distinguish; fince every one who beholds her admires her.

Your Ladyfhip confines your enquiries to her Perfon, you tell me ; and you own that women are much more folicitous about the beauties of that, than of the Mind. Perhaps it may be fo; and that their envy is much fooner excited by the one than by the other. But who, Madam, can describe the perfon of Mifs Harriet Byron, and her person only; animated as every feature is by a mind that bespeaks all human excellence, and dignifies her in every air, in every look, in every motion !

In

No man living has a grea er paffion for beauty than I have. Till I knew Mifs Byron, I was one of those who regarded nothing else in the fex. deed, I confidered all intellectual attainments as either useless or impertinent in women. Your Ladyfhip knows what were my free notions on this head, and has rebuked me for them. A wife, a learned lady, I confidered as a very unnatural character. I wanted women to be all love, and nothing else. A very little prudence allowed I to enter into their compofition; juft enough to diftinguifh the man of fenfe from the fool; and that for my own fake. You know I have vanity, Madam: But lovely as Mifs Byron's perfon is, I defy the greatest fenfualift on earth not to admire her mind more than her perfon. What a triumph would the devil have, as I have often thought, when I have ftood contemplating her perfections, efpecially at church, were he able to raise up a man that could lower this Angel into a woman ?Pardon me! Your Ladyfhip knows my mad way of faying every thing that rifes to my thoughts.

Sweetness of temper must make plain features glow: What an effect must it then have upon fine ones! Never was there a sweeter-tempered woman. Indeed, from fixteen to twenty, all the fex (kept in humour by their hopes, and by their attractions)

are

are faid to be good tempered; but fhe is remarkably fo. She is juft turned of twenty, but looks not more than feventeen. Her beauty hardly yet in its full blow, will laft longer, I imagine, than in an earlier bloffom. Yet the prudence visible in her whole afpect gave her a diftinction, even at twelve, that promised what she would be at a riper age.

Yet with all this reigning good-nature vifible in her face and manner, there is fuch a native dignity in all she says, in all she does (tho' mingled with a franknefs that fhews her mind's fuperiority to the minds of almost all other women), that it damps and fuppreffes, in the most audacious, all imaginations of bold familiarity.

I know not, by my foul, how fhe does this neither yet fo it is. She jefts; fhe rallies: but I cannot rally her again. Love, it is faid, dignifies the adored object. Perhaps it is that which awes

me.

And now will your Ladyship doubt of an affirmative answer to your fecond queftion, whether Love has lifted me in the number of her particular admirers?

He has: And the devil take me if can help myfelf: And yet I have no encouragement-Nor anybody elfe; that's my confolation. Fenwick is deeper in, if poffible, than I. We had, at our first acquaintance, as you have heard, a tilting bout on the occafion, but are fworn friends now; each having agreed to try his fortune by patience and perfeverance; and being affured that the one has no more of her favour to boast of than the other *. "We "have indeed blustered away between us half a score

B 3

"more

*The paffages in this letter thus marked (") are thofe which in the preceding one are faid to be fcratched out; but yet were legible by holding up the letter to the light.

"more of her admirers. Poor whining Orme, however, perfeveres. But of him we make no ac"count: He has a watry head, and tho' he finds "a way, by his fifter, who vifits at Mr Selby's, "and is much efteemed there, to let Mifs Byron "know his paffion for her, notwithstanding the

negative he has received; yet doubt we not that "fhe is fafe from a flame that he will quench with "his tears, before it can rife to a head to disturb

❝ us.

"You ladies love men fhould whine after you: "But never yet did I find, that where a blustering "fellow was a competitor, the lady married the « milkfop.”

