And at last, which vexed her to the heart, I drew the silk curtain, that she should not see me, and down she went muttering all the way. Is not this usage enough to provoke a rash ness never before thought of?

As it is but too probable that I may be hurried away to my uncle's without being able to give you previous notice of it; I beg that as soon as you shall hear of such a violence, you would send to the usual place, to take back such of your letters as may not have reached my hands, or to fetch any of mine that may be there.

May you, my dear, be always happy, prays your CLARISSA HARLOWE.

I have received your four letters. But am in such a ferment, that I cannot at present write to them.

LETTER LIV.

MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO MISS HOWE.

Friday Night, March 24.

I HAVE a most provoking letter from my sister. I might have supposed she would resent the contempt she brought upon herself in my chamber. Her conduct surely can only be accounted for by the rage instigated by a supposed rivalry.

TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE.

I AM to tell you, that your mother has begged you off for the morrow: but that you have effectually done your business with her, as well as with every body else.

In your proposals and letter to your brother, you have shewn yourself so silly, and so wise; so young, and so old; so gentle, and so obstinate; so meek, and so violent; that never was there so mixed a character.

We all know of whom you have borrowed this new spirit. And yet the seeds of it must be in your heart, or it could not all at once shew it self so rampant. It would be doing Mr Solmes a spite to wish him such a shy, unshy girl; another of your contradictory qualities—I leave you to make out what I mean by it.

Here, miss, your mother will not let you remain: she cannot have any peace of mind while such a rebel of a child is so near her. Your aunt Hervey will not take a charge which all the family put together cannot manage. Your uncle Harlowe will not see you at his house, till you are married. So, thanks to your own stubbornness, you have nobody that will receive you but your uncle Antony. Thither you must go in a very few days; and, when there, your brother will settle with you, in my presence, all

that relates to your modest challenge; for it is accepted, I assure you. Dr Lewen will possibly be there, since you make choice of him. Another gentleman likewise, were it but to convince you, that he is another sort of man than you have taken him to be. Your two uncles will possibly be there too, to see that the poor, weak, and defenceless sister has fair play. So, you see, miss, what company your smart challenge will draw together. You'll soon be called Norton's sweet child! ARAB, HARLOWE.

Prepare for the day. upon. Adieu, Mamma

I transcribed this letter, and sent it to my mother, with these lines:

A very few words, my ever-honoured Mamma!

Ir my sister wrote the enclosed by my father's direction, or yours, I must submit to the usage she gives me in it, with this only observation, That it is short of the personal treatment I have received from her. If it be of her own headwhy then, madam-But I knew, that when I was banished from your presence-Yet, till I know if she has or has not authority for this usage, I will only write further, that I am Your very unhappy child,

CL. HARLOWE.

This answer I received in an open slip of pa per; but it was wet in one place. I kissed the place; for I am sure it was blistered, as I may say, by a mother's tear !-She must (I hope she must) have written it reluctantly.

To apply for protection, where authority is defied, is bold. Your sister, who would not in your circumstances have been guilty of your perverseness, may allowably be angry at you for it. However, we have told her to moderate her zeal for our insulted authority. See, if you can deserve another behaviour, than that you complain of; which cannot, however, be so grievous to you, as the cause of it is to

Your more unhappy Mother. How often must I forbid you any address to me!

Give me, my dearest Miss Howe, your opinion, what I can, what I ought to do. Not what you would do (pushed as I am pushed) in resentment or passion-since, so instigated, you tell me, that you should have been with somebody before now-and steps taken in passion hardly ever fail of giving cause for repentance: but acquaint me with what you think cool

judgment, and after-reflection, whatever were to be the event, will justify.

I doubt not your sympathizing love: but yet you cannot possibly feel indignity and persecution so very sensibly as the immediate sufferer feels them-are fitter therefore to advise me, than I am myself.

I will here rest my cause. Have I, or have I not, suffered or borne enough? And if they will still persevere; if that strange persister against an antipathy so strongly avowed, will still persist: say, What can I do?-What course pursue?-Shall I fly to London, and endeavour to hide myself from Lovelace, as well as from all my own relations, till my cousin Morden arrives? Or shall I embark for Leghorn in my way to my cousin? Yet, my sex, my youth, considered, how full of danger is the last measure! And may not my cousin be set out for England, while I am getting thither?— What can I do?-Tell me, tell me, my dearest Miss Howe, [for I dare not trust myself, tell me what I can do.

Eleven o'clock at Night.

