments of life, when they are considered as the necessary means to acquire or preserve a more exquisite felicity.

[Page 38] This felicity consists alone in friendship, founded on mutual esteem, fixed by gra­titude, supported by inclination, and ani­mated by the tender solicitudes of Love, whom the ancients have admirably described under the appearance of a beautiful infant: it is pleased with infantine amusements, it is delicate and affectionate, incapable of mischief, delighted with trifles; its pleasures are gentle and innocent.

They have given a very different repre­sentation of another passion too gross to be mentioned, but of which alone men in gene­ral are susceptible. This they have described under the figure of a Satyr, who has more of the brute than of the man in his composi­tion. By this fabulous animal they have ex­pressed a passion, which is the real founda­tion of all the fine exploits of modish gallan­try, and which only endeavours to glut its appetite with the possession of the object which is most lovely in its estimation: a pas­sion founded in injustice, supported by deceit and atttended by crimes, remorse, jealousy and contempt. Can such an affection be delightful to a virtuous mind? Nevertheless such is the delightful attendant on all illicit engagements; gallants are obliged to aban­don all those sentiments of honour which are inseparable from a liberal education, and are doomed to live wretchedly in the con­stant pursuit of what reason condemns to have all their pleasures embittered by [Page 39] remorse, and to be reduced to the deplo­rable condition of having renounced virtue, without being able to make vice agreeable.

It is impossible to taste the delights of love in perfection, but in a well assorted marriage; nothing betrays such a narrow­ness of mind as to be governed by words. What though custom, for which good rea­sons may be assigned, has made the words husband and wife somewhat ridiculous? A husband in common acceptation, signifies a jealous brute, a surly tyrant; or at best a weak fool, who may be made to believe any thing. A wife is a domestic terma­gant who is destined to deceive or torment the poor devil of a husband. The conduct of many married people too much reali­zes these two odious characters.

But as I said before, Why should words impose upon us? A well regulated marri­age is not like these connections of inter­est or ambition. A fond couple attached to each other by mutual affection, are two lovers who live happily together. Though the priest pronounces certain words, though the lawyer draws up cer­tain instruments; yet I look on these preparatives in the same light as a lover considers a ladder of ropes which he fastens to his mistress's window: if they can but live together what does it signify at what price or by what means their union is accomplished? Where love is real and well [Page 40] founded, it is impossible to be happy but in the quiet enjoyment of the beloved object and the price at which it is ob­tained does not lessen the vivacity and delights of a passion such as my ima­gination conceives. If I was inclined to romance, I would not picture images of true happiness in Arcadia. I am not pru­dish enough to confine the delicacy of affection on to wishes only I would open my romance with the marriage of a cou­ple united by sentiment, taste and incli­nation. Can we conceive a higher felici­ty than the blending of their interests and lives in such an union? The lover has the pleasure of giving his mistress the la [...] tes­timony of esteem and confidence, and she in return commits her peace and liberty to his protection. Can they exchange more dear and affectionate pledges? Is it not natural, to give the most incontestable proofs of that tenderness with which our minds are impressed? I am sensible that some are so nice as to maintain that the pleasures of love are derived from the dangers and difficulties with which it is attended; they very pertly observe, that a rose would not appear a rose with­out thorns. There are a thousand insipid remarks of this sort which make so little impression on me, that I am persuaded, was [...] lover, the dread of injuring my mistress would make me unhappy, if the [Page 41] enjoyment of her was attended with dan­ger to herself,

Two married lovers lead very differ­ent lives; they have the pleasures to pass their time in a successive intercourse of mutual obligations, and marks of bene­volence, and they have the delight to find that each forms the entire happiness of the beloved object. Herein consists per­fect felicity. The most trivial concerns of oeconomy become noble and elegant when they are exalted by sentiments of affecti­on; to furnish an appartment, is not barely to furnish an apartment; it is a place where I expect my lover: to prepare a supper, is not merely giving orders to my cook; it is an amusement to regale the object I doa [...] on. In this light a wo­man considers these necessary occupati­ons as more lively and affecting pleasures▪ than those gaudy sights which amuse the greater part of the sex, who are incapa­ble of true enjoyment.

