My cousins Montague also have been ever since rejoicing in the new relationship. Their charming cousin, and their lovely cousin, at every word! And how dearly they will love he! What lessons they will take from her! And yet Charlotte, who pretends to have the eye of an eagle, was for finding out some mystery in the style and manner, till I overbore her, and laughed her out of it.

As for Lord M. he has been in hourly expectation of being sent to with proposals of one sort or other from the Harlowes; and still we have it, that such proposals will be made by Colonel Morden when he comes; and that the Harlowes only put on a fae of irreconcileableness, till they know the issue of Morden's visit, in order to make the better terms with us.

Indeed, if I had not undoubted reason, as I said, to believe the continuance of their antipathy to me, and implacableness to her, I should be apt to think there might be some foundation for my Lord's conjecture; for there is a cursed deal of low cunning in all that family, except in the angel of it; who has so much generosity of soul, that she despises cunning, both name and thing.

What I mean by all this is, to let thee see what a stupid figure I shall make to all my own family, if my Clarissa has been capable, as Gulliver in his abominable Yahoo story phrases it, if it were only that I should be outwitted by such a novice at plotting, and that it would make me look silly to my kinswomen here, who know I value myself upon my contrivances, it would vex me to the heart; and I would instantly clap a featherbed into a coach and six, and fetch her away, sick or well, and marry her at my leisure.

But Col. Morden is come, and I must break off.



LETTER XXXVII

MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ. MONDAY NIGHT, AUG. 28.

I doubt you will be all impatience that you have not heard from me since mine of Thursday last. You would be still more so, if you knew that I had by me a letter ready written.

I went early yesterday morning to Epsom; and found every thing disposed according to the directions I had left on Friday; and at night the solemn office was performed. Tourville was there; and behaved very decently, and with greater concern than I thought he would every have expressed for any body.

Thomasine, they told me, in a kind of disguise, was in an obscure pew, out of curiosity (for it seems she was far from showing any tokens of grief) to see the last office performed for the man whose heart she had so largely contributed to break.

I was obliged to stay till this afternoon, to settle several necessary matters, and to direct inventories to be taken, in order for appraisement; for every thing is to be turned into money, by his will. I presented his sister with the hundred guineas the poor man left me as his executor, and desired her to continue in the house, and take the direction of every thing, till I could hear from his nephew at Antigua, who is heir at law. He had left her but fifty pounds, although he knew her indigence; and that it was owing to a vile husband, and not to herself, that she was indigent.

The poor man left about two hundred pounds in money, and two hundred pounds in two East-India bonds; and I will contrive, if I can, to make up the poor woman's fifty pounds, and my hundred guineas, two hundred pounds to her; and then she will have some little matter coming in certain, which I will oblige her to keep out of the hands of a son, who has completed that ruin which his father had very nearly effected.

I gave Tourville his twenty pounds, and will send you and Mowbray your's by the first order.

And so much for poor Belton's affairs till I see you.

I got to town in the evening, and went directly to Smith's. I found Mrs. Lovick and Mrs. Smith in the back shop, and I saw they had been both in tears. They rejoiced to see me, however; and told me, that the Doctor and Mr. Goddard were but just gone; as was also the worthy clergyman, who often comes to pray by her; and all three were of opinion, that she would hardly live to see the entrance of another week. I was not so much surprised as grieved; for I had feared as much when I left her on Saturday.

I sent up my compliments; and she returned, that she would take it for a favour if I would call upon her in the morning by eight o'clock. Mrs. Lovick told me that she had fainted away on Saturday, while she was writing, as she had done likewise the day before; and having received benefit then by a little turn in a chair, she was carried abroad again. She returned somewhat better; and wrote till late; yet had a pretty good night: and went to Covent-garden church in the morning; but came home so ill that she was obliged to lie down.

When she arose, seeing how much grieved Mrs. Lovick and Mrs. Smith were for her, she made apologies for the trouble she gave them—You were happy, said she, before I came hither. It was a cruel thing in me to come amongst honest strangers, and to be sick, and die with you.

When they touched upon the irreconcileableness of her friends, I have had ill offices done me to them, said she, and they do not know how ill I am; nor will they believe any thing I should write. But yet I cannot sometimes forbear thinking it a little hard, that out of so many near and dear friends as I have living, not one of them will vouchsafe to look upon me. No old servant, no old friend, proceeded she, to be permitted to come near me, without being sure of incurring displeasure! And to have such a great work to go through by myself, a young creature as I am, and to have every thing to think of as to my temporal matters, and to order, to my very interment! No dear mother, said the sweet sufferer, to pray by me and bless me!—No kind sister to sooth and comfort me!—But come, recollected she, how do I know but all is for the best—if I can but make a right use of my discomforts?—Pray for me, Mrs. Lovick—pray for me, Mrs. Smith, that I may—I have great need of your prayers.—This cruel man has discomposed me. His persecutions have given mea pain just here, [putting her hand to her heart.] What a step has he made me take to avoid him!—Who can touch pitch, and not be defiled? He had made a bad spirit take possession of me, I think—broken in upon all my duties —and will not yet, I doubt, let me be at rest. Indeed he is very cruel —but this is one of my trials, I believe. By God's grace, I shall be easier to-morrow, and especially if I have no more of his tormentings, and if I can get a tolerable night. And I will sit up till eleven, that I may.

She said, that though this was so heavy a day with her, she was at other times, within these few days past especially, blessed with bright hours; and particularly that she had now and then such joyful assurances, (which she hoped were not presumptuous ones,) that God would receive her to his mercy, that she could hardly contain herself, and was ready to think herself above this earth while she was in it: And what, inferred she to Mrs. Lovick, must be the state itself, the very aspirations after which have often cast a beamy light through the thickest darkness, and, when I have been at the lowest ebb, have dispelled the black clouds of despondency?—As I hope they soon will this spirit of repining.

She had a pretty good night, it seems; and this morning went in a chair to St. Dunstan's church.

The chairmen told Mrs. Smith, that after prayers (for she did not return till between nine and ten) they carried her to a house in Fleet-street, whither they never waited on her before. And where dost think this was? —Why to an undertaker's! Good Heaven! what a woman is this! She went into the back shop, and talked with the master of it about half an hour, and came from him with great serenity; he waiting upon her to her chair with a respectful countenance, but full of curiosity and seriousness.

'Tis evident that she went to bespeak her house that she talked of*—As soon as you can, Sir, were her words to him as she got into the chair. Mrs. Smith told me this with the same surprise and grief that I heard it.

* See Letter XXIII. of this volume.

She was very ill in the afternoon, having got cold either at St. Dunstan's, or at chapel, and sent for the clergyman to pray by her; and the women, unknown to her, sent both for Dr. H. and Mr. Goddard: who were just gone, as I told you, when I came to pay my respects to her this evening.

And thus have I recounted from the good women what passed to this night since my absence.

I long for to-morrow, that I may see her: and yet it is such a melancholy longing as I never experienced, and know not how to describe.

TUESDAY, AUG. 29.

I was at Smith's at half an hour after seven. They told me that the lady was gone in a chair to St. Dunstan's: but was better than she had been in either of the two preceding days; and that she said she to Mrs. Lovick and Mrs. Smith, as she went into the chair, I have a good deal to answer for to you, my good friends, for my vapourish conversation of last night.

If, Mrs. Lovick, said she, smiling, I have no new matters to discompose me, I believe my spirits will hold out purely.

She returned immediately after prayers.

Mr. Belford, said she, as she entered the back shop where I was, (and upon my approaching her,) I am very glad to see you. You have been performing for your poor friend a kind last office. 'Tis not long ago since you did the same for a near relation. Is it not a little hard upon you, that these troubles should fall so thick to your lot? But they are charitable offices: and it is a praise to your humanity, that poor dying people know not where to choose so well.

I told her I was sorry to hear she had been so ill since I had the honour to attend her; but rejoiced to find that now she seemed a good deal better.

It will be sometimes better, and sometimes worse, replied she, with poor creatures, when they are balancing between life and death. But no more of these matters just now. I hope, Sir, you'll breakfast with me. I was quite vapourish yesterday. I had a very bad spirit upon me. Had I not, Mrs. Smith? But I hope I shall be no more so. And to-day I am perfectly serene. This day rises upon me as if it would be a bright one.

She desired me to walk up, and invited Mr. Smith and his wife, and Mrs. Lovick also, to breakfast with her. I was better pleased with her liveliness than with her looks.

The good people retiring after breakfast, the following conversation passed between us:

Pray, Sir, let me ask you, if you think I may promise myself that I shall be no more molested by your friend?

I hesitated: For how could I answer for such a man?

What shall I do, if he comes again?—You see how I am.—I cannot fly from him now—If he has any pity left for the poor creature whom he has thus reduced, let him not come.—But have you heard from him lately? And will he come?

I hope not, Madam. I have not heard from him since Thursday last, that he went out of town, rejoicing in the hopes your letter gave him of a reconciliation between your friends and you, and that he might in good time see you at your father's; and he is gone down to give all his friends joy of the news, and is in high spirits upon it.

Alas! for me: I shall then surely have him come up to persecute me again! As soon as he discovers that that was only a stratagem to keep him away, he will come up, and who knows but even now he is upon the road? I thought I was so bad that I should have been out of his and every body's way before now; for I expected not that this contrivance would serve me above two or three days; and by this time he must have found out that I am not so happy as to have any hope of a reconciliation with my family; and then he will come, if it be only in revenge for what he will think a deceit, but is not, I hope, a wicked one.

