The Sun.
London, England, 1826-08-03 00:00:00

t
I. Abelard was nearly forty Years of age, and Eloisacsghteen.
" We are not to wonderthat this. disparity of years was • no
hindranee to Eloisa's fulling in love. Abelard's talents and perSOn
were the subject of conversation and curiosity, wherever he went.
Ile was handsome, he was renowned, and he wag popular. refen
led their wits with him in vain ; women (according to the
lypieture drawn by Eloisa) stretched their necks after him, as
l , came in and out of rooms. He wrote verso, which were in
cry body's mouth, and he set them to music, and sung them.
hese verses were in praise of Mins; and in fine, Eloise was
Ile
yleung, warm-hearted, imaginative, and passionately fond of lite-
titurek in which Abelard was accounted the greatest master of his
tme. A man of forty, with half these pretensions, has been often
fetind:tO possess substitutevfor youth, and evert for agreeableness
o appearance, in the eyes ,of an:inexperienced girl. Lees inexpe-
r
its,
enessd ones.have not been 'unwilling •to dispense with freshness
o years in consideration of a more intelligent time of life, and of
t e power of bringing a greater stock of ideas to : bear upon the
i ion the uomplitnent, and the power te amuse, are the
greater; and in the fatter accomplishment consist nine-tenths of
i hat ii 'celled fiaeination : the tenth is sincerity ; without which
i deed all the rest will,: Omer: to" later, tumble to-pieces. - :But
eis generally, taken for this; and the inexperienosd' require
Ps' to dleoVer it.' To Furnish them with such helps is a Main
o jest of thewOrk we areasow projecting. One of sthemost de-'
✓ ted passions represented in Shakspeare, is that of the: young and
lovely Desdemona, for a sable-visaged hero, declined into the vale
of years. : This is Italian, and excessive ; but it is the excess of a
natural principle. No matter by what the feelings are interested,
ptovided they arc interested extremely, and warrant is not, against
tern, In the Absence of 'youth; • there lutist be 'young interest';
a4ve.utures, enthusiasm, good-heartedness, a fitness of some sort,
an art of rendering life precious. . • ,
i ' - The gentle lady married to the Moor
biheld all these through the black veil of his complexion, and
ptrhapa added pity to love,..—a great ,gathaer unto-.fair bosoms;
ner did Mr. Wordsworth like her the less for encouraging so illus-
trpons an elder. History is full of inch equaliied inequalities. A
eilebrated French poet,' of our.timen, cries out with a triumphant,
r 1 pture at the love entertained for him by a beautiful girl, in spite
o his ugliness' and his bald head ; and we doubt not that his love
i worth her attention. He has wit and sensibility, stadia a man
o great spirit and independruse."' po t4c, kiwiFy.history of .oor
0
1,
n country furnishes us with a ease in. point, of a more ration-
s: oly .Character. We allude to. the passion entertained by Miss
lanbetnrigh, not, yet in her twentieth year, for Dean Swift, then
in his fotfourth.
I
' " But '''ller`any circumstances, a man, 'twice the age of a
y?ung lady; will do well to consider what the state of the case will
4 twenty years to some. He may be as good and witty as he
pleases, and as entertaining ; and lie may, by chance, be as,young
far a man of his age when he is sixty, as the lady shall'be Old for
h'ers at forty. ' Furthermore,. the lady may turn outan.excellent
wife, he the circumstances what they may; and insist, in spite of
his fears to the contrary, that she is as happy as she desires to be,
atid perfectly content. But these are extraordinary chances, and
Ist to be reckoned upon by a man of generosity. ,
i " The'esse would be hard, where a. sman, young for. his age,
Warm-heartea, and hitherto disappointed in meeting a suitable
i jest of his love, should light upon one that would seem to have
n made for him, had:he been, younger. But as society is con-
; 'tuted; there ought to be no hope for 'web a man ; and yet ao
lof inconsistency is it, that it not only gives as much counte-
Oce to matches of this.sort, as to. the : most. equal, in every
int, but leaves an old man in possession of his respectability,
t he bribes a young woman to marry }ism, ortheir parente betray.
lle
hpr into his clutches. liad,Abelati lived unmoleitedWithEloisa,
we believe, from what is exhibited of her character, that slve
might have *made thin a very. faithfill wife, especially, es his
jialouvy would hail) induced him to take every .step to impress
her the virtue of,fidelity, and the tenderness of .her first love
ouid have remained with her, more or less, to the last.. But it
i iMpossible that 'she could have lived with him and not found out
t ~ weak sides of. lio : character 1 and there_ would have been
°Ugh to render the natural inequality of their marriage on-
opy, though she might Haire taken a romantic pride in bearing
disappointment with tenderness. ~ . , ,
All ow real love war 074 .111,0844 side, and Abelard was, a
2ir
selfieli person.: and 3, Her character in every respect sur-
passed what is thought of it.
This second proposition is startling to a sentimental 'reader ;
brat unfortnnatPlY 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. ,t Female Biography, (a work that upon the whole
dpes honour to her candour as well as good sense) chooses to re-
Pteattlat the 'love-story in its old light, though Bayle unit Mr. Ent-
r4igtors are both among her authorities. So :difficult is it for a
under imagination to part with a tale of tine love. We are very
Vlled.°Mursemalvkese ;robutgiterfotrvorikeatiofonist. already
Abelard' detilibe' wisetelfe;sedl circerlom.
flitilleoiaapreeenlitevein;traodiulli etlwiLhisnheseilfilunindtothe.be. ecrl.,etd,4 uncle'shis
30
illdolnant7sfnaursJl:4r
he sap,
ioto the snare, and giving up 014 poor liti. 4). . deigns,
~. ,
his leoked,at him with no less astonishment titan if bedheeh gwen
rbor.** a hungry wolf—a pretty image! and sue as. shows
'a
Yiesne:.wthehiewhhakhe Urrotetentte°f-al'l6friel:clylealOlwn htheichhc°3lrYin:f Shesehil'eallTad-
'4ll
, r sdifyk,esepes or ostentation' of the truth, (for, as
Elouisa
rietitif lnid oceftion to notice, be suppresses the truth sometimes),
yea us to "'id:stand, that up to- that period he luul lived
great virtue. "Poe a man of, this kind," says Hale, "he
24°Weti nitwit:side knowledge in the art of Making his Way." a
;114nt." The truth pillb• ho. n 'mil u hoot all the art that he
ootiged, from booke—; }ins we"
itosylvbee*ve just as much of his,
caSseeptitiftswn.l'garelvatel,?..leLse... It was not thecustost in those thirel
ethx-e
"''''") to stand upon much eeseinony with
AP,„..rarietertieal's tluiVi topfmartitlithone;m. nworodreidsethrtepsltitroluayo.f OivriAdbanelardiesthuerveAdanucieinlet
wild it is to be attributed rather to the natural coldness of hist"l-
- and the vanity that absorbed him as an object of adult-
' ration in the seheols. The sensual passion that ensued, and the
letaPirrShY'sril.'ell he inustr ata"---I it, are so far from being incom-

See in tlis
ChanLill 11)f I%l' B4ranger (Brussels edition,
1523) the 'song begui.ing, ‘, Grand' dieux combien elle ess
jolit !"