LETTER LVII
MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.LONDON, OCT. 25.
I write to show you that I am incapable of slighting even the minutestrequests of an absent and distant friend. Yet you may believe that therecannot be any great alterations in the little time that you have been outof England, with respect to the subjects of your inquiry. Nevertheless Iwill answer to each, for the reason above given; and for the reason youmention, that even trifles, and chit-chat, are agreeable from friend tofriend, and of friends, and even of those to whom we give the importanceof deeming them our foes, when we are abroad.
First, then, as to my reformation-scheme, as you call it, I hope I go onvery well. I wish you had entered upon the like, and could say so too.You would then find infinitely more peace of mind, than you are likelyever otherwise to be acquainted with. When I look back upon the sweepthat has been made among us in the two or three past years, and forwardupon what may still happen, I hardly think myself secure; though of lateI have been guided by other lights than those of sense and appetite,which have hurried so many of our confraternity into worldly ruin, if notinto eternal perdition.
I am very earnest in my wishes to be admitted into the nuptial state.But I think I ought to pass some time as a probationary, till, bysteadiness in my good resolutions, I can convince some woman, whom Icould love and honour, and whose worthy example might confirm my morals,that there is one libertine who had the grace to reform, before age ordisease put it out of his power to sin on.
The Harlowes continue inconsolable; and I dare say will to the end oftheir lives.
Miss Howe is not yet married; but I have reason to think will soon. Ihave the honour of corresponding with her; and the more I know of her,the more I admire the nobleness of her mind. She must be conscious, thatshe is superior to half our sex, and to most of her own; which may makeher give way to a temper naturally hasty and impatient; but, if she meetwith condescension in her man, [and who would not veil to a superiorityso visible, if it be not exacted with arrogance?] I dare say she willmake an excellent wife.
As to Doleman, the poor man goes on trying and hoping with his empiric.I cannot but say that as the latter is a sensible and judicious man, andnot rash, opinionative, or over-sanguine, I have great hopes (little as Ithink of quacks and nostrum-mongers in general) that he will do him good,if his case will admit of it. My reasons are--That the man pays aregular and constant attendance upon him; watches, with his own eye,every change and new symptom of his patient's malady; varies hisapplications as the indications vary; fetters not himself to rules laiddown by the fathers of the art, who lived many hundred years ago, whendiseases, and the causes of them, were different, as the modes of livingwere different from what they are now, as well as climates and accidents;that he is to have his reward, not in daily fees; but (after the firstfive guineas for medicines) in proportion as the patient himself shallfind amendment.
As to Mowbray and Tourville; what novelties can be expected, in so shorta time, from men, who have not sense enough to strike out or pursue newlights, either good or bad; now, especially, that you are gone, who werethe soul of all enterprise, and in particular their soul. Besides, I seethem but seldom. I suppose they'll be at Paris before you can returnfrom Germany; for they cannot live without you; and you gave them such aspecimen of your recovered volatility, in the last evening'sconversation, as delighted them, and concerned me.
I wish, with all my heart, that thou wouldst bend thy course toward thePyraneans. I should then (if thou writest to thy cousin Montague anaccount of what is most observable in thy tour) put in for a copy of thyletters. I wonder thou wilt not; since then thy subjects would be as newto thyself, as to
ThyBELFORD.