their own self-admiration. They looked upon me as a connoisseur in beauty. They would have been proud of engaging my attention, as such; but so affected, so flimsy-witted, mere skin-deep beauties! They had looked no farther into themselves than what their glasses had enabled them to see, and their glasses were flattering glasses too; for I thought them passive-faced, and spiritless, with eyes, however, upon the hunt for conquests, and bespeaking the attention of others, in order to countenance their own. I believe I could, with little pains, have given them life and soul, and to every feature of their faces sparkling information; but my Clarissa!-O Belford, my Clarissa has made me eyeless and senseless to every other beauty! Do thou find her for me as a subject worthy of my pen, or this shall be the last from

Thy

LOVELACE.

LETTER CCXXX.

MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, Esq.

Sunday Night, July 9. Now, Jack, have I a subject with a vengeance. I am in the very height of my trial for all my sins to my beloved fugitive. For here today, at about five o'clock, arrived Lady Sarah Sadleir, and Lady Betty Lawrence, each in her chariot-and-six. Dowagers love equipage, and these cannot travel ten miles without a sett, and half-a-dozen horsemen.

My time had hung heavy upon my hands, and so I went to church after dinner. Why may not handsome fellows, thought I, like to be look ed at, as well as handsome wenches? I fell in, when service was over, with Major Warneton, and so came not home till after six, and was surprised, at entering the court-yard here, to find it littered with equipages and servants. I was sure the owners of them came for no good

to me.

Lady Sarah, I soon found, was raised to this visit by Lady Betty, who has health enough to allow her to look out of herself, and out of her own affairs, for business; yet congratulation to Lord M. on his amendment, [spiteful devils on both accounts! was the avowed errand. But coming in my absence, I was their principal subject, and they had opportunity to set each other's heart against me.

Simon Parsons hinted this to me, as I passed by the steward's office, for it seems they talked loud, and he was making up some accounts with old Pritchard.

However, I hastened to pay my duty to them. Other people not performing theirs, is no excuse for the neglect of our own, you know.

And now I enter upon my TRIAL.

VOL. VII.

WITH horrible grave faces was I received. The two antiques only bowed their tabby heads, making longer faces than ordinary, and all the old lines appearing strong in their furrowed foreheads and fallen cheeks; How do you, cousin? And how do you, Mr Lovelace? looking all round at one another, as who should say, do you speak first; and do you, for they seemed resolved to lose no time.

I had nothing for it but an air as manly as theirs was womanly. Your servant, madam, to Lady Betty; and your servant, madam, I am glad to see you abroad, to Lady Sarah.

I took my seat. Lord M. looked horribly glum, his fingers clasped, and turning round and round, under and over, his but just disgouted thumb; his sallow face and goggling eyes cast upon the floor, on the fire-place, on his two sisters, on his two kinswomen, by turns, but not once deigning to look upon me.

Then I began to think of the laudanum and wet cloth I told thee of long ago, and to call myself in question for a tenderness of heart that will never do me good.

At last, Mr Lovelace!Cousin Lovelace! -Hem!-Hem!-I am sorry, very sorry, hesitated Lady Sarah, that there is no hope of your ever taking up

What's the matter now, madam ?

The matter now!-Why, Lady Betty has two letters from Miss Harlowe, which have told us what's the matter-Are all women alike with you?

Yes, I could have answered, 'bating the difference which pride makes.

Then they all chorussed upon me.-Such a character as Miss Harlowe's! cried one-A lady of so much generosity and good sense! another-How charmingly she writes! the two maiden monkeys looking at her fine hand-writing; her perfections my crimes. What can you expect will be the end of these things? cried Lady Sarah-D-d, dd doings! vociferated the peer, shaking his loose-flesh'd wabbling chaps, which hung on his shoulders like an old cow's dewlap.

For my part, I hardly knew whether to sing or say what I had to reply to these all-at-once attacks upon me!-Fair and softly, ladies-one at a time, I beseech you. I am not to be hunted down without being heard, I hope. Pray, let me see these letters. I beg you will let me see them. There they are-that's the first-read it out, if you can.

I opened a letter from my charmer, dated Thursday, June 29, our wedding-day, that was to be, and written to Lady Betty Lawrence. By the contents, to my great joy, I find the dear creature is alive and well, and in charming spirits. But the direction where to send an answer was so scratched out that I could not read it, which afflicted me much. 2 F

Lady Betty. Hardened wretch! His lordship had pulled off his spectacles to wipe them. His eyes were misty, and he thought the fault in his spectacles.

