key, against I come to town.

As far as feeing you, I will use it fometimes; but never for an opportunity to indulge our paffion. That, pofitively, fhall never again happen under his roof. How did we applaud each other for not fuffering his walls at H. to be infulted with the first scene of it! And how happy were we both, after we waked from our dream of blifs, to think how often we had acted otherwise, during the time the fnow shut me up at H.! a snow as dear to me, as to yourself.

. My mind is torn, rent, with ten thousand thoughts and refolutions about you, and about myfelf.

When we meet, which fhall be as we fixed, I may perhaps mention one idea to you.

Pray let us contrive to be together fome evening that your favourite Jephtha is performed.

Inclofed is a fong, which came into my hands by an accident fince we parted. Neither the words nor the mufic, I take it, will displease you.

Adieu.

SONG.

SONG.

When your beauty appears
In its graces and airs,

All bright as an angel new dropp'd from the

fky;

At distance I gaze, and am awed by my fears, So ftrangely you dazzle my eye!

But when, without art,

Your kind thoughts you impart,

When love runs in blushes thro'

every vein;

When it darts from your eyes, when it pants.

in your heart,

Then I know you're a woman again.

"There's a paffion and pride

"In our fex," the replied,

"And thus, might I gratify both, I would do; "As an angel appear to each lover befide,

"But ftill be a woman to you."

LET

LETTER XX.

To the Same.

Cannon Coffee-house, Charing-cross,

17 March, 76.

No further than this can I get from you, before I affure you that every word I said just now came from the bottom of my heart. I never fhall be happy, never shall be in my fenfes, till you confent to marry me. And notwithstanding the dear night at Hockerill, and the other which your ingenuity procured me last week in D. ftreet, I swear by the blifs of bliffes, I never will taste it again till you are my wife.

LETTER

To the Same.

XXI.

Cannon Coffee-house, 17 March, 76.

THOUGH you can hardly have read my last fcrawl, I must pefter you with another. I had ordered fome dinner; but I can neither eat, nor do any thing else. "Mad!"-I may be mad, for what I know. I am fure I'm wretched.

For God's fake, for my life and foul's fake, if you love me, write directly hither, or at least

to

to-night to my lodgings, and fay what is that infuperable reason on which you dwelt so much. "Torture shall not force you to marry me." Did you not say so? Then you hate me; and what is life worth?

Suppofe you had not the dear inducement of loving me (if you love me! Damnation blot out that if!), and being adored by me-ftill, do you not wish to relieve yourself and me from the damned parts we act? My foul was not formed for fuch meanneffes. To fteal in at a back door, to deceive, to plot, to lie--Perdition! the thought of it makes me despise myself.

Your children-Lord S.-(If we have not been afhamed of our conduct, why have we cheated confcience all along by "He" and "His," and "Old Robin Gray?" Oh, how have we defcended, M. !) Lord S. I fay, cannot but provide for your dear boys. As to your fweet little girlI will be a father to her, as well as a husband to you. Every farthing I have I will fettle on you both. I will God knows, and you fhall findwhat I will do for you both, when I am able. Good God, what would I not do!

Write, write; I fay, write. By the living God I will have this infuperable reason from you, or I will not believe you love me.

LET

LETTER

XXII.

To Mr. H.

A. 17 March, 76.

AND does myH. think I wanted fuch a letter as this to finish my affliction? Oh, my dear Jamie, you know not how you diftrefs me.

And do you imagine I have willingly fubmitted to the artifices to which I have been obliged, for your fake, to defcend? What has been your part, from the beginning of the piece, to mine? I was obliged to act a part even to you. It was my finefs not to let you fee how unhappy the artifices, to which I have fubmitted, made me. And that they did embitter even our happiest

moments.

bu

But fate ftands between us. We are doomed to be wretched. And I, every now and then, think fome terrible catastrophe will come of our connection. "Some dire event," as Storgè prophetically fays in Jephtha, "hangs o'er our heads;-

"Some woful fong we have to fing "In mifery extreme.--O never, never "Was my foreboding mind diftrefs'd before "With fuch inceffant pangs!"

Ob,