I would also have him apply his anticosmetic wash to the painted face of female vanity, and his rod, which draws blood at every stroke, to the hard back of insolent folly or petulant wit.  But Addison should be employed to comfort those whose delicate minds are dejected with too painful a sense of some infirmities in their nature.  To them he should hold his fair and charitable mirror, which would bring to their sight their hidden excellences, and put them in a temper fit for Elysium.—­Adieu.  Continue to esteem and love each other, as you did in the other world, though you were of opposite parties, and, what is still more wonderful, rival wits.  This alone is sufficient to entitle you both to Elysium.

DIALOGUE V.

ULYSSES—­CIRCE.—­IN CIRCE’S ISLAND.

Circe.—­You will go then, Ulysses, but tell me, without reserve, what carries you from me?

Ulysses.—­Pardon, goddess, the weakness of human nature.  My heart will sigh for my country.  It is an attachment which all my admiration of you cannot entirely overcome.

Circe.—­This is not all.  I perceive you are afraid to declare your whole mind.  But what, Ulysses, do you fear?  My terrors are gone.  The proudest goddess on earth, when she has favoured a mortal as I have favoured you, has laid her divinity and power at his feet.

Ulysses.—­It may be so while there still remains in her heart the tenderness of love, or in her mind the fear of shame.  But you, Circe, are above those vulgar sensations.

Circe.—­I understand your caution; it belongs to your character, and therefore, to remove all diffidence from you, I swear by Styx I will do no manner of harm, either to you or your friends, for anything which you say, however offensive it may be to my love or my pride, but will send you away from my island with all marks of my friendship.  Tell me now, truly, what pleasures you hope to enjoy in the barren rock of Ithaca, which can compensate for those you leave in this paradise, exempt from all cares and overflowing with all delights?

Ulysses.—­The pleasures of virtue; the supreme happiness of doing good.  Here I do nothing.  My mind is in a palsy; all its faculties are benumbed.  I long to return into action, that I may worthily employ those talents which I have cultivated from the earliest days of my youth.  Toils and cares fright not me; they are the exercise of my soul; they keep it in health and in vigour.  Give me again the fields of Troy, rather than these vacant groves.  There I could reap the bright harvest of glory; here I am hid like a coward from the eyes of mankind, and begin to appear comtemptible in my own.  The image of my former self haunts and seems to upbraid me wheresoever I go.  I meet it under the gloom of every shade; it even intrudes itself into your presence and chides me from your arms.  O goddess, unless you have power to lay that spirit, unless you can make me forget myself, I cannot be happy here, I shall every day be more wretched.