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of one hundred guineas per quarter, which will be regularly brought you by an especial hand, and of the enclosed bank bill for a beginning. And do not, dearest madam, we all beseech you, do not think you are beholden (for this token of Lord M.'s and Lady Sarah's and Lady Betty's love to you) to the friends of this vile man; for he has not one friend left among us.

We each of us desire to be favoured with a place in your esteem; and to be considered upon the same foot of relationship, as if what once was so much our pleasure to hope would be, had been. And it shall be our united prayer, that you may recover health and spirits, and live to see many happy years: And, since this wretch can no more be pleaded for, that, when he is gone abroad, as he now is preparing to do, we may be permitted the honour of a personal acquaintance with a lady who has no equal. These are the earnest requests, dearest young lady, of Your affectionate friends, and

most faithful servants,

M.

SARAH SADLEIR.

ELIZ. LAWRENCE.
CHARL. MONTAGUE,

MARTH. MONTAGUE,

You will break the hearts of the three first named more particularly, if you refuse them your acceptance. Dearest young lady, punish not them for his crimes. We send by a particular hand, which will bring us, we hope, your accepting favour.

Mr. Lovelace writes by the same hand; but he knows nothing of our letter, nor we of his for we shun each other; and one part of the house holds us, another him, the remotest from each other.

MR. LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Saturday, August 5.

AM so excessively disturbed at the contents of Miss Harlowe's answer to my cousin Charlotte's letter of Tuesday last (which was given her by the same fellow that gave me yours) that I have hardly patience or consideration enough to weigh what you write.

She had need indeed to cry out for mercy herself from her friends, who knows not how to show any! She is a true daughter of the Harlowes!-By my soul, Jack, she is a true daughter of the Harlowes! Yet has she so many excellencies, that I must love her; and, fool that I am, love her the more for her despising me.

Thou runnest on with thy cursed nonsensical reformado rote, of dying, dying, dying! and, having once got the word by the end, canst not help foisting it in at every period! The devil take me, if I don't think thou wouldst give her poison with thy own hands, rather than she should recover, and rob thee of the merit of being a conjurer!

But no more of thy cursed knell; thy changes upon death's candlestick turned bottom upwards: she'll live to bury me; I see that: for, by my soul, I can neither eat, drink, nor sleep, nor, what is still worse, love any woman in the world but her. Nor care I to look upon a woman now on the contrary, I turn my head from every one I meet; except by chance an eye, an air, a feature, strikes me resembling hers in some glancing-by face; and then I cannot forbear looking again; though the second look recovers me; for there can be nobody like her.

As to the difference which her letter has made between me and the stupid family here (and I must tell thee we are all broke in pieces) I value not that of a button.

They are fools to anathematize and curse me, who can give them ten curses for one, were they to hold it for a day together.

I have one half of the house to myself; and that the best; for the great enjoy that least which costs them most grandeur and use are two things: the common part is theirs; the state part is mine: and here I lord it, and will lord it, as long as I please; while the two pursy sisters, the old gouty brother, and the two musty nieces, are stived up in the other half, and dare not stir for fear of meeting me whom (that's the jest of it) they have forbidden coming into their apartments, as I have them into mine. And so I have them all prisoners, while I range about as I please. Pretty dogs and doggesses, to quarrel and bark at me, and yet, whenever I appear, afraid to pop out of their kennels; or if out before they see me, at the sight of me run growling in again, with their flapt ears, their sweeping dewlaps, and their quivering tails curling inwards.

And thou art a pretty fellow, art thou not? to engage to transcribe for her some parts of my letters written to thee in confidence? letters that thou shouldest sooner have parted with thy cursed tongue, than have owned thou ever hadst received such: yet these are now to be communicated to her! But I charge thee, and woe be to thee if it be too late! that thou do not oblige her with a line of mine.

If thou hast done it, the least vengeance I will take, is to break through my honour given to thee not to visit her, as thou wilt have broken through thine to me, in communicating letters written under the seal of friendship.

I am now convinced, too sadly for my hopes, by her letter to my cousin Charlotte, that she is determined. never to have me.

But what a whirlwind does she raise in my soul, by her

proud contempts of me! Never, never, was mortal man's pride so mortified! How does she sink me, even in my own eyes! Her heart sincerely repulses me, she says, for my meanness,-yet she intends to reap the benefit of what she calls so-Curse upon her haughtiness, and her meanness, at the same time!-her haughtiness to me, and her meanness to her own relations more unworthy of kindred with her, than I can be, or I am mean indeed.

Yet who but must admire, who but must adore her? O that cursed, cursed house !-But for the women of that! -then their damned potions! But for those, had her unimpaired intellects, and the majesty of her virtue, saved her, as once it did by her humble eloquence, another time by her terrifying menaces against her own life.

Yet in both these to find her power over me, and my love for her, and to hate, to despise, and to refuse me!She might have done this with some show of justice, had the last intended violation been perpetrated:-but to go away conqueress and triumphant in every light !—well may she despise me for suffering her to do so.

She left me low and mean indeed !-and the impression holds with her. I could tear my flesh, that I gave her not cause that I humbled her not indeed;—or that I staid not in town to attend her motions instead of Lord M.'s, till I could have exalted myself, by giving to myself a wife superior to all trial, to all temptation.

I will venture one more letter to her, however; and if that don't do, or procure me an answer, then will I endeavour to see her, let what will be the consequence. If she get out of my way, I will do some noble mischief to the vixen girl whom she most loves, and then quit the kingdom for ever.

And now, Jack, since thy hand is in at communicating the contents of private letters, tell her this, if thou wilt.

And add to it, that if she abandon me, God will: and. what then will be the fate of

Her

LOVELACE.

MR. LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Monday, August 7.

ND so you have actually delivered to the fair

implacable extracts of letters written in the

confidence of friendship! Take care-take care, Belford-I do indeed love you better than I love any man in the world: but this is a very delicate point. The matter is grown very serious to me. My heart is bent upon having her. And have her I will, though I marry her in the agonies of death.

She is very earnest, you say, that I will not offer to molest her. That, let me tell her, will absolutely depend upon herself, and the answer she returns, whether by pen and ink, or the contemptuous one of silence, which she bestowed upon my last four to her and I will write it in such humble, and in such reasonable terms, that, if she be not a true Harlowe, she shall forgive me. But as to the executorship which she is for conferring upon theethou shalt not be her executor: let me perish if thou shalt. Nor shall she die. Nobody shall be anything, nobody shall dare to be anything, to her, but I.—Thy happiness is already too great, to be admitted daily to her presence; to look upon her, to talk to her, to hear her talk, while I am forbid to come within view of her window.—What a reprobation is this, of the man who was once more dear to her than all the men in the world! -And now to be able to look down upon me, while her exalted head is hid from me among the stars, sometimes with scorn, at other times with pity, I cannot bear it.

This I tell thee, that if I have not success in my effort

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