n the most eloquent can teach him how to
utter. Thus, madam, in the midst of crowds, you reign in solitude; and
are adored with the deepest veneration, that of silence. 'Tis true,
you are above all mortal wishes; no man desires impossibilities,
because they are beyond the reach of nature. To hope to be a god, is
folly exalted into madness; but, by the laws of our creation, we are
obliged to adore him, and are permitted to love him too at human
distance. 'Tis the nature of perfection to be attractive, but the
excellency of the object refines the nature of the love. It strikes an
impression of awful reverence; 'tis indeed that love which is more
properly a zeal than passion. 'Tis the rapture which anchorites find
in prayer, when a beam of the divinity shines upon them; that which
makes them despise all worldly objects; and yet 'tis all but
contemplation. They are seldom visited from above, but a single vision
so transports them, that it makes up the happiness of their lives.
Mortality cannot bear it often: it finds them in the eagerness and
height of their devotion; they are speechless for the time that it
continues, and prostrate and dead when it departs. That ecstacy had
need be strong, which, without any end, but that of admiration has
power enough to destroy all other passions. You render mankind
insensible to other beauties, and have destroyed the empire of love in
a court which was the seat of his dominion. You have subverted (may I
dare to accuse you of it?) even our fundamental laws; and reign
absolute over the hearts of a stubborn and free-born people, tenacious
almost to madness of their liberty. The brightest and most victorious
of our ladies make daily complaints of revolted subjects, if they may
be said to be revolted, whose servitude is not accepted; for your
royal highness is too great, and too just a monarch, either to want or
to receive the homage of rebellious fugitives. Yet, if some few among
the multitude continue stedfast to their first pretensions, 'tis an
obedience so lukewarm and languishing, that it merits not the name of
passion; their addresses are so faint, and their vows so hollow to
their sovereigns, that they seem only to maintain their faith out of a
sense of honour: they are ashamed to desist, and yet grow careless to
obtain. Like despairing combatants, they strive against you as if they
had beheld unveiled the magical shield of your Ariosto, which dazzled
the beholders with too much bright