Let me once more entreat thee, Lovelace, to reflect, before it be too late (before the mortal offence be given) upon the graces and merits of this lady.  Let thy frequent remorses at last end in one effectual remorse.  Let not pride and wantonness of heart ruin the fairer prospects.  By my faith, Lovelace, there is nothing but vanity, conceit, and nonsense, in our wild schemes.  As we grow older, we shall be wiser, and looking back upon our foolish notions of the present hour, (our youth dissipated,) shall certainly despise ourselves when we think of the honourable engagements we might have made:  thou, more especially, if thou lettest such a matchless creature slide through thy fingers.  A creature pure from her cradle.  In all her actions and sentiments uniformly noble.  Strict in the performance of all her even unrewarded duties to the most unreasonable of fathers; what a wife will she make the man who shall have the honour to call her his!

What apprehensions wouldst thou have had reason for, had she been prevailed upon by giddy or frail motives, for which one man, by importunity, might prevail, as well as another?

We all know what an inventive genius thou art master of:  we are all sensible, that thou hast a head to contrive, and a heart to execute.  Have I not called thine the plotting’st heart in the universe?  I called it so upon knowledge.  What woulds’t thou more?  Why should it be the most villainous, as well as the most able?—­Marry the lady; and, when married, let her know what a number of contrivances thou hadst in readiness to play off.  Beg of her not to hate thee for the communication; and assure her, that thou gavest them up for remorse, and in justice to her extraordinary merit:  and let her have the opportunity of congratulating herself for subduing a heart so capable of what thou callest glorious mischief.  This will give her room for triumph; and even thee no less:  she, for hers over thee; thou, for thine over thyself.

Reflect likewise upon her sufferings for thee.  Actually at the time thou art forming schemes to ruin her, (at least in her sense of the word,) is she not labouring under a father’s curse laid upon her by thy means, and for thy sake? and wouldst thou give operation and completion to that curse, which otherwise cannot have effect?

And what, Lovelace, all the time is thy pride?—­Thou that vainly imaginest that the whole family of the Harlowes, and that of the Howes too, are but thy machines, unknown to themselves, to bring about thy purposes, and thy revenge, what art thou more, or better, than the instrument even of her implacable brother, and envious sister, to perpetuate the disgrace of the most excellent of sisters, to which they are moved by vilely low and sordid motives?—­Canst thou bear, Lovelace, to be thought the machine of thy inveterate enemy James Harlowe?—­Nay, art thou not the cully of that still viler Joseph Leman, who serves himself as much by thy money, as he does thee by the double part he acts by thy direction?—­And further still, art thou not the devil’s agent, who only can, and who certainly will, suitably reward thee, if thou proceedest, and if thou effectest thy wicked purpose?