 theirs.

That I may hasten through this epistle sir—for I have a good deal to say—I am willing, unfashionable as it may be at our house, to do you poetical justice; not however in the style of your good friends here, who, finding you in danger of your life, think—in imitation of ARISTOTLE, RICHARDSON, and the barber's uncle in Gil Blas—that they cannot excite in you too much terror.
This candour in me does not proceed from any weak compassion, but from a fair revisal of your actions at the time they passed under my observation: and I do not think that charity authorises me to look farther, at least with a severe eye.
Abiding by this mode of decision, common justice obliges me to say that all your mad freaks here, which I would not have given a farthing for you if you had been without, originated from worthy motives. Musquito, Ego, and even Toogood smarted, it is true, but they highly merited their punishment, and the lash was held by the hand of justice; but think ye they forgot it in your absence? Oh no: scurvy fellows as they are. Thank heaven, however, the worst of your enemies cannot give a bad motive to your conduct

in a certain instance. Yet there are some who compare you to Lovelace, and call your treatment of Jude
"sparing your rosebud:"
—charming young man as you were, and I will believe are.

Judy daily blesses you, poor girl, and joins with me to pray for the hard hearts that are set against you. Your behaviour as to her began, continued, and ended critically right, and her virtue, as it ought, was rewarded in the catastrophe; nor can a soul capable of such an act indulge a single principle that could dictate such dreadful crimes as we are all commanded to believe against you.
As for my part, I have read so much that human nature is a thing I am pretty well versed in. I must beg leave therefore to use my own proper intellects, rather than those of others; for though I am devoted to Sir Sidney, yet I am more so to truth and honour: and these wih not let me see why nature should perform a miracle, by turning all those excellent gifts she had afforded you into diabolical ones, merely for the gratification of your enemies, and commiting a breach of promise, which she was never known in any other instance to do.

Your father was certainly greatly shocked at not hearing from you; but if we do not admit all the rest, why should we
