convinced of the falsest argument, but very positive in her fancied judgement: abounding in her own sense, and very critical on that of others: censorious, and too apt to charge others with those crimes to which she was herself addicted, or had been guilty of: amorously inclined, and indiscreet in the management of her amours, and constant rather from pride and shame than inclination; fond of catching at every trifling conquest, and loving the triumph, though she hated the slave. Yet she had virtues too that balanced her vices, among which we must allow her to have loved _Philander_ with a passion, that nothing but his ingratitude could have decayed in her heart, nor was it lessened but by a force that gave her a thousand tortures, racks and pangs, which had almost cost her her less valued life; for being of a temper nice in love, and very fiery, apt to fly into rages at every accident that did but touch that tenderest part, her heart, she suffered a world of violence, and extremity of rage and grief by turns, at this affront and inconstancy of _Philander_. Nevertheless she was now so discreet, or rather cunning, to dissemble her resentment the best she could to her generous lover, for whom she had more inclination than she yet had leisure to perceive, and which she now attributes wholly to her revenge; and considering _Octavio_ as the most proper instrument for that, she fancies what was indeed a growing tenderness from the sense of his merit, to be the effects of that revenge she so much thirsted after; and though without she dissembled a calm, within she was all fury and disorder, all storm and distraction: she went to bed racked with a thousand thoughts of despairing love: sometimes all the softness of _Philander_ in their happy enjoyments came in view, and made her sometimes weep, and sometimes faint with the dear loved remembrance; sometimes his late enjoyments with _Calista_, and then she raved and burnt with frantic rage: but oh! at last she found her hope was gone, and wisely fell to argue with her soul. She knew love would not long subsist on the thin diet of despair, and resolving he was never to be retrieved who once had ceased to love, she strove to bend her soul to useful reason, and thinks on all _Octavio_’. obligations, his vows, his assiduity, his beauty, his youth, his fortune, and his generous offer, and with the aid of pride resolves to unfix her heart, and give it better treatment in his bosom: to cease at least to love the false _Philander_, if she could never force her soul to hate him: and though this was not so soon done as thought on, in a heart so prepossesed as that of _Sylvia_’., yet there is some hope of a recovery, when a woman in that extremity will but think of listening to love from any new adorer, and having once resolved to pursue the fugitive no more with the natural artillery of their sighs and tears, reproaches and complaints, they have recourse to every thing that may soonest chase from the heart