LETTER XXXVI
MISS MONTAGUE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.M. HALL, FRIDAY, SEPT. 15.
SIR,
My Lord having the gout in his right hand, his Lordship, and Lady Sarah,and Lady Betty, have commanded me to inform you, that, before your lettercame, Mr. Lovelace was preparing for a foreign tour. We shall endeavourto hasten him away on the motives you suggest.
We are all extremely affected with the dear lady's death. Lady Betty andLady Sarah have been indisposed ever since they heard of it. They hadpleased themselves, as had my sister and self, with the hopes ofcultivating her acquaintance and friendship after he was gone abroad,upon her own terms. Her kind remembrance of each of us has renewed,though it could not heighten, our regrets for so irreparable a loss. Weshall order Mr. Finch, our goldsmith, to wait on you. He has ourdirections about the rings. They will be long, long worn in memory ofthe dear testatrix.
Every body is assured that you will do all in your power to preventfarther ill consequences from this melancholy affair. My Lord desireshis compliments to you. I am, Sir,
Your humble servant,CH. MONTAGUE.
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This collection having run into a much greater length than was wished, itis proper to omit several letters that passed between Colonel Morden,Miss Howe, Mr. Belford, and Mr. Hickman, in relation to the execution ofthe lady's will, &c.
It is, however, necessary to observe, on this subject, that the unhappymother, being supported by the two uncles, influenced the afflictedfather to over-rule all his son's objections, and to direct a literalobservation of the will; and at the same time to give up all the sumswhich he was empowered by it to reimburse himself; as also to take uponhimself to defray the funeral expenses.
Mr. Belford so much obliges Miss Howe by his steadiness, equity, anddispatch, and by his readiness to contribute to the directed collection,that she voluntarily entered into a correspondence with him, as therepresentative of her beloved friend. In the course of which, hecommunicated to her (in confidence) the letters which passed between himand Mr. Lovelace, and, by Colonel Morden's consent, those which passedbetween that gentleman and himself.
He sent, with the first parcel of letters which he had transcribed out ofshort-hand for Miss Howe, a letter to Mr. Hickman, dated the 16th ofSeptember, in which he expresses himself as follows:
'But I ought, Sir, in this parcel to have kept out one letter. It isthat which relates to the interview between yourself and Mr. Lovelace, atMr. Dormer's,* in which Mr. Lovelace treats you with an air of levity,which neither your person, your character, nor your commission, deserved;but which was his usual way of treating every one whose business he wasnot pleased with. I hope, Sir, you have too much greatness of mind to bedisturbed at the contents of this letter, should Miss Howe communicatethem to you; and the rather, as it is impossible that you should sufferwith her on that account.'
* See Vol. VII. Letter XXVIII.
Mr. Belford then excuses Mr. Lovelace as a good-natured man with all hisfaults; and gives instances of his still greater freedoms with himself.
To this Mr. Hickman answers, in his letter of the 18th:
'As to Mr. Lovelace's treatment of me in the letter you are pleased tomention, I shall not be concerned at it, whatever it be. I went to himprepared to expect odd behaviour from him; and was not disappointed. Iargue to myself, in all such cases as this, as Miss Howe, from herever-dear friend, argues, That if the reflections thrown upon me arejust, I ought not only to forgive them, but endeavour to profit by them;if unjust, that I ought to despise them, and the reflector too, since itwould be inexcusable to strengthen by anger an enemy whose malice mightbe disarmed by contempt. And, moreover, I should be almost sorry to findmyself spoken well of by a man who could treat, as he treated, a lady whowas an ornament to her sex and to human nature.
'I thank you, however, Sir, for your consideration for me in thisparticular, and for your whole letter, which gives me so desirable aninstance of the friendship which you assured me of when I was last intown; and which I as cordially embrace as wish to cultivate.'
Miss Howe, in her's of the 20th, acknowledging the receipt of theletters, and papers, and legacies, sent with Mr. Belford's letter to Mr.Hickman, assures him, 'That no use shall be made of his communications,but what he shall approve of.'
