of
life are against thee: and six to one thou failest. Were it only that
thou hast resolved, six to one thou failest. And if thou dost, thou wilt
become the scoff of men, and the triumph of devils.--Then how will I
laugh at thee! For this warning is not from principle. Perhaps I wish
it were: but I never lied to man, and hardly ever said truth to woman.
The firs is what all free-livers cannot say: the second what every one
can.

I am mad again, by Jupiter!--But, thank my stars, not gloomily so!--
Farewell, farewell, farewell, for the third or fourth time, concludes

Thy
LOVELACE.

I believe Charlotte and you are in private league together. Letters, I
find, have passed between her and you, and Lord M. I have been
kept strangely in the dark of late; but will soon break upon you
all, as the sun upon a midnight thief.

Remember that you never sent me the copy of my beloved's will.

LETTER XL

MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
FRIDAY, SEPT. 22.

Just as I was sitting down to answer your's of the 14th to the 18th, in
order to give you all the consolation in my power, came your revoking
letter of Wednesday.

I am really concerned and disappointed that your first was so soon
followed by one so contrary to it.

The shocking letter you mention, which your friends withhold from you, is
indeed from me. They may now, I see, show you any thing. Ask them,
then, for that letter, if you think it worth while to read aught about
the true mother of your mind.

***

I will suppose that thou hast just read the letter thou callest shocking,
and which I intended to be so. And let me ask what thou thinkest of it?
Dost thou not tremble at the horrors the vilest of women labours with, on
the apprehensions of death, and future judgment?--How sit the reflections
that must have been raised by the perusal of this letter upon thy yet
unclosed eyelet-holes? Will not some serious thoughts mingle with thy
melilot, and tear off the callus of thy mind, as that may flay the
leather from thy back, and as thy epispastics may strip the parchment
from thy plotting head? If not, then indeed is thy conscience seared,
and no hopes will lie for thee.

[Mr. Belford then gives an account of the wretched Sinclair's terrible
exit, which he had just then received.]

If this move thee not, I have news to acquaint thee with, of another
dismal catastrophe that is but within this hour come to my ear, of