omission of their regular duties, and who never aimed to draw any poor creatures into evil, is not so easy a task, nor so much in our own power, as some imagine. How difficult a grace, then, to be obtained, where the guilt is premeditated, wilful, and complicated!

To say I once respected you with a preference, is what I ought to blush to own, since, at the very time, I was far from thinking you even a moral man; though I little thought that you, or, indeed, that any man breathing, could be what you have proved yourself to be. But, indeed, sir, I have long been greatly above you; for from my heart I have despised you, and all your ways, ever since I saw what manner of man you were.

Nor is it to be wondered that I should be able so to do, when that preference was not grounded on ignoble motives. For I was weak enough, and presumptuous enough, to hope to be a mean, in the hand of Providence, to reclaim a man whom I thought worthy of the attempt.

Nor have I yet, as you will see by the pains I take, on this solemn occasion, to awaken you out of your sensual dream, given over all hopes of this nature.

Hear me, therefore, O Lovelace! as one speaking from the dead.-Lose no time-set about your repentance instantly-be no longer the instrument of Satan, to draw poor souls into those subtile snares, which at last shall entangle your own feet. Seek not to multiply your offences, till they become beyond the power, as I may say, of the Divine mercy to forgive; since justice, no less than mercy, is an attribute of the Almighty. Tremble and reform, when you read what is the portion of the wicked man from God. Thus it is written:

"The triumphing of the wicked is short, and the joy of the hypocrite but for a moment. He is cast into a net by his own feet-he walketh upon a snare. Terrors shall make him afraid on every side, and shall drive him to his feet. His strength shall be hunger-bitten, and destruction shall be ready at his side. The first-born of death shall devour his strength. His remembrance shall perish from the earth; and he shall have no name in the streets. He shall be chased out of the world. He shall have neither son nor nephew among his people. They that have seen him shall say, Where is he? He shall fly away as a dream: He shall be chased away as a vision of the night. His meat is the gall of asps within him. He shall flee from the iron weapon, and the bow of steel shall strike him through. A fire not blown shall consume him. The heaven shall reveal his iniquity, and the earth shall rise up against him. The worm shall feed sweetly on him. He shall be no more remembered.-This is the fate of him that knoweth not God."

Whenever you shall be inclined to consult the sacred oracles, from whence the above threatenings are extracted, you will find doctrines and texts which a truly penitent and contrite heart may lay hold of for its consolation.

May yours, Mr Lovelace, become such! and may you be enabled to escape the fate denounced against the abandoned man, and be entitled to the mercies of a long-suffering and gracious God, is the sincere prayer of CLARISSA HARLOWE.

LETTER CCCCXVIII.

MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ. M. Hall, Thursday, Sept. 14. EVER Since the fatal seventh of this month, I have been lost to myself, and to all the joys of life. I might have gone farther back than that fatal seventh, which, for the future, I will never see anniversarily revolve but in sables; only till that cursed day I had some gleams of hope now and then darting in upon me.

They tell me of an odd letter I wrote to you.* I remember I did write. But very little of the contents of what I wrote do I remember.

I have been in a cursed way. Methinks something has been working strangely retributive. I never was such a fool as to disbelieve a Providence; yet am I not for resolving into judgments everything that seems to wear an avenging face. Yet, if we must be punished, either here or hereafter, for our misdeeds, better here, say I, than hereafter. Have I not then an interest to think my punishment already not only begun, but completed; since what I have suffered, and do suffer, passes all description?

To give but one instance of the retributive— here I, who was the barbarous cause of the loss of senses, for a week together, to the most inimitable of women, have been punished with the loss of my own-preparative to-who knows what?-When, Oh! when, shall I know a joyful hour?

I am kept excessively low; and excessively low I am. This sweet creature's posthumous letter sticks close to me. All her excellencies rise up hourly to my remembrance.

Yet dare I not indulge in these melancholy reflections. I find my head strangely working again-Pen, begone!

