sent by a particular hand; she opening it with great emotion-seeming to have expected it sooner-were the reasons for my apprehensions. We were then at Muswell-hill; a pretty country within the eye, to Polly, was the remark, instead of replying to me. But I was not so to be answered-I should expect some charming subjects and characters from two such pens; I hoped everything went on well between Mr Hickman and Miss Howe. Her mother's heart, I said, was set upon that match; Mr Hickman was not without his merits; he was what the ladies called a SOBER man; but I must needs say, that I thought Miss Howe deserved a husband of a very different cast! This, I supposed, would have engaged her into a subject from which I could have wire-drawn something :-for Hickman is one of her favourites-why, I can't divine, except for the sake of opposition of character to that of thy honest friend. But she cut me short by a look of disapprobation, and another cool remark upon a distant view; and, How far off, Miss Horton, do you think that clump of trees may be ? pointing out of the coach-So I had done. Here endeth all I have to write concerning our conversation on this our agreeable airing. We have both been writing ever since we came home. I am to be favoured with her company for an hour, before she retires to rest. All that obsequious love can suggest, in order to engage her tenderest sentiments for me against to-morrow's sickness, will I aim at when we meet. But at parting will complain of a disorder in my stomach. We have met. All was love and unexceptionable respect on my part. Ease and complaisance on hers. She was concerned for my disorder. So sudden !-Just as we parted! But it was nothing. I should be quite well by the morning. Faith, Jack, I think I am sick already. Is it possible for such a giddy fellow as me to persuade myself to be ill! I am a better mimic at this rate than I wish to be. But every nerve and fibre of me is always ready to contribute its aid, whether by health or by ailment, to carry a resolved-on roguery into execution. Dorcas has transcribed for me the whole letter of Miss Howe, dated Sunday, May 14,* of which before I had only extracts. She found no other letter added to that parcel; but this, and that which I copied myself in character last Sunday whilst she was at church, relating to the smuggling scheme,† are enough for me. See Letter XC. of this vol. DORCAS tells me, that her lady has been removing her papers from the mahogany chest into a wainscot box, which held her linen, and which she put into her dark closet. We have no key of that at present. No doubt but all her letters, previous to those I have come at, are in that box. Dorcas is uneasy upon it; yet hopes that her lady does not suspect her; for she is sure that she laid in everything as she found it. LETTER CXVIII. MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ. Cocoa-tree, Saturday, May 27. THIS ipecacuanha is a most disagreeable medicine. That these cursed physical folks can find out nothing to do us good, but what would poison the devil! In the other world, were they only to take physic, it would be punishment enough of itself for a mis-spent life. A doctor at one elbow, and an apothecary at the other, and the poor soul labouring under their prescribed operations, he need no worse tormentors. But now this was to take down my countenance. It has done it; for, with violent retchings, having taken enough to make me sick, and not enough water to carry it off, I presently looked as if I had kept my bed a fortnight. Ill jesting, as I thought in the midst of the exercise, with edge tools, and worse with physical ones. Two hours it held me. I had forbid Dorcas to let her lady know anything of the matter; out of tenderness to her; being willing, when she knew my prohibition, to let her see that I expected her to be concerned for me. Well, but Dorcas was nevertheless a woman, and she can whisper to her lady the secret she is enjoined to keep! Come hither, toad, [sick as a devil at the instant; let me see what a mixture of grief and surprise may be beat up together in thy pudding-face. That won't do. That dropt jaw, and mouth distended into the long oval, is more upon the horrible than the grievous. Nor that pinking and winking with thy odious eyes, as my charmer once called them. A little better that; yet not quite right: but keep your mouth closer. You have a muscle or two which you have no command of, between your cheek-bone and your lips, that should carry one corner of your mouth up towards your crow's-foot, and that down to meet it. There! Begone! Be in a plaguy hurry running up stairs and down, to fetch from the dining-room what you carry up on purpose to + See Letter CIII. of this vol. fetch, till motion extraordinary put you out of My beloved wonders she has not seen me this morning, no doubt; but is too shy to say she wonders. Repeated" what's the matters," however, as Dorcas runs up and down stairs by her door, bring on, O madam! my master! my poor master! What! How! When !