Page 131
To — LETTER XLV.
MADAME,
IT must certainlie be acknowledged that you do miracles as well in verse as in prose, there is not anie to be compared with you; for my part, it puts me into the greatest amazement in the world. And when J consider how innocent you were the last winter, when you durst hardlie speak ordinarie things, and were of opinion, that the word Sophister was injurious, J am not able to comprehend, how you came to do all you now can and that a person who never read but one Comedie, should grow so learned. It is a miracle J understand not, may when J heard the Nunnes of Loudun speak Greek and Latine, J was not so much astonished as I am now to see you write. All I begge of you, Madam, is, that you would not make use of the wit you have gotten to over-reach me, for I easilie am perswaded, that if you attempt it, I shall not be able to avoid it. I therefore leave it to your conscience, requiring onlie you would be faith∣full to me, at least till such time as you meet with another, who hath a greater affection, and a higher estem, and admiration for you, then I have.