You would leave to her the full and free exercise of her religion-And can you promise, can you, the Chevalier Grandison, undertake, if you think your wife in an error, that you never will endeavour to cure her of that error? You who, as the husband, ought to be the regulator of her conscience, the strengthener of her mind -Can you, believing your own religion a right one, hers a wrong one, be contented that she shall persevere in it? Or can she avoid, on the same, and even still stricter principles, entering into debate with you? And will not then her faith, from your superior understanding, be endangered?--Of what force will be my confessor's arguments against yours, strengthened by your love, your kindness, your sweetness of manners? And how will all my family grieve, were Clementina to become indifferent to them, to her country, and more than indifferent to her religion?

Say, Grandison, my tutor, my friend, my brother, can you be indifferent on these weighty matters?-O no, you cannot. My brother the Bishop has told me, (but be not angry with my brother for telling me,) that you did declare to my elder brother and him, that you would not in a beginning address, have granted to a princess the terms you were willing to grant me ; and that you offered them to me as a compromise!-Compassion and love were equally, perhaps, your inducements. Poor Clementina!Yet, were there not a greater obstacle in the way, I would have accepted of your compassion; because you are great and good; and there can be no insult, but true godlike pity in your compassion. Well, sir, and do not my father, my mother, the best and most indulgent of fathers and mothers; and do not my uncle and brothers, and my other kindred, comply with their Clementina, upon the same affectionate, the same pitying motive; otherwise religion, country, the one so different, the other so remote, would they have consented?-They would not. Will you not then, my dear chevalier, think that I do but right (knowing your motive, knowing theirs, knowing that to rely upon my own strength is presumption, and a tempting of the Almighty,) to act as I act, to resolve as I have resolved?-0 do you, my tutor, be again my tutor-You never taught me a lesson that either of us might be ashamed to own-Do you, as I have begged of you in my paper, strengthen my mind. I own to you that I have struggled much with myself: and now am got-above myself, or beneath myself, I know not whether-For my letter is not such as I designed it. You are too much the subject: I designed only a few lines, and those to express the grateful sense I have of your goodness to me, and our Jeronymo; indeed to everybody; and to beg of you, for the sake of my peace of mind, to point out some way by which Ì, and all of us, may demonstrate our attachment to our superior duties, and our gratitude

to you.

What a quantity have I written! Excuse my wandering head; and believe me to be, as much the well-wisher of your glory, as of my own.

CLEMENTINA DELLA PORRETTA.

LETTER CXCI.

SIR CHARLES GRANDISON TO LADY CLEMENTINA.

Rome, August 11, N. S. "NOTHING," says the most generous and pious of her sex," but the due consideration of the brevity and vanity of this life, and of the duration of the next, could have influenced me to act against my heart."-Condescending goodness! what acknowledgments do you make in my favour! But, favour-can I say?—No, not in my favour; but, on the contrary, to the extinction of all my hopes; for what pleas remain to be urged, when you doubt not my affection, my gratitude, my tenderness, my good faith, and think that from them will arise your danger?

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My "extricating hand," at your command, "is held out ;" and it shall not be my fault, if you recover not the "smooth and pleasant path, in which you were accustomed to walk with undoubting feet." You bid me "tell you what you shall do to be indifferent to me."-What pain does the gracious manner of your rejection give me? Exalted goodness!" Your brother, your friend, your faithful, your disinterested friend," will "tell you," against himself, to the forfeiture of all his hopes he will tell you," that you ought not "to give your hand as your heart" (condescending excellence!)" would have directed," if you cannot do it, "and think your soul secure." You" will help me to words," you say—I repeat them after you. Persevere, ClementinaI will not," I cannot, "account youjungrateful.” How much does the dear, the generous Clementina, over-rate the services which Heaven, for my consolation, (so I will flatter myself,) in a very heavy disappointment which was to follow, made me an humble instrument of rendering to the worthiest of families! To that Heaven be all the glory! By ascribing so much to the agent, fear you not that you depreciate the first cause? Give to the supreme His due, and what will be left for me to claim? What but a common service, which any one of your family would, in the like circumstances, have done for me?

