Must I be always, my dear cousin, under the necessity of performing the most disagreeable offices of friendship? Must I always, in the bitterness of my own heart, be giving affliction to yours, by cruel intelligence? Our sentiments, alas! are the same, and you are sensible I can give no new uneasiness to you which I have not first experienced myself. O that I could but conceal your misfortune without increasing it! or that a friendship like ours were not as binding as love! How readily might I throw off that chagrin I am now obliged to communicate. Last night, when the concert was over, and your mother and you were gone home, in company with your friend and Mr. Orbe, our two fathers and my Lord B—— were left to talk politics together; the disagreeableness of the subject, of which indeed I am quite surfeited, soon made me retire to my own chamber. In about half an hour, I heard the name of your friend repeated with some vehemence; on which I found the conversation had changed its subject, and therefore listened to it with some attention; when I gathered, by what followed, that his lordship had ventured to propose a match between you and your friend, whom he frankly called his, and on whom, as such, he offered to make a suitable settlement. Your father rejected the proposal with disdain, and upon that the conversation began to grow warm. "I must tell you sir, said my lord, that, notwithstanding your prejudices, he is of all men the most worthy of her, and perhaps the most likely to make her happy. He has received from nature every gift that is independent of the world; and has embellished them by all those talents, which depended on himself. He is young, tall, well-made, and ingenious: he has the advantages of education, sense, manners, and courage; he has a fine genius and a sound mind; what then does he require to make him worthy of your daughter? Is it a fortune? He shall have one. A third part of my own will make him the richest man of this country; nay, I will give him, if it be necessary, the half. Does he want a title? Ridiculous prerogative, in a country where nobility is more troublesome than useful! But, doubt it not, he is noble: not that his nobility is made out in writing upon an old parchment, but it is engraven in indelible characters on his heart. In a word if you prefer the dictates of reason and sense to groundless prejudices, and if you love your daughter better than empty titles, you will give her to him."
On this your father expressed himself in a violent passion: he treated the proposal as absurd and ridiculous. How! my lord! said he, is it possible a man of honour, as you are, can entertain such a thought, that the last surviving branch of an illustrious family should go to lose and degrade its name, in that of nobody knows who; a fellow without home, and reduced to subsist upon charity. Hold, sir, interrupted my lord, you are speaking of my friend; consider that I must take upon myself every injury done him in my company, and that such language as is injurious to a man of honour, is more so to him who makes use of it. Suchfellowsare more respectable than all the country squires in Europe; and I defy you to point out a more honourable way to fortune, than by excepting the debts of esteem, and the gifts of friendship. If my friend does not trace his descent, as you do, from a long and doubtful succession of ancestors, he will lay the foundation, and be the honour of his own house, as the first of your ancestors did that of yours. Can you think yourself dishonoured by your alliance to the head of your family, without falling under the contempt you have for him? How many great families would sink again into oblivion, if we respected only those which descended from truly respectable originals? Judge of the past by the present; for two or three honest citizens ennobled by virtuous means, a thousand knaves find every day the way to aggrandize themselves and families. But to what end serves that nobility, of which their descendants are so proud, unless it be to prove the injustice and infamy of their ancestors?[12]There are, I must confess, a great number of bad men among the common people; but the odds are always twenty to one against a gentleman, that he is descended from a rascal. Let us, if you will, set aside descent, and compare only merit and utility. You have borne arms in the service and pay of a foreign prince; his father fought without pay in the service of his country. If you have well served, you have been well paid; and, whatever honour you may have acquired by arms, a hundred Plebeians may have acquired still more.
In what consists the honour then, continued my lord, of that nobility of which you are so tenacious? How does it affect the glory of one's country or the good of mankind? A mortal enemy to liberty and the laws, what did it ever produce in most of those countries where it has flourished, but the rod of tyranny and the oppression of the people? Will you presume to boast, in a republic, of a rank that is destructive to virtue and humanity? Of a rank that makes its boast of slavery, and wherein men blush to be men? Read the annals of your own country; what have any of the nobility merited of her? Were any of her deliverers nobles? TheFursts, theTills, theStauffachers, were they gentlemen? What then is that absurd honour, about which you make so much noise?