I saw they were all cocked and primed-to be sure that is a very pretty sentence, said I-that is the excellency of this lady, that in every line, as she writes on, she improves upon herself. Pray, my lord, proceed-I know her style; the next sentence will still rise upon us.

Lord M. D-d fellow! [Again saddling, and reading.] "But I have been most egregiously mistaken in Mr Lovelace!" [Then they all clamoured again." The only man, I persuade myself

Lovel. Ladies may persuade themselves to anything; but how can she answer for what other men would or would not have done in the same circumstances?

I was forced to say anything to stifle their outcries. Pox take ye altogether, thought I, as if I had not vexation enough in losing her!

Lord M. [Reading.] "The only man, I persuade myself, pretending to be a gentleman, in whom I could have been so much mistaken.'

They were all beginning again—Pray, my lord, proceed!-Hear, hear-Pray, ladies, hear! -Now, my lord, be pleased to proceed. The

ladies are silent.

So they were; lost in admiration of me, hands and eyes uplifted.

Lord M. I will, to thy confusion; for he had looked over the next sentence.

What wretches, Belford, what spiteful wretches, are poor mortals!-So rejoiced to sting one another! to see each other stung!

Lord M. [Reading.] "For, while I was endeavouring to save a drowning wretch, I have been, not accidentally, but premeditatedly, and of set purpose, drawn in after him.”—What say you to this, Sir-r? Lady S. Lady B. J

Ay, sir, what say you to this?

Lovel. Say! Why, I say it is a very pretty metaphor, if it would but hold.-But, if you please, my lord, read on. Let me hear what is farther said, and I will speak to it all together. Lord M. I will. "And he has had the glory to add to the list of those he has ruined, a name that, I will be bold to say, would not have disparaged his own."

They all looked at me, as expecting me to speak.

Lovel. Be pleased to proceed, my lord; I will speak to this by and by-How came she to know I kept a list? I will speak to this by and by. Lord M. Reading on.] "And this, madam, by means that would shock humanity to be made acquainted with.

Then again, in a hurry, off went the spectacles. This was a plaguy stroke upon me. I thought myself an oak in impudence; but, by my troth, this almost felled me.

Lord M. What say you to this, SIR-R? Remember, Jack, to read all their Sirs in this dialogue with a double rr, Sir-r 1 denoting indignation rather than respect.

They all looked at me as if to see if I could blush.

Lovel. Eyes off, my lord!

Eyes off, ladies! [Looking bashfully, I believe.]-What say I to this, my lord!-Why, I say that this lady has a strong manner of expressing herself! -That's all.—There are many things that pass among lovers, which a man cannot explain himself upon before grave people.

Lady Betty. Among lovers, sir-r! But, Mr Lovelace, can you say that this lady behaved either like a weak, or a credulous person?—Can

you say

Lovel. I am ready to do the lady all manner of justice. But, pray now, ladies, if I am to be thus interrogated, let me know the contents of the rest of the letter, that I may be prepared for my defence, as you are all for my arraignment. For, to be required to answer piecemeal thus, without knowing what is to follow, is a cursed ensnaring way of proceeding.

They gave me the letter; I read it through to myself;-and by the repetition of what I said, thou wilt guess at the remaining contents.

You shall find, ladies, you shall find, my lord, that I will not spare myself. Then, holding the letter in my hand, and looking upon it, as a lawyer upon his brief.

Miss Harlowe says, "That when your ladyship," [turning to Lady Betty," shall know that, in the progress to her ruin, wilful falsehoods, repeated forgeries, and numberless perjuries, were not the least of my crimes, you will judge that she can have no principles that will make her worthy of an alliance with ladies of yours, and your noble sister's character, if she could not, from her soul, declare, that such an alliance can never now take place."

Surely, ladies, this is passion! This is not reason. If our family would not think themselves dishonoured by my marrying a person whom I had so treated, but, on the contrary, would rejoice that I did her this justice; and if she has come out pure gold from the assay, and has nothing to reproach herself with, why should it be an impeachment of her principles, to consent that such an alliance should take place?

She cannot think herself the worse, justly she cannot, for what was done against her will. Their countenances menaced a general uproar- but I proceeded.

