SIR CHARLES GRANDISON. friends to you and yours, and to my beloved Your faithful, and ever obliged LETTER CLI. LADY G TO MISS BYRON. Saturday, May 6. I THANK you, Harriet, for yours. What must In this gross age, your fellows think of you? your delicacy must astonish them. There used to be more of it formerly. But how should men know anything of it, when women have forgot it? Lord be thanked, we females, since we have been admitted into so constant a share of the public diversions, want not courage. We can give the men stare for stare wherever we meet them. The next age, nay, the rising generation, must surely be all heroes and heroines. But whither has this word delicacy carried me; me, who, it seems, have faults to be corrected for, of another sort; and who want not the courage for which I congratulate others? But to other subjects. I could write a vast deal of stuff about my lord and self, and Lord and Lady L, who assume parts which I know not how to allow them: and sometimes they threaten me with my brother's resentments, sometimes with my Harriet's; so that I must really have leading-strings fastened to my shoulders. O my dear! a fond husband is a surfeiting thing; and yet I believe most women love to be made monkeys of. BUT all other subjects must now give way. We have heard of, though not from, my brother. A particular friend of Mr Lowther was here with a letter from that gentleman, acquainting us, that Sir Charles and he were arrived at Paris. Mr Beauchamp was with us when Mr LowHe borrowed the letter on ther's friend came. account of the extraordinary adventure mentioned in it. Make your heart easy, in the first place, about Sir Hargrave. He is indeed in town; but very ill. He was frightened into England, and intends not ever again to quit it. In all probability, he owes it to my brother that he exists. Mr Beauchamp went directly to Cavendish Square, and informed himself there of other particulars relating to the affair, from the very servant who was present, and acting in it; and ter, wrote one for Dr Bartlett. Mr Beauchamp ON Wednesday, the 19-30 of April, in the The servant's great coat was open; and Sir Charles observing his livery, asked him, If he were not a servant of Sir Hargrave Pollexfen? and was answered in the affirmative. There are, it seems, trees planted on each side the road from St Denis to Paris, but which, as France is an open and unenclosed country, would not, but for the hill, have hindered the seeing a horseback. There is also a ditch on either great way off, the scuffling of so many men on hand; but places left for owners to come at Sir Charles ordered the post-boy to their grounds, with their carts, and other carriages. could not forgive himself, if he did not endeadrive to one of those passages; saying, He vour to save Sir Hargrave, and his friend, whose name the man told him was Merceda. His own servants were three in number, beMr Lowther's servant dismount; and, getting sides one of Mr Lowther's. My brother made himself on his horse, ordered the others to follow him. He begged Mr Lowther to continue in the chaise, bidding the dismounted servant stay, and attend his master, and galloped away towards the hill. His ears were soon pierced with the cries of the poor wretches; and presently he saw two men on horseback holding the horses of four others, who had under them the two gentlemen, struggling, groaning, and crying out for mercy. Sir Charles, who was a good way a-head of his servants, calling out to spare the gentlemen, and bending his course to relieve the prostrate sufferers, two of the four quitted their prey, and mounting, joined the other two horsemen, and advanced to meet him, with a shew of support ing the two men on foot in their violence; who continued laying on the wretches, with the buttends of their whips, unmercifully. As the assailants offered not to fly, and as they had more than time enough to execute their purpose, had it been robbery and murder; Sir Charles concluded, it was likely that these men were actuated by a private revenge. He was confirmed in this surmise, when the four men on horseback, though each had his pistol ready drawn, as Sir Charles also had his, demanded a conference; warning Sir Charles how he provoked his fate by his rashness; and declaring, that he was a dead man if he fired. Forbear, then, said Sir Charles, all farther violences to the gentlemen, and I will hear what you have to say. He then put his pistol into the holster; and one of his servants being come up, and the two others at hand, (to whom he called out, not to fire till they had his orders,) he gave him his horse's reins; bidding him have an eye on the holsters of both, and leapt down; and drawing his sword, made towards the two men who were so cruelly exercising