_He que nai-je point dit? Ai-je du mettre au jour l'opprobre de son lit? Devois-je en lui faisant un recit trop sincere, D'un indigne rougeur couvrir le front d'un pere? Vous seul aves perce ce mystere odieux, Mon coeur pour s'epancher, n'a que vous et les dieux: Je n'ai pu vous cacher, juges si je vous aime, Tout ce que je voulois me cacher a moi-meme. Mais songes sous quel sceau je vous l'ai revele; Oublies, si se peut, que je vous ai parle, Madame; et que jamais une bouche si pure Ne s'ouvre pour conter cette horrible avanture. Sur l'equite des dieux osons nous confier, Ils ont trop d'interet a me justifier, Et Phedre tot ou tard de son crime punie, N'en sauroit eviter la juste ignominie._ 2. _Chedreux_ was the name of the fashionable periwigs of the day, and appears to have been derived from their maker. A French _peruqirier_, in one of Shadwell's comedies, says, "You talke of de Chedreux; he is no bodie to me. Dere is no man can travaille vis mee. Monsieur Wildish has got my peruke on his head. Let me see, here is de haire, de curie, de brucle, ver good, ver good. If dat foole Chedreux make de peruke like me, I vil be hanga." Bury Fair, Act I. Scene II. It appears from the letter of the literary veteran in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1745, that our author, as he advanced in reputation, assumed the fashionable _Chedreux_ periwig. 3. This passage though, doubtless applicable to many of the men of rank at the court of Charles II., was particularly levelled at Lord Rochester with whom our author was now on bad terms. It is hardly fair to enquire how far this description of the discourse and talents of a person of wit and honour agrees with that given in the dedication to Marriage a-la-Mode, when, in compliment to the same nobleman, we are told, that, "Wit seems to have lodged itself more nobly in this age, than in any of the former; and that his lordship had but another step to make, from the patron of wit, to become its tyrant." This last observation seems to have been made in the spirit of prophecy. 4. Such is said to have been the answer of a philosopher to a friend, who upbraided him with giving up a dispute to the Emperor Adrian.