THE HISTORY OF CLARISSA HARLOWE, IN A SERIES OF LETTERS. BY S. RICHARDSON. NEW EDITION. VOL VII. BASIL: Printed for J. L. LEGRAND. MDCCXCII. WHAT pain, my dearest friend, does your kind folicitude for my welfare give me! How much more binding and tender are the ties of pure friend. fhip, and the union of like minds, than the ties of nature! Well might the Sweet-Singer of Ifrael, when he was carrying to the utmost extent the praises of the friendship between him and his beloved friend, fay, that the love of Jonathan to him was wonderful; that it furpaffed the love of women! What an exalted idea does it give of the foul of Jonathan fweetly attempered for the facred band, if we may suppose it but equal to that of my Anna Howe for her fallen Clariffa! But, although I can glory in your kind love for me, think, my dear, what concern must fill mind, not ungenerous, when the obligation lies all on one fide: and when, at the fame time that your light is the brighter for my VOL. VII. - A darkness, I must give pain to a dear friend, to whom I delighted to give pleasure; and not pain only, but difcredit, for fupporting my blighted fame against the busy tongues of uncharitable cenfurers! This it is that makes me, in the words of my admired exclaimer, very little altered, often repeat: "O! that I were as in months paft! as in the days when God preserved me! When his candle fhined upon my head, and when by his light I walked through darkness! As I was in the days of my childhood when the Almighty was yet with me; when I was in my father's houfe when I washed my steps with butter, and the rock poured me out rivers of oil! " You fet before me your reafons, enforced by the opinion of your honored mother, why I fhould think of Mr. Lovelace for a husband (*). And I have before me your letter of the 13th (***), containing the account of the vifit and proposals, and kind interpofition of the two Miffes Montague, in the names of the good Ladies Sarah Sadleir and Betty Lawrance, and in that of Lord M... I Also yours of the 18th (*****) demanding me, as may fay, of thofe Ladies, and of that family, when I was fo infamoufly and cruelly arrested, and you knew not what was become of me. The answer likewife of thofe Ladies, figned in fo full and fo generous a manner by themselves (****), (*) Sce Vol. VI. Let. xc. and by that nobleman, and those two venerable Ladies; and, in his light way, by the wretch himself. Thefe, my dearest Miss Howe; and your letter of the 16th (*), which came when I was under arrest, and which I received not till fome days after; Are all before me. And I have as well weighed the whole matter, and your arguments in fupport of your advice, as at prefent my head and my heart will let me weigh them. I am, moreover, willing to believe, not only from your own opinion, but from the affurances of one of Mr. Lovelace's friends, Mr. Belford, a good-natured and humane man, who spares not to cenfure the author of my calamities (I think, with undiffembled and undefigning fincerity) that that man is innocent of the difgraceful arreft. And even, if you please, in fincere compliment to your opinion, and to that of Mr. Hickman, that (over-perfuaded by his friends, and afhamed of his unmerited bafenefs to me) he would in earnest marry me, if I would have him. cc (**) Well, and now, what is the refult of all? It is this That I must abide by what I have already declared and that is (don't be angry at me, my best friend) that I have much more pleasure (*) See Letter lx. (**) Those parts of this letter which are marked with inverted comma's (thus ") were afterwards tranfcribed by Mifs Howe in Letter xv. of this Volume, written to the Ladies of Mr. Lovelace's family; and are thus diftinguished to avoid the neceffity of repeating them in that letter. |