lotte! you cry:-And, O Harriet! too-But, my dear girl, let my brother see, that you think (and no woman in the world does if you don't) that the true modesty, after hearts are engaged, is to think little of parade, and much of the social happiness that awaits two worthy minds united by love, and conformity of sentiment.After all, we are silly creatures, Harriet: We are afraid of wise men. No wonder that we seldom choose them, when a fool offers. I wish I knew the man, however, who dared to say this in my hearing.

Your grandmother Shirley is more than woman: my brother prodigiously admires her. I think you may trust to her judgment, if you suppose him too precipitating. Your aunt is an excellent woman; But I never knew a woman or man, who valued themselves on delicacy, and found themselves consulted upon it, but was apt to overdo the matter. Is not this a little, a very little, Mrs Selby's case? Let her know, that I bid you ask this question of herself: She must be assured that I equally love and honour her; so won't be angry.

Your uncle is an odd, but a very honest Dunstable soul! Tell him I say so; but withal, that he should leave women to act as women, in these matters. What a deuce, what a pize, would he expect perfection from them? He, whose arguments always run in the depreciating strain? if he would, ask him, Where should they have it, conversing, as they are obliged to do, with men? Men for their fathers, for their brothers, for their uncles-They must be a little silly, had they not a fund of silliness in themselves-But I would not have them be most out, in matters where they should be most in.

I think, however, so does Lady L-, that, so far as you have proceeded, you are tolerable; though not half so clever, as he, considering si tuations. Upon iny word, Harriet, allowing for everything, neither of Sir Charles Grandison's sisters expected that their brother would have made so ardent, so polite, alover. He is so prudent a man, and that once had like to have been one of your, even your objections.-Yet so nobly sincere so manly. O that my ape-But come, Harriet, as men go in this age of monkeys and Sir Foplings, Lord G, (for all you,) is not to be despised. I, as a good wife ought, will take his part, whoever runs him down. Where much is not given, much, and so forth

I have told Emily the good news: I could not help it, though you promise to write to her.

Poor thing! she is all ecstasy! She is not the only one who seeks, as her greatest good, what may possibly prove her greatest misfortune. But, for her sake, for your sake, and my brother's, I hope, under your directing eye, and by prudent management, (the flame so young,) a little cold

water will do; and that if it will blaze, it may be directed towards Beauchamp's house.

Let me whisper you again, Harriet-Young girls, finding themselves vested with new powers, and a set of new inclinations, turn their staring eyes out of themselves; and the firs man they see, they imagine, if he be a single man, and but simpers at them, they must receive him as a lover: Then they return downcast for ogle, that he may ogle on without interruption. They are soon brought to write answers to letters which confess flames the writer's heart never felt. The girl doubts not her own gifts, her own consequence: She wonders that her father, mother, and other friends, never told her of these new-found excellencies: She is more and more beautiful in her own eyes, as he more and more flatters her. If her parents are a-verse, the girl is per-verse: and the more, the less discretion there is in her passion. She adopts the word constancy; she declaims against persecution; she calls her idle flame, Love; a Cupidity, which only was a something she knew not what to make of,-and like a wandering bee, had it not settled on this flower, would on the next, were it either bitter or sweet.

And this generally, with the thoughtless, is the beginning and progress of that formidable invader, miscalled Love; a word very happily at hand, to help giddy creatures to talk with, and look without confusion of face on, a man telling them a thousand lies, and hoping, perhaps, by illaudable means, to attain an end not in itself illaudable, when duty and discretion are, the one the guide, the other the gentle restraint.

But as to Emily-I depend on her principles, as well as on your affectionate discretion, (when you will be pleased, among ye, to permit my brother to be actually yours,) for restraining her imagination. There never beat in female bosom an honester heart. Poor thing! she is but a girl! and who is the woman, or child, that looks on my brother without love and reverence?

For Emily's sake, you see, you must not have too many of your honest uncle's circum-roundabouts. He makes us laugh. I love to have him angry with his Dame Selby. Dear Harriet, when your heart's quite at ease, give us the courtship of the odd soul to the light of his eyes; his oddness and her delicacy! A charming contrast! You did help us to a little of it once,* you know. Theirs, on the woman's side, could not be a match of love at first: But who so hap py as they? I am convinced, Harriet, that love on the one side, and discretion on the other, is enough in conscience; and, in short, much better than love on both: For what room can there be for discretion, in the latter case? The man is guilty of a heterodoxy in love, you know, who is prudent, or but suspected of being so!-Ah,