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It is generous, it is noble in you, madam, to declare your regard for the man you refuse: but what a restraint must I act under, who value, and must for ever value, the fair refuser; yet think myself bound in honour to acquiesce with the refusal, and to prefer your peace of mind to

my own? To lay open my heart before you, would give you pain. I will not give you pain: yet let me say, that the honour once designed me, had it been conferred, would have laid me under unreturnable obligations to as many persons as are of your family. It was, at one time, an honour too great even for my ambition; and yet that is one of the constitutional faults that I have found it most difficult to restrain. But I will glory in their intended goodness, and that I lost not their or your favour from any act of unworthiness. Continue to me, most excellent Clementina; continue to me, lords and ladies of your illustrious house, your friendship; and I will endeavour to be satisfied.

Your "tutor," as you are pleased to call him; your friend, your "BROTHER," (too clearly do I see the exclusive force of that last recognition!) owns, that he cannot be indifferent to those motives, that have so great weight with you." He sees your stedfastness, and that your conscience is engaged: He submits, therefore, whatever the submission may cost him, to your reasoning,and repeats your words-" Persevere, Clementina."

I did tell your elder brother, and I am ready to tell all the world, "that I would not, in a beginning address, though to a princess, have signed to the articles I yielded to by way of compromise." Allow me, madam, to repeat his question, to which my declaration was an answer-" What would the daughters have done, that they should have been consigned to perdition?"-I had in my thoughts this farther plea, that our church admits of a possibility of salvation out of its own pale.-God forbid but it should!-The church of God, we hold, will be collected from the sincerely pious of all communions. Yet, I own, that had the intended honour been done me, I should have rejoiced that none but sons had blessed our nuptials.

But how do your next words affect me"Compassion and love," say you," were equally, perhaps, your inducements-Poor Clementina!" add you. Inimitably great as what follows this is, I should have thought myself concerned, as well for my own honour as for your delicacy, to have expatiated on the self-pitying reflection conveyed in these words, had we been otherwise circumstanced than we are ; but to write but one half of what, in happier circumstances, I would have written, must, as I have hinted, give pain to your noble heart. The excellent Clementina, I am sure, would not wish me to say much on this subject. If she would, I must not; I cannot.

The best of fathers, mothers, brothers, and of spiritual directors, in your own way, are yours. They, madam, will strengthen your mind. Their advices, and their indulgent love, will be your

support in the resolution you have taken. You call upon me again to approve of that resolution. I do, I must approve of it. "The lover of your soul" concludes with the repetition of the words you prescribe to his pen-If cooler reflection, if reconsideration of those arguments, which persuaded me to hope, that you would have been in no way unhappy or unsafe, had you condescended to be mine-If mature and dispassionate thought cannot alter your present persuasion on this head-"Persevere, Clementina," in the rejection of a man as steady in his own faith as you are in yours. If your conscience is concernedIf your peace of mind is engaged-you ought to refuse. "You cannot be thought ungrateful." -So, against himself, decides your called upon, and generously acknowledged,

"Tutor, friend, brother,"
GRANDISON.

LETTER CXCII.

LADY CLEMENTINA TO SIR CHARLES

GRANDISON.

Bologna, August 19, N. S. AND do you, best of men, consent to be governed by my wishes? But are you convinced (you do not say you are) by my reasonings?— Alas! my reasoning powers are weakened: my head has received an incurable wound: my memory, indeed, seems returned; but its return only serves to make me more sensible of my past unhappiness, and to dread a relapse.

But what is it I hear? Olivia is come back to Florence; and you are at Florence! Fly from Florence, and from Olivia.-But whither will you go, to avoid a woman who could follow you to England?--Whither, but to England?-We are all of us apprehensive for the safety of your person, if you refuse to be the husband of that violent woman. Yet cannot I bear the thoughts of her being yours. But that, you have told me, she never can be-Yet, if you could be happy with her, why should I be an enemy to her happiness?-But to your own magnanimity I will leave this subject.

