* See Vol.  VII.  Letter XXVIII.

Mr. Belford then excuses Mr. Lovelace as a good-natured man with all his faults; and gives instances of his still greater freedoms with himself.

To this Mr. Hickman answers, in his letter of the 18th: 

’As to Mr. Lovelace’s treatment of me in the letter you are pleased to mention, I shall not be concerned at it, whatever it be.  I went to him prepared to expect odd behaviour from him; and was not disappointed.  I argue to myself, in all such cases as this, as Miss Howe, from her ever-dear friend, argues, That if the reflections thrown upon me are just, I ought not only to forgive them, but endeavour to profit by them; if unjust, that I ought to despise them, and the reflector too, since it would be inexcusable to strengthen by anger an enemy whose malice might be disarmed by contempt.  And, moreover, I should be almost sorry to find myself spoken well of by a man who could treat, as he treated, a lady who was an ornament to her sex and to human nature.

’I thank you, however, Sir, for your consideration for me in this particular, and for your whole letter, which gives me so desirable an instance of the friendship which you assured me of when I was last in town; and which I as cordially embrace as wish to cultivate.’

Miss Howe, in her’s of the 20th, acknowledging the receipt of the letters, and papers, and legacies, sent with Mr. Belford’s letter to Mr. Hickman, assures him, ’That no use shall be made of his communications, but what he shall approve of.’

He had mentioned, with compassion, the distresses of the Harlowe family—­ ’Persons of a pitiful nature, says she, may pity them.  I am not one of those.  You, I think, pity the infernal man likewise; while I, from my heart, grudge him his phrensy, because it deprives him of that remorse, which, I hope, in his recovery, will never leave him.  At times, Sir, let me tell you, that I hate your whole sex for his sake; even men of unblamable characters, whom, at those times, I cannot but look upon as persons I have not yet found out.

’If my dear creature’s personal jewels be sent up to you for sale, I desire that I may be the purchaser of them, at the highest price—­of the necklace and solitaire particularly.

’Oh! what tears did the perusal of my beloved’s will cost me!—­But I must not touch upon the heart-piercing subject.  I can neither take it up, nor quit it, but with execration of the man whom all the world must execrate.’

Mr. Belford, in his answer, promises that she shall be the purchaser of the jewels, if they come into his hands.

He acquaints her that the family had given Colonel Morden the keys of all that belonged to the dear departed; that the unhappy mother had (as the will allows) ordered a piece of needlework to be set aside for her, and had desired Mrs. Norton to get the little book of meditations transcribed, and to let her have the original, as it was all of her dear daughter’s hand-writing; and as it might, when she could bear to look into it, administer consolation to herself.  And that she had likewise reserved for herself her picture in the Vandyke taste.