of him, the reader must have observed,
that it was his way to treat every man with contempt, partly by way of
self-exaltation, and partly to gratify the natural gaiety of his
disposition. He says himself to Belford,* 'Thou knowest I love him not,
Jack; and whom we love not, we cannot allow a merit to; perhaps not the
merit they should be granted.' 'Modest and diffident men,' writes
Belford, to Lovelace, in praise of Mr. Hickman, 'wear not soon off those
little precisenesses, which the confident, if ever they had them,
presently get over.'**

* See Vol. VII. Letter XXVIII.
** Ibid. Letter XLVIII.

But, as Miss Howe treats her mother as freely as she does her lover; so
does Mr. Lovelace take still greater liberties with Mr. Belford than he
does with Mr. Hickman, with respect to his person, air, and address, as
Mr. Belford himself hints to Mr. Hickman.* And yet is he not so readily
believed to the discredit of Mr. Belford, by the ladies in general, as he
is when he disparages Mr. Hickman. Whence can this particularity arise?

* See Letter XXXVI. of this volume.

Mr. Belford had been a rake: but was in a way of reformation.

Mr. Hickman had always been a good man.

And Lovelace confidently says, That the women love a man whose regard for
them is founded in the knowledge of them.*

* See Vol. V. Letter XVIII.

Nevertheless, it must be owned, that it was not purposed to draw Mr.
Hickman, as the man of whom the ladies in general were likely to be very
fond. Had it been so, goodness of heart, and gentleness of manners,
great assiduity, and inviolable and modest love, would not of themselves
have been supposed sufficient recommendations. He would not have been
allowed the least share of preciseness or formality, although those
defects might have been imputed to his reverence for the object of his
passion; but in his character it was designed to show, that the same man
could not be every thing; and to intimate to ladies, that in choosing
companions for life, they should rather prefer the honest heart of a
Hickman, which would be all their own, than to risk the chance of
sharing, perhaps with scores, (and some of those probably the most
profligate of the sex,) the volatile mischievous one of a Lovelace: in
short, that they should choose, if they wished for durable happiness, for
rectitude of mind, and not for speciousness of person or address; nor
make a jest of a good man in favour of a bad one, w