zeal that wanted government: She threw out hints, injurious to the sincerity of the three brothers, as well as to that of the father and mother, with regard to me: all which I discountenanced.

I have hardly ever conversed with a woman so artful as Lady Sforza. I wonder not, that she had the address to fire the Count of Belvedere with impatience, and to set him on seeking to provoke me to an act of rashness, which, after what had happened between me and the young Count Altieri, some years ago, at Verona, might have been fatal to one, if not to both; and, by that means, rid Italy, if not the world, of me, and, at the same time, revenged herself on the Count, for rejecting her daughter (who, as I have told you before, has a passion for him) in a manner that she called too contemptuous to be passed over.

She told me, that she doubted not now, that I had been circumvented by (what even she, an Italian, called) Italian finesse, but her niece would be prevailed upon to marry the Count: and bid me remember her words. Ah! my poor Laurana! added she-But I will renounce her, if she can be so mean, as to retain love for a man who despises her.

A convent, she said, after such a malady as Clementina had been afflicted with, would be the fittest place for her. She ascribed to her and Laurana's treatment of her (with great vehemence, on my disallowing her assertion) the foundation of her cure. She wished that, were Clementina to marry, it might have been me, preferably to any other man; since the love she bore me, was most likely to complete her recovery; which was not to be expected, were she to marry a man to whom she was indifferentBut, added she, they must take their own way. Lady Laurana was on a visit at the Borromean Palace : her mother sent for her, unknown to me. I could very well have excused the compliment. I was civil, however: I could be no more than civil: And, after a stay of two hours, pursued my route.

Nothing remarkable happened in my journey. I wrote to Jeronymo, and his beloved sister, from Lyons.

At the post-house there, I found a servant of Lady Olivia, with a letter. He was ordered to overtake, and give it into my own hands, were he to travel with it to Paris, or even to England. Lady Olivia will be obeyed. The man missed me, by my going to visit Lady Sforza at Milan. I enclose the letter; as also a copy of mine, to which it is an answer. When you read them, you will be of opinion, that they ought not to pass your own hands. Perhaps you will choose to read them in this place.

VOL. VIII.

LETTER CXCVIII.

SIR CHARLES GRANDISON TO LADY OLIVIA.

Bologna, Saturday, Aug. 19-30. Now, at last, is the day approaching, that the writer of this will be allowed to consider himself wholly as an Englishman. He is preparing to take, perhaps, an everlasting leave of Italy. But could he do this, and not first bid adieu to two ladies at Florence, whose welfare will be ever dear to him-Lady Olivia, and Mrs Beaumont? It must be to both by letter.

I told you, madam, when I last attended you, that, possibly, I should never see you more. If I told you so in anger, pardon me. Now, in a farewell letter,' I would not upbraid you. I will be all in fault, if you please. I never incurred the displeasure of Olivia, but I was more concerned for her, than for what I suffered from it; and yet her displeasure was not a matter of indifference to me.

I wish not, madam, for my own happiness, with more sincerity than I do for yours. Would to Heaven it were in my power to promote it! I will flatter myself, that my true regard for your honour, daughter as you are of a house next to princely, and of fortune more than princely, will give me an influence, which will awaken you to your glory. Allow, madam, the friendly, the brotherly expostulation-Let me think, let me speak, of Olivia, in absence, as a fond brother would of a sister most dear to him. I will so speak, so think of you, madam, when far distant from you. When I remember my Italian friends, it will always be with tender blessings, and the most affectionate gratitude. Allow me, Olivia, to number you with the dearest of those friends. Your honour, your welfare, present and future, is, and ever will be, the object of my vows.

God and nature have done their parts by you: let not your own be wanting. To what purpose live we, if not to grow wiser, and to subdue our passions? Dear lady! illustrious woman! How often have you been subdued by the violence of yours; and to what submissions has your generous repentance subjected you, even to your inferiors! Let me not be thought a boaster-But I will presume to say, that I am the rather entitled to advise, as I have made it my endeavour (and, I bless God, have not been always unsuccessful) to curb my passions. They are naturally violent. What do I owe to the advice of an excellent man, whom I early set up as my monitor! Let me, in this letter, be yours.