I believe I looked surprised to hear her confess that her letter was a stratagem only; for she said, You wonder, Mr. Belford, I observe, that I could be guilty of such an artifice. I doubt it is not right: it was done in a hurry of spirits. How could I see a man who had so mortally injured me; yet pretending a sorrow for his crimes, (and wanting to see me,) could behave with so much shocking levity, as he did to the honest people of the house? Yet, 'tis strange too, that neither you nor he found out my meaning on perusal of my letter. You have seen what I wrote, no doubt?

I have, Madam. And then I began to account for it, as an innocent artifice.

Thus far indeed, Sir, it is an innocent, that I meant him no hurt, and had a right to the effect I hoped for from it; and he had none to invade me. But have you, Sir, that letter of his in which he gives you (as I suppose he does) the copy of mine?

I have, Madam. And pulled it out of my letter-case. But hesitating— Nay, Sir, said she, be pleased to read my letter to yourself—I desire not to see his—and see if you can be longer a stranger to a meaning so obvious.

I read it to myself—Indeed, Madam, I can find nothing but that you are going down to Harlowe-place to be reconciled to your father and other friends: and Mr. Lovelace presumed that a letter from your sister, which he saw brought when he was at Mr. Smith's, gave you the welcome news of it.

She then explained all to me, and that, as I may say, in six words—A religious meaning is couched under it, and that's the reason that neither you nor I could find it out.

'Read but for my father's house, Heaven, said she, and for the interposition of my dear blessed friend, suppose the mediation of my Saviour (which I humbly rely upon); and all the rest of the letter will be accounted for.' I hope (repeated she) that it is a pardonable artifice. But I am afraid it is not strictly right.

I read it so, and stood astonished for a minute at her invention, her piety, her charity, and at thine and mine own stupidity to be thus taken in.

And now, thou vile Lovelace, what hast thou to do (the lady all consistent with herself, and no hopes left for thee) but to hang, drown, or shoot thyself, for an outwitted boaster?

My surprise being a little over, she proceeded: As to the letter that came from my sister while your friend was here, you will soon see, Sir, that it is the cruellest letter she ever wrote me.

And then she expressed a deep concern for what might be the consequence of Colonel Morden's intended visit to you; and besought me, that if now, or at any time hereafter, I had opportunity to prevent any further mischief, without detriment or danger to myself, I would do it.

I assured her of the most particular attention to this and to all her commands; and that in a manner so agreeable to her, that she invoked a blessing upon me for my goodness, as she called it, to a desolate creature who suffered under the worst of orphanage; those were her words.

She then went back to her first subject, her uneasiness for fear of your molesting her again; and said, If you have any influence over him, Mr. Belford, prevail upon him that he will give me the assurance that the short remainder of my time shall be all my own. I have need of it. Indeed I have. Why will he wish to interrupt me in my duty? Has he not punished me enough for my preference of him to all his sex? Has he not destroyed my fame and my fortune? And will not his causeless vengeance upon me be complete, unless he ruin my soul too?—Excuse me, Sir, for this vehemence! But indeed it greatly imports me to know that I shall be no more disturbed by him. And yet, with all this aversion, I would sooner give way to his visit, though I were to expire the moment I saw him, than to be the cause of any fatal misunderstanding between you and him.

I assured her that I would make such a representation of the matter to you, and of the state of her health, that I would undertake to answer for you, that you would not attempt to come near her.

And for this reason, Lovelace, do I lay the whole matter before you, and desire you will authorize me, as soon as this and mine of Saturday last come to your hands, to dissipate her fears.

This gave her a little satisfaction; and then she said that had I not told her that I could promise for you, she was determined, ill as she is, to remove somewhere out of my knowledge as well as out of your's. And yet, to have been obliged to leave people I am but just got acquainted with, said the poor lady, and to have died among perfect strangers, would have completed my hardships.

This conversation, I found, as well from the length as the nature of it, had fatigued her; and seeing her change colour once or twice, I made that my excuse, and took leave of her: desiring her permission, however, to attend her in the evening; and as often as possible; for I could not help telling her that, every time I saw her, I more and more considered her as a beatified spirit; and as one sent from Heaven to draw me after her out of the miry gulf in which I had been so long immersed.

And laugh at me if thou wilt; but it is true that, every time I approach her, I cannot but look upon her as one just entering into a companionship with saints and angels. This thought so wholly possessed me, that I could not help begging, as I went away, her prayers and her blessing, with the reverence due to an angel.

In the evening, she was so low and weak, that I took my leave of her in less than a quarter of an hour. I went directly home. Where, to the pleasure and wonder of my cousin and her family, I now pass many honest evenings: which they impute to your being out of town.

I shall dispatch my packet to-morrow morning early by my own servant, to make thee amends for the suspense I must have kept thee in: thou'lt thank me for that, I hope; but wilt not, I am sure, for sending thy servant back without a letter.

I long for the particulars of the conversation between you and Mr. Morden; the lady, as I have hinted, is full of apprehensions about it. Send me back this packet when perused; for I have not had either time or patience to take a copy of it. And I beseech you enable me to make good my engagements to the poor lady that you will not invade her again.



LETTER XXXVIII

MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ. WEDNESDAY, AUG. 30.

I have a conversation to give you that passed between this admirable lady and Dr. H. which will furnish a new instance of the calmness and serenity with which she can talk of death, and prepare for it, as if it were an occurrence as familiar to her as dressing and undressing.

As soon as I had dispatched my servant to you with my letters of the 26th, 28th, and yesterday the 29th, I went to pay my duty to her, and had the pleasure to find her, after a tolerable night, pretty lively and cheerful. She was but just returned from her usual devotions; and Doctor H. alighted as she entered the door.

After inquiring how she did, and hearing her complaints of shortness of breath, (which she attributed to inward decay, precipitated by her late harasses, as well from her friends as from you,) he was for advising her to go into the air.

What will that do for me? said she: tell me truly, good Sir, with a cheerful aspect, (you know you cannot disturb me by it,) whether now you do not put on the true physician; and despairing that any thing in medicine will help me, advise me to the air, as the last resource?—Can you think the air will avail in such a malady as mine?

He was silent.

I ask, said she, because my friends (who will possibly some time hence inquire after the means I used for my recovery) may be satisfied that I omitted nothing which so worthy and skilful a physician prescribed?

The air, Madam, may possibly help the difficulty of breathing, which has so lately attacked you.

But, Sir, you see how weak I am. You must see that I have been consuming from day to day; and now, if I can judge by what I feel in myself, putting her hand to her heart, I cannot continue long. If the air would very probably add to my days, though I am far from being desirous to have them lengthened, I would go into it; and the rather, as I know Mrs. Lovick would kindly accompany me. But if I were to be at the trouble of removing into new lodgings, (a trouble which I think now would be too much for me,) and this only to die in the country, I had rather the scene were to shut up here. For here have I meditated the spot, and the manner, and every thing, as well of the minutest as of the highest consequence, that can attend the solemn moments. So, Doctor, tell me truly, may I stay here, and be clear of any imputations of curtailing, through wilfulness or impatiency, or through resentments which I hope I am got above, a life that might otherwise be prolonged?—Tell me, Sir; you are not talking to a coward in this respect; indeed you are not!— Unaffectedly smiling.

The doctor, turning to me, was at a loss what to say, lifting up his eyes only in admiration of her.

Never had any patient, said she, a more indulgent and more humane physician. But since you are loth to answer my question directly, I will put it in other words—You don't enjoin me to go into the air, Doctor, do you?

I do not, Madam. Nor do I now visit you as a physician; but as a person whose conversation I admire, and whose sufferings I condole. And, to explain myself more directly, as to the occasion of this day's visit in particular, I must tell you, Madam, that, understanding how much you suffer by the displeasure of your friends; and having no doubt but that, if they knew the way you are in, they would alter their conduct to you; and believing it must cut them to the heart, when too late, they shall be informed of every thing; I have resolved to apprize them by letter (stranger as I am to their persons) how necessary it is for some of them to attend you very speedily. For their sakes, Madam, let me press for your approbation of this measure.

She paused; and at last said, This is kind, very kind, in you, Sir. But I hope that you do not think me so perverse, and so obstinate, as to have left till now any means unessayed which I thought likely to move my friends in my favour. But now, Doctor, said she, I should be too much disturbed at their grief, if they were any of them to come or to send to me: and perhaps, if I found they still loved me, wish to live; and so should quit unwillingly that life, which I am now really fond of quitting, and hope to quit as becomes a person who has had such a weaning-time as I have been favoured with.

I hope, Madam, said I, we are not so near as you apprehend to that deplorable catastrophe you hint at with such an amazing presence of mind. And therefore I presume to second the doctor's motion, if it were only for the sake of your father and mother, that they may have the satisfaction, if they must lose you, to think they were first reconciled to you.

It is very kindly, very humanely considered, said she. But, if you think me not so very near my last hour, let me desire this may be postponed till I see what effect my cousin Morden's mediation may have. Perhaps he may vouchsafe to make me a visit yet, after his intended interview with Mr. Lovelace is over; of which, who knows, Mr. Belford, but your next letters may give an account? I hope it will not be a fatal one to any body. Will you promise me, Doctor, to forbear writing for two days only, and I will communicate to you any thing that occurs in that time; and then you shall take your own way? Mean time, I repeat my thanks for your goodness to me.—Nay, dear Doctor, hurry not away from me so precipitately [for he was going, for fear of an offered fee]: I will no more affront you with tenders that have pained you for some time past: and since I must now, from this kindly-offered favour, look upon you only as a friend, I will assure you henceforth that I will give you no more uneasiness on that head: and now, Sir, I know I shall have the pleasure of seeing you oftener than heretofore.

