Virtues in their proper Colours and their due Proportions, Love or Flattery might perhaps be thought to have drawn the Picture larger than Life; but as this is but an imperfect Draught of so excellent a Character, and as I cannot, will not hope to have any Interest in her Person, all that I can say of her is but impartial Praise extorted from me by the prevailing Brightness of her Virtues.  So rare a Pattern of Female Excellence ought not to be concealed, but should be set out to the View and Imitation of the World; for how amiable does Virtue appear thus as it were made visible to us in so fair an Example!

Honoria’s Disposition is of a very different Turn:  Her Thoughts are wholly bent upon Conquest and arbitrary Power.  That she has some Wit and Beauty no Body denies, and therefore has the Esteem of all her Acquaintance as a Woman of an agreeable Person and Conversation; but (whatever her Husband may think of it) that is not sufficient for Honoria:  She waves that Title to Respect as a mean Acquisition, and demands Veneration in the Right of an Idol; for this Reason her natural Desire of Life is continually checked with an inconsistent Fear of Wrinkles and old Age.

Emilia cannot be supposed ignorant of her personal Charms, tho she seems to be so; but she will not hold her Happiness upon so precarious a Tenure, whilst her Mind is adorned with Beauties of a more exalted and lasting Nature.  When in the full Bloom of Youth and Beauty we saw her surrounded with a Crowd of Adorers, she took no Pleasure in Slaughter and Destruction, gave no false deluding Hopes which might encrease the Torments of her disappointed Lovers; but having for some Time given to the Decency of a Virgin Coyness, and examined the Merit of their several Pretensions, she at length gratified her own, by resigning herself to the ardent Passion of Bromius.  Bromius was then Master of many good Qualities and a moderate Fortune, which was soon after unexpectedly encreased to a plentiful Estate.  This for a good while proved his Misfortune, as it furnished his unexperienced Age with the Opportunities of Evil Company and a sensual Life.  He might have longer wandered in the Labyrinths of Vice and Folly, had not Emilia’s prudent Conduct won him over to the Government of his Reason.  Her Ingenuity has been constantly employed in humanizing his Passions and refining his Pleasures.  She shewed him by her own Example, that Virtue is consistent with decent Freedoms and good Humour, or rather, that it cannot subsist without em.  Her good Sense readily instructed her, that a silent Example and an easie unrepining Behaviour, will always be more perswasive than the Severity of Lectures and Admonitions; and that there is so much Pride interwoven into the Make of human Nature, that an obstinate Man must only take the Hint from another, and then be left to advise and correct himself.  Thus by an artful Train of Management and unseen Perswasions, having at first brought him