beyond the bounds of reason! Ah too, too nicely tender _Sylvia_, that will not give me leave to cast a thought back on my former glory; yet even that loss I could support with tameness and content, if I believed my suffering reached only to my heart; but _Sylvia_, if she love, must feel my torments too, must share my loss, and want a thousand ornaments, my sinking fortune cannot purchase her: believe me, charming creature, if I should love you less, I have a sense so just of what you have suffered for _Philander_, I’d be content to be a galley-slave, to give thy beauty, birth and love their due; but as I am thy faithful lover still, depend upon that fortune heaven has left me; which if thou canst (as thou hast often sworn) then thou would’st submit to be cheerful still, be gay and confident, and do not judge my heart by little words; my heart--too great and fond for such poor demonstrations. You ask me, _Sylvia_, where I am, and what I do; and all I can say is, that at present I am safe from any fears of being delivered up to _France_, and what I do is sighing, dying, grieving; I want my _Sylvia_; but my circumstances yet have nothing to encourage that hope; when I resolve where to settle, you shall see what haste I will make to have you brought to me: I am impatient to hear from you, and to know how that dear pledge of our soft hours advances. I mean, what I believe I left thee possessed of, a young _Philander_: cherish it, _Sylvia_, for that is a certain obligation to keep a dying fire alive; be sure you do it no hurt by your unnecessary grief, though there needs no other tie but that of love to make me more entirely _Your_ PHILANDER.