I am sure he has no reason however to slight me as he does.  He may and will be the better for me, if he outlives me; though he once told me to my face, that I might do as I would with my estate; for that he, for his part, loved his liberty as much as he despised money.  And at another time, twitting me with my phrases, that the man was above controul, who wanted not either to borrow or flatter.  He thought, I suppose, that I could not cover him with my wings, without pecking at him with my bill; though I never used to be pecking at him, without very great occasion:  and, God knows, he might have my very heart, if he would but endeavour to oblige me, by studying his own good; for that is all I desire of him.  Indeed, it was his poor mother that first spoiled him; and I have been but too indulgent to him since.  A fine grateful disposition, you’ll say, to return evil for good! but that was always his way.  It is a good saying, and which was verified by him with a witness—­Children when little, make their parents fools; when great, mad.  Had his parents lived to see what I have seen of him, they would have been mad indeed.

This match, however, as the lady has such an extraordinary share of wisdom and goodness, might set all to rights; and if you can forward it, I would enable him to make whatever settlements he could wish; and should not be unwilling to put him in possession of another pretty estate besides.  I am no covetous man, he knows.  And, indeed, what is a covetous man to be likened to so fitly, as to a dog in a wheel which roasts meat for others?  And what do I live for, (as I have often said,) but to see him and my two nieces well married and settled.  May Heaven settle him down to a better mind, and turn his heart to more of goodness and consideration!

If the delays are on his side, I tremble for the lady; and, if on hers, (as he tells my niece Charlotte,) I could wish she were apprized that delays are dangerous.  Excellent as she is, she ought not to depend on her merits with such a changeable fellow, and such a profest marriage-hater, as he has been.  Desert and reward, I can assure her, seldom keep company together.

But let him remember, that vengeance though it comes with leaden feet, strikes with iron hands.  If he behaves ill in this case, he may find it so.  What a pity it is, that a man of his talents and learning should be so vile a rake!  Alas! alas!  Une poignee de bonne vie vaut mieux que plein muy de clergee; a handful of good life is better than a whole bushel of learning.

You may throw in, too, as a friend, that, should he provoke me, it may not be too late for me to marry.  My old friend Wycherly did so, when he was older than I am, on purpose to plague his nephew:  and, in spite of this gout, I might have a child or two still.  I have not been without some thoughts that way, when he has angered me more than ordinary:  but these thoughts have gone off again hitherto, upon my considering, that the children of very young and very old men (though I am not so very old neither) last not long; and that old men, when they marry young women, are said to make much of death:  Yet who knows but that matrimony might be good against the gouty humours I am troubled with?