OCTAVIO.
Lest in this sudden remove you should want money, I have sent you several Bills of Exchange to what place soever you arrive, and what you want more (make no scruple to use me as a friend and) command.
After this letter finding no hopes, but on the contrary a dire necessity of departing, he told Brilliard his misfortune, and asked his counsel in this extremity of affairs. Brilliard, (who of a servant was become a rival) you may believe, gave him such advice as might remove him from the object he adored. But after a great deal of dissembled trouble, the better to hide his joy, he gave his advice for his going, with all the arguments that appeared reasonable enough to Philander; and at every period urged, that his life being dear to Sylvia, and on which hers so immediately depended, he ought no longer to debate, but hasten his flight: to all which counsel our amorous hero, with a soul ready to make its way through his trembling body, gave a sighing unwilling assent. It was now no longer a dispute, but was concluded he must go; but how was the only question. How should he take his farewell? How he should bid adieu, and leave the dear object of his soul in an estate so hazardous? He formed a thousand sad ideas to torment himself with fancying he should never see her more, that he should hear that she was dead, though now she appeared on this side the grave, and had all the signs of a declining disease. He fancied absence might make her cold, and abate her passion to him; that her powerful beauty might attract adorers, and she being but a woman, and no part angel but her form,'twas not expected she should want her sex's frailties. Now he could consider how he had won her, how by importunity and opportunity she had at last yielded to him, and therefore might to some new gamester, when he was not by to keep her heart in continual play: then it was that all the despair of jealous love, the throbs and piercing of a violent passion seized his timorous and tender heart, he fancied her already in some new lover's arms, and ran over all these soft enjoyments he had with her; and fancied with tormenting thought, that so another would possess her; till racked with tortures, he almost fainted on the repose on which he was set: but Brilliard roused and endeavoured to convince him, told him he hoped his fear was needless, and that he would take all the watchful care imaginable of her conduct, be a spy upon her virtue, and from time to time give him notice of all that should pass! Bid him consider her quality, and that she was no common mistress whom hire could lead astray; and that if from the violence of her passion, or her most severe fate, she had yielded to the most charming of men, he ought as little to imagine she could be again a lover, as that she could find an object of equal beauty with that of Philander. In fine, he soothed and flattered him into so much ease, that he resolves to take his leave for a day or two, under pretence of meeting and consulting with some of the rebel party; and that he would return again to her by that time it might be imagined her fever might be abated, and Sylvia in a condition to receive the news of his being gone for a longer time, and to know all his affairs. While Brilliard prepared all things necessary for his departure, Philander went to Sylvia; from whom, having been absent two tedious hours, she caught him in her arms with a transport of joy, reproached him with want of love, for being absent so long: but still the more she spoke soft sighing words of love, the more his soul was seized with melancholy, his sighs redoubled, and he could not refrain from letting fall some tears upon her bosom----which Sylvia perceiving, with a look and a trembling in her voice, that spoke her fears, she cried, 'Oh Philander! These are unusual marks of your tenderness; oh tell me, tell me quickly what they mean.' He answered with a sigh, and she went on--'It is so, I am undone, it is your lost vows, your broken faith you weep; yes, Philander, you find the flower of my beauty faded, and what you loved before, you pity now, and these be the effects of it.' Then sighing, as if his soul had been departing on her neck, he cried, 'By heaven, by all the powers of love, thou art the same dear charmer that thou wert;' then pressing her body to his bosom, he sighed anew as if his heart were breaking--'I know' (says she) 'Philander, there is some hidden cause that gives these sighs their way, and that dear face a paleness. Oh tell me all; for she that could abandon all for thee, can dare the worst of fate: if thou must quit me----oh Philander, if it must be so, I need not stay the lingering death of a feeble fever; I know a way more noble and more sudden.' Pleased at her resolution, which almost destroyed his jealousy and fears, a thousand times he kissed her, mixing his grateful words and thanks with sighs; and finding her fair hands (which he put often to his mouth) to increase their fires, and her pulse to be more high and quick, fearing to relapse her into her (abating) fever, he forced a smile, and told her, he had no griefs, but what she made him feel, no torments but her sickness, nor sighs but for her pain, and left nothing unsaid that might confirm her he was still more and more her slave; and concealing his design in favour of her health, he ceased not vowing and protesting, till he had settled her in all the tranquillity of a recovering beauty. And as since her first illness he had never departed from her bed, so now this night he strove to appear in her arms with all that usual gaiety of love that her condition would permit, or his circumstances could feign, and leaving her asleep at day-break (with a force upon his soul that cannot be conceived but by parting lovers) he stole from her arms, and retiring to his chamber, he soon got himself ready for his flight, and departed. We will leave Sylvia's ravings to be expressed by none but herself, and tell you that after about fourteen days' absence, Octavio received this letter from Philander.
