THK 
 
 TOUCH-STONE OF TRUTH ; 
 
 UNITING 
 
 Mr. SWIFT'S LATE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 WITH 
 
 THE REV. DOCTOR DOBBIN, 
 AND HIS FAMILY-, 
 
 AND 
 
 THE DETAILED ACCOUNT 
 
 OF 
 
 THEIR SUBSEQUENT CHALLENGE 
 AND IMPOSTURE. 
 
 THIRD EDITION: ' 
 
 ENLARGED WITH SEVERAL NEW REMARKS AND OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 By THEOPHILUS SWIFT, Esq. 
 
 Jubent renovarc dolorem. ViRG. 
 
 jDufalm : 
 
 1811. 
 
INTRODUCTION^ 
 
 TO THE FIRST EDITION. 
 
 ■ , i ■ i » v » '••! 
 
 1 > # > ■ > » • 
 
 OEVERAL of my friends having kindly in- 
 terested themselves in my late correspondence 
 with the family to whom these papers refer ; 
 and having also requested me to furnish them 
 with copies of it ; I have been induced, in order 
 to oblige them, and at the same time to justify 
 myself to those whose good opinion I esteem 
 and value, to direct a small edition of the Let- 
 ters to be struck off. I found the labour of 
 repeated transcripts immense, and not unoften 
 attended with oscitancy and incorrectness. 
 That inconvenience is removed by the fair and 
 perfect copies now presented to my respected 
 friends, before whom I judged it necessary to 
 lay the entire of the correspondence; that by 
 taking a comprehensive view of the whole, they 
 might the better be enabled to draw a full and 
 equitable conclusion. 
 
 Letters are their own expositors, and often 
 speak more eloquently, and more to the pur- 
 pose, than the best-written comment. For 
 which reason, I shall only observe on the pre- 
 A % 
 
 M41997 
 
sent correspondence, that the Rev. Doctor 
 Dobbin and his family are the subject of it ; 
 that they refused in the most positive and perti- 
 nacious manner, to give up any of my numerous 
 Letters co Miss Emily Dobbin; those solemn 
 documents, by which that Lady and myself had 
 stood bound to each other in a Contract of Pro- 
 spective Marriage ; — that although repeatedly 
 called upon, they never once disavowed such 
 Contract, or disputed its validity j and, therefore, 
 that their acquiescence and tenacious, detention 
 of the proofs, are strong admissions of their 
 own to my claim on the Honor of Miss Dob- 
 bin ; and have established that claim in as per- 
 fect a manner as the production itself of the 
 Contract could have done.* Though not the 
 
 * Doctor Dobbin, when pressed for a reason, why such 
 resistance was made to the return of my Letlers ? an- 
 swered, *< Should Mr. Swift g«t possession of the Letters, 
 he will avail himself of them, and publish. " It was not 
 quite certain that I would; but it shews how much he 
 feared it. By this observation, however, he admits that 
 advantage could be* taken of the Letters ; and that their 
 publication might disclose some unpleasant truth. What that 
 truth was, there needs no ghost to tell us. They had discovered, 
 that with the accidental copy of a solitary Letter, found among 
 my papers,* I had made good the very thing they had stu- 
 died to avoid — My claim on the Honor of Miss Dobbin, They 
 had discovered also, that a second demonstration would be 
 worse that the first. Yet, gifted as the family are allowed to be, 
 with great Talents, both natural and acquired ; and challenged 
 as I had been by one of them to a literary combat ; there was 
 
 * See Appendix t No. IV. 
 