their whips; and who, on his approach, retired to some little distance, drawing their hangers. The four men on horseback joined the two on foot, just as they were quitting the objects of their fury; and one of them said, Forbear, for the present, farther violence, brother; the gentleman shall be told the cause of all this.Murder, sir, said he, is not intended; nor are we robbers: the men whom you are solicitous to save from our vengeance, are villains. Be the cause what it will, answered Sir Charles, you are in a country noted for doing speedy justice, upon proper application to the magistrates. In the same instant he raised first one groaning man, then the other. Their heads were all over bloody, and they were so much bruised, that they could not extend their arms to reach their wigs and hats, which lay near them; nor put them on without Sir Charles's help. The men on foot by this time had mounted their horses, and all six stood upon their defence; but one of them was so furious, crying out, that his vengeance should be yet more complete, that two of the others could hardly restrain him. Sir Charles asked Sir Hargrave and Mr Merceda, Whether they had reason to look upon themselves as injured men, or injurers? One of the assailants answered, That they both knew themselves to be villains. Either from consciousness or terror, perhaps from both, they could not speak for themselves, but by groans; nor could either of them stand or sit upright. Just then came up, in the chaise, Mr Lowther, and his servant, each a pistol in his hand. He quitted the chaise, when he came near the suffering men; and Sir Charles desired him instantly to examine whether the gentlemen were dangerously hurt, or not. The most enraged of the assailants having slipt by the two who were earnest to restrain him, would again have attacked Mr Merceda, offering a stroke at him with his hanger; but Sir Charles (his drawn sword still in his hand) caught hold of his bridle; and, turning his horse's head aside, diverted a stroke, which, in all probability, would otherwise have been a finishing one. They all came about Sir Charles, bidding him, at his peril, use his sword upon their friend and Sir Charles's servants were coming up to their master's support, had there been occasion. At that instant, Mr Lowther, assisted by his own servant, was examining the wounds and bruises of the two terrified men, who had yet no reason to think themselves safe from farther violence. Sir Charles repeatedly commanded his servants not to fire, nor approach nearer, without his orders. The persons, said he, to the assailants, whom you have so cruelly used, are Englishmen of condition. I will protect them. Be the provocation what it will, you must know that your attempt upon them is a criminal one; and if my friend last come up, who is a very skilful surgeon, shall pronounce them in danger, you shall find it so. Still he held the horse of the furious one; and three of them, who seemed to be principals, were beginning to express some resentment at this cavalier treatment, when Mr Lowther gave his opinion, that there was no apparent danger of death and then Sir Charles, quitting the man's bridle, and putting himself between the assailants and sufferers, said, That as they had not either offered to fly, or to be guilty of violence to himself, his friend, or servants; he was afraid they had some reason to think themselves ill used by the gentlemen. But, however, as they could not suppose they were at liberty, in a civilized country, to take their revenge on the persons of those who were entitled to the protection of that country; he should expect, that they would hold themselves to be personally answerable for their conduct at a proper tribunal. The villains, said one of the men, know who we are, and the provocation; which merits a worse treatment than they have hitherto met with. You, sir, proceeded he, seem to be a man of honour and temper: we are men of honour, as well as you. Our design, as we told you, was not to kill the miscreants; but to give them reason to remember their villainy as long as they lived; and to put it out of their power ever to be guilty of the like. They have made a vile attempt, continued he, on a lady's honour SIR CHARLES GRANDISON. at Abbeville; and, finding themselves detected, and in danger, took round-about ways, and shifted from one vehicle to another, to escape the vengeance of her friends. The gentleman whose horse you held, and who has reason to be in a passion, is the husband of the lady. [A Spanish husband, surely, Harriet; not a French one, according to our notions.] That gentleman, and that, are her brothers. We have been in pursuit of them two days; for they gave out, (in order, no doubt, to put us on a wrong scent,) that