page.

Equipage, sir!-Trappings, tinsel!-What is equipage what is life-what is anything, to a creature sunk so low as I am in my own opinion!-Labouring under a father's curse!Unable to look backward without self-reproach, or forward without terror!-These reflections strengthened by every cross accident! And what but cross accidents befal me!-All my darling schemes dashed in pieces, all my hopes at an end; deny me not the liberty to refuge myself in some obscure corner, where neither the enemies you have made me, nor the few friends you have left me, may ever hear of the supposed rash-one, till those happy moments are at hand, which shall expiate for all!

I had not a word to say for myself. Such a war in my mind had I never known. Gratitude, and admiration of the excellent creature before me, combating with villainous habit, with resolutions so premeditatedly made, and with views so much gloried in!-An hundred new contrivances in my head, and in my heart, that, to be honest, as it is called, must all be given up, by a heart delighting in intrigue and difficulty-Miss Howe's virulences endeavoured to be recollected-yet recollection refusing to bring them forward with the requisite efficacy-I had certainly been a lost man, had not Dorcas come seasonably in with a letter.-On the superscription written-Be pleased, sir, to open it now.

I retired to the window-opened it-it was from Dorcas herself.-These the contents"Be pleased to detain my lady: a paper of importance to transcribe. I will cough when I have done."

I put the paper in my pocket, and turned to my charmer, less disconcerted, as she, by that time, had also a little recovered herself. One favour, dearest creature-Let me but know, whether Miss Howe approves or disapproves of my proposals? I know her to be my enemy. I was intending to account to you for the change of behaviour you accused me of at the beginning of the conversation; but was diverted from it by your vehemence. Indeed, my beloved creature, you were very vehement. Do you think it must not be matter of high regret to me, to find my wishes so often delayed and postponed in favour of your predominant view to a reconciliation with relations who will not be reconciled to you?-To this was owing your declining to celebrate our nuptials before we came to town, though you were so atrociously treated by your sister, and your whole family; and though so

ardently pressed to celebrate by me- -To this was owing the ready offence you took at my four friends; and at the unavailing attempt I made to see a dropt letter; little imagining, from what two such ladies could write to each other, that there could be room for mortal displeasure-To this was owing the week's distance you held me at, till you knew the issue of another application.-But, when they had rejected that; when you had sent my cold-received proposals to Miss Howe for her approbation or advice, as indeed I advised; and had honoured me with your company at the play on Saturday night; (my whole behaviour unobjectionable to the last hour;) must not, madam, the sudden change in your conduct the very next morning, astonish and distress me?-And this persisted in with still stronger declarations, after you had received the impatiently-expected letter from Miss Howe; must I not conclude, that all was owing to her influence; and that some other application or project was meditating, that made it necessary to keep me again at distance till the result were known, and which was to deprive me of you for ever? For was not that your constantly-proposed preliminary?-Well, madam, might I be wrought up to a half-phrensy by this apprehension; and well might I charge you with hating me.-And now, dearest creature, let me know, I once more ask you, what is Miss Howe's opinion of my proposals?

Were I disposed to debate with you, Mr Lovelace, I could very easily answer your fine harangue. But at present, I shall only say, that your ways have been very unaccountable. You seem to me, if your meanings were always just, to have taken great pains to embarrass them. Whether owing in you to the want of a clear head, or a sound heart, I cannot determine; but it is to the want of one of them, I verily think, that I am to ascribe the greatest part of your strange conduct.

Curse upon the heart of the little devil, said I, who instigates you to think so hardly of the faithfullest heart in the world!

How dare you, sir!-And there she stopt; having almost overshot herself; as I designed she should.

How dare I what, madam? And I looked with meaning. How dare I what?

Vile man-And do you-And there again she stopt.

Do I what, madam?-And why vile man? How dare you curse anybody in my presence? O the sweet receder! But that was not to go off so with a Lovelace.

Why then, dearest creature, is there anybody that instigates you?-If there be, again I curse them, be they whom they will.

She was in a charming pretty passion. And this was the first time that I had the odds in my favour.

Well, madam, it is just as I thought. And

now I know how to account for a temper that I hope is not natural to you.

