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Clarissa Harlowe; or the history of a young lady — Volume 7

by Samuel Richardson · English · Gutenberg #11889 · 614,099 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Clarissa Harlowe; or the history of a young lady — Volume 7

Author: Samuel Richardson


        
Release date: April 1, 2004 [eBook #11889]
                Most recently updated: October 28, 2024

Language: English

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Credits: Produced by Julie C. Sparks and David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CLARISSA HARLOWE; OR THE HISTORY OF A YOUNG LADY — VOLUME 7 ***

CLARISSA HARLOWE

or the

HISTORY OF A YOUNG LADY

Nine Volumes
Volume VII.



CONTENTS OF VOLUME VII


LETTER I.  Miss Howe to Clarissa.--
Beseeches her to take comfort, and not despair.  Is dreadfully
apprehensive of her own safety from Mr. Lovelace.  An instruction to
mothers.

LETTER II.  Clarissa To Miss Howe.--
Averse as she is to appear in a court of justice against Lovelace, she
will consent to prosecute him, rather than Miss Howe shall live in
terror.  Hopes she shall not despair: but doubts not, from so many
concurrent circumstances, that the blow is given.

LETTER III. IV.  Lovelace to Belford.--
Has no subject worth writing upon now he has lost his Clarissa.  Half in
jest, half in earnest, [as usual with him when vexed or disappointed,] he
deplores the loss of her.--Humourous account of Lord M., of himself, and
of his two cousins Montague.  His Clarissa has made him eyeless and
senseless to every other beauty.

LETTER V. VI. VII. VIII.  From the same.--
Lady Sarah Sadleir and Lady Betty Lawrance arrive, and engage Lord M. and
his two cousins Montague against him, on account of his treatment of the
lady.  His trial, as he calls it.  After many altercations, they obtain
his consent that his two cousins should endeavour to engage Miss Howe to
prevail upon Clarissa to accept of him, on his unfeigned repentance.  It
is some pleasure to him, he however rakishly reflects, to observe how
placable the ladies of his family would have been, had they met with a
Lovelace.  MARRIAGE, says he, with these women, is an atonement for the
worst we can do to them; a true dramatic recompense.  He makes several
other whimsical, but characteristic observations, some of which may serve
as cautions and warnings to the sex.

LETTER IX.  Miss Howe to Clarissa.--
Has had a visit from the two Miss Montague's.  Their errand.  Advises her
to marry Lovelace.  Reasons for her advice.

LETTER X.  Miss Howe to Clarissa.--
Chides her with friendly impatience for not answering her letter.
Re-urges her to marry Lovelace, and instantly to put herself under Lady
Betty's protection.

LETTER XI.  Miss Howe to Miss Montague.--
In a phrensy of her soul, writes to her to demand news of her beloved
friend, spirited away, as she apprehends, by the base arts of the
blackest of men.

LETTER XII.  Lovelace to Belford.--
The suffering innocent arrested and confined, by the execrable woman, in
a sham action.  He curses himself, and all his plots and contrivances.
Conjures him to fly to her, and clear him of this low, this dirty
villany; to set her free without conditions; and assure her, that he will
never molest her more.  Horribly execrates the diabolical women, who
thought to make themselves a merit with him by this abominable insult.

LETTER XIII. XIV.  Miss Montague to Miss Howe,
with the particulars of all that has happened to the lady.--Mr. Lovelace
the most miserable of men.  Reflections on libertines.  She, her sister,
Lady Betty, Lady Sarah, Lord M., and Lovelace himself, all sign letters
to Miss Howe, asserting his innocence of this horrid insult, and
imploring her continued interest in his and their favour with Clarissa.

LETTER XV.  Belford to Lovelace.--
Particulars of the vile arrest.  Insolent visits of the wicked women to
her.  Her unexampled meekness and patience.  Her fortitude.  He admires
it, and prefers it to the false courage of men of their class.

LETTER XVI.  From the same.--
Goes to the officer's house.  A description of the horrid prison-room,
and of the suffering lady on her knees in one corner of it.  Her great
and moving behaviour.  Breaks off, and sends away his letter, on purpose
to harass him by suspense.

LETTER XVII.  Lovelace to Belford.--
Curses him for his tormenting abruption.  Clarissa never suffered half
what he suffers.  That sex made to bear pain.  Conjures him to hasten to
him the rest of his soul-harrowing intelligence.

LETTER XVIII.  Belford to Lovelace.--
His farther proceedings.  The lady returns to her lodgings at Smith's.
Distinction between revenge and resentment in her character.  Sends her,
from the vile women, all her apparel, as Lovelace had desired.

LETTER XIX. Belford to Lovelace.--
Rejoices to find he can feel.  Will endeavour from time to time to add to
his remorse.  Insists upon his promise not to molest the lady.

LETTER XX. From the same.--
Describes her lodgings, and gives a character of the people, and of the
good widow Lovick.  She is so ill, that they provide her an honest nurse,
and send for Mr. Goddard, a worthy apothecary.  Substance of a letter to
Miss Howe, dictated by the lady.

LETTER XXI. From the same.--
Admitted to the lady's presence.  What passed on the occasion.  Really
believes that she still loves him.  Has a reverence, and even a holy love
for her.  Astonished that Lovelace could hold his purposes against such
an angel of a woman.  Condemns him for not timely exerting himself to
save her.

LETTER XXII. From the same.--
Dr. H. called in.  Not having a single guinea to give him, she accepts of
three from Mrs. Lovick on a diamond ring.  Her dutiful reasons for
admitting the doctor's visit.  His engaging and gentlemanly behaviour.
She resolves to part with some of her richest apparel.  Her reasons.

LETTER XXIII. Lovelace to Belford.--
Raves at him.  For what.  Rallies him, with his usual gayety, on several
passages in his letters.  Reasons why Clarissa's heart cannot be broken
by what she has suffered.  Passionate girls easily subdued.  Sedate ones
hardly ever pardon.  He has some retrograde motions: yet is in earnest to
marry Clarissa.  Gravely concludes, that a person intending to marry
should never be a rake.  His gay resolutions.  Renews, however, his
promises not to molest her.  A charming encouragement for a man of
intrigue, when a woman is known not to love her husband.  Advantages
which men have over women, when disappointed in love.  He knows she will
permit him to make her amends, after she has plagued him heartily.

LETTER XXIV. Miss Howe to Clarissa.--
Is shocked at receiving a letter from her written by another hand.
Tenderly consoles her, and inveighs against Lovelace.  Re-urges her,
however, to marry him.  Her mother absolutely of her opinion.  Praises
Mr. Hickman's sister, who, with her Lord, had paid her a visit.

LETTER XXV. Clarissa to Miss Howe.--
Her condition greatly mended.  In what particulars.  Her mind begins to
strengthen; and she finds herself at times superior to her calamities.
In what light she wishes her to think of her.  Desires her to love her
still, but with a weaning love.  She is not now what she was when they
were inseparable lovers.  Their views must now be different.

LETTER XXVI. Belford to Lovelace.--
A consuming malady, and a consuming mistress, as in Belton's case,
dreadful things to struggle with.  Farther reflections on the life of
keeping.  The poor man afraid to enter into his own house.  Belford
undertakes his cause.  Instinct in brutes equivalent to natural affection
in men.  Story of the ancient Sarmatians, and their slaves.  Reflects on
the lives of rakes, and free-livers; and how ready they are in sickness
to run away from one another.  Picture of a rake on a sick bed.  Will
marry and desert them all.

LETTER XXVII. From the same.--
The lady parts with some of her laces.  Instances of the worthiness of
Dr. H. and Mr. Goddard.  He severely reflects upon Lovelace.

LETTER XXVIII. Lovelace to Belford.--
Has an interview with Mr. Hickman.  On what occasion.  He endeavours to
disconcert him, by assurance and ridicule; but finds him to behave with
spirit.

LETTER XXIX. From the same.--
Rallies him on his intentional reformation.  Ascribes the lady's ill
health entirely to the arrest, (in which, he says, he had no hand,) and
to her relations' cruelty.  Makes light of her selling her clothes and
laces.  Touches upon Belton's case.  Distinguishes between companionship
and friendship.  How he purposes to rid Belton of his Thomasine and her
cubs.

LETTER XXX. Belford to Lovelace.--
The lady has written to her sister, to obtain a revocation of her
father's malediction.  Defends her parents.  He pleads with the utmost
earnestness to her for his friend.

LETTER XXXI. From the same.--
Can hardly forbear prostration to her.  Tenders himself as her banker.
Conversation on this subject.  Admires her magnanimity.  No wonder that a
virtue so solidly based could baffle all his arts.  Other instances of
her greatness of mind.  Mr. Smith and his wife invite him, and beg of her
to dine with them, it being their wedding day.  Her affecting behaviour
on the occasion.  She briefly, and with her usual noble simplicity,
relates to them the particulars of her life and misfortunes.

LETTER XXXII. Lovelace to Belford.--
Ridicules him on his address to the lady as her banker, and on his
aspirations and prostrations.  Wants to come at letters she has written.
Puts him upon engaging Mrs. Lovick to bring this about.  Weight that
proselytes have with the good people that convert them.  Reasons for it.
He has hopes still of the lady's favour; and why.  Never adored her so
much as now.  Is about to go to a ball at Colonel Ambrose's.  Who to be
there.  Censures affectation and finery in the dress of men; and
particularly with a view to exalt himself, ridicules Belford on this
subject.

LETTER XXXIII. XXXIV. XXXV. XXXVI. XXXVII.
Sharp letters that pass between Miss Howe and Arabella Harlowe.

LETTER XXXVIII. Mrs. Harlowe to Mrs. Howe.--
Sent with copies of the five foregoing letters.

LETTER XXXIX. Mrs. Howe to Mrs. Harlowe. In answer.

LETTER XL. Miss Howe to Clarissa.--
Desires an answer to her former letters for her to communicate to Miss
Montague.  Farther enforces her own and her mother's opinion, that she
should marry Lovelace.  Is obliged by her mother to go to a ball at
Colonel Ambrose's.  Fervent professions of her friendly love.

LETTER XLI. Clarissa to Miss Howe.--
Her noble reasons for refusing Lovelace.  Desires her to communicate
extracts from this letter to the Ladies of his family.

LETTER XLII. From the same.--
Begs, for her sake, that she will forbear treating her relations with
freedom and asperity.  Endeavours, in her usual dutiful manner, to defend
their conduct towards her.  Presses her to make Mr. Hickman happy.

LETTER XLIII. Mrs. Norton to Clarissa.--
Excuses her long silence.  Her family, who were intending to favour her,
incensed against her by means of Miss Howe's warm letters to her sister.

LETTER XLIV. Clarissa to Mrs. Norton.--
Is concerned that Miss Howe should write about her to her friends.  Gives
her a narrative of all that has befallen her since her last.  Her truly
christian frame of mind.  Makes reflections worthy of herself, upon her
present situation, and upon her hopes, with regard to a happy futurity.

LETTER XLV.
Copy of Clarissa's humble letter to her sister, imploring the revocation
of her father's heavy malediction.

LETTER XLVI. Belford to Lovelace.--
Defends the lady from the perverseness he (Lovelace) imputes to her on
parting with some of her apparel.  Poor Belton's miserable state both of
body and mind.  Observations on the friendship of libertines.  Admires
the noble simplicity, and natural ease and dignity of style, of the
sacred books.  Expatiates upon the pragmatical folly of man.  Those who
know least, the greatest scoffers.

LETTER XLVII. From the same.--
The lady parts with one of her best suits of clothes.  Reflections upon
such purchasers as take advantage of the necessities of their
fellow-creatures.  Self an odious devil.  A visible alteration in the
lady for the worse.  She gives him all Mr. Lovelace's letters.  He
(Belford) takes this opportunity to plead for him.  Mr. Hickman comes to
visit her.

LETTER XLVIII. From the same.--
Breakfasts next morning with the lady and Mr. Hickman.  His advantageous
opinion of that gentleman.  Censures the conceited pride and
narrow-mindedness of rakes and libertines.  Tender and affecting parting
between Mr. Hickman and the lady.  Observations in praise of intellectual
friendship.

LETTER XLIX. Miss Howe to Clarissa.--
Has no notion of coldness in friendship.  Is not a daughter of those whom
she so freely treats.  Delays giving the desired negative to the
solicitation of the ladies of Lovelace's family; and why.  Has been
exceedingly fluttered by the appearance of Lovelace at the ball given by
Colonel Ambrose.  What passed on that occasion.  Her mother and all the
ladies of their select acquaintance of opinion that she should accept of
him.

LETTER L. Clarissa. In answer.--
Chides her for suspending the decisive negative.  Were she sure she
should live many years, she would not have Mr. Lovelace.  Censures of the
world to be but of second regard with any body.  Method as to devotion
and exercise she was in when so cruelly arrested.

LETTER LI.  Clarissa to Miss Howe.--
Designed to be communicated to Mr. Lovelace's relations.

LETTER LII. LIII. Lovelace to Belford.--
Two letters entirely characteristic yet intermingled with lessons and
observations not unworthy of a better character.  He has great hopes from
Miss Howe's mediation in his favour.  Picture of two rakes turned
Hermits, in their penitentials.

LETTER LIV. Miss Howe to Clarissa.--
She now greatly approves of her rejection of Lovelace.  Admires the noble
example she has given her sex of a passion conquered.  Is sorry she wrote
to Arabella: but cannot imitate her in her self-accusations, and
acquittals of others who are all in fault.  Her notions of a husband's
prerogative.  Hopes she is employing herself in penning down the
particulars of her tragical story.  Use to be made of it to the advantage
of her sex.  Her mother earnest about it.

LETTER LV. Miss Howe to Miss Montague.--
With Clarissa's Letter, No. XLI. of this volume.  Her own sentiments of
the villanous treatment her beloved friend had met with from their
kinsman.  Prays for vengeance upon him, if she do not recover.

LETTER LVI. Mrs. Norton to Clarissa.--
Acquaints her with some of their movements at Harlowe-place.  Almost
wishes she would marry the wicked man; and why.  Useful reflections on
what has befallen a young lady so universally beloved.  Must try to move
her mother in her favour.  But by what means, will not tell her, unless
she succeed.

LETTER LVII. Mrs. Norton to Mrs. Harlowe.

LETTER LVIII. Mrs. Harlowe's affecting answer.

LETTER LIX. Clarissa to Mrs. Norton.--
Earnestly begs, for reasons equally generous and dutiful, that she may be
left to her own way of working with her relations.  Has received her
sister's answer to her letter, No. XLV. of this volume.  She tries to
find an excuse for the severity of it, though greatly affected by it.
Other affecting and dutiful reflections.

LETTER LX. Her sister's cruel letter, mentioned in the preceding.

LETTER LXI. Clarissa to Miss Howe.--
Is pleased that she now at last approved of her rejecting Lovelace.
Desires her to be comforted as to her.  Promises that she will not run
away from life.  Hopes she has already got above the shock given her by
the ill treatment she has met with from Lovelace.  Has had an escape,
rather than a loss.  Impossible, were it not for the outrage, that she
could have been happy with him; and why.  Sets in the most affecting, the
most dutiful and generous lights, the grief of her father, mother, and
other relations, on her account.  Had begun the particulars of her
tragical story; but would fain avoid proceeding with it; and why.  Opens
her design to make Mr. Belford her executor, and gives her reasons for
it.  Her father having withdrawn his malediction, she now has only a last
blessing to supplicate for.

LETTER LXII. Clarissa to her sister.--
Beseeching her, in the most humble and earnest manner, to procure her a
last blessing.

LETTER LXIII. Mrs. Norton to Clarissa.--
Mr. Brand to be sent up to inquire after her way of life and health.  His
pedantic character.  Believes they will withhold any favour till they
hear his report.  Doubts not that matters will soon take a happy turn.

LETTER LXIV. Clarissa. In answer.--
The grace she asks for is only a blessing to die with, not to live with.
Their favour, if they design her any, may come too late.  Doubts her
mother can do nothing for her of herself.  A strong confederacy against a
poor girl, their daughter, sister, niece.  Her brother perhaps got it
renewed before he went to Edinburgh.  He needed not, says she: his work
is done, and more than done.

LETTER LXV. Lovelace to Belford.--
Is mortified at receiving letters of rejection.  Charlotte writes to the
lady in his favour, in the name of all the family.  Every body approves
of what she has written; and he has great hopes from it.

LETTER LXVI. Copy of Miss Montague's letter to Clarissa.--
Beseeching her, in the names of all their noble family, to receive
Lovelace to favour.

LETTER LXVII. Belford to Lovelace.--
Proposes to put Belton's sister into possession of Belton's house for
him.  The lady visibly altered for the worse.  Again insists upon his
promise not to molest her.

LETTER LXVIII. Clarissa to Miss Montague.--
In answer to her's, No. LXVI.

LETTER LXIX. Belford to Lovelace.--
Has just now received a letter from the lady, which he encloses,
requesting extracts form the letters written to him by Mr. Lovelace
within a particular period.  The reasons which determine him to oblige
her.

LETTER LXX. Belford to Clarissa.--
With the requested extracts; and a plea in his friend's favour.

LETTER LXXI. Clarissa to Belford.--
Thanks him for his communications.  Requests that he will be her
executor; and gives her reasons for her choice of him for that solemn
office.

LETTER LXXII. Belford to Clarissa.--
His cheerful acceptance of the trust.

LETTER LXXIII. Belford to Lovelace.--
Brief account of the extracts delivered to the lady.  Tells him of her
appointing him her executor.  The melancholy pleasure he shall have in
the perusal of her papers.  Much more lively and affecting, says he, must
be the style of those who write in the height of a present distress than
the dry, narrative, unanimated style of a person relating difficulties
surmounted, can be.

LETTER LXXIV. Arabella to Clarissa.--
In answer to her letter, No. LXII., requesting a last blessing.

LETTER LXXV. Clarissa to her mother.--
Written in the fervour of her spirit, yet with the deepest humility, and
on her knees, imploring her blessing, and her father's, as what will
sprinkle comfort through her last hours.

LETTER LXXVI. Miss Montague to Clarissa.--
In reply to her's, No. LXVIII.--All their family love and admire her.
Their kinsman has not one friend among them.  Beseech her to oblige them
with the acceptance of an annuity, and the first payment now sent her, at
least till she can be put in possession of her own estate.  This letter
signed by Lord M., Lady Sarah, Lady Betty, and her sister and self.

LETTER LXXVII. Lovelace to Belford.--
Raves against the lady for rejecting him; yet adores her the more for it.
Has one half of the house to himself, and that the best; having forbid
Lord M. and the ladies to see him, in return for their forbidding him to
see them.  Incensed against Belford for the extracts he has promised from
his letters.  Is piqued to death at her proud refusal of him.  Curses the
vile women, and their potions.  But for these latter, the majesty of her
virtue, he says, would have saved her, as it did once before.

LETTER LXXVIII. Lovelace to Belford.--
He shall not, he tells him, be her executor.  Nobody shall be any thing
to her but himself.  What a reprobation of a man, who was once so dear to
her!  Farther instances of his raving impatience.