I HAVE been forced to try to compose my angry passions at my harpsichord; having first shut close my doors and windows, that I might not be heard below. As I was closing the shutters of the windows, the distant whooting of the bird of Minerva, as from the often-visited woodhouse, gave the subject in that charming Ode to Wisdom, which does honour to our sex, as it was written by one of it. I made an essay a week ago, to set the three last stanzas of it, as not unsuitable to my unhappy situation; and after I had re-perused the Ode, those were my lesson; and, I am sure, in the solemn address they contain to the All-wise and All-powerful Deity, my heart went with my fingers.

I enclose the Ode, and my effort with it. The subject is solemn; my circumstances are affecting; and I flatter myself, that I have not been quite unhappy in the performance. If it obtain your approbation, I shall be out of doubt, and should be still more assured, could I hear it tried by your voice and finger.

ODE TO WISDOM.

BY A LADY.

I.

THE solitary bird of night

Through the thick shades now wings his flight,

And quits his time-shook tower;

Where shelter'd from the blaze of day,
In philosophic gloom he lay,

Beneath his ivy bower.

II.

With joy I hear the solemn sound,

Which midnight echoes waft around, And sighing gales repeat.

Favourite of Pallas! I attend,
And, faithful to thy summons, bend
At Wisdom's awful seat.

III.

She loves the cool, the silent eve, Where no false shows of life deceive, Beneath the lunar ray.

Here folly drops each vain disguise; Nor sport her gaily colour'd dyes, As in the beam of day.

IV.

O Pallas! queen of every art,
That glads the sense, and mends the heart,
Blest source of purer joys!

In every form of beauty bright,
That captivates the mental sight
With pleasure and surprise;

V.

To thy unspotted shrine I bow: Attend thy modest suppliant's vow,

That breathes no wild desires; But, taught by thy unerring rules, To shun the fruitless wish of fools, To nobler views aspires.

VI.

Nor Fortune's gem, Ambition's plume,
Nor Cytherea's fading bloom,

Be objects of my prayer;
Let avarice, vanity, and pride,
Those envy'd glittering toys divide,
The dull rewards of care.

VII.

To me thy better gifts impart,
Each moral beauty of the heart,

By studious thought refined;
For wealth, the smile of glad content;
For power, its amplest, best extent,
An empire o'er my mind.

VIII.

When Fortune drops her gay parade,
When Pleasure's transient roses fade,
And wither in the tomb,
Unchanged is thy immortal prize
Thy ever-verdant laurels rise
In undecaying bloom.

IX.

By thee protected, I defy

The coxcomb's sneer, the stupid lie
Of ignorance and spite :

Alike contemn the leaden fool,
And all the pointed ridicule
Of undiscerning wit.

X.

From envy, hurry, noise, and strife, The dull impertinence of life,

In thy retreat I rest:

Pursue thee to the peaceful groves, Where Plato's sacred spirit roves,

In all thy beauties drest.

Friday, Midnight.

I HAVE now a calmer moment. Envy, ambition, high and selfish resentment, and all the violent passions, are now, most probably, asleep all around me; and shall not my own angry ones give way to the silent hour, and subside likewise?-They have given way to it; and I have made use of the gentler space to re-peruse your last letters. I will touch upon some passages in them. And that I may the less endanger the but-just-recovered calm, I will begin with what you write about Mr Hickman.

Give me leave to say, That I am sorry you cannot yet persuade yourself to think better, that is to say, more justly, of that gentleman, than your whimsical picture of him shews you do; or, at least, than the humorousness of your natural vein would make one think you do.

I do not imagine, that you yourself will say, he sat for the picture you have drawn. And yet, upon the whole, it is not greatly to his disad vantage. Were I at ease in my mind, I would venture to draw a much more amiable and just likeness.

If Mr Hickman has not that assurance which some men have, he has that humanity and gentleness which many want; and which, with the infinite value he has for you, will make him one of the fittest husbands in the world for a person of your vivacity and spirit.

Although you say I would not like him myself, I do assure you, if Mr Solmes were such a man as Mr Hickman, in person, mind, and behaviour, my friends and I had never disagreed about him, if they would not have permitted me to live single; Mr Lovelace (having such a character as he has) would have stood no chance with me. This I can the more boldly aver, because I plainly perceive, that of the two passions love and fear, this man will be able to inspire one with a much greater proportion of the latter, than I imagine is compatible with the former, to make a happy marriage.

I am glad you own, that you like no one better than Mr Hickman. In a little while, I make no doubt, you will be able, if you challenge your heart upon it, to acknowledge, that you like not any man so well: especially, when you come to consider, that the very faults you find in Mr Hickman, admirably fit him to make you happy; that is to say, if it be necessary to your happiness, that you should have your own will in every thing.

