ou joy not in a
love-discourse."

"Aye, Protheus," returned Valentine, "but that life is altered now. I
have done penance for condemning love. For in revenge of my contempt
of Love, Love has chased sleep from my enthralled eyes. O gentle
Protheus, Love is a mighty lord, and hath so humbled me, that I
confess there is no woe like his correction, nor no such joy on earth
as in his service. I now like no discourse except it be of love. Now I
can break my fast, dine, sup, and sleep, upon the very name of love."

This acknowledgment of the change which love had made in the
disposition of Valentine was a great triumph to his friend Protheus.
But _friend_ Protheus must be called no longer, for the same
all-powerful deity Love, of whom they were speaking (yea even while
they were talking of the change he had made in Valentine) was working
in the heart of Protheus; and he, who had till this time been a
pattern of true love and perfect friendship, was now, in one short
interview with Silvia, become a false friend and a faithless lover;
for at the first sight of Silvia, all his love for Julia vanished away
like a dream, nor did his long friendship for Valentine deter him
from endeavouring to supplant him in her affections; and although, as
it will always be, when people of dispositions naturally good become
unjust, he had many scruples, before he determined to forsake Julia,
and become the rival of Valentine, yet he at length overcame his sense
of duty, and yielded himself up, almost without remorse, to his new
unhappy passion.

Valentine imparted to him in confidence the whole history of his love,
and how carefully they had concealed it from the duke her father, and
told him, that despairing of ever being able to obtain his consent,
he had prevailed upon Silvia to leave her father's palace that night,
and go with him to Mantua; then he shewed Protheus a ladder of ropes,
by help of which he meant to assist Silvia to get out of one of the
windows of the palace, after it was dark.

Upon hearing this faithful recital of his friend's dearest secrets,
it is hardly possible to be believed, but so it was, that Protheus
resolved to go to the duke, and disclose the whole to him.

This false friend began his tale with many artful speeches to the
duke, such as that by the laws of friendship he ought to conceal what
he was going to reveal, but that the gracious favour the duke had
shewn him, and the duty he owed his grace, urged him to