LETTER LXXIX. Lovelace to Clarissa.--
A letter full of penitence, promises, praises, and admiration of her
virtue.  Has no hopes of escaping from perdition but by her precepts and
example.  All he begs for the present is a few lines to encourage him to
hope for forgiveness, if he can justify his vows by his future conduct.

LETTER LXXX. Clarissa to Lord M. and the ladies of the house.--
Thankfully declines accepting of their offered bounty.  Pleads for their
being reconciled to their kinsman, for reasons respecting her own peace.
Hopes that they may be enabled to rejoice in the effects of his
reformation many years after she is laid low and forgotten.

LETTER LXXXI. Belford to Lovelace.--
Brief account of his expelling Thomasine, her sons, and her gallant.
Farther reflections on keeping.  A state not calculated for a sick bed.
Gives a short journal of what had passed relating to the lady since his
last.  Mr. Brand inquires after her character and behaviour of Mrs.
Smith.  His starchedness, conceit, and pedantry.

LETTER LXXXII. From the same.--
Farther particulars relating to the lady.  Power left her by her
grandfather's will.

LETTER LXXXIII. Clarissa to Lovelace.--
In answer to his letter, No. LXXIX.

LETTER LXXXIV. Her uncle Harlowe's cruel answer,
in answer to her's to her mother, No. LXXV.  Meditation stitched to it
with black silk.

LETTER LXXXV. Clarissa to her uncle Harlowe. In reply.




THE HISTORY

OF

CLARISSA HARLOWE



LETTER I

MISS HOWE, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE
WED. NIGHT, JULY 12.


I write, my dearest creature, I cannot but write, to express my concern
on your dejection.  Let me beseech you, my charming excellence, let me
beseech you, not to give way to it.

Comfort yourself, on the contrary, in the triumphs of a virtue unsullied;
a will wholly faultless.  Who could have withstood the trials you have
surmounted?--Your cousin Morden will soon come.  He will see justice done
you, I make no doubt, as well with regard to what concerns your person as
your estate.  And many happy days may you yet see; and much good may you
still do, if you will not heighten unavoidable accidents into guilty
despondency.

But why, why, my dear, this pining solicitude continued after a
reconciliation with relations as unworthy as implacable; whose wills are
governed by an all-grasping brother, who finds his account in keeping the
breach open?  On this over-solicitude it is now plain to me, that the
vilest of men built all his schemes.  He saw that you thirsted after it
beyond all reason for hope.  The view, the hope, I own, extremely
desirable, had your family been Christians: or even had they been Pagans
who had had bowels.

I shall send this short letter [I am obliged to make it a short one] by
young Rogers, as we call him; the fellow I sent to you to Hampstead; an
innocent, though pragmatical rustic.  Admit him, I pray you, into you
presence, that he may report to me how you look, and how you are.

Mr. Hickman should attend you; but I apprehend, that all his motions, and
mine own too, are watched by the execrable wretch: and indeed his are by
an agent of mine; for I own, that I am so apprehensive of his plots and
revenge, now I know that he has intercepted my vehement letters against
him, that he is the subject of my dreams, as well as of my waking fears.


***


My mother, at my earnest importunity, has just given me leave to write,
and to receive your letters--but fastened this condition upon the
concession, that your's must be under cover to Mr. Hickman, [this is a
view, I suppose, to give him consideration with me]; and upon this
further consideration, that she is to see all we write.--'When girls are
set upon a point,' she told one who told me again, 'it is better for a
mother, if possible, to make herself of their party, than to oppose them;
since there will be then hopes that she will still hold the reins in her
own hands.'

Pray let me know what the people are with whom you lodge?--Shall I send
Mrs. Townsend to direct you to lodgings either more safe or more
convenient for you?

Be pleased to write to me by Rogers; who will wait on you for your
answer, at your own time.

Adieu, my dearest creature.  Comfort yourself, as you would in the like
unhappy circumstances comfort

Your own
ANNA HOWE.



LETTER II

MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE, TO MISS HOWE
THURSDAY, JULY 13.


I am extremely concerned, my dear Miss Howe, for being primarily the
occasion of the apprehensions you have of this wicked man's vindictive
attempts.  What a wide-spreading error is mine!----

If I find that he has set foot on any machination against you, or against
Mr. Hickman, I do assure you I will consent to prosecute him, although I
were sure I could not survive my first appearance at the bar he should be
arraigned at.

I own the justice of your mother's arguments on that subject; but must
say, that I think there are circumstances in my particular case, which
will excuse me, although on a slighter occasion than that you are
apprehensive of I should decline to appear against him.  I have said,
that I may one day enter more particularly into this argument.

Your messenger has now indeed seen me.  I talked with him on the cheat
put upon him at Hampstead: and am sorry to have reason to say, that had
not the poor young man been very simple, and very self-sufficient, he had
not been so grossly deluded.  Mrs. Bevis has the same plea to make for
herself.  A good-natured, thoughtless woman; not used to converse with so
vile and so specious a deceiver as him, who made his advantage of both
these shallow creatures.

I think I cannot be more private than where I am.  I hope I am safe.  All
the risque I run, is in going out, and returning from morning-prayers;
which I have two or three times ventured to do; once at Lincoln's-inn
chapel, at eleven; once at St. Dunstan's, Fleet-street, at seven in the
morning,* in a chair both times; and twice, at six in the morning, at the
neighbouring church in Covent-garden.  The wicked wretches I have escaped
from, will not, I hope, come to church to look for me; especially at so
early prayers; and I have fixed upon the privatest pew in the latter
church to hide myself in; and perhaps I may lay out a little matter in an
ordinary gown, by way of disguise; my face half hid by my mob.--I am very
careless, my dear, of my appearance now.  Neat and clean takes up the
whole of my attention.


* The seven-o'clock prayers at St. Dunstan's have been since
discontinued.


The man's name at whose house I belong, is Smith--a glove maker, as well
as seller. His wife is the shop-keeper.  A dealer also in stockings,
ribbands, snuff, and perfumes.  A matron-like woman, plain-hearted, and
prudent.  The husband an honest, industrious man.  And they live in good
understanding with each other: a proof with me that their hearts are
right; for where a married couple live together upon ill terms, it is a
sign, I think, that each knows something amiss of the other, either with
regard to temper or morals, which if the world knew as well as
themselves, it would perhaps as little like them as such people like each
other.  Happy the marriage, where neither man nor wife has any wilful or
premeditated evil in their general conduct to reproach the other with!--
for even persons who have bad hearts will have a veneration for those who
have good ones.

Two neat rooms, with plain, but clean furniture, on the first floor, are
mine; one they call the dining-room.

There is, up another pair of stairs, a very worthy widow-lodger, Mrs.
Lovick by name; who, although of low fortunes, is much respected, as Mrs.
Smith assures me, by people of condition of her acquaintance, for her
piety, prudence, and understanding.  With her I propose to be well
acquainted.

I thank you, my dear, for your kind, your seasonable advice and
consolation.  I hope I shall have more grace given me than to despond, in
the religious sense of the word: especially as I can apply to myself the
comfort you give me, that neither my will, nor my inconsiderateness, has
contributed to my calamity.  But, nevertheless, the irreconcilableness of
my relations, whom I love with an unabated reverence; my apprehensions of
fresh violences, [this wicked man, I doubt, will not let me rest]; my
being destitute of protection; my youth, my sex, my unacquaintedness with
the world, subjecting me to insults; my reflections on the scandal I have
given, added to the sense of the indignities I have received from a man,
of whom I deserved not ill; all together will undoubtedly bring on the
effect that cannot be undesirable to me.--The situation; and, as I
presume to imagine, from principles which I hope will, in due time, and
by due reflection, set me above the sense of all worldly disappointments.

At present, my head is much disordered.  I have not indeed enjoyed it
with any degree of clearness, since the violence done to that, and to my
heart too, by the wicked arts of the abandoned creatures I was cast
among.

I must have more conflicts.  At times I find myself not subdued enough to
my condition.  I will welcome those conflicts as they come, as
probationary ones.--But yet my father's malediction--the temporary part
so strangely and so literally completed!--I cannot, however, think, when
my mind is strongest--But what is the story of Isaac, and Jacob, and
Esau, and of Rebekah's cheating the latter of the blessing designed for
him, (in favour of Jacob,) given us for in the 27th chapter of Genesis?
My father used, I remember, to enforce the doctrine deducible from it, on
his children, by many arguments.  At least, therefore, he must believe
there is great weight in the curse he has announced; and shall I not be
solicitous to get it revoked, that he may not hereafter be grieved, for
my sake, that he did not revoke it?

All I will at present add, are my thanks to your mother for her
indulgence to us; due compliments to Mr. Hickman; and my request, that
you will believe me to be, to my last hour, and beyond it, if possible,
my beloved friend, and my dearer self (for what is now myself!)

Your obliged and affectionate
CLARISSA HARLOWE.



LETTER III

MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
FRIDAY, JULY 7.


I have three of thy letters at once before me to answer; in each of which
thou complainest of my silence; and in one of them tellest me, that thou
canst not live without I scribble to thee every day, or every other day
at least.

Why, then, die, Jack, if thou wilt.  What heart, thinkest thou, can I
have to write, when I have lost the only subject worth writing upon?

Help me again to my angel, to my CLARISSA; and thou shalt have a letter
from me, or writing at least part of a letter, every hour.  All that the
charmer of my heart shall say, that will I put down.  Every motion, every
air of her beloved person, every look, will I try to describe; and when
she is silent, I will endeavour to tell thee her thoughts, either what
they are, or what I would have them to be--so that, having her, I shall
never want a subject.  Having lost her, my whole soul is a blank: the
whole creation round me, the elements above, beneath, and every thing I
behold, (for nothing can I enjoy,) are a blank without her.

Oh! return, return, thou only charmer of my soul! return to thy adoring
Lovelace!  What is the light, what the air, what the town, what the
country, what's any thing, without thee?  Light, air, joy, harmony, in my
notion, are but parts of thee; and could they be all expressed in one
word, that word would be CLARISSA.

O my beloved CLARISSA, return thou then; once more return to bless thy
LOVELACE, who now, by the loss of thee, knows the value of the jewel he
has slighted; and rises every morning but to curse the sun that shines
upon every body but him!


***


Well, but, Jack, 'tis a surprising thing to me, that the dear fugitive
cannot be met with; cannot be heard of.  She is so poor a plotter, (for
plotting is not her talent,) that I am confident, had I been at liberty,
I should have found her out before now; although the different emissaries
I have employed about town, round the adjacent villages, and in Miss
Howe's vicinage, have hitherto failed of success.  But my Lord continues
so weak and low-spirited, that there is no getting from him.  I would not
disoblige a man whom I think in danger still: for would his gout, now it
has got him down, but give him, like a fair boxer, the rising-blow, all
would be over with him.  And here [pox of his fondness for me! it happens
at a very bad time] he makes me sit hours together entertaining him with
my rogueries: (a pretty amusement for a sick man!) and yet, whenever he
has the gout, he prays night and morning with his chaplain.  But what
must his notions of religion be, who after he has nosed and mumbled over
his responses, can give a sigh or groan of satisfaction, as if he thought
he had made up with Heaven; and return with a new appetite to my stories?
--encouraging them, by shaking his sides with laughing at them, and
calling me a sad fellow, in such an accent as shows he takes no small
delight in his kinsman.

The old peer has been a sinner in his day, and suffers for it now: a
sneaking sinner, sliding, rather than rushing into vices, for fear of his
reputation.--Paying for what he never had, and never daring to rise to
the joy of an enterprise at first hand, which could bring him within view
of a tilting, or of the honour of being considered as a principal man in
a court of justice.

To see such an old Trojan as this, just dropping into the grave, which I
hoped ere this would have been dug, and filled up with him; crying out
with pain, and grunting with weakness; yet in the same moment crack his
leathern face into an horrible laugh, and call a young sinner charming
varlet, encoreing him, as formerly he used to do to the Italian eunuchs;
what a preposterous, what an unnatural adherence to old habits!

My two cousins are generally present when I entertain, as the old peer
calls it.  Those stories must drag horribly, that have not more hearers
and applauders than relaters.

Applauders!

Ay, Belford, applauders, repeat I; for although these girls pretend to
blame me sometimes for the facts, they praise my manner, my invention, my
intrepidity.--Besides, what other people call blame, that call I praise:
I ever did; and so I very early discharged shame, that cold-water damper
to an enterprising spirit.

These are smart girls; they have life and wit; and yesterday, upon
Charlotte's raving against me upon a related enterprise, I told her, that
I had had in debate several times, whether she were or were not too near
of kin to me: and that it was once a moot point with me, whether I could
not love her dearly for a month or so: and perhaps it was well for her,
that another pretty little puss started up, and diverted me, just as I
was entering upon the course.

They all three held up their hands and eyes at once.  But I observed
that, though the girls exclaimed against me, they were not so angry at
this plain speaking as I have found my beloved upon hints so dark that
I have wondered at her quick apprehension.

I told Charlotte, that, grave as she pretended to be in her smiling
resentments on this declaration, I was sure I should not have been put to
the expense of above two or three stratagems, (for nobody admired a good
invention more than she,) could I but have disentangled her conscience
from the embarrasses of consanguinity.

She pretended to be highly displeased: so did her sister for her.  I told
her, she seemed as much in earnest as if she had thought me so; and dared
the trial.  Plain words, I said, in these cases, were more shocking to
their sex than gradatim actions.  And I bid Patty not be displeased at my
distinguishing her sister; since I had a great respect for her likewise.

An Italian air, in my usual careless way, a half-struggled-for kiss from
me, and a shrug of the shoulder, by way of admiration, from each pretty
cousin, and sad, sad fellow, from the old peer, attended with a
side-shaking laugh, made us all friends.

There, Jack!--Wilt thou, or wilt thou not, take this for a letter?
there's quantity, I am sure.--How have I filled a sheet (not a short-hand
one indeed) without a subject!  My fellow shall take this; for he is
going to town.  And if thou canst think tolerably of such execrable
stuff, I will send thee another.



LETTER IV

MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
SIX, SATURDAY MORNING, JULY 8.


Have I nothing new, nothing diverting, in my whimsical way, thou askest,
in one of thy three letters before me, to entertain thee with?--And thou
tellest me, that, when I have least to narrate, to speak, in the Scottish
phrase, I am most diverting.  A pretty compliment, either to thyself, or
to me.  To both indeed!--a sign that thou hast as frothy a heart as I a
head.  But canst thou suppose that this admirable woman is not all, is
not every thing with me?  Yet I dread to think of her too; for detection
of all my contrivances, I doubt, must come next.

The old peer is also full of Miss Harlowe: and so are my cousins.  He
hopes I will not be such a dog [there's a specimen of his peer-like
dialect] as to think of doing dishonourably by a woman of so much merit,
beauty, and fortune; and he says of so good a family.  But I tell him,
that this is a string he must not touch: that it is a very tender point:
in short, is my sore place; and that I am afraid he would handle it too
roughly, were I to put myself in the power of so ungentle an operator.

He shakes his crazy head.  He thinks all is not as it should be between
us; longs to have me present her to him as my wife; and often tells me
what great things he will do, additional to his former proposals; and
what presents he will make on the birth of the first child.  But I hope
the whole of his estate will be in my hands before such an event takes
place.  No harm in hoping, Jack!  Lord M. says, were it not for hope, the
heart would break.


***


Eight o'clock at Midsummer, and these lazy varletesses (in full health)
not come down yet to breakfast!--What a confounded indecency in young
ladies, to let a rake know that they love their beds so dearly, and, at
the same time, where to have them!  But I'll punish them--they shall
breakfast with their old uncle, and yawn at one another as if for a
wager; while I drive my phaëton to Colonel Ambroses's, who yesterday gave
me an invitation both to breakfast and dine, on account of two Yorkshire
nieces, celebrated toasts, who have been with him this fortnight past;
and who, he says, want to see me.  So, Jack, all women do not run away
from me, thank Heaven!--I wish I could have leave of my heart, since the
dear fugitive is so ungrateful, to drive her out of it with another
beauty.  But who can supplant her?  Who can be admitted to a place in it
after Miss Clarissa Harlowe?

At my return, if I can find a subject, I will scribble on, to oblige
thee.

My phaëton's ready.  My cousins send me word they are just coming down:
so in spite I'll be gone.


SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

I did stay to dine with the Colonel, and his lady, and nieces: but I
could not pass the afternoon with them, for the heart of me.  There was
enough in the persons and faces of the two young ladies to set me upon
comparisons.  Particular features held my attention for a few moments:
but these served but to whet my impatience to find the charmer of my
soul; who, for person, for air, for mind, never had any equal.  My heart
recoiled and sickened upon comparing minds and conversation.  Pert wit, a
too-studied desire to please; each in high good humour with herself; an
open-mouth affectation in both, to show white teeth, as if the principal
excellence; and to invite amorous familiarity, by the promise of a sweet
breath; at the same time reflecting tacitly upon breaths arrogantly
implied to be less pure.

Once I could have borne them.

They seemed to be disappointed that I was so soon able to leave them.
Yet have I not at present so much vanity [my Clarissa has cured me of my
vanity] as to attribute their disappointment so much to particular liking
of me, as to 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 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 a 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 V

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 to-day, at
about five o'clock, arrived Lady Sarah Sadleir and Lady Betty Lawrance,
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 looked 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 to 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.


With horrible grave faces was I received.  The two antiquities 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 claspt, and
turning round and round, under and over, his but just disgouted thumb;
his sallow face, and goggling eyes, 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 chorus'd 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 find
handwriting: her perfections my crimes.  What can you expect will be the
end of these things! cried Lady Sarah--d----d, d----d doings! vociferated
the Peer, shaking his loose-fleshe'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 Lawrance.  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 to
was so scratched out that I could not read it; which afflicted me much.

She puts three questions in it to Lady Betty.

1st.  About a letter of her's, dated June 7, congratulating me on my
nuptials, and which I was so good as to save Lady Betty the trouble of
writing----A very civil thing of me, I think!

Again--'Whether she and one of her nieces Montague were to go to town, on
an old chancery suit?'--And, 'Whether they actually did go to town
accordingly, and to Hampstead afterwards?' and, 'Whether they brought to
town from thence the young creature whom they visited?' was the subject
of the second and third questions.

A little inquisitive, dear rogue! and what did she expect to be the
better for these questions?----But curiosity, d----d curiosity, is the
itch of the sex--yet when didst thou know it turned to their benefit?--
For they seldom inquire, but what they fear--and the proverb, as my Lord
has it, says, It comes with a fear.  That is, I suppose, what they fear
generally happens, because there is generally occasion for the fear.

Curiosity indeed she avows to be her only motive for these
interrogatories: for, though she says her Ladyship may suppose the
questions are not asked for good to me, yet the answer can do me no harm,
nor her good, only to give her to understand, whether I have told her a
parcel of d----d lyes; that's the plain English of her inquiry.

Well, Madam, said I, with as much philosophy as I could assume; and may I
ask--Pray, what was your Ladyship's answer?

There's a copy of it, tossing it to me, very disrespectfully.

This answer was dated July 1.  A very kind and complaisant one to the
lady, but very so-so to her poor kinsman--That people can give up their
own flesh and blood with so much ease!--She tells her 'how proud all our
family would be of an alliance with such an excellence.'  She does me
justice in saying how much I adore her, as an angel of a woman; and begs
of her, for I know not how many sakes, besides my soul's sake, 'that she
will be so good as to have me for a husband:' and answers--thou wilt
guess how--to the lady's questions.

