Some time before this, the infatuation which had imposed upon the fair Jennings in his favour had begun to subside.  All that now inclined her to this match were the advantages of a settlement.  The careless indolence of a lover, who faintly paid his addresses to her, as it were from custom or habit, disgusted her; and the resolution he had taken, without consulting her, appeared so ridiculous in him, and so injurious to herself, that, from that moment, she resolved to think no more of him.  Her eyes being opened by degrees, she saw the fallacy of the splendour, which had at first deceived her; and the renowned Jermyn was received according to his real merit when he came to acquaint her with his heroical project.  There appeared so much indifference and ease in the raillery with which she complimented him upon his voyage, that he was entirely disconcerted, and so much the more so, as he had prepared all the arguments he thought capable of consoling her, upon announcing to her the fatal news of his departure.  She told him, “that nothing could be more glorious for him, who had triumphed over the liberty of so many persons in Europe, than too and extend his conquests in other parts of the world; and that she advised him to bring home with him all the female captives he might make in Africa, in order to replace those beauties whom his absence would bring to the grave.”

Jermyn was highly displeased that she should be capable of raillery in the condition he supposed her reduced to; but he soon perceived she was in earnest:  she told him, that she considered this farewell visit as his last, and desired him not to think of making her any more before his departure.

Thus far everything went well on her side:  Jermyn was not only confounded at having received his discharge in so cavalier a manner; but this very demonstration of her indifference had revived, and even redoubled, all the love and affection he had formerly felt for her.  Thus she had both the pleasure of despising him, and of seeing him more entangled in the chains of love than he had ever been before.  This was not sufficient:  she wished still farther, and very unadvisedly, to strain her resentment.

Ovid’s Epistles,—­[This is the translation of Ovid’s Epistles published by Mr. Dryden.  The second edition of it was printed in 1681.]—­ translated into English verse by the greatest wits at court, having lately been published, she wrote a letter from a shepherdess in despair, addressed to the perfidious Jermyn.  She took the epistle of Ariadne to Theseus for her model.  The beginning of this letter contained, word for word, the complaints and reproaches of that injured fair to the cruel man by whom she had been abandoned.  All this was properly adapted to the present times and circumstances.  It was her design to have closed this piece with a description of the toils, perils, and monsters, that awaited him in Guinea, for which he quitted a tender mistress, who was plunged into the abyss of misery,