to avoid dependence upon their betters, and obliged to no man living! My expectations still so much more considerable! My person, my talents-not to be despised, surely-yet rejected by them with scorn. Obliged to carry on an underhand address to their daughter, when two of the most considerable families in the kingdom have made overtures, which I have declined, partly for her sake, and partly because I never will marry, if she be not the person. To be forced to steal her away, not only from them, but from herself! And must I be brought to implore forgiveness and reconciliation from the Harlowes?-Beg to be acknowledged as the son of a gloomy tyrant, whose only boast is his riches? As a brother to a wretch, who has conceived immortal hatred to me; and to a sister who was beneath my attempts, or I would have had her in my own way, and that with a tenth part of the trouble and pains that her sister has cost me; and, finally, as a nephew to uncles, who, valuing themselves upon their acquired fortunes, would insult me as creeping to them on that account?-Forbid it the blood of the Lovelaces, that the last, and, let me say, not the meanest of your stock, should thus creep, thus fawn, thus lick the dust, for a WIFE!

Proceed anon.

LETTER XVII.

MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

[In continuation.]

BUT is it not the divine CLARISSA [Harlowe let me not say; my soul spurns them all but her] whom I am thus by implication threatening?-If virtue be the true nobility, how is she ennobled, and how shall an alliance with her ennoble, were not contempt due to the family from which she sprung and prefers to me!

But again, let me stop.-Is there not something wrong, has there not been something wrong, in this divine creature? And will not the reflections upon that wrong (what though it may be construed in my favour ?*) make me unhappy, when novelty has lost its charms, and when, mind and person, she is all my own? Libertines are nicer, if at all nice, than other men. They seldom meet with the stand of virtue in the women whom they attempt. And, by the frailty of those they have triumphed over, they judge of all the rest. "Importunity and opportunity no woman is proof against, especially from the persevering lover, who knows how to suit temptations to inclinations :" This, thou knowest, is a prime article of the rake's creed.

And what! (methinks thou askest with surprise) Dost thou question this most admirable of women?-The virtue of a CLARISSA dost thou question?

I do not, I dare not question it. My reverence for her will not let me directly question it. But let me, in my turn, ask thee-Is not, may not her virtue be founded rather in pride than in principle? Whose daughter is she? And is she not a daughter? If impeccable, how came she by her impeccability? The pride of setting an example to her sex has run away with her hitherto, and may have made her till now invincible. But is not that pride abated? What may not both men and women be brought to do in a mortified state? What mind is superior to calamity? Pride is perhaps the principal bulwark of female virtue. Humble a woman, and may she not be effectually humbled?

Then who says Miss Clarissa Harlowe is the paragon of virtue?—Is virtue itself?

All who know her, and have heard of her, it will be answered.

Common bruit !-Is virtue to be established by common bruit only? Has her virtue ever been proved? Who has dared to try her virtue?

I told thee, I would sit down to argue with myself; and I have drawn myself into argumentation before I was aware.

Let me enter into a strict discussion of this subject.

I know how ungenerous an appearance what I have said, and what I have further to say, on this topic, will have from me: But am I not bringing virtue to the touch-stone, with a view to exalt it, if it come out to be proof?-Avaunt then, for one moment, all consideration that may arise from a weakness which some would miscall gratitude; and is oftentimes the corrupter of a heart not ignoble !

To the test then-and I will bring this charming creature to the strictest test, that all the sex, who may be shewn any passages in my letters, [and I know thou cheerest the hearts of all thy acquaintance with such detached parts of mine as tend not to dishonour characters or reveal names; and this gives me an appetite to oblige thee by interlardment, that all the sex, I say, may see what they ought to be; what is expected from them; and if they have to deal with a person of reflection and punctilio, (of pride, if thou wilt,) how careful they ought to be, by a regular and uniform conduct, not to give him cause to think lightly of them for favours granted, which may be interpreted into natural weakness. For is not a wife the keeper of a man's honour? And do not her faults bring more disgrace upon a husband than even upon herself?

It is not for nothing, Jack, that I have disliked the life of shackles.

