the truth may be fairly told, for not being so bad a devil as myself.

Thou art, surely, casuist good enough to know, (what I have insisted
upon* heretofore,) that the sin of seducing a credulous and easy girl, is
as great as that of bringing to your lure an incredulous and watchful
one.

* See Vol. IV. Letter XVII.

However ungenerous an appearance what I am going to say may have from my
pen, let me tell thee, that if such a woman as Miss Harlowe chose to
enter into the matrimonial state, [I am resolved to disappoint thee in
thy meditated triumph over my rage and despair!] and, according to the
old patriarchal system, to go on contributing to get sons and daughters,
with no other view than to bring them up piously, and to be good and
useful members of the commonwealth, what a devil had she to do, to let
her fancy run a gadding after a rake? one whom she knew to be a rake?

Oh! but truly she hoped to have the merit of reclaiming him. She had
formed pretty notions how charming it would look to have a penitent of
her own making dangling at her side at church, through an applauding
neighbourhood: and, as their family increased, marching with her thither,
at the head of their boys and girls, processionally, as it were, boasting
of the fruits of their honest desires, as my good lord bishop has it in
his license. And then, what a comely sight, all kneeling down together
in one pew, according to eldership as we have seen in effigy, a whole
family upon some old monument, where the honest chevalier in armour is
presented kneeling, with up-lifted hands, and half a dozen jolter-headed
crop-eared boys behind him, ranged gradatim, or step-fashion according to
age and size, all in the same posture--facing his pious dame, with a ruff
about her neck, and as many whey-faced girls all kneeling behind her: an
altar between them, and an open book upon it: over their heads
semiluminary rays darting from gilded clouds, surrounding an achievement-
motto, IN COELO SALUS--or QUIES--perhaps, if they have happened to live
the usual married life of brawl and contradiction.

It is certainly as much my misfortune to have fallen in with Miss
Clarissa Harlowe, were I to have valued my reputation or ease, as it is
that of Miss Harlowe to have been acquainted with me. And, after all,
what have I done more than prosecute the maxim, by which thou and I and
every rake are governed, and which, before I knew this lady, we have
pursued from pretty