Harriet, Harriet, once more I say, we women are foolish creatures in our love-affairs, and know not what's best for ourselves.-In your style-"Don't you think so, Lucy ?”—Yet İ admire Lucy-She got over an improperly-placed love; and now, her mad fit over, [We have all little or much of it; begun, as I told you how,] she is so cool, so quiet, so sedate-Yet once, I make no doubt, looking forward to her present happy quiescence, would have thought it a state of insipidity. Dearly do we love racketing; and, another whisper, some of us to be racketed -But not you! you are an exception. Yes, to be sure! But I believe you'll think me mad. We like my brother's little trick upon you in the billet he wrote, and which you signed, as if to Emily. You see how earnest he is, my dear. I long for his next letters from Italy. I think that is a lucky plea enough for you, if you suppose parade necessary.

We have got Everard among us again. The sorry fellow-O Harriet, had you seen him, with his hat upon his two thumbs, bowing, cringing, blushing, confounded, when first he came into my royal presence. But I, from my throne, extended the golden sceptre to him, as I knew I should please my brother by it. He sat down, when I bid him, twisted his lips, curdled his chin, hemm'd, stole a look of reverence at me, looked down when his eyes met mine; mine bold as innocence, his conscious as guilt; hemm'd again, turned his hat about; then with one of his not quite-forgotten airs of pertness, putting it under his arın, shook his ears, tried to look up; then his eye sunk again under my broader eye. O my dear, what a paltry creature is a man vice-bitten, and sensible of detected folly, and obligation!

Sir Charles has made a man of him, once more. His dress is as gay as ever, and, I dare say, he struts as much in it as ever, in company that knows not how he came by it. He reformed! Bad habits are of the Jerusalem-artichoke kind; once planted, there is no getting them out of the ground.

Our good Dr Bartlett is also with us, at present: he is in hopes of seeing my brother in town-" In town," Harriet !—and the great affair un-solemnized!-Woe be to you, if-But let's see how you act when left to yourself. Prudent people, in others' matters, are not always prudent in their own; especially in their love-affairs. A little over-nicety at setting out, will carry them into a road they never intended to amble in; and then they are sometimes obliged to be less prudent to put them in the path they set out from. Remember, my dear, I am at hand if you bewilder yourself.

Dr Bartlett tells us, that my brother has extricated this poor creature from his entanglements with his woman, by his interposition only by letter: Some money, I suppose. The Doctor desires to be silent, on the means; but

hints, however, that Everard will soon be in circumstances not unhappy.

I HAVE got the Doctor to explain himself. Every day produces some new instances of women's follies. What would poor battered rakes and younger brothers do, when on their last legs, were it not for good-natured widows-Ay, and sometimes for forward maids? This wretch, it seems, has acquitted himself so handsomely in the discharge of the 100l. which he owed to his wine-merchant's relict, and the lady was so full of acknowledgments, and obligations, and all that, for being paid but her due, that he has ventured to make love to her, as it is called ; and is well received. He behaves with more spirit before her, I suppose, than he does before me.

The widow had a plain, diligent, honest man, before. She has what is called taste, forsooth, or believes she has. She thinks Mr Grandison a finer gentleman than him who left her in a condition to be thought worthy of the address of a gayer man. She prides herself, it seems, in the relation that her marriage will give her to a man of Sir Charles Grandison's character. Much worse reasons will have weight, when a woman finds herself inclined to change her condition. But Everard is very earnest that my brother should know nothing of the matter till all is over: So you (as I) have this piece of news in confidence. Lady L- has not been told it. His cousin, he says, who refused him his interest with Miss Mansfield, Lady W's sister, because he thought a farther time of probation, with regard to his avowed good resolutions, necessary, would, perhaps, for the widow's sake, if applied to, put a spoke in his wheel.

Everard (I can hardly allow myself to call him Grandison) avows a vehement passion for the widow. She is rich.-When they are set out together in taste as she calls it; trade, or business, her first rise, quite forgot; what a gay, what a frolic dance will she and her new husband, in a little while, lead up, on the grave of her poor, plain, despised one!"

'Tis well, 'tis well, my dear Harriet, that I have a multitude of faults myself, [Witness, to go no farther back, this letter, or I should despise nine parts of the world out of ten.

