d in, would have run so in my head that I should have concluded
something of very ill from your silence. Poor Jane is sick, but she will
write, she says, if she can. Did you send the last part of _Cyrus_ to
Mr. Hollingsworth?

_Letter 42._

SIR,--I am extremely sorry that your letter miscarried, but I am
confident my brother has it not. As cunning as he is, he could not hide
from me, but that I should discover it some way or other. No; he was
here, and both his men, when this letter should have come, and not one
of them stirred out that day; indeed, the next day they went all to
London. The note you writ to Jane came in one of Nan's, by Collins, but
nothing else; it must be lost by the porter that was sent with it, and
'twas very unhappy that there should be anything in it of more
consequence than ordinary; it may be numbered amongst the rest of our
misfortunes, all which an inconsiderate passion has occasioned. You must
pardon me I cannot be reconciled to it, it has been the ruin of us both.
'Tis true that nobody must imagine to themselves ever to be absolute
master on't, but there is great difference betwixt that and yielding to
it, between striving with it and soothing it up till it grows too strong
for one. Can I remember how ignorantly and innocently I suffered it to
steal upon me by degrees; how under a mask of friendship I cozened
myself into that which, had it appeared to me at first in its true
shape, I had feared and shunned? Can I discern that it has made the
trouble of your life, and cast a cloud upon mine, that will help to
cover me in my grave? Can I know that it wrought so upon us both as to
make neither of us friends to one another, but agree in running wildly
to our own destruction, and that perhaps of some innocent persons who
might live to curse our folly that gave them so miserable a being? Ah!
if you love yourself or me, you must confess that I have reason to
condemn this senseless passion; that wheresoe'er it comes destroys all
that entertain it; nothing of judgment or discretion can live with it,
and it puts everything else out of order before it can find a place for
itself. What has it brought my poor Lady Anne Blunt to? She is the talk
of all the footmen and boys in the street, and will be company for them
shortly, and yet is so blinded by her passion as not at all to perceive
the misery she has brought herself to; and this fond love of hers has so
rooted all sense of nature out of her hear