in that, during his Prosperity, he could never have manifested his heroick Constancy under Distresses, and so the World had lost the most eminent Part of his Character.  Parthenissa’s Condition gives her the same Opportunity; and to resign Conquests is a Task as difficult in a Beauty as an Hero.  In the very Entrance upon this Work she must burn all her Love-Letters; or since she is so candid as not to call her Lovers who follow her no longer Unfaithful, it would be a very good beginning of a new Life from that of a Beauty, to send them back to those who writ them, with this honest Inscription, Articles of a Marriage Treaty broken off by the Small-Pox.  I have known but one Instance, where a Matter of this Kind went on after a like Misfortune, where the Lady, who was a Woman of Spirit, writ this Billet to her Lover.

SIR, If you flattered me before I had this terrible Malady, pray come and see me now:  But if you sincerely liked me, stay away; for I am not the same Corinna.

The Lover thought there was something so sprightly in her Behaviour, that he answered,

Madam, I am not obliged, since you are not the same Woman, to let you know whether I flattered you or not; but I assure you, I do not, when I tell you I now like you above all your Sex, and hope you will bear what may befall me when we are both one, as well as you do what happens to your self now you are single; therefore I am ready to take such a Spirit for my Companion as soon as you please.  Amilcar.

If Parthenissa can now possess her own Mind, and think as little of her Beauty as she ought to have done when she had it, there will be no great Diminution of her Charms; and if she was formerly affected too much with them, an easie Behaviour will more than make up for the Loss of them.  Take the whole Sex together, and you find those who have the strongest Possession of Mens Hearts are not eminent for their Beauty:  You see it often happen that those who engage Men to the greatest Violence, are such as those who are Strangers to them would take to be remarkably defective for that End.  The fondest Lover I know, said to me one Day in a Crowd of Women at an Entertainment of Musick, You have often heard me talk of my Beloved:  That Woman there, continued he, smiling when he had fixed my Eye, is her very Picture.  The Lady he shewed me was by much the least remarkable for Beauty of any in the whole Assembly; but having my Curiosity extremely raised, I could not keep my Eyes off of her.  Her Eyes at last met mine, and with a sudden Surprize she looked round her to see who near her was remarkably handsome that I was gazing at.  This little Act explain’d the Secret:  She did not understand herself for the Object of Love, and therefore she was so.  The Lover is a very honest plain Man; and what charmed him was a Person that goes along with him in the Cares and Joys of Life, not taken up with her self, but sincerely attentive with a ready and chearful Mind, to accompany him in either.