full as saucy as a wife need to be; though I think, Harriet, that she has not been the less dutiful of late for your absence.

Once more, adieu, my dear Lady G——, and continue to love your

HARRIET BYRON.

LETTER CXLVIII.

LADY G TO MISS BYRON.

Thursday, April 27. EVERY one of the Dunstable party says, that you are a grateful and good girl. Beauchamp can talk of nobody else of our sex: I believe in my conscience he is in love with you. I think all the unprovided-for young women, wherever you come, must hate you. Were you never by surprise carried into the chamber of a friend labouring with the small-pox, in the infectious stage of it?-O, but I think you once said you had had that distemper. But your mind, Harriet, were your face to be ruined, would make you admirers. The fellows who could think of preferring even such a face to such a heart, may be turned over to the class of insignificants.

Is not your aunt Selby, you ask, an excellent woman? She is. I admire her. But I am very angry with you for deferring to another time acquainting me with what she said of me. When we are taken with anybody, we love they should be taken with us. Teazing Harriet! You know what an immoderate quantity of curiosity I have. Never serve me so again!

I am in love with your cousin Lucy. Were either Fenwick or Greville good enough-But they are not. I think she shall have Mr Orme. Nancy, you say, is such another good girl. I don't doubt it. Is she not your cousin, and Lucy's sister? But I cannot undertake for every good girl who wants a husband. I wish I had seen Lucy a fortnight ago; then Nancy might have had Mr Orme, and Lucy should have had Lord G. He admires her greatly. And do you think that a man, who at that time professed for me so much love and service, and all that, would have scrupled to oblige me, had I (as I easily should) proved to him, that he would have been a much happier man than he could hope to be with somebody else?

Your uncle is a pleasant man; but tell him I say, that the man would be out of his wits, that did not make the preference he does in favour of his dame Selby, as he calls her. Tell him also, if you please, in return for his plain dealing, that I say, he studies too much for his pleasantries; he is continually hunting for occasions to be smart. I have heard my father say, that this was the fault of some wits of his acquaintance, whom he ranked among the witlings for it. If you think it will mortify him

more, you may tell him, (for I am very revengeful when I think myself affronted,) that were I at liberty, which, God help me! I am not, I would sooner choose for a husband the man I have, (poor soul, as I now and then think him,) than such a teazing creature as himself, were both in my power, and both of an age. And I should have this good reason for my preference; your uncle and I should have been too much alike, and so been jealous of each other's wit; whereas I can make my honest Lord Glook about him, and admire me strangely, whenever I please.

But I am, it seems, a person of a particular character. Every one, you say, loves me, yet blames me. Odd characters, my dear, are needful to make even characters shine. You good girls would not be valued as you are, if there were not bad ones. Have you not heard it said, that all human excellence is but comparative? Pray allow of the contrast. You, I am sure, ought. You are an ungrateful creature, if, whenever you think of my over-livelinesses, as you call 'em, you don't drop a curtsey, and say, you are obliged to me.

But still the attack made upon you in your dressing-room at Colnebrook, by my sister and me, sticks in your stomach-And why so? We were willing to shew you, that we were not the silly people you must have thought us, had we not been able to distinguish light from darkness. You, who ever were, I believe, one of the frankest-hearted girls in Britain, and admired for the ease and dignity given you by that frankness, were growing awkward, nay dishonest. Your gratitude! your gratitude! was the dust you wanted to throw into our eyes, that we might not see that you were governed by a stronger motive. You called us your friends, your sisters, but treated us not as either; and this man, and that, and t'other, you could refuse; and why? No reason given for it; and we were to be popt off with your gratitude, truly!-We were to believe just what you said, and no more; nay, not so much as you said. But we were not so implicit. Nor would you, in our case, have been so.

