But as needful as beauty is, virtue and
honour are yet more: The reign of it without their support is unsafe
and short, like that of tyrants. Every sun which looks on beauty
wastes it; and, when it once is decaying, the repairs of art are of as
short continuance, as the after-spring, when the sun is going
further off. This, madam, is its ordinary fate; but yours, which is
accompanied by virtue, is not subject to that common destiny. Your
grace has not only a long time of youth in which to flourish, but
you have likewise found the way, by an untainted preservation of your
honour, to make that perishable good more lasting: And if beauty, like
wines, could be preserved, by being mixed and embodied with others of
their own natures, then your grace's would be immortal, since no
part of Europe can afford a parallel to your noble lord in masculine
beauty, and in goodliness of shape. To receive the blessings and
prayers of mankind, you need only to be seen together: We are ready
to conclude, that you are a pair of angels sent below to make virtue
amiable in your persons, or to sit to poets when they would pleasantly
instruct the age, by drawing goodness in the most perfect and alluring
shape of nature. But though beauty be the theme on which poets love to
dwell, I must be forced to quit it as a private praise, since you have
deserved those which are more public: For goodness and humanity, which
shine in you, are virtues which concern mankind; and, by a certain
kind of interest, all people agree in their commendation, because the
profit of them may extend to many.
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