My third request is, (as before requested,) that you will not refuse the cabinets which will be soon embarked for you. Be not afraid of me, Grandison; I form no pretensions upon you from this present valuable as you, perhaps, may think it. Your simple acceptance is all the return I hope for. Write only these words with your own hand-" Olivia, I accept your present, and thank you for it." Receive it only as a token of my past love, for a man whose virtues I admire, and, by degrees, shall hope to imitate. That, sir, when a certain event was most my wish, was not the least motive for that wish: but now, what will be the destiny of the bewildered creature, who is left at large to her own will, who can tell? A will, that only one man in the world could have subjugated. His control would have been freedom.

I would not have you imagine, that a correspondence by letter is hoped for as a return for the present of which I entreat your acceptance; but when I can assure you, that your advice will probably be of great service to me, in the conduct of my future life, as I have no doubt it will, from the calm effects that the letter, which has now a place in my bosom, has already produced there, I am ready to flatter myself, that a wish so ardent, and so justifiable, will be granted to the repeated request of

OLIVIA.

CONTINUATION OF SIR CHARLES GRANDISON'S LETTER. NO. CXCVII.

[Begun p. 544.]

OLIVIA, you see, my dear Dr Bartlett, concludes her letter with a desire of corresponding with me. As she has put it, I cannot refuse her request. How happy should I think myself, if I could be a means effectually to serve her in the conduct of her future life!

I have written to her, that I shall think an intercourse by letters an honour done me, if she will allow me to treat her with the freedom and the singleness of heart of an affectionate brother. As to her particular recommendation of a third person, I tell her, that must be the subject of the future correspondence to which she is pleased to invite me.

Olivia may be in earnest, in her warm commendations of a lady, of whose excellencies nobody can write or speak with indifference: but I have no doubt, that she is very earnest to know my sentiments on the subject. But what must be the mind of the bachelor-widower, as she calls me, if already I can enter into the subject with anybody, with Lady Olivia especially? The most sensible, I will not say subtle creature on earth, is certainly a woman in love. What can escape her penetration? What can bound her curiosity?

I tell her, that I can neither decline nor accept of her present, till I see the contents of the cabinets she is pleased to mention. It will give me pain, I say, to refuse any favour from Lady Olivia, by which she intends to shew her esteem of me; but favours of so high a price, will, and ought to, give scruples to one who would not be thought ungenerous.

I had always admired, I tell her, her collection of medals; but they are a family collection, of two or three generations; and I should not allow myself to accept of such a treasure, unless I could have an opportunity given me to shew, if not my merit, my gratitude; and that I saw no possibility of being blessed with, in any manner that could make the acceptance tolerably easy to myself. I cannot, my dear Dr Bartlett, receive from this munificent lady a present that is of such high intrinsic worth. Had she offered me anything that would have had its value from the giver, or to the receiver, for its own sake, and not equally to anybody else: for instance, had she desired me to accept of her picture, since the original could not be mine; I would not have refused it, though it had been encircled with jewels of price. But, circumstanced as this unhappy lady and I are, could I have asked her for a favour of that nature?

I think I have broken through one delicacy, in consenting to correspond with this lady. She should not have asked it. I never knew a pain of so particular a nature as this lady (a not ungenerous, though a rash one) has given me. My very heart recoils, Dr Bartlett, at the thought of a denial of marriage to a woman expecting the offer, whom delicacy has not quite forsaken.

But a word or two more on this subject of presents. When the whole family at Bologna were so earnestly solicitous to shew their gratitude to me by some permanent token, I had once the thought of asking for their Clementina's picture in miniature; but as I was never to think of her as mine, and as, probably, my picture, if but for politeness sake, would have been asked for in exchange, I was afraid of cherishing, by that means, in her mind, the tender ideas of our past friendship, and thereby of making the work of her parents difficult. And do they not the more excusably hope to succeed in their views, as they think their success will be a means to secure health of mind to their child? But if they visit me in England, I will then request the pictures of the whole family, in one large piece, for the principal ornament of Grandison-Hall.