Your situation in life, your high birth, your illustrious line of ancestors, are so many calls upon you, in whom the riches and the consequences of so many noble progenitors centre, to act worthy of their names, of their dignities, of 2 M

your own; and of the dignity of your sex. The world looks up to you (your education, too, so greatly beyond that of most Italian ladies) with the expectation of an example-Yet have not evil reports already gone out upon your last excursion? The world will not see with our eyes, nor judge as we would have it, and as we sometimes know it ought to judge. My visit to Italy, when you were absent from it, and in England, was of service to your fame. The malignant world, at present, holds itself suspended in its censures; and expects, from your future conduct, either a confutation or a confirmation of them. It is, therefore, still in your power (rejoice, madam, that it is!) for ever to establish, or for ever to depreciate your character, in the judgment both of friends and enemies.

How often have I seen passion, and even rage, deform features that are really lovely! Shall it be said, that your great fortune, your abundance, has been a snare to you? That you would have been a happier, nay, a better woman, had not God so bountifully blessed you?

Can your natural generosity of temper allow you to bear such an imputation, as that the want of power only can keep you within the limits, (pardon, Olivia, the lover of your fame!) which the gentleness of your sex, which true honour prescribe ?

You are a young lady. Three fourths of your natural life (Heaven permitting) are yet to come. You have noble qualities, shining accomplishments. You will probably, in very few years, perhaps in few months, be able to establish yourself in the world. So far only as you have gone, the inconsideration of youth will be allowed an excuse for your conduct. Blest with means, as you are, you still have it in your power, let me repeat, to be an honour to your sex, to your country, to your splendid house, and to the age to which you are given.

The monitor I mentioned, (you know him by person, by manners,) from my earlier youth, born, as he knew me to be, the heir of a considerable fortune, suggested to me an address to Heaven, which my heart has had no repugnance to make a daily one; That the Almighty will, in mercy, withhold from me wealth and affluence, and make my proud heart a dependent one, even for my daily bread, were riches to be a snare to me; and if I found not my inclinations to do good, as occasions offered, enlarge with my power. O that you, Olivia, were poor and low, if the being so, and nothing else, would make you know yourself and act accordingly!-And that it were given to me, by acts of fraternal love, to restore you, as you could bear it, to an independence, large as your own wishes!

What an uncontrollable MAN would Lady

Olivia have made, had she been a man, with but the same passions, that now diminish the grandeur of her soul, and so large a power to gratify them!-What a sovereign !-Look into the characters of absolute princes, and see whose, of all those who have sullied royalty, by the violence of their wills, you would have wished to copy, or to have been compared with.

How has the unhappy Olivia, though but a subject, dared!-How often has that tender bosom, whose glory it would have been to melt at another's woe, and to rejoice in acts of kindness and benevolence to her fellow-creatures, been armed by herself, (not the mistress, but the slave, of her passions,) not with defensive, but offensive, steel!* Hitherto Providence has averted any remediless mischief; but Providence will not be tempted.

Believe me, still believe me, madam, I mean not to upbraid you. My dear Olivia, I will call you, how often has my heart bled for you! How paternally, though but of years to be your brother, have I lamented for you in secret! I will own to you, that, but for the withholding prudence, and withholding honour, that I owed to both our characters, because of a situation which would not allow me to express my tenderness for you, I had folded you, in your contrite moments, to my bosom ; and, on my knees, besought you to act up to your own knowledge, and to render yourself worthy of your illustrious ancestry. And what but your glory could have been, what but that is now, my motive?

With what joy do I reflect, that I took not (God be praised for his restraining goodness!) advantage of the favour I stood in, with a most lovely, and princely-spirited woman; an advantage that would have given me cause to charge myself with baseness to her, in the hour wherein I should have wanted most consolation! With what apprehension (dreading for myself, because of the great, the sometimes almost irresistible, temptation) have I looked upon myself to be (shall I say?) the sole guardian of Olivia's honour! More than once, most generous and confiding of women, have I, from your unmerited favour for me, besought you to spare me my pride; and as often to permit me to spare you yours-Not the odious vice generally known by that name, (the fault of fallen angels,) but that which may be called a prop, a support, to an imperfect goodness; which, properly directed, may, in time, grow into virtue:-That friendly pride, let me add, which has ever warmed my heart with wishes for your temporal and eternal welfare.

I call upon you once more, my FRIEND! HOW unreproachingly may we call each other by that sacred name! The friend of your fame, the friend

thy greatest dependence, to attract a man whom worldly grandeur cannot influence? Who has a fortune of his own so ample, that hundreds are the better for it ?-A man, whose economy is regulated by prudence?-Who cannot be in such difficulties as would give some little merit to the person who was so happy as to extricate him from them?-A man, in short, who takes pleasure in conferring obligations, yet never lays himself under the necessity of receiving returns? Prince of a man! What prince, king, emperor, is so truly great as this man? And is he not likewise surrounded by his nobles?-What a number of people of high interior worth, make up the circle of his acquaintance!

