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Файл:Clarissa V. The history of a young lady
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CLARISSA • V
I send you, Madam, a letter from Lord M. to myself; and
the copies of three others written in consequence of that. These
will acquaint you with Mr. Lovelace’s departure from England,
and with other particulars, which you will be curious to know.
Be pleased to keep to yourself such of the contents as
your own prudence will suggest to you ought not to be
seen by any body else.
I am, Madam, with the profoundest and most grateful
respect,
Your faithful and obliged humble servant,
JOHN BELFORD.
LETTER LI
Lord M. To John Belford, Esq.
M. Hall, Friday, Sept. 29.
DEAR SIR,
My kinsman Lovelace is now setting out for London; proposing to see you, and then to go to Dover, and so embark. God
send him well out of the kingdom!
On Monday he will be with you, I believe. Pray let me be
favoured with an account of all your conversations; for Mr.
Mowbray and Mr. Tourville are to be there too; and whether
you think he is grown quite his own man again.
What I mostly write for is, to wish you to keep Colonel
Morden and him asunder; and so I give you notice of his going to town. I should be very loth there should be any mischief
between them, as you gave me notice that the Colonel threatened my nephew. But my kinsman would not bear that; so nobody let him know that he did. But I hope there is no fear; for
the Colonel does not, as I hear, threaten now. For his own sake,
I am glad of that; for there is not such a man in the world as my
kinsman is said to be, at all the weapons – as well he was not;
he would not be so daring.
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CLARISSA • V
We shall all here miss the wild fellow. To be sure, there is
no man better company when he pleases.
Pray, do you never travel thirty or forty miles? I should be
glad to see you here at M. Hall. It will be charity when my kinsman is gone; for we suppose you will be his chief correspondent; although he has promised to write to my nieces often.
But he is very apt to forget his promises; to us his relations
particularly. God preserve us all; Amen! prays
Your very humble servant, M.
LETTER LII
Mr. Belford, to Lord M.
London, Tuesday Night, Oct. 3.
MY LORD,
I obey your Lordship’s commands with great pleasure.
Yesterday in the afternoon Mr. Lovelace made me a visit at
my lodgings. As I was in expectation of one from Colonel Morden about the same time, I thought proper to carry him to
a tavern which neither of us frequented, (on pretence of
a half-appointment;) ordering notice to be sent me thither, if the Colonel came; and Mr. Lovelace sent to Mowbray,
and Tourville, and Mr. Doleman of Uxbridge, (who came to
town to take leave of him,) to let them know where to fi nd us.
Mr. Lovelace is too well recovered, I was going to say. I never saw him more gay, lively, and handsome. We had a good
deal of bluster about some parts of the trust I had engaged
in; and upon freedoms I had treated him with; in which, he
would have it, that I had exceeded our agreed-upon limits;
but on the arrival of our three old companions, and a nephew of Mr. Doleman’s, (who had a good while been desirous to
pass an hour with Mr. Lovelace,) it blew off for the present.
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CLARISSA • V
Mr. Mowbray and Mr. Tourville had also taken some exceptions at the freedoms of my pen; and Mr. Lovelace, after
his way, took upon him to reconcile us; and did it at the expense of all three; and with such an infi nite run of humour
and raillery, that we had nothing to do but to laugh at what
he said, and at one another. I can deal tolerably with him at
my pen; but in conversation he has no equal. In short, it was
his day. He was glad, he said, to fi nd himself alive; and his two
friends, clapping and rubbing their hands twenty times in
an hour, declared, that now, once more, he was all himself –
the charming’st fellow in the world; and they would follow
him to the farthest part of the globe.
I threw a bur upon his coat now-and-then; but none
would stick.
Your Lordship knows, that there are many things which
occasion a roar of applause in conversation, when the heart
is open, and men are resolved to be merry, which will neither
bear repeating, nor thinking of afterwards. Common things, in
the mouth of a man we admire, and whose wit has passed upon
us for sterling, become, in a gay hour, uncommon. We watch
every turn of such a one’s countenance, and are resolved to
laugh when he smiles, even before he utters what we are expecting to fl ow from his lips.
Mr. Doleman and his nephew took leave of us by twelve,
Mowbray and Tourville grew very noisy by one, and were
carried off by two. Wine never moves Mr. Lovelace, notwithstanding a vivacity which generally helps on over-gay spirits.
As to myself, the little part I had taken in the gaiety kept me
unconcerned.
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SAMUEL RICHARDSON
The clock struck three before I could get him into any serious or attentive way – so natural to him is gaiety of heart; and
such strong hold had the liveliness of the evening taken of
him. His conversation, you know, my Lord, when his heart is
free, runs off to the bottom without any dregs.
But after that hour, and when we thought of parting, he
became a little more serious: and then he told me his designs,
and gave me a plan of his intended tour; wishing heartily that
I could have accompanied him.
We parted about four; he not a little dissatisfi ed with me;
for we had some talk about subjects, which, he said, he loved
not to think of; to whit, Miss Harlowe’s will; my executorship;
papers I had in confi dence communicated to that admirable
lady (with no unfriendly design, I assure your Lordship;) and
he insisting upon, and I refusing, the return of the letters he
had written to me, from the time that he had made his fi rst
addresses to her.