He had mentioned, with compassion, the distresses of the Harlowe family--'Persons of a pitiful nature, says she, may pity them. I am not one ofthose. You, I think, pity the infernal man likewise; while I, from myheart, grudge him his phrensy, because it deprives him of that remorse,which, I hope, in his recovery, will never leave him. At times, Sir, letme tell you, that I hate your whole sex for his sake; even men ofunblamable characters, whom, at those times, I cannot but look upon aspersons I have not yet found out.
'If my dear creature's personal jewels be sent up to you for sale, Idesire that I may be the purchaser of them, at the highest price--of thenecklace and solitaire particularly.
'Oh! what tears did the perusal of my beloved's will cost me!--But I mustnot touch upon the heart-piercing subject. I can neither take it up, norquit it, but with execration of the man whom all the world mustexecrate.'
Mr. Belford, in his answer, promises that she shall be the purchaser ofthe jewels, if they come into his hands.
He acquaints her that the family had given Colonel Morden the keys of allthat belonged to the dear departed; that the unhappy mother had (as thewill allows) ordered a piece of needlework to be set aside for her, andhad desired Mrs. Norton to get the little book of meditationstranscribed, and to let her have the original, as it was all of her deardaughter's hand-writing; and as it might, when she could bear to lookinto it, administer consolation to herself. And that she had likewisereserved for herself her picture in the Vandyke taste.
Mr. Belford sends with this letter to Miss Howe the lady's memorandumbook, and promises to send her copies of the several posthumous letters.He tells her that Mr. Lovelace being upon the recovery, he had enclosedthe posthumous letter directed for him to Lord M. that his Lordship mightgive it to him, or not, as he should find he could bear it. Thefollowing is a copy of that letter:
TO MR. LOVELACETHURSDAY, AUG. 24.
I told you, in the letter I wrote to you on Tuesday last,* that youshould have another sent you when I had got into my father's house.
* See her letter, enclosed in Mr. Lovelace's, No. LIV. of Vol. VII.
The reader may observe, by the date of this letter, that it was writtenwithin two days of the allegorical one, to which it refers, and while thelady was labouring under the increased illness occasioned by the hurriesand terrors into which Mr. Lovelace had thrown her, in order to avoid thevisit he was so earnest to make her at Mr. Smith's; so early written,perhaps, that she might not be surprised by death into a seeming breachof her word.
High as her christian spirit soars in this letter, the reader has seen,in Vol. VIII. Letter LXIV. and in other places, that that exalted spiritcarried her to still more divine elevations, as she drew nearer to herend.
I presume to say, that I am now, at your receiving of this, arrivedthere; and I invite you to follow me, as soon as you are prepared for sogreat a journey.
Not to allegorize farther--my fate is now, at your perusal of this,accomplished. My doom is unalterably fixed; and I am either a miserableor happy being to all eternity. If happy, I owe it solely to the Divinemercy; if miserable, to your undeserved cruelty.--And consider not, foryour own sake, gay, cruel, fluttering, unhappy man! consider, whether thebarbarous and perfidious treatment I have met with from you was worthythe hazard of your immortal soul; since your wicked views were not to beeffected but by the wilful breach of the most solemn vows that ever weremade by man; and those aided by a violence and baseness unworthy of ahuman creature.
In time then, once more, I wish you to consider your ways. Your goldendream cannot long last. Your present course can yield you pleasure nolonger than you can keep off thought or reflection. A hard
enedinsensibility is the only foundation on which your inward tranquillityis built. When once a dangerous sickness seizes you; when once effectualremorse breaks in upon you; how dreadful will be your condition! Howpoor a triumph will you then find it, to have been able, by a series ofblack perjuries, and studied baseness, under the name of gallantry orintrigue, to betray poor unexperienced young creatures, who perhaps knewnothing but their duty till they knew you!--Not one good action in thehour of languishing to recollect, not one worthy intention to revolve, itwill be all reproach and horror; and you will wish to have it in yourpower to compound for annihilation.
Reflect, Sir, that I can have no other motive, in what I write, than yourgood, and the safety of other innocent creatures, who may be drawn in byyour wicked arts and perjuries. You have not, in my wishes for futurewelfare, the wishes of a suppliant wife, endeavouring for her own sake,as well as for your's, to induce you to reform those ways. They arewholly as disinterested as undeserved. But I should mistrust my ownpenitence, were I capable of wishing to recompense evil for evil--if,black as your offences have been against me, I could not forgive, as Iwish to be forgiven.
