imaginable.  When the Physician told her she must certainly die, she desired, as well as she could, that all who were present, except my self, might depart the Room.  She said she had nothing to say, for she was resigned, and I knew all she knew that concerned us in this World; but she desired to be alone, that in the presence of God only she might, without Interruption, do her last Duty to me, of thanking me for all my Kindness to her; adding, that she hoped in my last Moments I should feel the same Comfort for my Goodness to her, as she did in that she had acquitted herself with Honour, Truth and Virtue to me.

’I curb my self, and will not tell you that this Kindness cut my Heart in twain, when I expected an Accusation for some passionate Starts of mine, in some Parts of our Time together, to say nothing, but thank me for the Good, if there was any Good suitable to her own Excellence!  All that I had ever said to her, all the Circumstances of Sorrow and Joy between us, crowded upon my Mind in the same Instant; and when immediately after I saw the Pangs of Death come upon that dear Body which I had often embraced with Transport, when I saw those cherishing Eyes begin to be ghastly, and their last Struggle to be to fix themselves on me, how did I lose all patience?  She expired in my Arms, and in my Distraction I thought I saw her Bosom still heave.  There was certainly Life yet still left; I cried she just now spoke to me:  But alas!  I grew giddy, and all things moved about me from the Distemper of my own Head; for the best of Women was breathless, and gone for ever.

’Now the Doctrine I would, methinks, have you raise from this Account I have given you is, That there is a certain Equanimity in those who are good and just, which runs into their very Sorrow, and disappoints the Force of it.  Though they must pass through Afflictions in common with all who are in human Nature, yet their conscious Integrity shall undermine their Affliction; nay, that very Affliction shall add Force to their Integrity, from a Reflection of the Use of Virtue in the Hour of Affliction.  I sat down with a Design to put you upon giving us Rules how to overcome such Griefs as these, but I should rather advise you to teach Men to be capable of them.

’You Men of Letters have what you call the fine Taste in their Apprehensions of what is properly done or said:  There is something like this deeply grafted in the Soul of him who is honest and faithful in all his Thoughts and Actions.  Every thing which is false, vicious or unworthy, is despicable to him, though all the World should approve it.  At the same time he has the most lively Sensibility in all Enjoyments and Sufferings which it is proper for him to have, where any Duty of Life is concerned.  To want Sorrow when you in Decency and Truth should be afflicted, is, I should think, a greater Instance of a Man’s being a Blockhead, than not to know the Beauty of any Passage