t
will not fail of making you always amiable to a man who has so great
a passion for you, and is of so equal and reasonable a temper, as
Tranquillus. Endeavour to please, and you must please; be always in the
same disposition as you are when you ask for this secret, and you
may take my word you will never want it. An inviolable fidelity,
good-humour, and complacency of temper outlive all the charms of a fine
face, and make the decays of it invisible."

We discoursed very long upon this head, which was equally agreeable
to us both; for I must confess, as I tenderly love her, I take as much
pleasure in giving her instructions for her welfare as she herself does
in receiving them. I proceeded, therefore, to inculcate these sentiments
by relating a very particular passage that happened within my own
knowledge.

There were several of us making merry at a friend's house in a country
village, when the sexton of the parish church entered the room in a
sort of surprise, and told us "that, as he was digging a grave in the
chancel, a little blow of his pick-axe opened a decayed coffin, in
which there were several written papers." Our curiosity was immediately
raised, so that we went to the place where the sexton had been at work,
and found a great concourse of people about the grave. Among the rest
there was an old woman, who told us the person buried there was a lady
whose name I did not think fit to mention, though there is nothing
in the story but what tends very much to her honour. This lady lived
several years an exemplary pattern of conjugal love, and, dying soon
after her husband, who every way answered her character in virtue and
affection, made it her death-bed request, "that all the letters which
she had received from him both before and after her marriage should be
buried in the coffin with her." These I found, upon examination, were
the papers before us. Several of them had suffered so much by time that
I could only pick out a few words; as my soul! lilies! roses! dearest
angel! and the like. One of them, which was legible throughout, ran
thus:

"MADAM,

"If you would know the greatness of my love, consider that of your
own beauty. That blooming countenance, that snowy bosom, that graceful
person return every moment to my imagination; the brightness of your
eyes hath hindered me from closing mine since I last saw you. You may
still add to your beauties by a smile. A frown will make me the most
wretched of men,