nonsense.  Besides, one day or other, thou mightest, had I not confessed it, have heard of it in an aggravated manner; and I know thou hast such an high opinion of this lady’s virtue, that thou wouldst be disappointed, if thou hadst reason to think that she was subdued by her own consent, or any the least yielding in her will.  And so is she beholden to me in some measure, that, at the expense of my honour, she may so justly form a plea, which will entirely salve her’s.

And now is the whole secret out.

Thou wilt say I am a horrid fellow!—­As the lady does, that I am the unchained Beelzebub, and a plotting villain:  and as this is what you both said beforehand, and nothing worse can be said, I desire, if thou wouldst not have me quite serious with thee, and that I should think thou meanest more by thy tilting hint than I am willing to believe thou dost, that thou wilt forbear thy invectives:  For is not the thing done?—­Can it be helped?—­And must I not now try to make the best of it?—­And the rather do I enjoin to make thee this, and inviolable secrecy; because I begin to think that my punishment will be greater than the fault, were it to be only from my own reflection.

LETTER XVI

Mr. Lovelace, to John Belford, ESQ. 
Friday, June 16.

I am sorry to hear of thy misfortune; but hope thou wilt not long lie by it.  Thy servant tells me what narrow escape thou hadst with thy neck, I wish it may not be ominous:  but I think thou seemest not to be in so enterprising a way as formerly; and yet, merry or sad, thou seest a rake’s neck is always in danger, if not from the hangman, from his own horse.  But, ’tis a vicious toad, it seems; and I think thou shouldst never venture upon his back again; for ’tis a plaguy thing for rider and horse both to be vicious.

The fellow tells me, thou desirest me to continue to write to thee in order to divert thy chagrin on thy forced confinement:  but how can I think it in my power to divert, when my subject is not pleasing to myself?

Caesar never knew what it was to be hipped, I will call it, till he came to be what Pompey was; that is to say, till he arrived at the height of his ambition:  nor did thy Lovelace know what it was to be gloomy, till he had completed his wishes upon the most charming creature in the world.

And yet why say I completed? when the will, the consent, is wanting—­and I have still views before me of obtaining that?

Yet I could almost join with thee in the wish, which thou sendest me up by thy servant, unfriendly as it is, that I had had thy misfortune before Monday night last:  for here, the poor lady has run into a contrary extreme to that I told thee of in my last:  for now is she as much too lively, as before she was too stupid; and ’bating that she has pretty frequent lucid intervals, would be deemed raving mad, and I should be obliged to confine her.