nt and reform, as thou thinkest thou canst: if thou canst thus
shake off thy old sins, and thy old habits: and if thy old master will so
readily dismiss so tried and so faithful a servant, and permit thee thus
calmly to enjoy thy new system; no room for scandal; all temptation
ceasing: and if at last (thy reformation warranted and approved by time)
thou marriest, and livest honest:--why, Belford, I cannot but say, that
if all these IF's come to pass, thou standest a good chance to be a happy
man!

All I think, as I told thee in my last, is, that the devil knows his own
interest too well, to let thee off so easily. Thou thyself tallest me,
that we cannot repent when we will. And indeed I found it so: for, in my
lucid intervals, I made good resolutions: but as health turned its blithe
side to me, and opened my prospects of recovery, all my old inclinations
and appetites returned; and this letter, perhaps, will be a thorough
conviction to thee, that I am as wild a fellow as ever, or in the way to
be so.

Thou askest me, very seriously, if, upon the faint sketch thou hast
drawn, thy new scheme be not infinitely preferable to any of those which
we have so long pursued?--Why, Jack--Let me reflect--Why, Belford--I
can't say--I can't say--but it is. To speak out--It is really, as Biddy
in the play says, a good comfortable scheme.

But when thou tallest me, that it was thy misfortune to love me, because
thy value for me made thee a wickeder man than otherwise thou wouldst
have been; I desire thee to revolve this assertion: and I am persuaded
that thou wilt not find thyself in so right a train as thou imaginest.

No false colourings, no glosses, does a true penitent aim at.
Debasement, diffidence, mortification, contrition, are all near of a kin,
Jack, and inseparable from a repentant spirit. If thou knowest not this,
thou art not got three steps (out of threescore) towards repentance and
amendment. And let me remind thee, before the grand accuser come to do
it, that thou wert ever above being a passive follower in iniquity.
Though thou hadst not so good an invention as he to whom thou writest,
thou hadst as active an heart for mischief, as ever I met with in man.

Then for improving an hint, thou wert always a true Englishman. I never
started a roguery, that did not come out of thy forge in a manner ready
anvilled and hammered for execution, when I have sometimes been at a loss
to make any thing of it myself.

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