As to what thou sayest of thy charming cousin, let me know if thou hast
any meaning in it. I have not the vanity to think myself deserving of
such a lady as Miss Montague; and should not therefore care to expose
myself to her scorn and to thy derision. But were I assured I might
avoid both of these, I would soon acquaint thee that I should think no
pains nor assiduity too much to obtain a share in the good graces of such
a lady.

But I know thee too well to depend upon any thing thou sayest on this
subject. Thou lovest to make thy friends the objects of ridicule to
ladies; and imaginest, from the vanity, (and, in this respect, I will say
littleness,) of thine own heart, that thou shinest the brighter for the
foil.

Thus didst thou once play off the rough Mowbray with Miss Hatton, till
the poor fellow knew not how to go either backward or forward.

LETTER XLIII

MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
THURSDAY, 11 O'CLOCK, AUG. 31.

I am just come from the lady, whom I left cheerful and serene.

She thanked me for my communication of the preceding night. I read to
her such parts of your letters as I could read to her; and I thought it
was a good test to distinguish the froth and whipt-syllabub in them from
the cream, in what one could and could not read to a woman of so fine a
mind; since four parts out of six of thy letters, which I thought
entertaining as I read them to myself, appeared to me, when I should have
read them to her, most abominable stuff, and gave me a very contemptible
idea of thy talents, and of my own judgment.

She as far from rejoicing, as I had done, at the disappointment her
letter gave you when explained.

She said, she meant only an innocent allegory, which might carry
instruction and warning to you, when the meaning was taken, as well as
answer her own hopes for the time. It was run off in a hurry. She was
afraid it was not quite right in her. But hoped the end would excuse (if
it could not justify) the means. And then she again expressed a good
deal of apprehension lest you should still take it into your head to
molest her, when her time, she said, was so short, that she wanted every
moment of it; repeating what she had once said before, that, when she
wrote, she was so ill that she believed she should not have lived till
now: if she had thought she should, she must have studied for an
expedient that would have better answered her intentions. Hinting at a
removal out