You

I find that Sir Charles, and Beauchamp, and Dr Bartlett, correspond. Light is hardly more active than my brother, nor lightning more quick, when he has anything to execute that must or ought to be done. I believe I told you early, that was a part of his character. must not then wonder, or be offended, [Shall I use the word offended, my dear that you, in your turn, now he has found himself at I' berty to address you, should be affected by his adroitness and vivacity in your femalities, as uncle Selby calls thein: aptly enough, I think;

though I do not love that men should be so impudent, as either to abuse us, or even to find us out. You cannot always, were you to think him too precipitating, separate disagreeable qualities from good in the same person; since, perhaps, the one is the constitutional occasion of the other. Could he, for example, be half so useful a friend as he is, if he were to dream over a loveaffair, as you would seem to have him; in other words, gape over his ripened fruit till it dropt into his yaw-yaw-yawning mouth? He'll certainly get you, Harriet, within, or near his proposed time. Look about you: He'll have you before you know where you are. By hook, as the saying is, will he pull you to him, struggle as you will, (he has already got hold of you,) or by crook; inviting, nay, compelling you by his generosity, gentle shepherd-like, to nymph as gentle. What you do, therefore, do with such a grace as may preserve to you the appearance of having it in your power to lay an obligation upon him. It is the opinion of both his sisters, that he values you more for your noble expansion of heart, and not ignorant, but generous frankness of manners, yet mingled with dignity; than for-even-your beauty, Harriet, Whether you, who are in such full possession of every grace of person, care, as a woman, to hear of that, or not. His gay parterre similitude, you remember, my dear. It is my firm belief, that those are the greatest admirers of fine flowers, who love to see them in their borders, and seldomest pluck the fading fragrance. The other wretches crop, put them in their bosoms, and in an hour or two, rose, carnation, or whatever they be, after one parting smell, throw them

away.

He is very busy wherever he is. At his inn, I suppose, most. But he boasts not to you, or anybody, of what he does.

He writes now and then a letter to Aunt Nell, and she is so proud of the favour-Look you here, niece! Look you here!—But I shan't shew you all he writes.-On go the spectacles-for she will not for the world part with the letter out of her hands. She reads one paragraph, one sentence, then another. On and off go the spectacles, while she conjectures, explains, animadverts, applauds; and so goes on till she leaves not a line unread: Then, folding it up carefully in its cover, puts it in her letter or ribboncase, which shall I call it? For having but few letters to put in it, the case is filled with bits and ends of ribbons, patterns, and so forth, of all manner of colours, faded and fresh; with intermingledoms of goldbeaters'-skin, plasters for a cut finger, for a chapt lip, a kibe, perhaps for corns; which she dispenses occasionally very bountifully, and values herself (as we see at such times by a double chin made triple) for being not unuseful in her generation. Chide me, if you will; the humour's upon me; hang me, if I care: You are only Harriet Byron as yet.

Change your name, and increase your conse quence.

I have written a long letter already; and to what end? Only to expose myself, say you? True enough. But now, Harriet, to bribe you into passing a milder censure, let me tell you all I can pick up from the Doctor, relating to my brother's matters. Bribe shall I call this, or gratitude, for your free communications?

Matters between the Mansfields and the Keelings are brought very forward. Hang particu lars: Nobody's affairs lie near my heart, but yours. The two families have already begun to visit. When my brother returns, all the gentry in the neighbourhood are to be invited, to rejoice with the parties on the occasion.

Be so kind, my dear, as to dismiss the good man, as soon as your punctilio will admit. We are contented, that, while he lays himself out so much in the service of others, he should do something for himself. You, my dear, we look upon as a high reward for his many great and good actions. But, as he is a man who has a deep sense of favours granted, and values not the blessing the more, (when it ought to be within his reach) because it is dear, as is the case of the sorry fellows in general, I would have you consider of it-that's all.

The Doctor tells me, also, that the wicked Bolton's ward is dead; and that everything is concluded, to Sir Charles's satisfaction, with him; and the Mansfields (reinstated in all their rights) are once more a happy family.

Sir Hargrave is in a lamentable way: Dr Bartlett has great compassion for him. Would you have me pity him, Harriet?-You would, you say-Well, then I'll try for it. As it was by his means you and we, and my brother, came acquainted, I think I may. He is to be brought

to town.

Poor Sir Harry Beauchamp! He is past recovery. Had the physicians given him over when they first undertook him, he might, they say, have had a chance for it.

I told you that Emily's mother was turned methodist. She has converted her husband. A strange alteration! But it is natural for such sort of people to pass from one extreme to another. Emily every now and then visits them. They are ready to worship her, for her duty and goodness. She is a lovely girl: she every day improves in her person, as well as in her mind. She is sometimes with me; sometimes with Lady L—; sometimes with Aunt Eleanor; sometimes with your Mrs Reeves-We are ready to fight for her: but you will soon rob all of us. She is preparing for her journey to you. Poor girl! I pity her. Such a conflict in her mind, between her love of you and tenderness for her guardian: her Anne has confessed to me, that she weeps one half of the night; yet forces herself to be lively in company-After the example of Miss Byron, she says, when she visited you at

Selby-House. I hope, my dear, all will be right. But to go to live with a beloved object-I don't understand it. You, Harriet, may. I never was in love, God help me!

