Gildon, Charles (1665-1724)

The Post-boy rob'd of his Mail: or, the Pacquet Broke Open

London

The Post-boy rob'd of his Mail: or, the Pacquet Broke Open

1692

"Our enticing Alurements are despised by Petrified Hearts, and impenetrable to the Impressions of amorous Passion. With Souls of Adamant they correspond with our Lives, encount'ring our Affections with peevish and wayward Scorn."

Your Confidence in entrusting me with your amorous Intrigues, with such a Gentleman, invites me by way of a friendly Revenge, to confide in you, that we may be at liberty to reprove your Affections. Good God!--What yearnings of Compassion have accompanied the certainty of this your Misfortune. The Impulses of my Friendship hurried me to forbode ye any other condition, though miserable, than that of a Lover. A Woman bewitch'd to a Man, is a voluntary Prisoner in in a kind of Hell, whom the Tyranny of Torments tear and rend with so much the more despightful torture, by how much the Heart of a Woman is most soft and tender. Our Dalliances avail not to bend the harden'd haughtiness of an Indiscreet Pride. Our enticing Alurements are despised by Petrified Hearts, and impenetrable to the Impressions of amorous Passion. With Souls of Adamant they correspond with our Lives, encount'ring our Affections with peevish and wayward Scorn. And have you admitted the Frauds of an amorous Appearance of an assiduous Courtship, or an affectionate Assignation, which however he avoids? Silly Belief, to which we bow our Understandings! as if our Desires were made plyable by our natural Tenderness. Unhappy she, that subjects her mind to an humble Salute, to a simpering Lip, opens her Heart to a Glance that represents Dissemble-adoration, and authorizes petty Favours to oblige her. Miserable we, in whom the Pleasures we afford are only belov'd! those Delights which Nature has deposited in us, to the end we might not be more shamefully contemn'd by these ingrateful Wretches, who love, who serve, who idolize, but at the very moment that their fleeting Pleasures terminate, put an end to the ostentation of their Affection, and have no other Aim, but the hopes of Enjoyment, at the instant that they begin to enjoy. Shall a Woman then submit her self to amorous Cares, torment her self to meet the Genius of a Man, grant him the Empire of a coelestial Beauty, when at the very point of knitting the Knot of all Contentments, it comes to be unloos'd, and all her Pleasures are precipitated, when you would think 'em consolidated by Embraces.
(pp. 321-2)

Impressions Mineral::Adamant

C-H Lion

Charles Gildon, The Post-boy rob'd of his Mail: or, the Pacquet Broke Open. Consisting of Five Hundred Letters, to Persons of several Qualities and Conditions. With Observations Upon each Letter. Publish'd by a Gentleman concern'd in the Frolick. Licens'd and Entred, according to Order (London: Printed for John Dunton, 1692). <Link to EEBO-TCP>

06/30/2013