other in their power: yet he hardly ever knew man or woman, who was very fond of power, make a right use of it.

If she be so absolutely determined against marrying you, as she declares she is, he hopes, he says, to prevail upon her to take (as soon as her health will permit) a little tour abroad with him, as what will probably establish it; since travelling is certainly the best physic for all those disorders which owe their rise to grief or disappointment. An absence of two or three years will endear her to every one, on her return, and every one to her.

'He expresses his impatience to see her. He will set out, he says, the moment he knows the result of her family's determination; which, he doubts not, will be favourable. Nor will he wait long for that.'

When I had read the letter through to the languishing lady, And so, my friends, said she, have I heard of a patient who actually died, while five or six principal physicians were in a consultation, and not agreed upon what name to give his distemper. The patient was an emperor, the Emperor Joseph, I think.

I asked, if I should write to her cousin, as he knew not how ill she was, to hasten up?

By no means, she said; since, if he were not already set out, she was persuaded that she should be so low by the time he could receive my letter, and come, that his presence would but discompose and hurry her, and afflict him.

I hope, however, she is not so very near her end. And without saying any more to her, when I retired, I wrote to Colonel Morden, that if he expects to see his beloved cousin alive, he must lose no time in setting out. I sent this letter by his own

servant.

Dr. H. sent away his letter to her father by a particular hand this morning.

Mrs. Walton, the milliner, has also just now acquainted Mrs. Smith, that her husband had a letter brought by a special messenger, from parson Brand, within this half hour, inclosing the copy of one he had written to Mr. John Harlowe, recanting his officious one.

And as all these, and the copy of the lady's letter to Col. Morden, will be with them pretty much at a time, the devil's in the family if they are not struck with a remorse that shall burst open the double-barred doors of their hearts.

Will engages to reach you with this (late as it will be) before you go to rest. He begs that I will testify for him the hour and the minute I shall give it him. It is just half an hour after ten.

I pretend to be (now by use) the swiftest shorthand writer in England, next to yourself. But were matter to arise every hour to write upon, and I had nothing else to do, I cannot write so fast as you expect. And let it be remembered, that your servants cannot bring letters or messages before they are written or sent.

J. BELFORD.

SIR,

LETTER III.

DR. H. TO JAMES HARLOWE, SENIOR, ESQ. London, Sept. 4. IF I may judge of the hearts of other parents by my own, I do not doubt but you will take it well to be informed, that you have yet an opportunity to save yourself and family great future regret, by dispatching hither some one of it, with your

last

blessing, and your lady's, to the most excellent of her sex.

I have some reason to believe, sir, that she has been represented to you in a very different light from the true one. And this it is that induces me to acquaint you, that I think her, on the best grounds, absolutely irreproachable in all her conduct which has passed under my eye, or come to my ear; and that her very misfortunes are made glorious to her, and honourable to all that are related to her, by the use she has made of them; and by the patience and resignation with which she supports herself in a painful, lingering, and dispiriting decay! and by the greatness of mind with which she views her approaching dissolution. And all this from proper motives; from motives in which a dying saint might glory.

She knows not that I write. I must indeed acknowledge, that I offered to do so some days ago, and that very pressingly: nor did she refuse me from obstinacy-she seems not to know what that is-but desired me to forbear for two days only, in hopes that her newly-arrived cousin, who, as she heard, was soliciting for her, would be able to succeed in her favour.

I hope I shall not be thought an officious man on this occasion: but if I am, I cannot help it; being driven to write, by a kind of parental and irresistible impulse.

:

But, sir, whatever you think fit to do, or permit to be done, must be speedily done; for she cannot, I verily think, live a week and how long of that short space she may enjoy her admirable intellects to take comfort in the favours you may think proper to confer upon her, cannot be said. I am, SIR, Your most humble servant,

R. H.

SIR,

LETTER IV.

MR. BELFORD TO WILLIAM MORDEN, ESQ. London, Sept. 4. THE urgency of the case, and the opportunity by your servant, will sufficiently apologize for this trouble from a stranger to your person; who, however, is not a stranger to your merit.

I understand you are employing your good offices with the parents of Miss Clarissa Harlowe, and other relations, to reconcile them to the most meritorious daughter and kinswoman that ever family had to boast of.

Generously as this is intended by you, we here have too much reason to think all your solicitudes on this head will be unnecessary for it is the opinion of every one who has the honour of being admitted to her presence, that she cannot live over three days: so that if you wish to see her alive, you must lose no time to come up.

She knows not that I write. I had done it sooner, if I had had the least doubt that before now she would not have received from you some news of the happy effects of your kind mediation in her behalf. I am, SIR,

Your most humble servant,

J. BELFORD.

LETTER V.

MR. LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

[In answer to Letter ii.]

Uxbridge, Tuesday morn. between 4 and 5. AND can it be, that this admirable creature will so soon leave this cursed world! For cursed I shall VOL. VIII.

D

think it, and more cursed myself, when she is gone. O, Jack! thou who canst sit so cool, and, like Addison's angel, direct, and even enjoy, the storm, that tears up my happiness by the roots; blame me not for my impatience, however unreasonable! If thou knewest, that already I feel the torments of the damned, in the remorse that wrings my heart, on looking back upon my past actions by her, thou wouldst not be the devil thou art, to halloo on a worrying conscience, which, without thy merciless aggravations, is altogether intolerable.

I know not what I write, nor what I would write. When the company that used to delight me is as uneasy to me, as my reflections are painful, and I can neither help nor divert myself, must not every servant about me partake in a perturbation so sincere!

Shall I give thee a faint picture of the horrible uneasiness with which my mind struggles? And faint indeed it must be; for nothing but outrageous madness can exceed it; and that only in the apprehension of others; since, as to the sufferer, it is certain, that actual distraction (take it out of its lucid intervals) must be an infinitely more happy state than the state of suspense and anxiety, which often brings it on.

Forbidden to attend the dear creature, yet longing to see her, I would give the world to be admitted once more to her beloved presence. I ride towards London three or four times a day, resolving, pro and con, twenty times in two or three miles; and at last ride back; and, in view of Uxbridge, loathing even the kind friend, and hospitable house, turn my horse's head again towards the town, and resolve to gratify my humour, let her take it as she will; but, at the very entrance of it, after infinite canvassings, once more alter my mind, dreading to