o gloriously to thy advantage, and to the
honour of both!

And if, my beloved creature, you will but connive at the imperfections of
your adorer, and not play the wife with me: if, while the charms of
novelty have their force with me, I should happen to be drawn aside by
the love of intrigue, and of plots that my soul delights to form and
pursue; and if thou wilt not be open-eyed to the follies of my youth, [a
transitory state;] every excursion shall serve but the more to endear
thee to me, till in time, and in a very little time too, I shall get
above sense; and then, charmed by thy soul-attracting converse; and
brought to despise my former courses; what I now, at distance, consider
as a painful duty, will be my joyful choice, and all my delight will
centre in thee!

***

Mowbray is just arrived with thy letters. I therefore close my agreeable
subject, to attend to one which I doubt will be very shocking.

I have engaged the rough varlet to bear me company in the morning to
Berks; where I shall file off the rust he has contracted in his
attendance upon the poor fellow.

He tells me that, between the dying Belton and the preaching Belford, he
shan't be his own man these three days: and says that thou addest to the
unhappy fellow's weakness, instead of giving him courage to help him to
bear his destiny.

I am sorry he takes the unavoidable lot so heavily. But he has been long
ill; and sickness enervates the mind as well as the body; as he himself
very significantly observed to thee.

LETTER XIX

MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
WEDN. EVENING.

I have been reading thy shocking letter--Poor Belton! what a multitude of
lively hours have we passed together! He was a fearless, cheerful
fellow: who'd have thought all that should end in such dejected
whimpering and terror?

But why didst thou not comfort the poor man about the rencounter between
him and that poltroon Metcalfe? He acted in that affair like a man of
true honour, and as I should have acted in the same circumstances. Tell
him I say so; and that what happened he could neither help nor foresee.

Some people are as sensible of a scratch from a pin's point, as others
from a push of a sword: and who can say any thing for the sensibility of
such fellows? Metcalfe would resent for his sister, when his sister
resented not for herself. Had she demanded her brother's protection and
resentment, that would have been another man's matte, to s