the necessary Qualifications of Heroes, Madam, said Arabella, and each in a superlative Degree?ÑWas not their Valour invincible, their Generosity unbounded, and their Fidelity inviolable?
It cannot be denied, said the Countess, but that their Valour was invincible; and many thousand Men less courageous than themselves,

felt the fatal Effects of that invincible Valour, which was perpetually seeking after Occasions to exert itself. Oroondates gave many extraordinary Proofs of that unbounded Generosity so natural to the Heroes of his Time. This Prince being sent by the King his Father, at the Head of an Army, to oppose the Persian Monarch, who had unjustly invaded his Dominions, and was destroying the Lives and Properties of his Subjects; having taken the Wives and Daughters of his Enemy Prisoners, had by these Means an Opportunity to put a Period to a War so destructive to his Country: Yet out of a Generosity truly heroick, he releas'd them immediately without any Conditions; and falling in Love with one of those Princesses, secietly quitted his Father's Court, resided several Years in that of the Enemy of his Father and Country, engag'd himself to his Daughter, and when the War broke out again between the two Kings, fought furiously against an Army in which the King his Father was in Person, and shed the Blood of his future Subjects without Remorse; tho' each of those Subjects, we are told, would have sacrific'd his Life to save that of their Prince, so much was he belov'd? Such are the Actions which immortalize the Heroes of Romance, and are by the Authors of those Books styl'd glorious, godlike, and divine. Yet judging of them as Christians, we shall find them impious and base, and directly opposite to our present Notions of moral and relative Duties.
'Tis certain therefore, Madam, added the Contess with a Smile, that what was Virtue in

those Days, is Vice in ours: And to form a Hero according to our Notions of 'em at present, 'tis nessary to give him Qualities very different from Oroondates.
The secret Charm in the Countenance, Voice, and Manner of the Countess, join'd to the Force of her reasoning, could not fail of making some Impression on the Mind of Arabella; but it was such an Impression as came far short of Conviction. She was surpriz'd embarrass'd, perplex'd, but not convinc'd. Heroism, romantick Heroism, was deeply rooted in her Heart; it was her Habit of thinking, a Principle imbib'd