LETTERS
OF
Abelard andHeloise.
To which is prefix'd
A PARTICULAR ACCOUNT
OFTHEIR
Lives, Amours, and Misfortunes.
BY THE LATE JOHNHUGHES, ESQ.
Together with the
POEM OF ELOISA TO ABELARD.
BYMR. POPE.
And, (to which is now added) the
POEM OF ABELARDTO ELOISA,
BY MRS. MADAN.
——————
LONDON:
Printedfor W. OSBORNE, and T. GRIFFIN in
Holborn, and J. MOZLEY, inGainsborough.
MDCCLXXXII.
It is very surprising that the Letters of Abelard and Heloisehave not sooner appeared in English, since it is generally allowed,by all who have seen them in other languages, that they are writtenwith the greatest passion of any in this kind which are extant. Andit is certain that the Letters from a Nun to a Cavalier, whichhave so long been known and admired among us, are in all respectsinferior to them. Whatever those were, these are known to be genuinePieces occasioned by an amour which had very extraordinaryconsequences, and made a great noise at the time when it happened,being between two of the most distinguished Persons of that age.
These Letters, therefore, being truly written by thePersons themselves, whose names they bear, and who were bothremarkable for their genius and learning, as well as by a mostextravagant passion for each other, are every where full ofsentiments of the heart, (which are not to be imitated in a feignedstory,) and touches of Nature, much more moving than any which couldflow from the Pen of a Writer of Novels, or enter into theimagination of any who had not felt the like emotions and distresses.
They were originally written in Latin, and are extant in aCollection of the Works of Abelard, printed at Paris in theyear 1616. With what elegance and beauty of stile they were writtenin that language, will sufficiently appear to the learned Reader,even by those few citations which are set at the bottom of the pagein some places of the following history. But the Book here mentionedconsisting chiefly of school-divinity, and the learning of thosetimes, and therefore being rarely to be met with but in publiclibraries, and in the hands of some learned men, the Letters ofAbelard and Heloise are much more known by aTranslation, or rather Paraphrase of them, in French, first publishedat the Hague in 1693, and which afterwards received several othermore complete Editions. This Translation is much applauded, but whowas the Author of it is not certainly known. Monsieur Bayle says hehad been informed it was done by a woman; and, perhaps, he thought noone besides could have entered so thoroughly into the passion andtenderness of such writings, for which that sex seems to have a morenatural disposition than the other. This may be judged of by theLetters themselves, among which those of Heloise are the mostmoving, and the Master seems in this particular to have been excelledby the Scholar.
In some of the later Editions in French, there has been prefixedto the Letters an Historical Account of Abelard and Heloise;this is chiefly extracted from the Preface of the Editor of Abelard'sWorks in Latin, and from the Critical Dictionary of MonsieurBayle*, who has put together, under several articles, all theparticulars he was able to collect concerning these two famousPersons; and though the first Letter of Abelard to Philintus,in which he relates his own story, m