_Who, but a Lover, can express_ _The Joys, the Pants, the Tenderness,_ _That the soft amorous Soul invades,_ _While the dear_ Billetdoux _he reads:_ _Raptures Divine the Heart o’erflow,_ _Which he that loves not cannot know._ _A thousand Tremblings, thousand Fears,_ _The short-breath’d Sighs, the joyful Tears!_ _The Transport, where the Love’s confest;_ _The Change, where Coldness is exprest;_ _The diff’ring Flames the Lover burns,_ _As those are shy, or kind, by turns._ However you find’em, _Damon_, construe ‘em all to my advantage: Possibly, some of them have an Air of Coldness, something different from that Softness they are usually too amply fill’d with; but where you find they have, believe there, that the Sense of Honour, and my Sex’s Modesty, guided my Hand a little against the Inclinations of my Heart; and that it was as a kind of an Atonement, I believed I ought to make, for something I feared I had said too kind, and too obliging before. But where-ever you find that Stop, that Check in my Career of Love, you will be sure to find something that follows it to favour you, and deny that unwilling Imposition upon my Heart; which, lest you should mistake, Love shews himself in Smiles again, and flatters more agreeably, disdaining the Tyranny of Honour and rigid Custom, that Imposition on our Sex; and will, in spite of me, let you see he reigns absolutely in my Soul. The reading my _Billetdoux_ may detain you an Hour: I have had so much Goodness to write you enow to entertain you for so long at least, and sometimes reproach my self for it; but, contrary to all my Scruples, I find my self disposed to give you those frequent Marks of my Tenderness. If yours be so great as you express it, you ought to kiss my Letters a thousand times; you ought to read them with Attention, and weigh every Word, and value every Line. A Lover may receive a thousand endearing Words from a Mistress, more easily than a Billet. One says a great many kind things of course to a Lover, which one is not willing to write, or to give testify’d under one’s Hand, signed and sealed. But when once a Lover has brought his Mistress to that degree of Love, he ought to assure himself, she loves not at the common rate. Love’s Witness. _Slight unpremeditated Words are borne_ _By every common Wind into the Air;_ _Carelessly utter’d, die as soon as born,_ _And in one instant give both Hope and Fear:_ _Breathing all Contraries with the same Wind,_ _According to the Caprice of the Mind._ _But_ Billetdoux _are constant Witnesses,_ _Substantial Records to Eternity;_ _Just Evidences, who the Truth confess,_ _On which the Lover safely may rely;_ _They’re serious Thoughts, digested and resolv’d;_ _And last, when Words are into Clouds devolv’d._