LETTER IV. To Mifs Huntingdon, Dec. 7, 1775. My dearest Soul, I HOPE to Heaven Trim will be able to get this to you to-night !-Not I only, but my whole future life, fhall thank you for the dear fheet of paper I have just received. Bleffings, bleffings -But I could write and exclaim, and offer up vows and prayers, till the happy hour arrives. Yet, hear me, M. If I have thus far deferved your love, I will deferve it ftill. As a proof I have not hitherto preffed you for any thing confcience difapproves, you shall not do to-morrow what confcience difapproves. You shall not make me happy (oh, how fupremely bleft !) under the roof of your benefactor and my hoft. It were not honourable. Our love, the inexorable tyrant of our hearts, claims his facrifice; but does not bid us infult his Lordship's walls with it. How civilly did he invite me to H. in October last, though an unknown recruiting officer! How politely himself first introduced me to himfelf! Often has the recollection made me ftruggle ftruggle with my paffion. Still it fhall restrain it on this fide honour. So far from triumphing or exulting, Heaven knows if Lord S. indeed love you, if indeed it be aught befide the natural preference which age gives to youth-Heaven knows how much I pity him. Yet, as I have either faid or written before, it is only the pity I fhould feel for a father whofe affections were unfortunately and unnaturally fixed upon his own daughter. Were I your feducer, M. and not your lover, I fhould not write thus-nor should I have talked or acted or written as I have. Tell it not in Gath, nor publish it in the streets of Askalon, left the Philistines fhould be upon me. I fhould be drummed out of my regiment for a traitor to intrigue. And can you really imagine I think fo meanly of your fex! Surely you cannot imagine I think fo meanly of you. Why, then, the conclufion of your laft letter but one? A word thereon. Take men and women in the lump, the villany of thofe and the weakness of these-I maintain it to be lefs wonderful that an hundred or fo fhould fall in the world, than that even one fhould ftand. Is it firange the serpent conquered Eve? The devil against a woman is fearful odds. He He has conquered men, womens' conquerors; he has made even angels fall. Oh, then, ye parents, be merciful in your wrath. Join not the base betrayers of your children-drive not your children to the bottom of the precipice, because the villains have driven them half way down, where (fee, fee!) many have stopped themselves from falling further by catching hold of some straggling virtue or another which decks the steep-down rock. Oh, do not force their weak hands from their holdtheir laft, last hold! The defcent from crime to crime is natural, perpendicular, headlong enough, of itself-do not increase it. "Can women, then, no way but backward fall?" Shall I ask your pardon for all this, M.? No, there is no occafion, you fay. But to-morrow-for to-morrow led me out of my ftrait path, over this fearful precipice, where I, for my part, trembled every step I took, left I fhould topple down headlong. Glad am I to be once more on plain ground again with my M.! To-morrow, about eleven, I'll be with youbut, let me find you in your riding drefs, and your mare ready. I have laid a plan, to which neither honour nor delicacy (and I always confult both before I propofe any thing to you) can make the leaft leaft objection. This once, trüft to me-I'll explain all to-morrow. Pray be ready, in your riding-drefs! Need I add, in that you know I think becomes you moft? No-Love would have whispered that. Love fhall be of our party-He shall not fuffer the cold to approach you-he shall spread his wings over your bofom-he shall neftle in your dear arms-he fhall When will to-morrow come? What torturing dreams must I not bear to-night! I send you fome lines which I picked up fomewhere I forget where. But I don't think them much amifs. CELIA's PICTURE. To paint my Celia, I'd devise Two fummer funs, in place of eyes; Should, where it ought, adorn my fair; LET LETTER V. To the Same. Huntingdon, 8 Dec. 1775. THEN I release my dearest foul from her promise about to-day. If you do not fee that all which he can claim by gratitude, I doubly claim by love; I have done, and will for ever have done. I would purchase my happiness at any price but at the expence of your's. Look over my letters, think over my conduct, confult your own heart, and read these two long letters of your writing, which I return you. Then, tell me whether we love or not. Andif we love (as witness both our hearts)—shall gratitude, cold gratitude, bear away the heavenly prize that's only due to love like ours? Shall my right be acknowledged, and muft he poffefs the cafket? Shall I have your foul, and shall he have your hand, your eyes, your bofom, your lips, your Gracious God of Love! I can neither write, nor think. Send one line, half a line, to your own, own H. LET |