V.

displeasure? No, you would be more surprised than offended at my observations. You would believe you had been all along deceived in your opinion of my delicacy and understanding: you would be mortified at the discovery of your own mistake, and look upon me with compassion, as one of those tame, timid rationalists, who being naturally phlegmatic and fearful, are utter strangers to the refined sensations of the human heart, incapable of doing justice to those melting tendernesses which they never felt, and too irresolute to withstand the torrent of ignozant, malicious, or wrong-headed clamour, when it affects a character in which their friendship ought to be interested. Your sentiments, I own, would in that case be just, excepting that I should engage your ladyship's pity in deserving your contempt, and instead of being despised as a cold friend, be still regarded by you, as a weak and timorous wellwisher. If your character suffered cruelly from misrepresentations; if your foibles were magnified and multiplied with all the aggravations of envy and fiction; if the qualities of your heart were decried or traduced, and even your understanding called in question; I agree with your ladyship, that it was not only excusable, but highly necessary to publish a detail of your conduct which would acquit you of all or most of these scandalous imputations. This task you have (in my opinion) performed, to the satisfaction of all the intelligent and unprejudiced part of mankind. He must be very deficient in candour and feeling, who, in reading your memoirs, is not interested in your favour; who does not espouse the cause of beauty, innocence, and love; who does not see that as you once were, you would still have continued to be the pattern of conjugal faith and felicity, had not the cross accidents

of fortune forced you from the natural bias of your disposition: who does not excuse the tenderness, which youth and sensibility, so circumstanced could not possibly resist; and who does not freely forgive the fault, when he considers the particulars of the temptation? He must be void of all taste and reflection, who does not admire your spirit, elegance, and sense; and dead to all the finer movements of the soul, if he is not agitated, thrilled, and trans ported with the pathetic circumstances of your story. Some people who are your ladyship's friends, and highly entertained with the performance, have wished you had spared yourself some unnecessary confessions which they thought could serve no end, but that of affording a handle to your enemies, for censure and defamation: I myself, I own, was of the same opinion, until you convinced me that in suppressing one circumstance which might be afterwards discovered, your sincerity through the whole piece would have been called in question.

And what have you avowed, that your most malicious foes dare blame, except your disregard of an unnatural contract, which (though authorized by the laws of your country) was imposed upon your necessity, youth, and inexperience? Nor was this conduct the result of vicious levity and intemperance: you had already given undeniable proofs of your constancy and conjugal virtue, to the first lord of your affections, who was the choice of your love, and to whom your heart was unalterably wedded. Your natural sensibility had been, by his extraordinary care, tenderness, and attention, cherished and improved to such a degree of delicacy, as could not possibly relish the attachment of the common run of husbands. No wonder then that you was uneasy under a second engagement so much unlike the first;

vii.

that every circumstance of the contrast appeared to you in the most aggravating light, and made a suitable impression upon your imagination; and that you was not insensible to those attractions, which had formerly captivated your heart, nor able to resist the flattering insinuations, incredible assiduity, and surprising perseverance of an artful lover. And sure he could not have chosen a more favourable opportunity to prefer his addresses: your passions were unusually intendered by grief; you was dissatisfied with your domestic situation; you was solitary for want of that intimate connexion in which you had been so happy before, and your breast glowed with the most pathetic susceptibility, while you was yet a stranger to the insidious wiles of man. In such distress the mind longs for sympathy and consolation; it seeks to repose itself upon the tender friendship of some kind par ner, that will share and alleviate its sorrows: such a comforter appeared in the accomplished youth: your judgment was pleased with his qualifications: his demeanour acquired your esteem; your friendship was engaged by his sincerity, and your affection was insensibly subdued. In short, every thing conspired to promote his suit, and my wonder is not that he succeeded, but that you held out so long. Your sentiments with regard to those who have inveighed against your performance, are altogether conformable to that good sense and benevolent disposition, which I have always admired and esteemed. As for writers who have exercised their pens in abusing your ladyship, they are either objects of mirth or compassion. They, poor harmless creatures, in their hearts, wish you no evil. Their business is to eat honestly, if they can, but at any rate to eat. I am fully persuaded that for a very

a

small sum, you might engage the whole tribe to refute their own revilings, and bellow with all their might in your praise. It would really be uncharitable as well as absurd, to express the least resentment, against such feeble antagonists, who are literally the beings of a summer-day: they are the noisy insects, which the son of merit never fails to produce; the shadows that continually accompany success; and indeed a man might as well fight with his own shadow, as attempt to chastise such unsubstantial phantoms. But of all the emotions of your heart, that which I am at present tempted chiefly to applaud, is the sorrow you express for having been obliged, in your own justification, to vilify and expose the man to whom your fate is inseparably connected; and the laudable resolution you have taken to live amicably with him for the future, provided he shall persist in that conduct, which he hath of late chosen to maintain. On the whole, though you may have inflamed the virulence of envy and malice, roused the resentment of some whose folly and ingratitude you had occasion to display, and incurred the censure of those, who think it their duty to exclaim against the least infringement of the nuptial tie, howsoever unequally imposed; your Memoirs will always be perused with pleasure by all readers of taste and discernment, and your fame as a beauty and author, long survivé the ill offices of prejudice, and personal animosity. And now that I have performed the task enjoined, give me leave to add, that I have the honour to be,

Madam,

your most devoted
humble servant.

THE pills are good for nothing-I might as well swallow snow-balls to cool my reins-I have told you over and over, how hard I am to move; and, at this time of day, I ought to know something of my own constitution. Why will you be so positive? Prithee send me another prescription-I am as lame, and as much tortured in all my limbs, as if I was broke upon the wheel indeed, I am equally distressed in mind and body—as if I had not plagues enough of my own, those children of my sister are left me for a perpetual source of vexation-what business have people to get children to plague their neighbours? A ridiculous incident that happened yesterday to my niece Liddy, has disordered me in such a manner, that I expect to be laid up with another fit of the gout. Perhaps I may explain myself in my next. I shall

set out to-morrow morning for the Hot-well at Bristol, where I am afraid I shall stay longer than I could wish. On the receipt of this, send Williams thither with my saddle-horse and the demi-pique. Tell