divorced the next morning; and this perhaps, you’ll find more plainly expressed in the following lines, as I doubt not, dearest sister, but you have made the experiment. _Your tender girls, when first their hands,_ _Are join’d in_ Hymen_’s magick bands._ _Fondly believe they shall maintain_ _A long, uninterrupted reign:_ _But to their cost, too soon they prove,_ _That marriage is the bane of love._ _That phantom_, duty, _damps its fire._ _And clips the wings of fierce desire._ _But lovers in a different strain_ _Express, as well as ease their pain:_ _Ever smiling, ever fair,_ _To please us is their only care,_ _And as their flame finds no decay,_ _They only covet we should pay_ _In the same coin, and that you know,_ _Is always in our pow’r to do._ And will be always so, illustrious princess, to our great comfort and satisfaction. You have heard, I suppose, what the writing of a few letters has cost me; so that I have laid aside all commerce of that nature at present, and am often oblig’d to trifle my thoughts. Had I not fear’d _Mercury_’s being searched, I would have opened my heart a little more to you; but if the times ever change, or madam _Maintenon_, the governess of _Versailles_, becomes less inquisitive, you may certainly expect to receive an epistle, or rather a volume from me. I put no confidence in the king my father, and he is so jealous of me, that should he pack up his awls for the other world, I wou’d not trust him. I pity you for being kept so close, and having so bad company. That you may yawn and stretch less, and laugh a little more, entertain yourself with _la Fontain_’s tales, or the school of _Venus_, both excellent books in their kind, which I am confident will extreamly divert you; not so much upon the account of their novelty, as by recalling to your mind some past actions of your life. For my part, I highly esteem them both, and you’ll oblige by telling the author so. DIONYSIUS _the Younger, to the Flatterers of what Degree or Country soever_.