sible that Eloisa, if she had not lost her husband, might have lost her good name on some other person's account. But one thing appears certain, that at all events it is she that would have been the greater sufferer on the score of love, because she least deserved to be so. If she continued faithful, the inferiority of Abelard's nature would have tormented her. If she became otherwise, her reputation was gone, and the violation of her marriage compact, however unfit the tie, would have distressed a tender conscience educated in the belief of its propriety. When the best natures thus become the greatest losers, it is high time for society to look to what makes them so. At all events, a man of forty or forty-four has no business with a wife or a mistress twenty years younger than himself, if only for this reason, that there are so many charming women nearer to his own time of life. 2. All the real love was on Eloisa's side, and Abelard was a very selfish person and 3, Her character in every respect surpassed what is thought of it. This second proposition is startling to a sentimental reader; but unfortunately it is not to be doubted. Abelard's passion was a purely sensual one, and that of the most selfish order. Miss Hays, in her "Female Biography," (a work that upon the whole does honour to her candour as well as good sense,) chooses to represent the love-story in its old light, though Bayle and Mr. Berington are both among her authorities. So difficult is it for a tender imagination to part with a tale of true love. We are very sorry ourselves; but, for reasons already stated, we feel compelled to make rougher work of it. Abelard deliberately seduced Eloisa. He introduced himself into her uncle's house, under false pretences; and when he found the credulous old man falling into the snare, and giving up the poor girl to his designs, he says, he looked at him with no less astonishment than if he had given a lamb up to a hungry wolf--a pretty image! and such as shows at once the whole extent of his love! In the history of his calamities, which he wrote to a friend, and which contains these and other edifying escapes or ostentations of the truth, (for, as Eloisa herself had occasion to notice, he suppresses the truth sometimes,) he gives us to understand, that up to that period he had lived with great virtue. "For a man of this kind," says Bayle, "he showed remarkable knowledge in the art of making his way as a gallant." The truth is, he might have learnt all the art that he practised, from books; but we may believe just as much of his assertion as we please. It was not the custom in those times, except for great saints, to stand upon much ceremony with the practical part of religion; nor did the study of Ovid and other ancient writers tend to make them more scrupulous. If Abelard lived as he said, it is to be attributed rather to the natural coldness of his temperament, and the vanity that absorbed him as an object of admiration in the schools. The sensual passion that ensued, and the metaphors by which he illustrated it, are so far from being incompatible with this coldness, that they essentially belong to it, being as distinct, even in point of appetite, from a genuine warmth and an affectionate necessity of loving, as the periodical gluttony of the sloth over his prey is from the cultivation of his plums and peaches by a lover of the garden. Even when Fulbert was proposing to him to correct his disciple personally in case of disobedience, a thought came into his head, brutal beyond brutality, and such as he afterwards put into practice. Eloisa, looking at him through the eyes of a real affection, turned every thing to the best account; but his actions are of a piece from beginning to end. When his misfortunes came upon him, the first thing he does is to make Eloisa go into a convent, determined that nobody shall possess her or make her happy if he cannot; and manifesting a mistrustful uneasiness, which forced her to blush for him, till she had first taken the irrevocable vow. What does he do then? He forgets her for five years! never sending to enquire after her, nor caring what she may suffer, while he is moaning and lamenting over his fate. He writes to a friend a history of his calamities, in which every thing is regretted for himself, and nothing for her, contriving even to say as little of her as possible. It was an accidental sight of this letter that made Eloisa resolve to ask him the cause of his long silence. The correspondence was renewed; he did her some services in a religious way, as coldly as might be; never spoke of their former connexion, but in terms the most degrading and denouncing, while indestructible love embalmed every memory of it with her. He exhibits his selfishness to the last, frightens her with accounts of his perils from assassination, sends her a pompous form of prayer to be used for him, urges her to be constantly asking pardon for their mutual crimes, (as if she had been the cause of his affliction,) and, in case of the worst, desires that his body may be conveyed to the Paraclete, and buried in a tomb that shall be daily in sight of her and her nuns, in order that they may pray for the repose of his soul; and that she may feel the same incessant solicitude for his state hereafter, as she does for the preservation of his life! Never was egotism more alive to itself, and dead to another. "To me," says Mr. Berington, speaking of the epistle containing these generous anxieties" to me it is all I looked for, and it stamps indelibly the character I had given to the man." Mr. Berington seems inclined at one time to think that Abelard abstained from writing more cordially out of a motive of kindness; but if this had been the case, he would have avoided occupying her mind so egotistically with himself and his concerns; and, above all, he would never have written uncalled-for advice to her nuns, upon points which it amazes Mr. Berington to find him discussing, and discussing too with extraordinary minuteness. Leaving his character therefore stamped, as our author found himself compelled to stamp it, and yet with all the