I send you enclosed a letter from Mr. Lovelace; which, though written in
the cursed Algebra, I know to be such a one as will show what a queer way
he is in; for he read it to us with the air of a tragedian. You will see
by it what the mad fellow had intended to do, if we had not all of us
interposed. He was actually setting out with a surgeon of this place, to
have the lady opened and embalmed.--Rot me if it be not my full
persuasion that, if he had, her heart would have been found to be either
iron or marble.
We have got Lord M. to him. His Lordship is also much afflicted at the
lady's death. His sisters and nieces, he says, will be ready to break
their hearts. What a rout's here about a woman! For after all she was
no more.
We have taken a pailful of black bull's blood from him; and this has
lowered him a little. But he threatens Col. Morden, he threatens you for
your cursed reflections, [cursed reflections indeed, Jack!] and curses
all the world and himself still.
Last night his mourning (which is full as deep as for a wife) was brought
home, and his fellows' mourning too. And, though eight o'clock, he would
put it on, and make them attend him in theirs.
Every body blames him on this lady's account. But I see not for why.
She was a vixen in her virtue. What a pretty fellow she has ruined--Hey,
Jack!--and her relations are ten times more to blame than he. I will
prove this to the teeth of them all. If they could use her ill, why
should they expect him to use her well?--You, or I, or Tourville, in his
shoes, would have done as he has done. Are not all the girls forewarned?
--'Has he done by her as that caitiff Miles did to the farmer's daughter,
whom he tricked up to town, (a pretty girl also, just such another as
Bob.'s Rosebud,) under a notion of waiting on a lady?--Drilled her on,
pretending the lady was abroad. Drank her light-hearted--then carried
her to a play--then it was too late, you know, to see the pretended lady
--then to a bagnio--ruined her, as they call it, and all this the same
day. Kept her on (an ugly dog, too!) a fortnight or three weeks, then
left her to the mercy of the people of the bagnio, (never paying for any
thing,) who stript her of all her clothes, and because she would not take
on, threw her into prison; where she died in want and despair!'--A true
story, thou knowest, Jack.--This fellow deserved to be d----d. But has
our Bob. been such a villain as this?--And would he not have married this
flinty-hearted lady?--So he is justified very evidently.
Why, then, should such cursed qualms take him?--Who would have thought he
had been such poor blood? Now [rot the puppy!] to see him sit silent in a
corner, when he has tired himself with his mock majesty, and with his
argumentation, (Who so fond of arguing as he?) and teaching his shadow to
make mouths against the wainscot--The devil fetch me if I have patience
with him!
But he has had no rest for these ten days--that's the thing!--You must
write to him; and pr'ythee coax him, Jack, and send him what he writes
for, and give him all his way--there will be no bearing him else. And
get the lady buried as fast as you can; and don't let him know where.
This letter should have gone yesterday. We told him it did. But were in
hopes he would have inquired after it again. But he raves as he has not
any answer.
What he vouchsafed to read of other of your letters has given my Lord
such a curiosity as makes him desire you to continue your accounts. Pray
do; but not in your hellish Arabic; and we will let the poor fellow only
into what we think fitting for his present way.
I live a cursed dull poking life here. What with I so lately saw of poor
Belton, and what I now see of this charming fellow, I shall be as crazy
as he soon, or as dull as thou, Jack; so must seek for better company in
town than either of you. I have been forced to read sometimes to divert
me; and you know I hate reading. It presently sets me into a fit of
drowsiness; and then I yawn and stretch like a devil.
Yet in Dryden's Palamon and Arcite have I just now met with a passage,
that has in it much of our Bob.'s case. These are some of the lines.
Mr. Mowbray then recites some lines from that poem, describing a
distracted man, and runs the parallel; and then, priding himself
in his performance, says:
Let me tell you, that had I begun to write as early as you and Lovelace,
I might have cut as good a figure as either of you. Why not? But boy or
man I ever hated a book. 'Tis folly to lie. I loved action, my boy. I
hated droning; and have led in former days more boys from their book,
than ever my master made to profit by it. Kicking and cuffing, and
orchard-robbing, were my early glory.
But I am tired of writing. I never wrote such a long letter in my life.
My wrist and my fingers and thumb ache d----n----y. The pen is an
hundred weight at least. And my eyes are ready to drop out of my head
upon the paper.--The cramp but this minute in my fingers. Rot the goose
and the goose-quill! I will write no more long letters for a
twelve-month to come. Yet one word; we think the mad fellow coming to.
Adieu.