what protestations of his honour, did he then make!] he hoped I would not add to their present concern. Charlotte, indeed, was used to fits, he said, upon any great surprises, whether of joy or grief: and they would hold her for a week together, if not got off in a few hours.

You are an observer of eyes, my dear, said the villain: perhaps in secret insult: saw you not in Miss Montague's now and then at Hampstead, something wildish? I was afraid for her then. Silence and quiet only do her good: your concern for her, and her love for you, will but augment the poor girl's disorder, if you should go.

All impatient with grief and apprehension, I still declared myself resolved not to stay in that house till morning. All I had in the world, my rings, my watch, my little money for a coach: or if one were not to be got, I would go on foot to Hampstead that night, though I walked it by myself.

A coach was hereupon sent for, or pretended to be sent for. Any price, he said, he would give to oblige me, late as it was; and he would attend me with all his soul. But no coach was to be got.

Let me cut short the rest. I grew worse and worse in my head; now stupid, now raving, now senseless. The vilest of vile women was brought to frighten me. Never was there so horrible a creature, as she appeared to me at the time.

I remember, I pleaded for mercy. I remember that I said I would be his—indeed I would be histo obtain his mercy. But no mercy found I! My strength, my intellects failed me-and then such scenes followed-O my dear, such dreadful scenes! -Fits upon fits (faintly indeed and imperfectly remembered) procuring me no compassion-but death was withheld from me. That would have been too great a mercy!

*

THUS was I tricked and deluded back by blacker hearts of my own sex, than I thought there were in the world; who appeared to me to be persons of honour: and, when in his power, thus barbarously was I treated by this villanous man!

I was so senseless, that I dare not aver that the horrid creatures of the house were personally aiding and abetting: but some visionary remembrances I have of female figures, flitting, as I may say, before my sight; the wretched woman's particularly. But as these confused ideas might be owing to the terror I had conceived of the worse than masculine violence she had been permitted to assume to me, for expressing my abhorrence of her house; and as what I suffered from his barbarity wants not that aggravation; I will say no more on a subject so shocking as this must ever be to my remembrance.

I never saw the personating wretches afterwards. He persisted to the last (dreadfully invoking heaven as a witness to the truth of his assertion) that they were really and truly the ladies they pretended to be; declaring that they could not take leave of me, when they left the town, because of the state of senselessness and frenzy I was in. For their intoxicating, or rather stupifying potions had almost deleterious effects upon my intellects, as I have hinted; insomuch that, for several days together, I was under a strange delirium; now moping, now dozing, now weeping, now raving, now scribbling, tearing what I scribbled, as fast as I wrote it; most miserable when now and then a ray of reason brought confusedly to my remembrance what I had suffered.

LETTER XLVII.

MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE. IN CONTINUATION.

The lady next gives an account,

Of her recovery from her delirium and sleepy disorder:

Of her attempt to get away in his absence:
Of the conversations that followed, at his return,
between them:

Of the guilty figure he made:

Of her resolution not to have him:
Of her several efforts to escape:

Of her treaty with Dorcas to assist her in it:
Of Dorcas's dropping the promissory note, un-
doubtedly, as she says, on purpose to betray
her:

Of her triumph over all the creatures of the house, assembled to terrify her; and perhaps to commit fresh outrages upon her:

Of his setting out for M. Hall:

Of his repeated letters to induce her to meet him at the altar, on her uncle's anniversary:

Of her determined silence to them all: Of her second escape, effected, as she says, contrary to her own expectation: that attempt being at first but the intended prelude to a more promising one, which she had formed in her mind:

And of other particulars; which being to be found in Mr. Lovelace's letters preceding, and the letter of his friend Belford, are omitted. She then proceeds:

The very hour that I found myself in a place of safety, I took pen to write to you. When I began,

my

I designed only to write six or eight lines, to inquire after your health: for, having heard nothing from you, I feared, indeed, that you had been, and still were, too ill to write. But no sooner did my paper, but pen begin to blot the sad heart hurried it into length. The apprehensions I had lain under, that I should not be able to get away; the fatigue I had in effecting my escape: the difficulty of procuring a lodging for myself: having disliked the people of two houses, and those of a third disliking me; for you must think I made a frighted appearance these, together with the recollection of what I suffered from him, and my further apprehensions of my insecurity, and my desolate circumstances, had so disordered me, that I remember I rambled strangely in that letter.

In short, I thought it, on re-perusal, a half-distracted one: but I then despaired (were I to begin again) of writing better: so I let it go and can have no excuse for directing it as I did, if the cause of the incoherence in it will not furnish me with a very pitiable one.

The letter I received from your mother was a dreadful blow to me. But nevertheless it had the good effect upon me (labouring, as I did just then, under a violent fit of vapourish despondency, and almost yielding to it) which profuse bleeding and blisterings have in paralytical and apoplectical strokes; reviving my attention, and restoring me to spirits to combat the evils I was surrounded by -sluicing off, and diverting into a new channel (if I may be allowed another metaphor) the overcharging woes which threatened once more to overwhelm my intellects.

But yet I most sincerely lamented (and still lament) in your mother's words, that I cannot be unhappy by myself; and was grieved, not only for the

trouble I had given you before; but for the new one I had brought upon you by my inattention.

She then gives the substance of the letters she wrote to Mrs. Norton, to Lady Betty Lawrance, and to Mrs. Hodges; as also of their answers; whereby she detected all Mr. Lovelace's impostures. She proceeds as follows :

I cannot, however, forbear to wonder how the vile Tomlinson could come at the knowledge of several of the things he told me of, and which contributed to give me confidence in him*.

I doubt not that the stories of Mrs. Fretchville, and her house, would be found as vile impostures as any of the rest, were I to inquire; and had I not enough, and too much already against the perjured man.

How have I been led on!-What will be the end of such a false and perjured creature! Heaven not less profaned and defied by him, than myself, deceived and abused! This, however, against myself, I must say, that if what I have suffered be the natural consequence of my first error, I never can forgive myself, although you are so partial in my favour as to say, that I was not censurable for what passed before my first escape.

And now, honoured madam, and my dearest Miss Howe, who are to sit in judgment upon my case, permit me to lay down my pen with one request, which, with the greatest earnestness, I make to you both: and that is, that you will neither of you open your lips in relation to the potions and the violences

* The attentive reader need not be referred back for what the lady nevertheless could not account for, as she knew not that Mr. Lovelace had come at Miss Howe's letters, particularly that in Vol. IV. p. 81, & seq. which he comments upon, p. 194, & seq. of the same volume.