observe a still
higher duty into which she proposes to enter, when she does enter, by
plighted vows, and entirely as a volunteer?

That she loves thee, wicked as thou art, and cruel as a panther, there
is no reason to doubt. Yet, what a command has she over herself, that
such a penetrating self-flatterer as thyself is sometimes ready to doubt
it! Though persecuted on the one hand, as she was, by her own family,
and attracted, on the other, by the splendour of thine; every one of
whom courts her to rank herself among them!

Thou wilt perhaps think that I have departed from my proposition, and
pleaded the lady's sake more than thine, in the above--but no such
thing. All that I have written is more in thy behalf than in her's;
since she may make thee happy; but it is next to impossible, I should
think, if she preserve her delicacy, that thou canst make her so. What
is the love of a rakish heart? There cannot be peculiarity in it. But I
need not give my further reasons. Thou wilt have ingenuousness enough, I
dare say, were there occasion for it, to subscribe to my opinion.

I plead not for the state from any great liking to it myself. Nor have
I, at present, thoughts of entering into it. But, as thou art the last
of thy name; as thy family is of note and figure in thy country; and as
thou thyself thinkest that thou shalt one day marry: Is it possible, let
me ask thee, that thou canst have such another opportunity as thou now
hast, if thou lettest this slip? A woman in her family and fortune not
unworthy of thine own (though thou art so apt, from pride of ancestry,
and pride of heart, to speak slightly of the families thou dislikest);
so celebrated for beauty; and so noted at the same time for prudence,
for soul, (I will say, instead of sense,) and for virtue?

If thou art not so narrow-minded an elf, as to prefer thine own single
satisfaction to posterity, thou, who shouldst wish to beget children for
duration, wilt not postpone till the rake's usual time; that is to say,
till diseases or years, or both, lay hold of thee; since in that case
thou wouldst entitle thyself to the curses of thy legitimate progeny
for giving them a being altogether miserable: a being which they will
be obliged to hold upon a worse tenure than that tenant-courtesy,
which thou callest the worst;* to wit, upon the Doctor's courtesy;
thy descendants also propagating (if they shall live, and be able to
propagate) a wretched race, that shall entail