The worthy gentleman was pleased with this assurance, telling her that he had always come to see her with great pleasure, but parted with her, on the account she hinted at, with as much pain; and that he should not have forborne to double his visits, could he have had this kind assurance as early as he wished for it.

There are few instances of like disinterestedness, I doubt, in this tribe. Till now I always held it for gospel, that friendship and physician were incompatible things; and little imagined that a man of medicine, when he had given over his patient to death, would think of any visits but those of ceremony, that he might stand well with the family, against it came to their turns to go through his turnpike.

After the doctor was gone, she fell into a very serious discourse of the vanity of life, and the wisdom of preparing for death, while health and strength remained, and before the infirmities of body impaired the faculties of the mind, and disabled them from acting with the necessary efficacy and clearness: the whole calculated for every one's meridian, but particularly, as it was easy to observe, for thine and mine.

She was very curious to know farther particulars of the behaviour of poor Belton in his last moments. You must not wonder at my inquiries, Mr. Belford, said she; For who is it, that is to undertake a journey into a country they never travelled to before, that inquires not into the difficulties of the road, and what accommodations are to be expected in the way?

I gave her a brief account of the poor man's terrors, and unwillingness to die: and, when I had done, Thus, Mr. Belford, said she, must it always be with poor souls who have never thought of their long voyage till the moment they are to embark for it.

She made other such observations upon this subject as, coming from the mouth of a person who will so soon be a companion for angels, I shall never forget. And indeed, when I went home, that I might engraft them the better on my memory, I entered them down in writing: but I will not let you see them until you are in a frame more proper to benefit by them than you are likely to be in one while.

Thus far had I written, when the unexpected early return of my servant with your packet (your's and he meeting at Slough, and exchanging letters) obliged me to leave off to give its contents a reading.—Here, therefore, I close this letter.



LETTER XXXIX

MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ. TUESDAY MORN. AUG. 29.

Now, Jack, will I give thee an account of what passed on occasion of the visit made us by Col. Morden.

He came on horseback, attended by one servant; and Lord M. received him as a relation of Miss Harlowe's with the highest marks of civility and respect.

After some general talk of the times, and of the weather, and such nonsense as Englishmen generally make their introductory topics to conversation, the Colonel addressed himself to Lord M. and to me, as follows:

I need not, my Lord, and Mr. Lovelace, as you know the relation I bear to the Harlowe family, make any apology for entering upon a subject, which, on account of that relation, you must think is the principal reason of the honour I have done myself in this visit.

Miss Harlowe, Miss Clarissa Harlowe's affair, said Lord M. with his usual forward bluntness. That, Sir, is what you mean. She is, by all accounts, the most excellent woman in the world.

I am glad to hear that is your Lordship's opinion of her. It is every one's.

It is not only my opinion, Col. Morden (proceeded the prating Peer), but it is the opinion of all my family. Of my sisters, of my nieces, and of Mr. Lovelace himself.

Col. Would to Heaven it had been always Mr. Lovelace's opinion of her!

Lovel. You have been out of England, Colonel, a good many years. Perhaps you are not yet fully apprized of all the particulars of this case.

Col. I have been out of England, Sir, about seven years. My cousin Clary was then about 12 years of age: but never was there at twenty so discreet, so prudent, and so excellent a creature. All that knew her, or saw her, admired her. Mind and person, never did I see such promises of perfection in any young lady: and I am told, nor is it to be wondered at, that, as she advanced to maturity, she more than justified and made good those promises.—Then as to fortune—what her father, what her uncles, and what I myself, intended to do for her, besides what her grandfather had done—there is not a finer fortune in the country.

Lovel. All this, Colonel, and more than this, is Miss Clarissa Harlowe; and had it not been for the implacableness and violence of her family (all resolved to push her upon a match as unworthy of her as hateful to her) she had still been happy.

Col. I own, Mr. Lovelace, the truth of what you observed just now, that I am not thoroughly acquainted with all that has passed between you and my cousin. But permit me to say, that when I first heard that you made your addresses to her, I knew but of one objection against you; that, indeed, a very great one: and upon a letter sent me, I gave her my free opinion upon that subject.* But had it not been for that, I own, that, in my private mind, there could not have been a more suitable match: for you are a gallant gentleman, graceful in your person, easy and genteel in your deportment, and in your family, fortunes, and expectations, happy as a man can wish to be. Then the knowledge I had of you in Italy (although, give me leave to say, your conduct there was not wholly unexceptionable) convinces me that you are brave: and few gentlemen come up to you in wit and vivacity. Your education has given you great advantages; your manners are engaging, and you have travelled; and I know, if you'll excuse me, you make better observations than you are governed by. All these qualifications make it not at all surprising that a young lady should love you: and that this love, joined to that indiscreet warmth wherewith my cousin's friends would have forced her inclinations in favour of men who are far your inferiors in the qualities I have named, should throw herself upon your protection. But then, if there were these two strong motives, the one to induce, the other to impel, her, let me ask you, Sir, if she were not doubly entitled to generous usage from a man whom she chose for her protector; and whom, let me take the liberty to say, she could so amply reward for the protection he was to afford her?

* See Vol. IV. Letter XIX.

Lovel. Miss Clarissa Harlowe was entitled, Sir, to have the best usage that man could give her. I have no scruple to own it. I will always do her the justice she so well deserves. I know what will be your inference; and have only to say, that time past cannot be recalled; perhaps I wish it could.

The Colonel then, in a very manly strain, set forth the wickedness of attempting a woman of virtue and character. He said, that men had generally too many advantages from the weakness, credulity, and inexperience of the fair sex: that their early learning, which chiefly consisted in inflaming novels, and idle and improbable romances, contributed to enervate and weaken their minds: that his cousin, however, he was sure, was above the reach of common seduction, and not to be influenced to the rashness her parents accused her of, by weaker motives than their violence, and the most solemn promises on my part: but, nevertheless, having those motives, and her prudence (eminent as it was) being rather the effect of constitution than experience, (a fine advantage, however, he said, to ground an unblamable future life upon,) she might not be apprehensive of bad designs in a man she loved: it was, therefore, a very heinous thing to abuse the confidence of such a woman.

He was going on in this trite manner; when, interrupting him, I said, These general observations, Colonel, suit not perhaps this particular case. But you yourself are a man of gallantry; and, possibly, were you to be put to the question, might not be able to vindicate every action of your life, any more than I.

Col. You are welcome, Sir, to put what questions you please to me. And, I thank God, I can both own an be ashamed of my errors.

Lord M. looked at me; but as the Colonel did not by his manner seem to intend a reflection, I had no occasion to take it for one; especially as I can as readily own my errors, as he, or any man, can his, whether ashamed of them or not.

He proceeded. As you seem to call upon me, Mr. Lovelace, I will tell you (without boasting of it) what has been my general practice, till lately, that I hope I have reformed it a good deal.

I have taken liberties, which the laws of morality will by no means justify; and once I should have thought myself warranted to cut the throat of any young fellow who should make as free with a sister of mine as I have made with the sisters and daughters of others. But then I took care never to promise any thing I intended not to perform. A modest ear should as soon have heard downright obscenity from my lips, as matrimony, if I had not intended it. Young ladies are generally ready enough to believe we mean honourably, if they love us; and it would look lie a strange affront to their virtue and charms, that it should be supposed needful to put the question whether in your address you mean a wife. But when once a man make a promise, I think it ought to be performed; and a woman is well warranted to appeal to every one against the perfidy of a deceiver; and is always sure to have the world on her side.

Now, Sir, continued he, I believe you have so much honour as to own, that you could not have made way to so eminent a virtue, without promising marriage; and that very explicitly and solemnly—

I know very well, Colonel, interrupted I, all you would say. You will excuse me, I am sure, that I break in upon you, when you find it is to answer the end you drive at.

I own to you then that I have acted very unworthily by Miss Clarissa Harlowe; and I'll tell you farther, that I heartily repent of my ingratitude and baseness to her. Nay, I will say still farther, that I am so grossly culpable as to her, that even to plead that the abuses and affronts I daily received from her implacable relations were in any manner a provocation to me to act vilely by her, would be a mean and low attempt to excuse myself—so low and so mean, that it would doubly condemn me. And if you can say worse, speak it.

He looked upon Lord M. and then upon me, two or three times. And my Lord said, My kinsman speaks what he thinks, I'll answer for him.

Lovel. I do, Sir; and what can I say more? And what farther, in your opinion, can be done?

Col. Done! Sir? Why, Sir, [in a haughty tone he spoke,] I need not tell you that reparation follows repentance. And I hope you make no scruple of justifying your sincerity as to the one or the other.

I hesitated, (for I relished not the manner of his speech, and his haughty accent,) as undetermined whether to take proper notice of it or not.

Col. Let me put this question to you, Mr. Lovelace: Is it true, as I have heard it is, that you would marry my cousin, if she would have you? —What say you, Sir?—

This wound me up a peg higher.

Lovel. Some questions, as they may be put, imply commands, Colonel. I would be glad to know how I am to take your's? And what is to be the end of your interrogatories?

Col. My questions are not meant by me as commands, Mr. Lovelace. The end is, to prevail upon a gentleman to act like a gentleman, and a man of honour.