But let me add one thing: and that is this: -You have such a sprightly turn, that, with your admirable talents, you would make any man in the world, who loved you, look like a fool, except he were such a one as Lovelace.

Forgive me, my dear, for my frankness; and forgive me, also, for so soon returning to subjects so immediately relative to myself, as those I now must touch upon.

You again insist (strengthened by Mr Lovelace's opinion) upon my assuming my own estate [I cannot call it resuming, having never been in possession of it]; and I have given you room to expect, that I will consider this subject more closely than I have done before. I must, however, own, that the reasons which I had to offer against taking your advice were so obvious, that I thought you would have seen them yourself, and been determined by them, against your own hastier counsel.-But since this has not been so, and that both you and Mr Lovelace

call upon me to assume my own estate, I will enter briefly into the subject.

In the first place, let me ask you, my dear, supposing I were inclined to follow your advice, Whom have I to support me in my demand? My uncle Harlowe is one of my trustees he is against me. My cousin Morden is the other he is in Italy, and very probably may be set against me too. My brother has declared, that they are resolved to carry their point before he arrives: so that, as they drive on, all will probably be decided before I can have an answer from him, were I to write: and, confined as I am, were the answer to come in time, and they did not like it, they would keep it from me.

In the next place, parents have great advantages in every eye over the child, if she dispute their pleasure in the disposing of her: and so they ought; since out of twenty instances, perhaps two could not be produced, when they were not in the right, the child in the wrong.

You would not, I am sure, have me accept of Mr Lovelace's offered assistance in such a claim. If I would embrace any other person's, who else would care to appear for a child against parents, ever, till of late, so affectionate?-But were such a protector to be found, what a length of time would it take up in a course of litigation? The will and the deeds have flaws in them, they say. My brother sometimes talks of going to reside at The Grove: I suppose, with a design to make ejectments necessary, were I to offer at assuming; or, were I to marry Mr Lovelace, in order to give him all the opposition and difficulty the law would help him to give.

These cases I have put to myself, for argument-sake: but they are all out of the question, although any body were to be found who would espouse my cause: for I do assure you, I would sooner beg my bread, than litigate for my right with my father: since I am convinced, that whether the parent do his duty by the child or not, the child cannot be excused from doing hers to him. And to go to law with my father, what a sound has that! You will see, that I have mentioned my wish (as an alternative, and as a favour) to be permitted, if I must be put out of his house, to go thither: but not one step further can I go. And you see how this is resented. Upon the whole, then, what have I to hope for, but a change in my father's resolution? And is there any probability of that; such an ascendancy as my brother and sister have obtained over every body; and such an interest to pursue the enmity they have now openly avowed against me?

As to Mr Lovelace's approbation of your assumption-scheme, I wonder not at it. He very probably penetrates the difficulties I should have to bring it to effect, without his assistance. Were I to find myself as free as I would wish myself to be, perhaps Mr Lovelace would stand

a worse chance with me than his vanity may permit him to imagine; notwithstanding the pleasure you take in rallying me on his account. How know you, but all that appears to be specious and reasonable in his offers; such as, standing his chance for my favour, after I became independent, as I may call it, (by which I mean no more, than to have the liberty of refusing for my husband a man whom it hurts me but to think of in that light); and such as his not visiting me but by my leave; and till Mr Morden come; and till I am satisfied of his reformation;-how know you, I say, that he gives not himself these airs purely to stand better in your graces as well as mine, by offering of his own accord conditions which he must needs think would be insisted on, were the case to happen?

Then am I utterly displeased with him. To threaten as he threatens; yet to pretend, that it is not to intimidate me; and to beg of you not to tell me, when he must know you would, and no doubt intended that you should, is so meanly artful! The man must think he has a frighted fool to deal with. I, to join hands with such a man of violence! my own brother the man whom he threatens! And what has Mr Solmes done to him? Is he to be blamed, if he thinks a person would make a wife worth having, to endeavour to obtain her? Oh that my friends would but leave me to my own way in this one point! For have I given the man encouragement sufficient to ground these threats upon? Were Mr Solmes a man to whom I could be but indifferent, it might be found, that to have the merit of a sufferer given him from such a flaming spirit, would very little answer the views of that spirit. It is my fortune to be treated as a fool by my brother; but Mr Lovelace shall findYet I will let him know my mind; and then it will come with a better grace to your knowledge.

