Constant Love finds it self impossible to be shaken; it resists the
Attacks of Envy, and a thousand Accidents that endeavour to change it:
Nothing can disoblige it but a known Falseness, or Contempt: Nothing
can remove it; tho’ for a short moment it may lie sullen and resenting,
it recovers, and returns with greater Force and Joy. I therefore, with
very good reason, crown this _Cypher_ of _Constant Love_ with a Wreath
of _Laurel_; since such Love always triumphs over Time and Fortune,
tho’ it be not her Property to besiege: for she cannot overcome, but
in defending her self; but the Victories she gains are never the less
glorious.
_For far less Conquest we have known_
_The Victor wear the Laurel Crown._
_The Triumph with more Pride let him receive;_
_While those of Love, at least, more Pleasures give._
_The Fourth_ CYPHER.
Perhaps, my lovely Maid, you will not find out what I mean by the _S_
and the _L_, in this last Cypher, that is crown’d with Roses. I will
therefore tell you, I mean _Secret Love_. There are very few People
who know the Nature of that Pleasure, which so divine a Love creates:
And let me say what I will of it, they must feel it themselves, who
would rightly understand it, and all its ravishing Sweets. But this
there is a great deal of Reason to believe, that the Secrecy in Love
doubles the Pleasures of it. And I am so absolutely persuaded of this,
that I believe all those Favours that are not kept secret, are dull and
pall’d, very insipid and tasteless Pleasures: And let the Favours be
never so innocent that a Lover receives from a Mistress, she ought to
value ‘em, set a price upon ‘em, and make the Lover pay dear; while he
receives ‘em with Difficulty, and sometimes with Hazard. A Lover that
is not secret, but suffers every one to count his Sighs, has at most
but a feeble Passion, such as produces sudden and transitory Desires,
which die as soon as born: A true Love has not this Character; for
whensoever ‘tis made publick, it ceases to be a Pleasure, and is only
the Result of Vanity. Not that I expect our Loves should always remain
a Secret: No, I should never, at that rate, arrive to a Blessing,
which, above all the Glories of the Earth, I aspire to; but even then
there are a thousand Joys, a thousand Pleasures that I shall be as
careful to conceal from the foolish World, as if the whole Preservation
of that Pleasure depended on my Silence; as indeed it does in a great
measure.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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