Well, Madam; and pray, may I be favoured with the lady's other letter?
I presume it is in reply to your's.

It is, said the Peer: but, Sir, let me ask you a few questions, before
you read it--give me the letter, Lady Betty.

There it is, my Lord.

Then on went the spectacles, and his head moved to the lines--a charming
pretty hand!--I have often heard that this lady is a genius.

And so, Jack, repeating my Lord's wise comments and questions will let
thee into the contents of this merciless letter.

'Monday, July 3,' [reads my Lord.]--Let me see!--that was last Monday; no
longer ago!  'Monday, July the third--Madam--I cannot excuse myself'--um,
um, um, um, um, um, [humming inarticulately, and skipping,]--'I must own
to you, Madam, that the honour of being related'----

Off went the spectacles--Now, tell me, Sir-r, Has not this lady lost all
the friends she had in the world for your sake?

She has very implacable friends, my Lord: we all know that.

But has she not lost them all for your sake?--Tell me that.

I believe so, my Lord.

Well then!--I am glad thou art not so graceless as to deny that.

On went the spectacles again--'I must own to you, Madam, that the honour
of being related to ladies as eminent for their virtue as for their
descent.'--Very pretty, truly! saith my Lord, repeating, 'as eminent for
their virtue as for their descent, was, at first, no small inducement
with me to lend an ear to Mr. Lovelace's address.'

There is dignity, born-dignity, in this lady, cried my Lord.

Lady Sarah.   She would have been a grace to our family.

Lady Betty.   Indeed she would.

Lovel.   To a royal family, I will venture to say.

Lord M.   Then what a devil---

Lovel.   Please to read on, my Lord.  It cannot be her letter, if it does
not make you admire her more and more as you read.  Cousin Charlotte,
Cousin Patty, pray attend----Read on, my Lord.

Miss Charlotte.   Amazing fortitude!

Miss Patty only lifted up her dove's eyes.

Lord M.   [Reading.]  'And the rather, as I was determined, had it come
to effect, to do every thing in my power to deserve your favourable
opinion.'

Then again they chorus'd upon me!

A blessed time of it, poor I!--I had nothing for it but impudence!

Lovel.   Pray read on, my Lord--I told you how you would all admire her
----or, shall I read?

Lord M.   D----d assurance!  [Then reading.]  'I had another motive,
which I knew would of itself give me merit with your whole family: [they
were all ear:] a presumptuous one; a punishably-presumptuous one, as it
has proved: in the hope that I might be an humble mean, in the hand of
Providence, to reclaim a man who had, as I thought, good sense enough at
bottom to be reclaimed; or at least gratitude enough to acknowledge the
intended obligation, whether the generous hope were to succeed or not.'
--Excellent young creature!--

Excellent young creature! echoed the Ladies, with their handkerchiefs at
their eyes, attended with music.

Lovel.   By my soul, Miss Patty, you weep in the wrong place: you shall
never go with me to a tragedy.

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 any thing: but how can she
answer for what other men would or would not have done in the same
circumstances?

I was forced to say any thing 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 that, Sir-r?

Lady S. |  Ay, Sir, what say you to this?
Lady B. |

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 further
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! 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 your's, 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 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 an 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 female 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 her's:--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 would 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 enterprising.  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 controul; 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.--Westminster-hall, 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 treated--

Lovel.   [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 would 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 humourous 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 an 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 now-and-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 loth 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 characters.

He called upon me to explain myself, with a Sir-r, so pronounced, as to
show 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 own pleasure above your
estate.  But I'll let Pritchard know, that if he draws, he shall sign
and seal.

Why, what would I do to Pritchard?--shaking his crazy 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?--Hay, 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 me 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 curst 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 fare 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 would 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.

But my Lord Marplot would have it that I could not be serious for six
minutes together.

I told his Lordship that he was mistaken; light as he thought I made of
his subject, I never knew any that went so near my heart.

Miss Patty said she was glad to hear that: and her soft eyes glistened
with pleasure.

Lord M. called her sweet soul, and was ready to cry.

Not from humanity neither, Jack.  This Peer has no bowels; as thou
mayest observe by this treatment of me.  But when people's minds are
weakened by a sense of their own infirmities, and when they are drawing
on to their latter ends, they will be moved on the slightest occasions,
whether those offer from within or without them.  And this, frequently,
the unpenetrating world, calls humanity; when all the time, in
compassionating the miseries of human nature, they are but pitying
themselves; and were they in strong health and spirits, would care as
little for any body else as thou or I do.

Here broke they off my trial for this sitting.  Lady Sarah was much
fatigued.  It was agreed to pursue the subject in the morning.  They
all, however, retired together, and went into private conference.



LETTER VI

MR. LOVELACE
[IN CONTINUATION.]


The Ladies, instead of taking up the subject where we had laid it down,
must needs touch upon passage in my fair accuser's letter, which I was in
hopes they would have let rest, as we were in a tolerable way.  But,
truly, they must hear all they could hear of our story, and what I had to
say to those passages, that they might be better enabled to mediate
between us, if I were really and indeed inclined to do her the hoped-for
justice.

These passages were, 1st, 'That, after I had compulsorily tricked her
into the act of going off with me, I carried her to one of the worst
houses in London.'

2nd, 'That I had made a wicked attempt upon her; in resentment of which
she fled to Hampstead privately.'

3dly, Came the forgery, and personating charges again; and we were upon
the point of renewing out quarrel, before we could get to the next
charge: which was still worse.

For that (4thly) was 'That having betrayed her back to the vile house, I
first robbed her of her senses, and then her honour; detaining her
afterwards a prisoner there.'

Were I to tell thee the glosses I put upon these heavy charges, what
would it be, but repeat many of the extenuating arguments I have used in
my letters to thee?--Suffice it, therefore, to say, that I insisted much,
by way of palliation, on the lady's extreme niceness: on her diffidence
in my honour: on Miss Howe's contriving spirit; plots on their parts
begetting plots on mine: on the high passions of the sex.  I asserted,
that my whole view, in gently restraining her, was to oblige her to
forgive me, and to marry me; and this for the honour of both families.
I boasted of my own good qualities; some of which none that knew me deny;
and to which few libertines can lay claim.

They then fell into warm admirations and praises of the lady; all of them
preparatory, as I knew, to the grand question: and thus it was introduced
by Lady Sarah.

We have said as much as I think we can say upon these letters of the poor
lady.  To dwell upon the mischiefs that may ensue from the abuse of a
person of her rank, if all the reparation be not made that now can be
made, would perhaps be to little purpose.  But you seem, Sir, still to
have a just opinion of her, as well as affection for her.  Her virtue is
not in the least questionable.  She could not resent as she does, had she
any thing to reproach herself with.  She is, by every body's account, a
fine woman; has a good estate in her own right; is of no contemptible
family; though I think, with regard to her, they have acted as
imprudently as unworthily.  For the excellency of her mind, for good
economy, the common speech of her, as the worthy Dr. Lewen once told me,
is that her prudence would enrich a poor man, and her piety reclaim a
licentious one.  I, who have not been abroad twice this twelvemonth, came
hither purposely, so did Lady Betty, to see if justice may not be done
her; and also whether we, and my Lord M. (your nearest relations, Sir,)
have, or have not, any influence over you.  And, for my own part, as your
determination shall be in this article, such shall be mine, with regard
to the disposition of all that is within my power.

Lady Betty.   And mine.

And mine, said my Lord: and valiantly he swore to it.

Lovel.   Far be it from me to think slightly of favours you may any of
you be glad I would deserve! but as far be it from me to enter into
conditions against my own liking, with sordid views!--As to future
mischiefs, let them come.  I have not done with the Harlowes yet.  They
were the aggressors; and I should be glad they would let me hear from
them, in the way they should hear from me in the like case.  Perhaps I
should not be sorry to be found, rather than be obliged to seek, on this
occasion.

Miss Charlotte.   [Reddening.]  Spoke like a man of violence, rather than
a man of reason!  I hope you'll allow that, Cousin.

Lady Sarah.  Well, but since what is done, and cannot be undone, let us
think of the next best, Have you any objection against marrying Miss
Harlowe, if she will have you?

Lovel.   There can possibly be but one: That she is to every body, no
doubt, as well as to Lady Betty, pursuing that maxim peculiar to herself,
(and let me tell you so it ought to be:) that what she cannot conceal
from herself, she will publish to the world.

Miss Patty.   The lady, to be sure, writes this in the bitterness of her
grief, and in despair.----

Lovel.   And so when her grief is allayed; when her despairing fit is
over--and this from you, Cousin Patty!--Sweet girl!  And would you, my
dear, in the like case [whispering her] have yielded to entreaty--would
you have meant no more by the like exclamations?

I had a rap with her fan, and blush; and from Lord M. a reflection, That
I turn'd into jest every thing they said.

I asked, if they thought the Harlowes deserved any consideration from me?
And whether that family would not exult over me, were I to marry their
daughter, as if I dared not to do otherwise?

Lady Sarah.   Once I was angry with that family, as we all were.  But now
I pity them; and think, that you have but too well justified the worse
treatment they gave you.

Lord M.   Their family is of standing.  All gentlemen of it, and rich,
and reputable.  Let me tell you, that many of our coronets would be glad
they could derive their descents from no worse a stem than theirs.

Lovel.   The Harlowes are a narrow-souled and implacable family.  I hate
them: and, though I revere the lady, scorn all relation to them.

Lady Betty.   I wish no worse could be said of him, who is such a scorner
of common failings in others.

Lord M.   How would my sister Lovelace have reproached herself for all
her indulgent folly to this favourite boy of her's, had she lived till
now, and been present on this occasion!

Lady Sarah.   Well, but, begging your Lordship's pardon, let us see if
any thing can be done for this poor lady.

Miss Ch.   If Mr. Lovelace has nothing to object against the lady's
character, (and I presume to think he is not ashamed to do her justice,
though it may make against himself,) I cannot but see her honour and
generosity will compel from him all that we expect.  If there be any
levities, any weaknesses, to be charged upon the lady, I should not open
my lips in her favour; though in private I would pity her, and deplore
her hard hap.  And yet, even then, there might not want arguments, from
honour to gratitude, in so particular a case, to engage you, Sir, to make
good the vows it is plain you have broken.

Lady Betty.  My niece Charlotte has called upon you so justly, and has
put the question to you so properly, that I cannot but wish you would
speak to it directly, and without evasion.

All in a breath then bespoke my seriousness, and my justice: and in this
manner I delivered myself, assuming an air sincerely solemn.

'I am very sensible that the performance of the task you have put me upon
will leave me without excuse: but I will not have recourse either to
evasion or palliation.

'As my cousin Charlotte has severely observed, I am not ashamed to do
justice to Miss Harlowe's merit.

'I own to you all, and, what is more, with high regret, (if not with
shame, cousin Charlotte,) that I have a great deal to answer for in my
usage of this lady.  The sex has not a nobler mind, nor a lovelier person
of it.  And, for virtue, I could not have believed (excuse me, Ladies)
that there ever was a woman who gave, or could have given, such
illustrious, such uniform proofs of it: for, in her whole conduct, she
has shown herself to be equally above temptation and art; and, I had
almost said, human frailty.

'The step she so freely blames herself for taking, was truly what she
calls compulsatory: for though she was provoked to think of going off
with me, she intended it not, nor was provided to do so: neither would
she ever have had the thought of it, had her relations left her free,
upon her offered composition to renounce the man she did not hate, in
order to avoid the man she did.

'It piqued my pride, I own, that I could so little depend upon the force
of those impressions which I had the vanity to hope I had made in a heart
so delicate; and, in my worst devices against her, I encouraged myself
that I abused no confidence; for none had she in my honour.

'The evils she has suffered, it would have been more than a miracle had
she avoided.  Her watchfulness rendered more plots abortive than those
which contributed to her fall; and they were many and various.  And all
her greater trials and hardships were owing to her noble resistance and
just resentment.

'I know, proceeded I, how much I condemn myself in the justice I am doing
to this excellent creature.  But yet I will do her justice, and cannot
help it if I would.  And I hope this shows that I am not so totally
abandoned as I have been thought to be.

'Indeed, with me, she has done more honour to her sex in her fall, if it
be to be called a fall, (in truth it ought not,) than ever any other
could do in her standing.

'When, at length, I had given her watchful virtue cause of suspicion, I
was then indeed obliged to make use of power and art to prevent her
escaping from me.  She then formed contrivances to elude mine; but all
her's were such as strict truth and punctilious honour would justify.
She could not stoop to deceit and falsehood, no, not to save herself.
More than once justly did she tell me, fired by conscious worthiness,
that her soul was my soul's superior!--Forgive me, Ladies, for saying,
that till I knew her, I questioned a soul in a sex, created, as I was
willing to suppose, only for temporary purposes.--It is not to be
imagined into what absurdities men of free principle run in order to
justify to themselves their free practices; and to make a religion to
their minds: and yet, in this respect, I have not been so faulty as some
others.

'No wonder that such a noble creature as this looked upon every studied
artifice as a degree of baseness not to be forgiven: no wonder that she
could so easily become averse to the man (though once she beheld him with
an eye not wholly indifferent) whom she thought capable of premeditated
guilt.  Nor, give me leave, on the other hand, to say, is it to be
wondered at, that the man who found it so difficult to be forgiven for
the slighter offences, and who had not the grace to recede or repent,
(made desperate,) should be hurried on to the commission of the greater.

'In short, Ladies, in a word, my Lord, Miss Clarissa Harlowe is an angel;
if ever there was or could be one in human nature: and is, and ever was,
as pure as an angel in her will: and this justice I must do her, although
the question, I see by every glistening eye, is ready to be asked, What
then, Lovelace, art thou?'--

Lord M.   A devil!--a d----d devil! I must answer.  And may the curse of
God follow you in all you undertake, if you do not make her the best
amends now in your power to make her!

Lovel.   From you, my Lord, I could expect no other: but from the Ladies
I hope for less violence from the ingenuousness of my confession.

The Ladies, elder and younger, had their handkerchiefs to their eyes, at
the just testimony which I bore to the merits of this exalted creature;
and which I would make no scruple to bear at the bar of a court of
justice, were I to be called to it.

Lady Betty.   Well, Sir, this is a noble character.  If you think as you
speak, surely you cannot refuse to do the lady all the justice now in
your power to do her.

They all joined in this demand.

I pleaded, that I was sure she would not have me: that, when she had
taken a resolution, she was not to be moved.  Unpersuadableness was an
Harlowe sin: that, and her name, I told them, were all she had of theirs.

All were of opinion, that she might, in her present desolate
circumstances, be brought to forgive me.  Lady Sarah said, that Lady
Betty and she would endeavour to find out the noble sufferer, as they
justly called her; and would take her into their protection, and be
guarantees of the justice that I would do her; as well after marriage as
before.

It was some pleasure to me, to observe the placability of these ladies of
my own family, had they, any or either of them, met with a LOVELACE.  But
'twould be hard upon us honest fellows, Jack, if all women were
CLARISSAS.

Here I am obliged to break off.



LETTER VII

MR. LOVELACE
[IN CONTINUATION.]


It is much better, Jack, to tell your own story, when it must be known,
than to have an adversary tell it for you.  Conscious of this, I gave
them a particular account how urgent I had been with her to fix upon the
Thursday after I left her (it being her uncle Harlowe's anniversary
birth-day, and named to oblige her) for the private celebration; having
some days before actually procured a license, which still remained with
her.

That, not being able to prevail upon her to promise any thing, while
under a supposed restraint!  I offered to leave her at full liberty, if
she would give me the least hope for that day.  But neither did this
offer avail me.

That this inflexibleness making me desperate, I resolved to add to my
former fault, by giving directions that she should not either go or
correspond out of the house, till I returned from M. Hall; well knowing,
that if she were at full liberty, I must for ever lose her.

That this constraint had so much incensed her, that although I wrote no
less than four different letters, I could not procure a single word in
answer; though I pressed her but for four words to signify the day and
the church.

I referred to my two cousins to vouch for me the extraordinary methods I
took to send messengers to town, though they knew not the occasion; which
now I told them was this.

I acquainted them, that I even had wrote to you, Jack, and to another
gentleman of whom I thought she had a good opinion, to attend her, in
order to press for her compliance; holding myself in readiness the last
day, at Salt-hill, to meet the messenger they should send, and proceed to
London, if his message were favourable.  But that, before they could
attend her, she had found means to fly away once more: and is now, said
I, perched perhaps somewhere under Lady Betty's window at Glenham-hall;
and there, like the sweet Philomela, a thorn in her breast, warbles forth
her melancholy complaints against her barbarous Tereus.

Lady Betty declared that she was not with her; nor did she know where she
was.  She should be, she added, the most welcome guest to her that she
ever received.

In truth, I had a suspicion that she was already in their knowledge, and
taken into their protection; for Lady Sarah I imagined incapable of being
roused to this spirit by a letter only from Miss Harlowe, and that not
directed to herself; she being a very indolent and melancholy woman.  But
her sister, I find had wrought her up to it: for Lady Betty is as
officious and managing a woman as Mrs. Howe; but of a much more generous
and noble disposition--she is my aunt, Jack.

I supposed, I said, that her Ladyship might have a private direction
where to send to her.  I spoke as I wished: I would have given the world
to have heard that she was inclined to cultivate the interest of any of
my family.

Lady Betty answered that she had no direction but what was in the letter;
which she had scratched out, and which, it was probable, was only a
temporary one, in order to avoid me: otherwise she would hardly have
directed an answer to be left at an inn.  And she was of opinion, that to
apply to Miss Howe would be the only certain way to succeed in any
application for forgiveness, would I enable that young lady to interest
herself in procuring it.

Miss Charlotte.   Permit me to make a proposal.----Since we are all of
one mind, in relation to the justice due to Miss Harlowe, if Mr. Lovelace
will oblige himself to marry her, I will make Miss Howe a visit, little
as I am acquainted with her; and endeavour to engage her interest to
forward the desired reconciliation.  And if this can be done, I make no
question but all may be happily accommodated; for every body knows the
love there is between Miss Harlowe and Miss Howe.

MARRIAGE, with these women, thou seest, Jack, is an atonement for all we
can do to them.  A true dramatic recompense!

This motion was highly approved of; and I gave my honour, as desired, in
the fullest manner they could wish.

Lady Sarah.   Well then, Cousin Charlotte, begin your treaty with Miss
Howe, out of hand.

Lady Betty.   Pray do.  And let Miss Harlowe be told, that I am ready to
receive her as the most welcome of guests: and I will not have her out of
my sight till the knot is tied.

Lady Sarah.   Tell her from me, that she shall be my daughter, instead of
my poor Betsey!----And shed a tear in remembrance of her lost daughter.

Lord M.   What say you, Sir, to this?

Lovel.   CONTENT, my Lord, I speak in the language of your house.

Lord M.   We are not to be fooled, Nephew.  No quibbling.  We will have
no slur put upon us.

