Say you so, my good Lord?—­But will you take upon you to say, supposing (as in the present case) a rape (saving your presence, cousin Charlotte, saving your presence, cousin Patty)—­Is death the natural consequence of a rape?—­Did you ever hear, my Lord, or did you, Ladies, that it was?—­ And if not the natural consequence, and a lady will destroy herself, whether by a lingering death, as of grief; or by the dagger, as Lucretia did; is there more than one fault the man’s?—­Is not the other her’s?—­ Were it not so, let me tell you, my dears, chucking each of my blushing cousins under the chin, we either would have had no men so wicked as young Tarquin was, or no women so virtuous as Lucretia, in the space of—­ How many thousand years, my Lord?—­And so Lucretia is recorded as a single wonder!

You may believe I was cried out upon.  People who cannot answer, will rave:  and this they all did.  But I insisted upon it to them, and so I do to you, Jack, that I ought to be acquitted of every thing but a common theft, a private larceny, as the lawyers call it, in this point.  And were my life to be a forfeit of the law, it would not be for murder.

Besides, as I told them, there was a circumstance strongly in my favour in this case:  for I would have been glad, with all my soul, to have purchased my forgiveness by a compliance with the terms I first boggled at.  And this, you all know, I offered; and my Lord, and Lady Betty, and Lady Sarah, and my two cousins, and all my cousins’ cousins, to the fourteenth generation, would have been bound for me—­But it would not do:  the sweet miser would break her heart, and die:  And how could I help it?

Upon the whole, Jack, had not the lady died, would there have been half so much said of it, as there is?  Was I the cause of her death? or could I help it?  And have there not been, in a million of cases like this, nine hundred and ninty-nine thousand that have not ended as this has ended?—­How hard, then, is my fate!—­Upon my soul, I won’t bear it as I have done; but, instead of taking guilt to myself, claim pity.  And this (since yesterday cannot be recalled) is the only course I can pursue to make myself easy.  Proceed anon.

LETTER XLII

Mr. Lovelace, to John Belford, Esq.

But what a pretty scheme of life hast thou drawn out for thyself and thy old widow!  By my soul, Jack, I was mightily taken with it.  There is but one thing wanting in it; and that will come of course:  only to be in the commission, and one of the quorum.  Thou art already provided with a clerk, as good as thou’lt want, in the widow Lovick; for thou understandest law, and she conscience:  a good Lord Chancellor between ye!  —­I should take prodigious pleasure to hear thee decide in a bastard case, upon thy new notions and old remembrances.