what will he then think of the poor
transitory gratifications of sense, which now engage all his attention?
Tell him, dear Belford, tell him, how happy he is if he know his own
dying happiness; how happy, compared to his poor dying friend, that he
has recovered from his illness, and has still an opportunity lent him,
for which I would give a thousand worlds, had I them to give!'

I approved exceedingly of his reflections, as suited to his present
circumstances; and inferred consolations to him from a mind so properly
touched.

He proceeded in the like penitent strain. I have lived a very wicked
life; so have we all. We have never made a conscience of doing whatever
mischief either force or fraud enabled us to do. We have laid snares for
the innocent heart; and have not scrupled by the too-ready sword to
extend, as occasions offered, the wrongs we did to the persons whom we
had before injured in their dearest relations. But yet, I flatter
myself, sometimes, that I have less to answer for than either Lovelace or
Mowbray; for I, by taking to myself that accursed deceiver from whom thou
hast freed me, (and who, for years, unknown to me, was retaliating upon
my own head some of the evils I had brought upon others,) and retiring,
and living with her as a wife, was not party to half the mischiefs, that
I doubt they, and Tourville, and even you, Belford, committed. As to the
ungrateful Thomasine, I hope I have met with my punishment in her. But
notwithstanding this, dost thou not think, that such an action--and such
an action--and such an action; [and then he recapitulated several
enormities, in the perpetration of which (led on by false bravery, and
the heat of youth and wine) we have all been concerned;] dost thou not
think that these villanies, (let me call them now by their proper name,)
joined to the wilful and gloried-in neglect of every duty that our better
sense and education gave us to know were required of us as men and
christians, are not enough to weigh down my soul into despondency?--
Indeed, indeed, they are! and now to hope for mercy; and to depend upon
the efficacy of that gracious attribute, when that no less shining one of
justice forbids me to hope; how can I!--I, who have despised all
warnings, and taken no advantage of the benefit I might have reaped from
the lingering consumptive illness I have laboured under, but left all to
the last stake; hoping for recovery against hope, and driving off
repenta