But let me in this particular do Mifs Byron juftice: How the manages it I can't tell; but the is courteous to all; nor could ever any man charge her either with pride or cruelty. All I fear, is, that she has fuch an equality in her temper, that she can hardly find room in her heart for a particular love: Nor will, till fhe meets with one whofe mind is near as faultlefs as her own; and the general tenor of whofe life and actions calls upon her difcretion to give her leave to love. "This apprehen

"fion I owe to a converfation I had with her "grandmother Shirley; a lady that is an orna"ment to old age; and who hinted to me, that "her grand-daughter had exceptions both to Fen"wick and me, on the fcore of a few indulgencies "that perhaps have been too public; but which "all men of fashion and fpirit give themselves,

and all women, but this, allow of, or hate not "men the worfe for. But then what is her objection to Orme? He is a fober dog."

She was but eight years old when her mother died. She alfo was an excellent woman. Her death was brought on by grief for that of her hufband; which happened but fix months before-A rare inftance!

The

The grandmother and aunt, to whom the girl is dutiful to a proverb, will not interfere with her choice. If they are applied to for their intereft, the anfwer is conftantly this: The approbation of their Harriet muft first be gained, and then their confent is ready.

There is a Mr Deane, a man of an excellent character for a lawyer; but indeed he left off practice on coming into poffeffion of a handfome eftate. He was the girl's godfather. He is allowed to have great influence over them all. Harriet calls him Papa. To him I have applied; but his answer is the very fame: His daughter Harriet must chufe for herfelf: All motions of this kind muft come firft from her.

And ought I to defpair of fucceeding with the girl herself? I, her Greville; not contemptible in perfon; an air-free and eafy, at leaft; having a good eftate in poffeffion; fine expectances befides; dreffing well, finging well, dancing well, and bleft with a moderate fhare of confidence; which makes other women think me a clever fellow: She a girl of twenty; her fortune between ten and fifteen thoufand pounds only; for her father's confiderable eftate, on his demife, for want of male heirs, went with the name; her grandmother's jointure not more than 500l. a year. And what though her uncle Selby has no children, and loves her, yet has he nephews and nieces of his own, whom he also loves; for this Harriet is his wife's niece.

I will not defpair. If refolution, if perfeverance, will do, and if she be a woman, she shall be mineAnd fo I have told her aunt Selby, and her uncle too; and fo I have told Mifs Lucy Selby, her coufin, as the calls her, who is highly and defervedly in her favour; and so indeed have I more than once told the girl herself.

But now to the defcription of her perfon-Let me die if I know where to begin. She is all over loveliness.

lovelinefs. Does not every-body elfe who has feen her tell you fo? Her ftature; fhall I begin with her ftature? She cannot be faid to be tall; but is fomething above the middling. Her fhape-But what care I for her shape? I, who hope to love her ftill more, though poffeffion may make me admire her lefs, when fhe has not that to boast of? We young fellows who have been abroad, are above regarding English fhapes, and prefer to them the French negligence. By the way, I think the foreign ladies in the right, that they aim not at what they cannot attain/ Whether we are fo much in the right to come into their tafte, is another thing. But be this as it will, there is so much ease and dignity in the person, in the dress, and in every air and motion of Mifs Harriet Byron, that fine fhapes will ever be in fashion where fhe is, be either native or foreigner the judge.

Her complexion is admirably fair and clear. I have fat admiring her complexion, till I have imagined I have feen the life-blood flowing with equal courfe thro' her translucent veins.

Her forehead, fo nobly free and open, fhews dignity and modefty, and strikes into one a kind of awe, fingly contemplated, that (from the delight which accompanies the awe) I know not how to describe. Every fingle feature, in fhort, will bear the nicest examination; and her whole face, and her neck, fo admirably fet on her finely proportioned fhoulders-let me perifh, if, taking her altogether, I do not hold her to be the most unexceptionable beauty I ever beheld. But what ftill is her particular excellence, and diftinguishes her from all other English women (for it must be acknowledged to be a characteristic of the French women of quality), is, the grace which that people call Phyfiognomy, and we may call Expreffion: Had not her features and her complexion been fo fine as they are, that grace alone, that foul fhining out in her lovely afpect, join

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