LETTER LXXIII.

MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

[In answer to Letter LXXI. of this volume.]

M. Hall, Wed. Night, July 19.

You might well apprehend that I should think you were playing me booty in communicating my letter to the lady.

You ask, Who would think you might not read to her the least exceptionable parts of a letter written in my own defence? - I'll tell you who-the man who, in the same letter that he asks this question, tells the friend whom he exposes to her resentment, That there is such an air of 6 levity runs through his most serious letters, that those of 'this are least fit to be seen which ought to be most to 'his credit: And now what thinkest thou of thyself. condemned folly? Be, however, I charge thee, more circumspect for the future, that so this clumsy error may stand singly by itself.

"It is painful to her to think of me!' Libertine froth!' So pernicious and so despicable a plotter!' A man 'whose friendship is no credit to any body!' Hardened wretch!' The devil's counterpart!' A wicked, wicked ( man!'-But did she, could she, dared she, to say, or imply all this?-and say it to a man whom she praises for humanity, and prefers to myself for that virtue; when all the humanity he shows, and she know it too, is by my rection-so robs me of the credit of my own works; admirably entitled, all this shows her, to thy refinement upon the words resentment and revenge. But thou wert always

di.

aiming and blundering at some thing thou never couldst

make out.

The praise thou givest to her ingenuousness, is another of thy peculiars. I think not as thou dost, of her tell-tale recapitulations and exclamations-what end can they an swer?—only that thou hast an holy love for her, [the devil fetch thee for thy oddity!] or it is extremely provoking to suppose one sees such a charming creature stand upright before a libertine, and talk of the sin against her, that cannot be forgiven!—I wish, at my heart, that these chaste ladies would have a little modesty in their anger!-It would sound very strange, if I Robert Lovelace should pretend to have more true delicacy, in a point that requires the utmost, than Miss Clariss Harlowe.

I think I will put it into the head of her nurse Norton, and her Miss Howe, by some one of my agents, to chide the dear novice for her proclamations.

But to be serious: let me tell thee, that, severe as she is, and saucy, in asking so contemptuously, What a man

is your friend, Sir, to set himself to punish guilty peo. 6 ple!' I will never forgive the cursed woman, who could commit this last horrid violence on so excellent a creature.

The barbarous insults of the two nymphs, in their visits to her; the choice of the most execrable den that could be found out, in order, no doubt, to induce her to go back to theirs; and the still more execrable attempt, to propose to her a man who would pay the debt; a snare, I make no question, laid for her despairing and resenting heart by that devilish Sally, (thinking her, no doubt, a woman,) in order to ruin her with me; and to provoke me, in a fury, to give her up to their remorseless cruelty; are outrages,

that, to express myself in her style, I never can, never will forgive.

But as to thy opinion, and the two women's at Smith's, that her heart is broken! that is the true women's lan guage: I wonder how thou camest into it thou who hast seen and heard of so many female deaths and re vivals.

:

I'll tell thee what makes against this notion of theirs, Her time of life, and charming constitution: the good she ever delighted to do, and fancified she was born to do; and which she may still continue to do, to as high a degree as ever; nay, higher since I am no sordid varlet, thou knowest her religious turn: a turn that will always teach her to bear inevitable evils with patience: the contempla. tion upon her last noble triumph over me, and over the whole crew; and upon her succeeding escape from us all : her will unviolated: and the inward pride of having not deserved the treatment she has met with.

How is it possible to imagine, that a woman, who has all these consolations to reflect upon, will die of a broken heart?

On the contrary, I make no doubt, but that, as she recovers from the dejection into which this last scurvy vil lany (which none but wretches of her own sex could have been guilty of) has thrown her, returning love will reenter her time-pacified mind: her thoughts will then turn once more on the conjugal pivot: of course she will have livelier notions in her head; and these will make her perform all her circumvolutions with ease and pleasure; though not with so high a degree of either, as if the dear proud rogue could have exalted herself above the rest of her sex, as she turned round.

Thou askest, on reciting the bitter invectives that the lady made against thy poor friend, (standing before her, I suppose, with thy fingers in thy mouth,) What couldst thou say FOR me ?

Have I not, in my former letters, suggested an hundred things, which a friend, in earnest to vindicate or excuse a friend, might say on such an occasion ?

But now to current topics, and the present state of matters here. It is true, as my servant told thee, that Miss Howe had engaged, before this cursed woman's officiousness, to use her interest with her friend in my behalf: and yet she told my cousins, in the visit they made her, that it was her opinion that she would never forgive me. I send to thee enclosed copies of all that passed on this occasion between my cousins Montague, Miss Howe, myself, Lady Betty, Lady Sarah, and Lord M.

I long to know what Miss Howe wrote to her friend, in order to induce her to marry the despicable plotter; the man whose friendship is no credit to any body; the wicked, wicked man. Thou hadst the two letters in thy hand. Had they been in mine, the seal would have yielded to the touch of my warm finger, (perhaps without the help of the post-office bullet ;) and the folds, as other plications have done, opened of themselves to oblige my curi. osity. A wicked omission, Jack, not to contrive to send them down to me by man and horse! It might have passed, that the messenger who brought the second letter, took them both back. I could have returned them by another, when copied, as from Miss Howe, and nobody but myself and thee the wiser.

That's a charming girl! her spirit, her delightful spirit! not to be married to it--how I wish to get that lively

bird into my cage! how would I make her flutter and fly about!-till she left a feather upon every wire!

Had I begun there, I am confident, as I have heretofore said*, that I should not have had half the difficulty with her as I have had with her charming friend. For these passionate girls have high pulses, and a clever fellow may make what sport he pleases with their unevenness—now too high, now too low, you need only to provoke and appease them by turns; to bear with them, and to forbear to tease and ask pardon; and sometimes to give yourself the merit of a sufferer from them; then catching them in the moment of concession, conscious of their ill usage of you, they are all your own.

But these sedate, contemplative girls, never out of temper but with reason; when that reason is given them, hardly ever pardon, or afford you another opportunity to offend.

It was in part the apprehension that this would be so with my dear Miss Harlowe, that made me carry her to a place where I believed she would be unable to escape me, although I were not to succeed in my first attempts. Else widow Sorlings's would have been as well for me as widow Sinclair's. For early I saw that there was no credulity in her to graft upon: no pretending to whine myself into her confidence. She was proof against amorous persuasion. She had reason in her love. Her penetration and good sense made her hate all compliments that had not truth and nature in them. What could I have done with her in any other place? and yet how long, even there, was I kept in awe, in spite of natural incitement, and unnatural

* See Letter XXVII. of this volume.