could scarce
meet with the Name of an extraordinary Person in the _Gazette_ whom he
had not either talked to or seen. In short, he had so well mixt and
digested his Knowledge of Men and Books, that he made one of the most
accomplished Persons of his Age. During the whole Course of his Studies
and Travels he kept up a punctual Correspondence with _Eudoxus_, who
often made himself acceptable to the principal Men about Court by the
Intelligence which he received from _Leontine_. When they were both
turn'd of Forty (an Age in which, according to Mr. Cowley, there is no
dallying with Life [1]) they determined, pursuant to the Resolution they
had taken in the beginning of their Lives, to retire, and pass the
Remainder of their Days in the Country. In order to this, they both of
them married much about the same time. _Leontine_, with his own and his
Wife's Fortune, bought a Farm of three hundred a Year, which lay within
the Neighbourhood of his Friend _Eudoxus_, who had purchased an Estate
of as many thousands. They were both of them _Fathers_ about the same
time, _Eudoxus_ having a Son born to him, and _Leontine_ a Daughter; but
to the unspeakable Grief of the latter, his young Wife (in whom all his
Happiness was wrapt up) died in a few Days after the Birth of her
Daughter. His Affliction would have been insupportable, had not he been
comforted by the daily Visits and Conversations of his Friend. As they
were one Day talking together with their usual Intimacy, _Leontine_,
considering how incapable he was of giving his Daughter a proper
education in his own House, and _Eudoxus_ reflecting on the ordinary
Behaviour of a Son who knows himself to be the Heir of a great Estate,
they both agreed upon an Exchange of Children, namely that the Boy
should be bred up with _Leontine_ as his Son, and that the Girl should
live with _Eudoxus_ as his Daughter, till they were each of them arrived
at Years of Discretion. The Wife of _Eudoxus_, knowing that her Son
could not be so advantageously brought up as under the Care of
_Leontine_, and considering at the same time that he would be
perpetually under her own Eye, was by degrees prevailed upon to fall in
with the Project. She therefore took _Leonilla_, for that was the Name
of the Girl, and educated her as her own Daughter. The two Friends on
each side had wrought themselves to such an habitual Tenderness for the
Children who were under their Direction, that each of them had the real
Passion