Artful wretch! and is it thus you would entrap me? But know, sir, that I received letters from nobody but Miss Howe. Miss Howe likes some of your ways as little as I do; for I have set everything before her. Yet she is thus far your enemy, as she is mine. She thinks I could not refuse your offers; but endeavour to make the best of my lot. And now you have the truth. Would to Heaven you were capable of dealing with equal sincerity!

I am, madam. And here, on my knee, I renew my vows, and my supplication, that you will make me yours. Yours for ever. And let me have cause to bless you and Miss Howe in the same breath.

To say the truth, Belford, I had before begun to think that the vixen of a girl, who certainly likes not Hickman, was in love with me.

Rise, sir, from your too-ready knees; and mock me not!

Too-ready knees, thought I! Though this humble posture so little affects this proud beauty, she knows not how much I have obtained of others of her sex, nor how often I have been forgiven for the last attempts, by kneeling.

Mock you, madam! And I arose, and re-urged her for the day. I blamed myself, at the same time, for the invitation I had given to Lord M., as it might subject me to delay from his infirmities; but told her, that I would write to him to excuse me, if she had no objection; or to give him the day she would give me, and not wait for him, if he could not come in time.

My day, sir, said she, is never. Be not surprised. A person of politeness judging between us, would not be surprised that I say so. But indeed, Mr Lovelace, [and wept through impatience, you either know not how to treat with a mind of the least degree of delicacy, notwithstanding your birth and education, or you are an ungrateful man; and [after a pause a worse than ungrateful one. But I will retire. I will see you again to-morrow. I cannot before. I think I hate you. You may look. Indeed I think I hate you. And if, upon a re-examination of my own heart, I find I do, I would not for the world that matters should go on farther between us. But I see, I see, she does not hate me! How it would mortify my vanity, if I thought there was a woman in the world, much more this, that could hate me! 'Tis evident, villain as she thinks me, that I should not be an odious villain, if I could but at last in one instance cease to be a villain. She could not hold it, determined as she had thought herself, I saw by her eyes, the moment I endeavoured to dissipate her apprehensions, on my too-ready knees, as she calls them. The moment the rough covering my teazing behaviour has thrown over her affections is quite removed, I doubt not to find

all silk and silver at the bottom-all soft, bright, and charming.

I was, however, too much vexed, disconcerted, mortified, to hinder her from retiring. And yet she had not gone if Dorcas had not coughed. The wench came in, as soon as her lady had retired, and gave me the copy she had taken. And what should it be, but of the answer the truly-admirable creature had intended to give to my written proposals in relation to settlements?

I have but just dipt into this affecting paper. Were I to read it attentively, not a wink should I sleep this night. To-morrow it shall obtain my serious consideration.

In

"WHEN a woman is married, that supreme earthly obligation requires, that in all instances, where her husband's real honour is concerned, she should yield her own will to his. But, beforehand, I could be glad, conformably to what I have always signified, to have the most explicit assurances, that every possible way should be tried to avoid litigation with my father. Time and patience will subdue all things. My prospects of happiness are extremely contracted. A husband's right will be always the same. my lifetime I could wish nothing to be done of this sort. Your circumstances, sir, will not oblige you to extort violently from him what is in his hands. All that depends upon me, either with regard to my person, to my diversions, or to the economy that no married woman, of whatever rank or quality, should be above inspecting, shall be done, to prevent a necessity for such measures being taken. And if there will be no necessity for them, it is to be hoped that motives less excusable will not have force

motives which must be founded in a littleness of mind, which a woman, who has not that littleness of mind, will be under such temptations as her duty will hardly be able at all times to check, to despise her husband for having; es

pecially in cases where her own family, so much a part of herself, and which will have obligations upon her (though then but secondary ones,) from which she can never be freed, is intimately concerned.

"This article, then, I urge to your most serious consideration, as what lies next my heart. I enter not here minutely into the fatal misunderstanding between them and you. The fault may be in both; but, sir, yours was the foundation-fault; at least, you gave a too plausible pretence for my brother's antipathy to work upCondescension was no part of your study. You chose to bear the imputations laid to your charge, rather than to make it your endeavour to obviate them.

on.