Lovel.   You shall not.  And yet, I did not intend to marry, if she
exceeded the appointed Thursday.  But, I think (according to her own
notions) that I have injured her beyond reparation, although I were to
make her the best of husbands; as I am resolved to be, if she will
condescend, as I will call it, to have me.  And be this, Cousin
Charlotte, my part of your commission to say.

This pleased them all.

Lord M.   Give me thy hand, Bob!--Thou talkest like a man of honour at
last.  I hope we may depend upon what thou sayest!

The Ladies eyes put the same question to me.

Lovel.   You may, my Lord--You may, Ladies--absolutely you may.

Then was the personal character of the lady, as well as her more
extraordinary talents and endowments again expatiated upon: and Miss
Patty, who had once seen her, launched out more than all the rest in her
praise.  These were followed by such inquiries as are never forgotten to
be made in marriage-treaties, and which generally are the principal
motives with the sages of a family, though the least to be mentioned by
the parties themselves, and yet even by them, perhaps, the first thought
of: that is to say, inquisition into the lady's fortune; into the
particulars of the grandfather's estate; and what her father, and her
single-souled uncles, will probably do for her, if a reconciliation be
effected; as, by their means, they make no doubt but it will be between
both families, if it be not my fault.  The two venerables [no longer
tabbies with me now] hinted at rich presents on their own parts; and my
Lord declared that he would make such overtures in my behalf, as should
render my marriage with Miss Harlowe the best day's work I ever made;
and what, he doubted not, would be as agreeable to that family as to
myself.

Thus, at present, by a single hair, hangs over my head the matrimonial
sword.  And thus ended my trial.  And thus are we all friends, and Cousin
and Cousin, and Nephew and Nephew, at every word.

Did ever comedy end more happily than this long trial?



LETTER VIII

MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
WEDN. JULY 12.


So, Jack, they think they have gained a mighty point.  But, were I to
change my mind, were I to repent, I fancy I am safe.--And yet this very
moment it rises to my mind, that 'tis hard trusting too; for surely there
must be some embers, where there was fire so lately, that may be stirred
up to give a blaze to combustibles strewed lightly upon them.  Love, like
some self-propagating plants, or roots, (which have taken strong hold in
the earth) when once got deep into the heart, is hardly ever totally
extirpated, except by matrimony indeed, which is the grave of love,
because it allows of the end of love.  Then these ladies, all advocates
for herself, with herself, Miss Howe at their head, perhaps,----not in
favour to me--I don't expect that from Miss Howe--but perhaps in favour
to herself: for Miss Howe has reason to apprehend vengeance from me, I
ween.  Her Hickman will be safe too, as she may think, if I marry her
beloved friend: for he has been a busy fellow, and I have long wished to
have a slap at him!--The lady's case desperate with her friends too; and
likely to be so, while single, and her character exposed to censure.

A husband is a charming cloke, a fig-leaved apron for a wife: and for a
lady to be protected in liberties, in diversions, which her heart pants
after--and all her faults, even the most criminal, were she to be
detected, to be thrown upon the husband, and the ridicule too; a charming
privilege for a wife!

But I shall have one comfort, if I marry, which pleases me not a little.
If a man's wife has a dear friend of her sex, a hundred liberties may be
taken with that friend, which could not be taken, if the single lady
(knowing what a title to freedoms marriage had given him with her friend)
was not less scrupulous with him than she ought to be as to herself.
Then there are broad freedoms (shall I call them?) that may be taken by
the husband with his wife, that may not be quite shocking, which, if the
wife bears before her friends, will serve for a lesson to that friend;
and if that friend bears to be present at them without check or
bashfulness, will show a sagacious fellow that she can bear as much
herself, at proper time and place.

Chastity, Jack, like piety, is an uniform thing.  If in look, if in
speech, a girl give way to undue levity, depend upon it the devil has
got one of his cloven feet in her heart already--so, Hickman, take care
of thyself, I advise thee, whether I marry or not.

Thus, Jack, have I at once reconciled myself to all my relations--and if
the lady refuses me, thrown the fault upon her.  This, I knew, would be
in my power to do at any time: and I was the more arrogant to them, in
order to heighten the merit of my compliance.

But, after all, it would be very whimsical, would it not, if all my plots
and contrivances should end in wedlock?  What a punishment should this
come out to be, upon myself too, that all this while I have been
plundering my own treasury?

And then, can there be so much harm done, if it can be so easily repaired
by a few magical words; as I Robert take thee, Clarissa; and I Clarissa
take thee, Robert, with the rest of the for-better and for-worse
legerdemain, which will hocus pocus all the wrongs, the crying wrongs,
that I have done to Miss Harlowe, into acts of kindness and benevolence
to Mrs. Lovelace?

But, Jack, two things I must insist upon with thee, if this is to be the
case.--Having put secrets of so high a nature between me and my spouse
into thy power, I must, for my own honour, and for the honour of my wife
and illustrious progeny, first oblige thee to give up the letters I have
so profusely scribbled to thee; and in the next place, do by thee, as I
have heard whispered in France was done by the true father of a certain
monarque; that is to say, cut thy throat, to prevent thy telling of
tales.

I have found means to heighten the kind opinion my friends here have
begun to have of me, by communicating to them the contents of the four
last letters which I wrote to press my elected spouse to solemnize.  My
Lord repeated one of his phrases in my favour, that he hopes it will come
out, that the devil is not quite so black as he is painted.

Now pr'ythee, dear Jack, since so many good consequences are to flow from
these our nuptials, (one of which to thyself; since the sooner thou
diest, the less thou wilt have to answer for); and that I now-and-then am
apt to believe there may be something in the old fellow's notion, who
once told us, that he who kills a man, has all that man's sins to answer
for, as well as his own, because he gave him not the time to repent of
them that Heaven designed to allow him, [a fine thing for thee, if thou
consentest to be knocked of the head; but a cursed one for the
manslayer!] and since there may be room to fear that Miss Howe will not
give us her help; I pr'ythee now exert thyself to find out my Clarissa
Harlowe, that I may make a LOVELACE of her.  Set all the city bellmen,
and the country criers, for ten miles round the metropolis, at work, with
their 'Oye's! and if any man, woman, or child can give tale or tidings.'
--Advertise her in all the news-papers; and let her know, 'That if she
will repair to Lady Betty Lawrance, or to Miss Charlotte Montague, she
may hear of something greatly to her advantage.'


***


My two cousins Montague are actually to set out to-morrow to Mrs. Howe's,
to engage her vixen daughter's interest with her friend.  They will
flaunt it away in a chariot-and-six, for the greater state and
significance.

Confounded mortification to be reduced this low!--My pride hardly knows
how to brook it.

Lord M. has engaged the two venerables to stay here to attend the issue:
and I, standing very high at present in their good graces, am to gallant
them to Oxford, to Blenheim, and to several other places.



LETTER IX

MISS HOWE, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE
THURSDAY NIGHT, JULY 13.


Collins sets not out to-morrow.  Some domestic occasion hinders him.
Rogers is but now returned from you, and cannot be well spared.  Mr.
Hickman is gone upon an affair of my mother's, and has taken both his
servants with him, to do credit to his employer: so I am forced to
venture this by post, directed by your assumed name.

I am to acquaint you, that I have been favoured with a visit from Miss
Montague and her sister, in Lord M.'s chariot-and-six.  My Lord's
gentleman rode here yesterday, with a request that I would receive a
visit from the two young ladies, on a very particular occasion; the
greater favour if it might be the next day.

As I had so little personal knowledge of either, I doubted not but it
must be in relation to the interests of my dear friend; and so consulting
with my mother, I sent them an invitation to favour me (because of the
distance) with their company at dinner; which they kindly accepted.

I hope, my dear, since things have been so very bad, that their errand to
me will be as agreeable to you, as any thing that can now happen.  They
came in the name of Lord M. and Lady Sarah and Lady Betty his two
sisters, to desire my interest to engage you to put yourself into the
protection of Lady Betty; who will not part with you till she sees all
the justice done you that now can be done.

Lady Sarah had not stirred out for a twelve-month before; never since she
lost her agreeable daughter whom you and I saw at Mrs. Benson's: but was
induced to take this journey by Lady Betty, purely to procure you
reparation, if possible.  And their joint strength, united with Lord
M.'s, has so far succeeded, that the wretch has bound himself to them,
and to these young ladies, in the solemnest manner, to wed you in their
presence, if they can prevail upon you to give him your hand.

This consolation you may take to yourself, that all this honourable
family have a due (that is, the highest) sense of your merit, and greatly
admire you.  The horrid creature has not spared himself in doing justice
to your virtue; and the young ladies gave us such an account of his
confessions, and self-condemnation, that my mother was quite charmed with
you; and we all four shed tears of joy, that there is one of our sex [I,
that that one is my dearest friend,] who has done so much honour to it,
as to deserve the exalted praises given you by a wretch so
self-conceited; though pity for the excellent creature mixed with our
joy.

He promises by them to make the best of husbands; and my Lord, and Lady
Sarah, and Lady Betty, are all three to be guarantees that he will be so.
Noble settlements, noble presents, they talked of: they say, they left
Lord M. and his two sisters talking of nothing else but of those presents
and settlements, how most to do you honour, the greater in proportion for
the indignities you have suffered; and of changing of names by act of
parliament, preparative to the interest they will all join to make to get
the titles to go where the bulk of the estate must go, at my Lord's
death, which they apprehend to be nearer than they wish.  Nor doubt they
of a thorough reformation in his morals, from your example and influence
over him.

I made a great many objections for you--all, I believe, that you could
have made yourself, had you been present.  But I have no doubt to advise
you, my dear, (and so does my mother,) instantly to put yourself into
Lady Betty's protection, with a resolution to take the wretch for your
husband.  All his future grandeur [he wants not pride] depends upon his
sincerity to you; and the young ladies vouch for the depth of his concern
for the wrongs he has done you.

All his apprehension is, in your readiness to communicate to every one,
as he fears, the evils you have suffered; which he thinks will expose you
both.  But had you not revealed them to Lady Betty, you had not had so
warm a friend; since it is owing to two letters you wrote to her, that
all this good, as I hope it will prove, was brought about.  But I advise
you to be more sparing in exposing what is past, whether you have
thoughts of accepting him or not: for what, my dear, can that avail now,
but to give a handle to vile wretches to triumph over your friends; since
every one will not know how much to your honour your very sufferings have
been?

Your melancholy letter brought by Rogers,* with his account of your
indifferent health, confirmed to him by the woman of the house, as well
as by your looks and by your faintness while you talked with him, would
have given me inexpressible affliction, had I not been cheered by this
agreeable visit from the young ladies.  I hope you will be equally so on
my imparting the subject of it to you.


* See Letter II. of this volume.


Indeed, my dear, you must not hesitate.  You must oblige them.  The
alliance is splendid and honourable.  Very few will know any thing of his
brutal baseness to you.  All must end, in a little while, in a general
reconciliation; and you will be able to resume your course of doing the
good to every deserving object, which procured you blessings wherever you
set your foot.

I am concerned to find, that your father's inhuman curse affects you so
much as it does.  Yet you are a noble creature to put it, as you put it--
I hope you are indeed more solicitous to get it revoked for their sakes
than for your own.  It is for them to be penitent, who hurried you into
evils you could not well avoid.  You are apt to judge by the unhappy
event, rather than upon the true merits of your case.  Upon my honour, I
think you faultless almost in every step you have taken.  What has not
that vilely-insolent and ambitious, yet stupid, brother of your's to
answer for?--that spiteful thing your sister too!

But come, since what is past cannot be helped, let us look forward.  You
have now happy prospects opening to you: a family, already noble,
prepared to receive you with open arms and joyful heart; and who, by
their love to you, will teach another family (who know not what an
excellence they have confederated to persecute) how to value you.  Your
prudence, your piety, will crown all.  You will reclaim a wretch that,
for an hundred sakes more than for his own, one would wish to be
reclaimed.

Like a traveller, who has been put out of his way, by the overflowing of
some rapid stream, you have only had the fore-right path you were in
overwhelmed.  A few miles about, a day or two only lost, as I may say,
and you are in a way to recover it; and, by quickening your speed, will
get up the lost time.  The hurry upon your spirits, mean time, will be
all your inconvenience; for it was not your fault you were stopped in
your progress.

Think of this, my dear; and improve upon the allegory, as you know how.
If you can, without impeding your progress, be the means of assuaging the
inundation, of bounding the waters within their natural channel, and
thereby of recovering the overwhelmed path for the sake of future
passengers who travel the same way, what a merit will your's be!

I shall impatiently expect your next letter.  The young ladies proposed
that you should put yourself, if in town, or near it, into the Reading
stage-coach, which inns somewhere in Fleet-street: and, if you give
notice of the day, you will be met on the road, and that pretty early in
your journey, by some of both sexes; one of whom you won't be sorry to
see.

Mr. Hickman shall attend you at Slough; and Lady Betty herself, and one
of the Miss Montagues, with proper equipages, will be at Reading to
receive you; and carry you directly to the seat of the former: for I have
expressly stipulated, that the wretch himself shall not come into your
presence till your nuptials are to be solemnized, unless you give leave.

Adieu, my dearest friend.  Be happy: and hundreds will then be happy of
consequence.  Inexpressibly so, I am sure, will then be

Your ever affectionate
ANNA HOWE.



LETTER X

MISS HOWE, TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE
SUNDAY NIGHT, JULY 16.


MY DEAREST FRIEND,

Why should you permit a mind, so much devoted to your service, to labour
under such an impatience as you must know it would labour under, for want
of an answer to a letter of such consequence to you, and therefore to me,
as was mine of Thursday night?--Rogers told me, on Thursday, you were so
ill; your letter sent by him was so melancholy!--Yet you must be ill
indeed, if you could not write something to such a letter; were it but a
line, to say you would write as soon as you could.  Sure you have
received it.  The master of your nearest post-office will pawn his
reputation that it went safe: I gave him particular charge of it.

God send me good news of your health, of your ability to write; and then
I will chide you--indeed I will--as I never yet did chide you.

I suppose your excuse will be, that the subject required consideration--
Lord! my dear, so it might; but you have so right a mind, and the matter
in question is so obvious, that you could not want half an hour to
determine.--Then you intended, probably, to wait Collins's call for your
letter as on to-morrow!--Suppose something were to happen, as it did on
Friday, that he should not be able to go to town to-morrow?--How, child,
could you serve me so!--I know not how to leave off scolding you!

Dear, honest Collins, make haste: he will: he will.  He sets out, and
travels all night: for I have told him, that the dearest friend I have in
the world has it in her own choice to be happy, and to make me so; and
that the letter he will bring from her will assure it to me.

I have ordered him to go directly (without stopping at the
Saracen's-head-inn) to you at your lodgings.  Matters are now in so good
a way, that he safely may.

Your expected letter is ready written I hope: if it can be not, he will
call for it at your hour.

You can't be so happy as you deserve to be: but I doubt not that you will
be as happy as you can; that is, that you will choose to put yourself
instantly into Lady Betty's protection.  If you would not have the wretch
for your own sake; have him you must, for mine, for your family's, for
your honour's, sake!--Dear, honest Collins, make haste! make haste! and
relieve the impatient heart of my beloved's

Ever faithful, ever affectionate,
ANNA HOWE.



LETTER XI

MISS HOWE, TO MISS CHARLOTTE MONTAGUE
TUESDAY MORN. JULY 18.


MADAM,

I take the liberty to write to you, by this special messenger.  In the
phrensy of my soul I write to you, to demand of you, and of any of your
family who can tell news of my beloved friend, who, I doubt, has been
spirited away by the base arts of one of the blackest--O help me to a
name black enough to call him by!  Her piety is proof against
self-attempts.  It must, it must be he, the only wretch, who could injure
such an innocent; and now--who knows what he has done with her!

If I have patience, I will give you the occasion of this distracted
vehemence.

I wrote to her the very moment you and your sister left me.  But being
unable to procure a special messenger, as I intended, was forced to send
by the post.  I urged her, [you know I promised that I would: I urged
her,] with earnestness, to comply with the desires of all your family.
Having no answer, I wrote again on Sunday night; and sent it by a
particular hand, who travelled all night; chiding her for keeping a heart
so impatient as mine in such cruel suspense, upon a matter of so much
importance to her, and therefore to me.  And very angry I was with her in
my mind.

But, judge my astonishment, my distraction, when last night, the
messenger, returning post-haste, brought me word, that she had not been
heard of since Friday morning! and that a letter lay for her at her
lodgings, which came by the post; and must be mine!

She went out about six that morning; only intending, as they believe, to
go to morning-prayers at Covent-Garden church, just by her lodgings, as
she had done divers times before--Went on foot!--Left word she should be
back in an hour!--Very poorly in health!

Lord, have mercy upon me!  What shall I do!--I was a distracted creature
all last night!

O Madam! you know not how I love her!--My own soul is not dearer to me,
than my Clarissa Harlowe!--Nay! she is my soul--for I now have none--only
a miserable one, however--for she was the joy, the stay, the prop of my
life.  Never woman loved woman as we love one another.  It is impossible
to tell you half her excellencies.  It was my glory and my pride, that I
was capable of so fervent a love of so pure and matchless a creature.--
But now--who knows, whether the dear injured has not all her woes, her
undeserved woes, completed in death; or is not reserved for a worse fate!
--This I leave to your inquiry--for--your--[shall I call the man----
your?] relation I understand is still with you.

Surely, my good Ladies, you were well authorized in the proposals you
made in presence of my mother!--Surely he dare not abuse your confidence,
and the confidence of your noble relations!  I make no apology for giving
you this trouble, nor for desiring you to favour with a line, by this
messenger,

Your almost distracted
ANNA HOWE.



LETTER XII

MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
M. HALL, SAT. NIGHT, JUNE 15.


All undone, undone, by Jupiter!--Zounds, Jack, what shall I do now! a
curse upon all my plots and contrivances!--But I have it----in the very
heart and soul of me I have it!

Thou toldest me, that my punishments were but beginning--Canst thou, O
fatal prognosticator, canst thou tell me, where they will end?

Thy assistance I bespeak.  The moment thou receivest this, I bespeak thy
assistance.  This messenger rides for life and death--and I hope he'll
find you at your town-lodgings; if he meet not with you at Edgware;
where, being Sunday, he will call first.

This cursed, cursed woman, on Friday dispatched man and horse with the
joyful news (as she thought it would be to me) in an exulting letter from
Sally Martin, that she had found out my angel as on Wednesday last; and
on Friday morning, after she had been at prayers at Covent-Garden church
--praying for my reformation perhaps--got her arrested by two sheriff's
officers, as she was returning to her lodgings, who (villains!) put her
into a chair they had in readiness, and carried her to one of the cursed
fellow's houses.

She has arrested her for 150£. pretendedly due for board and lodging: a
sum (besides the low villany of the proceeding) which the dear soul could
not possibly raise: all her clothes and effects, except what she had on
and with her when she went away, being at the old devil's.

And here, for an aggravation, has the dear creature lain already two
days; for I must be gallanting my two aunts and my two cousins, and
giving Lord M. an airing after his lying-in--pox upon the whole family
of us! and returned not till within this hour: and now returned to my
distraction, on receiving the cursed tidings, and the exulting letter.

