You will, perhaps, laugh at me for these serious reflections.  Do, if you will.  I had rather you should laugh at me, for continuing in this way of thinking and acting, than triumph over me, as you threaten, on my swerving from purposes I have determined upon with such good reason, and induced and warned by such examples.

And so much for this subject at present.

I should be glad to know when you intend to set out.  I have too much concern for your welfare, not to wish you in a thinner air and more certain climate.

What have Tourville and Mowbray to do, that they cannot set out with you?  They will not covet my company, I dare say; and I shall not be able to endure theirs, when you are gone:  take them, therefore, with you.

I will not, however, forswear making you a visit at Paris, at your return from Germany and Italy:  but hardly with the hope of reclaiming you, if due reflection upon what I have set before you, and upon what you have written in your two last, will not by that time have done it.

I suppose I shall see you before you go.  Once more I wish you were gone.  This heavy island-air cannot do for you what that of the Continent will.

I do not think I ought to communicate with you, as I used to do, on this side the Channel:  let me, then, hear from you on the opposite shore, and you shall command the pen, as you please; and, honestly, the power of

J. Belford.

LETTER XLI

Mr. Lovelace, to John Belford, Esq. 
Tuesday, Sept. 26.

Fate, I believe, in my conscience, spins threads for tragedies, on purpose for thee to weave with.—­Thy Watford uncle, poor Belton, the fair inimitable, [exalted creature! and is she to be found in such a list!] the accursed woman, and Tomlinson, seemed to have been all doomed to give thee a theme for the dismal and the horrible;—­and, by my soul, that thou dost work it going, as Lord M. would phrase it.

That’s the horrid thing, a man cannot begin to think, but causes for thought crowd in upon him; the gloomy takes place, and mirth and gaiety abandon his heard for ever!

Poor M’Donald!—­I am really sorry for the fellow.—­He was an useful, faithful, solemn varlet, who could act incomparably any part given him, and knew not what a blush was.—­He really took honest pains for me in the last affair; which has cost him and me so dearly in reflection.  Often gravelled, as we both were, yet was he never daunted.—­Poor M’Donald!  I must once more say:—­for carrying on a solemn piece of roguery, he had no equal.

I was so solicitous to know if he were really as bad as thou hast a knack of painting every body whom thou singlest out to exercise thy murdering pen upon, that I dispatched a man and horse to Maidstone, as soon as I had thine; and had word brought me, that he died in two hours after he had received thy five guineas.  And all thou wrotest of his concern, in relation to the ever-dear Miss Harlowe, it seems was true.