Lovel. (briskly) And by what arguments, Sir, do you propose to prevail upon me?

Col. By what arguments, Sir, prevail upon a gentleman to act like a gentleman!—I am surprised at that question from Mr. Lovelace.

Lovel. Why so, Sir?

Col. WHY so, Sir! (angrily)—Let me—

Lovel. (interrupting) I don't choose, Colonel, to be repeated upon, in that accent.

Lord M. Come, come, gentlemen, I beg of you to be willing to understand one another. You young gentlemen are so warm—

Col. Not I, my Lord—I am neither very young, nor unduly warm. Your nephew, my Lord, can make me be every thing he would have me to be.

Lovel. And that shall be, whatever you please to be, Colonel.

Col. (fiercely) The choice be your's, Mr. Lovelace. Friend or foe! as you do or are willing to do justice to one of the finest women in the world.

Lord M. I guessed, from both your characters, what would be the case when you met. Let me interpose, gentlemen, and beg you but to understand one another. You both shoot at one mark; and, if you are patient, will both hit it. Let me beg of you, Colonel, to give no challenges—

Col. Challenges, my Lord!—They are things I ever was readier to accept than to offer. But does your Lordship think that a man, so nearly related as I have the honour to be to the most accomplished woman on earth,—

Lord M. (interrupting) We all allow the excellencies of the lady—and we shall all take it as the greatest honour to be allied to her that can be conferred upon us.

Col. So you ought, my Lord!—

A perfect Chamont; thought I.*

* See Otway's Orphan.

Lord M. So we ought, Colonel! and so we do!—and pray let every one do as he ought!—and no more than he ought; and you, Colonel, let me tell you, will not be so hasty.

Lovel. (coolly) Come, come, Col. Morden, don't let this dispute, whatever you intend to make of it, go farther than with you and me. You deliver yourself in very high terms. Higher than ever I was talked to in my life. But here, beneath this roof, 'twould be inexcusable for me to take that notice of it which, perhaps, it would become me to take elsewhere.

Col. That is spoken as I wish the man to speak whom I should be pleased to call my friend, if all his actions were of a piece; and as I would have the man speak whom I would think it worth my while to call my foe. I love a man of spirit, as I love my soul. But, Mr. Lovelace, as my Lord thinks we aim at one mark, let me say, that were we permitted to be alone for six minutes, I dare say, we should soon understand one another perfectly well.—And he moved to the door.

Lovel. I am entirely of your opinion, Sir; and will attend you.

My Lord rung, and stept between us: Colonel, return, I beseech you return, said he: for he had stept out of the room while my Lord held me— Nephew, you shall not go out.

The bell and my Lord's raised voice brought in Mowbray, and Clements, my Lord's gentleman; the former in his careless way, with his hands behind him, What's the matter, Bobby? What's the matter, my Lord?

Only, only, only, stammered the agitated peer, these young gentlemen are, are, are—are young gentlemen, that's all.—Pray, Colonel Morden, [who again entered the room with a sedater aspect,] let this cause have a fair trial, I beseech you.

Col. With all my heart, my Lord.

Mowbray whispered me, What is the cause, Bobby?—Shall I take the gentleman to task for thee, my boy?

Not for the world, whispered I. The Colonel is a gentleman, and I desire you'll not say one word.

Well, well, well, Bobby, I have done. I can turn thee loose to the best man upon God's earth; that's all, Bobby; strutting off to the other end of the room.

Col. I am sorry, my Lord, I should give your Lordship the least uneasiness. I came not with such a design.

Lord M. Indeed, Colonel, I thought you did, by your taking fire so quickly. I am glad to hear you say you did not. How soon a little spark kindles into a flame; especially when it meets with such combustible spirits!

Col. If I had had the least thought of proceeding to extremities, I am sure Mr. Lovelace would have given me the honour of a meeting where I should have been less an intruder: but I came with an amicable intention; to reconcile differences rather than to widen them.

Lovel. Well then, Colonel Morden, let us enter upon the subject in your own way. I don't know the man I should sooner choose to be upon terms with than one whom Miss Clarissa Harlowe so much respects. But I cannot bear to be treated, either in word or accent, in a menacing way.

Lord M. Well, well, well, well, gentlemen, this is somewhat like. Angry men make to themselves beds of nettles, and, when they lie down in them, are uneasy with every body. But I hope you are friends. Let me hear you say you are. I am persuaded, Colonel, that you don't know all this unhappy story. You don't know how desirous my kinsman is, as well as all of us, to have this matter end happily. You don't know, do you, Colonel, that Mr. Lovelace, at all our requests, is disposed to marry the lady?

Col. At all your requests, my Lord?—I should have hoped that Mr. Lovelace was disposed to do justice for the sake of justice; and when at the same time the doing of justice was doing himself the highest honour.

Mowbray lifted up his before half-closed eyes to the Colonel, and glanced them upon me.

Lovel. This is in very high language, Colonel.

Mowbr. By my soul, I thought so.

Col. High language, Mr. Lovelace? Is it not just language?

Lovel. It is, Colonel. And I think, the man that does honour to Miss Clarissa Harlowe, does me honour. But, nevertheless, there is a manner in speaking, that may be liable to exception, where the words, without that manner, can bear none.

Col. Your observation in the general is undoubtedly just: but, if you have the value for my cousin that you say you have, you must needs think —

Lovel. You must allow me, Sir, to interrupt you—IF I have the value I say I have—I hope, Sir, when I say I have that value, there is no room for that if, pronounced as you pronounced it with an emphasis.

Col. You have broken in upon me twice, Mr. Lovelace. I am as little accustomed to be broken in upon, as you are to be repeated upon.

Lord M. Two barrels of gunpowder, by my conscience! What a devil will it signify talking, if thus you are to blow one another up at every word?

Lovel. No man of honour, my Lord, will be easy to have his veracity called into question, though but by implication.

Col. Had you heard me out, Mr. Lovelace, you would have found, that my if was rather an if of inference, than of doubt. But 'tis, really a strange liberty gentlemen of free principles take; who at the same time that they would resent unto death the imputation of being capable of telling an untruth to a man, will not scruple to break through the most solemn oaths and promises to a woman. I must assure you, Mr. Lovelace, that I always made a conscience of my vows and promises.

Lovel. You did right, Colonel. But let me tell you, Sir, that you know not the man you talk to, if you imagine he is not able to rise to a proper resentment, when he sees his generous confessions taken for a mark of base-spiritedness.

Col. (warmly, and with a sneer,) Far be it from me, Mr. Lovelace, to impute to you the baseness of spirit you speak of; for what would that be but to imagine that a man, who has done a very flagrant injury, is not ready to show his bravery in defending it—

Mowbr. This is d——d severe, Colonel. It is, by Jove. I could not take so much at the hands of any man breathing as Mr. Lovelace before this took at your's.

Col. Who are you, Sir? What pretence have you to interpose in a cause where there is an acknowledged guilt on one side, and the honour of a considerable family wounded in the tenderest part by that guilt on the other?

Mowbr. (whispering to the Colonel) My dear child, you will oblige me highly if you will give me the opportunity of answering your question. And was going out.

The Colonel was held in by my Lord. And I brought in Mowbray.

Col. Pray, my good Lord, let me attend this officious gentleman, I beseech you do. I will wait upon your Lordship in three minutes, depend upon it.

Lovel. Mowbray, is this acting like a friend by me, to suppose me incapable of answering for myself? And shall a man of honour and bravery, as I know Colonel Morden to be, (rash as perhaps in this visit he has shown himself,) have it to say, that he comes to my Lord M.'s house, in a manner naked as to attendants and friends, and shall not for that reason be rather borne with than insulted? This moment, my dear Mowbray, leave us. You have really no concern in this business; and if you are my friend, I desire you'll ask the Colonel pardon for interfering in it in the manner you have done.

Mowbr. Well, well, Bob.; thou shalt be arbiter in this matter; I know I have no business in it—and, Colonel, (holding out his hand,) I leave you to one who knows how to defend his own cause as well as any man in England.

Col. (taking Mowbray's hand, at Lord M.'s request,) You need not tell me that, Mr. Mowbray. I have no doubt of Mr. Lovelace's ability to defend his own cause, were it a cause to be defended. And let me tell you, Mr. Lovelace, that I am astonished to think that a brave man, and a generous man, as you have appeared to be in two or three instances that you have given in the little knowledge I have of you, should be capable of acting as you have done by the most excellent of her sex.

Lord M. Well, but, gentlemen, now Mr. Mowbray is gone, and you have both shown instances of courage and generosity to boot, let me desire you to lay your heads together amicably, and think whether there be any thing to be done to make all end happily for the lady?

Lovel. But hold, my Lord, let me say one thing, now Mowbray is gone; and that is, that I think a gentleman ought not to put up tamely one or two severe things that the Colonel has said.

Lord M. What the devil canst thou mean? I thought all had been over. Why thou hast nothing to do but to confirm to the Colonel that thou art willing to marry Miss Harlowe, if she will have thee.

Col. Mr. Lovelace will not scruple to say that, I suppose, notwithstanding all that has passed: but if you think, Mr. Lovelace, I have said any thing I should not have said, I suppose it is this, that the man who has shown so little of the thing honour, to a defenceless unprotected woman, ought not to stand so nicely upon the empty name of it, with a man who is expostulating with him upon it. I am sorry to have cause to say this, Mr. Lovelace; but I would, on the same occasion, repeat it to a king upon his throne, and surrounded by all his guards.