"But this may lead into hateful recrimination.-Let it be remembered, I will only say in this place, that, in their eye, you have robbed them of a daughter they doated upon, and that their resentments on this occasion rise but in proportion to their love and their disappointment. If they were faulty in some of the measures they took, while they themselves did not think so, who shall judge for them? You, sir, who will judge everybody as you please, and will let nobody judge you in your own particu lar, must not be their judge. It may, therefore, be expected that they will stand out.

"As for myself, sir, I must leave it (so seems it to be destined) to your justice, to treat me as you shall think I deserve. But if your future behaviour to them is not governed by that harsh sounding implacableness which you charge upon some of their tempers, the splendour of your family, and the excellent character of some of them, (of all, indeed, unless your own conwill, on better consideration, do everything science furnishes you with one only exception,) with them. For they may be overcome; perhaps, however, with the more difficulty, as the greatly prosperous less bear control and disappointment than others; for I will own to you, that I have often in secret lamented, that their great acquirements have been a snare to them; perhaps as great a snare as some other accidentals have been to you, which, being less immediately your own gifts, you have still less reason than they to value yourself upon them.

"Let me only on this subject further observe, that condescension is not meanness. There is a glory in yielding, that hardly any violent spirit can judge of. My brother, perhaps, is no more sensible of this than you; but as you have talents which he has not, (who, however, has, as I hope, that regard for morals, the want of which makes one of his objections to you,) I could wish it may not be owing to you, that your mutual dislikes to each other do not subside;-for it is my earnest hope, that in time you may see each other, without exciting the fears of a wife and a sister for the consequence. Not that I should wish you to yield in points

that truly concerned your honour: no, sir; I would be as delicate in such as you yourself,more delicate, I will venture to say, because more uniformly so. How vain, how contemptible, is that pride, which shew sitself in standing upon diminutive observances, and gives up and makes a jest of the most important duties!

"This article being considered as I wish, all the rest will be easy. Were I to accept of the handsome separate provision you seem to intend me, added to the considerable sums arisen from my grandfather's estate since his death,— more considerable than perhaps you may suppose, from your offer,-I should think it my duty to lay up for the family good, and for unforeseen events, out of it; for as to my donations, I would generally confine myself in them to the tenth of my income, be it what it would. I aim at no glare in what I do of that sort. All I wish for is the power of relieving the lame, the blind, the sick, and the industrious poor, and those whom accident has made so, or sudden distress reduced. The common or bred beggars I leave to others, and to the public provision. They cannot be lower, perhaps they wish not to be higher; and, not able to do for every one, I aim not at works of supererogation. Two hundred pounds a-year would do all I wish to do of the separate sort: for all above I would content myself to ask you; except, mistrusting your own economy, you would give up to my management and keeping, in order to provide for future contingencies, a larger portion, for which, as your steward, I would regularly account.

"As to clothes, I have particularly two suits, which, having been only in a manner tried on, would answer for any present occasion. Jewels I have of my grandmother's, which want only new-setting; another set I have, which on particular days I used to wear. Although these are not sent me, I have no doubt, being merely personals, but they will, when I send for them in another name; till when I should not choose to wear any.

"As to your complaints of my diffidences and the like, I appeal to your own heart, if it be possible for you to make my case your own for one moment, and to retrospect some parts of your behaviour, words, and actions, whether I am not rather to be justified than censured; and whether, of all men in the world, avowing what you avow, you ought not to think so. If you do not, let me admonish you, sir, from the very great mismatch that then must appear to be in our minds, never to seek, nor so much as wish, to bring about the most intimate union of interests between yourself and

May 20.

"CLARISSA HARLOWE."

The original of this charming paper, as Dorcas tells me, was torn almost in two;-in one

of her pets I suppose! What business have the sex, whose principal glory is meekness, and patience, and resignation, to be in a passion, I trow? Will not she, who allows herself such liberties as a maiden, take greater when married?

And a wife to be in a passion!-Let me tell the ladies, it is an impudent thing, begging their pardon, and as imprudent as impudent, for a wife to be in a passion,-if she mean not eternal separation or wicked defiance by it. For is it not rejecting at once all that expostulatory meekness and gentle reasoning, mingled with sighs as gentle, and graced with bent knees, supplicating hands, and eyes lifted up to your imperial countenance, just running over, that you should make a reconciliation speedy, and as lasting as speedy? Even suppose the husband is in the wrong, will not this being so give the greater force to her expostulation?

