such an opinion of you, as to be willing to hope, that at the times you made these offers, you meant more than mere compliment.

I have, therefore, two requests to make you: the first I will now mention; the other, if this shall be complied with, otherwise not.

It behoves me to leave behind me such an account as may clear up my conduct to several of my friends who will not at present concern themselves about me: and Miss Howe, and her mother, are very solicitous that I will do so.

I am apprehensive that I shall not have time to do this; and you will not wonder that I have less and less inclination to set about such a painful task; especially as I find myself unable to look back with patience on what I have suffered and shall be too much discomposed by the retrospection, were I obliged to make it, to proceed with the requisite temper in a task of still greater importance which I have before me.

It is very evident to me, that your wicked friend has given you, from time to time, a circumstantial account of all his behaviour to me, and devices against me; and you have more than once assured me, that he has done my character all the justice I could wish for, both by writing and speech.

Now, sir, if I may have a fair, a faithful specimen from his letters or accounts to you, written upon some of the most interesting occasions, I shall be able to judge, whether there will or will not be a necessity for me, for my honour's sake, to enter upon the solicited task.

You may be assured, from my inclosed answer to the letter which Miss Montague has honoured me with (and which you will be pleased to return me as soon as read) that it is impossible for me ever to think of your friend in the way I am importuned

to think of him: he cannot therefore receive any detriment from the requested specimen : and I give you my honour, that no use shall be made of it to his prejudice, in law, or otherwise. And that it may not, after I am no more, I assure you that it is a main part of my view, that the passages you shall oblige me with shall be always in your own power, and not in that of any other person.

If, sir, you think fit to comply with my request, the passages I would wish to be transcribed (making neither better nor worse of the matter) are those which he has written to you, on or about the 7th and 8th of June, when I was alarmed by the wicked pretence of a fire; and what he has written from Sunday June 11 to the 19th. And in doing this you will much oblige

Your humble servant,

CL. HARLOWE.

Now, Lovelace, since there are no hopes for thee of her returning favour-since some praise may lie for thy ingenuousness, having never offered [as more diminutive minded libertines would have done] to palliate thy crimes, by aspersing the lady, or her sex -since she may be made easier by it since thou must fare better from thine own pen, than from hers-and, finally, since thy actions have manifested, that thy letters are not the most guilty part of what she knows of thee-I see not why I may not oblige her, upon her honour, and under the restrictions, and for the reasons she has given; and this without breach of the confidence due to friendly communications; especially as I might have added, Since thou gloriest in thy pen, and in thy wickedness, and canst not be ashamed.

But, be this as it may, she will be obliged before thy remonstrances or clamours against it can come:

so, pr'ythee, now make the best of it, and rave not; except for the sake of a pretence against me, and to exercise thy talent at execration:—and, if thou likest to do so for these reasons, rave and wel

come.

I long to know what the second request is: but this I know, that if it be any thing less than cutting thy throat, or endangering my own neck, I will certainly comply, and be proud of having it in my power to oblige her.

And now I am actually going to be busy in the

extracts.

LETTER XXVII.

MR. BELFORD TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE.

MADAM,

Aug. 3, 4. You have engaged me to communicate to you, upon honour, (making neither better nor worse of the matter) what Mr. Lovelace has written to me in relation to yourself, in the period preceding your going to Hampstead, and in that between the 11th and 19th of June: and you assure me, you have no view in this request, but to see if it be necessary for you, from the account he gives, to touch the painful subjects yourself, for the sake of your own character.

Your commands, madam, are of a very delicate nature, as they may seem to affect the secrets of private friendship: but as I know you are not capable of a view the motives to which you will not own; and as I think the communication may do some credit to my unhappy friend's character as an ingenuous man; though his actions by the most excellent woman in the world have lost him all title

to that of an honourable one; I obey you with the greater cheerfulness.

He then proceeds with his extracts, and concludes them with an address to her in his friend's behalf in the following words:

And now, madam, I have fulfilled your commands; and, I hope, have not disserved my friend with you, since you will hereby see the justice he does to your virtue in every line he writes. He does the same in all his letters, though to his own condemnation: and give me leave to add, that if this ever-amiable sufferer can think it in any manner consistent with her honour to receive his vows at the altar, on his truly penitent turn of mind, I have not the least doubt, but that he will make her the best and tenderest of husbands. What obligation will not the admirable lady hereby lay upon all his noble family, who so greatly admire her! and, I will presume to say, upon her own, when the unhappy family aversion (which certainly has been carried to an unreasonable height against him) shall be got over, and a general reconciliation takes place! For who is it, that would not give these two admirable persons to each other, were not his morals an objection?'

However this be, I would humbly refer to you, madam, whether, as you will be mistress of very delicate particulars from me, his friend, you should not in honour think yourself concerned to pass them by, as if you had never seen them; and not to take any advantage of the communication, not even in argument, as some perhaps might lie, with respect to the premeditated design he seems to have had, not against you, as you; but as against the sex; over whom (I am sorry. I can bear witness myself) it is

the villanous aim of all libertines to triumph: and I would not, if any misunderstanding should arise between him and me, give him room to reproach me, that his losing of you, and (through his usage of you) of his own friends, were owing to what perhaps he would call a breach of trust, were he to judge rather by the event than by my intention. I am, madam, with the most profound veneration, Your most faithful humble servant,

J. BELFORD.

LETTER XXVIII.

MISS CL. HARLOWE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

SIR,

Friday, Aug. 4. I HOLD myself extremely obliged to you for your communications. I will make no use of them, that you shall have reason to reproach either yourself or me with. I wanted no new lights to make the unhappy man's premeditated baseness to me unquestionable, as my answer to Miss Montague's letter might convince you*.

I must own in his favour, that he has observed some decency in his accounts to you of the most indecent and shocking actions. And if all his strangely communicative narrations are equally decent, nothing will be rendered criminally odious by them, but the vile heart that could meditate such contrivances, as were much stronger evidences of his inhumanity, than of his wit: since men of very contemptible parts and understanding may succeed in the vilest attempts, if they can once bring themselves to trample on the sanctions which bind man

* See Letter xxv.