Lord M. But what is all this, but more sacks upon the mill? more coals upon the fire? You have a mind to quarrel both of you, I see that. Are you not willing, Nephew, are you not most willing, to marry this lady, if she can be prevailed upon to have you?

Lovel. D—-n me, my Lord, if I'd marry my empress upon such treatment as this.

Lord M. Why now, Bob., thou art more choleric than the Colonel. It was his turn just now. And now you see he is cool, you are all gunpowder.

Lovel. I own the Colonel has many advantages over me; but, perhaps, there is one advantage he has not, if it were put to the trial.

Col. I came not hither, as I said before, to seek the occasion: but if it were offered me, I won't refuse it—and since we find we disturb my good Lord M. I'll take my leave, and will go home by the way of St. Alban's.

Lovel. I'll see you part of the way, with all my heart, Colonel.

Col. I accept your civility very cheerfully, Mr. Lovelace.

Lord M. (interposing again, as we were both for going out,) And what will this do, gentlemen? Suppose you kill one another, will the matter be bettered or worsted by that? Will the lady be made happier or unhappier, do you think, by either or both of your deaths? Your characters are too well known to make fresh instances of the courage of either needful. And, I think, if the honour of the lady is your view, Colonel, it can by no other way so effectually promoted as by marriage. And, Sir, if you would use your interest with her, it is very probable that you may succeed, though nobody else can.

Lovel. I think, my Lord, I have said all that a man can say, (since what is passed cannot be recalled:) and you see Colonel Morden rises in proportion to my coolness, till it is necessary for me to assert myself, or even he would despise me.

Lord M. Let me ask you, Colonel, have you any way, any method, that you think reasonable and honourable to propose, to bring about a reconciliation with the lady? That is what we all wish for. And I can tell you, Sir, it is not a little owing to her family, and to their implacable usage of her, that her resentments are heightened against my kinsman; who, however, has used her vilely; but is willing to repair her wrongs.—

Lovel. Not, my Lord, for the sake of her family; nor for this gentleman's haughty behaviour; but for her own sake, and in full sense of the wrongs I have done her.

Col. As to my haughty behaviour, as you call it, Sir, I am mistaken if you would not have gone beyond it in the like case of a relation so meritorious, and so unworthily injured. And, Sir, let me tell you, that if your motives are not love, honour, and justice, and if they have the least tincture of mean compassion for her, or of an uncheerful assent on your part, I am sure it will neither be desired or accepted by a person of my cousin's merit and sense; nor shall I wish that it should.

Lovel. Don't think, Colonel, that I am meanly compounding off a debate, that I should as willingly go through with you as to eat or drink, if I have the occasion given me for it: but thus much I will tell you, that my Lord, that Lady Sarah Sadleir, Lady Betty Lawrance, my two cousins Montague, and myself, have written to her in the most solemn and sincere manner, to offer her such terms as no one but herself would refuse, and this long enough before Colonel Morden's arrival was dreamt of.

Col. What reason, Sir, may I ask, does she give, against listening to so powerful a mediation, and to such offers?

Lovel. It looks like capitulating, or else—

Col. It looks not like any such thing to me, Mr. Lovelace, who have as good an opinion of your spirit as man can have. And what, pray, is the part I act, and my motives for it? Are they not, in desiring that justice may be done to my Cousin Clarissa Harlowe, that I seek to establish the honour of Mrs. Lovelace, if matters can once be brought to bear?

Lovel. Were she to honour me with her acceptance of that name, Mr. Morden, I should not want you or any man to assert the honour of Mrs. Lovelace.

Col. I believe it. But still she has honoured you with that acceptance, she is nearer to me than to you, Mr. Lovelace. And I speak this, only to show you that, in the part I take, I mean rather to deserve your thanks than your displeasure, though against yourself, were there occasion. Nor ought you take it amiss, if you rightly weigh the matter: For, Sir, whom does a lady want protection against but her injurers? And who has been her greatest injurer?—Till, therefore, she becomes entitled to your protection, as your wife, you yourself cannot refuse me some merit in wishing to have justice done my cousin. But, Sir, you were going to say, that if it were not to look like capitulating, you would hint the reasons my cousin gives against accepting such an honourable mediation?

I then told him of my sincere offers of marriage: 'I made no difficulty, I said, to own my apprehensions, that my unhappy behaviour to her had greatly affected her: but that it was the implacableness of her friends that had thrown her into despair, and given her a contempt for life.' I told him, 'that she had been so good as to send me a letter to divert me from a visit my heart was set upon making her: a letter on which I built great hopes, because she assured me that in it she was going to her father's; and that I might see her there, when she was received, if it were not my own fault.

Col. Is it possible? And were you, Sir, thus earnest? And did she send you such a letter?

Lord M. confirmed both; and also, that, in obedience to her desires, and that intimation, I had come down without the satisfaction I had proposed to myself in seeing her.

It is very true, Colonel, said I: and I should have told you this before: but your heat made me decline it; for, as I said, it had an appearance of meanly capitulating with you. An abjectness of heart, of which, had I been capable, I should have despised myself as much as I might have expected you would despise me.

Lord M. proposed to enter into the proof of all this. He said, in his phraseological way, That one story was good till another was heard; and that the Harlowe family and I, 'twas true, had behaved like so many Orsons to one another; and that they had been very free with all our family besides: that nevertheless, for the lady's sake, more than for their's, or even for mine, (he could tell me,) he would do greater things for me than they could ask, if she could be brought to have me: and that this he wanted to declare, and would sooner have declared, if he could have brought us sooner to patience, and a good understanding.

The Colonel made excuses for his warmth, on the score of his affection to his cousin.

My regard for her made me readily admit them: and so a fresh bottle of Burgundy, and another of Champagne, being put upon the table, we sat down in good humour, after all this blustering, in order to enter closer into the particulars of the case: which I undertook, at both their desires, to do.

But these things must be the subject of another letter, which shall immediately follow this, if it do not accompany it.

Mean time you will observe that a bad cause gives a man great disadvantages: for I myself thing that the interrogatories put to me with so much spirit by the Colonel made me look cursedly mean; at the same time that it gave him a superiority which I know not how to allow to the best man in Europe. So that, literally speaking, as a good man would infer, guilt is its own punisher: in that it makes the most lofty spirit look like the miscreant he is—a good man, I say: So, Jack, proleptically I add, thou hast no right to make the observation.



LETTER XL

MR. LOVELACE [IN CONTINUATION.] TUESDAY AFTERNOON, AUG. 29.

I went back, in this part of our conversation, to the day that I was obliged to come down to attend my Lord in the dangerous illness which some feared would have been his last.

I told the Colonel, 'what earnest letters I had written to a particular friend, to engage him to prevail upon the lady not to slip a day that had been proposed for the private celebration of our nuptials; and of my letters* written to her on that subject;' for I had stepped to my closet, and fetched down all the letters and draughts and copies of letters relating to this affair.

* See Vol. VI. Letters XXXVII. XXXVIII. XXXIX. XLIII.

I read to him, 'several passages in the copies of those letters, which, thou wilt remember, make not a little to my honour.' And I told him, 'that I wished I had kept copies of those to my friend on the same occasion; by which he would have seen how much in earnest I was in my professions to her, although she would not answer one of them;' and thou mayest remember, that one of those four letters accounted to herself why I was desirous she should remain where I had left her.*

* See Vol. VI. Letter XXXVII.

I then proceeded to give him an account 'of the visit made by Lady Sarah and Lady Betty to Lord M. and me, in order to induce me to do her justice: of my readiness to comply with their desires; and of their high opinion of her merit: of the visit made to Miss Howe by my cousins Montague, in the name of us all, to engage her interest with her friend in my behalf: of my conversation with Miss Howe, at a private assembly, to whom I gave the same assurances, and besought her interest with her friend.'

I then read a copy of the letter (though so much to my disadvantage) which was written to her by Miss Charlotte Montague, Aug. 1,* entreating her alliance in the names of all our family.

* See Vol. VII. Letter LXVI.

This made him ready to think that his fair cousin carried her resentment against me too far. He did not imagine, he said, that either myself or our family had been so much in earnest.

So thou seest, Belford, that it is but glossing over one part of a story, and omitting another, that will make a bad cause a good one at any time. What an admirable lawyer should I have made! And what a poor hand would this charming creature, with all her innocence, have made of it in a court of justice against a man who had so much to say and to show for himself!

I then hinted at the generous annual tender which Lord M. and his sisters made to his fair cousin, in apprehension that she might suffer by her friends' implacableness.

And this also the Colonel highly applauded, and was pleased to lament the unhappy misunderstanding between the two families, which had made the Harlowes less fond of an alliance with a family of so much honour as this instance showed ours to be.

I then told him, 'That having, by my friend, [meaning thee,] who was admitted into her presence, (and who had always been an admirer of her virtues, and had given me such advice from time to time in relation to her as I wished I had followed,) been assured that a visit from me would be very disagreeable to her, I once more resolved to try what a letter would do; and that, accordingly, on the seventh of August, I wrote her one.

'This, Colonel, is the copy of it. I was then out of humour with my Lord M. and the ladies of my family. You will, therefore, read it to yourself.'*

* See Vol. VII. Letter LXXIX.

This letter gave him high satisfaction. You write here, Mr. Lovelace, from your heart. 'Tis a letter full of penitence and acknowledgement. Your request is reasonable—To be forgiven only as you shall appear to deserve it after a time of probation, which you leave to her to fix. Pray, Sir, did she return an answer to this letter?

