my reading,
there is none in which the hero's perplexity is greater, and the winding
out of it more difficult, than that in a French author whose name I have
forgot. It so happens, that the hero's mistress was the sister of his
most intimate friend, who for certain reasons was given out to be dead,
while he was preparing to leave his country in quest of adventures. The
hero having heard of his friend's death, immediately repaired to his
mistress, to condole with her, and comfort her. Upon his arrival in her
garden, he discovered at a distance a man clasped in her arms, and
embraced with the most endearing tenderness. What should he do? It did
not consist with the gentleness of a knight-errant either to kill his
mistress, or the man whom she was pleased to favour. At the same time,
it would have spoiled a romance, should he have laid violent hands on
himself. In short, he immediately entered upon his adventures; and after
a long series of exploits, found out by degrees, that the person he saw
in his mistress's arms was her own brother, taking leave of her before
he left his country, and the embrace she gave him nothing else but the
affectionate farewell of a sister: so that he had at once the two
greatest satisfactions that could enter into the heart of man, in
finding his friend alive, whom he thought dead; and his mistress
faithful, whom he had believed inconstant.

There are indeed some disasters so very fatal, that it is impossible for
any accidents to rectify them. Of this kind was that of poor Lucretia;
and yet we see Ovid has found an expedient even in this case. He
describes a beautiful and royal virgin walking on the seashore, where
she was discovered by Neptune, and violated after a long and
unsuccessful importunity. To mitigate her sorrow, he offers her whatever
she would wish for. Never certainly was the wit of woman more puzzled in
finding out a stratagem to retrieve her honour. Had she desired to be
changed into a stock or stone, a beast, fish or fowl, she would have
been a loser by it: or had she desired to have been made a sea-nymph, or
a goddess, her immortality would but have perpetuated her disgrace.
"Give me therefore," said she, "such a shape as may make me incapable of
suffering again the like calamity, or of being reproached for what I
have already suffered." To be short, she was turned into a man, and by
that only means avoided the danger and imputation she so much dreaded.

I was once myself in