Let me advise with my tutor, my friend, my brother, on a point that is now much more my concern than Olivia, and her hopes.-Fain, very fain, would I take the veil. My heart is in it. My friends, my dearest friends, urge against my plea, the dying request, as well as the wishes while living, of my grandfathers on both sides. I am distressed; I am greatly distressed; for well do I know what were the views of the two good men, now with God, in wishing me not to assume the veil. But could they foresee the calamity that was to befal their Clementina? They

could not. I need not dwell upon the subject, and upon the force of their pleas and mine, to a man whose mind is capacious enough to take in the whole strength of both at once. But you will add an obligation to the many you have already conferred upon me, if you can join your weight to my pleas: and make it your request, that I may be obliged in this momentous article. Let me expect that you can, that you will. They all languish for opportunities to oblige the man, who has laid them under obligations not to be returned. Need I to suggest a plea to you, the force of which must be allowed from you, if you ever with fervour loved Clementina?

If I know my own heart, and I have given it a strict examination, two things granted me would make me as happy as I now can be in this life: The one, that my request to be allowed to sequester myself from the world, and to dedicate myself to God, be complied with: The other, to be assured of your happiness in marriage with an English, at least not an Italian, woman. I am obliged to own, though I am sensible that I expose to you my weakness by the acknowledgment, that the last is but too necessary to the tranquillity of my mind, in the situation in which the grant of my first wish will place me. Let me know, chevalier, when I have set my hand to the plough, that there is no looking back; and that the only man I ever thought of with tenderness is another's, and, were I not professed, never could be mine. Answer as I wish; and I shall be able to follow you, sir, with my prayers, to the country that has the honour of producing such an ornament to human nature.

It must not be known, you will readily suppose, that I have sought to interest you in my plea. For this reason, I have not shewn this letter to anybody. Father Marescotti, I have hopes, as a religious, will declare himself in my favour, if you do. My brother the Bishop surely will strengthen your hand and his, though he appears as the brother, not as the prelate, in support of the family reasons.

I am not ashamed to say, I long to see you, sir. I can the more readily allow myself to tell you so, as I can declare that I am unalterably determined in my adherence to my written resolution, never to trust to my own strength in an article in which my everlasting welfare is concerned. O sir! what struggles, what conflicts, did this resolution cost me, before I could make it !-But once made, and upon such deliberation, and after I had begged of God his direction, which I imagine he has graciously given me, I have never wished to alter it. Forgive me, sir. You

will; you are a good man-My God only have I preferred to you. CLEMENTINA DELLA PORRETTA.

LETTER CXCIII.

SIR CHARLES GRANDISON TO LADY CLEMENTINA.

Florence, August 23, N. S. My dear correspondent asks, If I am convinced by her reasonings?—I repeat, that I resign to your will, every hope, every wish, respecting myself. In a case where conscience can be pleaded, no other reasonings are necessary.

But what can I say, most excellent of women, to the request you make, that I will support you in your solicitude to take the veil? I hope you only propose this to me, by way of asking my advice-"Let me," say you," advise with my tutor, my friend, my brother."-I have given the highest instance that man could give of my disinte restedness; and I will now, as you require, suppose myself a Catholic in the humble advice I shall offer to my sisterly friend; and this will the rather appear, since, as a Protestant, I should argue against any one's binding him or herself, by vows of perpetual celibacy.

"Need I," asks my dear correspondent," suggest a plea for you to make, the force of which must be allowed, if ever you fervently loved Clementina?" At what plea does the excellent Clementina hint? Is it not at an Herodian only ?* Why, if ever she honoured her Grandison with her esteem, does she not enforce the same plea with regard to him? Can she, avowing that esteem, be so generous as to wish him to enter into the married estate, and even to insist upon it, as a step that would contribute to her future peace of mind, yet hope to prevail upon him to make it his request, that she may be secluded from a possibility of ever enjoying the same liberty? Were I married, and capable of wishing to fetter and restrain thus my wife, in case of her surviving me, I should think she ought to despise me for the narrowness of my heart. What then is the plea that a young lady, in the bloom of beauty, would put me upon making?-And to whom?To her own relations, who all languish, as she expresses herself, for opportunities to oblige him; and who are extremely earnest to dissuade her from entering upon the measures she wishes him to promote? Can he, madam, to use your own words in the solemn paper you gave me, think

of taking such advantage of their generosity to him?