Friday, Sept. 15. I RESUME, in a sprightly vein, I hope-Mowbray and Tourville have just now

But what of Mowbray and Tourville?— What's the world?-What's anybody in it?— Yet they are highly exasperated against thee,

for the last letter thou wrotest to them*-such an unfriendly, such a merciless

But it won't do!-I must again lay down my pen.-O Belford! Belford! I am still, I am still most miserably absent from myself!-Shall never, never more be what I was!

SATURDAY-Sunday-Nothing done. Incapable of anything.

Monday, Sept. 18.

HEAVY, d-n-y heavy and sick at soul, by Jupiter! I must come into their expedient. I must see what change of climate will do.

You tell these fellows, and you tell me, of repenting and reforming; but I can do neither. He who can, must not have the extinction of a Clarissa Harlowe to answer for.-Harlowe !-Curse upon the name !-and curse upon myself for not changing it, as I might have done!Yet I have no need of urging a curse upon myself-I have it effectually.

"To say I once respected you with a preference!"+-In what stiff language does maidenly modesty, on these nice occasions, express itself! -To say I once loved you, is the English; and there is truth and ease in the expression.-" To say I once loved you," then let it be, " is what I ought to blush to own."

And dost thou own it, excellent creature?— and dost thou then own it?-What music in these words from such an angel!-What would I give that my Clarissa were in being, and could, and would, own that she loved me!

"But, indeed, sir, I have long been greatly above you." Long, my blessed charmer!-Long indeed; for you have been ever greatly above me, and above your sex, and above all the world. "That preference was not grounded on ignoble motives."

What a wretch was I, to be so distinguished by her, and yet to be so unworthy of her hope to reclaim me!

Then, how generous her motives! Not for her own sake merely, not altogether for mine, did she hope to reclaim me; but equally for the sake of innocents who might otherwise be ruined by me.

And now, why did she write this letter, and why direct it to be given me when an event the most deplorable had taken place, but for my good, and with a view to the safety of innocents she knew not?-And when was this letter written? Was it not at the time, at the very time, that I had been pursuing her, as I may say, from place to place; when her soul was bowed down by calamity and persecution; and herself

This Letter appears not.

was denied all forgiveness from relations the most implacable?

Exalted creature!-And couldst thou, at such a time, and so early, and in such circumstances, have so far subdued thy own just resentments, as to wish happiness to the principal author of all thy distresses?-Wish happiness to him who had robbed thee" of all thy favourite expectations in this life?" To him who had been the cause "that thou wert cut off in the bloom of youth ?"

Heavenly aspirer !-What a frame must thou be in, to be able to use the word ONLY, in mentioning these important deprivations !—And as this was before thou puttedst off mortality, may I not presume that thou now,

"Your golden dream cannot long last."Divine prophetess! my golden dream is already over. Thought and reflection are no longer to be kept off."-No longer continues that "hardened insensibility" thou chargest upon me. Remorse has broken in upon me. Dreadful is my condition;-it is all reproach and horror with me!-A thousand vultures in turn are preying upon my heart!

But no more of these fruitless reflectionssince I am incapable of writing anything else; since my pen will slide into this gloomy subject, whether I will or not; I will once more quit it; nor will I again resume it, till I can be more its master, and my own.

All I took pen to write for is, however, unwritten. It was, in few words, to wish you to proceed with your communications, as usual. And why should you not?-since, in her ever-to-belamented death, I know everything shocking and grievous-acquaint me, then, with all thou knowest, which I do not know; how her relations, her cruel relations, take it; and whether now the barbed dart of after-reflection sticks not in their hearts, as in mine, up to the very feathers.

I WILL Soon quit this kingdom. For, now my Clarissa is no more, what is there in it (in the

+See Letter CCCCXVII. of this Vol.

world, indeed) worth living for?-But shall I not first, by some masterly mischief, avenge her and myself upon her cursed family?

The accursed woman, they tell me, has bro ken her leg. Why was it not her neck?-All, all, but what is owing to her relations, is the fault of that woman, and of her hell-born nymphs. The greater the virtue, the nobler the triumph, was a sentence for ever in their mouths. -I have had it several times in my head to set fire to the execrable house; and to watch at the doors and windows, that not a devil in it escape the consuming flames. Had the house stood by itself, I had certainly done it.