To the test then, as I said, since now I have the question brought home to me, Whether I am to have a wife? And whether she be to be a wife at the first or at the second hand?

I will proceed fairly. I will do the dear creature not only strict but generous justice; for I will try her by her own judgment, as well as by our principles.

She blames herself for having corresponded with me, a man of free character; and one indeed whose first view it was to draw her into this correspondence; and who succeeded in it by means unknown to herself.

Now, what were her inducements to this correspondence? If not what her niceness makes her think blame-worthy, why does she blame herself?

Has she been capable of error? Of persisting in that error?

Whoever was the tempter, that is not the thing; nor what the temptation. The fact, the error, is now before us.

Did she persist in it against parental prohibition ?

She owns she did.

Was a daughter ever known who had higher notions of the filial duty, of the parental authority?

Never.

What must be those inducements, how strong, that were too strong for duty, in a daughter so dutiful? What must my thoughts have been of these inducements, what my hopes built upon them at the time, taken in this light?

Well, but it will be said, That her principal view was to prevent mischief between her brother and her other friends, and the man vilely insulted by them all.

But why should she be more concerned for the safety of others than they were for their own? And had not the rencounter then happened? Was a person of virtue to be prevailed upon to break through her apparent, her acknowledged duty, upon any consideration? And, if not, was she to be so prevailed upon to prevent an apprehended evil only?

Thou, Lovelace, the tempter (thou wilt again break out and say) to be the accuser!

But I am not the accuser. I am the arguer only, and, in my heart, all the time acquit and worship the divine creature. But let me, nevertheless, examine, whether the acquittal be owing to her merit, or to my weakness-Weakness the true name for love!

But shall we suppose another motive?—And that is LOVE; a motive which all the world will excuse her for. But let me tell all the world that do, not because they ought, but because all the world is apt to be misled by it.

Let LOVE then be the motive:-Love of whom?

A Lovelace, is the answer.

Is there but one Lovelace in the world? May not more Lovelaces be attracted by so fine a figure? By such exalted qualities? It was her character that drew me to her: and it was her beauty and good sense that rivetted my chains; and now all together make me think her a subject worthy of my attempts, worthy of my ambition.

But has she had the candour, the openness, to acknowledge that love? She has not.

Well then, if love be at the bottom, is there not another fault lurking beneath the shadow of that love?-Has she not affectation ?—Or is it pride of heart?

And what results?-Is then the divine Clarissa capable of loving a man whom she ought not to love? And is she capable of affectation? And is her virtue founded in pride?-And, if the answer to these questions be affirmative, must she not then be a woman?

And can she keep this love at bay? Can she make him, who has been accustomed to triumph over other women, tremble? Can she conduct herself, as to make him, at times, question whether she loves him or any man; yet not have the requisite command over the passion itself in steps of the highest consequence to her honour, as she thinks, I am trying her, Jack, by her own thoughts, but suffer herself to be provoked to promise to abandon her father's house, and go off with him, knowing his character; and even conditioning not to marry till improbable and remote contingencies were to come to pass? What though the provocations were such as would justify any other woman; yet was a CLARISSA to be susceptible to provocations which she thinks herself highly censurable for being so much moved by?

But let us see the dear creature resolved to revoke her promise, yet meeting her lover; a bold and intrepid man, who was more than once before disappointed by her, and who comes, as she knows, prepared to expect the fruits of her appointment, and resolved to carry her off. And let us see him actually carrying her off, and having her at his mercy-May there not be, I repeat, other Lovelaces, other like intrepid, persevering enterprizers; although they may not go to work in the same way?

And has then a CLARISSA (herself her judge) failed?-In such great points failed?-And may she not further fail ?-Fail in the greatest point, to which all the other points, in which she has failed, have but a natural tendency?

