might have met with some of these in your peregrination, not that I suppose you can see those vast dominions of _Pluto_’s but in a proportionable time to the variety of subjects, as well as the mightiness of their extent. We have nothing new here, because we are under the sun. Wise men keep company with one another; fools write and fools read; the booksellers have the advantage, provided they don’t trust; some pragmatical fellows set up for politicians; others think they have merit because they have money. Cheats prosper, drunkenness is a little rebuked in the pulpit, but as rife as ever in all other places; people marry that don’t love one the other, and your old mistress _Melisinda_ goes to church constantly, prays devoutly, sings psalms gravely, hears sermons attentively, receives the sacrament monthly, lies with her footman nightly, and rails against lewdness and hypocrisy from morning till night. The rest of particulars I leave for honest _John_ to recount to you; my other affairs oblige me to take my leave of you; expecting some particulars about what I mentioned myself. _Yours_, &c. POMIGNY _of_ Auvergne, _to Mr._ ABEL _of_ London, _Singing-Master_. _SIR_, The sons and daughters of harmony that crowd in daily upon these coasts surprise us equally with your capacities and misfortunes. We are generally of the opinion here, that the muses are as well receiv’d in _England_, as in any other climate whatever. Men are charm’d there at so small an expence of wit or performance, that, one of your endowments might well have hop’d to outrival my felicity, and be something more exalted than to the embraces of a queen. My parentage was as little remarkable in _France_, as yours in _England_; and though I had better luck, durst not pretend I had a better voice. From a singing-boy, I push’d my fortune so as to succeed my own sovereign. From the choir I rose to the chamber; from the chamber I was preferr’d to the closet; and from thence was advanc’d to be vice-roy over all the territories of love: I was lord high-chamberlain to _Cupid_, and comptroller of the houshold to _Venus_. Every delectation superseded my very wishes; nor cou’d I have ask’d for the thousandth part of the blandishments I enjoy’d. I was as absolute in my love as the grand seignior: ’twas for my dear sake the fond princess rais’d her maids of honour’s beds, that she might not hurt her back (as she had frequently done) in creeping under to fetch me out. ’Twas for my dear sake, that if they but nam’d my name when absent, in the raptures of her impatience, she run against the doors, threw down the screens; hurt her face against the mantle-trees and cabinets. She broke at times as much in looking-glasses, stands, and china, in the eager transports of her joy to meet me coming into the room, as by computation, wou’d have fitted out a fleet of fifty sail of capital ships.