LVI. Letters from Sir Richard Steele to his second lady (Mrs. Mary Scurlocke) before Marriage. MADAM, LETTER I. Aug. 14, 1707. I CAME to your house this night to wait on you; but you have commanded me to expect the happiness of seeing you at another time of more leisure. I am now under your own roof while I write; and that imaginary satisfaction of being so near you, though not in your presence, has in it something that touches me with so tender ideas, that it is impossible for me to describe their force. All great passion makes us dumb; and the highest happiness, as well as highest grief, seizes us too violently to be expressed by our words. You are so good as to let me know I shall have the honour of seeing you when I next come here. I will live upon that expectation, and meditate on your perfections till that happy hour. The vainest woman upon earth never saw in her glass half the attractions which I view in you. Your air, your shape, your every glance, motion, and gesture, have such peculiar graces, that you possess my whole soul, and I know no life but in the hopes of your approbation: I know not what to say, but that I love you with the sincerest passion that ever entered the heart of man. I will make it the business of my life to find out means of convincing you that I prefer you to all that is pleasing upon earth. I am, Madam, your most obedient, niost faithful humble servant, R. STEELE. LETTER II. MADAM, Lord Sunderland's Office, 1707. WITH what language shall I address my lovely fair, to acquaint her with the sentiments of an heart she delights to torture? I have not a minute's quiet out of your sight; and, when I am with you, you use me with so much distance, that I am still in a state of absence heightened with a view of the charms which I am denied to approach. In a word, you must give me either a fan, a mask, or a glove, you have wore, or I cannot live; otherwise you must expect I'll kiss your hand, or, when I next sit by you, steal your handker... chief. You yourself are too great a bounty to be received at once; therefore I must be prepared by degrees, lest the mighty gift distract me with joy. Dear Mrs. Scurlocke, I am tired with calling you by that name; therefore say the day in which you will take that of, Madam, your most obedient, most devoted humble servant, MADAM, LETTER III. R. STEELE. Aug. 22, 1707.* IF my vigilance, and ten thousand wishes for your welfare and repose, could have any force, you last night slept in security, and had every good angel in your attendance. To have my thoughts ever fixed on you, to live in constant fear of every accident to which human life is liable; and to send up my hourly prayers to avert them from you; I say, Madam, thus to think, and thus to suffer, is what I do for her who is in pain at my approach, and calls all my tender sorrow impertinence. You are now before my eyes, my eyes that are ready to flow with tenderness, but cannot give relief to my gushing heart, that dictates what I am now saying, and yearns to tell you all its achings. How art thou, oh my soul, stolen from thyself! how is all thy attention broken! My books are blank paper, and my friends intruders. I have no hope of quiet but from your pity: to grant it, would make more for your triumph, To give pain, is the tyranny, to make happy, the true empire, of beauty. If you would consider aright, you would find an agreeable change, in dismissing the attendance of a slave, to receive the complaisance of a companion, I bear the former, in hopes of the latter condition. As I live in chains without murmuring at the power which inflicts them, so I could enjoy freedom without forgetting the mercy that gave it. Dear Mrs. Scurlocke, the life which you bestow on me shall be no more my own. I am, your most devoted, most obedient servant, R. STEELE.. LETTER IV. Aug. 30, 1707. MADAM, I BEG pardon that my paper is not finer, but I am forced * This date is in part cut out, and supplied with " Aug. 9, 1671," Over "Madam," at the beginning, Mrs. S. has written " And omache," and substituted "Madam" for dear " Mrs, Scurlocke" at the end. to write from a coffee-house, where I am attending about business. There is a dirty crowd of busy faces all around me, talking of money; while all my ambition, all my wealth, is love! Love which animates my heart, sweetens my humour, enlarges my soul, and affects every action of my life. It is to my lovely charmer I owe, that many noble ideas are continually affixed to my words and actions; it is the natural effect of that generous passion, to create in the admirer some similitude of the object admired. Thus, my dear, am I every day to improve from so sweet a companion. Look up, my fair-one, to that Heaven which made thee such, and join with me to implore its influence on our tender innocent hours, and beseech the author of love, to bless the rites he has ordained, and mingle with our happiness a just sense of our transient condition, and a resignation to his will, which only can regulate our minds to a steady endeavour to please him and each other. I am for ever your faithful servant, 1787, April. R. STEELE. LVII. Letters from Ephraim Chambers. THE Dictionary of Mr. Chambers has so widely diffused his fame, that I have no doubt but some original letters of his will give pleasure to many of your readers. I send you two of them by way of specimen, which were written during a journey in France; and will send you more, if these