LETTER XLI MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ. TUESDAY, SEPT. 26.
Fate, I believe, in my conscience, spins threads for tragedies, on purpose for thee to weave with.--Thy Watford uncle, poor Belton, the fair inimitable, [exalted creature! and is she to be found in such a list!] the accursed woman, and Tomlinson, seemed to have been all doomed to give thee a theme for the dismal and the horrible;--and, by my soul, that thou dost work it going, as Lord M. would phrase it.
That's the horrid thing, a man cannot begin to think, but causes for thought crowd in upon him; the gloomy takes place, and mirth and gaiety abandon his heard for ever!
Poor M'Donald!--I am really sorry for the fellow.--He was an useful, faithful, solemn varlet, who could act incomparably any part given him, and knew not what a blush was.--He really took honest pains for me in the last affair; which has cost him and me so dearly in reflection. Often gravelled, as we both were, yet was he never daunted.--Poor M'Donald! I must once more say:--for carrying on a solemn piece of roguery, he had no equal.
I was so solicitous to know if he were really as bad as thou hast a knack of painting every body whom thou singlest out to exercise thy murdering pen upon, that I dispatched a man and horse to Maidstone, as soon as I had thine; and had word brought me, that he died in two hours after he had received thy five guineas. And all thou wrotest of his concern, in relation to the ever-dear Miss Harlowe, it seems was true.
I can't help it, Belford!--I have only to add, that it is happy that the poor fellow lived not to be hanged; as it seems he would have been; for who knows, as he had got into such a penitential strain, what might have been in his dying speech?
When a man has not great good to comfort himself with, it is right to make the best of the little that may offer. There never was any discomfort happened to mortal man, but some little ray of consolation would dart in, if the wretch was not so much a wretch, as to draw, instead of undraw, the curtain, to keep it out.
And so much, at this time, and for ever, for poor Capt. Tomlinson, as I called him.
Your solicitude to get me out of this heavy changeable climate exactly tallies with every body's here. They all believe that travelling will establish me. Yet I think I am quite well. Only these plaguy news and fulls, and the equinoctals, fright me a little when I think of them; and that is always: for the whole family are continually ringing these changes in my ears, and are more sedulously intent, than I can well account for, to get me out of the kingdom.
But wilt thou write often, when I am gone? Wilt thou then piece the thread where thou brokest it off? Wilt thou give me the particulars of their distress, who were my auxiliaries in bringing on the event that affects me?--Nay, principals rather: Since, say what thou wilt, what did I do worth a woman's breaking her heart for?
Faith and troth, Jack, I have had very hard usage, as I have often said: --to have such a plaguy ill name given me, screamed out upon, run away from, as a mad dog would be; all my own friends ready to renounce me!-- Yet I think I deserve it all; for have I not been as ready to give up myself, as others are to condemn me?
What madness, what folly, this!--Who will take the part of a man that condemns himself?--Who can?--He that pleads guilty to an indictment, leaves no room for aught but the sentence. Out upon me, for an impolitical wretch! I have not the art of the least artful of any of our Christian princes; who every day are guilty of ten times worse breaches of faith; and yet, issuing out a manifesto, they wipe their mouths, and go on from infraction to infraction, from robbery to robbery; commit devastation upon devastation; and destroy--for their glory! And are rewarded with the names of conquerors, and are dubbed Le Grand; praised, and even deified, by orators and poets, for their butcheries and depredations.