I repeat, therefore, that I do forgive you. And may the Almighty forgiveyou too! Nor have I, at the writing of this, any other essential regretsthan what are occasioned by the grief I have given to parents, who, tillI knew you, were the most indulgent of parents; by the scandal given tothe other branches of my family; by the disreputation brought upon mysex; and by the offence given to virtue in my fall.
As to myself, you have only robbed me of what once were my favouriteexpectations in the transient life I shall have quitted when you receivethis. You have only been the cause that I have been cut off in the bloomof youth, and of curtailing a life that might have been agreeable tomyself, or otherwise, as had reason to be thankful for being taken awayfrom the evil of supporting my part of a yoke with a man so unhappy; Iwill only say, that, in all probability, every hour I had lived with himmight have brought with it some new trouble. And I am (indeed throughsharp afflictions and distresses) indebted to you, secondarily, as Ihumbly presume to hope, for so many years of glory, as might have provedyears of danger, temptation, and anguish, had they been added to mymortal life.
So, Sir, though no thanks to your intention, you have done me realservice; and, in return, I wish you happy. But such has been your lifehitherto, that you can have no time to lose in setting about yourrepentance. Repentance to such as have lived only carelessly, and in theomission of their regular duties, and who never aimed to draw any poorcreatures into evil, is not so easy a task, nor so much in our own power,as some imagine. How difficult a grace then to be obtained, where theguilt is premeditated, wilful, and complicated!
To say I once respected you with a preference, is what I ought to blushto own, since, at the very time, I was far from thinking you even amortal man; though I little thought that you, or indeed any manbreathing, could be--what you have proved yourself to be. But, indeed,Sir, I have long been greatly above you; for from my heart I havedespised you, and all your ways, ever since I saw what manner of man youwere.
Nor is it to be wondered that I should be able so to do, when thatpreference was not grounded on ignoble motives. For I was weak enough,and presumptuous enough, to hope to be a mean, in the hand of Providence,to reclaim a man whom I thought worthy of the attempt.
Nor have I yet, as you will see by the pains I take, on this solemnoccasion, to awaken you out of your sensual dream, given over all hopesof this nature.
Hear me, therefore, O Lovelace! as one speaking from the dead.--Lose notime--set about your repentance instantly--be no longer the instrument ofSatan, to draw poor souls into those subtile snares, which at last shallentangle your own feet. Seek not to multiply your offences till theybecome beyond the power, as I may say, of the Divine mercy to forgive;since justice, no less than mercy, is an attribute of the Almighty.
Tremble and reform, when you read what is the portion of the wicked manfrom God. Thus it is written:
'The triumphing of the wicked is short, and the joy of the hypocrite butfor a moment. He is cast into a net by his own feet--he walketh upon asnare. Terrors shall make him afraid on every side, and shall drive himto his feet. His strength shall be hunger-bitten, and destruction shallbe ready at his side. The first born of death shall devour his strength.His remembrance shall perish from the earth; and he shall have no name inthe streets. He shall be chaced [sic] out of the world. He shall haveneither son nor nephew among his people. They that have seen him shallsay, Where is he? He shall fly away as a dream: He shall be chased awayas a vision of the night. His meat is the gall of asps within him. Heshall flee from the iron weapon, and the bow of steel shall strike himthrough. A fire not blown shall consume him. The heaven shall revealhis iniquity, and the earth shall rise up against him. The worm shallfeed sweetly on him. He shall be no more remembered.--This is the fateof him that knoweth not God.'
Whenever you shall be inclined to consult the sacred oracles from whencethe above threatenings are extracted, you will find doctrines and textswhich a truly penitent and contrite heart may lay hold of for itsconsolation.
May your's, Mr. Lovelace, become such! and may you be enabled to escapethe fate denounced against the abandoned man, and be entitled to themercies of a long suffering and gracious God, is the sincere prayer of
CLARISSA HARLOWE
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