l life he would have
broken down in a week.

Granting the high improbability of Lovelace as a real living human
being, it must be admitted that he has every merit but that of
existence. The letters which he writes are the most animated in the
voluminous correspondence. The respectable domestic old printer, who
boasted of the perfect purity of his own life, seems to have thrown
himself with special gusto into the character of a heartless reprobate.
He must have felt a certain piquancy in writing down the most atrocious
sentiments in his own respectable parlour. He would show that the quiet
humdrum old tradesman could be on paper as sprightly and audacious as
the most profligate man about town. As quiet people are apt to do, he
probably exaggerated the enormities which such men would openly avow; he
fancied that the world beyond his little circle was a wilderness of wild
beasts who could gnash their teeth and show their claws after a terribly
ostentatious fashion in their own dens; they doubtless gloated upon all
the innocent sheep whom they had devoured without any shadow of
reticence. And he had a fancy that, in their way, they were amusing
monsters too; Lovelace is a lady's villain, as Grandison is a lady's
hero; he is designed by a person inexperienced even in the observation
of vice. Indeed, he would exaggerate the charm a good deal more than the
atrocity. We must also admit that when the old printer was put upon his
mettle he could be very lively indeed. Lovelace, like everybody else, is
at times unmercifully prolix; he never leaves us to guess any detail for
ourselves; but he is spirited, eloquent, and a thoroughly fine gentleman
after the Chesterfield type. 'The devil take such fine gentlemen!'
exclaims somebody; and if he does not, I see little use (to quote the
proverbial old lady) in keeping a devil. But, as Johnson observed, a man
may be very wicked and 'very genteel.' Richardson lectures us very
seriously on the evil results which are sure to follow bad courses; but
he evidently holds in his heart that, till the Nemesis descends, the
libertines are far the most amusing part of the world. In Sir Charles
Grandison's company, we should be treated to an intolerable deal of
sermonising, with an occasional descent into the regions of humour--but
the humour is always admitted under protest. With Lovelace we might hear
some very questionable morality, but there would be a never-ceasing flow
of sparkling witticisms. T