He would see me once again, he said; and it would be
upon very ill terms if I complied not with his request. Which
I bid him not expect. But, that I might not deny him every
thing, I told him, that I would give him a copy of the will;
though I was sure, I said, when he read it, he would wish he
had never seen it.
I had a message from him about eleven this morning, desiring me to name a place at which to dine with him, and Mowbray, and Tourville, for the last time: and soon after another
from Colonel Morden, inviting me to pass the evening with
him at the Bedford-head in Covent-Garden. And, that I might
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CLARISSA • V
keep them at distance from one another, I appointed Mr.
Lovelace at the Eagle in Suffolk-street.
There I met him, and the two others. We began where we
left off at our last parting; and were very high with each other.
But, at last, all was made up, and he offered to forget and forgive every thing, on condition that I would correspond with
him while abroad, and continue the series which had been
broken through by his illness; and particularly give him, as
I had offered, a copy of the lady’s last will.
I promised him: and he then fell to rallying me on my
gravity, and on my reformation-schemes, as he called them.
As we walked about the room, expecting dinner to be brought
in, he laid his hand upon my shoulder; then pushed me from
him with a curse; walking round me, and surveying me from
head to foot; then calling for the observations of the others,
he turned round upon his heel, and with one of his peculiar
wild airs, “Ha, ha, ha, ha,” burst he out, “that these sour-faced
proselytes should take it into their heads that they cannot be
pious, without forfeiting both their good-nature and goodmanners! – Why, Jack,” turning me about, “pr’ythee look
up, man! – Dost thou not know, that religion, if it has taken
proper hold of the heart, is the most cheerful countenancemaker in the world? – I have heard my beloved Miss Harlowe
say so: and she knew, or nobody did. And was not her aspect
a benign proof of the observation? But thy these wamblings in
thy cursed gizzard, and thy awkward grimaces, I see thou’rt
but a novice in it yet! – Ah, Belford, Belford, thou hast a confounded parcel of briers and thorns to trample over barefoot,
before religion will illuminate these gloomy features!”I give
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SAMUEL RICHARDSON
your Lordship this account, in answer to your desire to know,
if I think him the man he was.
In our conversation at dinner, he was balancing whether
he should set out the next morning, or the morning after. But
fi nding he had nothing to do, and Col. Morden being in town,
(which, however, I told him not of,) I turned the scale; and he
agreed upon setting out tomorrow morning; they to see him
embark; and I promised to accompany them for a morning’s
ride (as they proposed their horses); but said, that I must return in the afternoon.
With much reluctance they let me go to my evening’s appointment: they little thought with whom: for Mr. Lovelace
had put it as a case of honour to all of us, whether, as he had
been told that Mr. Morden and Mr. James Harlowe had thrown
out menaces against him, he ought to leave the kingdom till
he had thrown himself in their way.
Mowbray gave his opinion, that he ought to leave it like
a man of honour as he was; and if he did not take those gentlemen to task for their opprobrious speeches, that at least he
should be seen by them in public before he went away; else
they might give themselves airs, as if he had left the kingdom in fear of them.
To this he himself so much inclined, that it was with diffi culty I persuaded him, that, as they had neither of them proceeded to a direct and formal challenge; as they knew he had
not made himself diffi cult of access; and as he had already
done the family injury enough; and it was Miss Harlowe’s
earnest desire, that he would be content with that; he had
no reason, from any point of honour, to delay his journey;
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CLARISSA • V
especially as he had so just a motive for his going, as the establishing of his health; and as he might return the sooner, if
he saw occasion for it.
I found the Colonel in a very solemn way. We had a good
deal of discourse upon the subject of certain letters which had
passed between us in relation to Miss Harlowe’s will, and to
her family. He has some accounts to settle with his banker;
which, he says, will be adjusted tomorrow; and on Thursday
he proposes to go down again, to take leave of his friends; and
then intends to set out directly for Italy.
I wish Mr. Lovelace could have been prevailed upon to take
any other tour, than that of France and Italy. I did propose Madrid to him; but he laughed at me, and told me, that the proposal was in character from a mule; and from one who was
become as grave as a Spaniard of the old cut, at ninety.
I expressed to the Colonel my apprehensions, that his
cousin’s dying injunctions would not have the force upon him
that were to be wished.
“They have great force upon me, Mr. Belford,” said he; “or
one world would not have held Mr. Lovelace and me thus
long. But my intention is to go to Florence; and not to lay my
bones there, as upon my cousin’s death I told you I thought to
do; but to settle all my affairs in those parts, and then to come
over, and reside upon a little paternal estate in Kent, which is
strangely gone to ruin in my absence. Indeed, were I to meet
Mr. Lovelace, either here or abroad, I might not be answerable
for the consequence.”He would have engaged me for tomorrow. But having promised to attend Mr. Lovelace on his journey, as I have mentioned, I said, I was obliged to go out of town,
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SAMUEL RICHARDSON
and was uncertain as to the time of my return in the evening.
And so I am to see him on Thursday morning at my own lodgings.
I will do myself the honour to write again to your Lordship
tomorrow night. Mean time, I am, my Lord,
Your Lordship’s, &c.
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