But " you, perhaps, would not have violently broken in upon a poor thing, who thought we were blind, because she was not willing we should see."-Maybe not; but then, in that case, we were honester than you would have been; that's all. Here, said I, Lady L—, is this poor girl awkwardly struggling to conceal what everybody sees; and, seeing, applauds her for, the man considered: [Yes, Harriet, the man considered; be pleased to take that in; let us, in pity, relieve her. She is thought to be frank, open-hearted, communicative; nay, she passes herself upon us in those characters; she sees we keep nothing from her. She has been acquainted with your love before wedlock; with my folly, in relation to Anderson; she had

carried her head above a score or two of men not contemptible. She sits enthroned among us, while we make but common figures at her footstool; she calls us sisters, friends, and twenty pretty names. Let us acquaint her, that we see into her heart; and why Lord D- and others are so indifferent with her. If she is ingenuous, let us spare her; if not, leave me to punish her -Yet we will keep up her punctilio as to our brother; we will leave him to make his own discoveries. She may confide in his politeness; and the result will be happier for her; because she will then be under no restraint to us, and her native freedom of heart may again take its

course.

Agreed, agreed, said Lady L. And, armin-arm, we entered your dressing-room, dismissed the maid, and began the attack-And, O Harriet! how you hesitated, paraded, fooled on with us, before you came to confession! Indeed you deserved not the mercy we shewed youSo, child, you had better to have let this part of your story sleep in peace.

You bid me not tell Emily, that your cousin is in love with her; but I think I will. Girls begin very early to look out for admirers. It is better, in order to stay her stomach, to find out one for her, than that she should find out one for herself; especially when the man is among ourselves, as I may say, and both are in our own management, and at distance from each other. Emily is a good girl; but she has susceptibilities already; and though I would not encourage her, as yet, to look out of herself for happiness, yet I would give her consequence with herself, and at the same time let her see, that there could be no mention made of anything that related to her, but what she should be acquainted with. Dear girl! I love her as well as you; and I pity her too; for she, as well as somebody else, will have difficulties to contend with, which she will not know easily how to get over; though she can, in a flame so young, generously prefer the interest of a more excellent woman to her own.-There, Harriet, is a grave paragraph: you'll like me for it.

You are a very reflecting girl, in mentioning to me, so particularly, your behaviour to your Grevilles, Fenwicks, and Ormes. What is that but saying, See, Charlotte! I am a much more complaisant creature to the men, no one of which I intend to have, than you are to your hus

Lady Olivia has written a letter from Windsor to Lady L. It is in French; extremely polite. She promises to write to me from

Oxford.

Lady Anne S made me a visit this morn ing. She was more concerned than I wished to see her, on my confirming the report she had heard of my brother's being gone abroad. I rallied her a little too freely, as it was before Lord G- and Lord L- I never was bet

ter rebuked than by her; for she took out her pencil, and on the cover of a letter wrote these lines from Shakespeare, and slid them into my hand :

And will you rend our ancient love asunder,
To join with men in scorning your poor friend?
It is not friendly; 'tis not maidenly;
Our ser, as well as I, may chide you for it,
Though I alone do feel the injury.

I never, my dear, told you how freely this lady and I had talked of love; but, freely as we had talked, I was not aware that the matter lay so deep in her heart. I knew not how to tell her that my brother had said, It could not be. I could have wept over her when I read this paper; and I owned myself, by a whisper, justly rebuked. She charged me not to let any man see this; particularly not either of those present; and do you, Harriet, keep what I have written of Lady Anne to yourself.

My aunt Eleanor has written a congratulatory letter to me from York. Sir Charles, it seems, had acquainted her with Lord G's day, [Not my day, Harriet! that is not the phrase, I hope!] as soon as he knew it himself; and she writes, supposing that I was actually offered on it. Women are victims on these occasions; I hope you'll allow me that. My brother has made it a point of duty to acquaint his father's sister with every matter of consequence to the family; and now, she says, that both her nieces are so well disposed of, she will come to town very quickly to see her new relations and us; and desires we will make room for her. And yet she owns, that my brother has informed her of his being obliged to go abroad; and she supposes him gone. As he is the beloved of her heart, I wonder she thinks of making this visit now he is absent; but we shall all be glad to see my aunt Nell. She is a good creature, though an old maid. I hope the old lady has not utterly lost either her invention, or memory; and then, between both, I shall be entertained with a great number of love stories of the last age; and perhaps of some dangers and escapes ; which may serve for warnings for Emily. Alas! alas! they will come too late for your Charlotte!

I have written already the longest letter that I ever wrote in my life; yet it is prating; and to you, to whom I love to prate. I have not near done.

