See Letter 127 and Letter 128. ↩
See Letter 128. ↩
See Letter 110. ↩
See Letter 109. ↩
See Letter 131. ↩
See Letter 155. See also Letter 155. ↩
See Letter 130. ↩
Mr. Belford, in Letter 222 reminds Mr. Lovelace of some particular topics which passed in their conversation, extremely to the Lady’s honour. ↩
See Letter 222 above referred to. ↩
See Letter 115 Paragr. 4. ↩
See Letter 143 Paragr. 9. ↩
Phyl-tits, q. d. Phyllis-tits, in opposition to Tom-tits. It needs not now be observed, that Mr. Lovelace, in this wanton gaiety of his heart, often takes liberties of coining words and phrases in his letters to this his familiar friend. See his ludicrous reason for it in Letter 117. Paragr. antepenult. ↩
See Letter 144. ↩
See Letter 100. ↩
See Letter 158. ↩
Clarissa proposes Mr. Hickman to write for Miss Howe. See Letter 165, Paragr. 5, & ult. ↩
See Letter 173. ↩
See Letter 120. ↩
We cannot forbear observing in this place, that the Lady has been particularly censured, even by some of her own sex, as overnice in her part of the above conversations: but surely this must be owing to want of attention to the circumstances she was in, and to her character, as well as to the character of the man she had to deal with: for, although she could not be supposed to know so much of his designs as the reader does by means of his letters to Belford, yet she was but too well convinced of his faulty morals, and of the necessity there was, from the whole of his behaviour to her, to keep such an encroacher, as she frequently calls him, at a distance. In Letter 125 the reader will see, that upon some favourable appearances she blames herself for her readiness to suspect him. But his character, his principles
, said she, are so faulty!—He is so light, so vain, so various.—Then, my dear, I have no guardian to depend upon.
In Letter 125 Must I not with such a man
, says she, be wanting to myself, were I not jealous and vigilant?
By this time the reader will see, that she had still greater reason for her jealousy and vigilance. And Lovelace will tell the sex, as he does in Letter 220, that the woman who resents not initiatory freedoms, must be lost. Love is an encroacher
, says he: loves never goes backward. Nothing but the highest act of love can satisfy
an indulged love.
But the reader perhaps is too apt to form a judgment of Clarissa’s conduct in critical cases by Lovelace’s complaints of her coldness; not considering his views upon her; and that she is proposed as an example; and therefore in her trials and distresses must not be allowed to dispense with those rules which perhaps some others of the sex, in her delicate situation, would not have thought themselves so strictly bound to observe; although, if she had not observed them, a Lovelace would have carried all his points. ↩
See Letter 175. ↩
See Letter 171. ↩
See Letter 110. ↩
See Letter 177. ↩
See Letter 188. ↩
See Letter 188. ↩
See Letter 156. ↩
See Letter 164. ↩
See Letter 166. ↩
See Letter 177. ↩
See Letter 183. ↩
See Letter 188. ↩
She tells Miss Howe, that she saw this motion in the pier-glass. See Letter 187. ↩
See Letter 196. ↩
See Letter 164, Parag. 2. ↩
Within these few years past, a passage has been made from the prison to the sessions-house, whereby malefactors are carried into court without going through the street. Lovelace’s triumph on their supposed march shows the wisdom of this alteration. ↩
Pliny gives this account, putting the number of men slain at 1,100,092. See also Lipsius de Constandia. ↩
See Letter 183. ↩
See Letter 196. ↩
See Letter 188. ↩
See Letter 173, & seq. ↩
See Letter 204. ↩
See Letter 173. See also Mr. Lovelace’s own confession of the delight he takes in a woman’s tears, in different parts of his letters. ↩
That the Lady judges rightly of him in this place, see Letter 34 where, giving the motive for his generosity to his Rosebud, he
