obscene hole or garret; obliged to the careless care of
some dirty old woman, whom nothing but her poverty prevails upon to
attend to perform the last offices for men, who have made such shocking
ravage among the young ones.

Then how miserably will they whine through squeaking organs; their big
voices turned into puling pity-begging lamentations! their now-offensive
paws, how helpless then!--their now-erect necks then denying support to
their aching heads; those globes of mischief dropping upon their quaking
shoulders. Then what wry faces will they make! their hearts, and their
heads, reproaching each other!--distended their parched mouths!--sunk
their unmuscled cheeks!--dropt their under jaws!--each grunting like the
swine he had resembled in his life! Oh! what a vile wretch have I been!
Oh! that I had my life to come over again!--Confessing to the poor old
woman, who cannot shrive them! Imaginary ghosts of deflowered virgins,
and polluted matrons, flitting before their glassy eyes! And old Satan,
to their apprehensions, grinning behind a looking-glass held up before
them, to frighten them with the horror visible in their own countenances!

For my own part, if I can get some good family to credit me with a sister
or daughter, as I have now an increased fortune, which will enable me to
propose handsome settlements, I will desert ye all; marry, and live a
life of reason, rather than a life of a brute, for the time to come.

LETTER XXVII

MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
THURSDAY NIGHT.

I was forced to take back my twenty guineas. How the women managed it I
can't tell, (I suppose they too readily found a purchaser for the rich
suit;) but she mistrusted, that I was the advancer of the money; and
would not let the clothes go. But Mrs. Lovick has actually sold, for
fifteen guineas, some rich lace worth three times the sum; out of which
she repaid her the money she borrowed for fees to the doctor, in an
illness occasioned by the barbarity of the most savage of men. Thou
knowest his name!

The Doctor called on her in the morning it seems, and had a short debate
with her about fees. She insisted that he should take one every time he
came, write or not write; mistrusting that he only gave verbal directions
to Mrs. Lovick, or the nurse, to avoid taking any.

He said that it would be impossible for him, had he not been a physician,
to forbear inquiries after the health and welfare of so excellent a
pe