excuses which the early intoxication of his rhetoric and his fame can afford him, (and these are doubtless many, and help to vindicate the human being whom they spoiled,) let us look at the love and character of Eloisa. We have seen that it was she who wrote first after his long silence; that she was full of anxiety for his welfare; and that her love from the beginning was of such a nature, as to make her think the best of all his actions. Eloisa had an understanding not only beyond her years, but beyond the age she lived in; and from this circumsance, and a warmth of heart equal to it, are to be deduced her misfortunes. Conceive a French girl, partaking of all the sprightliness of the national character, adding to it an unusual power of reflection, gentle, sincere, imaginative, none of the meanest in point of beauty, and surpassing all her contemporaries of her own sex and most of the other, in that passionate love of books and literature, which rendered her in a short time one of the most accomplished scholars of the day. This is not enthu siasm. It is all borne out by the evidence of contemporaries, and by that of her own writings. To a girl of this susceptibility and promise, at the age of eighteen, and probably kept in a state of seclusion, is presented for her tutor, a man, double indeed her age, but in the vigour of life, handsome, accomplished, a singer and a composer of his own verses, and renowned over all Europe as the greatest master in those literary pursuits, to which she had as genuine a tendency as to the passion of love. On every side she is overwhelmed, and happy. Her sincerity, joined to her inexperience, does not allow her to doubt the sincerity of another. She accepts his love with a transport of gratitude; and upon the large faith of that moment she lives all her life after, clinging to the last crumb of the interest, when the principal is gone. After the birth of a child, circumstances occasion the seducer to marry her. The world have been surprised that she made objections. It is to be doubted whether she would have done so, had he offered to marry her in the first instance; but she had not been taught to identify love with marriage; and besides the injury which would accrue, she said, to his studies, and fame, and fortune, if he gave up the church and the professor's chair to become a family-man, she plainly told him that she preferred being his mistress to his wife. She delighted to think that his attentions to her should be owing entirely to his love. We must pause, before we judge of this extraordinary conduct according to the principles of the age we live in. Extraordinary it was; but not so much so with reference to the then modes of thinking, as might be imagined. We may wonder that she declined fixing Abelard in any way; but with regard to the scandal of the measure, a wife, in those times, was of more disservice to a scholar, than an avowed mistress; in fact, a churchman (which Abelard intended to be, though he had not yet taken orders, and in which character he might look forward to the highest dignities) was allowed to have a mistress, though not a wife; and there was a laxity of opinion on such points accordingly. This it was, when nothing would pacify the uncle but a marriage, (which he agreed to keep secret, but which Eloisa foresaw he would not,) that enabled her to disavow it in all parties; but unquestionably she had an objection to the marriage on her own account. She confessed, after she had been long in the convent, that she had wished Abelard to love her for her own sake; that the reality of an affection between two persons unshackled with any other ties than its own, could be with more certainty relied on; that they would have the greater delight in seeing one another, and knowing that love only brought them together; and finally, she owned, and repeated it with all the lavish devotedness of her recollections, that she was proud of appearing to the world in the character of his unfettered choice. She took more glory, she said, in any name, even the least reputable, which people could bestow upon her as the mistress of Abelard, than if she had been the wife of the world's master. We must recollect that this was said in a private letter, and in the midst of gushes of tears. Admitted to an unexpected view of some of her fondest and her most despairing moments, it becomes us not to let her suffer more for her sincerity than she ought. Let those condemn her, if they will, who could afford to have all their passionate sayings proclaimed, and yet make the sacrifices to love that she did. In her twentieth year, in August.-VOL. XVII. NO. LXVIII. L the bloom of her life and passions, in the midst of all that was ready to crowd about her, and admire her, and love her, did this noble creature, no less affectionate at heart, than sensitive in every part of her being, devote herself to the living death of a cloister, purely to oblige the wounded egotist, in whom she worshipped the image of a better naturel The mean and envious self-lover was afraid that she would not do it, if he bound himself first: he was wretched enough to tell her so; she blushed for him, and went before. Let us quote here the account given by the Rev. Mr. Berington, a sincere and cordial writer, worthy to speak of the cordial and sincere. His translations from the letters of Eloisa do not equal the originals in force and beauty-a point which he would assuredly concede; but it is a pleasure to hear such a man give his account of this touching event. "Heloisa had not reached her twentieth year. In the vigour of youth and the prime of beauty, could it be supposed, that she also must see charms in a cell, or that she would be inclined to turn her back on a world, with which she had hardly made acquaintance, and which, notwithstanding, had expressed a strong partiality for her character, and an admiration of her talents? But the selfish eunuch knew the excess of her love for him, and of this he would avail himself: could she be his companion no longer, the remainder of her days should be devoted to solitude, and the pure colloquy of angels.