rable man in the world.

As for the earnestness she expresses for death, she has found the words
ready to her hand in honest Job; else she would not have delivered
herself with such strength and vehemence.

Her innate piety (as I have more than once observed) will not permit her
to shorten her own life, either by violence or neglect. She has a mind
too noble for that; and would have done it before now, had she designed
any such thing: for to do it, like the Roman matron, when the mischief is
over, and it can serve no end; and when the man, however a Tarquin, as
some may think me in this action, is not a Tarquin in power, so that no
national point can be made of it; is what she has too much good sense to
think of.

Then, as I observed in a like case, a little while ago, the distress,
when this was written, was strong upon her; and she saw no end of it: but
all was darkness and apprehension before her. Moreover, has she it not
in her power to disappoint, as much as she has been disappointed?
Revenge, Jack, has induced many a woman to cherish a life, to which grief
and despair would otherwise have put an end.

And, after all, death is no such eligible thing, as Job in his
calamities, makes it. And a death desired merely from worldly
disappointments shows not a right mind, let me tell this lady, whatever
she may think of it.* You and I Jack, although not afraid, in the height
of passion or resentment, to rush into those dangers which might be
followed by a sudden and violent death, whenever a point of honour calls
upon us, would shudder at his cool and deliberate approach in a lingering
sickness, which had debilitated the spirits.

* Mr. Lovelace could not know, that the lady was so thoroughly sensible
of the solidity of this doctrine, as she really was: for, in her letter
to Mrs. Norton, (Letter XLIV. of this volume,) she says,--'Nor let it be
imagined, that my present turn of mind proceeds from gloominess or
melancholy: for although it was brought on by disappointment, (the world
showing me early, even at my first rushing into it, its true and ugly
face,) yet I hope, that it has obtained a better root, and will every day
more and more, by its fruits, demonstrate to me, and to all my friends,
that it has.'

So we read of a famous French general [I forget as well the reign of the
prince as the name of the man] who, having faced with intrepidity the
ghastly varlet on an hundred occasions in the field, was the m