they were to go to Antwerp. And, it seems, my dear, that Sir Hargrave and his colleague had actually sent some of his servants that way; which was the reason that they were themselves attended but by one. The gentleman told Sir Charles, that there was a third villain in their plot. They had hopes, he said, that he would not escape the close pursuit of a manufacturer of Abbeville, whose daughter, a lovely young creature, he had seduced, under promises of marriage. Their government, he observed, were great countenancers of the manufacturers at Abbeville; and he would have reason, if he were laid hold of, to think himself happy, if he came off with being obliged to perform his promises. This third wretch must be Mr Bagenhall. The Lord grant, say I, that he may be laid hold of; and obliged to make a ruined girl an honest woman, as they phrase it in LANCASHIRE! Don't you wish so, my dear? And let me add, that had the relations of the injured lady completed their intended vengeance on those two libertines, (a very proper punishment, I ween, for all libertines,) it might have helped them to pass the rest of their lives with great tranquillity; and honest girls might, for any contrivances of theirs, have passed to and from masquerades without molestation. Sir Hargrave and his companions intended, it seems, at first to make some resistance; four only of the seven, stopping the chaise: but when the other three came up, and they saw who they were, and knew their own guilt, their courage failed them. The seventh man was set over the post-boy, whom he had led about half a mile from the spot they had chosen as a convenient one for their purpose. Sir Hargrave's servant was secured by them at their first attack; but after they had disarmed him and his masters, he found an opportunity to slip from them, and made the best of his way to the road, in hopes of procuring assistance for them. While Sir Charles was busy in helping the bruised wretches on their feet, the seventh man came up to the others, followed by Sir Hargrave's chaise. The assailants had retired to some distance, and, after a consultation together, they all advanced towards Sir Charles; who, bidding his servants be on their guard, their master's orders. Our enmity, answered one of them, is only to these two inhospitable villains: murder, as we told you, was not our design. They know where we are to be found; and that they are the vilest of men, and have not been punished equal to their demerits. Let them on their knees ask this gentleman's pardon; pointing to the husband of the insulted lady. We insist upon this satisfaction; and upon their promise, that they never more will come within two leagues of Abbeville, and we will leave them in your pro tection. I fancy, Harriet, that these women-frighten- Sir Charles, turning towards them, said, If to scruple asking pardon. If you know youryou have done wrong, gentlemen, you ought not selves to be innocent, though I should be loath to risk the lives of my friend and servants, yet shall not my countrymen make so undue a submission. The wretches kneeled; and the seven men, rode off; to the joy of the two delinquents, who civilly saluting Sir Charles and Mr Lowther, kneeled again to their deliverer, and poured forth blessings upon the man, whose life, so vation he had now so much reason to rejoice in, lately, one of them sought; and whose preserfor the sake of his own safety. My brother himself could not but be well pleased that he was not obliged to come to extremities, which might have ended fatally on both sides. By this time, Sir Hargrave's post-chaise was come up. He and his colleague were with difficulty lifted into it. My brother and Mr Lowther went into theirs; and being but a small distance from Paris, they proceeded thither in company; the poor wretches blessing them all the way; and at Paris found their other servants waiting for them. Sir Charles and Mr Lowther saw them in bed in the lodgings that had been taken for them. met with, that they were unable to help themThey were so stiff with the bastinado they had selves. Mr Merceda had been more severely (I cannot call it more cruelly) treated than the other; for he, it seems, was the greatest malefactor in the attempt made upon the lady, and he had, besides, two or three gashes, which, but for his struggles, would have been but one. As you, my dear, always turn pale when the word masquerade is mentioned, so, I warrant, will ABBEVILLE be a word of terror to those wretches as long as they live. Their enemies, it seems, carried off their arms, perhaps in the true spirit of French chivalry, with a view to lay them, as so many trophies, at the feet of the insulted lady. Mr Lowther writes, that my brother and he are lodged in the hotel of a man of quality, a