violence be used to compel me to be that odious man's!*


* These violent measures, and the obstinate perseverance of the whole
family in them, will be the less wondered at, when it is considered, that
all the time they were but as so many puppets danced upon Mr. Lovelace's
wires, as he boasts, Vol. I. Letter XXXI.


Late as it was when I received this insolent letter, I wrote an answer to
it directly, that it might be ready for the writer's time of rising. I
inclose the rough draught of it. You will see by it how much his vile
hint from the Georgic; and his rude one of my whining vocatives, have set
me up. Besides, as the command to get ready to go to my uncle's is in
the name of my father and uncles, it is but to shew a piece of the art
they accuse me of, to resent the vile hint I have so much reason to
resent in order to palliate my refusal of preparing to go to my uncle's;
which refusal would otherwise be interpreted an act of rebellion by my
brother and sister: for it seems plain to me, that they will work but
half their ends, if they do not deprive me of my father's and uncles'
favour, even although it were possible for me to comply with their own
terms.


You might have told me, Brother, in three lines, what the determination
of my friends was; only, that then you would not have had room to display
your pedantry by so detestable an allusion or reference to the Georgic.
Give me leave to tell you, Sir, that if humanity were a branch of your
studies at the university, it has not found a genius in you for mastering
it. Nor is either my sex or myself, though a sister, I see entitled to