am resolv'd but to discover my self in part, and will endeavour to give
you as little occasion as I can, either to boast of, or ridicule the
Behaviour of the Women of Florence in your Travels.

Aurelian interrupted her, and swore very solemnly (and the more heartily,
I believe, because he then indeed spoke truth) that he would make
Florence the place of his abode, whatever concerns he had elsewhere. She
advised him to be cautious how he swore to his Expressions of Gallantry;
and farther told him she now hoped she should make him a return to all
the Fine Things he had said, since she gave him his choice whether he
would know who she was, or see her Face.

Aurelian who was really in Love, and in whom Consideration would have
been a Crime, greedily embrac'd the latter, since she assured him at that
time he should not know both. Well, what follow'd? Why, she pull'd off
her Mask, and appear'd to him at once in the Glory of Beauty. But who
can tell the astonishment Aurelian felt? He was for a time senseless;
Admiration had suppress'd his Speech, and his Eyes were entangled in
Light. I short, to be made sensible of his condition, we must conceive
some Idea of what he beheld, which is not to imagined till seen, nor then
to be express'd. Now see the impertinence and conceitedness of an
Author, who will have a fling at a Description, which he has Prefaced
with an impossibility. One might have seen something in her Composition
resembling the Formation of Epicurus his World, as if every Atome of
Beauty had concurr'd to unite an excellency. Had that curious Painter
lived in her days, he might have avoided his painful search, when he
collected from the choicest pieces the most choice Features, and by a due
Disposition and Judicious Symmetry of those exquisite parts, made one
whole and perfect Venus. Nature seem'd here to have play'd the Plagiary,
and to have molded into Substance the most refined Thoughts of inspired