itted it?

'The Virtues and Graces are this Lady's handmaids. She was certainly
born to adorn the age she was given to.'--Well said, Jack--'And would be
an ornament to the first dignity.' But what praise is that, unless the
first dignity were adorned with the first merit?--Dignity! gew-gaw!--
First dignity! thou idiot!--Art thou, who knowest me, so taken with
ermine and tinsel?--I, who have won the gold, am only fit to wear it.
For the future therefore correct thy style, and proclaim her the ornament
of the happiest man, and (respecting herself and sex) the greatest
conqueror in the world.

Then, that she loves me, as thou imaginest, by no means appears clear to
me. Her conditional offers to renounce me; the little confidence she
places in me; entitle me to ask, What merit can she have with a man, who
won her in spite of herself; and who fairly, in set and obstinate battle,
took her prisoner?

As to what thou inferrest from her eye when with us, thou knowest nothing
of her heart from that, if thou imaginest there was one glance of love
shot from it. Well did I note her eye, and plainly did I see, that it
was all but just civil disgust to me and to the company I had brought her
into. Her early retiring that night, against all entreaty, might have
convinced thee, that there was very little of the gentle in her heart for
me. And her eye never knew what it was to contradict her heart.

She is, thou sayest, all mind. So say I. But why shouldst thou imagine
that such a mind as hers, meeting with such a one as mine, and, to dwell
upon the word, meeting with an inclination in hers, should not propagate
minds like her own?

Were I to take thy stupid advice, and marry; what a figure should I make
in rakish annals! The lady in my power: yet not have intended to put
herself in my power: declaring against love, and a rebel to it: so much
open-eyed caution: no confidence in my honour: her family expecting the
worst hath passed: herself seeming to expect that the worst will be
attempted: [Priscilla Partington for that!] What! wouldst thou not have
me act in character?

But why callest thou the lady innocent? And why sayest thou she loves
me?

By innocent, with regard to me, and not taken as a general character, I
must insist upon it she is not innocent. Can she be innocent, who, by
wishing to shackle me in the prime and glory of my youth, with such a
capacity as I have for noble mischief,* would make my perdition