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by the paradife of your dear arms, I will

be only yours!

Have I written fenfe? I know not what I write. This fcrap of paper ('tis all I can find) will hold a line or two more. I muft fill up to say that, whatever evils envious fate defign me, after thofe few hours of yesterday, I never will complain nor

murmur.

Misfortune, I defy thee now.-M. loves me, and H,'s foul has its content moft abfolute. No other joy like this fucceeds in unknown fate.

LETTER VIII.

To the Same,

Huntingdon, 24 Dec. 1775.

TALK not to me of the new year. I am a new man. I'll be sworn to it I am not

the fame identical J. H. that I was three

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months ago.
I know what I fay-created me anew.

You have created me—yes,

As to thanking you for the bliss I taste

with

with you to attempt it would be idle. What thanks can exprefs the heaven of heavens

But I will obey you in not giving fuch a loose to my pen as I gave the day before yesterday. That letter and the verfes it contained, which were certainly too highly coloured, pray commit to the flames. Yet, pray too, as begged you yesterday, do not imagine I thought lefs chaftely of you because I wrote them. By Heaven, I believe your mind as chafte as the fnow which, while I write, is driving against my win

dow.
One time perhaps you may.,

You know not what I think of you.

The lines I repeated to you this morning, I fend you. Upon my honour they are not mine. I think of them quite as you do. Surely an additional merit in them is, that to the uninitiated, in whom they might perhaps raise improper ideas, they are totally unintelligible.

LET

LETTER IX.

To Mr.

H.

Christmas-day, 75.

My old friend the Corporal looked as if he had been tarred and feathered yesterday, when he arrived with your dear billet. Omiah took up the fugar-cafter, when he faw him through the parlour window, and pow dered a fresh flice of pudding, by way of painting the fnowy Corporal.. Omiah's fimplicity is certainly very diverting, but I fhould like him better, and take more pains with him, if I did not think he fufpected fomething. The other day, I am fure he came to fpy the nakedness of the land. Thank Heaven, our caution prevented him.

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But, why do I call your billet dear, when it contained fuch poetry? Yet, to confefs the truth, it did charm me. And I know not, whether as you fay, thofe, to whom it could do any harm, could poffibly under

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ftand

ftand it. For uninitiated means, I believe, not yet admitted into the myfteries-thofe who have not yet taken the veil; or, I fhould rather fay, thofe who have not yet thrown off the veil. Why was I not permited by my deftiny to keep on mine, till my H. my Mars feized me in his ardent arms? How gladly to his arms would I have given up my very foul!

Cruel fortune, that it can't be fo to-day! But we forgot when we fixed on to-day, that it would be Christmas-day. I must do penance at a moft unpleasant dinner, as indeed is every meal and every fcene when you are abfent-and that, without the confolation of having first enjoyed your company. To-morrow,, however, at the usual time and place. Your difcontinuing your vifits here, fince the first day of our hap piness, gratifies the delicacy of us both. Yet, may it not, my H., raise fufpicions elsewhere? Your agreeable qualities were too confpicuous not to make you miffed. Yet, you are the best judge.

My poor, innocent, helpless babes! Were it not on your account, your mother would

would not at the part fhe does.-What is Mrs. Yates's fuftaining a character well for one evening? Is it fo trying as to play a part, and a base one too, morning, noon, and night?-Night! But I will not make my H. uneasy.

At least, allow that I have written you a long fcrawl. Behold, I have sent you a tolerable good fubftitute for myself. It is reckoned very like. I need not beg you not to fhew it. Only remember, the painter's M. is not to rob your own M. of a certain quantity of things called and known by the name of k fles, which I humbly conceive to be her due, though the has been difappointed of them to-day.

So, having nothing further to add at prefent, and the poft being juft going out, I remain with all truth,

Dear Sir,

Your most humble servant,

M.

There's

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