-and all the monosyllables of surprise. [Within parentheses let me tell thee, that I have often thought, that the little words in the republic of letters, like the little folks in a nation, are the most significant. The trisyllables, and the rumblers of syllables more than three, are but the good-for-little magnates.] I must not tell you, madam-My master ordered me not to tell you-but he is in a worse way than he thinks for !-But he would not have you frighted. High concern took possession of every sweet feature. She pitied me!-by my soul, she pitied me! Where is he? Too much in a hurry for good manners, [another parenthesis, Jack! Good manners are so little natural, that we ought to be composed to observe them; politeness will not live in a storm. I cannot stay to answer questions, cries the wench-though desirous to answer [a third parenthesis-Like the people crying proclamations, running away from the customers they want to sell to. This hurry puts the lady in a hurry to ask, a fourth, by way of embellishing the third as the other does the people in a hurry to buy. And I have in my eye now a whole street raised, and running after a proclamation or express-crier, as if the first was a thief, the other his pursuers.] Miss Howe, I defy thee, my dear-Mrs Townsend!-Who the devil are you?-Troop away with your contrabands. No smuggling! nor smuggler, but myself! Nor will the choicest of my fair-one's favours be long prohibited goods to me! EVERY one is now sure that she loves me. Tears were in her eyes more than once for me. She suffered me to take her hand, and kiss it as often as I pleased. On Mrs Sinclair's mentioning, that I too much confined myself, she pressed me to take an airing; but obligingly desired me to be careful of myself. Wished I would advise with a physician. God made physicians, she said. I did not think that, Jack. God, indeed, made us all. But I fancy she meant physic instead of physicians; and then the phrase might mean what the vulgar phrase means;-God sends meat, the Devil cooks. I was well already, on taking the styptic from her dear hands. On her requiring me to take the air, I asked, If I might have the honour of her company in a coach; and this, that I might observe if she had an intention of going out in my absence. If she thought a chair were not a more proper vehicle for my case, she would with all her heart! There's a precious! I kissed her hand again! She was all goodness!-Would to Heaven I better deserved it, I said !—But all were golden days before us!Her presence and generous concern had done everything. I was well! Nothing ailed me. But, since my beloved will have it so, I'll take a little airing!-Let a chair be called!-0 my charmer! were I to have owed this indisposition At last, O Lord! let Mrs Lovelace know!-to my late harasses, and to the uneasiness I have There is danger, to be sure! whispered from one had for disobliging you; all is infinitely compennymph to another; but at the door, and so loud, sated by your goodness.-All the art of healthat my listening fair-one might hear. ing is in your smiles!-Your late displeasure was the only malady! Out she darts-As how ! as how, Dorcas! O madam-A vomiting of blood! A vessel broke, to be sure! Down she hastens; finds every one as busy over my blood in the entry, as if it were that of the Neapolitan saint. In steps my charmer, with a face of sweet concern. How do you, Mr Lovelace? O my best love!-Very well!-Very well! Nothing at all! nothing of consequence!-I shall be well in an instant! Straining again! for I was indeed plaguy sick, though no more blood came. In short, Belford, I have gained my end. I see the dear soul loves me. I see she forgives me all that's past. I see I have credit for a new score. VOL. VII. While Mrs Sinclair, and Dorcas, and Polly, and even poor silly Mabell [for Sally went out, as my angel came in with uplifted hands and eyes, stood thanking Heaven that I was better, in audible whispers: See the power of love! cried one. What a charming husband, another.Happy couple, all! O how the dear creature's cheek mantled!How her eyes sparkled !-How sweetly acceptable is praise to conscious merit, while it but reproaches when applied to the undeserving !