Hasten, hasten, dear Jack; for the love of God, hasten to the injured
charmer! my heart bleeds for her!--she deserved not this!--I dare not
stir.  It will be thought done by my contrivance--and if I am absent from
this place, that will confirm the suspicion.

Damnation seize quick this accursed woman!--Yet she thinks she has made
no small merit with me.  Unhappy, thrice unhappy circumstances!--At a
time too, when better prospects were opening for the sweet creature!

Hasten to her!--Clear me of this cursed job.  Most sincerely, by all
that's sacred, I swear you may!----Yet have I been such a villanous
plotter, that the charming sufferer will hardly believe it: although the
proceeding be so dirtily low.

Set her free the moment you see her: without conditioning, free!--On your
knees, for me, beg her pardon: and assure her, that, wherever she goes, I
will not molest her: no, nor come near her without her leave: and be sure
allow not any of the d----d crew to go near her--only let her permit you
to receive her commands from time to time.--You have always been her
friend and advocate.  What would I now give, had I permitted you to have
been a successful one!

Let her have all her clothes and effects sent her instantly, as a small
proof of my sincerity.  And force upon the dear creature, who must be
moneyless, what sums you can get her to take.  Let me know how she has
been treated.  If roughly, woe be to the guilty!

Take thy watch in thy hand, after thou hast freed her, and d--n the whole
brood, dragon and serpents, by the hour, till thou'rt tired; and tell
them, I bid thee do so for their cursed officiousness.

They had nothing to do when they had found her, but to wait my orders how
to proceed.

The great devil fly away with them all, one by one, through the roof of
their own cursed house, and dash them to pieces against the tops of
chimneys as he flies; and let the lesser devils collect the scattered
scraps, and bag them up, in order to put them together again in their
allotted place, in the element of fire, with cements of molten lead.

A line! a line! a kingdom for a line! with tolerable news, the first
moment thou canst write!--This fellow waits to bring it.



LETTER XIII

MISS CHARLOTTE MONTAGUE, TO MISS HOWE
M. HALL, TUESDAY AFTERNOON.


DEAR MISS HOWE,

Your letter has infinitely disturbed us all.

This wretched man has been half distracted ever since Saturday night.

We knew not what ailed him, till your letter was brought.

Vile wretch, as he is, he is however innocent of this new evil.

Indeed he is, he must be; as I shall more at large acquaint you.

But will not now detain your messenger.

Only to satisfy your just impatience, by telling you, that the dear young
lady is safe, and we hope well.

A horrid mistake of his general orders has subjected her to the terror
and disgrace of an arrest.

Poor dear Miss Harlowe!--Her sufferings have endeared her to us, almost
as much as her excellencies can have endeared her to you.

But she must now be quite at liberty.

He has been a distracted man, ever since the news was brought him; and we
knew not what ailed him.

But that I said before.

My Lord M. my Lady Sarah Sadleir, and my Lady Betty Lawrance, will all
write to you this very afternoon.

And so will the wretch himself.

And send it by a servant of their own, not to detain your's.

I know not what I write.

But you shall have all the particulars, just, and true, and fair, from

Dear Madam,
Your most faithful and obedient servant,
CH. MONTAGUE.



LETTER XIV

MISS MONTAGUE, TO MISS HOWE
M. HALL, JULY 18.


DEAR MADAM,

In pursuance of my promise, I will minutely inform you of every thing we
know relating to this shocking transaction.

When we returned from you on Thursday night, and made our report of the
kind reception both we and our message met with, in that you had been so
good as to promise to use your interest with your dear friend, it put us
all into such good humour with one another, and with my cousin Lovelace,
that we resolved upon a little tour of two days, the Friday and Saturday,
in order to give an airing to my Lord, and Lady Sarah, both having been
long confined, one by illness, the other by melancholy.  My Lord, Lady
Sarah, Lady Betty, and myself, were in the coach; and all our talk was of
dear Miss Harlowe, and of our future happiness with her: Mr. Lovelace and
my sister (who is his favourite, as he is her's) were in his phaëton:
and, whenever we joined company, that was still the subject.

As to him, never man praised woman as he did her: Never man gave greater
hopes, and made better resolutions.  He is none of those that are
governed by interest.  He is too proud for that.  But most sincerely
delighted was he in talking of her; and of his hopes of her returning
favour.  He said, however, more than once, that he feared she would not
forgive him; for, from his heart, he must say, he deserved not her
forgiveness: and often and often, that there was not such a woman in the
world.

This I mention to show you, Madam, that he could not at this time be
privy to such a barbarous and disgraceful treatment of her.

We returned not till Saturday night, all in as good humour with one
another as we went out.  We never had such pleasure in his company
before.  If he would be good, and as he ought to be, no man would be
better beloved by relations than he.  But never was there a greater
alteration in man when he came home, and received a letter from a
messenger, who, it seems, had been flattering himself in hopes of a
reward, and had been waiting for his return from the night before.  In
such a fury!--The man fared but badly.  He instantly shut himself up to
write, and ordered man and horse to be ready to set out before day-light
the next morning, to carry the letter to a friend in London.

He would not see us all that night; neither breakfast nor dine with us
next day.  He ought, he said, never to see the light; and bid my sister,
whom he called an innocent, (and who was very desirous to know the
occasion of all this,) shun him, saying, he was a wretch, and made so by
his own inventions, and the consequences of them.

None of us could get out of him what so disturbed him.  We should too
soon hear, he said, to the utter dissipation of all his hopes, and of all
ours.

We could easily suppose that all was not right with regard to the worthy
young lady and him.

He went out each day; and said he wanted to run away from himself.

Late on Monday night he received a letter from Mr. Belford, his most
favoured friend, by his own messenger; who came back in a foam, man and
horse.  Whatever were the contents, he was not easier, but like a madman
rather: but still would not let us know the occasion.  But to my sister
he said, nobody, my dear Patsey, who can think but of half the plagues
that pursue an intriguing spirit, would ever quit the fore-right path.

He was out when your messenger came: but soon came in; and bad enough was
his reception from us all.  And he said, that his own torments were
greater than ours, than Miss Harlowe's, or your's, Madam, all put
together.  He would see your letter.  He always carries every thing
before him: and said, when he had read it, that he thanked God, he was
not such a villain, as you, with too great an appearance of reason,
thought him.

Thus, then, he owned the matter to be.

He had left general instructions to the people of the lodgings the dear
lady went from, to find out where she was gone to, if possible, that he
might have an opportunity to importune her to be his, before their
difference was public.  The wicked people (officious at least, if not
wicked) discovered where she was on Wednesday; and, for fear she should
remove before they could have his orders, they put her under a gentle
restraint, as they call it; and dispatched away a messenger to acquaint
him with it; and to take his orders.

This messenger arrived Friday afternoon; and staid here till we returned
on Saturday night:--and, when he read the letter he brought--I have told
you, Madam, what a fury he was in.

The letter he retired to write, and which he dispatched away so early on
Sunday morning, was to conjure his friend, Mr. Belford, on receipt of it,
to fly to the lady, and set her free; and to order all her things to be
sent to her; and to clear him of so black and villanous a fact, as he
justly called it.

And by this time he doubts not that all is happily over; and the beloved
of his soul (as he calls her at ever word) in an easier and happier way
than she was before the horrid fact.  And now he owns that the reason why
Mr. Belford's letter set him into stronger ravings was, because of his
keeping him wilfully (and on purpose to torment him) in suspense; and
reflecting very heavily upon him, (for Mr. Belford, he says, was ever the
lady's friend and advocate); and only mentioning, that he had waited upon
her; referring to his next for further particulars; which Mr. Belford
could have told him at the time.

He declares, and we can vouch for him, that he has been, ever since last
Saturday night, the most miserable of men.

He forbore going up himself, that it might not be imagined he was guilty
of so black a contrivance; and that he went up to complete any base views
in consequence of it.

Believe us all, dear Miss Howe, under the deepest concern at this unhappy
accident; which will, we fear, exasperate the charming sufferer; not too
much for the occasion, but too much for our hopes.

O what wretches are these free-living men, who love to tread in intricate
paths; and, when once they err, know not how far out of the way their
headstrong course may lead them!

My sister joins her thanks with mine to your good mother and self, for
the favours you heaped upon us last Thursday.  We beseech your continued
interest as to the subject of our visit.  It shall be all our studies to
oblige and recompense the dear lady to the utmost of our power, and for
what she has suffered from the unhappy man.

We are, dear Madam,
Your obliged and faithful servants,
CHARLOTTE | MONTAGUE.
MARTHA    |


***


DEAR MISS HOWE,

We join in the above request of Miss Charlotte and Miss Patty Montague,
for your favour and interest; being convinced that the accident was an
accident, and no plot or contrivance of a wretch too full of them.  We
are, Madam,

Your most obedient humble servants,

M.
SARAH SADLEIR.
ELIZ. LAWRANCE.


***


DEAR MISS HOWE,

After what is written above, by names and characters of unquestionable
honour, I might have been excused signing a name almost as hateful to
myself, as I KNOW it is to you.  But the above will have it so.  Since,
therefore, I must write, it shall be the truth; which is, that if I may
be once more admitted to pay my duty to the most deserving and most
injured of her sex, I will be content to do it with a halter about my
neck; and, attended by a parson on my right hand, and the hangman on my
left, be doomed, at her will, either to the church or the gallows.

Your most humble servant,
ROBERT LOVELACE.

TUESDAY, JULY 18.



LETTER XV

MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
SUNDAY NIGHT, JULY 16.


What a cursed piece of work hast thou made of it, with the most excellent
of women!  Thou mayest be in earnest, or in jest, as thou wilt; but the
poor lady will not be long either thy sport, or the sport of fortune!

I will give thee an account of a scene that wants but her affecting pen
to represent it justly; and it would wring all the black blood out of thy
callous heart.

Thou only, who art the author of her calamities, shouldst have attended
her in her prison.  I am unequal to such a task: nor know I any other man
but would.

This last act, however unintended by thee, yet a consequence of thy
general orders, and too likely to be thought agreeable to thee, by those
who know thy other villanies by her, has finished thy barbarous work.
And I advise thee to trumpet forth every where, how much in earnest thou
art to marry her, whether true or not.

Thou mayest safely do it.  She will not live to put thee to the trial;
and it will a little palliate for thy enormous usage of her, and be a
mean to make mankind, who know not what I know of the matter, herd a
little longer with thee, and forbear to hunt thee to thy fellow-savages
in the Lybian wilds and desarts.

Your messenger found me at Edgware expecting to dinner with me several
friends, whom I had invited three days before.  I sent apologies to them,
as in a case of life and death; and speeded to town to the
woman's: for how knew I but shocking attempts might be made upon her by
the cursed wretches: perhaps by your connivance, in order to mortify her
into your measures?

Little knows the public what villanies are committed by vile wretches, in
these abominable houses upon innocent creatures drawn into their snares.

Finding the lady not there, I posted away to the officer's, although
Sally told me that she had but just come from thence; and that she had
refused to see her, or (as she sent down word) any body else; being
resolved to have the remainder of that Sunday to herself, as it might,
perhaps, be the last she should ever see.

I had the same thing told me, when I got thither.

I sent up to let her know, that I came with a commission to set her at
liberty.  I was afraid of sending up the name of a man known to be your
friend.  She absolutely refused to see any man, however, for that day, or
to answer further to any thing said from me.

Having therefore informed myself of all that the officer, and his wife,
and servant, could acquaint me with, as well in relation to the horrid
arrest, as to her behaviour, and the women's to her; and her ill state of
health; I went back to Sinclair's, as I will still call her, and heard
the three women's story.  From all which I am enabled to give you the
following shocking particulars: which may serve till I can see the
unhappy lady herself to-morrow, if then I gain admittance to her.  You
will find that I have been very minute in my inquiries.

Your villain it was that set the poor lady, and had the impudence to
appear, and abet the sheriff's officers in the cursed transaction.  He
thought, no doubt, that he was doing the most acceptable service to his
blessed master.  They had got a chair; the head ready up, as soon as
service was over.  And as she came out of the church, at the door
fronting Bedford-street, the officers, stepping up to her, whispered that
they had an action against her.

She was terrified, trembled, and turned pale.

Action, said she!  What is that!----I have committed no bad action!----
Lord bless me! men, what mean you?

That you are our prisoner, Madam.

Prisoner, Sirs!--What--How--Why--What have I done?

You must go with us.  Be pleased, Madam, to step into this chair.

With you!--With men!  Must go with men!--I am not used to go with strange
men!----Indeed you must excuse me!

We can't excuse you.  We are sheriff's officers,  We have a writ against
you.  You must go with us, and you shall know at whose suit.

Suit! said the charming innocent; I don't know what you mean.  Pray, men,
don't lay hands upon me; (they offering to put her into the chair.)  I am
not used to be thus treated--I have done nothing to deserve it.

She then spied thy villain--O thou wretch, said she, where is thy vile
master?--Am I again to be his prisoner?  Help, good people!

A crowd had begun to gather.

My master is in the country, Madam, many miles off.  If you please to go
with these men, they will treat you civilly.

The people were most of them struck with compassion.  A fine young
creature!--A thousand pities cried some. While some few threw out vile
and shocking reflections!  But a gentleman interposed, and demanded to
see the fellow's authority.

They showed it.  Is your name Clarissa Harlowe, Madam? said he.

Yes, yes, indeed, ready to sink, my name was Clarissa Harlowe:--but it is
now Wretchedness!----Lord be merciful to me, what is to come next?

You must go with these men, Madam, said the gentleman: they have
authority for what they do.

He pitied her, and retired.

Indeed you must, said one chairman.

Indeed you must, said the other.

Can nobody, joined in another gentleman, be applied to, who will see that
so fine a creature is not ill used?

Thy villain answered, orders were given particularly for that.  She had
rich relations.  She need but ask and have.  She would only be carried to
the officer's house till matters could be made up.  The people she had
lodged with loved her:--but she had left her lodgings privately.

Oh! had she those tricks already? cried one or two.

She heard not this--but said--Well, if I must go, I must--I cannot resist
--but I will not be carried to the woman's!  I will rather die at your
feet, than be carried to the woman's.

You won't be carried there, Madam, cried thy fellow.

Only to my house, Madam, said one of the officers.

Where is that?

In High-Holborn, Madam.

I know not where High-Holborn is: but any where, except to the woman's.
----But am I to go with men only?

Looking about her, and seeing the three passages, to wit, that leading to
Henrietta-street, that to King-street, and the fore-right one, to
Bedford-street, crowded, she started--Any where--any where, said she, but
to the woman's!  And stepping into the chair, threw herself on the seat,
in the utmost distress and confusion--Carry me, carry me out of sight--
cover me--cover me up--for ever--were her words.

Thy villain drew the curtain: she had not power: and they went away with
her through a vast crowd of people.

Here I must rest.  I can write no more at present.

Only, Lovelace, remember, all this was to a Clarissa.


***


The unhappy lady fainted away when she was taken out of the chair at the
officer's house.

Several people followed the chair to the very house, which is in a
wretched court.  Sally was there; and satisfied some of the inquirers,
that the young gentlewoman would be exceedingly well used: and they soon
dispersed.

Dorcas was also there; but came not in her sight.  Sally, as a favour,
offered to carry her to her former lodgings: but she declared they should
carry her thither a corpse, if they did.

Very gentle usage the women boast of: so would a vulture, could it speak,
with the entrails of its prey upon its rapacious talons.  Of this you'll
judge from what I have to recite.

She asked, what was meant by this usage of her?  People told me, said
she, that I must go with the men: that they had authority to take me: so
I submitted.  But now, what is to be the end of this disgraceful
violence?

The end, said the vile Sally Martin, is, for honest people to come at
their own.

Bless me! have I taken away any thing that belongs to those who have
obtained the power over me?--I have left very valuable things behind me;
but have taken away that is not my own.

And who do you think, Miss Harlowe; for I understand, said the cursed
creature, you are not married; who do you think is to pay for your board
and your lodgings! such handsome lodgings! for so long a time as you were
at Mrs. Sinclair's?

Lord have mercy upon me!--Miss Martin, (I think you are Miss Martin!)--
And is this the cause of such a disgraceful insult upon me in the open
streets?

And cause enough, Miss Harlowe! (fond of gratifying her jealous revenge,
by calling her Miss,)--One hundred and fifty guineas, or pounds, is no
small sum to lose--and by a young creature who would have bilked her
lodgings.

You amaze me, Miss Martin!--What language do you talk in?--Bilk my
lodgings?--What is that?

She stood astonished and silent for a few moments.

But recovering herself, and turning from her to the window, she wrung her
hands [the cursed Sally showed me how!] and lifting them up--Now,
Lovelace: now indeed do I think I ought to forgive thee!--But who shall
forgive Clarissa Harlowe!----O my sister!--O my brother!--Tender mercies
were your cruelties to this!

After a pause, her handkerchief drying up her falling tears, she turned
to Sally: Now, have I nothing to do but acquiesce--only let me say, that
if this aunt of your's, this Mrs. Sinclair, or this man, this Mr.
Lovelace, come near me; or if I am carried to the horrid house; (for
that, I suppose, is the design of this new outrage;) God be merciful to
the poor Clarissa Harlowe!----Look to the consequence!----Look, I charge
you, to the consequence!

The vile wretch told her, it was not designed to carry her any where
against her will: but, if it were, they should take care not to be
frighted again by a penknife.

She cast up her eyes to Heaven, and was silent--and went to the farthest
corner of the room, and, sitting down, threw her handkerchief over her
face.

Sally asked her several questions; but not answering her, she told her,
she would wait upon her by-and-by, when she had found her speech.

She ordered the people to press her to eat and drink.  She must be
fasting--nothing but her prayers and tears, poor thing!--were the
merciless devil's words, as she owned to me.--Dost think I did not curse
her?

She went away; and, after her own dinner, returned.

The unhappy lady, by this devil's account of her, then seemed either
mortified into meekness, or to have made a resolution not to be provoked
by the insults of this cursed creature.

Sally inquired, in her presence, whether she had eat or drank any thing;
and being told by the woman, that she could not prevail upon her to taste
a morsel, or drink a drop, she said, this is wrong, Miss Harlowe!  Very
wrong!--Your religion, I think, should teach you, that starving yourself
is self-murder.

She answered not.

The wretch owned she was resolved to make her speak.

She asked if Mabell should attend her, till it were seen what her friends
would do for her in discharge of the debt?  Mabell, said she, had not yet
earned the clothes you were so good as to give her.

Am I not worthy an answer, Miss Harlowe?

I would answer you (said the sweet sufferer, without any emotion) if I
knew how.

I have ordered pen, ink, and paper, to be brought you, Miss Harlowe.
There they are.  I know you love writing.  You may write to whom you
please.  Your friend, Miss Howe, will expect to hear from you.

I have no friend, said she, I deserve none.

Rowland, for that's the officer's name, told her, she had friends enow to
pay the debt, if she would write.

She would trouble nobody; she had no friends; was all they could get from
her, while Sally staid: but yet spoken with a patience of spirit, as if
she enjoyed her griefs.

The insolent creature went away, ordering them, in the lady's hearing, to
be very civil to her, and to let her want for nothing.  Now had she, she
owned, the triumph of her heart over this haughty beauty, who kept them
all at such a distance in their own house!