Now I think of it, a man should be in the wrong now-and-then, to make his wife shine. Miss Howe tells my charmer, that adversity is her shining time. 'Tis a generous thing in a man to make his wife shine at his own expense; to give her leave to triumph over him by patient reasoning; for, were he to be too imperial to acknowledge his fault on the spot, she will find the benefit of her duty and submission in future, and in the high opinion he will conceive of her prudence and obligingness-and so, by degrees, she will become her master's master.

But for a wife to come up with kimboed arm, the other hand thrown out, perhaps with a pointing finger,-Look ye here, sir!-Take notice!-If you are wrong, I'll be wrong!-if you are in a passion, I'll be in a passion!-rebuff for rebuff, sir!-If you fly, I'll tear!—if you swear, I'll curse!-And the same room, and the same bed, shall not hold us, sir!-For remember I am married, sir !—I am a wife, sir!—You can't help yourself, sir!-Your honour, as well as your peace, is in my keeping; and if you like not this treatment, you may have worse, sir!

Ah! Jack, Jack! what man who has observed these things, either implied or expressed in other families, would wish to be a husband!

Dorcas found this paper in one of the drawers of her lady's dressing-table. She was re-perusing it, as she supposes, when the honest wench carried my message to desire her to favour me at the tea-table, for she saw her pop a paper into the drawer as she came in ; and there, on her mistress's going to meet me in the dining-room, she found it, and to be this.

But I had better not to have had a copy of it as far as I know; for determined as I was before upon my operations, it instantly turned all my resolutions in her favour. Yet I would give something to be convinced that she did not pop it into her drawer before the wench, in order for me to see it; and perhaps, if I were to take notice of it, to discover whether Dorcas, according

to Miss Howe's advice, were most my friend or hers.

The very suspicion of this will do her no good, for I cannot bear to be artfully dealt with. People love to enjoy their own peculiar talents in monopoly, as I may say. I am aware that it will strengthen thy arguments against me in her behalf; but I know every tittle thou canst say upon it. Spare, therefore, thy wambling nonsense, I desire thee, and leave this sweet excellence and me to our fate, that will determine for us, as it shall please itself; for, as Cowley says,

"An unseen hand makes all our moves : And some are great, and some are small; Some climb to good, some from good fortune fall: Some wise men, and some fools we call: Figures, alas! of speech!—For destiny plays us all."

But, after all, I am sorry, almost sorry,-for how shall I do to be quite sorry, when it is not given to me to be so?-that I cannot, until I have made further trials, resolve upon wedlock.

I have just read over again this intended answer to my proposals; and how I adore her for it!

But yet another yet!—she has not given it or sent it to me. It is not therefore her answer. It is not written for me, though to me.

Nay, she has not intended to send it to me: she has even torn it, perhaps with indignation, as thinking it too good for me. By this action she absolutely retracts it. Why, then, does my foolish fondness seek to establish for her the same merit in my heart as if she avowed it?Pr'ythee, dear Belford, once more, leave us to our fate; and do not thou interpose with thy nonsense, to weaken a spirit already too squeamish, and strengthen a conscience that has declared itself of her party.

Then, again, remember thy recent discoveries, Lovelace; remember her indifference, attended with all the appearance of contempt and hatred. View her, even now, wrapt up in reserve and mystery-meditating plots, as far as thou knowest, against the sovereignty thou hast, by right of conquest, obtained over her. Remember, in short, all thou hast threatened to remember against this insolent beauty, who is a rebel to the power she has listed under.

But yet, how dost thou propose to subdue thy sweet enemy? Abhorred be force-be the necessity of force, if that can be avoided !—There is no triumph in force; no conquest over the will; no prevailing by gentle degrees over the gentle passions!-force is the devil!

My cursed character, as I have often said, was against me at setting out. Yet is she not a woman? Cannot I find one yielding or but half-yielding moment, if she do not absolutely hate me?

But with what can I tempt her?—RICHES

she was born to and despises, knowing what they are. JEWELS and ornaments, to a mind so much a jewel and so richly set, her worthy consciousness will not let her value. LOVE-If she be susceptible of love, it seems to be so much under the direction of prudence, that one unguarded moment, I fear, cannot be reasonably hoped for; and so much VIGILANCE, SO much apprehensiveness, that her fears are ever aforehand with her dangers. Then her LOVE OF VIRTUE seems to be principle, native principle, or, if not native, so deeply rooted, that its fibres have struck into her heart; and, as she grew up, so blended and twisted themselves with the strings of life, that I doubt there is no separating of the one without cutting the others asunder.