Nor say thou, that virtue, in the eye of Heaven, is as much a manly as a womanly grace. By virtue in this place I mean chastity, and to be superior to temptation; my Clarissa out of the question. Nor ask thou, shall the man be guilty, yet expect the woman to be guiltless,

and even unsuspectable? Urge thou not these arguments, I say, since the wife, by a failure, may do much more injury to the husband, than the husband can do to the wife, and not only to her husband, but to all his family, by obtruding another man's children into his possessions, perhaps to the exclusion of (at least to a participation with) his own; he believing them all the time to be his. In the eye of Heaven, therefore, the sin cannot be equal. Besides I have read in some places, that the woman was made for the man, not the man for the woman. Virtue then is less to be dispensed with in the woman than in the man.

Thou, Lovelace, (methinks some better man than thyself will say,) to expect such perfection in a woman!

Yes, I, may I answer. Was not the great Cesar a great rake as to women? Was he not called, by his very soldiers, on one of his triumphant entries into Rome, the bald-pated lecher? and warning given of him to the wives, as well as to the daughters, of his fellow-citizens? Yet did not Cæsar repudiate his wife for being only in company with Clodius, or rather because Clodius, though by surprise upon her, was found in hers? And what was the reason he gave for it ?—It was this, (though a rake himself, as I have said,) and only this-The wife of Cæsar must not be suspected!

Cæsar was not a prouder man than Lovelace. Go to then, Jack; nor say, nor let anybody say, in thy hearing, that Lovelace, a man valuing himself upon his ancestry, is singular in his expectations of a wife's purity, though not pure himself.

As to my CLARISSA, I own that I hardly think there ever was such an angel of a woman. But has she not, as above, already taken steps, which she herself condemns? Steps, which the world and her own family did not think her capable of taking? And for which her own family will not forgive her?

Nor think it strange, that I refuse to hear any thing pleaded in behalf of a standard virtue from high provocations. Are not provocations and temptations the tests of virtue? A standard virtue must not be allowed to be provoked to destroy or annihilate itself.

May not then the success of him, who could carry her thus far, be allowed to be an encouragement for him to try to carry her farther? 'Tis but to try. Who will be afraid of a trial for this divine creature? Thou knowest, that I have, more than once, twice, or thrice, put to the fiery trial young women of name and character; and never yet met with one who held out a month, nor indeed so long as could

puzzle my invention. I have concluded against the whole sex upon it. And now, if I have not found a virtue that cannot be corrupted, I will swear that there is not one such in the whole sex. Is not then the whole sex concerned that this trial should be made? And who is it that knows this lady, that would not stake upon her head the honour of the whole?-Let her who would refuse it come forth, and desire to stand in her place.

I must assure thee, that I have a prodigious high opinion of virtue; as I have of all those graces and excellencies which I have not been able to attain myself. Every free-liver would not say this, nor think thus-every argument he uses, condemnatory of his own actions, as some would think. But ingenuousness was ever a signal part of my character.

Satan, whom thou mayest, if thou wilt, in this case, call my instigator, put the good man of old upon the severest trials. To his behaviour under these trials that good man owed his honour and his future rewards. An innocent person, if doubted, must wish to be brought to a fair and candid trial.

Rinaldo, indeed, in Ariosto, put the Mantua Knight's cup of trial from him, which was to be the proof of his wife's chastity*—This was his argument for forbearing the experiment: "Why should I seek a thing I should be loath to find? My wife is a woman. The sex is frail. I cannot believe better of her than I do. It will be to my own loss, if I find reason to think worse." But Rinaldo would not have refused the trial of the lady, before she became his wife, and when he might have found his account in detecting her.

For my part, I would not have put the cup from me, though married, had it been but in hope of finding reason to confirm my good opinion of my wife's honour; and that I might know whether I had a snake or a dove in my bosom.

To my point-What must that virtue be which will not stand a trial?-What that woman who would wish to shun it?

Well, then, a trial seems necessary for the further establishment of the honour of so excellent a creature.

And who shall put her to this trial? Who, but the man who has, as she thinks, already induced her in lesser points to swerve?-And this for her own sake in a double sense-not only, as he has been able to make some impression, but as she regrets the impression made; and so may be presumed to be guarded against his further attempts.

The situation she is at present in, it must be

confessed, is a disadvantageous one to her; but, if she overcome, that will redound to her ho

nour.

