marry. That she is even
apprehensive that the step she has taken of going off with me will make
the ladies of a family of such rank and honour as ours think slightly of
her. That therefore I desire his Lordship (though this hint, I tell him,
must be very delicately touched) to write me such a letter as I can shew
her; (let him treat me in it ever so freely, I shall not take it amiss, I
tell him, because I know his Lordship takes pleasure in writing to me in
a corrective style). That he may make what offers he pleases on the
marriage. That I desire his presence at the ceremony; that I may take
from his hand the greatest blessing that mortal man can give me.'

I have not absolutely told the lady that I would write to his Lordship to
this effect; yet have given her reason to think I will. So that without
the last necessity I shall not produce the answer I expect from him: for
I am very loth, I own, to make use of any of my family's names for the
furthering of my designs. And yet I must make all secure, before I pull
off the mask. Was not this my motive for bringing her hither?

Thus thou seest that the old peer's letter came very seasonably. I thank
thee for that. But as to his sentences, they cannot possibly do me good.
I was early suffocated with his wisdom of nations. When a boy, I never
asked anything of him, but out flew a proverb; and if the tendency of
that was to deny me, I never could obtain the least favour. This gave me
so great an aversion to the very word, that, when a child, I made it a
condition with my tutor, who was an honest parson, that I would not read
my Bible at all, if he would not excuse me one of the wisest books in it:
to which, however, I had no other objection, than that it was called The
Proverbs. And as for Solomon, he was then a hated character with me, not
because of his polygamy, but because I had conceived him to be such
another musty old fellow as my uncle.

Well, but let us leave old saws to old me. What signifies thy tedious
whining over thy departing relation? Is it not generally agreed that he
cannot recover? Will it not be kind in thee to put him out of his
misery? I hear that he is pestered still with visits from doctors, and
apothecaries, and surgeons; that they cannot cut so deep as the
mortification has gone; and that in every visit, in every scarification,
inevitable death is pronounced upon him. Why then do they keep
tormenting him? Is it not to take away more