By what Olivia says, of designs on my liberty, I believe she means to include the attempt made upon me at Florence; which I hinted at in my last, and supposed to come from that quarter. What she would have done with me, had the attempt succeeded, I cannot imagine. I should not have wished to have been the subject of so romantic an adventure-A prisoner to a lady in her castle! She is certainly one of the most enter

prizing women in Italy; and her temper is too well seconded by her power. She would not, however, in that case, have had recourse to fatal acts of violence. Once, you know, she had thoughts of exciting against me the Holy Tribunal; but I was upon such a foot, as a traveller, and as an English Protestant, though avowed, not behaving indiscreetly, that I had friends enow, even in the Sacred College, to have rendered ineffectual any steps of that sort. And, after all, her machinations were but transitory ones, and, the moment she saw me, given over.

My first inquiry, after my arrival here, was after my poor cousin Grandison. My poor cousin indeed! What a spiritless figure does he make! I remember you once said, that it was more difficult for a man to behave well in prosperity, than in adversity: but the man who will prove the observation to be true, must not be one, who, by his own extravagance and vice, has reduced himself, from an affluence to which he was born, to penury, at least to a state of obligation and dependence. Good God! that a man should be so infatuated, as to put on the cast of a dye, the estate of which he is in unquestioned possession from his ancestors! Yet who will say, that he who hopes to win what belongs to another, does not deserve to lose his own?

I soothed my cousin in the best manner I could, consistently with justice; yet I told him that his repentance must arise from his judgment, as well as from his sufferings; and that he would have less reason for regretting the unhappy situation to which he had reduced himself, if the latter brought him to a right sense of his errors. I was solicitous, Dr Bartlett, for the sake of his own peace of mind, that he should fall into a proper train of thinking; but I told him that preachment was no more my intention, than recrimination.

I have two hands to one tongue, my cousin, said I; and the latter I use not but to tell you, that both the former are cordially at your service. You have considered this matter well, no doubt, added I: Can you propose to me any means of retrieving your affairs?

There is, said he, one way. It would do everything for me; but I am afraid of mentioning it to you.

If it be a just way, fear not. If it be anything I can do for you out of my own single purse, without asking any second or third person to contribute to it, command me-He hesitated.

If it be anything, my cousin, said I, that you think I ought not, in justice, in honour, to comply with, do not, for your own sake, mention it.. Let me see that your calamity has had a proper effect upon you. Let not the just man be sunk in the man in adversity; and then open your mind freely to me.

He could not, he said, trust the mention of the expedient to me, till he had given it a farther consideration.

Well, sir, be pleased to remember, that I will never ask you to mention it; because I cannot doubt but you will, if, on consideration, you think it a proper expedient.

When some friends, who came to visit me on my arrival, were gone, my cousin resumed the former subject; but he offered not to mention his expedient. I hope it was not, that he had a view to my Emily. I am very jealous for my Emily. If I thought poor Everard had but an imagination of retrieving his affairs by her fortune, nothing but his present calamity should hinder me from renouncing for ever my cousin.

I inquired particularly into the situation he was in; and if there were a likelihood of doing anything with the gamesters. But he could not give me room for such an expectation. I find he has lost all his estate to them, Dunton-farm excepted; which having been much out of repair, is now fitting up for a new tenant; and will not, for three or four years to come, bring him in a clear fifty pounds a-year.

I have known more men than one, who could not live upon fifteen hundred a-year, bring themselves to be contented with fifty. But Mr Grandison is so fallen in spirit, that he never will be able to survive such a change in fortune, if I do not befriend him. Poor man! he is but the shadow of what he was. The first formerly in the fashion: In body and face so erect; his step so firm, gait so assured, air so genteel, eye so lively-But now, in so few months, gaunt sides; his half-worn tarnished lace coat, big enough to lap over him; hollow cheeks, puling voice, sighing heart, creeping feet-O my dear Dr Bartlett, how much does it behove men so little able to bear distress, to avoid falling into it by their own extravaganee! But for a man to fall into indigence through avarice, (for what is a spirit of gaming but a spirit of avarice, and that of the worst sort?) How can such a one support his own reflections?

I had supposed, that he had no reason, in this shattered state of his affairs, to apprehend anything from the prosecution set on foot by the woman who claimed him on promise of marriage; but I was mistaken; she has, or pretends to have, he told me, witnesses of the promise. Poor shameful man! What witnesses needed she, if he knows he made it, and received the profligate consideration?

I am not happy, my dear friend, in my mind. I hope to be tolerably so, if my next letters from Bologna are favourable, as to the state of health of the beloved brother and sister there.