Your lordship read to us, that she had a hope, a presumptuous one, nay, a punishably-presumptuous one, she calls it, "that she might be a mean, in the hand of Providence, to reclaim me; and that this, she knew, if effected, would give her a merit with you all." But from what would she reclaim me ?-She had heard, you'll say,

(but she had only heard, at the time she entertained that hope,) that, to express myself in the women's dialect, I was a very wicked fellow! Well, and what then?-Why, truly, the very moment she was convinced, by her own experience, that the charge against me was more than hearsay; and that, of consequence, I was a fit subject for her generous endeavours to work upon, she would needs give me up. Accordingly, she flies out, and declares, that the ceremony which would repair all shall never take place! -Can this be from any other motive than fe male resentment?

This brought them all upon me, as I intended it should; it was as a tub to a whale; and after I had let them play with it a while, I claimed their attention, and, knowing that they always loved to hear me prate, went on.

The lady, it is plain, thought, that the reclaiming of a man from bad habits was a much easier task than, in the nature of things, it can be.

She writes, as your lordship has read, "That, in endeavouring to save a drowning wretch, she had been, not accidentally, but premeditatedly, and of set purpose, drawn in after him." But how is this, ladies?—You see, by her own words, that I am still far from being out of danger myself. Had she found me, in a quagmire suppose, and I had got out of it by her means, and left her to perish in it, that would have been a crime indeed. But is not the fact quite otherwise? Has she not, if her allegory prove what she would have it prove, got out herself, and left me floundering still deeper and deeper in ?-What she should have done, had she been in earnest to save me, was, to join her hand with mine, that so we might, by our united strength, help one another out. I held out my hand to her, and besought her to give me hers.-But no, truly! she was determined to get out herself as fast as she could, let me sink or swim; refusing her assistance (against her own principles) because she saw I wanted it.-You see, ladies, you see, my lord, how pretty tinkling words run away with ears inclined to be musical.

They were all ready to exclaim again; but I went on, proleptically, as a rhetorician would say, before their voices could break out into words.

But my fair accuser says, that " I have added to the list of those I have ruined, a name that would not have disparaged my own." It is true, I have been gay and enterprizing. It is in my constitution to be so. I know not how I came by such a constitution; but I was never accustomed to check or control, that you all know. When a man finds himself hurried by passion into a slight offence, which, however slight, will not be forgiven, he may be made desperate; as a thief, who only intends a robbery, is often, by resistance, and for self-preservation, drawn in to commit murder.

I was a strange, a horrid wretch with every one. But he must be a silly fellow who has not something to say for himself, when every cause has its black and its white side-Westminsterhall, Jack, affords every day as confident defences as mine.

But what right, proceeded I, has this lady to complain of me, when she as good as says-Here, Lovelace, you have acted the part of a villain by me!-You would repair your fault; but I won't let you, that I may have the satisfaction of exposing you, and the pride of refusing you.

But, was that the case? Was that the case? Would I pretend to say, I would now marry the lady, if she would have me?

Lovel. You find she renounces Lady Betty's mediation

Lord M. [Interrupting me. Words are wind, but deeds are mind: What signifies your cursed quibbling, Bob?-Say plainly, if she will have you, will you have her? Answer me, yes or no ; and lead us not a wild-goose chace after your meaning.

Lovel. She knows I would. But here, my lord, if she thus goes on to expose herself and me, she will make it a dishonour to us both to marry.

Charl. But how must she have been treatedLovel. Interrupting her. Why now, cousin Charlotte, chucking her under the chin, would you have me tell you all that has passed between the lady and me? Would you care, had you a bold and enterprizing lover, that proclamation should be made of every little piece of amorous roguery, that he offered to you?

Charlotte reddened. They all began to exclaim. But I proceeded. The lady says, "She has been dishonoured" (devil take me, if I spare myself!)" by means that would shock humanity to be made acquainted with them." She is a very innocent lady, and may not be a judge of the means she hints at. Over-niceness may be under-niceness: Have you not such a proverb, my lord ?—tantamount to One extreme produces another !—Such a lady as this may possibly think her case more extraordinary than it is. This I will take upon me to say, that if she has met with the only man in the world who would have treated her, as she says I have treated her, I have met in her with the only woman in the world who would have made such a rout about a case, that is uncommon only from the circumstances that attend it.

This brought them all upon me; hands, eyes, voices, all lifted at once. But my Lord M., who has in his head (the last seat of retreating lewdness) as much wickedness as I have in my heart, was forced (upon the air I spoke this with, and Charlotte's and all the rest reddening) to make a mouth that was big enough to swallow up the other half of his face; crying out, to avoid laughing, Oh! Oh!-as if under the power of a gouty twinge.

