screened me, in a good measure, from the vexatious
society of my hopeful partner. From this place we repaired to his seat
in the country, where we spent a few months, and thence returned again
to our house in Bond-street. Here, while I was confined to my bed by
illness, it was supposed my indisposition was no other than a private
lying-in, though I was under the roof with my lord, and attended by his
servants.

"While the distemper continued, my lord, to do him justice, behaved with
all imaginable tenderness and care; and his concern on these occasions I
have already mentioned as a strange inconsistency in his disposition.
If his actions were at all accountable, I should think he took pains to
fret me into a fever first, in order to manifest his love and humanity
afterwards. When I recovered my strength and spirits, I went abroad,
saw company, and should have been easy, had he been contented; but as
my satisfaction increased, his good-humour decayed, and he banished from
his house, one by one, all the people whose conversation could have made
my life agreeable.

"I often expostulated with him on his malignant behaviour, protesting
my desire of living peaceably with him, and begging he would not lay
me under the necessity of changing my measures. He was deaf to all
my remonstrances, though I warned him more than once of the event,
persisted in his maxims of persecution; and, after repeated quarrels, I
again left his house fully determined to suffer all sorts of extremity,
rather than subject myself to the tyranny of his disposition.

"This year was productive of one fatal event, which I felt with
the utmost sensibility of sorrow, and I shall always remember with
regret:--I mean the death of Mr. B--, with whom I had constantly
maintained an intimate correspondence since the first commencement of
our acquaintance. He was one of the most valuable men, and promised
to be one of the brightest ornaments that this or any other age had
produced. I enjoyed his friendship without reserve; and such was the
confidence he reposed in my integrity, from long experience of my truth,
that he often said he would believe my bare assertion, even though it
should contradict the evidence of his own senses. These being the terms
upon which we lived, it is not to be supposed that I bore the loss of
him without repining. Indeed, my grief was unspeakable; and, though the
edge of it be now smoothed by the lenient hand of time, I shall never
ce