For undoubtedly (I must say it, sir) your faults were the greater for your perfections: and such talents misapplied, as they made you more capable of mischief, so did they increase the evil of your practices. All then that I mean by saying you are not affected by this painting, is that you are not affected by the description I have given of clumsy and sordid rakes, whose wit is borrowed, and their wickedness only what they may call their own. you Then, dear sir, since that noble conversation which held with me at Tunbridge, in relation to the consequences that might, had it not been for God's grace intervening, have followed the masquerade affair, I have the pleasure, the inexpressible pleasure, to find a thorough reformation, from the best motives, taking place; and your joining with me in my closet (as opportunity permits) in my evening duties, is the charming confirmation of your kind and voluntary, and I am proud to say, your pious assurances ! so that this makes me fearless of your displeasure, while I rather triumph in my joy, for your precious soul's sake, than presume to think of recriminating; and when (only this one time for all, and for ever) I take the liberty of looking back from the delightful now, to the painful formerly! But what a rambler am I again! You command me, sir, to write to you all I think, without fear. I obey; and, as the phrase is, do it without either fear or wit. If you are not displeased, it is a mark of the true nobleness of your nature, and the sincerity of your late pious declarations. If you are, I shall be sure I have done wrong in having applied a corrosive to eat away the proud flesh of a wound that is not yet so thoroughly digested as to bear a painful application, and requires balsam and a gentler treatment. But when we were at Bath, I remember what you said once of the benefit of retrospection; and you charged me, whenever a proper opportunity offered, to remind you, by that one word, retrospection, of the charming conversation we had there, on our return from the rooms. If this be not one of those proper opportunities, forgive, dearest sir, the unseasonableness of your very impertinent, but, in intention and resolution, Ever dutiful, P. B. LETTER XCVIII. Mrs. B to her Father and Mother. EVER DEAR, AND EVER HONOURED!-I must write this one letter to you, although I have had the happiness to see you so lately; because Mr. B- is now about to honour me with the tour he so kindly promised to me when with you; and it may therefore be several months perhaps, before I have again the pleasure of paying you the like dutiful respects. You know his kind promise that he would, for every dear baby I present him with, take an excursion with me afterwards, in order to establish and confirm my health. The task I have undertaken of dedicating all my writing amusements to the dearest of men; the full employment I have, when at home; the frequent rambles he has been so often pleased to indulge me in, with my dear Miss Goodwin, to Kent, to London, to Bedfordshire, to Lincolnshire, and to my Lady Davers's, take from me the necessity of writing to your honoured selves, to my Miss Darnford that was, and to Lady Davers, so often as I formerly thought myself obliged to do, when I saw all my worthy friends so seldom; the same things, moreover, with little variation, occurring this year, as to to our conversations, visits, friends, employments, and amusements, that fell out the last; as must be the case in a family so uniform and methodical as ours. I have, for these reasons, more leisure to pursue my domestic duties, which are increased upon me; and when I have said that I am every day more and more happy in my beloved Mr. B—, in Miss Goodwin, my Billy, and my Davers; and now, newly, in my sweet little Pamela, (for so, you know, Lady Davers would have her called, rather than by her own name), what can I say more? As to the tour I spoke of, you know the first part of Mr. B's obliging scheme is to carry me to France; for he has already travelled with me over the greatest part of England; and I am sure, by my passage last year to the Isle of Wight, I shall not be afraid of crossing the water from Dover thither; and he will, when we are at Paris, he says, take my further directions (that was his kind expression) whither to go next. My Lord and Lady Davers are so good as to promise to accompany us to Paris, provided Mr. B-- will give them his and my company to Aix la Chapelle, for a month or six weeks, whither my lord is advised to go. And Mr. H——, if he can get over his fear of crossing the salt water, is to be of the party. Lady G, Miss Darnford that was (who likewise has lately lain-in of a fine daughter), and I, are to correspond, as opportunity offers; and she is so good as to promise to send to you what I write, as formerly: but I have refused to say one word in my letters of the manners, customs, curiosities, &c., of the places we see: because, first, I shall not have leisure; and next, because those things are so much better described in books already printed, written by persons who made stricter and better observations than I can pretend to make: so that what I shall write will relate only to our private selves, and shall be as brief as possible. If we are to do as Mr. B has it in his thoughts, he intends to be out of England two years-but how can I bear that, if for your sakes only, and for those of my dear babies! But this must be my time, my only time, Mr. B-tells me, to ramble and see distant places and coun tries; for he is pleased to say, That as soon as his little ones are capable of my instructions, and begin to understand my looks and signs, he will not spare me from them a week together; and he is so kind as to propose that my dear bold boy (for every one sees how greatly he resembles his papa in his dear forward spirit) shall go with us; and this pleases Miss Goodwin highly, who is very fond of him, and of my little Davers; but vows she will never love so well my pretty black-eyed Pamela. You see what a sweet girl miss is, and you admired her much did I tell you what she said to me, when first she saw you both, with your silver hairs and reverend countenances?-Madam, said she, I daresay your papa and mamma honoured their father and mother. They did, my dear; but what is your reason for saying so?-Because, replied she, they have lived so long in the land which the Lord their God has given them. I took the charmer in my arms, and kissed her three or four times, as she deserved; for was not this very pretty in the child? I must, with inexpressible pleasure, write you word how happily God's providence has now, at last, turned that affair which once made me so uneasy, in relation to the fine countess (who has been some time abroad) of whom you had heard, as you told me, some reports which, had you known at the time, would have made you very apprehensive for Mr. B's morals as well as for my repose. I will now (because I can do it with the highest pleasure, by reason of the event which it has produced) give you the particulars of that dark affair, so far as shall make you judges of my present joy: although I had hitherto avoided entering into that subject to you. For now I think myself, by God's grace, secure of the affection and fidelity of the best of husbands, and that from the worthiest motives; as you shall hear. There was but one thing wanting, my dear parents, to complete all the happiness I wished for in this life: and that was, the remote hope I had entertained that, one day my dear Mr. B, who from a licentious gentleman became a moralist, would be so touched by the Divine grace, as to become in time more than a moral, a religious man, and that he would at last join in the duties which he had the goodness to countenance. For this reason I began with mere indispensables. I crowded not his gate with objects of charity: I visited them at their homes, and relieved them; distinguishing the worthy indigent (made so by unavoidable accidents and casualties) from the wilfully, or perversely, or sottishly such, by greater marks of my favour. I confined my morning and evening devotions to my own closet, as privately as possible, lest I should give offence and discouragement to so gay a temper, so unaccustomed (poor gentleman) to acts of devotion and piety; while I met his household together, only on mornings and evenings of the Sabbath-day, to prepare them for their public duties in the one, and in hopes to confirm them in what they had heard at church in the other; leaving them to their own reflections for the rest of the week; after I had suggested to them a method I wished to be followed by themselves, and in which they constantly obliged me. This good order had its desired effect, and our Sabbath day assemblies were held with so little parade, that we were hardly any of us missed. All, in short, was done with cheerful ease and composure; and every one of us was better disposed to our domestic duties by this method: I, to attend the good pleasure of my best friend; and they, to attend that of us both. In this manner we went on very happily, my neighbourly visits of charity taking up no more time than common airings, and passing, many of them, for such; my private duties being only between my First, my Heavenly Benefactor, and myself, and my family ones (personally) confined to the day, separated for the best of services; and Mr. B, pleased with my manner, beheld the good effects, and countenanced me by his praises and his endearments, as acting discreetly, as not falling into enthusiasm, |