— It is not said, how Heloisa received this generous proposal; but, as we know from her own letters, that the natural dispositions of her mind were averse from the cloister, it is probable she would expostulate with Abeillard: she would assure him of her unalterable regard; that it should never be in the power of man to divide her heart; that the world should evermore be hateful to her; but that, as she felt no inclination to the veil, she hoped she might be permitted to spend her life, a voluntary recluse, without the tie of eternal vows, within the walls of Argenteuil. "The proud man was irritated by this gentle expostulation, and he ordered her instantly to comply. Heloisa assented. It was not religion,' says she, which called me to the cloisters: I was then in the bloom of youth; but you ordered, and I obeyed.'-The sacrifice was not yet complete. She had, indeed, promised to comply with his injunctions; but was he sure, should he first engage himself, and leave her at liberty, that she might not violate her promise, and return to the world? He was therefore cruel enough to signify his suspicions, and to insist, that she bound herself first. When you had resolved to quit the world,' she says to him, I followed you; rather I ran before you. It seems, you had the image of the patriarch's wife before your eyes: you feared I might look back, and therefore, before you could surrender your own liberty, I was to be devoted. In that one instance, I confess, your mistrust of me tore my heart: Abeillard, I blushed for you. Heaven knows, had I seen you hastening to perdition, at a single word, I should not have hesitated to have followed, or to have preceded you. My soul was no longer in my own possession.'† Having submitted also to this harsh demand, and choosing the abbey of Argenteuil for her long residence, a day was fixed for the solemn ceremony of her profession. "It was, by this time, no longer a secret, that Abeillard and Heloisa had been married the story of their adventures was generally known; it was known what had instigated Fulbert to his savage revenge; and it was now known, that the lovers were retiring from the world, and that the places of their abode were chosen. ་་ The day came. Curiosity had drawn crowds to Argenteuil. The bishop of Paris officiated in the ceremony; and having blessed the holy veil, which * Hist. Calam. Ep. Helois. 1. + Ep. Hel. 1a. was to cover the head of the victim, he laid it on the altar. The assembly stood in silent expectation: the gates of the cloister opened, and Heloisa came forward. She was clothed in the becoming dress of the order; her attitude marked resignation to her fate; and the hand of affliction had given to her features an angelic softness. As by a mechanical impulse, every bosom thrilled with compassion: it had been whispered that her sacrifice was involuntary numbers pressed round her; and her approach to the altar was impeded. They begged her not to proceed; they urged the fatality of the step; they accused her pretended friends of cruelty; they spoke of her beauty, of her charms, of her talents, and of the horrors of a cloister. Heloisa was visibly affected; but not by their expostulations: the fate of Abeillard alone, who was soon to tread the same mournful path, hung heavy on her heart: tears rolled down her cheeks; and, in broken accents, she was heard to pronounce the words of Cornelia : Hoc juris habebat "O maxime conjux ! LUCAN. Phar. 1. 8. "Uttering these last words as she strove to advance, the crowd separated: her resolution rose fuller on her countenance; she mounted the steps of the altar: put her hand on the veil, with which she covered her face; and pronounced distinctly the fatal vows, which were to sever her from the world and Abeillard for ever.t "The heroism of this action has seldom, I believe, been equalled. But love and the peculiar strength of her mind, would have carried Heloisa even to more arduous sacrifices, had they been presented to her.-It will be said, that her mind, at the awful moment of giving herself to God, was not in the disposition of a Christian votary; that it more resembled a pagan sacrifice; and that, instead of the pious sentiments, agreeable to the occasion, which her mouth should have uttered, she profanely repeated the lines, which Cornelia, with a dagger in her hand, addressed to the manes of Pompey, when she received the news of his death. It is true: nor did Heloisa, either at the time of taking the veil, or afterwards in life, ever pretend that she had any thing in view, than merely to obey the command of Abeillard. To have acted a part, inconsistent with this object, became not her character: she wished not to introduce the affectation of religion, where nothing religious was meant: the honesty and candour of her mind revolted at the thought. Indeed, it is manifest, had Abeillard but hinted that the action would have pleased him more, with a Roman countenance, she would have met the point of a dagger, or have swallowed the deadly hemlock. "Years afterwards, turning to this event, she says to Abeillard: 'I obeyed, Sir, the last tittle of all your commands; and so far was I unable to oppose them, that, to comply with your wishes, I could bear to sacrifice myself. One thing remains, which is still greater, and will hardly be credited: my love for you had risen to such a degree of phrensy, that to please you, it even deprived itself of what alone in the universe it valued (himself), and that for ever. No sooner did I receive your commands, than I quitted at once the dress of the world, and with it all the reluctance of my nature. I meant that you should be the sole possessor of whatever I had once a right to call my own. Heaven knows, in all my love, it was you, and you only, that I sought for whilst together we enjoyed the pleasures, which love affords, the motives of my attachment were to others uncertain. The event has proved on what principle I started. To obey you I sacrificed all my pleasures: I reserved nothing, the Pope only excepted, that so I should become more perfectly your own.-For this sacrifice, if I have no merit in your eyes, 'vain |