You bid me be good; and you threaten me, if I am not, with the ill opinion of all your friends; but I have such an unaccountable bias for roguery, or what shall I call it? that I believe it is impossible for me to take your advice. I have been examining myself. What the deuce is the matter with me, that I cannot see my honest man in the same advantageous light in which he appears to everybody else? Yet I do not, in my heart, dislike him. On the contrary, I know not, were I to look about me, far and wide, the man I would have wished to have called mine, rather than him. But he is so important about trifles; so nimble, yet so slow; he is so sensible of his own intention to please, and has so many antic motions in his obligingness; that I cannot forbear laughing at the very time that I ought perhaps to reward him with a gracious approbation.

I must fool on a little while longer, I believe; permit me, Harriet, so to do, as occasions arise.

He

AN instance, an instance in point, Harriet. Let me laugh as I write. I did at the time. -What do you laugh at, Charlotte?-Why, this poor man, or, as I should rather say, this lord and master of mine, has just left me. has been making me both a compliment, and a present. And what do you think the compliment is? Why, if I please, he will give away to a virtuoso friend, his collection of moths and butterflies: I once, he remembered, rallied him upon them. And by what study, thought I, wilt thou, honest man, supply their place? If thou hast a talent this way, pursue it; since, perhaps, thou wilt not shine in any other. And the best anything, you know, Harriet, carries with it the appearance of excellence. Nay, he would also part with his collection of shells, if I had no objection.

To whom, my lord?-He had not resolved. -Why then, only as Emily is too little of a child, or you might give them to her. "Too

little of a child, madam!" and a great deal of bustle and importance took possession of his features-Let me tell you, madam-I won't let you, my lord; and I laughed.

Well, madam, I hope here is something coming up that you will not disdain to accept of yourself.

Up came groaning under the weight, or rather under the care, two servants with baskets: A fine set of old Japan china with brown edges, believe me. They set down their baskets, and withdrew.

Would you not have been delighted, Harriet, to see my lord busying himself with taking out, and putting in the windows, one at a time, the cups, plates, jars, and saucers, rejoicing and parading over them, and shewing his connoisseurship to his motionless admiring wife, in commending this and the other piece as a beauty?

And when he had done, taking the liberty, as he phrased it, half fearful, half resolute, to salute his bride for his reward; and then pacing backwards several steps, with such a strut and a crow-I see him yet!-Indulge me, Harriet! I burst into a hearty laugh; I could not help it; and he, reddening, looked round himself, and round himself, to see if anything was amiss in his garb. The man, the man! honest friend, I could have said, (but had too much reverence for my husband,) is the oddity! Nothing amiss in the garb. I quickly recollected myself, however, and put him in a good humour, by proper marks of my gracious acceptance. On reflection, I could not bear myself for vexing the honest man, when he had meant to oblige me.

How soon I may relapse again, I know not. -O Harriet! Why did you beseech me to be good? I think in my heart I have the stronger inclination to be bad for it! You call me per

verse.

If you think me so, bid me be saucy, bid me be bad; and I may then, like other good wives, take the contrary course for the sake of dear contradiction.

Shew not, however, (I in turn beseech you,) to your grandmamma and aunt, such parts of this letter as would make them despise me. You say, you stand up for me; I have need of your advocateship; never let me want it. And do I not, after all, do a greater credit to my good man, when I can so heartily laugh in the wedded state, than if I were to sit down with my finger in my eye?

I have taken your advice, and presented my sister with my half of the jewels. I desired her to accept them, as they were my mother's, and for her sake. This gave them a value with her, more than equal to their worth; but Lord Lis uneasy, and declares he will not suffer Lady L-long to lie under the obligation. Were every one of family in South Britain and North Britain to be as generous and disinterested as Lord Land our family, the union of the two parts of the island would be complete.

LORD help this poor obliging man! I wish I don't love him at last. He has taken my hint, and has presented his collection of shells (a very fine one, he says, it is) to Emily; and they two are actually busied (and will be for an hour or two, I doubt not) in admiring them; the one strutting over the beauties, in order to enhance the value of the present; the other curtseying ten times in a minute, to shew her gratitude. Poor man! when his virtuoso friend has got his butterflies and moths, I am afraid he must set up a turner's shop for employment. If he loved reading, I could, when our visiting hurries are over, set him to read to me the new things that come out, while I knot or work; and, if he loved writing, to copy the letters which pass between you and me, and those for you which I expect

with so much impatience from my brother by means of Dr Bartlett. I think he spells pretty well, for a lord.