I am afraid the dear girl does too much for her mother. As they have so handsome an an nuity, 4007. a-year, so much beyond their expectations; I think she should not give, nor should they receive anything considerable of her, without her guardian's knowledge. She is laying out a great deal of money in new clothes, to do you and her guardian credit-on your nuptials, poor thing! she says, with tears in her eyes-but whether of joy, or sensibility, it is hard to decide; but I believe of both.

What makes me imagine she does more than she should, is, that a week ago she borrowed fifty guineas of me; and but yesterday came to me-I should do a very wrong thing, said she, blushing up to the ears, should I ask Lady L to lend me a sum of money till my next quarter comes due, after I made myself your debtor so lately: but if you could lend me thirty or forty guineas more, you would do me a great favour.

My dear! said I; and stared at her.

Don't question, don't chide me, this one time. I never will run in debt again: I hate to be in debt. But you have bid me tell you all my

wants.

I will not, my love, say another word. I will fetch you fifty guineas more.

More, my dear Lady G -! that is a pretty rub: but I will always, for the future, be within bounds: and don't let my guardian know it-He will kill me by his generosity; yet perhaps, in his own heart, wonder what I did with my money. If he thought ill of me, or that I was extravagant, it would break my heart.

Only, my dear, said I, remember that 400%. ayear-Mrs O'Hara cannot want anything to be done for her now.

Don't call her Mrs O'Hara ! She is very good : call her my mother.

I kissed the sweet girl, and fetched her the other fifty guineas.

I thought it not amiss to give you this hint, my dear, against she goes down to you. But do you think it right, after all, to have her with my brother and you?

Lady L keeps close-She fasts, cries, prays, is vastly apprehensive: she makes me uneasy for her and myself.

These vile men! I believe I shall hate them all. Did they partake-But not half so grateful as the blackbirds; they rather look big with insolence, than perch near, and sing a song to comfort the poor souls they have so grievously mortified. Other birds, as I have observed, (sparrows, in particular,) sit hour and hour, he's and she's, in turn; and I have seen the hen, when the rogue has staid too long, rattle at him, while he circles about her with sweeping wings, and

displayed plumage, his head and breast of various dyes, ardently shining, Feep, peep, peep; as much as to say, I beg your pardon, love-I was forced to go a great way off for my dinner.

Sirrr-rah! I have thought she has said, in an unforgiving accent-Do your duty now-Sit close Peep, peep, peep-I will, I will, I will— Away she has skimmed, and returned to relieve him-when she thought fit.

Don't laugh at us, Harriet, in our mortified state-Begone, wretch-What have I done, madam? staring! What have you done!-My sorry creature came in wheeling, courting, just as I was pitying two meek sisters: was it not enough to vex one?-Don't laugh at us, I say -If you do!-May my brother, all in good time, avenge us on you, prays, in malice, CHARLOTTE G

LETTER CCXXX.

MISS BYRON TO LADY G

Wednesday Evening, Oct. 25. FIE upon you, Lady G! What a letter have you written! There is no separating the good from the bad in it! With what dangerous talents are you entrusted! and what use do you make of them! I have written two long letters, continuing my narrative of our proceedings; but I must take you to severe task for this be fore me; and this and they shall go together!

Wicked wit! what a foe art thou to decent cheerfulness!-In a woman's hand such a weapon! What might we not expect from it, were it in a man's? How you justify the very creatures of that sex, whom you would be thought to despise !

But you say, you would not allow in a man the liberties you yourself take with your own sex. How can you, my dear, be so partial to your faults, yet own them to be such? Would you rank with the worst of sinners? They do just so.

I may be a fool: I may be inconsistent: I may not know how with a grace to give effect to my own wishes: I may be able to advise better than act-Most pragmatical creatures think they can be counsellors in another's case, while their own affairs, as my uncle would say, lie at sixes and sevens. But how does this excuse your freedoms with your whole sex-With the innocents of it, more particularly?

Let me say, my dear, that you take odious, yes, odious liberties; I won't recall the word: Liberties which I cannot, though to shame you, repeat. Fie upon you, Charlotte!

And yet you say, that neither you nor Lady L-know how to blame me much, though, the man considered, you will not totally acquit me of parade; and in another place, that, so far

as we have proceeded, we have behaved tolerably. Why, then, all this riot ?—yes, riot, Charlotte! against us, and against our sex? What, but for riot's sake?

