honour are, you will pardon me that I use no farther arguments with you, but hasten to my letter to him, whom I will call Oroondates,1 because if I do not succeed it shall look like romance; and if I am regarded you shall receive a pair of gloves at my wedding, sent to you under the name of Statira.'

"AFTER very much perplexity in myself, and revolving how to acquaint you with my own sentiments, and expostulate with you concerning yours, I have chosen this way, by which means I can be at once revealed to you, or, if you please, lie concealed. If I do not within a few days find the effect which I hope from this, the whole affair shall be buried in oblivion. But alas! what am I going to do, when I am about to tell you that I love you? But after I have done so, I am to assure you, that with all the passion which ever entered a tender heart, I know I can banish you from my sight for ever, when I am convinced that you have no inclinations towards me but to my dishonour. But alas, sir, why should you sacrifice the real and essential happiness of life to the opinion of a world that moves upon no other foundation but professed error and prejudice? You all can observe that riches do not alone make you happy, and yet give up everything else when it stands in competition with riches. Since the world is so bad that religion is left to us silly women, and you men act generally upon principles of profit and pleasure, I will talk to you

1 Oroondates, in the Seigneur de la Calprenède's Cassandra,' was the only son of a Scythian king. He married Statira, widow of Alexander the Great, and daughter of Darius.

without arguing from anything but what may be most to your advantage, as a man of the world. And I will lay before you the state of the case, supposing that you had it in your power to make me your mistress, or your wife, and hope to convince you that the latter is more for your interest, and will contribute more to your pleasure.

"We will suppose then the scene was laid, and you were now in expectation of the approaching evening wherein I was to meet you, and be carried to what corner of the town you thought fit, to consummate all which your wanton imagination has promised you in the possession of one who is in the bloom of youth, and in the reputation of innocence you would soon have enough of me, as I am sprightly, young, gay, and airy. When fancy is sated, and finds all the promises it made1 itself false, where is now the innocence which charmed you? The first hour you are alone you will find that the pleasure of a debauchee is only that of a destroyer: he blasts all the fruit he tastes, and where the brute has been devouring there is nothing left worthy the relish of the man. Reason resumes her place after imagination is cloyed; and I am, with the utmost distress and confusion, to behold myself the cause of uneasy reflections to you, to be visited by stealth, and dwell for the future with the two companions (the most unfit for each other in the world) solitude and guilt. I will not insist upon the shameful obscurity we should pass our time in, nor run over the little short snatches of fresh air and free commerce which all people must be satisfied with, whose actions will not bear examination, but leave them to your reflections, who 1 Made to' (folio).

have seen of that life of which I have but a mere idea.

"On the other hand, if you can be so good and generous as to make me your wife, you may promise yourself all the obedience and tenderness with which gratitude can inspire a virtuous woman. Whatever gratifications you may promise yourself from an agreeable person, whatever compliances from an easy temper, whatever consolations from a sincere friendship, you may expect as the due of your generosity. What at present in your ill view you promise yourself from me, will be followed by distaste and satiety; but the transports of a virtuous love are the least part of its happiness. The raptures of innocent passion are but like lightning to the day, they rather interrupt than advance the pleasure of it: how happy then is that life to be where the highest pleasures of sense are but the lower parts of its felicity?

"Now am I to repeat to you the unnatural request of taking me in direct terms. I know there stands between me and that happiness the haughty daughter of a man who can give you suitably to your fortune. But if you weigh the attendance and behaviour of her who comes to you in partnership of your fortune, and expects an equivalent, with that of her who enters your house as honoured and obliged by that permission, whom of the two will you choose? You, perhaps, will think fit to spend a day abroad in the common entertainments of men of sense and fortune; she will think herself ill-used in that absence, and contrive at home an expense proportioned to the appearance which you make in the world. She is in all things to have a regard to the fortune which she brought you, I to the fortune to which you introduced me. The commerce be

tween you two will eternally have the air of a bargain, between us of a friendship. Joy will ever enter into the room with you, and kind wishes attend my benefactor when he leaves it. Ask yourself, how would you be pleased to enjoy for ever the pleasure of having laid an immediate obligation on a grateful mind? such will be your case with me. In the other marriage you will live in a constant comparison of benefits, and never know the happiness of conferring or receiving any.

"It may be you will, after all, act rather in the prudential way, according to the sense of the ordinary world. I know not what I think or say when that melancholy reflection comes upon me; but shall only add more, that it is in your power to make me your grateful wife, but never your abandoned mistress." T.

No. 200.

Τ

Friday, Oct. 19, 1711

[STEELE.1

Vincit amor patriæ.—VIRG., Æn. vi. 823.

HE ambition of princes is many times as hurtful to themselves as their people. This cannot be doubted of such as prove unfortunate in their wars, but it is often true too of those who are celebrated for their successes. If a severe view were to be taken of their conduct, if the profit and loss by their wars could be justly balanced, it would be rarely found that the conquest is sufficient to repay

the cost.

As I was the other day looking over the letters of my correspondents, I took this hint from that 1 Or perhaps Henry Martyn.

of Philarithmus; which has turned my present thoughts upon political arithmetic, an art of greater use than entertainment. My friend has offered an essay towards proving that Lewis XIV., with all his acquisitions, is not master of more people than at the beginning of his wars; nay, that for every subject he had acquired, he had lost three that were his inheritance. If Philarithmus is not mistaken in his calculations, Lewis must have been impoverished by his ambition.

The prince for the public good has a sovereign property in every private person's estate; and consequently his riches must increase or decrease in proportion to the number and riches of his subjects. For example, if sword or pestilence should destroy all the people of this metropolis (God forbid there should be room for such a supposition! but if this should be the case) the Queen must needs lose a great part of her revenue, or at least what is charged upon the city must increase the burden upon the rest of her subjects. Perhaps the inhabitants here are not above a tenth part of the whole; yet as they are better fed, and clothed, and lodged than her other subjects, the customs and excises upon their consumption, the imposts upon their houses, and other taxes, do very probably make a fifth part of the whole revenue of the crown. But this is not all; the consumption of the city takes off a great part of the fruits of the whole island; and as it pays such a proportion of the rent or yearly value of the lands in the country, so it is the cause of paying such a proportion of taxes upon those lands. The loss then of such a people must needs be sensible to the prince, and visible to the whole kingdom.

1 See letter in No. 180, by Martyn.