Shun not, therefore, my dear soul, further trials, nor hate me for making them.-For what woman can be said to be virtuous till she has been tried?

Nor is one effort, one trial, to be sufficient. Why? Because a woman's heart may be at one time adamant, at another wax-as I have often experienced. And so, no doubt, hast thou.

A fine time of it, methinks, thou sayest, would the women have, if they were all to be tried!

But, Jack, I am not for that neither. Though I am a rake, I am not a rake's friend, except thine and company's.

And be this one of the morals of my tedious discussion-Let the little rogues who would not be put to the question, as I may call it, choose accordingly. Let them prefer to their favour good honest sober fellows, who have not been used to play dog's tricks; who will be willing to take them as they offer; and who, being tolerable themselves, are not suspicious of others. But what, methinks thou askest, is to become of the lady if she fail?

What? Why will she not, if once subdued, be always subdued?" Another of our libertine maxims. And what an immense pleasure to a marriage-hater, what rapture to thought, to be able to prevail upon such a woman as Miss Clarissa Harlowe to live with him, without real change of name!

But if she resist-if nobly she stand her trial?

Why then I will marry her, and bless my stars for such an angel of a wife.

But will she not hate thee? Will she not refuse

No, no, Jack!-Circumstanced and situated as we are, I am not afraid of that. And hate me! Why should she hate the man who loves her upon proof?

And then for a little hint at reprisal-Am I not justified in my resolutions of trying her virtue, who is resolved, as I may say, to try mine? Who has declared, that she will not marry me till she has hopes of my reformation?

And now, to put an end to this sober argumentation, Wilt thou not thyself (whom I have supposed an advocate for the lady, because I know that Lord M. has put thee upon using the interest he thinks thou hast in me, to persuade me to enter the pale; wilt thou not thy self) allow me to try if I cannot awaken the woman in her? To try if she, with all that glowing symmetry of parts, and that full bloom of vernal graces, by which she attracts every eye, be really inflexible as to the grand article?

Let me begin then, as opportunity presents→→ I will, and watch her every step to find one sliding one; her every moment to find the moment critical. And the rather, as she spares not me, but takes every advantage that offers to puzzle and plague me, nor expects nor thinks me to be a good man.

If she be a woman, and love me, I shall surely catch her once tripping; for love was ever a traitor to its harbourer: and love within, and I without, she will be more than woman, as the poet says, or I less than man, if I succeed not.

Now, Belford, all is out. The lady is mine; shall be more mine. Marriage, I see, is in my power, now she is so. Else perhaps it had not. If I can have her without marriage, who can blame me for trying? If not, great will be her glory, and my future confidence. And well will she merit the sacrifice I shall make her of my liberty; and, from all her sex, honours next to divine, for giving a proof, that there was once a woman whose virtue no trials, no stratagems, no temptations, even from the man she hated not, could overpower.

Now wilt thou see all my circulation; as in a glass wilt thou see it. CABALA, however, is the word; nor let the secret escape thee, even in thy dreams.

Nobody doubts that she is to be my wife. Let her pass for such when I give the word. Meantime, reformation shall be my stalkinghorse; some one of the women in London, if I can get her thither, my bird. And so much for this time.

LETTER XVIII.

MISS HOWE TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE.

[In answer to Letters VIII. and XIV.]

Do not be much concerned, my dearest friend, at the bickerings between my mother and me. We love one another dearly, notwithstanding. If my mother had not me to find fault with, she must find fault with somebody else. And as to me, I am a very saucy girl; and were there not this occasion, there would be some other, to shew it.

You have heard me say, that this was always the case between us. You could not otherwise have known it. For when you was with us, you harmonized us both; and, indeed, I was always more afraid of you than of my mother. But then that awe is accompanied with love. Your reproofs, as I have always found, are so charmingly mild and instructive, so evidently calculated to improve, and not to provoke, that a generous temper must be amended by them. But hear

now, mind my good mamma, when you are not with us-"You shall, I tell you, Nancy. I will have it so. Don't I know best? I won't be disobeyed." How can a daughter of spirit bear such language, such looks, too, with the language, and not have a longing mind to disobey?