She did, but with reluctance, I own, and not till I had declared by my friend, that, if I could not procure one, I would go up to town, and throw myself at her feet.

I wish I might be permitted to see it, Sir, or to hear such parts of it read as you shall think proper.

Turning over my papers, Here it is, Sir.* I will make no scruple to put it into your hands.

This is very obliging, Mr. Lovelace.

He read it. My charming cousin!—How strong her resentments!—Yet how charitable her wishes!—Good Heaven! that such an excellent creature— But, Mr. Lovelace, it is to your regret, as much as to mine, I doubt not —

Interrupting him, I swore that it was.

So it ought, said he. Nor do I wonder that it should be so. I shall tell you by-and-by, proceeded he, how much she suffers with her friends by false and villanous reports. But, Sir, will you permit me to take with me these two letters? I shall make use of them to the advantage of you both.

I told him I would oblige him with all my heart. And this he took very kindly (as he had reason); and put them in his pocket-book, promising to return hem in a few days.

I then told him, 'That upon this her refusal, I took upon myself to go to town, in hopes to move her in my favour; and that, though I went without giving her notice of my intention, yet had she got some notion of my coming, and so contrived to be out of the way: and at last, when she found I was fully determined at all events to see her, before I went abroad, (which I shall do, said I, if I cannot prevail upon her,) she sent me the letter I have already mentioned to you, desiring me to suspend my purposed visit: and that for a reason which amazes and confounds me; because I don't find there is any thing in it: and yet I never knew her once dispense with her word; for she always made it a maxim, that it was not lawful to do evil, that good might come of it: and yet in this letter, for no reason in the world but to avoid seeing me (to gratify an humour only) has she sent me out of town, depending upon the assurance she had given me.'

Col. This is indeed surprising. But I cannot believe that my cousin, for such an end only, or indeed for any end, according to the character I hear of her, should stoop to make use of such an artifice.

Lovel. This, Colonel, is the thing that astonishes me; and yet, see here!—This is the letter she wrote me—Nay, Sir, 'tis her own hand.

Col. I see it is; and a charming hand it is.

Lovel. You observe, Colonel, that all her hopes of reconciliation with her parents are from you. You are her dear blessed friend! She always talked of you with delight.

Col. Would to Heaven I had come to England before she left Harlowe-place!—Nothing of this had then happened. Not a man of those whom I have heard that her friends proposed for her should have had her. Nor you, Mr. Lovelace, unless I had found you to be the man every one who sees you must wish you to be: and if you had been that man, no one living should I have preferred to you for such an excellence.

My Lord and I both joined in the wish: and 'faith I wished it most cordially.

The Colonel read the letter twice over, and then returned it to me. 'Tis all a mystery, said he. I can make nothing of it. For, alas! her friends are as averse to a reconciliation as ever.

Lord M. I could not have thought it. But don't you think there is something very favourable to my nephew in this letter—something that looks as if the lady would comply at last?

Col. Let me die if I know what to make of it. This letter is very different from her preceding one!—You returned an answer to it, Mr. Lovelace?

Lovel. An answer, Colonel! No doubt of it. And an answer full of transport. I told her, 'I would directly set out for Lord M.'s, in obedience to her will. I told her that I would consent to any thing she should command, in order to promote this happy reconciliation. I told her that it should be my hourly study, to the end of my life, to deserve a goodness so transcendent.' But I cannot forbear saying that I am not a little shocked and surprised, if nothing more be meant by it than to get me into the country without seeing her.

Col. That can't be the thing, depend upon it, Sir. There must be more in it than that. For, were that all, she must think you would soon be undeceived, and that you would then most probably resume your intention— unless, indeed, she depended upon seeing me in the interim, as she knew I was arrived. But I own I know not what to make of it. Only that she does me a great deal of honour, if it be me that she calls her dear blessed friend, whom she always loved and honoured. Indeed I ever loved her: and if I die unmarried, and without children, shall be as kind to her as her grandfather was: and the rather, as I fear there is too much of envy and self-love in the resentments her brother and sister endeavour to keep up in her father and mother against her. But I shall know better how to judge of this, when my cousin James comes from Edinburgh; and he is every hour expected.

But let me ask you, Mr. Lovelace, what is the name of your friend, who is admitted so easily into my cousin's presence? Is it not Belford, pray?

Lovel. It is, Sir; and Mr. Belford's a man of honour; and a great admirer of your fair cousin.

Was I right, as to the first, Jack? The last I have such strong proof of, that it makes me question the first; since she would not have been out of the way of my intended visit but for thee.

Col. Are you sure, Sir, that Mr. Belford is a man of honour?

Lovel. I can swear for him, Colonel. What makes you put this question?

Col. Only this: that an officious pragmatical novice has been sent up to inquire into my cousin's life and conversation: And, would you believe it? the frequent visits of this gentlemen have been interpreted basely to her disreputation.—Read that letter, Mr. Lovelace; and you will be shocked at ever part of it.

This cursed letter, no doubt, is from the young Levite, whom thou, Jack, describest as making inquiry of Mrs. Smith about Miss Harlowe's character and visiters.*

* See Vol. VII. Letter LXXXI.

I believe I was a quarter of an hour in reading it: for I made it, though not a short one, six times as long as it is, by the additions of oaths and curses to every pedantic line. Lord M. too helped to lengthen it, by the like execrations. And thou, Jack, wilt have as much reason to curse it as we.

You cannot but see, said the Colonel, when I had done reading it, that this fellow has been officious in his malevolence; for what he says is mere hearsay, and that hearsay conjectural scandal without fact, or the appearance of fact, to support it; so that an unprejudiced eye, upon the face of the letter, would condemn the writer of it, as I did, and acquit my cousin. But yet, such is the spirit by which the rest of my relations are governed, that they run away with the belief of the worst it insinuates, and the dear creature has had shocking letters upon it; the pedant's hints are taken; and a voyage to one of the colonies has been proposed to her, as the only way to avoid Mr. Belford and you. I have not seen these letters indeed; but they took a pride in repeating some of their contents, which must have cut the poor soul to the heart; and these, joined to her former sufferings,—What have you not, Mr. Lovelace, to answer for?

Lovel. Who the devil could have expected such consequences as these? Who could have believe there could be parents so implacable? Brother and sister so immovably fixed against the only means that could be taken to put all right with every body?—And what now can be done?

Lord M. I have great hopes that Col. Morden may yet prevail upon his cousin. And, by her last letter, it runs in my mind that she has some thoughts of forgiving all that's past. Do you think, Colonel, if there should not be such a thing as a reconciliation going forward at present, that her letter may not imply that, if we could bring such a thing to bear with her friends, she would be reconciled with Mr. Lovelace?

Col. Such an artifice would better become the Italian subtilty than the English simplicity. Your Lordship has been in Italy, I presume?

Lovel. My Lord has read Boccaccio, perhaps; and that's as well, as to the hint he gives, which may be borrowed from one of that author's stories. But Miss Clarissa Harlowe is above all artifice. She must have some meaning I cannot fathom.

Col. Well, my Lord, I can only say that I will make some use of the letters Mr. Lovelace has obliged me with: and after I have had some talk with my cousin James, who is hourly expected; and when I have dispatched two or three affairs that press upon me; I will pay my respects to my dear cousin; and shall then be able to form a better judgment of things. Mean time I will write to her; for I have sent to inquire about her, and find she wants consolation.

Lovel. If you favour me, Colonel, with the d——d letter of that fellow Brand for a day or two, you will oblige me.

Col. I will. But remember, the man is a parson, Mr. Lovelace; an innocent one too, they say. Else I had been at him before now. And these college novices, who think they know every thing in their cloisters, and that all learning lies in books, make dismal figures when they come into the world among men and women.

Lord M. Brand! Brand! It should have been Firebrand, I think in my conscience!

Thus ended this doughty conference.

I cannot say, Jack, but I am greatly taken with Col. Morden. He is brave and generous, and knows the world; and then his contempt of the parsons is a certain sign that he is one of us.

We parted with great civility: Lord M. (not a little pleased that we did, and as greatly taken with Colonel) repeated his wish, after the Colonel was gone, that he had arrived in time to save the lady, if that would have done it.

I wish so too. For by my soul, Jack, I am every day more and more uneasy about her. But I hope she is not so ill as I am told she is.

I have made Charlotte transcribe the letter of this Firebrand, as my Lord calls him; and will enclose her copy of it. All thy phlegm I know will be roused into vengeance when thou readest it.

I know not what to advise as to showing it to the lady. Yet, perhaps, she will be able to reap more satisfaction than concern from it, knowing her own innocence; in that it will give her to hope that her friends' treatment of her is owing as much to misrepresentation as to their own natural implacableness. Such a mind as her's, I know, would be glad to find out the shadow of a reason for the shocking letters the Colonel says they have sent her, and for their proposal to her of going to some one of the colonies [confound them all—but, if I begin to curse, I shall never have done]—Then it may put her upon such a defence as she might be glad of an opportunity to make, and to shame them for their monstrous credulity—but this I leave to thy own fat-headed prudence—Only it vexes me to the heart, that even scandal and calumny should dare to surmise the bare possibility of any man sharing the favours of a woman, whom now methinks I could worship with a veneration due only to a divinity.

