image, and his noble form, may labour on a tedious term of years, with pain, expense, and hazard, before he can arrive at happiness, and then too perhaps his vows are unregarded, and all his sighs and tears are vain. Tell me, oh you fellow-lovers, ye amorous dear brutes, tell me, when ever you lay languishing beneath your coverts, thus for your fair she, and durst not approach for fear of honour? Tell me, by a gentle bleat, ye little butting rams, do you sigh thus for your soft, white ewes? Do you lie thus conceal’d, to wait the coming shades of night, ’.ill all the cursed spies are folded? No, no, even you are much more blest than man, who is bound up to rules, fetter’d by the nice decencies of honour. My divine maid, thus were my thoughts employ’d, when from the farthest end of the grove, where I now remain, I saw _Dorillus_ approach with thy welcome letter; he tells, you had like to have been surpris’d in making it up; and he receiv’d it with much difficulty: ah _Sylvia_, should any accident happen to prevent my seeing you to-night, I were undone for ever, and you must expect to find me stretch’d out, dead and cold under this oak, where now I lie writing on its knotty root. Thy letter, I confess, is dear; it contains thy soul, and my happiness; by this after-story of the surprise I long to be inform’d of, for from thence I may gather part of my fortune. I rave and die with fear of a disappointment; not but I would undergo a thousand torments and deaths for _Sylvia_; but oh consider me, and let me not suffer if possible; for know, my charming angel, my impatient heart is almost broke, and will not contain itself without being nearer my adorable maid, without taking in at my eyes a little comfort; no, I am resolv’d; put me not off with tricks, which foolish honour invents to jilt mankind with; for if you do, by heaven I will forget all considerations and respect, and force myself with all the violence of raging love into the presence of my cruel _Sylvia_; own her mine, and ravish my delight; nor shall the happy walls of _Bellfont_ be of strength sufficient to secure her; nay, persuade me not, for if you make me mad and raving, this will be the effects on’t.----Oh pardon me, my sacred maid, pardon the wildness of my frantic love--I paused, took a turn or two in the lone path, consider’d what I had said, and found it was too much, too bold, too rude to approach my soft, my tender maid: I am calm, my soul, as thy bewitching smiles; hush, as thy secret sighs, and will resolve to die rather than offend my adorable virgin; only send me word what you think of my fate, while I expect it here on this kind mossy bed where now I lie; which I would not quit for a throne, since here I may hope the news may soonest arrive to make me happier than a god! which that nothing on my part may prevent, I here vow in the face of heaven, I will not abuse the freedom my _Sylvia_ blesses me with; nor shall my love go beyond the limits of honour.