— What a new, what a gay creation it makes at once in a diffident or dispirited heart! And now, Belford, was it not worth while to be sick? And yet, I must tell thee, that too many pleasanter expedients offer themselves, to make trial any more of this confounded ipecacuanha. P LETTER CXIX. MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE. Saturday, May 27. MR LOVELACE, my dear, has been very ill. Suddenly taken, with a vomiting of blood in great quantities. Some vessel broken. He complained of a disorder in his stomach over night. I was the more affected with it, as I am afraid it was occasioned by the violent contentions between us.-But was I in fault? How lately did I think I hated him!-But hatred and anger, I see, are but temporary passions with me. One cannot, my dear, hate people in danger of death, or who are in distress or affliction. My heart, I find, is not proof against kindness, and acknowledgment of errors committed. He took great care to have his illness concealed from me as long as he could. So tender in the violence of his disorder!—So desirous to make the best of it!—I wish he had not been ill in my sight. I was too much affected--everybody alarming me with his danger. The poor man, from such high health, so suddenly taken! -and so unprepared!— He is gone out in a chair. I advised him to do so. I fear that my advice was wrong; since quiet in such a disorder must needs be best. We are apt to be so ready, in cases of emergency, to give our advice, without judgment, or waiting for it!-I proposed a physician, indeed; but he would not hear of one. I have great honour for the faculty; and the greater, as I have always observed that those who treat the professors of the art of healing contemptuously, too generally treat higher institutions in the same man ner. I am really very uneasy. For I have, I doubt, exposed myself to him, and to the women below. They indeed will excuse me, as they think us married. But, if he be not generous, I shall have cause to regret this surprise; which (as I had reason to think myself unaccountably treated by him) has taught me more than I knew of myself. 'Tis true, I have owned more than once, that I could have liked Mr Lovelace above all men. I remember the debates you and I used to have on this subject, when I was your happy guest. You used to say, and once you wrote, that men of his cast are the men that our sex do not naturally dislike: While I held, that such were not (however that might be) the men we ought to like. But what with my relations' precipitating of me, on one hand, and what with his un happy character, and embarrassing ways, on the other, I had no more leisure than inclination to examine my own heart in this particular. And this reminds me of a passage in one of your former letters, which I will transcribe, though it was written in raillery. "May it not be," say you,+"that you have had such persons to deal with, as have not allowed you to attend to the throbs; or, if you had them a little now-andthen, whether, having had two accounts to place them to, you have not by mistake put them to the wrong one?" A passage, which, although it came into my mind when Mr Lovelace was least exceptionable, yet that I have denied any efficacy to, when he has teazed and vexed me, and given me cause of suspicion. For, after all, my dear, Mr Lovelace is not wise in all his ways. And should we not endeavour, as much as is possible, (where we are not attached by natural ties,) to like and dislike as reason bids us, and according to the merit or demerit of the object? If love, as it is called, is allowed to be an excuse for our most unreasonable follies, and to lay level all the fences that a careful education has surrounded us by, what is meant by the doctrine of subduing our passions ?-But, O my dearest friend, am I not guilty of a punishable fault, were I to love this man of errors? And has not my own heart deceived me, when I thought I did not? And what must be that love, that has not some degree of purity for its object? I am afraid of recollecting some passages in my cousin Morden's letter. And yet why fly I from subjects that, duly considered, might tend to correct and purify my heart? I have carried, I doubt, my notions on this head too high, not for practice, but for my practice. Yet think me not guilty of prudery neither; for, had I found out as much of myself before; or, rather, had he given me heart's-ease enough before to find it out, you should have had my confession sooner. Nevertheless, let me tell you, (what I hope I may justly tell you,) that, if again he give me cause to resume distance and reserve, I hope my reason will gather strength enough from his imperfections to enable me to keep my passions under.-What can we do more than govern ourselves by the temporary lights lent us? You will not wonder that I am grave on this detection-Detection must I call it? What can I call it? Dissatisfied with myself, I ain afraid to look back upon what I have written; and yet know not how to have done writing. I never was in such an odd frame of mind.