Charlotte and her sister could not help weeping at the base aspersion: When, when, said Patty, lifting up her hands, will this sweet lady's sufferings be at an end?—O cousin Lovelace!—

And thus am I blamed for every one's faults!—When her brutal father curses her, it is I. I upbraid her with her severe mother. The implacableness of her stupid uncles is all mine. The virulence of her brother, and the spite of her sister, are entirely owing to me. The letter of this rascal Brand is of my writing—O Jack, what a wretch is thy Lovelace!

***

Returned without a letter!—This d——d fellow Will. is returned without a letter!—Yet the rascal tells me that he hears you have been writing to me these two days!

Plague confound thee, who must know my impatience, and the reason for it!

To send a man and horse on purpose; as I did! My imagination chained me to the belly of the beast, in order to keep pace with him!—Now he is got to this place; now to that; now to London; now to thee!

Now [a letter given him] whip and spur upon the return. This town just entered, not staying to bait: that village passed by: leaves the wind behind him; in a foaming sweat man and horse.

And in this way did he actually enter Lord M.'s courtyard.

The reverberating pavement brought me down—The letter, Will.! The letter, dog!—The letter, Sirrah!

No letter, Sir!—Then wildly staring round me, fists clenched, and grinning like a maniac, Confound thee for a dog, and him that sent thee without one!—This moment out of my sight, or I'll scatter thy stupid brains through the air. I snatched from his holsters a pistol, while the rascal threw himself from the foaming beast, and ran to avoid the fate which I wished with all my soul thou hadst been within the reach of me to have met with.

But, to be as meek as a lamb to one who has me at his mercy, and can wring and torture my soul as he pleases, What canst thou mean to send back my varlet without a letter?—I will send away by day-dawn another fellow upon another beast for what thou hast written; and I charge thee on thy allegiance, that thou dispatch him not back empty-handed.

POSTSCRIPT

Charlotte, in a whim of delicacy, is displeased that I send the enclosed letter to you—that her handwriting, forsooth! should go into the hands of a single man!

There's encouragement for thee, Belford! This is a certain sign that thou may'st have her if thou wilt. And yet, till she has given me this unerring demonstration of her glancing towards thee, I could not have thought it. Indeed I have often in pleasantry told her that I would bring such an affair to bear. But I never intended it; because she really is a dainty girl; and thou art such a clumsy fellow in thy person, that I should as soon have wished her a rhinoceros for a husband as thee. But, poor little dears! they must stay till their time's come! They won't have this man, and they won't have that man, from seventeen to twenty-five: but then, afraid, as the saying is, that God has forgot them, and finding their bloom departing, they are glad of whom they can get, and verify the fable of the parson and the pears.



LETTER XLI

MR. BRAND, TO JOHN HARLOWE, ESQ. [ENCLOSED IN THE PRECEDING.]

WORTHY SIR, MY VERY GOOD FRIEND AND PATRON,

I arrived in town yesterday, after a tolerably pleasant journey (considering the hot weather and dusty roads). I put up at the Bull and Gate in Holborn, and hastened to Covent-garden. I soon found the house where the unhappy lady lodgeth. And, in the back shop, had a good deal of discourse* with Mrs. Smith, (her landlady,) whom I found to be so 'highly prepossessed'** in her 'favour,' that I saw it would not answer your desires to take my informations 'altogether' from her: and being obliged to attend my patron, (who to my sorrow,

* See Vol. VII. Letter LXXXI. ** Transcriber's note: Mr. Brand's letters are characterized by a style that makes excessive use of italics for emphasis. Although in the remainder of Clarissa I have largely disregarded italics for the sake of plain-text formatting, this style makes such emphatic use of italics that I have indicated all such instances in his letters by placing the italicized words and phrases in quotations, thus ' '.

'Miserum et aliena vivere quadra,')

I find wanteth much waiting upon, and is 'another' sort of man than he was at college: for, Sir, 'inter nos,' 'honours change manners.' For the 'aforesaid causes,' I thought it would best answer all the ends of the commission with which you honoured me, to engage, in the desired scrutiny, the wife of a 'particular friend,' who liveth almost over-against the house where she lodgeth, and who is a gentlewoman of 'character,' and 'sobriety,' a 'mother of children,' and one who 'knoweth' the 'world' well.

To her I applied myself, therefore, and gave her a short history of the case, and desired she would very particularly inquire into the 'conduct' of the unhappy young lady; her 'present way of life' and 'subsistence'; her 'visiters,' her 'employments,' and such-like: for these, Sir, you know, are the things whereof you wished to be informed.

Accordingly, Sir, I waited upon the gentlewoman aforesaid, this day; and, to 'my' very great trouble, (because I know it will be to 'your's,' and likewise to all your worthy family's,) I must say, that I do find things look a little more 'darkly' than I hoped the would. For, alas! Sir, the gentlewoman's report turneth out not so 'favourable' for Miss's reputation, as 'I' wished, as 'you' wished, and as 'every one' of her friends wished. But so it is throughout the world, that 'one false step' generally brings on 'another'; and peradventure 'a worse,' and 'a still worse'; till the poor 'limed soul' (a very fit epithet of the Divine Quarles's!) is quite 'entangled,' and (without infinite mercy) lost for ever.

It seemeth, Sir, she is, notwithstanding, in a very 'ill state of health.' In this, 'both' gentlewomen (that is to say, Mrs. Smith, her landlady, and my friend's wife) agree. Yet she goeth often out in a chair, to 'prayers' (as it is said). But my friend's wife told me, that nothing is more common in London, than that the frequenting of the church at morning prayers is made the 'pretence' and 'cover' for 'private assignations.' What a sad thing is this! that what was designed for 'wholesome nourishment' to the 'poor soul,' should be turned into 'rank poison!' But as Mr. Daniel de Foe (an ingenious man, though a 'dissenter') observeth (but indeed it is an old proverb; only I think he was the first that put it into verse)

God never had a house of pray'r But Satan had a chapel there.

Yet to do the lady 'justice,' nobody cometh home with her: nor indeed 'can' they, because she goeth forward and backward in a 'sedan,' or 'chair,' (as they call it). But then there is a gentleman of 'no good character' (an 'intimado' of Mr. Lovelace) who is a 'constant' visiter of her, and of the people of the house, whom he 'regaleth' and 'treateth,' and hath (of consequence) their 'high good words.'

I have thereupon taken the trouble (for I love to be 'exact' in any 'commission' I undertake) to inquire 'particularly' about this 'gentleman,' as he is called (albeit I hold no man so but by his actions: for, as Juvenal saith,

—'Nobilitas sola est, atque unica virtus')

And this I did 'before' I would sit down to write to you.

His name is Belford. He hath a paternal estate of upwards of one thousand pounds by the year; and is now in mourning for an uncle who left him very considerably besides. He beareth a very profligate character as to 'women,' (for I inquired particularly about 'that,') and is Mr. Lovelace's more especial 'privado,' with whom he holdeth a 'regular correspondence'; and hath been often seen with Miss (tete a tete) at the 'window'—in no 'bad way,' indeed: but my friend's wife is of opinion that all is not 'as it should be.' And, indeed, it is mighty strange to me, if Miss be so 'notable a penitent' (as is represented) and if she have such an 'aversion' to Mr. Lovelace, that she will admit his 'privado' into 'her retirements,' and see 'no other company.'

I understand, from Mrs. Smith, that Mr. Hickman was to see her some time ago, from Miss Howe; and I am told, by 'another' hand, (you see, Sir, how diligent I have been to execute the 'commissions' you gave me,) that he had no 'extraordinary opinion' of this Belford at first; though they were seen together one morning by the opposite neighbour, at 'breakfast': and another time this Belford was observed to 'watch' Mr. Hickman's coming from her; so that, as it should seem, he was mighty zealous to 'ingratiate' himself with Mr. Hickman; no doubt to engage him to make a 'favourable report to Miss Howe' of the 'intimacy' he was admitted into by her unhappy friend; who ('as she is very ill') may 'mean no harm' in allowing his visits, (for he, it seemeth, brought to her, or recommended, at least, the doctor and apothecary that attend her:) but I think (upon the whole) 'it looketh not well.'

I am sorry, Sir, I cannot give you a better account of the young lady's 'prudence.' But, what shall we say?

'Uvaque conspecta livorem ducit ab uva,'

as Juvenal observeth.

One thing I am afraid of; which is, that Miss may be under 'necessities'; and that this Belford (who, as Mrs. Smith owns, hath 'offered her money,' which she, 'at the time,' refused) may find an opportunity to 'take advantage' of those 'necessities': and it is well observed by that poet, that

'AEgre formosam poteris servare puellam: Nunc prece, nunc pretio, forma petita ruit.'

And this Belford (who is a 'bold man,' and hath, as they say, the 'look' of one) may make good that of Horace, (with whose writings you are so well acquainted; nobody better;)

'Audax omnia perpeti, Gens humana ruit per vetitum nefas.'

Forgive me, Sir, for what I am going to write: but if you could prevail upon the rest of your family to join in the scheme which 'you,' and her 'virtuous sister,' Miss Arabella, and the Archdeacon, and I, once talked of, (which is to persuade the unhappy young lady to go, in some 'creditable' manner, to some one of the foreign colonies,) it might not save only her 'own credit' and 'reputation,' but the 'reputation' and 'credit' of all her 'family,' and a great deal of 'vexation' moreover. For it is my humble opinion, that you will hardly (any of you) enjoy yourselves while this ('once' innocent) young lady is in the way of being so frequently heard of by you: and this would put her 'out of the way' both of 'this Belford' and of 'that Lovelace,' and it might, peradventure, prevent as much 'evil' as 'scandal.'