Meantime, give me leave to tell you, that it goes against me, in my cooler moments, unnatural as my brother is to me, to have you, my dear, who are my other self, write such very severe reflections upon him, in relation to the advantage Lovelace had over him. He is not indeed your brother; but remember, that you write to his sister. Upon my word, my dear Miss Howe, you dip your pen in gall whenever you are offended; and I am almost ready to question, when I read some of your expressions against others of my relations as well as him, (although in my favour,) whether you are so thoroughly warranted by your own patience, as you think yourself, to call other people to account for their warmth. Should we not be particularly careful to keep clear of the faults we censure? And yet I am so angry both at my brother and sister, that I should not have taken this liberty with my dear friend, notwithstanding I know you never loved them, had you not

made so light of so shocking a transaction, where a brother's life was at stake; when his credit in the eye of the mischievous sex has received a still deeper wound than he personally sustained; and when a revival of the same wicked resentments (which may end more fatally) is threatened. His credit, I say, in the eye of the mischievous sex who is not warranted to call it so; when it is reckoned among the men such an extraordinary piece of self-conquest (as the two libertines his companions gloried) to resolve never to give a challenge; and among whom duelling is so fashionable a part of brutal bravery, that the man of temper, who is, mostly, I believe, the truly brave man, is often at a loss so to behave as to avoid incurring either a mortal guilt, or a general contempt?

To enlarge a little upon this subject, may we not infer, that those who would be guilty of throwing these contempts upon a man of temper, who would rather pass by a verbal injury, than imbrue his hands in blood, know not the measure of true magnanimity? nor how much nobler it is to forgive, and even how much more manly to despise, than to resent, an injury? Were I a man, methinks I should have too much scorn for a person, who could wilfully do me a mean wrong, to put a value upon his life, equal to what I put upon my own. What an absurdity, because a man had done me a small injury, that I should put it in his power (at least, to an equal risk) to do me, and those who love me, an irreparable one! Were it not a wilful injury, nor avowed to be so, there could not be room for resentment.

How willingly would I run away from my self, and what most concerns myself, if I could! This digression brings me back again to the occasion of it-and that to the impatience I was in, when I ended my last letter; for my situation is not altered. I renew, therefore, my former earnestness, as the new day approaches, and will bring with it perhaps new trials, that you will (as undivestedly as possible of favour or resentment) tell me what you would have me do; for, if I am obliged to go to my uncle Antony's, all, I doubt, will be over with me. Yet how to avoid it-that's the difficulty!

I shall deposit this the first thing. When you have it, lose no time, I pray you, to advise (lest it be too late)

Your ever obliged

CL. HARLOWE.

LETTER LVI.

MISS HOWE TO MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE.

Saturday, March 25.

WHAT can I advise you to do, my noble creature? Your merit is your crime. You can no

more change your nature, than your persecutors can theirs. Your distress is owing to the vast disparity between you and them. What would you have of them? Do they not act in character? And to whom? To an alien. You are not one of them. They have two dependencies in their hope to move you to compliance-Upon their impenetrableness one, [I'd give it a more proper name, if I dared]; the other, on the regard you have always had for your character, [Have they not heretofore owned as much? and upon your apprehensions from that of Lovelace, which would discredit you, should you take any step by his means to extricate yourself. Then they know, that resentment and unpersuadableness are not natural to you ; and that the anger they have wrought you up to, will subside, as all extraordinaries soon do; and that once married, you will make the best of it.

But surely your father's son and eldest daughter have a view (by communicating to so nar. row a soul all they know of your just aversion to him) to entail unhappiness for life upon you, were you to have the man who is already more nearly related to them, than ever he can be to you, although the shocking compulsion should take place.

As to that wretch's perseverance, those only, who know not the man, will wonder at it. He has not the least delicacy. His principal view in marriage is not to the mind. How shall those beauties be valued, which cannot be compre hended? Were you to be his, and shew a visible want of tenderness to him, it is my opinion, he would not be much concerned at it. I have heard you well observe, from your Mrs Norton, That a person who has any over-ruling passion, will compound by giving up twenty secondary or under-satisfactions, though more laudable ones, in order to have that gratified.

I'll give you the substance of a conversation no fear you can be made to like him worse than you do already that passed between Sir Harry Downeton and this Solmes, but three days ago, as Sir Harry told it but yesterday to my mother and me. It will confirm to you, that what your sister's insolent Betty reported he should say, of governing by fear, was not of her own head.

Sir Harry told him, he wondered he should wish to obtain you, so much against your inchnation as every body knew it would be, if he did.

He matter'd not that, he said; coy maids made the fondest wives; (a sorry fellow!) It! would not at all grieve him to see a pretty woman make wry faces, if she gave him cause to vex her. And your estate, by the convenience of its situation, would richly pay him for all he could bear with your shyness.

He should be sure, he said, after a while, of your complaisance, if not of your love; and in that should be happier than nine parts in ten of his married acquaintance.