ted to be. But such a man at the head of
such wretches as he is said to have at his beck, all men of fortune and
fearlessness, and capable of such enterprises as I have unhappily found
him capable of, what is not to be apprehended from him!

His carelessness about his character is one of his excuses: a very
bad one. What hope can a woman have of a man who values not his own
reputation?--These gay wretches may, in mixed conversation, divert for
an hour, or so: but the man of probity, the man of virtue, is the man
that is to be the partner for life. What woman, who could help it, would
submit it to the courtesy of a wretch, who avows a disregard to all
moral sanctions, whether he will perform his part of the matrimonial
obligation, and treat her with tolerable politeness?

With these notions, and with these reflections, to be thrown upon such a
man myself!--Would to Heaven--But what avail wishes now?--To whom can I
fly, if I would fly from him?

LETTER XXIII

MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ. FRIDAY, APRIL 14.

Never did I hear of such a parcel of foolish toads as these
Harlowes!--Why, Belford, the lady must fall, if every hair of her head
were a guardian angel, unless they were to make a visible appearance for
her, or, snatching her from me at unawares, would draw her after them
into the starry regions.

All I had to apprehend, was, that a daughter, so reluctantly carried
off, would offer terms to her father, and would be accepted upon a
mutual concedence; they to give up Solmes; she to give up me. And so I
was contriving to do all I could to guard against the latter. But they
seem resolved to perfect the work they have begun.

What stupid creatures are there in the world! This foolish brother not
to know, that he who would be bribed to undertake a base thing by one,
would be over-bribed to retort the baseness; especially when he could be
put into the way to serve himself by both!--Thou, Jack, wilt never know
one half of my contrivances.

He here relates the conversation between him and the Lady (upon the
subject of the noise and exclamations his agent made at the garden-
door) to the same effect as in the Lady's Letter, No. XXI. and
proceeds exulting:

What a capacity for glorious mischief has thy friend!--Yet how near the
truth all of it! The only derivation, my asserting that the fellow
made the noises by mistake, and through fright, and not by previous
direction: had she known the p