Hadst thou seen how the two tabbies and the young grimalkins looked at one another, at my lord, and at me, by turns, thou wouldst have been ready to split thy ugly face just in the middle. Thy mouth hath already done half the work. And, after all, I found not seldom in this conversation, that my humorous undaunted airs forced a smile into my service from the prim mouths of the young ladies. They, perhaps, had they met with such another intrepid fellow as myself, who had first gained upon their affections, would not have made such a rout as my beloved has done, about such an affair as that we were assembled upon. Young ladies, as I have observed on a hundred occasions, fear not half so much for themselves as their mothers do for them. But here the girls were forced to put on grave airs, and to seem angry, because the antiques made the matter of such high importance. Yet so lightly sat anger and fellow-feeling at their hearts, that they were forced to purse in their mouths, to suppress the smiles I nowand-then laid out for; while the elders having had roses (that is to say, daughters) of their own, and knowing how fond men are of a trifle, would have been very loath to have had them nipt in the bud, without saying to the mother of them, By your leave, Mrs Rose-bush.

The next article of my indictment was for forgery; and for personating of Lady Betty and my cousin Charlotte.

Two shocking charges, thou'lt say; and so they were!-The peer was outrageous upon the forgery charge. The ladies vowed never to forgive the personating part.

Not a peace-maker among them. So we all turned women, and scolded.

My lord told me, that he believed in his conscience there was not a viler fellow upon God's earth than me.-What signifies mincing the matter? said he-and that it was not the first time I had forged his hand.

To this I answered, that I supposed, when the statute of Scandalum Magnatum was framed, there were a good many in the peerage who knew they deserved hard names; and that that law, therefore, was rather made to privilege their qualities, than to whiten their cha

racters.

He called upon me to explain myself, with a Sir-r, so pronounced, as to shew that one of the most ignominious words in our language was in his head.

People, I said, that were fenced in by their quality, and by their years, should not take freedoms that a man of spirit could not put up with, unless he were able heartily to despise the insulter.

This set him in a violent passion. He would send for Pritchard instantly. Let Pritchard be called. He would alter his will, and all he could leave from me he would.

Do, do, my lord, said I; I always valued my

Why, what would I do to Pritchard ?-shaking his hoary head at me.

Only, what he, or any man else, writes with his pen, to despoil me of what I think my right, he shall seal with his ears; that's all, my lord. Then the two ladies interposed.

Lady Sarah told me, that I carried things a great way; and that neither Lord M. nor any of them, deserved the treatment I gave them.

I said, I could not bear to be used ill by my lord, for two reasons; first, because I respected his lordship above any man living; and next, because it looked as if I were induced by selfish considerations to take that from him, which nobody else would offer to me.

And what, returned he, shall be my inducement to take what I do at your hands?—Hey, sir?

Indeed, cousin Lovelace, said Lady Betty, with great gravity, we do not any of us, as Lady Sarah says, deserve at your hands the treatment you give us; and let ine tell you, that I don't think my character and your cousin Charlotte's ought to be prostituted, in order to ruin an innocent lady. She must have known early the good opinion we all have of her, and how much we wished her to be your wife. This good opinion of ours has been an inducement to her (you see she says so) to listen to your address. And this, with her friends' folly, has helped to throw her into your power. How you have requited her is too apparent. It becomes the character we all bear, to disclaim your actions by her. And let me tell you, that to have her abused by wicked people, raised up to personate us, or any of us, makes a double call upon us to disclaim them.

Lovel. Why this is talking somewhat like. I would have you all disclaim my actions. I own I have done very vilely by this lady. One step led to another. I am cursed with an enterprizing spirit. I hate to be foiled—

Foiled! interrupted Lady Sarah. What a shame to talk at this rate!-Did the lady set up a contention with you? All nobly sincere, and plain-hearted, have I heard Miss Clarissa Harlowe is above art, above disguise; neither the coquette, nor the prude!-Poor lady! she deserved a better fate from the man for whom she took the step which she so freely blames!

This above half affected me.- -Had this dispute been so handled by every one, I had been ashamed to look up. I began to be bashful.

Charlotte asked if I did not still seem inclinable to do the lady justice, if she should accept of me? It would be, she dared to say, the greatest felicity the family could know, (she would answer for one,) that this fine lady were of it.

They all declared to the same effect; and Lady Sarah put the matter home to me.