But can Clementina della Porretta, who is blest with the tenderest and most indulgent of parents, and who has always justly gloried in her duty to them; whose brothers love her with a disinterestedness that hardly any brothers before them have been able to shew; can she, in opposition to the will of her grandfathers, wish to enter into a measure, that must frustrate all their hopes from her, for ever?-Dear lady! consider.

You, my beloved correspondent, who hold marriage as a sacrament, surely cannot doubt but you may serve God in it with much greater efficacy, than were you to sequester yourself from a world that wants such an example as you are able to give it. But, madam, your parents propose not marriage to you: they only, at present, beseech, not command you, (they know the generosity of your heart,) not to take a step that must entirely frustrate all their hopes, and put an option out of your own power, should you change your mind. Let me advise you, madam, disclaiming all interested views, and from motives of a love merely fraternal, (for such is your expectation from the man you honour with your correspondence,) to set the hearts of relations, so justly dear to you, at ease; and to leave to Providence the issue. They never, madam, will compel you. And give me leave to say, that piety requires this of you. Does not the Almighty, everywhere in his word, sanctify the reasonable commands of parents? Does he not interest himself, if I may so express myself, in the performance of the filial duty? May it not be justly said, that to obey your parents is to serve God? Would the generous, the noble-minded Clementina della Porretta, narrow, as I may say, her piety by limiting it, (I speak now as if I were a Catholic, and as if I thought there were some merit in secluding one's self from the world,) when she could, at least, equally serve God, and benefit her own soul, by obeying her parents, by fulfilling the will of her deceased grandfathers, and by obliging all her other near and dear relations? Lady Clementina cannot resolve all the world into herself. Shall I say, there is often cowardice, there is selfishness, and perhaps, in the world's eye, a too strong confession of disappointment, in such seclusions?

There are about you persons, who can give this argument its full force-I cannot do it. O my Clementina, my sister, my friend, I cannot be so great, so undivested, in this instance, as you can be!-But I can be just: I presume to say, I cannot be ungenerous. I tell you not what I hope to be enabled by your noble example, in time, to do, because of the present tenderness of your health. But you must not, madam, expect from me a conduct, that you think it would become you to disavow. Delicate as the female mind is, and as is most particularly

my dear correspondent's, that of the man, on such an occasion as this, should shew at least, an equal delicacy: For has he not her honour to protect, no less than his own, as a man, to regard?

Distress me not, my dear Clementina; add not, I should rather say, to my distress, by the declaration of yours. I repeat, that your parents will not compel you. Put it not out of your power to be prevailed upon to do an act of duty. God requires not that you should be dead to your friends, in order to live to him. Their hope is laudable. Will Lady Clementina della Porretta put it out even of the Almighty's power, to bless their hope? Will she think herself unhappy, if she cannot punish them, instead of rewarding them, for all their tender and indulgent goodness to her ?-It cannot be. God Almighty perfect his own work, so happily begun, in the full restoration of your health! This blessing, I have no doubt, will attend your filial obedience. But can you, my dear correspondent, expect it, if you make yourself uneasy, and keep your mind in suspense, as to your duty, and indulge yourself in supposing that the will of God, and the will of your parents, are opposite? A great deal now depends upon yourself. O madam, will you not in a smaller instance, were your heart ever so much engaged to the cloistered life, practise that self-denial, which in the highest you enforce upon me? All your temporal duties, against you; and your spiritual not favouring, much less impelling, you ?

But once more, I quit a subject, that may, and, no doubt, will, be enforced in a much stronger manner, than I can enforce it. I will soon, very soon, pay my duty to you, and all yours. You own your wishes to see me, because you are fortified by your invincible adherence to your resolution. I will acknowledge anguish of heart. I cannot, as I told you above, be so great as you. But if you will permit your sisterly love to have its full operation, and if you wish me peace of mind, and a cordial resignation to your will, let me see you, madam, on the next visit I shall have the honour to make you, cheerful, serene, and determined to acquiesce in the reasonable will of parents, who, I am confident, I again repeat it, will never compel you to marry. Have they not already given you a very strong instance, that they will not?-In a word, let me hear you declare, that you will resign yourself to their will, in this article of the veil; and I shall then, with the more cheerfulness, endeavour to resign to yours, so strongly and repeatedly declared, in the letter before me, to, dear lady,

Your fraternal friend, and
ever obliged servant,

GRANDISON.

