not so much wiser than ourselves, but that they may receive as well as communicate knowledge, and more inclined to degrade their own character by cowardly submission, than to overbear or oppress us with their learning or their wit.
From these men, however, if they are by kind treatment encouraged to talk, something may be gained, which, embellished with elegancy, and softened by modesty, will always add dignity and value to female conversation; and from my acquaintance with the bookish part of the world I derived many principles of judgment and maxims of prudence, by which I was enabled to draw upon myself the general regard in every place of concourse or pleasure. My opinion was the great rule of approbation; my remarks were remembered by those who desired the second degree of fame; my mien was studied; my dress was imitated; my letters were handed from one family to another, and read by those who copied them as sent to themselves; my visits were solicited as honours, and multitudes boasted of an intimacy with Melissa, who had only seen me by accident, and whose familiarity had never proceeded beyond the exchange of a compliment, or return of a curtesy.
I shall make no scruple of confessing that I was pleased with this universal veneration, because I always considered it as paid to my intrinsick qualities and inseparable merit, and very easily persuaded myself, that fortune had no part in my superiority. When I looked upon my glass I saw youth and beauty, with health that might give me reason to hope their continuance: when
