_Or if your Pain must be in Words exprest,_ _Let ‘em fall gently, unassur’d and slow;_ _And where they fail, your Looks may tell the rest:_ _Thus_ Damon _spoke, and I was conquer’d so._ _The witty Talker has mistook his Art;_ _The modest Lover only charms the Heart._ _Thus, while all day you gazing sit,_ _And fear to speak, and fear your Fate,_ _You more Advantages by Silence get,_ _Than the gay forward Youth with all his Prate._ _Let him be silent here; but when away,_ _Whatever Love can dictate, let him say._ _There let the bashful Soul unveil,_ _And give a loose to Love and Truth:_ _Let him improve the amorous Tale,_ _With all the Force of Words, and Fire of Youth:_ _There all, and any thing let him express;_ _Too long he cannot write, too much confess._ O _Damon_! How well have you made me understand this soft Pleasure! You know my Tenderness too well, not to be sensible how I am charmed with your agreeable long Letters. The Invention. _Ah! he who first found out the way_ _Souls to each other to convey,_ _Without dull Speaking, sure must be_ _Something above Humanity._ _Let the fond World in vain dispute,_ _And the first Sacred Mystery impute_ _Of Letters to the learned Brood,_ _And of the Glory cheat a God:_ _’.was_ Love _alone that first the Art essay’d,_ } _And_ Psyche _was the first fair yielding Maid,_ } _That was by the dear_ Billetdoux _betray’d._ } It is an Art too ingenious to have been found out by Man, and too necessary to Lovers, not to have been invented by the God of Love himself. But, _Damon_, I do not pretend to exact from you those Letters of Gallantry, which, I have told you, are filled with nothing but fine Thoughts, and writ with all the Arts of Wit and Subtilty: I would have yours still all tender unaffected Love, Words unchosen, Thoughts unstudied, and Love unfeign’d. I had rather find more Softness than Wit in your Passion; more of Nature than of Art; more of the Lover than the Poet.