But, it seems, the old wretch is in the way to be rewarded, without my help. A shocking letter is received of somebody's, in relation to her -yours, I suppose-too shocking for me, they say, to see at present.*

They govern me as a child in strings; yet did I suffer so much in my fever, that I am willing to bear with them, till I can get tolerably well. At present I can neither eat, drink, nor sleep. Yet are my disorders nothing to what they were; for, Jack, my brain was on fire day and night; and had it not been of the asbestos kind, it had all been consumed.

I had no distinct ideas, but of dark and confused misery; it was all remorse and horror indeed!-Thoughts of hanging, drowning, shooting-then rage, violence, mischief, and despair, took their turns with me. My lucid intervals still worse, giving me to reflect upon what I was the hour before, and what I was likely to be the next, and perhaps for life-the sport of enemies! -the laughter of fools!-and the hangingsleeved, go-carted property of hired slaves, who were, perhaps, to find their account in manacling, and (abhorred thought!) in personally abusing me by blows and stripes!

Who can bear such reflections as these? To be made to fear only, to such a one as me, and to fear such wretches too?-What a thing was this, but remotely to apprehend! And yet for a man to be in such a state, as to render it necessary for his dearest friends to suffer this to be done for his own sake, and in order to prevent farther mischief!-There is no thinking of these things!

I will not think of them, therefore; but will either get a train of cheerful ideas, or hang myself by to-morrow morning.

-To be a dog, and dead, Were paradise, to such a life as mine.

LETTER CCCCXIX.

MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Wednesday, Sept. 20.

I WRITE to demand back again my last letter. I own it was my mind at the different times I wrote it; and, whatever ailed me, I could not help writing it. Such a gloomy impulse came upon me, and increased as I wrote, that, for my soul, I could not forbear running into the mi

serable.

"Tis strange, very strange, that a man's conscience should be able to force his fingers to write, whether he will or not; and to run him into a subject he more than once, at the very time, resolved not to think of.

Nor is it less strange, that (no new reason occurring) he should, in a day or two more, so totally change his mind; have his mind, I should rather say, so wholly illuminated by gay hopes and rising prospects, as to be ashamed of what he had written.

For, on reperusal of a copy of my letter, which fell into my hands by accident, in the handwriting of my cousin Charlotte, who, unknown to me, had transcribed it, I find it to be such a letter as an enemy would rejoice to see.

This I know, that were I to have continued but one week more in the way I was in when I wrote the latter part of it, I should have been confined, and in straw, the next; for I now recollect, that all my distemper was returning upon me with irresistible violence-and that in spite of water-gruel and soup-meagre.

I own that I am still excessively grieved at the disappointment this admirable woman made it so much her whimsical choice to give me.

But, since it has thus fallen out; since she was determined to leave the world; and since she actually ceases to be; ought I, who have such a share of life and health in hand, to indulge gloomy reflections upon an event that is passed; and, being passed, cannot be recalled? Have I not had a specimen of what will be my case, if I do?

For, Belford, ('tis a folly to deny it,) I have been, to use an old word, quite bestraught.

Why, why did my mother bring me up to bear no control? Why was I so educated, as that to my very tutors it was a request that I should not know what contradiction or disappointment was? -Ought she not to have known what cruelty there was in her kindness?

What a punishment, to have my first very great disappointment touch my intellect!— And intellects, once touched-but that I cannot bear

to think of-only thus far; the very repentance and amendment, wished me so heartily by my kind and cross dear, have been invalidated and postponed, and who knows for how long?-the amendment at least; can a madman be capable of either ?

Once touched, therefore, I must endeavour to banish those gloomy reflections, which might otherwise have brought on the right turn of mind; and this, to express myself in Lord M.'s style, that my wits may not be sent a wool-gathering.

