I came to gild thy stains of honour over; and set so high a price upon thy name, that all reproaches for thy past offences should have been lost in future crowds of glory: I came to lead thee from a world of shame, approaching ills and future miseries; from noisy flatterers that would sacrifice thee, first to dull lust, and more unthinking wit; possess thee, then traduce thee. By heaven, I swear it was not for myself alone I took such pains to gain thee, and set thee free from all those circumstances, that might perhaps debauch thy worthier nature, and I believed it was with pain you yielded to every buying lover: no, it was for thy sake, in pity to thy youth, heaven had inspired me with religious flame; and when I aimed at _Sylvia_ it was alone I might attain to heaven the surest way, by such a pious conquest; why hast thou ruined a design so glorious, as saving both our souls? Perhaps thou vainly thinkest that while I am pleading thus--I am arguing still for love; or think this way to move thee into pity; no, by my hopes of death to ease my pain, love is a passion not to be compelled by any force of reason’s arguments: it is an unthinking motion of the soul, that comes and goes as unaccountably as changing moons, or ebbs and flows of rivers, only with far less certainty. It is not that my soul is all over love, that can beget its likeness in your heart: had heaven and nature added to that love all the perfections that adorn our sex, it had availed me nothing in your soul: there is a chance in love as well as life, and often the most unworthy are preferred; and from a lottery I might win the prize from all the venturing throng with as much reason, as think my chance should favour me with _Sylvia_; it might perhaps have been, but it was a wondrous odds against me. Beauty is more uncertain than the dice; and though I ventured like a forward gamester, I was not yet so vain to hope to win, nor had I once complained upon my fate, if I had never hoped: but when I had fairly won, to have it basely snatched from my possession, and like a baffled cully see it seized by a false gamester, and look tamely on, has given me such _ideas_ of the fool, I scorn to look into my easy heart, and loathe the figure you made me there. Oh _Sylvia_! what an angel hadst thou been, hadst thou not soothed me thus to my undoing! Alas, it had been no crime in thee to hate me; it was not thy fault I was not amiable; if thy soft eyes could meet no charms to please them, those soft, those charming eyes were not in fault; nor that thy sense, too delicate and nice, could meet no proper subject for thy wit, thy heart, thy tender heart was not in fault, because it took not in my tale of love, and sent soft wishes back: oh! no, my _Sylvia_, this, though I had died, had caused you no reproach; but first to fan my fire by all the arts that ever subtle beauty could invent; to give me hope; nay, to dissemble love; yes, and so very well dissemble too, that not one tender sigh was