"The humour upon you!"-The humour is upon you, with a witness! "Hang you, if you care!"-But, my dear, it would be more to your credit, if you did care; and if you checked the wicked humour.-Do you think nobody but you has such talents? Fain would I lower you, since, as it is evident, you take pride in your licence-Forgive me, my dear-Yet I will not say half I think of your wicked wit. Think you, that there are not many who could be as smart, as surprising, as you, were they to indulge a vein of what you call humour? Do you think your brother is not one? Would he not be too hard for you at your own weapons? Has he not convinced you that he could? But he, a man, can check the overflowing freedom.

But if I have set out wrong with your brother, I will do my endeavour to recover my path. You greatly oblige me with your conduct ing hand: but what necessity was there for you to lead me through briers and thorns, and to plunge me into two or three dirty puddles, in order to put me into the right path, when it lay before you in a direct line, without going a bowshot about?

Be pleased, however, to consider situation, on my side, as well as on your brother's: I might be somewhat excusable for my awkwardness, perhaps, were it considered, that the notion of a double or divided love, on the man's part, came often into my head; indeed could not be long out; the lady so superlatively excellent! his affection for her, so allowably, as well as avowed ly, strong! Was it possible to avoid little jealousies, little petulancies, when slights were imaginable? The more for the excellency of the man; the more for my past weakness of so many months? I pretend not, my dearest Charlotte, to be got above nature: I know I am a weak silly girl; I am humbled in the sense I have of his and Clementina's superior merits. True love will ever make a person think meanly of herself, in proportion as she thinks highly of the object. Pride will be up, sometimes; but in the pull two ways, between that and mortification, a torn coat will be the consequence: and must not the tatterdemalion (what a new language will my uncle teach me!) then look simply? You bid me ask my aunt-You bid me tell my uncle-Naughty Charlotte! I will ask, Ì will tell, them nothing. Pray write me a letter next, that I can read to them. I skipt this passage-Read that-'um-'um-'um-Then skipt again-Hey-day! what's come to the girl? cried my uncle! can Lady G- write what Harriet cannot read? There was a rebuke for you, Charlotte! For the love of God, let me read it !-He bustled, laughed, shook his shoulders, rubbed his hands at the imagination-Some

pretty roguery, I warrant: dearly do I love Lady G! If you love me, Harriet, let me read; and once he snatched one of the sheets. I boldly struggled with him for it-For shame, Mr Selby, said my aunt. My dear, said my grandmother, if your uncle is so impetuous, you must shew him no more of your letters.

He then gave it up-Consider, Charlotte, what a fine piece of work we should have had with my uncle, had he read it through !

But, let me see,-What are the parts of this wicked letter, for which I can sincerely thank you?-O my dear, I cannot, cannot, without soiling my fingers, pick them out-Your intelligences, however, are among those which I hold for favours.

Poor Emily! that is a subject which delights, yet saddens me-We are laudably fond of distinguishing merit. But your brother's is so dazzling-Every woman is one's rival. But no more of my Emily! Dear creature! the subject pains me-Yet I cannot quit it.-You ask, if, after all, I think it right that she should live with me?-What can I say? For her sake, perhaps, it will not: yet how is her heart set upon it! For my own sake, as there is no perfect happiness to be expected in this life, I could be content to bear a little pain, were that dear girl to be either benefited or pleasured by it. Indeed I love her at my heart-And, what is more I love myself for so sincerely loving her.

In the wicked part of your letter, what you write of your aunt Eleanor-But I have no patience with you, sinner as you are against light, and better knowledge! and derider of the infirmities, not of old maids, but of old age!-Don't you hope to live long yourself? That worthy lady wears not spectacles, Charlotte, because she never was so happy as to be married. Wicked Charlotte, to owe such obligation to the generosity of good Lord G—, for taking pity of you in time, [Were you four or five-and-twenty when he honoured you with his hand at St George's Church? and yet to treat him as you do, in more places than one, in this very letter!

But I will tell you what I will do with this same strange letter-I will transcribe all the good things in it. There are many which both delight and instruct; and some morning, before I dress for the day, I will [Sad task, Charlotte! but it shall be by way of penance for some of my faults and follies! transcribe the intolerable passages; so make two letters of it. One I will keep to shew my friends here, in order to increase, if it be possible, their admiration of my Charlotte; the bad one I will present to you. I know I shall transcribe it in a violent hurry-Not much matter whether it be legible, or not-The hobbling it will cause in the reading, will make it appear worse to you, than if you could read it as glibly as you write. If half of it be illegible, enough will be left to make you blush for the whole, ard wonder what