ey
both of them punctually observed the Time thus agreed upon; and that
whatever Company or Business they were engaged in, they left it abruptly
as soon as the Clock warned them to retire. The Romance further adds,
That the Lovers expected the Return of this stated Hour with as much
Impatience, as if it had been a real Assignation, and enjoyed an
imaginary Happiness that was almost as pleasing to them as what they
would have found from a real Meeting. It was an inexpressible
Satisfaction to these divided Lovers, to be assured that each was at the
same time employ'd in the same kind of Contemplation, and making equal
Returns of Tenderness and Affection.

If I may be allowed to mention a more serious Expedient for the
alleviating of Absence, I shall take notice of one which I have known
two Persons practise, who joined Religion to that Elegance of Sentiments
with which the Passion of Love generally inspires its Votaries. This
was, at the Return of such an Hour, to offer up a certain Prayer for
each other, which they had agreed upon before their Parting. The
Husband, who is a Man that makes a Figure in the polite World, as well
as in his own Family, has often told me, that he could not have
supported an Absence of three Years without this Expedient.

[_Strada_, in one of his Prolusions, [2]] gives an Account of a
chimerical Correspondence between two Friends by the Help of a certain
Loadstone, which had such Virtue in it, that if it touched two several
Needles, when one of the Needles so touched [began [3]], to move, the
other, tho at never so great a Distance, moved at the same Time, and in
the same Manner. He tells us, that the two Friends, being each of them
possessed of one of these Needles, made a kind of a Dial-plate,
inscribing it with the four and twenty Letters, in the same manner as
the Hours of the Day are marked upon the ordinary Dial-plate. They then
fixed one of the Needles on each of these Plates in such a manner, that
it could move round without Impediment, so as to touch any of the four
and twenty Letters. Upon their Separating from one another into distant
Countries, they agreed to withdraw themselves punctually into their
Closets at a certain Hour of the Day, and to converse with one another
by means of this their Invention. Accordingly when they were some
hundred Miles asunder, each of them shut himself up in his Closet at the
Time appointed, and immediately cast his Eye upon his Dial-plate. If he
had