to widen differences so far as to make you refuse him, if he already has not the honour of calling you his; as I am apprehensive he has not, by your signing by your family.

name.

And here let me offer to you my mediation to compose the difference between you, be it what it will. Your cause, my dear young lady, cannot be put into the hands of any body living more devoted to your service, than into those of

Your sincere admirer, and humble servant,

ELIZ. LAWRANCE.

LETTER XXXVI.

MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MRS, HODGES.

MRS. HODGES,

Enfield, June 22.

I AM under a kind of necessity to write to you, having no one among my relations to whom I dare write, or hope a line from if I did. It is but to answer a question. It is this:

Whether you know such a and, if you do, whether he be Harlowe ?

man as Captain Tomlinson?
very
intimate with my uncle

I will describe his person, lest, possibly, he should go by another name among you; although I know not why he should.

'He is a thin, tallish man, a little pock-fretten, of a sallowish complexion. Fifty years of age, or more. Of a good aspect when he looks up. He seems to be a ❝ serious man, and one who knows the world. He stoops

a little in the shoulders. Is of Berkshire.

His wife of Oxfordshire; and has several children. He removed lately into your parts from Northamptonshire.'

I must desire you, Mrs. Hodges, that you will not let my uncle, nor any of my relations, know that I write to you.

You used to say, that you would be glad to have it in your power to serve me. That, indeed, was in my pros. perity. But, I dare say, you will not refuse me in a particular that will oblige me, without hurting yourself.

I understand that my father, mother, and sister, and I presume, my brother, and my uncle Antony, are to be at my uncle Harlowe's this day. God preserve them all, and may they rejoice in many happy birth-days! You will write six words to me concerning their healths.

Direct, for a particular reason, to Mrs. Dorothy Sal. combe, to be left till called for, at the Four Swans Inn, Bishopsgate-street.

You know my hand-writing well enough, were not the contents of the letter sufficient to excuse my name, or any other subscription, than that of

LETTER XXXVII.

MRS. HODGES.

[In answer.]

Your friend.

I

MADDAM,

Sat. July 2.

RETURN you an anser, as you wish me to doe. Master is acquented with no sitch man. I am shure no sitch eve

came to our house. And master sturs very little out. He has no harte to stur out. For why? Your obstinacy makes um not care to see one another. Master's birth-day never was kept soe before: for not a sole heere and nothing but sikeing and sorrowin from master to think how it yused to bee.

I axed master, if soe bee he knowed sitch a man as one Captain Tomlinson? but said not whirfor I axed. He sed, No, not he.

Shure this is no trix nor forgary bruing against master by one Tomlinson-Won knows not what cumpany you may have been forsed to keep, sen you went away, you knoe, Maddam. Excuse me, Maddam; but Lundon is a pestilent plase; and that 'Squire Luveless is a devil (for all he is sitch a like gentleman to look to) as I hev herd every boddy say; and think as how you have found by thiss. I truste, Maddam, you wulde not let master cum to harme, if you knoed it, by any body who may pretend to be acquented with him: but for fere, I querid with myself if I shulde not tell him.

But I was willin to show you,

that I wulde plessure you in advarsity, if advarsity be your lott, as well as prosprity; for I am none of those that woulde doe otherwiss. Soe no more from

Your humble sarvant, to wish you well,

SARAH HODGES.

LETTER XXXVIII.

MISS CL. HARLOWE, TO LADY BETTY LAWRANCE.

MADAM,

Monday, July 3.

I CANNOT excuse myself from giving your Ladyship this one trouble more; to thank you, as I most heartily do, for your kind letter.

I must own to you, Madam, that the honour of being related to ladies as eminent for their virtue as for their de scent, was at first no small inducement with me to lend an ear to Mr. Lovelace's address. And the rather, as I was determined, had it come to effect, to do every thing in my power to deserve your favourable opinion.

I had another motive, which I knew would of itself give me merit with your whole family; a presumptuous one, (a punishably presumptuous one, as it has proved,) in the hope that I might be an humble mean in the hand of Providence to reclaim a man, who had, as I thought, good sense enough at bottom to be reclaimed, or at least grati. tude enough to acknowledge the intended obligation, whe ther the generous hope were to succeed or not.

But I have been most egregiously mistaken in Mr. Lovelace; the only man, I persuade myself, pretending to be a gentleman, in whom I could have been so much mistaken for while I was endeavouring to save a drown. ing wretch, I have been, not accidently, but premeditatedly, and of set purpose, drawn in after him. And he has had the glory to add to the list of those he has ruined, a name, that, I will be bold to say, would not have disparaged his own. And this, Madam, by means that would shock hu. manity to be made acquainted with.

My whole end is served by your Ladyship's answer to the questions I took the liberty to put to you in writing. Nor have I a wish to make the unhappy man more odious to you than is necessary to excuse myself for absolutely declining your offered mediation.

When your Ladyship shall be informed of the following particulars :

That after he had compulsatorily, as I may say, tricked me into the act of going off with him, he could carry me to one of the vilest houses, as it proved, in London:

That he could be guilty of a wicked attempt, in resentment of which, I found means to escape from him to Hampstead:

That, after he had found me out there (I know not how) he could procure two women, dressed out richly, to personate your Ladyship and Miss Montague; who, under pretence of engaging me to make a visit in town to your cousin Leeson, (promising to return with me that evening to Hampstead,) betrayed me back again to the vile house: where, again made a prisoner, I was first robbed of my senses; and then of my honour. Why should I seek to conceal that disgrace from others which I cannot hide from myself?

When your Ladyship shall know, that, in the shocking progress to this ruin, wilful falsehoods, repeated forgeries, (particularly of one letter from your Ladyship, another from Miss Montague, and a third from Lord M.) and numberless perjuries, were not the least of his crimes: you will judge, that I can have no principles that will make me worthy of an alliance with ladies of your's and your noble sister's character, if I could not from my soul declare, that such an alliance can never now take place.

I will not offer to clear myself entirely of blame: but,