I think, I have broken through one delicacy, in consenting to correspond with this lady. She should not have asked it. I never knew a pain of so par-ticular a nature as this lady (a not ungenerous, though a rash one) has given me. My very heart recoils, Dr. Bartlett, at the thought of a denial of marriage to a woman expecting the otter whom delicacy has not quite forsaken.

But a word or two more on this subject of presents. When the whole family at Bologna were so earnestly solicitous to shew their gratitude to me by some permanent token, I had once the thought of asking for their Clementina’s picture in miniature: but as I was never to think of her as mine, and as, probably, my picture, if but for politeness sake, would have been asked for in exchange, I was afraid of cherishing, by that means, in her mind, the ten-der ideas of our past friendship, and thereby of making the work of her parents difficult. And do they not the more excusably hope to succeed in their views, as they think their success will be a means to secure health of mind to their child? But if they visit me in England, I will then request the pictures of the whole family, in one large piece, for the principal ornament of Grandison-hall.

By what Olivia says, of designs on my liberty, I believe she means to indlude the attempt made upon me at Florence; which I hinted at in my last, and supposed to come from that quarter. What she would have done with me, had the attempt succeed-ed, I cannot imagine. I should not have wished to have been the subject of so romantic an adventure A prisoner to a lady in her castle! She is cer-tainly one of the most enterprising women in Italy; and her temper is too well seconded by her power. She would not, however, in that case, have had re-course to fatal acts of violence. Once, you know, she had thoughts of exciting against me the holy tribunal: but I was upon such a foot, as a traveller, and as an English protcstant, though avowed, not behaving indiscreetly, that I had friends enow, even in the Sacred College, to have rendered ineffectual any steps of that sort. And after all, her machinations were but transitory ones, and, the moment she saw me, given over.

My first enquiry, after my arrival here, was after my poor cousin Grandison. My poor cousin, indeed! What a spiritless figure does he make! I remember you once said, That it was more difficult for a man to behave well in prosperity, than in adversity: but the man who will prove the observation to be true, must not be one, who, by his own extravagance and vice, has reduced himself, from an affluence to which he was born, to penury, at ‘least to a state of obligation and dependence. Good God! that a man should be so infatuated, as to put on the cast of a dye, the estate of which he is in unquestioned possession from his ancestors! Yet who will say, that he who hopes to win what belongs to another, does not deserve to lose his own?