For, let me moreover own to thee, that Dr Hale, who was my good Astolfo, [you read Ariosto, Jack, and has brought me back my wit-jar, had much ado, by starving diet, by profuse phlebotomy, by flaying-blisters, eyelethole-cupping, a dark room, a midnight solitude in a mid-day sun, to effect my recovery. And now, for my comfort, he tells me, that I may still have returns upon full moons-horrible! most horrible !—and must be as careful of myself at both equinoctials, as Cæsar was warned to be of the Ides of March.

How my heart sickens at looking back upon what I was! Denied the sun, and all comfort: all my visitors low-born, tip-toe attendants: even those tip-toe slaves never approaching me but periodically, armed with gallipots, boluses, and cephalic draughts; delivering their orders to me in hated whispers; and answering other curtain-holding impertinents, inquiring how I was, and how I took their execrable potions, whisperingly too! What a cursed still life was this-Nothing active in me, or about me, but the worm that never dies.

Again I hasten from the recollection of scenes, which will, at times, obtrude themselves upon

me.

Adieu, Belford!

But return me my last letter-and build nothing upon its contents. I must, I will, I have already, overcome these fruitless gloominesses. Every hour my constitution rises stronger and stronger to befriend me; and, except a tributary sigh now and then to the memory of my heart's beloved, it gives me hope that I shall quickly be what I was-life, spirit, gaiety, and once more the plague of a sex, that has been my plague, and will be every man's plague, at one time or other of his life. I repeat my desire, however, that you will write to me as usual. I hope you have good store of particulars by you to communicate, when I can better bear to hear of the dispositions that were made for all that was mortal of my beloved Clarissa.

But it will be the joy of my heart to be told that her implacable friends are plagued with remorse. Such things as those you may now send me; for company in misery is some relief, especially when a man can think those he hates as miserable as himself.

Once more adieu, Jack!

LETTER CCCCXX.

MR LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

I AM preparing to leave this kingdom. Mowbray and Tourville promise to give me their company in a month or two.

I'll give thee my route.

I shall first to Paris; and, for amusement and diversion-sake, try to renew some of my old friendships: thence to some of the German courts: thence, perhaps, to Vienna: thence descend through Bavaria and the Tyrol to Venice, where I shall keep the carnival: thence to Florence and Turin: thence again over Mount Cenis to France: and, when I return again to Paris, shall expect to see my friend Belford, who, by that time, I doubt not, will be all crusted and bearded over with penitence, self-denial, and mortification; a very anchoret, only an itinerant one, journeying over in hope to cover a multitude of his own sins, by proselyting his old companions.

But let me tell thee, Jack, if stock rises on, as it has done since I wrote my last letter, I am afraid thou wilt find a difficult task in succeeding, should such be thy purpose.

Nor, I verily think, can thy own penitence and reformation hold. Strong habits are not so easily rooted out. Old Satan has had too much benefit from thy faithful services, for a series of years, to let thee so easily get out of his clutches. He knows what will do with thee. A fine strapping Bona Roba, in the Charters-taste, but welllimbed, clear-complexioned, and Turkish-eyed; thou the first man with her, or made to believe so, which is the same thing; how will thy frosty face shine upon such an object! How will thy tristful visage be illuminated by it! A composition will be made between thee and the grand tempter; thou wilt promise to do him suit and service, till old age and inability come. And then will he, in all probability, be sure of thee for ever. For, wert thou to outlive thy present reigning appetites, he will trump up some other darling sin, or make a now-secondary one darling, in order to keep thee firmly attached to his infernal interests. Thou wilt continue resolving to amend, but never amending, till, grown old before thou art aware, (a dozen years after thou art old with everybody else,) thy for-time-built tenement having lasted its allotted period, he claps down upon thy grizzled head the universal trap-door: and then all will be over with thee in his own way.

Thou wilt think these hints uncharacteristic from me. But yet I cannot help warning thee of the danger thou art actually in; which is the greater, as thou seemest not to know it. A few words more, therefore, on this subject.