What, then, can be done to make such a matchless creature get over the first tests, in order to put her to the grand proof, whether, once overcome, she will not be always overcome?

Our mother and her nymphs say, I am a perfect craven and no Lovelace,-and so I think. But this is no simpering, smiling charmer, as I have found others to be, when I have touched upon affecting subjects at a distance; as once or twice I have tried to her-the mother introducing them, to make sex palliate the freedom to sex, when only we three together. She is above the affectation of not seeming to understand you. She shews by her displeasure, and a fierceness not natural to her eye, that she judges of an impure heart by an impure mouth, and darts dead at once even the embryo hopes of an encroaching lover, however distantly insinuated, before the meaning-hint can dawn into double entendre.

By my faith, Jack, as I sit gazing upon her, my whole soul in my eyes, contemplating her perfections, and thinking, when I have seen her easy and serene, what would be her thoughts did she know my heart as well as I know it; when I behold her disturbed and jealous, and think of the justness of her apprehensions, and that she cannot fear so much as there is room for her to fear, my heart often misgives me.

And must, think I, O creature so divinely excellent, and so beloved of my soul! those arms, those encircling arms, that would make a monarch happy, be used to repel brutal force,— all their strength, unavailingly perhaps, exerted to repel it, and to defend a person so delicately framed? Can violence enter into the heart of a wretch who might entitle himself to all her willing yet virtuous love, and make the blessings he aspireth after her duty to confer? Begone, villain-purposes! Sink ye all to the hell that could only inspire ye!—And I am then ready to throw myself at her feet, to confess my villainous designs, to avow my repentance, and put it out of my power to act unworthily by such an excellence.

How then comes it, that all these compas

sionate, and, as some would call them, honest sensibilities, go off?-Why, Miss Howe will tell thee: she says, I am the devil.-By my conscience, I think he has at present a great share in me.

There's ingenuousness!-How I lay myself open to thee!-But seest thou not, that the more I say against myself, the less room there is for thee to take me to task?-O, Belford, Belford! I cannot, cannot, (at least at present,) I cannot marry.

Then her family, my bitter enemies-to supple to them!-or if I do not, to make her as unhappy as she can be from my attempts.

Then, does she not love them too much, me too little?

She now seems to despise me: Miss Howe declares, that she really does despise me. To be despised by a WIFE-what a thought is that! To be excelled by a WIFE, too, in every part of praiseworthy knowledge!-To take lessons, to take instructions, from a WIFE!-More than despise me, she herself has taken time to consider whether she does not hate me. I hate you, Lovelace, with my whole heart, said she to me but yesterday. My soul is above thee, man! Urge me not to tell thee how sincerely I think my soul above thee !-How poor, indeed, was I then, even in my own heart! So visible a superiority to so proud a spirit as mine!—And here from below, (from BELOW indeed!) from these women, I am so goaded on

Yet 'tis poor, too, to think myself a machine in the hands of such wretches! I am no machine. Lovelace, thou art base to thyself but to suppose thyself a machine.

But, having gone thus far, I should be unhappy, if, after marriage, in the petulance of ill humour, I had it to reproach myself, that I did not try her to the utmost. And yet I don't know how it is, but this lady, the moment I come into her presence, half assimilates me to her own virtue. Once or twice, to say nothing of her triumph over me on Sunday night, I was prevailed upon to fluster myself, with an intention to make some advances, which, if obliged to recede, I might lay upon raised spirits; but the instant I beheld her, I was soberized into awe and reverence; and the majesty of her even visible purity first damped, and then extinguished, my double flame.

What a surprisingly powerful effect, so much and so long in my power, she,—so instigated by some of her own sex, and so stimulated by passion, I.—How can this be accounted for in a Lovelace?

But what a heap of stuff have I written !— How have I been run away with!-By what?

Canst thou say by what?-0 thou lurking varletess, CONSCIENCE! is it thou that hast thus made me of party against myself? How camest thou in? In what disguise, thou egregious haunter of my more agreeable hours?-Stand