dear friend of the late Mr Danby, and one of the three whom he has remembered in his will; and that Sir Charles is extremely busy in relation to the executorship; and having not a moment to spare, desired Mr Lowther to engage his friend, to whom he wrote, to let us know as much; and that he was hastening everything for his journey onwards. Mr Beauchamp's narrative of this affair is, as I told you, very circumstantial. I thought to have shortened it more than I have done. I wish I have not made my abstract confused, in several material places; but I have not time to clear it up. Adieu, my dear. CHARLOTTE G LETTER CLII. LADY GTO MISS BYRON. Sunday, May 7. I BELIEVE I shall become as arrant a scribbler as somebody else. I begin to like writing. A great compliment to you, I assure you. I see one may bring one's mind to anything. I thought I must have had recourse, when you and my brother left us, and when I was married, to the public amusements, to fill up my leisure; and as I have seen everything worth seeing of those, many times over; (masquerades excepted, and them I despise ;) time, you know, in that case, would have passed a little heavily, after having shewn myself, and, by seeing who and who were together, laid in a little store of the right sort of conversation for the tea-table. For you know, Harriet, that among us modern fine people, the company, and not the entertainment, is the principal part of the raree-show. Pretty enough! to make the entertainment, and pay for it too, to the honest fellows, who have nothing to do, but to project schemes to get us together. I don't know what to do with this man. I little thought that I was to be considered as such a doll, such a toy, as he would make me. I want to drive him out of the house without me, were it but to purvey for me news and scandal. What are your fine gentlemen fit for else? You know, that with all my faults, I have a domestic and managing turn. A man should encourage that in a wife, and not be perpetually teazing her for her company abroad, unless he did it with a view to keep her at home. Our sex don't love to be prescribed to, even in the things to which they are not naturally averse; and for this very reason, perhaps, because it becomes us to submit to prescription. Human nature, Harriet, is a perverse thing. I believe, if my good man wished me to stay at home, I should torture my brain, as other good wives do, for inventions to go abroad. It wa sbut yesterday, that, in order to give him a hint, I pinned my apron to his coat, without considering who was likely to be a sufferer by it; and he, getting up in his usual nimble way, gave it a rent, and then looked behind him with so much apprehension-Hands folded, bag in motion from shoulder to shoulder. I was vexed too much to make the use of the trick which I had designed, and huffed him. He made excuses, and looked pitifully, bringing in his soul to testify that he knew not how it could be. How it could be! Wretch! When you are always squatting upon one's clothes, in defiance of hoop, or distance. He went out directly, and brought me in two aprons, either of which was worth twenty of that he so carelessly rent. Who could be angry with him?—I was, indeed, thinking to chide him for this-As if I were not to be trusted to buy my own clothes; but he looked at me with so good-natured an eye, that I relented, and accepted, with a bow of graciousness, his present, only calling him an odd creature-And that he is, you know, my dear. We live very whimsically, in the main; not above four quarrels, however, and as many other chidings, in a day. What does this man stay at home for then so much, when I am at home?— Married people, by frequent absences, may have a chance for a little happiness. How many debatings, if not direct quarrels, are saved by the good man's and his meek wife's seeing each other but once or twice a-week! In what can men and women, who are much together, employ themselves, but in proving and defending, quarrelling and making up? Especially if they both chance to marry for love; (which, thank Heaven, is not altogether my case ;) for then both honest souls, having promised more happiness to each other than they can possibly meet with, have nothing to do but reproach each other, at least tacitly, for their disappointment -A great deal of free-masonry in love, my dear, believe me! The secret, like that, when found out, is hardly worth the knowing. Well, but what silly tattle is this, Charlotte ! methinks you say, and put on one of your wisest looks. No matter, Harriet! There may be some wisdom in much folly. Every one speaks not out so plainly as I do. But when the novelty of an acquisition or change of condition is over, be the change or the acquisition what it will, the principal pleasure is over, and other novelties SIR CHARLES GRANDISON. are hunted after, to keep the pool of life from stagnating. This is a serious truth, my dear, and I expect you to praise me for it. You are very sparing of your praise to poor me; and yet I had rather have your good word than any woman's in the world: or man's either, I was going to say; but I should then have forgot my brother. As for Lord G, were I to accustom him to obligingness, I should destroy my own consequence, for then it would be no novelty, and he would be hunting after a new folly.