Thou hast made good resolutions. If thou

keepest them not, thou wilt never be able to keep any. But, nevertheless, the devil and thy time of life are against thee; and six to one thou failest. Were it only that thou hast resolved, six to one thou failest. And if thou dost, thou wilt become the scoff of men, and the triumph of devils.-Then how will I laugh at thee! For this warning is not from principle. Perhaps I wish it were: but I never lied to man, and hardly ever said truth to woman. The first is what all free-livers cannot say; the second what every one can.

I am mad again, by Jupiter!-But, thank my stars, not gloomily so!-Farewell, farewell, farewell, for the third or fourth time, concludes

Thy

LOVELACE.

I believe Charlotte and you are in private league together. Letters, I find, have passed between her and you, and Lord M. I have been kept strangely in the dark of late; but will soon break upon you all, as the sun upon a midnight thief.

Remember that you never sent me the copy of my beloved's will.

LETTER CCCCXXI.

MR BELFORD TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.

Friday, Sept. 22. JUST as I was sitting down to answer yours of the 14th to the 18th, in order to give you all the consolation in my power, came your revoking letter of Wednesday.`

I am really concerned and disappointed, that your first was so soon followed by one so contrary to it.

The shocking letter you mention, which your friends withhold from you, is indeed from me. They may now, I see, shew you anything. Ask them, then, for that letter, if you think it worth while to read aught about the true mother of your mind.

I WILL Suppose that thou hast just read the letter thou callest shocking, and which I intended to be so. And let me ask what thou thinkest of it? Dost thou not tremble at the horrors the vilest of women labours with, on the apprehensions of death, and future judgment?-How sit the reflections that must have been raised, by the perusal of this letter, upon thy yet unclosed eyelet-holes? Will not some serious thoughts mingle with thy melilot, and tear off the callus of thy mind, as that may flay the leather from thy back, and as thy epispasties may strip the parchment from thy plotting head? If not, then indeed is thy conscience scared, and no hopes will lie for thee.

Mr Belford then gives an account of the wretched Sinclair's terrible exit, which he had just then received.]

If this move thee not, I have news to acquaint thee with, of another dismal catastrophe that is but within this hour come to my ear, of another of thy blessed agents. Thy TOMLINSON! Dying, and, in all probability, before this can reach thee, dead, in Maidstone gaol. As thou sayest in thy first letter, something strangely retributive seems to be working.

This is his case. He was at the head of a gang of smugglers, endeavouring to carry off run goods, landed last Tuesday, when a party of dragoons came up with them in the evening. Some of his comrades fled. M'Donald, being surrounded, attempted to fight his way through, and wounded his man; but, having received a shot in his neck, and being cut deeply in the head by a broadsword, he fell from his horse, was taken, and carried to Maidstone gaol; and there my informant left him, just dying, and assured of hanging if he recover.

Absolutely destitute, he got a kinsman of his to apply to me, and, if in town, to the rest of the confraternity, for something, not to support him was the word, (for he expected not to live till the fellow returned,) but to bury him.

I never employed him but once, and then he ruined my project. I now thank Heaven that he did. But I sent him five guineas, and promised him more, as from you, and Mowbray, and Tourville, if he live a few days, or to take his trial. And I put it upon you to make farther inquiry of him, and to give him what you think fit.

His messenger tells me that he is very penitent; that he weeps continually. He cries out, that he has been the vilest of men; yet palliates, that his necessities made him worse than he should otherwise have been; [an excuse which none of us can plead: but that which touches him most of all, is a vile imposture he was put upon, to serve a certain gentleman of fortune to the ruin of the most excellent woman that ever lived; and who, he had heard, was dead of grief. Let me consider, Lovelace-Whose turn can be next?

I wish it may not be thine. But since thou givest me one piece of advice, (which I should indeed have thought out of character, hadst thou not taken pains to convince me that it proceeds not from principle,) I will give thee another; and that is, prosecute, as fast as thou canst, thy intended tour. Change of scene, and of climate, may establish thy health: while this gross air, and the approach of winter, may thicken thy blood; and with the help of a conscience that is upon the struggle with thee, and, like a cunning wrestler, watches its opportunity to give thee another fall, may make thee miserable for thy life.

I return your revoked letter. Don't destroy it,