What thinkest thou, Lovelace, of this!--This wretch's triumph was over a
Clarissa!

About six in the evening, Rowland's wife pressed her to drink tea.  She
said, she had rather have a glass of water; for her tongue was ready to
cleave to the roof of her mouth.

The woman brought her a glass, and some bread and butter.  She tried to
taste the latter; but could not swallow it: but eagerly drank the water;
lifting up her eyes in thankfulness for that!!!

The divine Clarissa, Lovelace,--reduced to rejoice for a cup of cold
water!--By whom reduced?

About nine o'clock she asked if any body were to be her bedfellow.

Their maid, if she pleased; or, as she was so weak and ill, the girl
should sit up with her, if she chose she should.

She chose to be alone both night and day, she said.  But might she not be
trusted with the key of the room where she was to lie down; for she
should not put off her clothes!

That, they told her, could not be.

She was afraid not, she said.--But indeed she would not get away, if she
could.

They told me, that they had but one bed, besides that they lay in
themselves, (which they would fain have had her accept of,) and besides
that their maid lay in, in a garret, which they called a hole of a
garret: and that that one bed was the prisoner's bed; which they made
several apologies to me about.  I suppose it is shocking enough.

But the lady would not lie in theirs.  Was she not a prisoner? she said
--let her have the prisoner's room.

Yet they owned that she started, when she was conducted thither.  But
recovering herself, Very well, said she--why should not all be of a
piece?--Why should not my wretchedness be complete?

She found fault, that all the fastenings were on the outside, and none
within; and said, she could not trust herself in a room where others
could come in at their pleasure, and she not go out.  She had not been
used to it!!!

Dear, dear soul!--My tears flow as I write!----Indeed, Lovelace, she had
not been used to such treatment.

They assured her, that it was as much their duty to protect her from
other persons' insults, as from escaping herself.

Then they were people of more honour, she said, than she had been of late
used to.

She asked if they knew Mr. Lovelace?

No, was their answer.

Have you heard of him?

No.

Well, then, you may be good sort of folks in your way.

Pause here for a moment, Lovelace!--and reflect--I must.


***


Again they asked her if they should send any word to her lodgings?

These are my lodgings now; are they not?--was all her answer.

She sat up in a chair all night, the back against the door; having, it
seems, thrust a piece of a poker through the staples where a bolt had
been on the inside.


***


Next morning Sally and Polly both went to visit her.

She had begged of Sally, the day before, that she might not see Mrs.
Sinclair, nor Dorcas, nor the broken-toothed servant, called William.

Polly would have ingratiated herself with her; and pretended to be
concerned for her misfortunes.  But she took no more notice of her than
of the other.

They asked if she had any commands?--If she had, she only need to mention
what they were, and she should be obeyed.

None at all, she said.

How did she like the people of the house?  Were they civil to her?

Pretty well, considering she had no money to give them.

Would she accept of any money? they could put it to her account.

She would contract no debts.

Had she any money about her?

She meekly put her hand in her pocket, and pulled out half a guinea, and
a little silver.  Yes, I have a little.----But here should be fees paid,
I believe.  Should there not?  I have heard of entrance-money to compound
for not being stript.  But these people are very civil people, I fancy;
for they have not offered to take away my clothes.

They have orders to be civil to you.

It is very kind.

But we two will bail you, Miss, if you will go back with us to Mrs.
Sinclair's.

Not for the world!

Her's are very handsome apartments.

The fitter for those who own them!

These are very sad ones.

The fitter for me!

You may be happy yet, Miss, if you will.

I hope I shall.

If you refuse to eat or drink, we will give bail, and take you with us.

Then I will try to eat and drink.  Any thing but go with you.

Will you not send to your new lodgings; the people will be frighted.

So they will, if I send.  So they will, if they know where I am.

But have you no things to send for from thence?

There is what will pay for their lodgings and trouble: I shall not lessen
their security.

But perhaps letters or messages may be left for you there.

I have very few friends; and to those I have I will spare the
mortification of knowing what has befallen me.

We are surprised at your indifference, Miss Harlowe!  Will you not write
to any of your friends?

No.

Why, you don't think of tarrying here always?

I shall not live always.

Do you think you are to stay here as long as you live?

That's as it shall please God, and those who have brought me hither.

Should you like to be at liberty?

I am miserable!--What is liberty to the miserable, but to be more
miserable.

How miserable, Miss?--You may make yourself as happy as you please.

I hope you are both happy.

We are.

May you be more and more happy!

But we wish you to be so too.

I shall never be of your opinion, I believe, as to what happiness is.

What do you take our opinion of happiness to be?

To live at Mrs. Sinclair's.

Perhaps, said Sally, we were once as squeamish and narrow-minded as you.

How came it over with you?

Because we saw the ridiculousness of prudery.

Do you come hither to persuade me to hate prudery, as you call it, as
much as you do?

We came to offer our service to you.

It is out of your power to serve me.

Perhaps not.

It is not in my inclination to trouble you.

You may be worse offered.

Perhaps I may.

You are mighty short, Miss.

As I wish your visit to be, Ladies.

They owned to me, that they cracked their fans, and laughed.

Adieu, perverse beauty!

Your servant, Ladies.

Adieu, haughty airs!

You see me humbled--

As you deserve, Miss Harlowe.  Pride will have a fall.

Better fall, with what you call pride, than stand with meanness.

Who does?

I had once a better opinion of you, Miss Horton!--Indeed you should not
insult the miserable.

Neither should the miserable, said Sally, insult people for their
civility.

I should be sorry if I did.

Mrs. Sinclair shall attend you by-and-by, to know if you have any
commands for her.

I have no wish for any liberty, but that of refusing to see her, and one
more person.

What we came for, was to know if you had any proposals to make for your
enlargement.

Then, it seems, the officer put in.  You have very good friends, Madam,
I understand.  Is it not better that you make it up?  Charges will run
high.  A hundred and fifty guineas are easier paid than two hundred.  Let
these ladies bail you, and go along with them; or write to your friends
to make it up.

Sally said, There is a gentleman who saw you taken, and was so much moved
for you, Miss Harlowe, that he would gladly advance the money for you,
and leave you to pay it when you can.

See, Lovelace, what cursed devils these are!  This is the way, we know,
that many an innocent heart is thrown upon keeping, and then upon the
town.  But for these wretches thus to go to work with such an angel as
this!--How glad would have been the devilish Sally, to have had the least
handle to report to thee a listening ear, or patient spirit, upon this
hint!

Sir, said she, with high indignation, to the officer, did not you say,
last night, that it was as much your business to protect me from the
insults of others, as from escaping?--Cannot I be permitted to see whom
I please? and to refuse admittance to those I like not?

Your creditors, Madam, will expect to see you.

Not if I declare I will not treat with them.

Then, Madam, you will be sent to prison.

Prison, friend!--What dost thou call thy house?

Not a prison, Madam.

Why these iron-barred windows, then?  Why these double locks and bolts
all on the outside, none on the in?

And down she dropt into her chair, and they could not get another word
from her.  She threw her handkerchief over her face, as one before, which
was soon wet with tears; and grievously, they own, she sobbed.

Gentle treatment, Lovelace!--Perhaps thou, as well as these wretches,
will think it so!

Sally then ordered a dinner, and said, They would soon be back a gain,
and see that she eat and drank, as a good christian should, comporting
herself to her condition, and making the best of it.

What has not this charming creature suffered, what has she not gone
through, in these last three months, that I know of!--Who would think
such a delicately-framed person could have sustained what she has
sustained!  We sometimes talk of bravery, of courage, of fortitude!--Here
they are in perfection!--Such bravoes as thou and I should never have
been able to support ourselves under half the persecutions, the
disappointments, and contumelies, that she has met with; but, like
cowards, should have slid out of the world, basely, by some back-door;
that is to say, by a sword, by a pistol, by a halter, or knife;--but here
is a fine-principled woman, who, by dint of this noble consideration, as
I imagine, [What else can support her?] that she has not deserved the
evils she contends with; and that this world is designed but as a
transitory state of the probation; and that she is travelling to another
and better; puts up with all the hardships of the journey; and is not to
be diverted from her course by the attacks of thieves and robbers, or any
other terrors and difficulties; being assured of an ample reward at the
end of it.

If thou thinkest this reflection uncharacteristic from a companion and
friend of thine, imaginest thou, that I profited nothing by my long
attendance on my uncle in his dying state; and from the pious reflections
of the good clergyman, who, day by day, at the poor man's own request,
visited and prayed by him?--And could I have another such instance, as
this, to bring all these reflections home to me?

Then who can write of good persons, and of good subjects, and be capable
of admiring them, and not be made serious for the time?  And hence may we
gather what a benefit to the morals of men the keeping of good company
must be; while those who keep only bad, must necessarily more and more
harden, and be hardened.


***


'Tis twelve of the clock, Sunday night--I can think of nothing but this
excellent creature.  Her distresses fill my head and my heart.  I was
drowsy for a quarter of an hour; but the fit is gone off.  And I will
continue the melancholy subject from the information of these wretches.
Enough, I dare say, will arise in the visit I shall make, if admitted
to-morrow, to send by thy servant, as to the way I am likely to find her
in.

After the women had left her, she complained of her head and her heart;
and seemed terrified with apprehensions of being carried once more to
Sinclair's.

Refusing any thing for breakfast, Mrs. Rowland came up to her, and told
her, (as these wretches owned they had ordered her, for fear she should
starve herself,) that she must and should have tea, and bread and butter:
and that, as she had friends who could support her, if she wrote to them,
it was a wrong thing, both for herself and them, to starve herself thus.

If it be for your own sakes, said she, that is another thing: let coffee,
or tea, or chocolate, or what you will, be got: and put down a chicken to
my account every day, if you please, and eat it yourselves.  I will taste
it, if I can.  I would do nothing to hinder you.  I have friends will pay
you liberally, when they know I am gone.

They wondered, they told her, at her strange composure in such
distresses.

They were nothing, she said, to what she had suffered already from the
vilest of all men.  The disgrace of seizing her in the street; multitudes
of people about her; shocking imputations wounding her ears; had indeed
been very affecting to her.  But that was over.--Every thing soon would!
--And she should be still more composed, were it not for the
apprehensions of seeing one man, and one woman; and being tricked or
forced back to the vilest house in the world.

Then were it not better to give way to the two gentlewoman's offer to
bail her?--They could tell her, it was a very kind proffer; and what was
not to be met every day.

She believed so.

The ladies might, possibly, dispense with her going back to the house to
which she had such an antipathy.  Then the compassionate gentleman, who
was inclined to make it up with her creditors on her own bond--it was
very strange to them she hearkened not to so generous a proposal.

Did the two ladies tell you who the gentleman was?--Or, did they say any
more on the subject?

Yes, they did! and hinted to me, said the woman, that you had nothing to
do but to receive a visit from the gentleman, and the money, they
believed, would be laid down on your own bond or note.

She was startled.

I charge you, said she, as you will answer it one day to my friends, I
charge you don't.  If you do, you know not what may be the consequence.

They apprehended no bad consequence, they said, in doing their duty: and
if she knew not her own good, her friends would thank them for taking any
innocent steps to serve her, though against her will.

Don't push me upon extremities, man!--Don't make me desperate, woman!--I
have no small difficulty, notwithstanding the seeming composure you just
now took notice of, to bear, as I ought to bear, the evils I suffer.  But
if you bring a man or men to me, be the pretence what it will----

She stopt there, and looked so earnestly, and so wildly, they said, that
they did not know but she would do some harm to herself, if they
disobeyed her; and that would be a sad thing in their house, and might be
their ruin.  They therefore promised, that no man should be brought to
her but by her own consent.

Mrs. Rowland prevailed on her to drink a dish of tea, and taste some
bread and butter, about eleven on Saturday morning: which she probably
did to have an excuse not to dine with the women when they returned.

But she would not quit her prison-room, as she called it, to go into
their parlour.

'Unbarred windows, and a lightsomer apartment,' she said, 'had too
cheerful an appearance for her mind.'

A shower falling, as she spoke, 'What,' said she, looking up, 'do the
elements weep for me?'

At another time, 'The light of the sun was irksome to her.  The sun
seemed to shine in to mock her woes.'

'Methought,' added she, 'the sun darting in, and gilding these iron bars,
plays upon me like the two women, who came to insult my haggard looks, by
the word beauty; and my dejected heart, by the word haughty airs!'

Sally came again at dinner-time, to see how she fared, as she told her;
and that she did not starve herself: and, as she wanted to have some talk
with her, if she gave her leave, she would dine with her.

I cannot eat.

You must try, Miss Harlowe.

And, dinner being ready just then, she offered her hand, and desired her
to walk down.

No; she would not stir out of her prison-room.

These sullen airs won't do, Miss Harlowe: indeed they won't.

She was silent.

You will have harder usage than any you have ever yet known, I can tell
you, if you come not into some humour to make matters up.

She was still silent.

Come, Miss, walk down to dinner.  Let me entreat you, do.  Miss Horton is
below: she was once your favourite.

She waited for an answer: but received none.

We came to make some proposals to you, for your good; though you
affronted us so lately.  And we would not let Mrs. Sinclair come in
person, because we thought to oblige you.

This is indeed obliging.

Come, give me your hand.  Miss Harlowe: you are obliged to me, I can tell
you that: and let us go down to Miss Horton.

Excuse me: I will not stir out of this room.

Would you have me and Miss Horton dine in this filthy bed-room?

It is not a bed-room to me.  I have not been in bed; nor will, while I am
here.

And yet you care not, as I see, to leave the house.--And so, you won't go
down, Miss Harlowe?

I won't, except I am forced to it.

Well, well, let it alone.  I sha'n't ask Miss Horton to dine in this
room, I assure you.  I will send up a plate.

And away the little saucy toad fluttered down.

When they had dined, up they came together.

Well, Miss, you would not eat any thing, it seems?--Very pretty sullen
airs these!--No wonder the honest gentleman had such a hand with you.

She only held up her hands and eyes; the tears trickling down her cheeks.

Insolent devils!--how much more cruel and insulting are bad women even
than bad men!

Methinks, Miss, said Sally, you are a little soily, to what we have seen
you.  Pity such a nice lady should not have changes of apparel!  Why
won't you send to your lodgings for linen, at least?

I am not nice now.

Miss looks well and clean in any thing, said Polly.  But, dear Madam, why
won't you send to your lodgings?  Were it but in kindness to the people?
They must have a concern about you.  And your Miss Howe will wonder
what's become of you; for, no doubt, you correspond.

She turned from them, and, to herself, said, Too much!  Too much!--She
tossed her handkerchief, wet before with her tears, from her, and held
her apron to her eyes.

Don't weep, Miss! said the vile Polly.

Yet do, cried the viler Sally, it will be a relief.  Nothing, as Mr.
Lovelace once told me, dries sooner than tears.  For once I too wept
mightily.

I could not bear the recital of this with patience.  Yet I cursed them
not so much as I should have done, had I not had a mind to get from them
all the particulars of their gentle treatment: and this for two reasons;
the one, that I might stab thee to the heart with the repetition; and the
other, that I might know upon what terms I am likely to see the unhappy
lady to-morrow.

Well, but, Miss Harlowe, cried Sally, do you think these forlorn airs
pretty?  You are a good christian, child.  Mrs. Rowland tells me, she has
got you a Bible-book.--O there it lies!--I make no doubt but you have
doubled down the useful places, as honest Matt. Prior says.

Then rising, and taking it up.--Ay, so you have.--The Book of Job!  One
opens naturally here, I see--My mamma made me a fine Bible-scholar.--You
see, Miss Horton, I know something of the book.

They proposed once more to bail her, and to go home with them.  A motion
which she received with the same indignation as before.

Sally told her, That she had written in a very favourable manner, in her
behalf, to you; and that she every hour expected an answer; and made no
doubt, that you would come up with a messenger, and generously pay the
whole debt, and ask her pardon for neglecting it.

This disturbed her so much, that they feared she would have fallen into
fits.  She could not bear your name, she said.  She hoped she should
never see you more: and, were you to intrude yourself, dreadful
consequences might follow.

Surely, they said, she would be glad to be released from her confinement.

Indeed she should, now they had begun to alarm her with his name, who was
the author of all her woes: and who, she now saw plainly, gave way to
this new outrage, in order to bring her to his own infamous terms.

Why then, they asked, would she not write to her friends, to pay Mrs.
Sinclair's demand?

Because she hoped she should not trouble any body; and because she knew
that the payment of the money if she should be able to pay it, was not
what was aimed at.

Sally owned that she told her, That, truly, she had thought herself as
well descended, and as well educated, as herself, though not entitled to
such considerable fortunes.  And had the impudence to insist upon it to
me to be truth.

She had the insolence to add, to the lady, That she had as much reason as
she to expect Mr. Lovelace would marry her; he having contracted to do so
before he knew Miss Clarissa Harlowe: and that she had it under his hand
and seal too--or else he had not obtained his end: therefore it was not
likely she should be so officious as to do his work against herself, if
she thought Mr. Lovelace had designs upon her, like what she presumed to
hint at: that, for her part, her only view was, to procure liberty to a
young gentlewoman, who made those things grievous to her which would not
be made such a rout about by any body else--and to procure the payment of
a just debt to her friend Mrs. Sinclair.

She besought them to leave her.  She wanted not these instances, she
said, to convince her of the company she was in; and told them, that, to
get rid of such visiters, and of the still worse she was apprehensive of,
she would write to one friend to raise the money for her; though it would
be death for her to do so; because that friend could not do it without
her mother, in whose eye it would give a selfish appearance to a
friendship that was above all sordid alloys.

They advised her to write out of hand.

But how much must I write for?  What is the sum?  Should I not have had a
bill delivered me?  God knows, I took not your lodgings.  But he that
could treat me as he has done, could do this!

Don't speak against Mr. Lovelace, Miss Harlowe.  He is a man I greatly
esteem.  [Cursed toad!]  And, 'bating that he will take his advantage,
where he can, of US silly credulous women, he is a man of honour.

She lifted up her hands and eyes, instead of speaking: and well she
might!  For any words she could have used could not have expressed the
anguish she must feel on being comprehended in the US.

She must write for one hundred and fifty guineas, at least: two hundred,
if she were short of more money, might well be written for.

Mrs. Sinclair, she said, had all her clothes.  Let them be sold, fairly
sold, and the money go as far as it would go.  She had also a few other
valuables; but no money, (none at all,) but the poor half guinea, and the
little silver they had seen.  She would give bond to pay all that her
apparel, and the other maters she had, would fall short of.  She had
great effects belonging to her of right.  Her bond would, and must be
paid, were it for a thousand pounds.  But her clothes she should never
want.  She believed, if not too much undervalued, those, and her few
valuables, would answer every thing.  She wished for no surplus but to
discharge the last expenses; and forty shillings would do as well for
those as forty pounds.  'Let my ruin, said she, lifting up her eyes, be
LARGE!  Let it be COMPLETE, in this life!--For a composition, let it be
COMPLETE.'--And there she stopped.

The wretches could not help wishing to me for the opportunity of making
such a purchase for their own wear.  How I cursed them! and, in my heart,
thee!--But too probable, thought I, that this vile Sally Martin may hope,
[though thou art incapable of it,] that her Lovelace, as she has the
assurance, behind thy back, to call thee, may present her with some of
the poor lady's spoils!