Lady Olivia, madam, arrived this day at her own palace. It is impossible that anything but

LETTER CXCIV.

SIR CHARLES GRANDISON TO DR BARTLETT.

Bologna, Thursday, August 17-28.

I SHALL hereafter have a pretty large supplement to give you to my literary journal: having found it necessary, as much as possible, in the past month, to amuse myself with subjects without myself. And I shall send you now the copics of three letters of mine, written in Italian to Lady Clementina; and two of hers, in answer to the first and second of them.*

I arrived here yesterday; but before I proceed to acquaint you with my reception, I should mention, that Lady Olivia arrived at her own palace at Florence, on Friday last. I was then in that city, but newly returned from Naples and Rome. She sent one of her gentlemen to me the night of her arrival, to acquaint me with it, and to desire me to attend her next morning.

I went.

Her first reception of me was polite and agreeable. But the moment her aunt Maffei withdrew, and we were alone, her eyes darting a fiercer ray, Wretch, said she, what disturbance, what anxieties hast thou given me !-But it is well, that thy ingratitude to the creature who has risked so much for thee, has been rewarded, as it ought to be, by a repulse from a still prouder heart, if possible, than thy own!

You, Lady Olivia, answered I, have reason to impute pride to me. You have given me many opportunities to shew you, that I, a man, can keep my temper; when you, a woman, have not been able to keep yours; yet, in me, never met with an aggressor.

Not an aggressor, sir!-To say nothing of the contempts you cast upon me here in my own Italy, what was your treatment of me in your England?-Paltry island! I despise it!-To resolve to leave me there! To refuse to compliment me with a day, an hour! [O my detested weakness! What a figure did I make among your friends! And declaredly to attend the motions of the haughtiest woman in Europe! Thank God, for your own sake; yes, sir, I have the charity to say for your own sake; that you are disappointed.

I pity you, Lady Olivia: from my soul I pity you! and should abhor myself, were I capable of mingling insult with my pity. But I leave

you.

Forgive me, chevalier, catching my arm as I

than with you. A creature that has rendered herself so cheap to you, (but, sir, it is only to you,) cannot but be uneasy to herself; and when she is, she must misbehave to everybody else. Say you forgive me

She held out her hand to me. But immediately, on Lady Maffei's coming in, followed by servants, withdrew it.

Her behaviour afterwards was that of the true passionate woman; now ready to rave, now in tears. I cannot, Dr Bartlett, descend to particulars. A man, who loves the sex; who has more compassion than vanity in his nature; who can value even generally faulty persons for the qualities that are laudable in them, must be desirous to draw a veil over the weaknesses of such. I left her distressed. There may be cases in which sincerity cannot be separated from unpoliteness. I was obliged to be unpolite, or I could not have been sincere; and must have given such answers, as would, perhaps, in some measure, have entitled the lady to think herself amused. Poor woman! She threatened to have me overtaken by her vengeance. But now, on the disappointment I had met with at Bologna, it became absolutely necessary for me to encourage, or discourage, this unhappy lady-I could not have been just to her, had I not been just to myself.

A very extraordinary attempt was made, next day, on my person; I am apt to believe from this quarter. It succeeded not: and as I was on the Tuesday to set out for Bologna, I let it pass off without complaint or inquiry.

I paid the Count of Belvedere a visit, as I had promised. The General at Naples, and the Count at Parma, received me with the highest civilities; and both from the same motive. The Count will hope.

The General accompanied me, with his lady, part of my way to Florence: The motive of his journey is to rejoice personally with his friends at Urbino and Bologna, on the resolution his sister has taken; and to congratulate her upon it; as he has already done by letter: the copy of which he shewed me. There were high compliments made me in it. We may speak handsomely of the man whom we neither envy nor fear. He would have loaded me with presents; but I declined accepting any; in such a manner, however, as he could not be dissatisfied with me for my refusal.

I paid also my respects at Urbino to the Altieri family, and the Conte della Porretta, in my way to Rome and Naples, and met with a very polite reception from both. For the rest of the time of my absence from Bologna, my literary journal will account.

On Wednesday afternoon I went to the Palace of Porretta. I hastened up to my Jerony