Of all men breathing, I should have been most afraid of you as a rival; Mrs. Fitzgerald has told me, you have said the same thing of me.

Happily, however, our tastes were different; the two amiable objects of our tenderness were perhaps equally lovely; but it is not the meer form, it is the character that strikes:  the fire, the spirit, the vivacity, the awakened manner, of Miss Fermor won you; whilst my heart was captivated by that bewitching languor, that seducing softness, that melting sensibility, in the air of my sweet Emily, which is, at least to me, more touching than all the sprightliness in the world.

There is in true sensibility of soul, such a resistless charm, that we are even affected by that of which we are not ourselves the object:  we feel a degree of emotion at being witness to the affection which another inspires.

’Tis late, and my horses are at the door.

      Adieu!  Your faithful
          Ed. Rivers.

LETTER 180.

To Miss Montague, Rose-hill, Berkshire.

Temple-house, Sept. 16.

I have but a moment, my dearest Emily, to tell you heaven favors your tenderness:  it removes every anxiety from two of the worthiest and most gentle of human hearts.

You and my brother have both lamented to me the painful necessity you were under, of reducing my mother to a less income than that to which she had been accustomed.

An unexpected event has restored to her more than what her tenderness for my brother had deprived her of.

A relation abroad, who owed every thing to her father’s friendship, has sent her, as an acknowledgement of that friendship, a deed of gift, settling on her four hundred pounds a year for life.

My brother is at Stamford, and is yet unacquainted with this agreable event.

You will hear from him next post.

      Adieu! my dear Emily! 
        Your affectionate
          L. Temple.

END OF VOL.  III.

THE HISTORY OF EMILY MONTAGUE.

Vol.  IV

LETTER 181.

To Colonel Rivers, at Bellfield, Rutland.

Rose-hill, Sept. 17.

Can you in earnest ask such a question? can you suppose I ever felt the least degree of love for Sir George?  No, my Rivers, never did your Emily feel tenderness till she saw the loveliest, the most amiable of his sex, till those eyes spoke the sentiments of a soul every idea of which was similar to her own.

Yes, my Rivers, our souls have the most perfect resemblance:  I never heard you speak without finding the feelings of my own heart developed; your conversation conveyed your Emily’s ideas, but cloathed in the language of angels.