parts of a letter written in my own defence?--I'll tell you
who--the man who, in the same letter that he asks this question, tells
the friend whom he exposes to her resentment, 'That there is such an air
of levity runs through his most serious letters, that those of this are
least fit to be seen which ought to be most to his credit:' And now what
thinkest thou of thyself-condemned folly? Be, however, I charge thee,
more circumspect for the future, that so this clumsy error may stand
singly by itself.

'It is painful to her to think of me!' 'Libertine froth!' 'So pernicious
and so despicable a plotter!' 'A man whose friendship is no credit to any
body!' 'Hardened wretch!' 'The devil's counterpart!' 'A wicked, wicked
man!'--But did she, could she, dared she, to say, or imply all this?--and
say it to a man whom she praises for humanity, and prefers to myself for
that virtue; when all the humanity he shows, and she knows it too, is by
my direction--so robs me of the credit of my own works; admirably
entitled, all this shows her, to thy refinement upon the words resentment
and revenge. But thou wert always aiming and blundering at some thing
thou never couldst make out.

The praise thou givest to her ingenuousness, is another of thy peculiars.
I think not as thou dost, of her tell-tale recapitulations and
exclamations:--what end can they answer?--only that thou hast a holy love
for her, [the devil fetch thee for thy oddity!] or it is extremely
provoking to suppose one sees such a charming creature stand upright
before a libertine, and talk of the sin against her, that cannot be
forgiven!--I wish, at my heart, that these chaste ladies would have a
little modesty in their anger!--It would sound very strange, if I Robert
Lovelace should pretend to have more true delicacy, in a point that
requires the utmost, than Miss Clarissa Harlowe.

I think I will put it into the head of her nurse Norton, and her Miss
Howe, by some one of my agents, to chide the dear novice for her
proclamations.

But to be serious: let me tell thee, that, severe as she is, and saucy,
in asking so contemptuously, 'What a man is your friend, Sir, to set
himself to punish guilty people!' I will never forgive the cursed woman,
who could commit this last horrid violence on so excellent a creature.

The barbarous insults of the two nymphs, in their visits to her; the
choice of the most execrable den that could be found out, in order, no
doubt, to induce