5 
 
 whole of my case, it forms an important part 
 of it ; and my friends are requested to keep it 
 in their mind. I would not reproach the un- 
 happy family, or bear hard upon them. Their 
 unkind ness I remit, and have no wish to revive 
 it; or if revived it must be, in justification, 
 only of my own honor, and I trust its yet un- 
 questioned purity. Hand ignarus mali> I will 
 not pay them in their own evil. The present 
 Introduction hath no such object, being in- 
 tended merely to throw such light on their de- 
 portment toward me, as may guide my friends 
 to a clearer understanding of the matter con- 
 not found amongst them one gifted with the power of repel- 
 ling the proofs adduced from that solitary Letter ; or of re- 
 sisting any one of the arguments I had employed as evidence 
 of the Contract. They wisely therefore answered it by 
 Silence : (see Letters IV*. and V.) and in so doing gave a 
 strong proof of their good understanding. Had they an- 
 swered me with the Letters, and that I had confronted 
 them with some of Miss Dobbin's own to myself— which 
 yet ihey ought to have known I had too much honour to do— 
 the veil would have been rent, and I had pinned them to the 
 point. There was no middle way for them. Nozv indeed, 
 they have not much to apprehend: I have voluntarily and 
 honorably placed them beyond the reacn of exposure, Miss 
 Dobbin and myself having mutually cancelled our respec- 
 tive records of the Contract. An appeal therefore to her 
 own Honor is all that is left me. That appeal I now solemnly 
 make ; and, should she ever cast her eye over this page, I 
 ask Herself What dependence hath any man upon the woman 
 contracted to him, but her honok ? 
 
6 
 
 iained in the Correspondence. Had I conceived, 
 indeed, that my Letters were destined to appear 
 in their present form, or that they would ever 
 have become an object of interest to my friends, 
 I should have composed them in a fuller and 
 more explicit manner 3 but being wholly of a 
 private nature, and addressed to those who 
 were familiar with the circumstances, I had 
 little necessity to be minute, or to travel out of 
 the broad path. In some places, however, I 
 have judged it expedient, for the better infor- 
 mation of my friends, to cast into a note such 
 explanations as the text seemed to require ; but 
 of these I have been very sparing, being un- 
 willing to draw the reader's attention from the 
 Letters themselves, on which alone it is my 
 wish that my friends should form their judg- 
 ment. Hut at the end of some of the Letters, 
 when the reader might be supposed to pause 
 or reflect, I have Ventured an occasional re T 
 mark or two, either to illustrate some general 
 fact, or to state an observation resulting from it. 
 
 And here I t?±e the opportunity of request- 
 ing my respected friends to understand, that be 
 the unkindness what it may that I have received 
 from the family, nothing contained in these 
 papers is intended to express the slightest dis- 
 respect toward the Lady, who for so many years 
 had possessed my entire confidence and esteem, 
 and for whom 1 had entertained the most ex- 
 alted affection. 
 
I have likewise to add, that on an attentive 
 perusal of the Letters, my friends will have the 
 goodness to observe, that in a perilous and pi- 
 tiless voyage of conflicting elements, Fidelity 
 had been my Compass; and that through a long 
 and cheerless night of sorrow and darkness, I 
 had steered my course by the light of her guid- 
 ing Star. It is hoped also they will see, that 
 when I resigned Miss Dobbin to another, I sa- 
 crificed in that resignation every strong and 
 every tender feeling of my heart ; all my 
 long-encouraged hopes, and long-cherished af- 
 fections ; all my claims to her confidence 5 all my 
 demands upon her honor ; all my prior preten- 
 sions ; and all my own peace to that of her be- 
 seeching family, who yet had treated me with 
 such unmerited disrespect, but whom it had now 
 pleased Heaven to visit with a sore and bitter 
 affliction. These considerations, it is hoped, 
 will satisfy my friends, that in my very resigna- 
 tion of her, I had been faithful to Miss Dob- 
 bin ; and to the last hour of my handing her over 
 to Mr. Lefanu, that mv Affection had endured 
 unimpaired, and my Honor continued unim- 
 peached. 
 
 THEOPHILUS SWIFT. 
 

