few weeks, reduced one of the most charming women in the world; and that
in the full bloom of her youth and beauty.

Mowbray undertakes to carry this, that he may be more welcome to you, he
says. Were it to be sent unsealed, the characters we write in would be
Hebrew to the dunce. I desire you to return it; and I'll give you a copy
of it upon demand; for I intend to keep it by me, as a guard against the
infection of your company, which might otherwise, perhaps, some time
hence, be apt to weaken the impressions I always desire to have of the
awful scene before me. God convert us both!



LETTER XVII

MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
WEDNESDAY MORN. 11 O'CLOCK.


I believe no man has two such servants as I have. Because I treat them
with kindness, and do not lord it over my inferiors, and d--n and curse
them by looks and words like Mowbray; or beat their teeth out like
Lovelace; but cry, Pr'ythee, Harry, do this, and, Pr'ythee, Jonathan, do
that; the fellows pursue their own devices, and regard nothing I say, but
what falls in with these.

Here, this vile Harry, who might have brought your letter of yesterday in
good time, came not in with it till past eleven at night (drunk, I
suppose); and concluding that I was in bed, as he pretends (because he
was told I sat up the preceding night) brought it not to me; and having