To Colonel Bellville.
Belmont, Thursday.
IL divino Enrico is a little in the Penseroso.
Poor Harry! I am charmed
with his sensibility; he has scarce been himself
since he parted with his father yesterday.
He apologizes for his chagrin; but
says, no man on earth has such obligations
to a parent. Entre nous, I fancy I know
some few sons who would be of a different
way of thinking: the Colonel has literally
governed his conduct by the old adage,
that "Learning is better than house and
land;" for, as his son's learning advanced,
his houses and lands melted away, or at
least would have done, had it not been
for his mother's fortune, every shilling
of which, with half the profits of his
estate, he expended on Harry's education,
who certainly wants only ten thousand
pounds a year to be the most charming
young fellow in the universe. Well, he
must e'en make the most of his perfections,
and endeavour to marry a fortune, on
which subject I have a kind of a glimpse
of a design, and fancy my friend Harry has
not quite so great a contempt of money as
I imagined.
You must know then, (a pretty phrase
that, but to proceed) you must know, that
we accompanied Colonel Mandeville fifteen
miles; and, after dining together at
an inn, he took the road to his regiment,
and we were returning pensive and silent
to Belmont, when my Lord, to remove the
tender melancholy we all caught from
Harry, proposed a visit at Mr. Westbrook's,
a plump, rich, civil, cit, whose house we
must of necessity pass. As my Lord despises
wealth, and Mr. Westbrook's genealogy in
the third generation loses itself in a livery
stable, he has always avoided an intimacy,
which the other has as studiously fought;
but, as it is not in his nature to treat any
body with ill-breeding, he has suffered their
visits, though he has been slow in returning
them; and has sometimes invited the daughter
to a ball.
The lady wife, who is a woman of
great erudition, and is at present intirely
lost to the world, all her faculties being on
the rack composing a treatise against the
immortality of the soul, sent down an apology;
and we were entertained by Mademoiselle
la Fille, who is little, lean, brown,
with small pert black eyes, quickened by a
large quantity of abominable bad rouge:
she talks incessantly, has a great deal of city
vivacity, and a prodigious passion for people
of a certain rank, a phrase of which she is
peculiarly fond. Her mother being above
the little vulgar cares of a family, or so unimportant
a task as the education of an only
child; she was early entrusted to a French
chamber-maid, who, having left her own
country on account of a Faux Pas which had
visible consequences, was appointed to instill
the principles of virtue and politeness into
the flexible mind of this illustrious heiress
of the house of Westbrook, under the title
of governess. My information of this
morning further says, that, by the cares of
this accomplished person, she acquired a
competent, though incorrect, knowledge
of the French language; with cunning,
dissimulation, assurance, and a taste for
gallantry; to which if you add a servile
passion for quality, and an oppressive insolence
to all, however worthy, who want
that wealth which she owes to her father's
skill in Change-Alley, you will have an idea
of the bride I intend for Harry Mandeville.
Methinks I hear you exclaim: "Heavens!
what a conjunction!" 'Tis might well, but
people must live, and there is 80,000
l. attached
to this animal; and, if the girl likes
him, I don't see what he can do better, with
birth, and a habit of profuse expence, which
he has so little to support. She sung, for
the creature sings, a tender Italian air, which
she addressed to Harry in a manner and
with a look, that convinces me her stile is
l'amorose, and that Harry is the present object.
After the song, I surprised him talking
low to her, and pressing her hand, whilst we
were all admiring an India cabinet; and, on
seeing he was observed, he left her with an
air of conscious guilt, which convinces me he
intends to follow the pursuit, and is at the
same time ashamed of his purpose. Poor
fellow! I pity him; but marriage is his
only card. I'll put the matter forward, and
make my lord invite her to the next ball.
Don't you think I am a generous creature,
to sacrifise the man I love to his own good?
When shall I see one of your selfish sex so
disinterested? No, you men have absolutely
no idea of sentiment.
Adio! A. Wilmot.