A fixed and affectionate attachment sof­tens every emotion of the soul, and ren­ders every object agreeable which presents itself to the happy lover (I mean one who is married to his mistress.) If he ex­ercises any employment, the fatigues of the camp the troubles of the court, all become agreeable when he reflects that he endures these inconveniencies to serve the object of his affections. If fortune is [Page 42] favourable to him, for success does not depend on merit, all the advantages it procures are so many tributes which he thinks due to the charms of the lovely fair; and in gratifying this ambition, he feels a more lively pleasure, and more worthy of an honest man, than that of raising his fortune, and gaining public applause. He enjoys glory, titles and rich­es no farther than as they regard her he loves; and when he attracts the approba­tion of a senate the applause of an army, or the commendation of his prince, it is her praises which ultimately flatter him.

In a reverse of fortune, he has the con­solation of retiring to one who is affect­ed by his disgrace; and locked in her embraces he has the satisfaction of giving utterance to the following tender reflec­tions. ‘My happiness does not depend on the caprice of fortune; I have a con­stant assylum against inquietude. Your esteem renders me insensible of the in­justice of a court, or the ingratitude of a master and my losses afford me a kind of pleasure, since they furnish me with fresh proofs of your virtue and affecti­on. Of what use is grandeur to those who are already happy? We have no need of flatterers, we want no equipag­es, I reign in your affections, and I en­joy every delight in the possession of your person.’

[Page 43] In short there is no situation in which melancholy may not be assuaged by the company of the beloved object. Sickness itself is not without its alleviation, when we have the pleasure of being attended by her we love. I should never conclude, if I attempted to give a detail of all the delights of an attachment, wherein we meet with every thing which can flatter the sens­es with the most lively and diffusive rap­tures. But I must not omit taking notice of the pleasure of beholding the lovely pledges of a tender friendship, daily grow­ing up, and of amusing ourselves, accord­ing to our different sexes, in training them to perfection We give way to this agree­able instinct of nature, refined by love. In a daughter we praise the beauty of her mother: in a son we commend the un­derstanding, and the appearance of innate probity which we esteem in his father. It is a pleasure which according to Moses, the Almighty himself enjoyed, when he beheld the work of his hands, and saw that all was good.

Speaking of Moses. I cannot forbear ob­serving that the primitive plan of felicity infinitely surpasses all others, and I can­not form an idea of Paradise, more like a Paradise than the state in which our first parents were placed: that proved of short duration, because they were unacquainted with the world, and it is for the same [Page 44] reason that so few love matches prove hap­py. Eve was like a silly child, and Adam was not much enlightened. When such people come together, their being amo­rous is to no purpose, for their affections must necessarily be short lived. In the transports of their love they form supper-natural ideas of each other. The man thinks his mistress an angel because she is hand­some, and she is enraptured with the me­rit of her lover, because he adores her. The first decay of her complexion depri­ves her of his adoration, and the husb­and being no longer an adorer, becomes hateful to her, who had no other foun­dation for her love. By degrees they grow disgustful to each other, and after the example of our first parents they do not fail to reproach each other with the crime of their mutual imbecillity. After indiffer­ence contempt comes apace, and they are convinced that they must hate each other, because they are married. Their smallest de­fects swell in each other's view, and they grow blind to those charms which, in any other object would please them. A commerce founded merely on sensation can be attended with no other consequences.

A man, when he marries the object of his affections, should forget that she appears to him adorable, and should consider her merely as a mortal, subject to disorders, caprice and ill temper; he should arm himself [Page 45] with fortitude, to bear the loss of her beauty, and should provide himself with a fund of complaisance which is requisite to support a constant intercourse, with a person even of the highest understanding and the greatest equanimity. The wife, on the other hand▪ should, not expect a con­tinued course of adulation and obedience; she should dispose herself to obey in her turn with a good grace; a science very difficult to attain, and consequently the more estimable in the opinion of a man who is sensible of the merit. She should endeavour to revive the charms of the mis­tress, by the solidity and good sense of the friend.

When a pair, who entertain such rati­onal sentiments, are united by indissolu­ble bonds all nature smiles upon them, and the most common objects appear de­lightful. In my oppinion, such a life is infinitely more happy and more volup­tuous, than the most ravishing and best regulated gallantry.

