Il creder, donne vaghe, è cortesia,
Quando colui che scrive o che favella,
Possa essere sospetto di bugia,
Per dir qualcosa troppo rara e bella.
Dunque chi ascolta questa istoria mea
E non la crede frottola o novella
Ma cosa vera—come ella è di fatto,
Fa che di lui mi chiami soddisfatto.
E pure che mi diate piena fede,
De la dubbiezza altrui poco mi cale.
RICCIARDETTO.
Dear Ladies, I can neither tell you the name of the Burgemeester's Daughter, nor of the Burgemeester himself. If I ever heard them they have escaped my recollection. The Doctor used to say his love for her was in two respects like the small-pox; for he took it by inoculation, and having taken it, he was secured from ever having the disease in a more dangerous form.
The case was a very singular one. Had it not been so it is probable I should never have been made acquainted with it. Most men seem to consider their unsuccessful love, when it is over, as a folly which they neither like to speak of, nor to remember.
Daniel Dove never was introduced to the Burgemeester's Daughter, never was in company with her, and as already has been intimated never spoke to her. As for any hope of ever by any possibility obtaining a return of his affection, a devout Roman Catholic might upon much better grounds hope that Saint Ursula, or any of her Eleven Thousand Virgins would come from her place in Heaven to reward his devotion with a kiss. The gulph between Dives and Lazarus was not more insuperable than the distance between such an English Greeny at Leyden and a Burgemeester's Daughter.
Here, therefore, dear Ladies, you cannot look to read of
Le speranze, gli affetti,
La data fe', le tenerezze, i primi
Scambievoli sospiri, i primi sguardi.1
Nor will it be possible for me to give you
—l'idea di quel volto
Dove apprese il suo core
La prima volta a sospirar d'amore.1
This I cannot do; for I never saw her picture, nor heard her features described. And most likely if I had seen her herself, in her youth and beauty, the most accurate description that words could convey might be just as like Fair Rosamond, Helen, Rachæl, or Eve. Suffice it to say that she was confessedly the beauty of that city, and of those parts.