I may a little alleviate the Severity of this my Speculation (which otherwise may lose me several of my polite Readers) I shall translate a Story
that
has been quoted upon another Occasion by one of the most learned Men of the present Age, as I find it in the Original.
Reader will see it is not foreign to my present Subject, and I dare say will think it a lively Representation of a Person lying under the Torments of such a kind of Tantalism, or
Platonick
Hell, as that which we have now under Consideration. Monsieur
Pontignan
speaking of a Love-Adventure that happened to him in the Country, gives the following Account of it