hat is allowed us,--there are not many that are
sober enough to be trusted with the government of themselves; and
because others judge us with more severity than our indulgence to
ourselves will permit, it must necessarily follow that 'tis safer being
ruled by their opinions than by our own. I am disputing again, though
you told me my fault so plainly.

I'll give it over, and tell you that _Parthenissa_ is now my company. My
brother sent it down, and I have almost read it. 'Tis handsome language;
you would know it to be writ by a person of good quality though you were
not told it; but, on the whole, I am not very much taken with it. All
the stories have too near a resemblance with those of other romances,
there is nothing new or _surprenant_ in them; the ladies are all so kind
they make no sport, and I meet only with one that took me by doing a
handsome thing of the kind. She was in a besieged town, and persuaded
all those of her sex to go out with her to the enemy (which were a
barbarous people) and die by their swords, that the provisions of the
town might last the longer for such as were able to do service in
defending it. But how angry was I to see him spoil this again by
bringing out a letter this woman left behind her for the governor of the
town, where she discovers a passion for him, and makes _that_ the reason
why she did it. I confess I have no patience for our _faiseurs de
Romance_ when they make a woman court. It will never enter into my head
that 'tis possible any woman can love where she is not first loved, and
much less that if they should do that, they could have the face to own
it. Methinks he that writes _L'illustre Bassa_ says well in his epistle
that we are not to imagine his hero to be less taking than those of
other romances because the ladies do not fall in love with him whether
he will or not. 'Twould be an injury to the ladies to suppose they could
do so, and a greater to his hero's civility if he should put him upon
being cruel to them, since he was to love but one. Another fault I find,
too, in the style--'tis affected. _Ambitioned_ is a great word with him,
and _ignore_; _my concern_, or of _great concern_, is, it seems, properer
than _concernment_: and though he makes his people say fine handsome
things to one another, yet they are not easy and _naive_ like the
French, and there is a little harshness in most of the discourse that
one would take to be the fault of a translator rather than of a