Think, my dear, what I suffered to hear this respectable man thus injure, by an ill-concerted application, the cause of that friend whom he endeavoured to serve. Your father, being irritated by so many galling, though general invectives, strove to retort them by personal ones. He told his lordship plainly, that never any man of his condition talked in the manner he had done. Trouble not yourself to plead another's cause, added he roughly, honourable as you are, I doubt much if you could make your own good, on the subject in question. You demand my daughter for your pretended friend, without knowing whether you are yourself an equal match for her; and I know enough of the English nobility to entertain, from your discourse, a very indifferent opinion of yours.
To this his lordship answered; whatever you may think of me, sir, I should be very sorry to be able to give no other proof of my merit than the name of a man who died five hundred years ago. If you know the nobility of England, you know that it is the least prejudiced, best informed, most sensible, and bravest of all Europe; after which it is needless to ask whether it be the most ancient; for, when we talk of what is, we never mind what was. We are not, it is true, the slaves, but the friends of a prince; not the oppressors of a people, but their leaders. The guardians of liberty, the pillars of our country, and the support of the throne, we maintain an equilibrium between the people and the king. Our first regards are due to the nation, our second to him that governs: we consult not his will, but his just prerogative. Supreme judges in the house of peers, and sometimes legislators, we render equal justice to the king and people, and suffer no one to sayGod and my sword, but only God and my right.
Such, sir, continued he, is that respectable nobility with which you are unacquainted; as ancient as any other, but more proud of its merit than of its ancestors. I am one, not the lowest in rank of that illustrious order, and believe, whatever be your pretensions, that I am your equal in every respect. I have a sister unmarried; she is young, amiable, rich and in no wise inferior to Eloisa, except in those qualities which with you pass for nothing. Now, sir, if after being enamoured with your daughter, it were possible for any one to change the object of his affections and admire another, I should think it an honour to accept the man for my brother, though he had nothing, whom I propose to you for a son with half my estate.
I knew matters would be only aggravated by your father's reply; and, though I was struck with admiration at my Lord B——'s generosity, I saw plainly that he would totally ruin the negotiation he had undertaken. I went in, therefore, to prevent things from going farther. My entrance broke up the conversation, and immediately after they coldly took leave of each other, and parted. As to my father, he behaved very well in the dispute. At first he seconded the proposal; but, finding that yours would hear nothing of it, he took the side of his brother-in-law, and, by taking proper opportunities to moderate the contest, prevented them from going beyond those bounds they would certainly have trespassed, had they been alone. After their departure, he related to me what had happened; and, as I foresaw where his discourse would end, I readily told him, that things being in such a situation, it would be improper the person in question should see you so often here; and that it would be better for him not to come hither at all, if such an intimation would not be putting a kind of affront on Mr. Orbe, his friend; but that I should desire him to bring Lord B—— less frequently for the future. This, my dear, was the best I could do to prevent our door being entirely shut against him.
But this is not all. The crisis in which you stand at present obliges me to return to my former advice. The affair between my Lord B—— and your friend has made all the noise in town, which was natural to expect. For, though Mr. Orbe has kept the original cause of their quarrel a secret, the circumstances are too public, to suffer it to lie concealed. Every one has suspicions, makes conjectures, and some go so far as to name Eloisa. The report of the watch was not so totally suppressed but it is remembered; and you are not ignorant that, in the eye of the world, a bare suspicion of the truth is looked upon as evidence. All that I can say for your consolation is, that in general your choice is approved, and every body thinks with pleasure on the union of so charming a couple. This confirms me in the opinion that your friend has behaved himself well in this country, and is not less beloved than yourself. But what is the public voice to your inflexible father? All this talk has already reached, or will come to his ear; and I tremble to think of the effect it may produce, if you do not speedily take some measures to prevent his anger. You must expect from him an explanation terrible to yourself, and perhaps still worse for your friend. Not that I think, at his age, he will condescend to challenge a young man he thinks unworthy his sword: but the influence he has in the town will furnish him, if he has a mind to it, with a thousand means to stir up a party against him; and it is to be feared that his passion will be too ready to excite him to do it.
On my knees, therefore, I conjure you, my dear friend, to think on the dangers that surround you, and the terrible risk you run; which increases every moment. You have been extremely fortunate to escape hitherto, in the midst of such hazards; but, while it is yet time, I beg of you to let the veil of prudence be thrown over the secret of your amours; and not to push your fortune farther; lest it should involve in your misfortunes the man who has been the cause of them. Believe me, my dear, the future is uncertain, a thousand accidents may happen unexpectedly, in your favour; but, for the present, I have said and repeat it more earnestly, send away your friend, or you are undone.
This book comes from：m.funovel.com。