You will forgive me, Sir, for this my 'plainness.' Ovid pleadeth for me,

'——Adulator nullus amicus erit.'

And I have no view but that of approving myself a 'zealous well-wisher' to 'all' your worthy family, (whereto I owe a great number of obligations,) and very particularly, Sir,

Your obliged and humble servant, ELIAS BRAND.

WEDN. AUG. 9.

P.S. I shall give you 'farther hints' when I come down, (which will be in a few days;) and who my 'informants' were; but by 'these' you will see, that I have been very assiduous (for the time) in the task you set me upon.

The 'length' of my letter you will excuse: for I need not tell you, Sir, what 'narrative,' 'complex,' and 'conversation' letters (such a one as 'mine') require. Every one to his 'talent.' 'Letter-writing' is mine. I will be bold to say; and that my 'correspondence' was much coveted in the university, on that account, by 'tyros,' and by 'sophs,' when I was hardly a 'soph' myself. But this I should not have taken upon myself to mention, but only in defence of the 'length' of my letter; for nobody writeth 'shorter' or 'pithier,' when the subject requireth 'common forms' only—but, in apologizing for my 'prolixity,' I am 'adding' to the 'fault,' (if it were one, which, however, I cannot think it to be, the 'subject' considered: but this I have said before in other words:) so, Sir, if you will excuse my 'post-script,' I am sure you will not find fault with my 'letter.'

One word more as to a matter of 'erudition,' which you greatly love to hear me 'start' and 'dwell upon.' Dr. Lewen once, in 'your' presence, (as you, 'my good patron,' cannot but remember,) in a 'smartish' kind of debate between 'him' and 'me,' took upon him to censure the 'paranthetical' style, as I call it. He was a very learned and judicious man, to be sure, and an ornament to 'our function': but yet I must needs say, that it is a style which I greatly like; and the good Doctor was then past his 'youth,' and that time of life, of consequence, when a 'fertile imagination,' and a 'rich fancy,' pour in ideas so fast upon a writer, that parentheses are often wanted (and that for the sake of 'brevity,' as well as 'perspicuity') to save the reader the trouble of reading a passage 'more than once.' Every man to his talent, (as I said before.) We are all so apt to set up our 'natural biasses' for 'general standards,' that I wondered 'the less' at the worthy Doctor's 'stiffness' on this occasion. He 'smiled at me,' you may remember, Sir—and, whether I was right or not, I am sure I 'smiled at him.' And 'you,' my 'worthy patron,' (as I had the satisfaction to observe,) seemed to be of 'my party.' But was it not strange, that the 'old gentleman' and 'I' should so widely differ, when the 'end' with 'both' (that is to say, 'perspicuity' or 'clearness,') was the same?—But what shall we say?—

'Errare est hominis, sed non persistere.'

I think I have nothing to add until I have the honour of attending you in 'person'; but I am, (as above,) &c. &c. &c.

E.B.



LETTER XLII

MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ. WEDNESDAY NIGHT, AUG. 30.

It was lucky enough that our two servants met at Hannah's,* which gave them so good an opportunity of exchanging their letters time enough for each to return to his master early in the day.

* The Windmill, near Slough.

Thou dost well to boast of thy capacity for managing servants, and to set up for correcting our poets in their characters of this class of people,* when, like a madman, thou canst beat their teeth out, and attempt to shoot them through the head, for not bringing to thee what they had no power to obtain.

* See Letter XX. of this volume.

You well observe* that you would have made a thorough-paced lawyer. The whole of the conversation-piece between you and the Colonel affords a convincing proof that there is a black and a white side to every cause: But what must the conscience of a partial whitener of his own cause, or blackener of another's, tell him, while he is throwing dust in the eyes of his judges, and all the time knows his own guilt?

* See Letter XL. of this volume.

The Colonel, I see, is far from being a faultless man: but while he sought not to carry his point by breach of faith, he has an excuse which thou hast not. But, with respect to him, and to us all, I can now, with the detestation of some of my own actions, see, that the taking advantage of another person's good opinion of us to injure (perhaps to ruin) that other, is the most ungenerous wickedness that can be committed.

Man acting thus by man, we should not be at a loss to give such actions a name: But is it not doubly and trebly aggravated, when such advantage is taken of an unexperienced and innocent young creature, whom we pretend to love above all the women in the world; and when we seal our pretences by the most solemn vows and protestations of inviolable honour that we can invent?

I see that this gentleman is the best match thou ever couldest have had, upon all accounts: his spirit such another impetuous one as thy own; soon taking fire; vindictive; and only differing in this, that the cause he engages in is a just one. But commend me to honest brutal Mowbray, who, before he knew the cause, offers his sword in thy behalf against a man who had taken the injured side, and whom he had never seen before.

As soon as I had run through your letters, and the copy of that of the incendiary Brand's, (by the latter of which I saw to what cause a great deal of this last implacableness of the Harlowe family is owing,) I took coach to Smith's, although I had been come from thence but about an hour, and had taken leave of the lady for the night.

I sent up for Mrs. Lovick, and desired her, in the first place, to acquaint the lady (who was busied in her closet,) that I had letters from Berks: in which I was informed, that the interview between Colonel Morden and Mr. Lovelace had ended without ill consequences; that the Colonel intended to write to her very soon, and was interesting himself mean while, in her favour, with her relations; that I hoped that this agreeable news would be means of giving her good rest; and I would wait upon her in the morning, by the time she should return from prayers, with all the particulars.

She sent me word that she should be glad to see me in the morning; and was highly obliged to me for the good news I had sent her up.

I then, in the back shop, read to Mrs. Lovick and to Mrs. Smith the copy of Brand's letter, and asked them if they could guess at the man's informant? They were not at a loss; Mrs. Smith having seen the same fellow Brand who had talked with her, as I mentioned in the former,* come out of a milliner's shop over against them; which milliner, she said, had also lately been very inquisitive about the lady.

* See Vol. VII. Letter LXXXI.

I wanted no farther hint; but, bidding them take no notice to the lady of what I had read, I shot over the way, and, asking for the mistress of the house, she came to me.

Retiring with her, at her invitation, into her parlour, I desired to know if she were acquainted with a young country clergyman of the name of Brand. She hesitatingly, seeing me in some emotion, owned that she had some small knowledge of the gentleman. Just then came in her husband, who is, it seems, a petty officer of excise, (and not an ill-behaved man,) who owned a fuller knowledge of him.

I have the copy of a letter, said I, from this Brand, in which he has taken great liberties with my character, and with that of the most unblamable lady in the world, which he grounds upon information that you, Madam, have given him. And then I read to them several passages in his letter, and asked what foundation she had for giving that fellow such impressions of either of us?

They knew not what to answer: but at last said, that he had told them how wickedly the young lady had run away from her parents: what worthy and rich people they were: in what favour he stood with them; and that they had employed him to inquire after her behaviour, visiters, &c.

They said, 'That indeed they knew very little of the young lady; but that [curse upon their censoriousness!] it was but too natural to think, that, where a lady had given way to a delusion, and taken so wrong a step, she would not stop there: that the most sacred places and things were but too often made clokes for bad actions; that Mr. Brand had been informed (perhaps by some enemy of mine) that I was a man of very free principles, and an intimado, as he calls it, of the man who had ruined her. And that their cousin Barker, a manteau-maker, who lodged up one pair of stairs,' (and who, at their desire, came down and confirmed what they said,) 'had often, from her window, seen me with the lady in her chamber, and both talking very earnestly together; and that Mr. Brand, being unable to account for her admiring my visits, and knowing I was but a new acquaintance of her's, and an old one of Mr. Lovelace, thought himself obliged to lay these matters before her friends.'

This was the sum and substance of their tale. O how I cursed the censoriousness of this plaguy triumvirate! A parson, a milliner, and a mantua-maker! The two latter, not more by business led to adorn the persons, than generally by scandal to destroy the reputations, of those they have a mind to exercise their talents upon!

The two women took great pains to persuade me that they themselves were people of conscience;—of consequence, I told them, too much addicted, I feared, to censure other people who pretended not to their strictness; for that I had ever found censoriousness, with those who affected to be thought more pious than their neighbours.

They answered, that that was not their case; and that they had since inquired into the lady's character and manner of life, and were very much concerned to think any thing they had said should be made use of against her: and as they heard from Mrs. Smith that she was not likely to live long, they should be sorry she should go out of the world a sufferer by their means, or with an ill opinion of them, though strangers to her. The husband offered to write, if I pleased, to Mr. Brand, in vindication of the lady; and the two women said they should be glad to wait upon her in person, to beg her pardon for any thing she had reason to take amiss from them; because they were now convinced that there was not such another young lady in the world.

I told them that the least said of the affair to the lady, in her present circumstances, was best. That she was a heavenly creature, and fond of taking all occasions to find excuses for her relations on their implacableness to her: that therefore I should take some notice to her of the uncharitable and weak surmises which gave birth to so vile a scandal: but that I would have him, Mr. Walton, (for that is the husband's name,) write to his acquaintance Brand as soon as possible, as he had offered; and so I left them.

As to what thou sayest of thy charming cousin, let me know if thou hast any meaning in it. I have not the vanity to think myself deserving of such a lady as Miss Montague; and should not therefore care to expose myself to her scorn and to thy derision. But were I assured I might avoid both of these, I would soon acquaint thee that I should think no pains nor assiduity too much to obtain a share in the good graces of such a lady.