she cannot encourage any other person's address! So soon too-why, sir, she is, as we are told, so ill, and so weak

Not in resentment weak, I'll assure you. I am well acquainted with all her movements-and I tell you, believe it or not, that she refuses me in view of another lover.

Can it be?

'Tis true, by my soul!-Has she not hinted this to Miss Howe, do you think?

No, indeed, sir. If she had I should not have troubled you at this time from Miss Howe.

Well then, you see I am right: that though she cannot be guilty of a falsehood, yet she has not told her friend the whole truth.

What shall a man say to these things!-(looking most stupidly perplexed.)

Say! say! Mr. Hickman !-Who can account for the workings and ways of a passionate and offended woman? Endless would be the histories I could give you, within my own knowledge, of the dreadful effects of women's passionate resentments, and what that sex will do when disappointed.

There was Miss DORRINGTON [perhaps you know her not] who ran away with her father's groom, because he would not let her have a halfpay officer, with whom (her passions all up) she fell in love at first sight, as he accidentally passed under her window.

There was Miss SAVAGE; she married her mother's coachman, because her mother refused her a journey to Wales; in apprehension, that Miss intended to league herself with a remote cousin of unequal fortunes, of whom she was not a little fond when he was a visiting guest at their house for a ..week.

There was the young widow SANDERSON; who

believing herself slighted by a younger brother of a noble family (Sarah Stout like) took it into her head to drown herself.

Miss SALLY ANDERSON, [you have heard of her, no doubt] being checked by her uncle for encouraging an address beneath her, in spite, threw herself into the arms of an ugly dog, a shoemaker's apprentice, running away with him in a pair of shoes he had just fitted to her feet, though she never saw the fellow before, and hated him ever after: and, at last, took laudanum to make her forget for ever her own folly.

But can there be a stronger instance in point, that what the unaccountable resentments of such a lady as Miss Clarissa Harlowe affords us? who at this very instant, ill as she is, not only encourages, but, in a manner, makes court to, one of the most odious dogs that ever was seen. I think Miss Howe should not be told this-and yet she ought too, in order to dissuade her from such a preposterous rashness.

O fie! O strange! Miss Howe knows nothing of this! To be sure she won't look upon her, if this be true!

'Tis true, very true, Mr. Hickman! True as I am here to tell you so!-And he is an ugly fellow, too; uglier to look at than me.

Than you, sir! Why, to be sure, you are one of the handsomest men in England.

Well, but the wretch she so spitefully prefers to me is a mis-shapen, meagre varlet; more like a skeleton than a man! Then he dresses-you never saw a devil so bedizened! Hardly a coat to his back, nor a shoe to his foot. A bald-pated villain, yet grudges to buy a peruke to hide his baldness: for he is as covetous as hell, never satisfied, yet plaguy rich.

Why, sir, there is some joke in this, surely. A man of common parts knows not how to take such gentlemen as you. But, sir, if there be any truth in the story, what is he? Some Jew, or miserly citizen, I suppose, that may have presumed on the lady's distressful circumstances; and your lively wit points him out as it pleases.

Why, the rascal has estates in every county in England, and out of England too.

Some East India governor, I suppose, if there be any thing in it. The lady once had thoughts of going abroad. But, I fancy, all this time you are in jest, sir. If not, we must surely have heard of

him

Heard of him! ay, sir, we have all heard of him -but none of us care to be intimate with himexcept this lady-and that, as I told you, in spite tome-His name, in short, is DEATH!-DEATH, sir, stamping, and speaking loud, and full in his ear; which made him jump half a yard high.

Thou never beheldest any man so disconcerted. He looked as if the frightful skeleton was before him, and he had not his accounts ready. When a little recovered, he fribbled with his waistcoat buttons, as if he had been telling his beads.

This, sir, proceeded I, is her wooer!-Nay, she is so forward a girl, that she wooes him: but I hope it never will be a match.

He had before behaved, and now looked, with more spirit than I expected from him.

I came, sir, said he, as a mediator of differences. It behoves me to keep my temper. But, sir, and turned short upon me, as much as I love peace, and to promote it, I will not be ill used.

As I had played so much upon him, it would have been wrong to take him at his more than half

menace: yet, I think, I owe him a grudge, for his presuming to address Miss Howe.

You mean no defiance, I presume, Mr. Hickman, any more than I do offence. On that presumption, I ask your excuse. But this is my way. I mean no harm. I cannot let sorrow touch my heart. I cannot be grave six minutes together for the blood of me. I am a descendant of old chancellor Moore, I believe, and should not forbear to 'cut a joke, were I upon the scaffold. But you may gather, from what I have said, that I prefer Miss Harlowe, and that upon the justest grounds, to all the women in the world: and I wonder, that there should be any difficulty to believe, from what I have signed, and from what I have promised to my relations, and enabled them to promise for me, that I should be glad to marry that excellent creature upon her own terms. I acknowledge to you, Mr. Hickman, that I have basely injured her. If she will honour me with her hand, I declare, that it is my intention to make her the best of husbands.But, nevertheless, I must say, that, if she goes on appealing her case, and exposing us both, as she does, it is impossible to think the knot can be knit with reputation to either. And although, Mr. Hickman, I have delivered my apprehensions under so ludicrous a figure, I am afraid that she will ruin her constitution; and, by seeking Death when she I may shun him, will not be able to avoid him when she would be glad to do so.

This cool and honest speech let down his stiffened muscles into complacence. He was my very obedient and faithful humble servant several times over, as I waited on him to his chariot: and I was his almost as often.

And so exit Hickman.

LETTER LXXIX.

MR. LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

[In answer to letters lxxii. lxxvi. lxxvii.]

Friday night, July 21.

I WILL throw away a few paragraphs upon the contents of thy last shocking letters just brought me; and send what I shall write by the fellow who carries mine on the interview with Hickman.

Reformation, I see, is coming fast upon thee. Thy uncle's slow death, and thy attendance upon him, through every stage towards it, prepared thee for it. But go thou on in thine own way, as I will in mine. Happiness consists in being pleased with what we do and if thou canst find delight in being sad, it will be as well for thee, as if thou wert merry, though no other person should join to keep thee in countenance.

I am, nevertheless, exceedingly disturbed at the lady's ill health. It is entirely owing to the cursed arrest. She was absolutely triumphant over me and the whole crew before. Thou believest me guiltless of that: so, I hope, does she.-The rest, as I have often said, is a common case; only a little uncommonly circumstanced; that's all: why, then all these severe things from her and from thee?

As to selling her clothes, and her laces, and so forth, it has, I own, a shocking sound with it. What an implacable as well as unjust set of wretches are those of her unkindredly kin who have money of hers in their hands, as well as large arrears of her own estate; yet withhold both, avowedly to distress her! But may she not have money of that proud and saucy friend of hers, Miss Howe, more than