Don't advise me, my dear, to subscribe to my mother's prohibition of correspondence with you, She has no reason for it; nor would she of her own judgment have prohibited it. That odd old ambling soul your uncle, (whose visits are frequenter than ever) instigated by your malicious and selfish brother and sister, is the occasion; and they only have borrowed my mother's lips, at the distance they are from you, for a sort of speaking trumpet for them. The prohibition, once more I say, cannot come from her heart; but if it did so, is so much danger to be apprehended from my continuing to write to one of my own sex, as if I wrote to one of the other? Don't let dejection and disappointment, and the course of oppression which you have run through, weaken your mind, my dearest creature, and make you see inconveniencies where there possibly cannot be any. If your talent is scribbling, as you call it, so is mine-and I will scribble on, at all opportunities, and to you, let them say what they will. Nor let your letters be filled with the self-accusations you mention; there is no cause for them. I wish that your Anna Howe, who continues in her mother's house, were but half so good as Miss Clarissa Harlowe, who has been driven out of her father's.

I will say nothing upon your letter to your sister, till I see the effect it will have. You hope, you tell me, that you shall have your money and clothes sent you, notwithstanding my opinion to the contrary. I am sorry to have it to acquaint you, that I have just now heard that they have sat in council upon your letter, and that your mother was the only person who was for sending you your things, and was over-ruled. I charge you, therefore, to accept of my offer, as by my last; and give me particular directions for what you want, that I can supply you with besides.

Don't set your thoughts so much upon a reconciliation as to prevent your laying hold of any handsome opportunity to give yourself a protector; such a one as the man will be, who, I imagine, husband-like, will let nobody insult you but himself.

What could he mean by letting slip such a one as that you mention? I don't know how to blame you; for how could you go beyond silence and blushes, when the foolish fellow came with his observances of the restrictions which you laid him under when in another situation? But, as I told you above, you really strike people into awe; and, upon my word, you did not spare him.

I repeat what I said in my last, that you have

have a mind that is much too delicate for you part. But when the lover is exalted, the lady must be humbled. He is naturally proud and saucy. I doubt you must engage his pride, which he calls his honour, and that you must throw off a little more of the veil. And I would have you restrain your wishes before him, that you had not met him, and the like. What signifies wishing, my dear? He will not bear it. You can hardly expect that he will.

Nevertheless, it vexes me to the very bottom of my pride, that any wretch of that sex should be able to triumph over Clarissa.

I cannot, however, but say, that I am charmed with your spirit. So much sweetness, where sweetness is requisite; so much spirit, where spirit is called for-what a true magnanimity!

But I doubt, in your present circumstances, you must endeavour after a little more of the reserve, in cases where you are displeased with him, and palliate a little. That humility which he puts on when you rise upon him, is not natural to him.

Methinks I see the man hesitating, and looking like the fool you paint him, under your corrective superiority! But he is not a fool. Don't put him upon mingling resentment with his love.

You are very serious, my dear, in the first of the two letters before me, in relation to Mr Hickman and me, and in relation to my mother and me. But as to the latter, you must not be too grave. If we are not well together at one time, we are not ill together at another. And while I am able to make her smile in the midst of the most angry fit she ever fell into on the present occasion, (though sometimes she would not, if she could help it) it is a very good sign, a sign that displeasure can never go deep, or be lasting: and then a kind word, or kind look, to her favourite Hickman, sets the one into raptures, and the other in tolerable humour, at any time.

But your case pains me at heart, and with all my levity, both the good folks must sometimes partake of that pain, nor will it be over, as long as you are in a state of uncertainty, and especially as I was not able to prevail for that protection for you which would have prevented the unhappy step, the necessity for which we both, with so much reason, deplore.

I have only to add (and yet it is needless to tell you) that I am, and will ever be, Your affectionate friend and servant, ANNA HOWE.

LETTER XIX.

MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE.

You tell me, my dear, that my clothes, and