* That the Lady judges rightly of him in this place, see Vol.  I. Letter XXXIV. where, giving the motive for his generosity to his Rosebud, he says—­’As I make it my rule, whenever I have committed a very capital enormity, to do some good by way of atonement; and as I believe I am a pretty deal indebted on that score; I intend to join an hundred pounds to Johnny’s aunt’s hundred pounds, to make one innocent couple happy.’—­ Besides which motive, he had a further view in answer in that instance of his generosity; as may be seen in Vol.  II.  Letters XXVI.  XXVII.  XXVIII.  See also the note, Vol.  II. pp. 170, 171.

To show the consistence of his actions, as they now appear, with his views and principles, as he lays them down in his first letters, it may be not amiss to refer the reader to his letters, Vol.  I. No.  XXXIV.  XXXV.

See also Vol.  I. Letter XXX.—­and Letter XL. for Clarissa’s early opinion of Mr. Lovelace.—­Whence the coldness and indifference to him, which he so repeatedly accuses her of, will be accounted for, more to her glory, than to his honour.

O my dear! what a lot have I drawn! pride, this poor man’s virtue; and revenge, his other predominating quality!—­This one consolation, however, remains:—­He is not an infidel, and unbeliever:  had he been an infidel, there would have been no room at all for hope of him; (but priding himself, as he does, in his fertile invention) he would have been utterly abandoned, irreclaimable, and a savage.

[When she comes to relate those occasions, which Mr. Lovelace in his narrative acknowledges himself to be affected by, she thus expresses herself:]

He endeavoured, as once before, to conceal his emotion.  But why, my dear, should these men (for Mr. Lovelace is not singular in this) think themselves above giving these beautiful proofs of a feeling heart?  Were it in my power again to choose, or to refuse, I would reject the man with contempt, who sought to suppress, or offered to deny, the power of being visibly affected upon proper occasions, as either a savage-hearted creature, or as one who was so ignorant of the principal glory of the human nature, as to place his pride in a barbarous insensibility.

These lines translated from Juvenal by Mr. Tate, I have been often pleased with: 

Compassion proper to mankind appears: 
Which Nature witness’d, when she lent us tears. 
Of tender sentiments we only give
These proofs:  To weep is our prerogative: 
To show by pitying looks, and melting eyes,
How with a suff’ring friend we sympathise. 
Who can all sense of other ills escape,
Is but a brute at best, in human shape.

It cannot but yield me some pleasure, hardly as I have sometimes thought of the people of the house, that such a good man as Captain Tomlinson had spoken well of them, upon inquiry.

And here I stop a minute, my dear, to receive, in fancy, your kind congratulation.