I have no more to say, at present, but compliments, without number or measure, to all you so deservedly love and honour; as well those I have not seen, as those I have.

Only one thing: Reveal to me all the secrets of your heart, and how that heart is from time to time affected; that I may know whether you are capable of that greatness of mind in a lovecase, that you shew in all others. We will all allow you to love Sir Charles Grandison. Those who do, give honour to themselves, if their eyes stop not at person, his having so many advantages. For the same reason, I make no apologies, and never did, for praising my brother, as any other lover of him might do.

your

Let me know everything how and about fellows, too. Ah! Harriet, you make not the use of power that I would have done in your situation. I was half sorry when my hurrying brother made me dismiss Sir Walter; and yet, to have but two danglers after one, are poor doings for a fine lady. Poorer still, to have but one!

Here's a letter as long as my arm. Adieu. I was loath to come to the name; but defer it ever so long, I must subscribe, at last, CHARLOTTE G

LETTER CXLIX.

MISS JERVOIS TO MISS BYRON.*

Monday, May 1.

O My dearest, my honoured Miss Byron, how you have shamed your Emily by sending a letter to her; such a sweet letter too! before I have paid my duty to you, in a letter of thanks for all your love to me, and for all your kind instructions. But I began once, twice, and thrice, and wrote a great deal each time, but could not please myself: You, madam, are such a writer, and I am such a poor thing at my pen! But I know you will accept the heart. And so my very diffidence shews pride; since it cannot be expected from me to be a fine writer: And yet this very letter, I foresee, will be the worse for my diffidence, and not the better ; for I don't like this beginning neither.-But come, it shall go. Am I not used to your goodness? And do you not bid me prattle to you, in my letters, as I used to do in your dressing-room? O what sweet advice have you, and do you return, for my silly prate! And so I will begin.

And was you grieved at parting with your

Emily on Saturday morning? I am sure I was very much concerned at parting with you. I could not help crying all the way to town; and Lady G- shed tears as well as I ; and so did Lady L- . several times; and said, You were the loveliest, best young lady in the world. And we all praised likewise your aunt, your cousin Lucy, and young Mr Selby. How good are all your relations! They must be good! And Lord L-, and Lord G, for men, were as much concerned as we, at parting with you. Mr Reeves was so dull all the way!-Poor Mr Reeves, he was very dull. And Mr Beauchamp, he praised you to the very skies; and in such a pretty manner too! Next to my guardian, I think Mr Beauchamp is a very agreeable man. I fancy these noble sisters, if the truth were known, don't like him so well as their brother does: Perhaps that may be the reason out of jealousy, as I may say, if there be anything in my observation. But they are vastly civil to him, nevertheless; yet they never praise him when his back is turned; as they do others, who can't say half the good things that he says.

Well, but enough of Mr Beauchamp. My guardian! my gracious, my kind, my indulgent guardian! who, that thinks of him, can praise anybody else?

O madam! where is he now ? God protect and guide my guardian, wherever he goes ! This is my prayer first and last, and I can't tell how often in the day. I look for him in every place I have seen him in; [And pray tell me, madam, did not you do so when he had left us?] and when I can't find him, I do so sigh !-What a pleasure, yet what a pain, is there in sighing, when I think of him! Yet I know I am an innocent girl. And this I am sure of, that I wish him to be the husband of but one woman in the whole world; and that is you. But then my next wish is-You know what-Ah, my Miss Byron! You must let me live with you and my guardian, if you should ever be Lady Grandison.

But here, madam, are sad doings sometimes between Lord and Lady G. I am very angry at her often in my heart; yet I cannot help laughing now and then at her out-of-theway sayings. Is not her character a very new one? Or are there more such young wives? I could not do as she does, were I to be queen of the globe. Everybody blames her. She will make my lord not love her, at last. Don't you think so? And then what will she get by her wit?

JUST this moment she came into my closetWriting, Emily? said she: To whom?-I told

her. Don't tell tales out of school, Emily.-I was so afraid that she would have asked to see what I had written: But she did not. To be sure she is very polite, and knows what belongs to herself, and everybody else: To be ungenerous, as you once said, to her husband only, that is a very sad thing to think of.