-Very true, Harriet. Well, but we have had a good serious falling out, and it still subsists. It began on Friday night; present, Lord and Lady L——, and Emily. I was very angry with him for bringing it on before them. The man has no discretion, my dear, none at all. And what about? Why, we have not made our appearance at court, forsooth. A very confident thing, this same appearance, I think! A compliment made to fine clothes and jewels, at the expense of modesty. Lord G- -pleads decorum-Decorum against modesty, my dear!-But if by decorum is meant fashion, I have in a hundred instances found decorum beat modesty out of the house. And as my brother, who would have been our principal honour on such an occasion, is gone abroad, and as ours is an elderly novelty, as I may say, [our fineries were not ready, you know, before my brother went, I was fervent against it. "I was the only woman of condition in England who would be against it." I told my lord, that was a reflection on my who had been sex ; but Lord and Lady L spoken to, I believe, by Lady Gertrude, were both on his side-[I shall have this man utterly ruined for a husband among you]-When there were three to one, it would have looked cowardly to yield, you know. I was brave. But it being proposed for Sunday, and that being at a little distance, it was not doubted but I would comply. So the night passed off with prayings, hopings, and a little mutteration. [Allow me that word, or find me a better.] The entreaty was renewed in the morning; but, no!" I was ashamed of him," he said. I asked him if he really thought so?" He should think so, if I refused him." Heaven forbid, my lord, that I, who contend for the liberty of acting, should hinder you from the liberty of thinking! Only one piece of advice, honest friend, said I don't imagine the worst against yourself; and another, if you have a mind to carry a point with me, don't bring on the cause before anybody else; for that would be to doubt either my duty, or your own reasonableness. As sure as you are alive, Harriet, the man made an exception against being called honest friend; as if, as I told him, either of the words were incompatible with quality. So once, he was as froppish as a child, on my calling him the that implies, that he is the man of men!-You Well, this debate seemed suspended, by my He could say nothing to this, you know. And him, on another occasion, who would pretend I should never forgive the husband, as I told to argue, when he had nothing to say. Then (for the baby will be always craving him-I forgot whither-But to some place that something) he wanted me to go abroad with he supposed (poor man!) I should like to visit. a modern husband, and a fashionable man, and I told him, I dared to say, he wished to be thought he would get a bad name if he could never stir out without his wife. Neither could he answer that, you know. Well, he went on, mutter, mutter, grumble, grumble, the thunder rolling at a distance, a little impatience, now and then, however, portending But as yet, it was that it would come nearer. only, Pray, my dear, oblige me; and, Pray, my lord, excuse me ; till this morning, when he had the assurance to be pretty peremptory; hinting, that the lord in waiting had been spoken to. A fine time of it would a wife have, if she were not at liberty to dress herself as she pleases.— Were I to choose again, I do assure you, my dear, it should not be a man, who by his taste for moths and butterflies, shells, china, and such-like trifles, would give me warning that he would presume to dress his baby, and when he had done, would perhaps admire his own fancy more than her person. I believe, my Harriet, I shall make you afraid of matrimony; but I will pursue my subject, for all that. When the insolent saw that I did not dress as he would have had me, he drew out his face, sending to know glouting, to half the length of my arm, but was whether her lord and she were to attend us to silent. Soon after, Lady L the drawing-room, and I returning for answer, that I should be glad of their company at dinner, he was in violent wrath. True, as you are left the house, without saying, By your leave, alive! and dressing himself in a great hurry, |