It would have been no disagreeable amusement to me, at this time, to have proceeded directly to Ireland; the rather, as I hope a visit to my estate there is become almost necessary, by the forwardness the works are in which I set on foot when I was on that more than agreeable spot. But the unhappy situation of Mr Grandison's affairs, and my hopes of bringing those

of Lady Mansfield to an issue, together with the impatience I have to see my English friends, determine me to the contrary. To-morrow will be the last day of my stay in this city; and the day after, my cousin and I shall set out for Calais -Very quickly, therefore, after the receipt of this letter, which shuts up the account of my foreign excursions, will you, by your paternal goodness, if in London, help to calm the disturbed heart of your CHARLES GRANDISON.

LETTER CC.

LADY G TO MISS BYRON.

London, Tuesday, Sept. 5. CONGRATULATE us, my dearest Miss Byron, on the arrival of my brother. He came last night. It was late. And he sent to us this morning; and to others of his friends. My lord and I hurried away to breakfast with him. Ah, my dear! we see too plainly that he has been very much disturbed in mind. He looks more wan, and is thinner, than he was: But he is the same kind brother, friend, and good man.

I expected a little hint or two from him on my past vivacities; but not a word of that nature. He felicitated my good man and me; and when he spoke of Lord and Lady L, and his joy in their happiness, he put two sisters and their good men together, as two of the happiest pairs in England. Politic enough; for, as we sat at breakfast, two or three toysome things were said by my lord, (no ape was ever so fond!) and I could hardly forbear him; but the reputation my brother gave me, was a restraint upon me. I see, one may be flattered, by undeserved compliments, into good behaviour, when we have a regard to the opinion of the complimenter.

Aunt Nell was all joy and gladness: she was in raptures last night, it seems, at her nephew's first arrival. He rejoiced to see her; and was so thankful to her for letting him find her in town, and at his house, that she resolves she will not leave him till he is married. The good old soul imagines she is of importance to him, in the direction of the family matters, now I have left him-1, Harriet! there's self-importance! -But, good creatures, these old virgins! they do so love to be thought useful-Well, and is not that a good sign, on Aunt Nell's part? Does it not look as if she would have been a useful creature in the days of nightrail and notableness, had she been a wife in good time? I always think, when I see those badgerly virgins fond of a parrot, a squirrel, a monkey, or a lap-dog, that their imagination makes out husband and children in the animals-Poor things-But as to her care, I dare say, that will only serve to make bustle and confusion, where else would be order

and regularity; for my brother has the best of

servants.

I wished her in Yorkshire fifty times, as we sat at breakfast; for when I wanted to ask my brother twenty thousand questions, and to set him on talking, we were entertained with her dreams of the night before his arrival, and last night-Seas crossed, rivers forded-Dangers escaped by the help of angels and saints, were the reveries of the former night; and of the last, the music of the spheres, heaven, and joy, and. festivity-The plump creature loves good cheer,. Harriet. In short, hardly a word could we say, but what put her upon recollecting a part of one of her dreams: yet some excuse lies good, for an old soul, whose whole life has been but one dream, a little fal-lalishly varied-And, would you think it? (yes, I believe you would,) my odd creature was once or twice put upon endeavouring to recollect two or three dreams of his own, of the week past; and would have gone on, if I had not silenced him by a frown, as he looked upon me for his cue, as a tender husband ought.

Beauchamp came in, and I thought would have relieved us: but he put my aunt in mind of an almost forgotten part of her dream; for just such a joyful meeting, just such expressions of gladness, did she dream of, as she now beheld, and heard, between my brother and him felicitating each other. Deuce take these dreaming souls, to remember their reveries, when realities infinitely more affecting are before them! But reflection and prognostic are ever inspiriting parts of the pretension of people who have lived long; dead to the present; the past and the future filling their minds: And why should not they be indulged in the thought that they know something more than those who are less abstracted; and who are contented with looking no farther than the present?

Sir Charles inquired after Sir Harry's health. Mr Beauchamp, with a concern that did him credit, lamented his declining way; and he spoke so respectfully of Lady Beauchamp, and of her tenderness to his father, as made my brother's eyes glisten with pleasure.

Lord and Lady L—, Dr Bartlett, and Emily, were at Colnebrook: but as they had left orders to be sent for, the moment my brother arrived, (for you need not doubt but this last letter prepared us to expect him soon,) they came time enough to dine with us. There was a renewal of joy among us.