are thought worth inserting. Yours, &c. LETTER I. To Mrs. Chambers. M. GREEN. MADAM, Paris, Oct. 21, 1738, N. S. I DID not think to have given you the trouble of a letter till I had something agreeable to write. You have had a sufficient share of illness yourself to exempt you from being harassed with the complaints of others. But as you laid me under an engagement to write to you, I know not whe ther I can any longer fairly delay it. You will be surprised, when I tell you, that Paris seems to me the dullest place in the world; and you will doubtless have more regard to my reputation than to tell any body I say so. For people disposed to go in search of pleasure, perhaps there is no place where they are like to meet with so much. But there is no medium; either you must engage heartily in the diversions of the place, or find yourself sunk in the vapours ten thousand fathoms deep. It is from a depth not less than this that I write the present letter; a depth to - which a man could never reach in any place but where every body is gay about him, and where he has not only the load of his own melancholy to bear, but of other people's mirth. It is certain, however, Paris now appears under great disadvantages; the court is at a distance, and the people of quality mostly gone into the country; besides that, the fine season is over, and the beautiful gardens, walks, and woods, which make the chief beauty of it, lie in a sort of ruins, which makes autumn look in some respects more dismal even than winter. The favourite diversion of the French is walking, and taking the air, and the country about Paris is admirably laid out for that purpose. Here are the gardens of the Thuilleries and Luxemburgh, the Course, the woods of Boulogne and Vincennes, the Avenue of St. Cloud and Meudon, which form a variety in this way vastly beyond any thing we have in England. This difference, I think, is observable between the two nations, that the French seek their chief pleasures without doors, and the English within. I know not whether this difference be owing to any diversity in the air of the two places; or to this, that the French are more in the air than we, which makes them alert and hardy, and gives them an appetite. It is certain, they are more familiar, and make more free with the air than we do. You see the public walking-places full from morning to night in the severest weather. They will sit for hours on the benches where an Englishman would be frozen to death. And, what is more, in the dampest weather, and even night, great numbers of them will be found sitting or lying on the bare ground. At first, one would be tempted to think, that, if there were not something less noxious in the air here than in that of England, half the inhabitants must be rotten. But I doubt whether there be much in this. The French are made familiar with the air betimes, so grow hardy and strong. They seem to feel no cold, when I am ready to starve: and though the winter here be colder than at London, I doubt whether there be half the fire burnt. You will perceive by this what way my thoughts have been employed at Paris. If you send a valetudinarian to travel, what else can you expect from him, but observations on the weather and the wind? If you would have an account of their dress, their buildings, furniture, equipages, balls, intrigues, &c. you must send somebody else. There are indeed a thousand things of the kind, which even an indifferent spectator cannot help observing; but they hardly seem to me worth postage, though they may do well enough for chat round a winter's fire. I have been now near a month at Paris, which is much too long, considering what a journey I have still behind. To-morrow. I set out for Lyons, in my way to Languedoc. I applied to a physician here for some advice about my journey; and was unfortunate enough to take some of his medicines, which have weakened and done me harm, so that I have been forced to lie by a week, to retrieve myself. I intend to travel on horseback, having found the conveyance by chaise or coach does not agree with me. If my strength holds out, I hope I may reach Montpellier in about twenty days. The distance is near 500 English miles. The expedition is hazardous enough; but my heart is pretty good, and that is all I have for it, excepting an easy horse and a careful servant. I want much to know how you do, and the rest of my friends: but in this vagrant state I know not when I shall be so happy. Possibly I may trouble some of you with a letter from Lyons, or even sooner, if any thing of consequence happens. I write by this post to Mr. Longman for another remittance of money, which I shall want much. Pray present my sincere respects to... and... I have not room to be more particular. For yourself, if you will forgive me the trouble of this letter, it will make me more than ever, Madam, your obedient humble servant, LETTER II. EPH. CHAMbers. For Mrs. Chambers. MADAM, Montpellier, Dec. 18, 1738, O. S. I FIND you expect fine things from Montpellier, and that a letter written at my usual rate will hardly pass. So fine a climate, you think, ought not to be lost on me. Though I was permitted to be dull in England, yet a man, who claims the same privilege here, ought either to be sent home, or to the galleys. You have some reason in all this; and yet for once, I must beg leave to write like myself: my will is still English; I have yet received no extraordinary |