ill do with his Thomasine I know not! nor care I to advise
him: for I see the poor fellow does not like that any body should curse
her but himself. This he does very heartily. And so low is he reduced,
that he blubbers over the reflection upon his past fondness for her cubs,
and upon his present doubts of their being his: 'What a damn'd thing is
it, Belford, if Tom and Hal should be the hostler dog's puppies and not
mine!'

Very true! and I think the strong health of the chubby-faced muscular
whelps confirms the too great probability.

But I say not so to him.

You, he says, are such a gay, lively mortal, that this sad tale would
make no impression upon you: especially now, that your whole heart is
engaged as it is. Mowbray would be too violent upon it: he has not, he
says, a feeling heart. Tourville has no discretion: and, a pretty jest!
although he and his Thomasine lived without reputation in the world,
(people guessing that they were not married, notwithstanding she went by
his name,) yet 'he would not too much discredit the cursed ingrate
neither!'

Could a man act a weaker part, had he been really married; and were he
sure he was going to separate from the mother of his own children?

I leave this as a lesson upon thy heart, without making any application:
only with this remark, 'That after we libertines have indulged our
licentious appetites, reflecting, (in the conceit of our vain hearts,)
both with our lips and by our lives, upon our ancestors and the good old
ways, we find out, when we come to years of discretion, if we live till
then (what all who knew us found out before, that is to say, we found
out), our own despicable folly; that those good old ways would have been
best for us, as well as for the rest of the world; and that in every step
we have deviated from them we have only exposed our vanity and our
ignorance at the same time.'

J. BELFORD.

LETTER XXXIX

MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
SATURDAY, MAY 20.

I am pleased with the sober reflection with which thou concludest thy
last; and I thank thee for it. Poor Belton!--I did not think his
Thomasine would have proved so very a devil. But this must everlastingly
be the risk of a keeper, who takes up with a low-bred girl. This I never
did. Nor had I occasion to do it. Such a one as I, Jack, needed only,
till now, to shake the stateliest tree, and the mellowed fruit dropt into
my mouth:--always of Montaigne's taste thou knowe