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LETTER IV.

To Mifs

Huntingdon, Dec. 7, 1775.

My dearest Souf,

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 arrivés.

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 fhall 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 laft, though an unknown recruiting officer! How politely himself first introduced me to himfelf! Often has the recollection made me

Atruggle

ftruggle with my paffion. Still it shall reftrain 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 whose 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 fhould I have talked or acted or written as I have. Tell it not in Gath, nor publifh it in the streets of Afkalon, 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 last letter but one? A word thereon.

Take men and women in the lump, the villany of thofe and the weakness of thefe-I maintain it to be lefs wonderful that an hundred or fo fhould fall in the world, than that even one fhould stand. Is it flrange the ferpent 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 fteep-down rock. Oh, do not force their weak hands from their holdtheir laft, laft hold! The descent 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 strait path, over this fearful precipice, where I, for my part, trembled every step I took, left I should 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 dress, 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, truft 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 most? No-Love would have whispered that.

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Love fhall be of our party-He shall not fuffer the cold to approach you-he fhall spread his wings over your bofom-he fhall nestle in your dear arms-he fhall

When will to-morrow come? What torturing dreams must I not bear to-night!

I fend 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 ;
Two lunar orbs fhould then be laid
Upon the bofom of the maid;
Bright Berenice's auburn hair

Should, where it ought, adorn my fair;
Nay all the figns in heaven should prove
But tokens of my wondrous love.
All, did I fay? Yes, all, fave one————
Her yielding waist should want a Zone..

LET

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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 witnefs both our hearts)-fhall gratitude, cold gratitude, bear away the heavenly prize that's only due to love like ours? Shall my right be acknowledged, and must be poffefs the casket? 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

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