And is there not, cannot there yet be hope; the proud Bologna now (as she is) out of the question ?-The Florentine wants not pride; but, betrayed by the violence of her temper, she has not had the caution to confine herself with in the bounds of female (shall I say?) hypocrisy. What she could not hide from herself, she revealed to the man she loved: but never, however, was there any other man whom she loved. Upon whom but one man, the haughty object of her passion, did she ever condescend to look down? Who but he was ever encouraged to look up to her?-And did not his gentle, his humane, his unreproaching heart, seem to pity rather than despise her, till she was too far engaged? At the time that she first cast her eyes upon him, his fortune was not high: his father, a man of expense, was living, and likely to live; his sisters, whom he loved as himself, were hopeless of obtaining from their father fortunes equal to their rank and education. Olivia knew all this from unerring intelligence. His friends, his Bartlett, his Beauchamp, and others, were not in circumstances, that set them above owing obligations to him, slender as were his own appointments Then it was that thou, Olivia, valuedst thyself for being blest with means to make the power of the man thou lovedst, as large as his heart. Thou wouldst have vested it all in him. Thou wouldst have conditioned with him, that this he should do for one sister; this for the other; this for one friend; this for another: and still another, to the extent of his wishes: and with him, and the remainder, thou wouldst have been happy.

Surely there was some merit in Olivia's love. But alas! she was not prudent; her temper, supposed to be naturally haughty and violent, hurried her into measures too impetuous. The soul of the man she loved, too great to be attracted by riches, by worldly glory, and capable of being happy in a mere competence, was (how can I say it? I blush while I write it!) disgusted by a violence that had not been used to be restrained by the accustomed reserve. It was all open day, no dark machinating night, in the heart of the undissembling Olivia. She persecuted the object of her passion with her love, because she thought she could lay him under obli

gation to it. By hoping to prove herself more, she made herself appear less than woman. She despised that affectation, that hypocrisy, in her sex, which unpenetrating eyes attribute to modesty and shame-Shame of what? of a natural passion!

But you, Grandison, were too delicate to be taken with her sincerity. If you had penetration to distinguish between reserve and openness of heart, you had not greatness of mind enough to break through the low restraints of custom; and to reward the latter in preference to the former. Yet who, better than you, knows, that women in love are actuated by one view, and differ only in outward appearance? Will bars, bolts, walls, rivers, seas, any more withhold the supercilious, than the less reserved? That passion which made the Florentine compass earth and seas, in hopes of obtaining its end, made, perhaps, the prouder Bologna (and from pride) a more pitiable object-Yet, who ever imputed immodesty to Olivia? Who ever dared to harbour a thought injurious to her virtue? You only (custom her judge) have the power, but not, I hope, the will, to upbraid her. You can. The creature, who, conscious of having alarmed you by the violence of her temper, would have lived with you on terms of probation, and left it to your honour, on full consideration and experience of that temper, to reward her with the celebration, or punish her with rejection, (her whole fortune devoted to you,) had subjected herself to your challenges. But nobody else could harbour a thought inglorious to her.

And must she yield to the consciousness of her own unworthiness, from a proposal made by herself, which tyrant custom only can condemn?

O yes, she must. There is among your countrywomen one who seems born for you, and you for her. If she can abate of a dignity, that a first and only love alone can gratify, and accept of a second-placed love, a widower-bachelor, as I may call you, she, I know, must, will, be the happy woman. To her the slighted Florentine can resign, which, with patience, she never could to the proud Bologna; and the sooner, because of the immortal hatred she bears to that woman of Bologna. You, Grandison, have been accustomed to be distinguished by women who, in degree and fortune, might claim rank with princesses. Degree and fortune captivate you not. -This humbler fair one is more suitable to your own degree; and, in the beauties of person and mind, (at least in those beauties of the latter, which you most admire,) she is superior either to your Bolognese or Florentine. Let my pen praise her, though malice to Clementina, and despair of obtaining my own wishes, mingle with my ink. She is mild, though sparkling; she is humble, yet has dignity; she is reserved, yet is frank and open-hearted; nobody can impute to her either dissimulation or licence of behaviour. We read her heart in her