Will not Mrs. Sinclair, proceeded she, think my clothes a security, till
they can be sold?  They are very good clothes.  A suit or two but just
put on, as it were; never worn.  They cost much more than it demanded of
me.  My father loved to see me fine.--All shall go.  But let me have the
particulars of her demand.  I suppose I must pay for my destroyer [that
was her well-adapted word!] and his servants, as well as for myself.  I
am content to do so--I am above wishing that any body, who could thus
act, should be so much as expostulated with, as to the justice and equity
of this payment.  If I have but enough to pay the demand, I shall be
satisfied; and will leave the baseness of such an action as this, as an
aggravation of a guilt which I thought could not be aggravated.

I own, Lovelace, I have malice in this particularity, in order to sting
thee on the heart.  And, let me ask thee, what now thou can'st think of
thy barbarity, thy unprecedented barbarity, in having reduced a person of
her rank, fortune, talents, and virtue, so low?

The wretched women, it must be owned, act but in their profession: a
profession thou hast been the principal means of reducing these two to
act in.  And they know what thy designs have been, and how far
prosecuted.  It is, in their opinions, using her gently, that they have
forborne to bring her to the woman so justly odious to her: and that they
have not threatened her with the introducing to her strange men: nor yet
brought into her company their spirit-breakers, and humbling-drones,
(fellows not allowed to carry stings,) to trace and force her back to
their detested house; and, when there, into all their measures.

Till I came, they thought thou wouldst not be displeased at any thing she
suffered, that could help to mortify her into a state of shame and
disgrace; and bring her to comply with thy views, when thou shouldst come
to release her from these wretches, as from a greater evil than
cohabiting with thee.

When thou considerest these things, thou wilt make no difficulty of
believing, that this their own account of their behaviour to this
admirable woman has been far short of their insults: and the less, when I
tell thee, that, all together, their usage had such effect upon her, that
they left her in violent hysterics; ordering an apothecary to be sent
for, if she should continue in them, and be worse; and particularly (as
they had done from the first) that they kept out of her way any edged or
pointed instrument; especially a pen-knife; which, pretending to mend a
pen, they said, she might ask for.

At twelve, Saturday night, Rowland sent to tell them, that she was so
ill, that he knew not what might be the issue; and wished her out of his
house.

And this made them as heartily wish to hear from you.  For their
messenger, to their great surprise, was not then returned from M. Hall.
And they were sure he must have reached that place by Friday night.

Early on Sunday morning, both devils went to see how she did.  They had
such an account of her weakness, lowness, and anguish, that they forebore
(out of compassion, they said, finding their visits so disagreeable to
her) to see her.  But their apprehension of what might be the issue was,
no doubt, their principal consideration: nothing else could have softened
such flinty bosoms.

They sent for the apothecary Rowland had had to her, and gave him, and
Rowland, and his wife and maid, strict orders, many times repeated, for
the utmost care to be taken of her--no doubt, with an Old-Bailey
forecast.  And they sent up to let her know what orders they had given:
but that, understanding she had taken something to compose herself, they
would not disturb her.

She had scrupled, it seems, to admit the apothecary's visit over night,
because he was a MAN.  Nor could she be prevailed upon to see him, till
they pleaded their own safety to her.

They went again, from church, [Lord, Bob., these creatures go to church!]
but she sent them down word that she must have all the remainder of the
day to herself.

When I first came, and told them of thy execrations for what they had
done, and joined my own to them, they were astonished.  The mother said,
she had thought she had known Mr. Lovelace better; and expected thanks,
and not curses.

While I was with them, came back halting and cursing, most horribly,
their messenger; by reason of the ill-usage he had received from you,
instead of the reward he had been taught to expect for the supposed good
news that he carried down.--A pretty fellow, art thou not, to abuse
people for the consequences of thy own faults?

Dorcas, whose acquaintance this fellow is, and who recommended him for
the journey, had conditioned with him, it seems, for a share in the
expected bounty from you.  Had she been to have had her share made good,
I wish thou hadst broken every bone in his skin.

Under what shocking disadvantages, and with this addition to them, that I
am thy friend and intimate, am I to make a visit to this unhappy lady
to-morrow morning!  In thy name, too!--Enough to be refused, that I am of
a sex, to which, for thy sake, she has so justifiable an aversion: nor,
having such a tyrant of a father, and such an implacable brother, has she
the reason to make an exception in favour of any of it on their accounts.

It is three o'clock.  I will close here; and take a little rest: what I
have written will be a proper preparative for what shall offer by-and-by.

Thy servant is not to return without a letter, he tells me; and that thou
expectest him back in the morning.  Thou hast fellows enough where thou
art at thy command.  If I find any difficulty in seeing the lady, thy
messenger shall post away with this.--Let him look to broken bones, and
other consequences, if what he carries answer not thy expectation.  But,
if I am admitted, thou shalt have this and the result of my audience both
together.  In the former case, thou mayest send another servant to wait
the next advices from

J. BELFORD.



LETTER XVI

MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
MONDAY, JULY 17.


About six this morning, I went to Rowland's.  Mrs. Sinclair was to follow
me, in order to dismiss the action; but not to come in sight.

Rowland, upon inquiry, told me, that the lady was extremely ill; and that
she had desired, that no one but his wife or maid should come near her.

I said, I must see her.  I had told him my business over-night, and I
must see her.

His wife went up: but returned presently, saying, she could not get her
to speak to her; yet that her eyelids moved; though she either would not,
or could not, open them, to look up at her.

Oons, woman, said I, the lady may be in a fit: the lady may be dying--let
me go up.  Show me the way.

A horrid hole of a house, in an alley they call a court; stairs
wretchedly narrow, even to the first-floor rooms: and into a den they led
me, with broken walls, which had been papered, as I saw by a multitude of
tacks, and some torn bits held on by the rusty heads.

The floor indeed was clean, but the ceiling was smoked with variety of
figures, and initials of names, that had been the woeful employment of
wretches who had no other way to amuse themselves.

A bed at one corner, with coarse curtains tacked up at the feet to the
ceiling; because the curtain-rings were broken off; but a coverlid upon
it with a cleanish look, though plaguily in tatters, and the corners tied
up in tassels, that the rents in it might go no farther.

The windows dark and double-barred, the tops boarded up to save mending;
and only a little four-paned eyelet-hole of a casement to let in air;
more, however, coming in at broken panes than could come in at that.

Four old Turkey-worked chairs, bursten-bottomed, the stuffing staring
out.

An old, tottering, worm-eaten table, that had more nails bestowed in
mending it to make it stand, than the table cost fifty years ago, when
new.

On the mantle-piece was an iron shove-up candlestick, with a lighted
candle in it, twinkle, twinkle, twinkle, four of them, I suppose, for a
penny.

Near that, on the same shelf, was an old looking-glass, cracked through
the middle, breaking out into a thousand points; the crack given it,
perhaps, in a rage, by some poor creature, to whom it gave the
representation of his heart's woes in his face.

The chimney had two half-tiles in it on one side, and one whole one on
the other; which showed it had been in better plight; but now the very
mortar had followed the rest of the tiles in every other place, and left
the bricks bare.

An old half-barred stove grate was in the chimney; and in that a large
stone-bottle without a neck, filled with baleful yew, as an evergreen,
withered southern-wood, dead sweet-briar, and sprigs of rue in flower.

To finish the shocking description, in a dark nook stood an old
broken-bottomed cane couch, without a squab, or coverlid, sunk at one
corner, and unmortised by the failing of one of its worm-eaten legs,
which lay in two pieces under the wretched piece of furniture it could
no longer support.

And this, thou horrid Lovelace, was the bed-chamber of the divine
Clarissa!!!

I had leisure to cast my eye on these things: for, going up softly, the
poor lady turned not about at our entrance; nor, till I spoke, moved her
head.

She was kneeling in a corner of the room, near the dismal window, against
the table, on an old bolster (as it seemed to be) of the cane couch,
half-covered with her handkerchief; her back to the door; which was only
shut to, [no need of fastenings;] her arms crossed upon the table, the
fore-finger of her right-hand in her Bible.  She had perhaps been reading
in it, and could read no longer.  Paper, pens, ink, lay by her book on
the table.  Her dress was white damask, exceeding neat; but her stays
seemed not tight-laced.  I was told afterwards, that her laces had been
cut, when she fainted away at her entrance into this cursed place; and
she had not been solicitous enough about her dress to send for others.
Her head-dress was a little discomposed; her charming hair, in natural
ringlets, as you have heretofore described it, but a little tangled, as
if not lately combed, irregularly shading one side of the loveliest neck
in the world; as her disordered rumpled handkerchief did the other.  Her
face [O how altered from what I had seen it! yet lovely in spite of all
her griefs and sufferings!] was reclined, when we entered, upon her
crossed arms; but so, as not more than one side of it could be hid.

When I surveyed the room around, and the kneeling lady, sunk with majesty
too in her white flowing robes, (for she had not on a hoop,) spreading
the dark, though not dirty, floor, and illuminating that horrid corner;
her linen beyond imagination white, considering that she had not been
undressed every since she had been here; I thought my concern would have
choked me.  Something rose in my throat, I know not what, which made me,
for a moment, guggle, as it were, for speech: which, at last, forcing its
way, con--con--confound you both, said I, to the man and woman, is this
an apartment for such a lady? and could the cursed devils of her own sex,
who visited this suffering angel, see her, and leave her, in so d----d a
nook?

Sir, we would have had the lady to accept of our own bed-chamber: but she
refused it.  We are poor people--and we expect nobody will stay with us
longer than they can help it.

You are people chosen purposely, I doubt not, by the d----d woman who has
employed you: and if your usage of this lady has been but half as bad as
your house, you had better never to have seen the light.

Up then raised the charming sufferer her lovely face; but with such a
significance of woe overspreading it, that I could not, for the soul of
me, help being visibly affected.

She waved her hand two or three times towards the door, as if commanding
me to withdraw; and displeased at my intrusion; but did not speak.

Permit me, Madam--I will not approach one step farther without your leave
--permit me, for one moment, the favour of your ear!

No--no--go, go, MAN! with an emphasis--and would have said more; but, as
if struggling in vain for words, she seemed to give up speech for lost,
and dropped her head down once more, with a deep sigh, upon her left arm;
her right, as if she had not the use of it (numbed, I suppose)
self-moved, dropping on her side.

O that thou hadst been there! and in my place!--But by what I then felt,
in myself, I am convinced, that a capacity of being moved by the
distresses of our fellow creatures, is far from being disgraceful to a
manly heart.  With what pleasure, at that moment, could I have given up
my own life, could I but first have avenged this charming creature, and
cut the throat of her destroyer, as she emphatically calls thee, though
the friend that I best love: and yet, at the same time, my heart and my
eyes gave way to a softness of which (though not so hardened a wretch as
thou) they were never before so susceptible.

I dare not approach you, dearest lady, without your leave: but on my
knees I beseech you to permit me to release you from this d----d house,
and out of the power of the cursed woman, who was the occasion of your
being here!

She lifted up her sweet face once more, and beheld me on my knees.  Never
knew I before what it was to pray so heartily.

Are you not--are you not Mr. Belford, Sir?  I think your name is Belford?

It is, Madam, and I ever was a worshipper of your virtues, and an
advocate for you; and I come to release you from the hands you are in.

And in whose to place me?--O leave me, leave me! let me never rise from
this spot! let me never, never more believe in man!

This moment, dearest lady, this very moment, if you please, you may
depart whithersoever you think fit.  You are absolutely free, and your
own mistress.

I had now as lieve die here in this place, as any where.  I will owe no
obligation to any friend of him in whose company you have seen me.  So,
pray, Sir, withdraw.

Then turning to the officer, Mr. Rowland I think your name is?  I am
better reconciled to your house than I was at first.  If you can but
engage that I shall have nobody come near me but your wife, (no man!)
and neither of those women who have sported with my calamities, I will
die with you, and in this very corner.  And you shall be well satisfied
for the trouble you have had with me--I have value enough for that--for,
see, I have a diamond ring; taking it out of her bosom; and I have
friends will redeem it at a high price, when I am gone.

But for you, Sir, looking at me, I beg you to withdraw.  If you mean well
by me, God, I hope, will reward you for your good meaning; but to the
friend of my destroyer will I not owe an obligation.

You will owe no obligation to me, nor to any body.  You have been
detained for a debt you do not owe.  The action is dismissed; and you
will only be so good as to give me your hand into the coach, which stands
as near to this house as it could draw up.  And I will either leave you
at the coach-door, or attend you whithersoever you please, till I see you
safe where you would wish to be.

Will you then, Sir, compel me to be beholden to you?

You will inexpressibly oblige me, Madam, to command me to do you either
service or pleasure.

Why then, Sir, [looking at me]--but why do you mock me in that humble
posture!  Rise, Sir!  I cannot speak to you else.

I rose.

Only, Sir, take this ring.  I have a sister, who will be glad to have it,
at the price it shall be valued at, for the former owner's sake!--Out of
the money she gives, let this man be paid! handsomely paid: and I have a
few valuables more at my lodging, (Dorcas, or the MAN William, can tell
where that is;) let them, and my clothes at the wicked woman's, where you
have seen me, be sold for the payment of my lodging first, and next of
your friend's debts, that I have been arrested for, as far as they will
go; only reserving enough to put me into the ground, any where, or any
how, no matter----Tell your friend, I wish it may be enough to satisfy
the whole demand; but if it be not, he must make it up himself; or, if he
think fit to draw for it on Miss Howe, she will repay it, and with
interest, if he insist upon it.----And this, Sir, if you promise to
perform, you will do me, as you offer, both pleasure and service: and say
you will, and take the ring and withdraw.  If I want to say any thing
more to you (you seem to be an humane man) I will let you know----and so,
Sir, God bless you!

I approached her, and was going to speak----

Don't speak, Sir: here's the ring.

I stood off.

And won't you take it? won't you do this last office for me?--I have no
other person to ask it of; else, believe me, I would not request it of
you.  But take it, or not, laying it upon the table----you must withdraw,
Sir: I am very ill.  I would fain get a little rest, if I could.  I find
I am going to be bad again.

And offering to rise, she sunk down through excess of weakness and grief,
in a fainting fit.

Why, Lovelace, was thou not present thyself?----Why dost thou commit such
villanies, as even thou art afraid to appear in; and yet puttest a weaker
heart and head upon encountering with them?

The maid coming in just then, the woman and she lifted her up on a
decrepit couch; and I withdrew with this Rowland; who wept like a child,
and said, he never in his life was so moved.

Yet so hardened a wretch art thou, that I question whether thou wilt shed
a tear at my relation.

They recovered her by hartshorn and water.  I went down mean while; for
the detestable woman had been below some time.  O how I did curse her!  I
never before was so fluent in curses.

She tried to wheedle me; but I renounced her; and, after she had
dismissed the action, sent her away crying, or pretending to cry, because
of my behaviour to her.

You will observe, that I did not mention one word to the lady about you.
I was afraid to do it.  For 'twas plain, that she could not bear your
name: your friend, and the company you have seen me in, were the words
nearest to naming you she could speak: and yet I wanted to clear your
intention of this brutal, this sordid-looking villany.

I sent up again, by Rowland's wife, when I heard that the lady was
recovered, beseeching her to quit that devilish place; and the woman
assured her that she was at liberty to do so, for that the action was
dismissed.

But she cared not to answer her: and was so weak and low, that it was
almost as much out of her power as inclination, the woman told me, to
speak.

I would have hastened away for my friend Doctor H., but the house is such
a den, and the room she was in such a hole, that I was ashamed to be seen
in it by a man of his reputation, especially with a woman of such an
appearance, and in such uncommon distress; and I found there was no
prevailing upon her to quit it for the people's bed-room, which was neat
and lightsome.

The strong room she was in, the wretches told me, should have been in
better order, but that it was but the very morning that she was brought
in that an unhappy man had quitted it; for a more eligible prison, no
doubt; since there could hardly be a worse.

Being told that she desired not to be disturbed, and seemed inclined to
doze, I took this opportunity to go to her lodgings in Covent-garden: to
which Dorcas (who first discovered her there, as Will. was the setter
from church) had before given me a direction.

The man's name is Smith, a dealer in gloves, snuff, and such petty
merchandize: his wife the shopkeeper: he a maker of the gloves they sell.
Honest people, it seems.

I thought to have got the woman with me to the lady; but she was not
within.

I talked with the man, and told him what had befallen the lady; owing, as
I said, to a mistake of orders; and gave her the character she deserved;
and desired him to send his wife, the moment she came in, to the lady;
directing him whither; not doubting that her attendance would be very
welcome to her; which he promised.

He told me that a letter was left for her there on Saturday; and, about
half an hour before I came, another, superscribed by the same hand; the
first, by the post; the other, by a countryman; who having been informed
of her absence, and of all the circumstances they could tell him of it,
posted away, full of concern, saying, that the lady he was sent from
would be ready to break her heart at the tidings.

I thought it right to take the two letters back with me; and, dismissing
my coach, took a chair, as a more proper vehicle for the lady, if I (the
friend of her destroyer) could prevail upon her to leave Rowland's.

And here, being obliged to give way to an indispensable avocation, I will
make thee taste a little, in thy turn, of the plague of suspense; and
break off, without giving thee the least hint of the issue of my further
proceedings.  I know, that those least bear disappointment, who love most
to give it.  In twenty instances, hast thou afforded me proof of the
truth of this observation.  And I matter not thy raving.

Another letter, however, shall be ready, send for it a soon as thou wilt.
But, were it not, have I not written enough to convince thee, that I am

Thy ready and obliging friend,
J. BELFORD.



LETTER XVII

MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
MONDAY, JULY 17, ELEVEN AT NIGHT.


Curse upon thy hard heart, thou vile caitiff!  How hast thou tortured me,
by thy designed abruption! 'tis impossible that Miss Harlowe should have
ever suffered as thou hast made me suffer, and as I now suffer!

That sex is made to bear pain.  It is a curse that the first of it
entailed upon all her daughters, when she brought the curse upon us all.
And they love those best, whether man or child, who give them most--But
to stretch upon thy d----d tenter-hooks such a spirit as mine--No rack,
no torture, can equal my torture!

And must I still wait the return of another messenger?

Confound thee for a malicious devil!  I wish thou wert a post-horse, and
I upon the back of thee! how would I whip and spur, and harrow up thy
clumsy sides, till I make thee a ready-roasted, ready-flayed, mess of
dog's meat; all the hounds in the country howling after thee, as I drove
thee, to wait my dismounting, in order to devour thee piece-meal; life
still throbbing in each churned mouthful!

Give this fellow the sequel of thy tormenting scribble.

Dispatch him away with it.  Thou hast promised it shall be ready.  Every
cushion or chair I shall sit upon, the bed I shall lie down upon (if I go
to bed) till he return, will be stuffed with bolt-upright awls, bodkins,
corking-pins, and packing needles: already I can fancy that, to pink my
body like my mind, I need only to be put into a hogshead stuck full of
steel-pointed spikes, and rolled down a hill three times as high as the
Monument.

But I lose time; yet know not how to employ it till this fellow returns
with the sequel of thy soul-harrowing intelligence!



