Nor, I verily think, can thy own penitence and reformation hold.  Strong habits are not so easily rooted out.  Old Satan has had too much benefit from thy faithful services, for a series of years, to let thee so easily get out of his clutches.  He knows what will do with thee.  A fine strapping Bona Roba, in the Charters-taste, but well-limbed, clear-complexioned, and Turkish-eyed; thou the first man with her, or made to believe so, which is the same thing; how will thy frosty face be illuminated by it!  A composition will be made between thee and the grand tempter:  thou wilt promise to do him suit and service till old age and inability come.  And then will he, in all probability, be sure of thee for ever.  For, wert thou to outlive thy present reigning appetites, he will trump up some other darling sin, or make a now secondary one darling, in order to keep thee firmly attached to his infernal interests.  Thou wilt continue resolving to amend, but never amending, till, grown old before thou art aware, (a dozen years after thou art old with every body else,) thy for-time-built tenement having lasted its allotted period, he claps down upon thy grizzled head the universal trap-door:  and then all will be over with thee in his own way.

Thou wilt think these hints uncharacteristic from me.  But yet I cannot help warning thee of the danger thou art actually in; which is the greater, as thou seemst not to know it.  A few words more, therefore, on this subject.

Thou hast made good resolutions.  If thou keepest them not, thou wilt never be able to keep any.  But, nevertheless, the devil and thy time of life are against thee:  and six to one thou failest.  Were it only that thou hast resolved, six to one thou failest.  And if thou dost, thou wilt become the scoff of men, and the triumph of devils.—­Then how will I laugh at thee!  For this warning is not from principle.  Perhaps I wish it were:  but I never lied to man, and hardly ever said truth to woman.  The firs is what all free-livers cannot say:  the second what every one can.

I am mad again, by Jupiter!—­But, thank my stars, not gloomily so!—­ Farewell, farewell, farewell, for the third or fourth time, concludes

Thy
Lovelace.

I believe Charlotte and you are in private league together.  Letters, I
      find, have passed between her and you, and Lord M. I have been
      kept strangely in the dark of late; but will soon break upon you
      all, as the sun upon a midnight thief.

Remember that you never sent me the copy of my beloved’s will.

LETTER XL

Mr. Belford, to Robert Lovelace, Esq. 
Friday, Sept. 22.

Just as I was sitting down to answer your’s of the 14th to the 18th, in order to give you all the consolation in my power, came your revoking letter of Wednesday.