Emily, the dear Emily, fainted away, embracing the knees of her guardian, as she, unawares to him, threw herself at his feet, with joy that laboured for expression, but could not obtain it. He was affected. So was Beauchamp. So were we all. She was carried out, just as she was recovering to a shame and confusion of face, for which only her own modesty could reproach her.

There are susceptibilities which will shew themselves in outward acts; and there are others which cannot burst out into speech. Lady L's joy was of the former, mine of the latter sort. But she is used to tenderness of heart. My emotions are ready to burst my heart, but never hardly can rise to my lips-My eyes, however, are great talkers.

The pleasure that Sir Charles, Lord L-, and Dr Bartlett, mutually expressed to see each other, was great, tender, and manly. My bustling nimble lord enjoyed over again his joy, at that of every other person; and he was ready, goodnaturedly, to sing and dance-That's his way, poor man, to shew his joy; but he is honest for all that. Don't despise him, Harriet! He was brought up as an only son, and to know that he was a lord, or else he would have made a better figure in your eyes. The man wants not sense, I assure you. You may think me partial; but I believe the most foolish thing he ever did in his life, was at church, and that at St George's, Hanover Square. Poor soul! he might have had a wife better suited to his taste, and then his very foibles would have made him shine. But, Harriet, it is not always given to us to know what is best for ourselves. Black women, I have heard remarked, like fair men; fair men, black women; and tempers suit best with contraries. Were we all to like the same person or thing equally, we should be for ever engaged in broils : As it is, human nature (vile rogue! as I have heard it called) is quarrelsome enough; So, my lord, being a soft man, fell in love, if it please you, with a saucy woman. He ought to be meek and humble, you know. He would not let me be quiet, till I was his. We are often to be punished by our own choice. But I am very good to him now. I don't know, Harriet, whether it is best for me to break him of his trifling, or not unless one were sure, that he could creditably support the alteration. Now can I laugh at him; and if the baby is froppish, can coax him into good humour. A sugar plumb, and a curtsey, will do at any time; and, by setting him into a broad grin, I can laugh away his anger. But should I endeavour to make him wise, as the man has not been used to it, and as his education has not given him a turn to significance, don't you think he would be awkward; and, what is worse, assuming? Well, I'll consider of this, before I attempt to new-cast him. Meantime, I repeat-Don't you, my dear, for my sake, think meanly of Lord G. Ha, ha, ha, hah!-What do Í laugh at, do you ask me, Harriet?-Something so highly ridiculous-I have-I have sent him away from me, so much ashamed of himself-He bears anything from me now, that he knows I am only in play with him, and have so very right a heart-I must lay down my pen-Poor soul! Hah, hah, hah, hah! I do love him for his simplicity!

WELL, I won't tell you what I laughed at just now, for fear you should laugh at us both. My brother's arrival has tuned every string of my heart to joy. The holding up of a straw will throw me into a titteration-I can hardly forbear laughing again, to think of the shame the poor soul shewed, when he slunk away from me. After all, he ill brooks to be laughed at. Does not that look as if he were conscious?-But what, Harriet (will you ask,) mean I, by thus trifling with you, and at this time particularly?-Why, I would be glad to make you smile, either with me, or at me: I am indifferent which, so that you do but smile-You do!-I protest you do! -Well! now that I have obtained my wishes, I will be serious.

We congratulated my brother on the happy turn in the healths of his Italian friends, without naming names, or saying a word of the sister we had like to have had. He locked earnestly at each of us; bowed to our congratulations; but was silent. Dr Bartlett had told us, that he never, in his letters to my brother, mentioned your being not well; because he knew it would disturb him. He had many things to order and do; so that, except at breakfast, when Aunt Nell invaded us with her dreams, and at dinner, when the servants' attendance made our discourse general, we had hardly any opportunity of talking to him. But in the space between tea-time and supper, he came and told us, that he was devoted to us for the remainder of the day. Persons present were, Lord and Lady L, myself, and my good man, Dr Bartlett, Mr Beauchamp, and Emily, good girl, quite recovered, and blithe as a bird, attentive to every word that passed the lips of her guardian.-O, but Aunt Nell was also present!Poor soul! I had like to have forgot her!

In the first place, you must take it for granted, that we all owned we had seen most of what he had written to Dr Bartlett.