-I know not how to describe it.-Was you ever so?—Afraid of the censure of her you love-yet not conscious you deserved it? that See Letter XCV. of this Volume. See Letter LXXX of this Volume. + See Volume VI. Letter XII. Of this, however, I am convinced, that I should indeed deserve censure, if I kept any secret of my heart from you. But I will not add another word, after I have assured you, that I will look still more narrowly into myself; and that I am Your equally sincere and affectionate LETTER CXX. MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ. Sat. Evening. I HAD a charming airing. No return of my malady. My heart perfectly easy, how could my stomach be otherwise? But, when I came home, I found that my sweet soul had been alarmed by a new incident -The inquiry after us both, in a very suspicious manner, and that by description of our persons, and not by names, by a servant in a blue livery turned up and trimmed with yellow. Dorcas was called to him, as the upper servant; and, she refusing to answer any of the fellow's questions, unless he told his business, and from whom he came, the fellow (as short as she) said, that, if she would not answer him, perhaps she might answer somebody else; and went away out of humour. Dorcas hurried up to her lady, and alarmed her, not only with the fact, but with her own conjectures; adding, that he was an ill-looking fellow, and she was sure could come for no good. The livery and the features of the servant were particularly inquired after, and as particularly described-Lord bless her! no end of her alarms, she thought! And then did her apprehensions anticipate every evil that could happen. She wished Mr Lovelace would come in. Mr Lovelace came in soon after; all lively, grateful, full of hopes, of duty, of love, to thank his charmer, and to congratulate with her upon the cure she had performed. And then she told the story, with all its circumstances; and Dorcas, to point her lady's fears, told us, that the servant was a sun-burnt fellow, and looked as if he had been at sea. He was then, no doubt, Captain Singleton's servant, and the next news she should hear, was, that the house was surrounded by a whole ship's crew; the vessel lying no farther off, as she understood, than Rotherhithe. Impossible, I said. Such an attempt would not be ushered in by such a manner of inquiry. And why may it not rather be a servant of your cousin Morden, with notice of his arrival, and of his design to attend you? This surmise delighted her. Her apprehensions went off, and she was at leisure to congra tulate me upon my sudden recovery; which she did in the most obliging manner. But we had not sat long together, when Dorcas again came fluttering up to tell us, that the footman, the very footman, was again at the door, and inquired, whether Mr Lovelace and his lady, by name, had not lodgings in this house? He asked, he told Dorcas, for no harm. But his disavowing of harm, was a demonstration with my apprehensive fair-one, that harm was intended. And, as the fellow had not been answered by Dorcas, I proposed to go down to the street-parlour, and hear what he had to say. I see your causeless terror, my dearest life, said I, and your impatience-Will you be pleased to walk down-and, without being observed, (for he shall come no farther than the parlour-door,) you may hear all that passes? She consented. We went down. Dorcas bid the man come forward. Well, friend, what is your business with Mr and Mrs Lovelace? Bowing, scraping, I am sure you are the gentleman, sir. Why, sir, my business is only to know if your honour be here, and to be spoken with; or if you shall be here for any time? Whom came you from? From a gentleman who ordered me to say, if I was made to tell, but not else, it was from a friend of Mr John Harlowe, Mrs Lovelace's eldest uncle. The dear creature was ready to sink upon this. It was but of late that she had provided herself with salts. She pulled them out. Do you know anything of Colonel Morden, friend? said I. No; I never heard of his name. Of Captain Singleton? No, sir. But the gentleman, my master, is a captain too. What is his name? I don't know if I should tell. There can be no harm in telling the gentleman's name, if you come upon a good account. That I do; for my master told me so; and there is not an honester gentleman on the face of God's yearth.