on the Almighty, whom I love and adore, as the fountain of my being and blessedness. Pardon me, Madam, it is your now seem the infant, and I repay you that superior regard and tenderness which you lately bestowed on me. NARCISSUS. To LETTER IV. my Lord ****, from a young lady who was in a convent at Florence. My Lord, finding materials in your closet, I took the opportunity of your absence, to give you this intelligence of my death. The hand will convince you that it comes from your once loved Ethelinda. I lived but a few weeks after you left Italy; such was the excess of my grief, though a strict modesty still forced me to conceal my unhappy passion from the most intimate companions I had. After I had discovered it to you, I durst confess the guilty secret to none but the compassionate and forgiving Powers above, who assisted my weakness, and confirmed my resolution, never to comply with any of those schemes you proposed to free me from my confinement. You had, indeed, convinced me that the vows I had made were rash and uncommanded! but, oh! it was past; saints and angels heard it, the all-seeing skies were invoked to witness the chaste engagement; it was sealed above, and entered in the records of Heaven. Thus hopeless was my passion! Perjury and sacrilege stood in all their horrors before me, ruin and eternal perdition were betwixt us: and yet that I loved you, my Lord, I had too often subscribed to that soft confession to leave you any doubt of it; nor was the tender frailty without excuse, if all the merit man could boast, if every grace that Nature could give, or gentle Art improve, deserved distinction; it had been a crime to have been insensible in any circumstance but mine.-Strange circumstance! that could make it virtue to look coldly on you. There was the emphasis of my misery, mine was a heart devoted to superior ardours, and sacred to Heaven alone; that Heaven, which is my impartial judge and witness how sincerely I strove to blot you from my soul. But neither reason, nor the nicest sense of honour, nor even devotion, could assist me; still you returned on my imagination triumphant in all your charms: hopeless of the conquest, I gave myself up to grief and despair, resolving never to attempt my escape from the holy retreat to which my vows had confined me, but rather to fall a victim to the sacred names of Chastity and Truth. Heaven accepted the sacrifice, and Death, my kind deliverer, at once released me from mise cious entrance, and the blest immortals received me into the mansion of Life and Bliss. Whatever was feigned of Elysian Fields, and Cyprian groves, is here without delusion surpassed ; these are the imperial seats, the native dominions, of Love; here his holy torch flamed out with propitious splendour, and his golden shafts are dipt in immortal joys; here are no vows that tear us from our wishes, no conflict betwixt Passion and Virtue; what we like we admire, what we admire we enjoy, nor is it more our happiness than commendation so to do. That unhappy passion which was my torment and crime, is now my glory and boast; nothing selfish or irregular, nothing that needs restraint or disguise, mingles with the noble ardour; it is all calm and beneficent, becoming the dignity of reason, and the grandeur of an immortal mind, and is as lasting as its essence; when the lamps of Heaven are quenched, when the sun has burnt out its splendour, this divine principle shall shine with undiminished lustre, the joy and triumph of the heavenly nations. The substance of love, my Lord, dwells in Heaven, its shadow only is to be found upon earth. LETTER V. To You remember, as we were, on a clear summer evening, gazing on the beauty of the stars, I promised, if you survived me, to give you an account of the planetary worlds, and their inhabitants; I have not made half the tour of the skies, but will, if I can, describe to you the last of these novelties in which I entertained myself. It was in a region immense spaces distant from that system which is enlightened by your sun, and created numberless ages before the foundation of the earth were laid; and the measure thereof described before the Day-spring knew its place, and the bounds of Darkness were determined; before Man was formed of the ground, and the Almighty breathed into him a living soul; an unmeasurable duration before this the unlimited Creator had made and = peopled millions of glorious worlds. The inhabitants of this which I am describing, stood their probation, and are confirmed in their original rectitude, but will never be admitted into the empyrean Heaven, being incapable of that supreme degree of happiness which angels and the spirits of just men attain; however, they are exempt from all evil, blessed to the height of their faculties and conceptions, and are privileged with inmortality. chanted World; whatever you have heard fabled of Fairy scenes, of vocal groves, and palaces rising to magic sounds, is all real here, and performed by the easy and natural operations of these active spirits. I have in an instant seen palaces ascend to a majestic height, sparkling as the stars, and transparent as the unclouded ether: I might describe them like the courtly Prophet; "Their walls "were with fair colours, their foundations sapphire, "the windows of agate, and the gates of car"buncle." Their materials here are all glittering and refined, not like the earthly globe, dark and heavy. These etherials are the nicest judges of symmetry and proportion; and, by the disposition of light and shade, and the mixture of a thousand dazzling colours, form the most charming prospects they have such a command and knowledge of the powers of Nature, that in an instant they raise a variety of sylvan scenes, and carry the perspective through verdant avenues and flowery walks to an unmeasurable length; while living fountains cast up their filver spouts, and form glittering arches among the trees, of growth and verdure not to be expressed. : They are acquainted with all the utmost myfteries of sound, and are possessed with the very soul of Harmony: Art is theirs in all its changing notes, its blandishments and graces; whatever Nature can boast in her wild licentious charms is |