rate my Beauty while I had it, it has
extremely advanc'd in its value with me now it is lost. There is one
Circumstance which makes my Case very particular; the ugliest Fellow
that ever pretended to me, was and is most in my Favour, and he treats
me at present the most unreasonably. If you could make him return an
Obligation which he owes me, in liking a Person that is not
amiable;--But there is, I fear, no Possibility of making Passion move
by the Rules of Reason and Gratitude. But say what you can to one who
has survived her self, and knows not how to act in a new Being. My
Lovers are at the Feet of my Rivals, my Rivals are every Day bewailing
me, and I cannot enjoy what I am, by reason of the distracting
Reflection upon what I was. Consider the Woman I was did not die of
old Age, but I was taken off in the Prime of my Youth, and according
to the Course of Nature may have Forty Years After-Life to come. I
have nothing of my self left which I like, but that
I am, SIR,
Your most humble Servant,
Parthenissa.

When Lewis of France had lost the Battle of Ramelies, the Addresses to
him at that time were full of his Fortitude, and they turned his
Misfortune to his Glory; 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