Well, and I would give anything to know if you think what I have written tolerable, before I go any farther: But I will go on this way, since I cannot do better. Bad is my best; but you shall have quantity, I warrant, since you bid me write long letters.

But I have seen my mother: It was but yesterday. She was in a mercer's shop in Covent Garden. I was in Lord L-'s chariot; only Anne was with me. Anne saw her first; I alighted, and asked her blessing in the shop: I am sure I did right. She blessed me, and called me dear love. I staid till she had bought what she wanted, and then I slid down the money, as if it were her own doing; and glad I was I had so much about me: it came but to 'four guineas. I begged her, speaking low, to forgive me for so doing: And finding she was to go home as far as Soho, and had thoughts of having a hackney-coach called, I gave Anne money for a coach for herself, and waited on my mother to her own lodgings; and it being Lord L's chariot, she was so good as to dispense with my alighting.

She blessed my guardian all the way, and blessed me. She said, she would not ask me to come to see her, because it might not be thought proper, as my guardian was abroad: but she hoped she might be allowed to come and see me sometimes. Was she not very good, madam? -But my guardian's goodness makes everybody good. O that my mainma had been always the same! I should have been but too happy.

God bless my guardian, for putting me on enlarging her power to live handsomely. Only as a coach brings on other charges, and people must live accordingly, or be discredited, instead of credited by it; or I should hope the additional two hundred a-year might afford her one. Yet one does not know but Mr O'Hara may have been in debt before he married her; and I fancy he has people who hang upon him. But if it pleases God, I will not, when I am at age, and have a coach of my own, suffer my mother to walk on foot. What a blessing is it, to have a guardian that will second every good purpose of one's heart!

Lady Olivia is rambling about; and I suppose she will wait here in England till Sir Charles's return; but I am sure he never will have her. A wicked wretch, with her poniards! Yet it is pity! She is a fine woman. But I hate her for her expectation, as well as for her poniard. And a woman to leave her own country, to seek for a husband! I could die before I could do so! though to such a man as my guar◄

dian. Yet once I thought I could have liked to have lived with her at Florence. She has some good qualities, and is very generous, and in the main well esteemed in her own country; everybody knew she loved my guardian: but I don't know how it is; nobody blamed her for it, vast as the difference in fortune then was. But that is the glory of being a virtuous man; to love him is a credit, instead of a shame. O madam! Who would not be virtuous? And that not only for their own, but for their friends' sakes, if they loved their friends, and wished them to be well thought of? Lord W

wedding.

is very desirous to hasten his

Mr Beauchamp says, that all the Mansfields (he knows them) bless my guardian every day of their lives; and their enemies tremble. He has commissions from my guardian to inquire and act in their cause, that no time may be lost to do them service, against his return.

We have had another visit from Lady Beauchamp, and have returned it. She is very much pleased with us: you see I say us. Indeed my two dear ladies are very good to me; but I have no merit: it is all for their brother's sake.

Mr Beauchamp tells us, just now, that his mother-in-law has joined with his father, at their own motion, to settle 1000l. a-year upon him. I am glad of it, with all my heart: "are not you? He is all gratitude upon it. He says, that he will redouble his endeavours to oblige her; and that his gratitude to her, as well as his duty to his father, will engage his utmost regard for her.

Mr Beauchamp, Sir Harry himself, and my lady, are continually blessing my guardian: everybody, in short, blesses him.—But, ah! madam, where is he, at this moment? O that I were a bird! that I might hover over his head, and sometimes bring tidings to his friends of his motions and good deeds. I would often flap my wings, dear Miss Byron, at your chamber-window, as a signal of his welfare, and then fly back again, and perch as near him as I could.

I am very happy, as I said before, in the favour of Lady and Lord L and Lady and Lord G- ; but I never shall be so happy, as when I had the addition of your charming company. I miss you and my guardian: O, how I miss you both! But, dearest Miss Byron, love me not the less, though now I have put pen to paper, and you see what a poor creature I am in my writing. Many a one, I believe, may be thought tolerable in conversation; but when they are so silly as to put pen to paper, they expose themselves; as I have done, in this long piece of scribble. But accept it, nevertheless, for the true love I bear you; and a truer love never flamed in any bosom, to any one the most dearly beloved, than does in mine for you.

I am afraid I have written arrant nonsense,