PHILANDER to OCTAVIO.
Being safely arrived at Cologne, and by a very pretty and lucky adventure lodged in the house of the best quality in the town, I find myself much more at ease than I thought it possible to be without Sylvia, from whom I am nevertheless impatient to hear; I hope absence appears not so great a bugbear to her as it was imagined: for I know not what effects it would have on me to hear her griefs exceeded a few sighs and tears: those my kind absence has taught me to allow and bear without much pain, but should her love transport her to extremes of rage and despair, I fear I should quit my safety here, and give her the last proof of my love and my compassion, throw myself at her feet, and expose my life to preserve hers. Honour would oblige me to it. I conjure you, my dear Octavio, by all the friendship you have vowed me, (and which I no longer doubt) let me speedily know how she bears my absence, for on that knowledge depends a great deal of the satisfaction of my life; carry her this enclosed which I have writ her, and soften my silent departure, which possibly may appear rude and unkind, plead my pardon, and give her the story of my necessity of offending, which none can so well relate as yourself; and from a mouth so eloquent to a maid so full of love, will soon reconcile me to her heart. With her letter I send you a bill to pay her 2000 patacons, which I have paid Vander Hanskin here, as his letter will inform you, as also those bills I received of you at my departure, having been supplied by an English merchant here, who gave me credit. It will be an age, till I hear from you, and receive the news of the health of Sylvia, than which two blessings nothing will be more welcome to, generous Octavio, your
PHILANDER.
Direct your letters for me to your merchant Vander Hanskin.
PHILANDER to SYLVIA.
There is no way left to gain my Sylvia's pardon for leaving her, and leaving her in such circumstances, but to tell her it was to preserve a life which I believed entirely dear to her; but that unhappy crime is too severely punished by the cruelties of my absence: believe me, lovely Sylvia, I have felt all your pains, I have burnt with your fever, and sighed with your oppressions; say, has my pain abated yours? Tell me, and hasten my health by the assurance of your recovery, or I have fled in vain from those dear arms to save my life, of which I know not what account to give you, till I receive from you the knowledge of your perfect health, the true state of mine. I can only say I sigh, and have a sort of a being in Cologne, where I have some more assurance of protection than I could hope I from those interested brutes, who sent me from you; yet brutish as they are, I know thou art safe from their clownish outrages. For were they senseless as their fellow-monsters of the sea, they durst not profane so pure an excellence as thine; the sullen boars would jouder out a welcome to thee, and gape, I and wonder at thy awful beauty, though they want the tender sense to know to what use it was made. Or if I doubted their humanity, I cannot the friendship of Octavio, since he has given me too good a proof of it, to leave me any fear that he ( has not in my absence pursued those generous sentiments for Sylvia, which he vowed to Philander, and of which this first proof must be his relating the necessity of my absence, to set me well with my adorable maid, who, better than I, can inform her; and that I rather chose to quit you only for a short space, than reduce myself to the necessity of losing you eternally. Let the satisfaction this ought to give you retrieve your health and beauty, and put you into a condition of restoring to me all my joys; that by pursuing the dictates of your love, you may again bring the greatest happiness on earth to the arms of your