I am very ill; and am now forced to write upon my pillow; my thoughts confused; and incapable of method: I shall not therefore aim at method. But to give you in general my opinion.-And that is, that your religion, your duty to your family, the duty you owe to your honour, and even charity to your sex, oblige you to give public evidence against this very wicked man.

And let me add another consideration: the prevention, by this means, of the mischiefs that may otherwise happen between your brother and Mr. Lovelace, or between the latter and your cousin Morden, who is now, I hear, arrived, and resolves to have justice done you.

A consideration which ought to affect your conscience [forgive me, dearest young lady, I think I am now in the way of my duty]; and to be of more concern to you, than that hard pressure upon your modesty which I know the appearance against him in an open court must be of to such a lady as you; and which, I conceive, will be your great difficulty. But I know, madam, that you have dignity enough to become the blushes of the most naked truth, when necessity, justice, and honour, exact it from you. Rakes and ravishers would meet with encouragement indeed, and most from those who had the greatest abhorrence of their actions, if violated modesty were never to complain of the injury it received from the villanous attempters of it.

In a word, the reparation of your family dishonour now rests in your own bosom: and which only one of these two alternatives can repair; to wit, either to marry the offender, or to prosecute him at law. Bitter expedients for a soul so delicate as yours!

He and all his friends, I understand, solicit you

to the first: and it is certainly, now, all the amends within his power to make. But I am assured, that you have rejected their solicitations, and his, with the indignation and contempt that his vile actions have deserved: but yet, that you refuse not to extend to him the christian forgiveness he has so little reason to expect, provided he will not disturb you further.

But, madam, the prosecution I advise, will not let your present and future exemption from fresh disturbance from so vile a molester depend upon his courtesy: I should think so noble and so rightlyguided a spirit as yours, would not permit that it should, if you could help it.

And can indignities of any kind be properly pardoned till we have it our power to punish them? To pretend to pardon, while we are labouring under the pain or dishonour of them, will be thought by some to be but the vaunted mercy of a pusillanimous heart, trembling to resent them. The remedy I propose is a severe one; but what pain can be more severe than the injury? or how will injuries be believed to grieve us, that are never honourably complained of?

I am sure Miss Clarissa Harlowe, however injured and oppressed, remains unshaken in her sentiments of honour and virtue: and although she would sooner die than deserve that her modesty should be drawn into question; yet she will think no truth immodest that is to be uttered in the vindicated cause of innocence and chastity. Little, very little difference is there, my dear young lady, between a suppressed evidence, and a false one.

It is a terrible circumstance, I once more own, for a young lady of your delicacy, to be under the obligation of telling so shocking a story in public court: but it is still a worse imputation,

that she should pass over so mortal an injury unresented.

Conscience, honour, justice, are on your side: and modesty would, by some, be thought but an empty name, should you refuse to obey their dic

tates.

I have been consulted, I own, on this subject. I have given it as my opinion, that you ought to prosecute the abandoned man-but without my reasons. These I reserved, with a resolution to lay them before you unknown to any body, that the result, if what I wish, may be your own.

I will only add, that the misfortunes which have befallen you, had they been the lot of a child of my own, could not have affected me more than yours have done. My own child I love: but I both love and honour you: since to love you, is to love virtue, good sense, prudence, and every thing that is good and noble in woman.

Wounded as I think all these are by the injuries you have received, you will believe that the knowledge of your distresses must have afflicted, beyond what I am able to express,

Your sincere admirer, and humble servant,

ARTHUR LEWEN.

I just now understand, that your sister will, by proper authority, propose this prosecution to you. I humbly presume, that the reason why you resolved not upon this step from the first, was, that you did not know, that it would have the countenance and support of your rela

LETTER LXVII.

MISS CLARISSA HARLOWE TO THE REV. Dr. LEWEN.

REV. AND DEAR SIR,

Sat. Aug. 19.

I THOUGHT, till I received your affectionate and welcome letter, that I had neither father, uncle, brother left; nor hardly a friend among my former favourers of your sex. Yet knowing you so well, and having no reason to upbraid myself with a faulty will, I was to blame (even although I had doubted the continuance of your good opinion) to decline the trial, whether I had forfeited it or not; and if I had, whether I could not honourably reinstate myself in it.

But, sir, it was owing to different causes that I did not; partly to shame, to think how high, in my happier days, I stood in your esteem, and how much I must be sunk in it, since those so much nearer in relation to me gave me up; partly to deep distress, which makes the humbled heart diffident; and made mine afraid to claim the kindred mind in yours, which would have supplied to me, in some measure, all the dear and lost relations I have named.

Then, so loth, as I sometimes was, to be thought to want to make a party againt those whom both duty and inclination bid me reverence: so long trailed on between hope and doubt: so little my own mistress at one time; so fearful of making or causing mischief, at another; and not being encouraged to hope, by your kind notice, that my application to you would be acceptable:-apprehending, that my relations had engaged your silence at least *—

* The stiff visit this good divine was prevailed upon to make her, as mentioned Vol. II. p. 181, (of which, however,

THESE-but why these unavailing retrospections now?—I was to be unhappy-in order to be happy, that is my hope!-Resigning therefore to that hope, I will, without any further preamble, write a few lines (if writing to you, I can write but a few) in answer to the subject of your kind letter.

Permit me, then, to say, that I believe your arguments would have been unanswerable in almost every other case of this nature, but in that of the unhappy Clarissa Harlowe.

It is certain that creatures, who cannot stand the shock of public shame, should be doubly careful how they expose themselves to the danger of incurring private guilt, which may possibly bring them to it. But as to myself, suppose there were no objections from the declining way I am in as to my health; and supposing I could have prevailed upon myself to appear against this man; were there not room to apprehend, that the end so much wished for by my friends (to wit, his condign punishment) would not have been obtained, when it came to be seen, that I had consented to give him a clandestine meeting; and, in consequence of that, had been weakly tricked out of myself; and further still, had not been able to avoid living under one roof with him for several weeks; which I did (not only without complaint, but) without cause of complaint.

Little advantage in a court (perhaps, bandied about, and jested profligately with) would some of those pleas in my favour have been, which out of court, and to a private and serious audience, would have carried the greatest weight against him—such, particularly, as the infamous methods to which he had recourse.

she was too generous to remind him) might warrant the lady to think, that he had rather inclined to their party, as to the parental side, than to hers.