Letters of affaires love and courtship. Written to several persons of honour and quality; / by the exquisite pen of Monsieur de Voiture, a member of the famous French Academy established at Paris by Cardinall de Richelieu. English'd by J.D.

To Monsieur du Fargi••. LETTER XXXV.

SIR,

YOu are, I perceive, as liberal of praises as of any thing else, and not being able otherwise to relieve me in the exigencies I

am in, you would needs send me the fairest words in the world. I could make no better use of them, then to return them upon your self, and if I use not the same, I confesse I shall be much troubl'd to find any to requite the honour you do me. Nor can I but think, Sir, you writ them out of a fore-sight of the necessity I should have for them, and by giving me so much reason to com∣mend you, you have also been careful to furnish me with materials to do it. This favour obliges me to pocket up with patience, the reproaches you load me with, and as I receive from you those ho∣nours I durst not own, it is but reasonable, I bear the reproaches I have not deserv'd. Were it not for that, I should call you to ac∣count for accusing me for the extream desire I have to leave this place, and to know, why you call that hatred, which you might have attributed to affection. I am as much as any man acquainted with the delicacies of Spain, but if I mistake you not, Sir, you think there cannot be any so great for me, as to be near my friends, and if I have quarrell'd with Paris it self, by reason of my Masters absence, you should not think it strange I am grown weary of Madrid, and that I can take no pleasure in a place where I cannot have my health. But though this passion were as unjust as you would have it, yet should you not reproach me with an injustice I am guilty of for your sake, nor take it ill, I over-passionately desire to see you. If I were to struggle with the same inconveniences, in a place where you were, as I met with here, they would not seem to me the same, when I were to encounter them in your company; and I wonder at that expression of your Letter, where you tell me, that there are on that side some per∣sons, with whom, what seems most unpleasant in life you would think easily supportable. Assure your self, Sir, I am also very much eas'd by that kind of consolation, and say you what you please, being where you are, I can fear neither melancholy nor necessity; when I call to mind that even in the Mountains of A∣vergne, we have ever found with you, chearfulness and good entertainment. There are certain treasures in your person, which I shall enjoy maugre all ill-fortune, and never know either po∣verty or sadnesse. This is that which makes me so impatient to get out of this place, and if all my Friends did not oppose it, I should at my departure take the shortest way to find you out, and would my self take down those e••••igies of you, which you say they have hang'd up upon the F••ontie••s. I suppose, Sir, your imagi∣nation

is a little more brawny, then that you should expect any consolation for that; but it is not to be thought that you, whom death it self, as near as you have seen it, could not frighten, should be daunted at his picture. It is not by that posterity will judge of you. Fortune, who is alwayes unjust, will find out some other more to your advantage, and for these effigies, she will one day bestow Statues on you. All the changes she hath wrought in your life, seem to me like those pieces of Tale which is us'd on pictures, which alter nothing in the countenance, and only change what is about the person. Thus does she make sport with great men, she loves to see them in divers shapes, and in a breath she advances those into a Chair of State, whom she had expos'd upon a Scaffold. Sir, I hope, at my arrival, to find that change, and for my own particular, I only desire I may soon have the honour to see you, and that all my fortunes were so engag'd in yours, that I might never be happy or unhappy without you. Ia••,

Sir,

Yours, &c.

Madrid. June 8. 1633.