If

O launch thy bark, fecure of profp'rous gales;
Cupid for thee shall spread the swelling fails.
will fly---(yet ah! what cause can be,
Too cruel youth, that you should fly from me?)
If not from Phaon I must hope for ease,
Ah let me seek it from the raging seas :
To raging feas unpity'd I'll remove,

256

And either cease to live or ceafe to love!

you

ELOISA

то

A BELAR D.

ARGUMENT.

Α'

BELARD and Eloifa flourished in the twelfth Century; they were two of the most distinguished perfons of their age in learning and beauty, but for nothing more famous than for their unfortunate pasfion. After a long courfe of calamities, they retired each to a several Convent, and confecrated the remainder of their days to religion. It was many years after this feparation, that a letter of Abelard's to a Friend, which contained the hiftory of his misfortune, fell into the hands of Eloifa. This awakening all her tendernefs, occafioned those celebrated letters (out of which the following is partly extracted) which give fo lively a picture of the struggles of grace and nature, virtue and paffion. P.