MARKS of TRUE ESTEEM. 181 
the warm, but rational export ulation of the lady, to her lover 
in the play, who had facrificed his religion and confcience to. 
his vanity and revenge : 
“ What is dominion , pomp , the wealth of 7tations t 
cc Nay of all the world ; the world it f elf • 
<< 0 r w hat ten thoufand worlds , compared 
“ To truth unfpotted , heaveiily faith, 
cc And all the transports of a godlike ?nind. i 
IC Fixt and unmov'd in the great caufe of virtue 
Adieu. I am yours, &c. 
LETTER EVII. 
To the fame . 
Madam, 
Y O U fee I extend my concern for my friends, beyond the 
narrow fpan of this life. Regards arirtng even from 
common intercourfe and acquaintance, which have nothing of 
im mortality in them, will not ftand the teft of a rational exa- 
mination : narrow, weak, or interefted as thefe muft be, our 
very conftancy in them is but half the virtue we take it for j; 
nay it often degenerates into folly, and fometimes into vice. 
And yet, alas, what little solicitude, with refpeft to a fu- 
ture ftate, do we generally exprefs for thofe we love moft, be 
they in the morn or eve of life ! We hardly entertain a thought 
about their eternal intereft : rather than trefpafs on the rules of 
good breeding, as they are generally underftood, we leave 
them entirely to their own hearts, let thefe deceive them 
never 
