I desir’d _Mercury_ to call, _en passant_, at your cave; and as he has wings at his feet, and complaisance in heart, so he will, I don’t doubt, go a little out of his way to oblige me, by delivering you this letter: I have from my infancy had you in my mind, and heard my nurse, when I lay squawling in shitten clouts in my cradle, tell frightful stories of you. As soon as I began to prattle, my maids taught me to call all old wrinkled women wither’d sibyls; and the idea of the den you were confin’d in, fill’d me with fear. But since I have been inform’d of the truth of your history, that fear is chang’d into veneration, and I now look upon your cell as a sacred place. To assure you of my respect and the confidence I repose in you, I will consult you about some future events, and tell you one part of my griefs. I am nobly born, handsome and young enough to inspire and receive the softest love. The _French_ king, who had spoil’d the shape, and wore out the charms of several mistresses, long before I appear’d at his court, had a mind to do the same by me. Being naturally proud and wanton, and tempted by the fine compliments of a great and vigorous prince, and title of duchess, (a temptation none of us women can resist) I soon yielded to his desires; which so mortify’d the haughty _Montespan_, that she, with a ragoo _a-la-mode d’Espagne_, dispatch’d me out of the world, before I could get a true taste of greatness, or the pleasures of a royal bed. Alas! What a mighty difference there is between you and me; your years are innumerable; you are still mentioned in history; your voice still remains, and you enjoy the divine faculty of prediction; but I was murther’d in my bloom, when ripe and juicy as the luscious grape; and that ungrateful perjur’d man, who rifled my virgin treasures, has not so much as thought or spoke of me since. He dotes on nothing but old age; and could you appear in something more solid than air, I do not doubt but he’d make his addresses to you: I believe his being born with teeth presag’d he would always be a tyrant to his people, and in his latter days the cully of such a tough piece of carrion as Mrs. _Maintenon_. _Morbleu!_ Have I barbarously been sacrific’d; and must a miss of threescore and fifteen live unpunish’d, and be treated better than I was in the greatest heighth of that prince’s passion, and warmth of my desires, when capable both of receiving and giving joy? It really distracts me! And I conjure you, in the name of _Apollo_, who never refus’d you any thing, to let me know by one of your oracles, if I shall never return to _France_ again. You came hither, I know, with the brave _Æneas_, (but stay’d no longer than you lik’d the place) and I have heard some people say, that knight-errant diverted himself extremely upon the road, and made a great deal of hot love to you; but I take that to be a meer story, because _Virgil_, who would not have let slip so pleasant a passage, has said nothing of it.