LETTER XVIII

MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
MONDAY NIGHT, JULY 17.


On my return to Rowland's, I found that the apothecary was just gone up.
Mrs. Rowland being above with him, I made the less scruple to go up too,
as it was probable, that to ask for leave would be to ask to be denied;
hoping also, that the letters had with me would be a good excuse.

She was sitting on the side of the broken couch, extremely weak and low;
and, I observed, cared not to speak to the man: and no wonder; for I
never saw a more shocking fellow, of a profession tolerably genteel, nor
heard a more illiterate one prate--physician in ordinary to this house,
and others like it, I suppose!  He put me in mind of Otway's apothecary
in his Caius Marius; as borrowed from the immortal Shakspeare:

      Meagre and very rueful were his looks:
      Sharp misery had worn him to the bones.
            ------------ Famine in his cheeks:
      Need and oppression staring in his eyes:
      Contempt and beggary hanging on his back:
      The world no friend of his, nor the world's law.

As I am in black, he took me, at my entrance, I believe, to be a doctor;
and slunk behind me with his hat upon his two thumbs, and looked as if he
expected the oracle to open, and give him orders.

The lady looked displeased, as well at me as at Rowland, who followed me,
and at the apothecary.  It was not, she said, the least of her present
misfortunes, that she could not be left to her own sex; and to her option
to see whom she pleased.

I besought her excuse; and winking for the apothecary to withdraw, [which
he did,] told her, that I had been at her new lodgings, to order every
thing to be got ready for reception, presuming she would choose to go
thither: that I had a chair at the door: that Mr. Smith and his wife [I
named their names, that she should not have room for the least fear of
Sinclair's] had been full of apprehensions for her safety: that I had
brought two letters, which were left there fore her; the one by the post,
the other that very morning.

This took her attention.  She held out her charming hand for them; took
them, and, pressing them to her lips--From the only friend I have in the
world! said she; kissing them again; and looking at the seals, as if to
see whether they had been opened.  I can't read them, said she, my eyes
are too dim; and put them into her bosom.

I besought her to think of quitting that wretched hole.

Whither could she go, she asked, to be safe and uninterrupted for the
short remainder of her life; and to avoid being again visited by the
creatures who had insulted her before?

I gave her the solemnest assurances that she should not be invaded in her
new lodgings by any body; and said that I would particularly engage my
honour, that the person who had most offended her should not come near
her, without her own consent.

Your honour, Sir!  Are you not that man's friend!

I am not a friend, Madam, to his vile actions to the most excellent of
women.

Do you flatter me, Sir? then you are a MAN.--But Oh, Sir, your friend,
holding her face forward with great earnestness, your barbarous friend,
what has he not to answer for!

There she stopt: her heart full; and putting her hand over her eyes and
forehead, the tears tricked through her fingers: resenting thy barbarity,
it seemed, as Caesar did the stab from his distinguished Brutus!

Though she was so very much disordered, I thought I would not lose this
opportunity to assert your innocence of this villanous arrest.

There is no defending the unhappy man in any of his vile actions by you,
Madam; but of this last outrage, by all that's good and sacred, he is
innocent.

O wretches; what a sex is your's!--Have you all one dialect? good and
sacred!--If, Sir, you can find an oath, or a vow, or an adjuration, that
my ears have not been twenty times a day wounded with, then speak it, and
I may again believe a MAN.

I was excessively touched at these words, knowing thy baseness, and the
reason she had for them.

But say you, Sir, for I would not, methinks, have the wretch capable of
this sordid baseness!--Say you, that he is innocent of this last
wickedness? can you truly say that he is?

By the great God of Heaven!----

Nay, Sir, if you swear, I must doubt you!--If you yourself think your
WORD insufficient, what reliance can I have on your OATH!--O that this my
experience had not cost me so dear! but were I to love a thousand years,
I would always suspect the veracity of a swearer.  Excuse me, Sir; but is
it likely, that he who makes so free with his GOD, will scruple any thing
that may serve his turn with his fellow creature?

This was a most affecting reprimand!

Madam, said I, I have a regard, a regard a gentleman ought to have, to my
word; and whenever I forfeit it to you----

Nay, Sir, don't be angry with me.  It is grievous to me to question a
gentleman's veracity.  But your friend calls himself a gentleman--you
know not what I have suffered by a gentleman!----And then again she wept.

I would give you, Madam, demonstration, if your grief and your weakness
would permit it, that he has no hand in this barbarous baseness: and that
he resents it as it ought to be resented.

Well, well, Sir, [with quickness,] he will have his account to make up
somewhere else; not to me.  I should not be sorry to find him able to
acquit his intention on this occasion.  Let him know, Sir, only one
thing, that when you heard me in the bitterness of my spirit, most
vehemently exclaim against the undeserved usage I have met with from him,
that even then, in that passionate moment, I was able to say [and never
did I see such an earnest and affecting exultation of hands and eyes,]
'Give him, good God! repentance and amendment; that I may be the last
poor creature, who shall be ruined by him!--and, in thine own good time,
receive to thy mercy the poor wretch who had none on me!--'

By my soul, I could not speak.--She had not her Bible before her for
nothing.

I was forced to turn my head away, and to take out my handkerchief.

What an angel is this!--Even the gaoler, and his wife and maid, wept.

Again I wish thou hadst been there, that thou mightest have sunk down at
her feet, and begun that moment to reap the effect of her generous wishes
for thee; undeserving, as thou art, of any thing but perdition.

I represented to her that she would be less free where she was from
visits she liked not, than at her own lodgings.  I told her, that it
would probably bring her, in particular, one visiter, who, otherwise I
would engage, [but I durst not swear again, after the severe reprimand
she had just given me,] should not come near her, without her consent.
And I expressed my surprize, that she should be unwilling to quit such a
place as this; when it was more than probable that some of her friends,
when it was known how bad she was, would visit her.

She said the place, when she was first brought into it, was indeed very
shocking to her: but that she had found herself so weak and ill, and her
griefs had so sunk her, that she did not expect to have lived till now:
that therefore all places had been alike to her; for to die in a prison,
was to die; and equally eligible as to die in a palace, [palaces, she
said, could have no attractions for a dying person:] but that, since she
feared she was not so soon to be released, as she had hoped; since she
was suffered to be so little mistress of herself here; and since she
might, by removal, be in the way of her dear friend's letters; she would
hope that she might depend upon the assurances I gave her of being at
liberty to return to her last lodgings, (otherwise she would provide
herself with new ones, out of my knowledge, as well as your's;) and that
I was too much of a gentleman, to be concerned in carrying her back to
the house she had so much reason to abhor, and to which she had been once
before most vilely betrayed to her ruin.

I assured her, in the strongest terms [but swore not,] that you were
resolved not to molest her: and, as a proof of the sincerity of my
professions, besought her to give me directions, (in pursuance of my
friend's express desire,) about sending all her apparel, and whatever
belonged to her, to her new lodgings.

She seemed pleased; and gave me instantly out of her pocket her keys;
asking me, If Mrs. Smith, whom I had named, might not attend me; and she
would give her further directions?  To which I cheerfully assented; and
then she told me that she would accept of the chair I had offered her.

I withdrew; and took the opportunity to be civil to Rowland and his maid;
for she found no fault with their behaviour, for what they were; and the
fellow seems to be miserably poor.  I sent also for the apothecary, who
is as poor as the officer, (and still poorer, I dare say, as to the skill
required in his business,) and satisfied him beyond his hopes.

The lady, after I had withdrawn, attempted to read the letters I had
brought her.  But she could read but a little way in one of them, and had
great emotions upon it.

She told the woman she would take a speedy opportunity to acknowledge her
civilities and her husband's, and to satisfy the apothecary, who might
send her his bill to her lodgings.

She gave the maid something; probably the only half-guinea she had: and
then with difficulty, her limbs trembling under her, and supported by
Mrs. Rowland, got down stairs.

I offered my arm: she was pleased to lean upon it.  I doubt, Sir, said
she, as she moved, I have behaved rudely to you: but, if you knew all,
you would forgive me.

I know enough, Madam, to convince me, that there is not such purity and
honour in any woman upon earth; nor any one that has been so barbarously
treated.

She looked at me very earnestly.  What she thought, I cannot say; but, in
general, I never saw so much soul in a woman's eyes as in her's.

I ordered my servant, (whose mourning made him less observable as such,
and who had not been in the lady's eye,) to keep the chair in view; and
to bring me word, how she did, when set down.  The fellow had the thought
to step into the shop, just before the chair entered it, under pretence
of buying snuff; and so enabled himself to give me an account, that she
was received with great joy by the good woman of the house; who told her,
she was but just come in; and was preparing to attend her in High
Holborn.--O Mrs. Smith, said she, as soon as she saw her, did you not
think I was run away?--You don't know what I have suffered since I saw
you.  I have been in a prison!----Arrested for debts I owe not!--But,
thank God, I am here!--Will your maid--I have forgot her name already----

Catharine, Madam----

Will you let Catharine assist me to bed?--I have not had my clothes off
since Thursday night.

What she further said the fellow heard not, she leaning upon the maid,
and going up stairs.

But dost thou not observe, what a strange, what an uncommon openness of
heart reigns in this lady?  She had been in a prison, she said, before a
stranger in the shop, and before the maid-servant: and so, probably, she
would have said, had there been twenty people in the shop.

The disgrace she cannot hide from herself, as she says in her letter to
Lady Betty, she is not solicitous to conceal from the world!

But this makes it evident to me, that she is resolved to keep no terms
with thee.  And yet to be able to put up such a prayer for thee, as she
did in her prison; [I will often mention the prison-room, to tease thee!]
Does this not show, that revenge has very little sway in her mind; though
she can retain so much proper resentment?

And this is another excellence in this admirable woman's character: for
whom, before her, have we met with in the whole sex, or in ours either,
that knew how, in practice, to distinguish between REVENGE and
RESENTMENT, for base and ungrateful treatment?

'Tis a cursed thing, after all, that such a woman as this should be
treated as she has been treated.  Hadst thou been a king, and done as
thou hast done by such a meritorious innocent, I believe, in my heart, it
would have been adjudged to be a national sin, and the sword, the
pestilence, or famine, must have atoned for it!--But as thou art a
private man, thou wilt certainly meet with thy punishment, (besides what
thou mayest expect from the justice of the country, and the vengeance of
her friends,) as she will her reward, HEREAFTER.

It must be so, if there be really such a thing as future remuneration; as
now I am more and more convinced there must:--Else, what a hard fate is
her's, whose punishment, to all appearance, has so much exceeded her
fault?  And, as to thine, how can temporary burnings, wert thou by some
accident to be consumed in thy bed, expiate for thy abominable vileness
to her, in breach of all obligations moral and divine?

I was resolved to lose no time in having every thing which belonged to
the lady at the cursed woman's sent her.  Accordingly, I took coach to
Smith's, and procured the lady, (to whom I sent up my compliments, and
inquiries how she bore her removal,) ill as she sent down word she was,
to give proper direction to Mrs. Smith: whom I took with me to
Sinclair's: and who saw every thing looked out, and put into the trunks
and boxes they were first brought in, and carried away in two coaches.

Had I not been there, Sally and Polly would each of them have taken to
herself something of the poor lady's spoils.  This they declared: and I
had some difficulty to get from Sally a fine Brussels-lace head, which
she had the confidence to say she would wear for Miss Harlowe's sake.
Nor should either I or Mrs. Smith have known she had got it, had she not
been in search of the ruffles belonging to it.

My resentment on this occasion, and the conversation which Mrs. Smith and
I had, (in which I not only expatiated on the merits of the lady, but
expressed my concern for her sufferings; though I left her room to
suppose her married, yet without averring it,) gave me high credit with
the good woman: so that we are perfectly well acquainted already: by
which means I shall be enabled to give you accounts from time to time of
all that passes; and which I will be very industrious to do, provided I
may depend upon the solemn promises I have given the lady, in your name,
as well as in my own, that she shall be free from all personal
molestation from you.  And thus shall I have it in my power to return in
kind your writing favours; and preserve my short-hand besides: which,
till this correspondence was opened, I had pretty much neglected.

I ordered the abandoned women to make out your account.  They answered,
That they would do it with a vengeance.  Indeed they breathe nothing but
vengeance.  For now, they say, you will assuredly marry; and your example
will be followed by all your friends and companions--as the old one says,
to the utter ruin of her poor house.



LETTER XIX

MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
TUESDAY MORN. JULY 18, SIX O'CLOCK.


Having sat up so late to finish and seal in readiness my letter to the
above period, I am disturbed before I wished to have risen, by the
arrival of thy second fellow, man and horse in a foam.

While he baits, I will write a few lines, most heartily to congratulate
thee on thy expected rage and impatience, and on thy recovery of mental
feeling.

How much does the idea thou givest me of thy deserved torments, by thy
upright awls, bodkins, pins, and packing-needles, by thy rolling hogshead
with iron spikes, and by thy macerated sides, delight me!

I will, upon every occasion that offers, drive more spikes into thy
hogshead, and roll thee down hill, and up, as thou recoverest to sense,
or rather returnest back to senselessness.  Thou knowest therefore the
terms on which thou art to enjoy my correspondence.  Am not I, who have
all along, and in time, protested against thy barbarous and ungrateful
perfidies to a woman so noble, entitled to drive remorse, if possible,
into thy hitherto-callous heart?

Only let me repeat one thing, which perhaps I mentioned too slightly
before.  That the lady was determined to remove to new lodgings, where
neither you nor I should be able to find her, had I not solemnly assured
her, that she might depend upon being free from your visits.

These assurances I thought I might give her, not only because of your
promise, but because it is necessary for you to know where she is, in
order to address yourself to her by your friends.

Enable me therefore to make good to her this my solemn engagement; or
adieu to all friendship, at least to all correspondence, with thee for
ever.

J. BELFORD.



LETTER XX

MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
TUESDAY, JULY 18.  AFTERNOON.


I renewed my inquiries after the lady's health, in the morning, by my
servant: and, as soon as I had dined, I went myself.

I had but a poor account of it: yet sent up my compliments.  She returned
me thanks for all my good offices; and her excuses, that they could not
be personal just then, being very low and faint: but if I gave myself the
trouble of coming about six this evening, she should be able, she hoped,
to drink a dish of tea with me, and would then thank me herself.

I am very proud of this condescension; and think it looks not amiss for
you, as I am your avowed friend.  Methinks I want fully to remove from
her mind all doubts of you in this last villanous action: and who knows
then what your noble relations may be able to do for you with her, if you
hold your mind?  For your servant acquainted me with their having
actually engaged Miss Howe in their and your favour, before this cursed
affair happened.  And I desire the particulars of all from yourself, that
I may the better know how to serve you.

She has two handsome apartments, a bed-chamber and dining-room, with
light closets in each.  She has already a nurse, (the people of the house
having but one maid,) a woman whose care, diligence, and honesty, Mrs.
Smith highly commends.  She has likewise the benefit of a widow
gentlewoman, Mrs. Lovick her name, who lodges over her apartment, and of
whom she seems very fond, having found something in her, she thinks,
resembling the qualities of her worthy Mrs. Norton.

About seven o'clock this morning, it seems, the lady was so ill, that she
yielded to their desires to have an apothecary sent for--not the fellow,
thou mayest believe, she had had before at Rowland's; but one Mr.
Goddard, a man of skill and eminence; and of conscience too; demonstrated
as well by general character, as by his prescriptions to this lady: for
pronouncing her case to be grief, he ordered, for the present, only
innocent juleps, by way of cordial; and, as soon as her stomach should be
able to bear it, light kitchen-diet; telling Mrs. Lovick, that that, with
air, moderate exercise, and cheerful company, would do her more good than
all the medicines in his shop.

This has given me, as it seems it has the lady, (who also praises his
modest behaviour, paternal looks, and genteel address,) a very good
opinion of the man; and I design to make myself acquainted with him, and,
if he advises to call in a doctor, to wish him, for the fair patient's
sake, more than the physician's, (who wants not practice,) my worthy
friend Dr. H.--whose character is above all exception, as his humanity, I
am sure, will distinguish him to the lady.

Mrs. Lovick gratified me with an account of a letter she had written from
the lady's mouth to Miss Howe; she being unable to write herself with
steadiness.

It was to this effect; in answer, it seems, to her two letters, whatever
were the contents of them:

'That she had been involved in a dreadful calamity, which she was sure,
when known, would exempt her from the effects of her friendly
displeasure, for not answering her first; having been put under an
arrest.--Could she have believed it?--That she was released but the day
before: and was now so weak and so low, that she was obliged to account
thus for her silence to her [Miss Howe's] two letters of the 13th and
16th: that she would, as soon as able, answer them--begged of her, mean
time, not to be uneasy for her; since (only that this was a calamity
which came upon her when she was far from being well, a load laid upon
the shoulders of a poor wretch, ready before to sink under too heavy a
burden) it was nothing to the evil she had before suffered: and one
felicity seemed likely to issue from it; which was, that she would be
at rest, in an honest house, with considerate and kind-hearted people;
having assurance given her, that she should not be molested by the
wretch, whom it would be death for her to see: so that now she, [Miss
Howe,] needed not to send to her by private and expensive conveyances:
nor need Collins to take precautions for fear of being dogged to her
lodgings; nor need she write by a fictitious name to her, but by her
own.'

You can see I am in a way to oblige you: you see how much she depends
upon my engaging for your forbearing to intrude yourself into her
company: let not your flaming impatience destroy all; and make me look
like a villain to a lady who has reason to suspect every man she sees to
be so.--Upon this condition, you may expect all the services that can
flow from

Your sincere well-wisher,
J. BELFORD.



LETTER XXI

MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
TUESDAY NIGHT, JULY 18.


I am just come from the lady.  I was admitted into the dining-room, where
she was sitting in an elbow-chair, in a very weak and low way.  She made
an effort to stand up when I entered; but was forced to keep her seat.
You'll excuse me, Mr. Belford: I ought to rise to thank you for all your
kindness to me.  I was to blame to be so loth to leave that sad place;
for I am in heaven here, to what I was there; and good people about me
too!--I have not had good people about me for a long, long time before;
so that [with a half-smile] I had begun to wonder whither they were all
gone.

Her nurse and Mrs. Smith, who were present, took occasion to retire: and,
when we were alone, You seem to be a person of humanity, Sir, said she:
you hinted, as I was leaving my prison, that you were not a stranger to
my sad story.  If you know it truly, you must know that I have been most
barbarously treated; and have not deserved it at the man's hands by whom
I have suffered.

I told her I knew enough to be convinced that she had the merit of a
saint, and the purity of an angel: and was proceeding, when she said, No
flighty compliments! no undue attributes, Sir!

I offered to plead for my sincerity; and mentioned the word politeness;
and would have distinguished between that and flattery.  Nothing can be
polite, said she, that is not just: whatever I may have had; I have now
no vanity to gratify.

I disclaimed all intentions of compliment: all I had said, and what I
should say, was, and should be, the effect of sincere veneration.  My
unhappy friend's account of her had entitled her to that.

I then mentioned your grief, your penitence, your resolutions of making
her all the amends that were possible now to be made her: and in the most
earnest manner, I asserted your innocence as to the last villanous
outrage.

Her answer

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