-His name is Captain Tomlinson, sir. I don't know such a one. I believe not, sir. He was pleased to say, he don't know your honour, sir; but I heard him say as how he should not be an unwelcome visitor to you for all that. Do you know such a man as Captain Tomlinson, my dearest life, [aside,] your uncle's friend? No; but my uncle may have acquaintance, no doubt, that I don't know.-But I hope [trembling this is not a trick. Well, friend, if your master has anything to say to Mr Lovelace, you may tell him, that Mr Lovelace is here; and will see him whenever he pleases. The dear creature looked as if afraid that my engagement was too prompt for my own safety; and away went the fellow-I wondering, that she might not wonder, that this Captain Tomlinson, whoever he were, came not himself, or sent not a letter the second time, when he had reason to suppose that I might be here. Meantime, for fear that this should be a contrivance of James Harlowe, who, I said, loved plotting, though he had not a head turned for it, I gave some precautionary directions to the servants, and the women, whom, for the greater parade, I assembled before us; and my beloved was resolved not to stir abroad till she saw the issue of this odd affair. And here must I close, though in so great a puzzle. Only let me add, that poor Belton wants thee; for I dare not stir for my life. Mowbray and Tourville skuĺk about like vagabonds, without heads, without hands, without souls; having neither you nor me to conduct them. They tell me, they shall rust beyond the power of oil or action to brighten them up, or give them motion. How goes it with thy uncle? LETTER CXXI. MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ. Sunday, May 28. THIS story of Captain Tomlinson employed us not only for the time we were together last night, but all the while we sat at breakfast this morning. She would still have it that it was the prelude to some mischief from Singleton. I insisted (according to my former hint) that it might much more probably be a method taken by Colonel Morden to alarm her, previous to a personal visit. Travelled gentlemen affected to surprise in this manner. And why, dearest creature, said I, must everything that happens, which we cannot immediately account for, be what we least wish? She had had so many disagreeable things befal her of late, that her fears were too often stronger than her hopes. And this, madam, makes me apprehensive, that you will get into so low-spirited a way, that you will not be able to enjoy the happiness that seems to await us. came running up in a hurry-she set even my heart into a palpitation-thump, thump, thump, like a precipitated pendulum in a clock-caseflutter, flutter, flutter, my charmer's, as by her sweet bosom rising to her chin I saw. This lower class of people, my beloved herself observed, were for ever aiming at the stupid wonderful, and for making even common incidents matter of surprise. Why the devil, said I to the wench, this alarming hurry?—And with your spread fingers, and your O Madams, and O Sirs!—and be cursed to you! Would there have been a second of time difference, had you come up slowly? Captain Tomlinson, sir! Captain Devilson, what care I?-Do you see how you have disordered your lady? Good Mr Lovelace, said my charmer, trembling, [see Jack, when she has an end to serve, I am good Mr Lovelace,] if-if my brotherif Captain Singleton should appear-pray now I beseech you-let me beg of you—to govern your temper-My brother is my brother-Captain Singleton is but an agent. My dearest life, folding my arms about her, [when she asks favours, thought I, the devil's in it, if she will not allow of such innocent freedom as this, from good Mr Lovelace too, you shall be witness of all that passes between us.Dorcas, desire the gentleman to walk up. Let me retire to my chamber first !-Let me not be known to be in the house! Charming dear!-Thou seest, Belford, she is afraid of leaving me !-O the little witchcrafts! Were it not for surprises now-and-then, how would an honest man know where to have them? She withdrew to listen.-And, though this incident has not turned out to answer all I wished from it, yet is it necessary, if I would acquaint thee with my whole circulation, to be very particular in what passed between Captain Tomlinson and me. Enter Captain Tomlinson, in a riding-dress, Excuse the day, sir -Be pleased to excuse my garb. I am obliged to go out of town directly, that I may return at night. The day is a good day. Your garb needs no apology. When I sent my servant, I did not know that I should find time to do myself this honour. All that I thought I could do to oblige my friend this journey, was only to assure myself of your abode; and whether there were a probability of being admitted to the speech either of you, or your lady. Sir, you best know your own motives. What your time will permit you to do, you also best |