countenance; and have no thought of looking farther for it: wisdom has its seat on her lips; modesty on her brow; her eyes avow the secrets of her soul; and demonstrate, that she has no one that she need to be ashamed of; she can blush for others: for the unhappy Olivia she did more than once; but for herself she need not blush. I loved, yet feared her, the moment I saw her. I dared not to try myself by her judgment. It was easy for me to see that she loved you; yet such were your engagements, your supposed engagements, that I pitied her; and can we be alarmed by, or angry at, her whom we pity?-Unworthy Grandison! Unworthy I will call you; because you cannot merit the love of such a spotless heart. You who could leave her, and, under colour of honour, when there was no pre-engagement, and when the proud family had rejected you, prefer to such a fine young creature a romantic enthusiast!-O may the sweet maiden, who wants not due consciousness of interior worth, assert herself; and, by refusing your second-placed addresses, vindicate the dignity of beauty and innocence unequalled! If you, Grandison, cannot forgive Olivia for loving you too well, for rendering herself too cheap to you; if you cannot repair in her own eyes, the honour of one, who, in that case, must be sunk in yours beyond the power of restoration; if you cannot forgive attempts of the hand, in which the heart had no share, but resisted; in a word, if you cannot forgive the fervour of a love, that, at times, combatting my pride, had nearly overturned my reason also-Then, let this virgin goodness be yours, and Olivia will endeavour to forgive you.-Yet-O that yetAh, Grandison!-But how can a woman bear that refusal, which, however superior she may be in rank, in fortune, gives her an inferiority to the man of her wishes, in the very article in which it should be a woman's glory to retain dignity, even were the man superior to her in birth, and in all other outward advantages? I disdain thee, Grandison, in this light. I will tear thy proud image from my heart, or die.

One request only let me make, and permit your pride to comply with it. Return not to me, but accept (accept as a token of love) the cabinets which, perhaps, will be in England be fore you. They will be thought by you of too great value; but they are not too great for the grandeur of my fortune, and the magnificence of my spirit. The medals alone make a collection that would do credit to the cabinet of a sovereign prince. These are in your taste. They are nothing to Olivia, but for your sake. Accept of these cabinets as some atonement for the trouble I have given you; for the attempts I have made upon your liberty, and more than once (but oh with how feeble a hand!) upon your life! How easy had it been to take the latter, your soul so fearless, braving menaces and danger, had I been resolved to take it! How

many ministers of vengeance, in my country, had I been determined to execute it, would my fortune have procured me! How easy would it have been for me to conceal my guilt from all but myself, had the slow-working bowl, or even the sharp-pointed poniard, given thee up to my great revenge!-It is, however, happy, for us both, that the proud bigot rejected you! Your death, and my distraction, had, probably, been the consequence of her acceptance of you.Yet, how I rave !-The moment I had seen you, my vengeance would have been arrested, as more than once it was. O Grandison! how dear are you (were you, now I will endeavour to say) to the soul of Olivia! Dearer than fame, than glory, and whatever the world deems valuable.

All that I ask of you now, that the Bologna, in disappointing you, has disappointed herself, (great revenge) is within your own power to grant, without detriment to yourself, and, I hope, without regret. It consists of two or three articles. The first is, to resolve within yourself, that you will not now, should that heat of the zealot's imagination, which has seemed to carry her above herself, subside; (as I have no doubt but it will;) and should she even follow you to your native place, as a still nobler woman ignobly did; that you will not now receive her offered hand!-0 Grandison !—If you do

Next, that you will (thus fairly, though foolishly, dismissed, and the whole family rejoicing in your dismission, well as they pretend to love you) put it out of your own power, since the Florentine can have no hope, to give the Bolognese any. My soul thirsts to see her in a nunnery; I could myself assume the veil in the same convent, I think I could, for the pleasure of exulting over her for the pangs she has occasioned me. But for her, Olivia would have been mistress of her own wishes.

Preach not to me, Grandison, against that spirit of revenge, which ever did, and ever must, actuate my heart. Slighted love will warrant it, or nothing can! Have I not lost the man I loved by it? Can I regain him, if I conquer that not ignoble vehemence of a great mind?—No! Forbear then the unavailing precept. I am not of Bologna. I am no zealot! While the warm blood flows in my veins, I pretend not to be above human nature. When I can divest myself of that, then, perhaps, I may follow your advice; I may seek to cultivate the friendship of Mrs Beaumont; but, till then, she would not accept of mine.

O Grandison! born to distinction ! princely in your munificence! amiable in your person! great in your mind, in your sentiments! you have conquered your ambition-You may, therefore, unite yourself to the politest country maid, and the loveliest, that ever adorned your various climate: Yet, O that in the same hour, the Bolognese might assume the veil, and the lovely English maid refuse your offered hand!