more of recovery than death: and the more so, as he has
no sharp or acute mental organs to whet out his bodily ones, and to raise
his fever above the sympathetic helpful one.

Thou wilt see in the enclosed what pains I am at to dispatch messengers;
who are constantly on the road to meet each other, and one of them to
link in the chain with the fourth, whose station is in London, and five
miles onwards, or till met. But in truth I have some other matters for
them to perform at the same time, with my Lord's banker and his lawyer;
which will enable me, if his Lordship is so good as to die this bout, to
be an over match for some of my other relations. I don't mean Charlotte
and Patty; for they are noble girls: but others, who have been scratching
and clawing under-ground like so many moles in my absence; and whose
workings I have discovered since I have been down, by the little heaps of
dirt they have thrown up.

A speedy account of thy commission, dear Jack! The letter travels all
night.

LETTER XLI

MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
LONDON, JUNE 27. TUESDAY.

You must excuse me, Lovelace, from engaging in the office you would have
me undertake, till I can be better assured you really intend honourably
at last by this much-injured lady.

I believe you know your friend Belford too well to think he would be easy
with you, or with any man alive, who should seek to make him promise for
him what he never intended to perform. And let me tell thee, that I have
not much confidence in the honour of a man, why by imitation of hands (I
will only call it) has shown so little regard to the honour of his own
relations.

Only that thou hast such jesuitical qualifyings, or I should think thee
at last touched with remorse, and brought within view of being ashamed
of thy cursed inventions by the ill success of thy last: which I heartily
congratulate thee upon.

O the divine lady!--But I will not aggravate!

Nevertheless, when thou writest that, in thy present mood, thou thinkest
of marrying, and yet canst so easily change thy mood; when I know thy
heart is against the state: that the four words thou courtest from the
lady are as much to thy purpose, as if she wrote forty; since it will
show she can forgive the highest injury that can be offered to woman; and
when I recollect how easily thou canst find excuses to postpone; thou
must be more explicit a good deal, as to thy real intentions, and future
honour, than t