What troubles, what anguish of mind, what a strange variety of conflicts, has your heart had to contend with, my dear Sir Charles, began Mr Beauchamp; and at last, What a strange disappointment, from one of the noblest of women!

Very true, my Beauchamp. He then said great and glorious things of Lady Clementina. We all joined in admiring her. He seemed to have great pleasure in hearing us praise her― Very true, Harriet !-But you have generosity enough to be pleased with him for that.

Aunt Eleanor (I won't call her Aunt Nell any more if I can help it) asked him, if he thought it were possible for the lady to hold her resolution? Now you have actually left Italy, nephew, and are at such a distance, don't you think her love will return?

Good soul! She has substantial notions still left, I find, of ideal love! Those notions, I fancy, last a long time with those who have not had the opportunity of gratifying the silly passion!-Be angry if you will, Harriet, I don't

care.

Well, but, thus gravely as became the question, answered my brother-The favour which this incomparable lady honoured me with, was never disowned: On the contrary, it was always avowed, and to the very last. She had, therefore, no uncertainty to contend with, she had no balancings in her mind. Her contention, as she supposed, was altogether in favour of her duty to Heaven. She is exemplarily pious. While she remains a zealous Roman Catholic, she must persevere; and I dare say she will.

I don't know what to make of these papists, said our old Protestant Aunt Nell-(Aunt Nell, did I say? Cry mercy!)-Thank God you are come home safe and sound, and without a papistical wife! It is very hard if England cannot find a wife for you, nephew.

We all smiled at Aunt Nell-The deuce is in me, I believe !—Aunt Nell again !—But let it go.

When, Lady G, (asked Lady L,) saw you, or heard you from, the Dowager Countess of D——?

Is there any other Countess of D- Lady L- said Sir Charles: a fine glow taking possession of his cheeks.

Your servant, brother, thought I; I am not sorry for your charming apprehensiveness. No, sir, replied Lady L Would you, brother, said Boldface, (you know who that is, Harriet,) that there should be another Countess of D- ? I wish my Lord D- happy, Charlotte. I hear him as well spoken of as any of our young nobility.

You don't know what I mean, I warrant, Sir Charles! resumed, with an intentional archness, your saucy friend.

I believe I do, Lady G. I wish Miss Byron to be one of the happiest women in the world, because she is one of the best-My dear, to Emily, I hope you have had nothing to disturb or vex you, from your mother's husband

Nor from my mother, sir-All is good, and as it should be. You have overcome

That's well, my dear-Would not the Bath waters be good for Sir Harry, my dear Beauchamp?

A second remove, thought I! But I'll catch you, brother, I'll warrant, (as rustics sometimes, in their play, do a ball,) on the rebound.

Now, Harriet, you will be piqued, I suppose. Your delicacy will be offended, because I urged the question. I see a blush of disdain arising in your lovely cheek, and conscious eye, restoring the roses to the one, and its natural brilliancy to the other. Indeed we all began to be afraid of

Indeed she is not, said I, with a gravity be coming the occasion.

God forbid! said he; with an emotion that pleased everybody

Not for your sake, Harriet-Be not affectedly nice now; but for our own.

His face was in a glow-What, Lady L what, Charlotte, said he, ails Miss Byron?

She is not well, brother, replied I; but the most charming sick woman that ever lived. She is cheerful, that she may give no uneasiness to her friends. She joins in all their conversations, diversions, amusements. She would fain be well; and likes not to be thought ill. Were it not for her faded cheeks, her pale lips, and her changed complexion, we should not know from herself that she ailed anything. Some people reach perfection sooner than others; and are as swift in their decay-Poor Miss Byron seems not to be built for duration.

But should I write these things to you, my dear? Yet I know that Lady Clementina and you are sisters in magnanimity.

My brother was quite angry with me-Dear Dr Bartlett, said he, explain this speech of Charlotte. She loves to amuse-Miss Byron is blessed with a good constitution: She is hardly yet in the perfection of her bloom. Set my heart at rest. I love not either of my sisters more than I do Miss Byron. Dear Charlotte, I am really angry with you.

My good-natured lord reddened up to his naked ears, at hearing my brother say he was angry with me. Sir Charles, said he, I am sorry you are so soon angry with your sister. It is too true, Miss Byron is ill: She is, I fear, in a declining way

Pardon me, my dear Lord G. Yet I am ready to be angry with anybody that shall tell