A woman who is capable of reflection can consider a gallant in no other light than that of a seducer who would take ad­vantage of her weakness, to procure a mo­mentary pleasure at the expence of her glory, her peace her honour, and perhaps her life. A highwayman who claps a pistol to your breast, to rob you of your purse, is less dishonest and less guilty; and I have [Page 46] so good an opinion of myself as to believe that if I was a man, I should be as capable of assuming the character of an assassin, as that of seducing an honest woman, esteem­ed in the world and happy in her hus­band, by attempting to inspire her with a passion to which she must sacrifice her honour, her tranquillity and her virtue.

Should I make her despicable, who ap­pears amiable in my eyes? Should I reward her tenderness, by making her abhorred by her family, by rendering her children indifferent to her, and her husband detestable? I believe that these re­flections would have appeared to me in as strong a light, it my sex had not ren­dered them excusable in such cases; and I hope that I should have had more sense than to imagine vice the less vicious, be­cause it is the fashion.

N. B. I am much pleased with the Turkish manners: a people, though igno­rant, yet, in my judgment, extremely po­lite. A gallant convicted of having de­bauched a married woman, is regarded as a pernicious being, and held in the same abhorrence as a prostitute with us. He is certain of never making his fortune, and they would deem it scandalous to confer any considerable employment on a man suspected of having committed such enormous injustice.

What would these moral people think [Page 47] of our anti-knights-errant, who are ever in pursuit of adventures to reduce inno­cent virgins to distress, and to rob vir­tuous women of their honour; who re­gard beauty, youth, rank, nay virtue itself as so many incentives, which inflame their desires, and render their efforts more eager; and who, priding themselves in the glory of appearing expert seducers, forget that with all their endeavours, they can only acquire the second rank in that ignoble order the Devil having long since been in possession of the first.

Our barbarous manners are so well calculated for the establishment of vice and wretchedness, which are ever inseparable, that it requires a degree of understand­ing and sensibility infinitely above the common, to relish the felicity of a mar­riage such as I have described. Nature is so weak and so prone to change, that it is difficult to maintain the best grounded constancy, in the midst of those dissipa­tions, which our ridiculous customs have rendered unavoidable.

It must pain an amorous husband to see his wife take all that fashionable liber­ties; it seems harsh not to allow them and to be conformable he is reduced to the necessity of letting every one take them that will, to hear her impart the charms of her understanding to all the world, to see her display her bosom at [Page 48] noon day, to see her bedeck herself for the ball, and for the play, and attract a thousand and a thousand adorers, and lis­ten to the insipid flattery of a thousand and a thousand coxcombs. Is it possi­ble to preserve an esteem for such a crea­ture, or at least must not her value be greatly diminished by such a commerce?

I must still resort to the maxims of the East, where the most beautiful women are content to confine the power of their charms to him who has a right to en­joy them; and they are too sincere not to confess, that they think themselves ca­pable of exciting desires.

I recollect a conversation that I had with a lady of great quality at Constan­tinople, (the most amiable woman I ever knew in my life and with whom I after wards contracted the closest friendship.) She frankly acknowledged that she was satisfied with her husband. What libertines said she you Christian ladies are! You are permitted to receive visits from as many men as you think proper, and your laws allow you the unlimited use of love and wine. I assured her that she was wrong informed, and that it was criminal to lis­ten to, or to love, any other than our husbands. ‘Your husbands are great fools she replied smiling▪ to be content with so precarious a fidelity. Your necks, your eyes, your hands, your conversa­tion [Page 49] are all for the publick, and what do you pretend to reserve for them? Pardon me, my pretty Sultana, she ad­ded, embracing me, I have a strong in­clination to believe all that you tell me but you would impose impossibilities up­on me I know the filthiness of the in­fidels; I perceive that you are asham­ed, and I will say no more.’

I found so much good sense and pro­priety in what she said, that I knew not how to contradict her, and at length I ac­knowledged that she had reason to prefer the Mahometan manners to our ridiculous customs which form a confused medley of the rigid maxims of Christianity, with all the libertinism of the Spartans: And notwithstanding our absurd manners, I am persuaded that a woman who is determin­ed to place her happiness in her husbands affections, should abandon the extravagant desire o [...] engaging public adoration; and that a husband who tenderly loves his wife should in his turn, give up the re­putation of being a gallant. You find that I am supposing a very extraordinary pair; it is not very surprizing therefore, that such an union should be uncommon in those countries, where it is requisite to despise established customs in order to be happy.