INTRODUCTION 
 
 TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 I 
 
 N the former Introduction I had occasion 
 more than once to use the word Contract : but as 
 that word will frequently recur in these papers, 
 and as some objections have lately been made 
 to it, my friends are requested to observe, that 
 such word is not intended to denote the species 
 of contract which courts of law entertaia, or 
 that which common parlance has rendered fa- 
 miliar. Had I fifty contracts of the sort, they 
 should sleep for ever in my drawer, before I 
 would produce them in any court, and least of 
 all in a Court of Honor. Terms are the tools of 
 an author, and their use consists in his applica- 
 tion of them. When, therefore, I use the term 
 Contract, I would be understood to mean that Ho- 
 norable obligation which the Honorable respect, 
 and by which the Honorable are bound. In my 
 fust letter to Mr. Lefanu, where the occasion 
 called upon me to be explicit, I so explained 
 myself: " You would find, sir, that I had been 
 for several years bound in an Honorable obligation 
 of marriage to Miss Emily Dobbin." And again 
 in the same letter, u Urging that Honorable 
 
 B 
 
 c 
 \ 
 
io 
 
 obligation;' &c. :"— cc My long and strong 
 claims upon her Honor"— And I will urge that 
 honorable obligation, and I will ever urge my 
 long and strong claims upon her honor. Honor 
 speaks a language of its own, and is confined 
 to no forms : it addresses itself to the Heart, 
 whose eloquence it echoes. The Heart repeats 
 it ; and each, as by consent, understands the 
 ether. 
 
 What in my first letter I had termed Honora- 
 ble, in my second to the same gentleman I call 
 Solemn. <f As it might be supposed," says the 
 letter, i( that I had broken the Solemn engage- 
 ment into which I had entered with her." In 
 both the principle is the same : for that which 
 is honorable amongst men, must necessarily be 
 solemn ; and that which is solemn, must as ne- 
 cessarily be respected. I was writing to a cler- 
 gyman as well as to a gentleman, and I used the 
 language familiar to the respective characters. 
 The picture of Truth sacrificing to the Muses, 
 is beautiful : that of Morality attiring Religion, 
 would be sublime : the Graces adorning Emily 
 with the lillies of Candor, wonld unite both, 
 and form an highly interesting combination* 
 Her fine imagination will improve the allegory ; 
 her correctjudgment will apply its moral -, and 
 her uninfluenced conduct will determine what 
 is Honorable^ 
 
II 
 
 The same letter says, " As Miss Dobbin had 
 formed a second Engagement before she had 
 cancelled her first." Engagement here, as in 
 the passage quoted above, is but another word 
 for Obligation : with the honorable mind, an en- 
 gagement of marriage and its obligation are the 
 same; and both, with the same honorable mind, 
 imply Contract. In the code of a gentleman, 
 they are convertible terms ;. and he who would 
 distinguish them, possesses, in77n/mind, neither 
 the ideas nor the feelings of one. The dryness 
 of his definitive faculties might provoke my 
 smile; but I would not trust such a man with 
 the custody of my honor. 
 
 No one, it is presumed, will doubt the affec- 
 tion I bear Miss Dobbin : herself will be the 
 last to question it : but I would not exchange 
 the intelligent bond by which she holds my 
 heart, the fine confidence that her favour had in- 
 spired, or the delicate hope that I had drawn 
 from the graciousness of her correspondence, 
 for the most conclusive contract that ever bound 
 man or woman. I should disdain to argue it ; I 
 should blush to exhibit technical evidence of 
 her favor ! If Honor cannot bind, what human 
 restraint can controul r And if it could, what 
 honorable man would regard it ? Or who could 
 esteem the woman to whom he was bound only 
 by a coarse obligation ? The word Contract, 
 
12 
 
 therefore, I restore to its pure and primitive 
 meaning ; and I call it that u Honorable Bond 
 which rises superior to the cold definition of the 
 schools; but which cultivated minds, such as 
 Miss Dobbin's confessedly is, unhesitatingly 
 acknowledge." On that Honorable Bond I 
 take my stand ; and shall continue to insist on 
 its binding obligation, as often as I hear its 
 solemnity con tester 1 . 
 
 In my letter, indeed, of the 22d. of July, ad- 
 dressed to her father, and in the sixth of the 
 questions that follow below, and perhaps in one 
 or two other places that bear upon the letter ; 
 when I apply the word Contract, I give it a 
 more extended construction. To explain my- 
 self. That letter abounds with quotations from 
 another letter which I had written to Miss 
 Dobbin, and with arguments founded on those 
 respective quotations, (see Letter IV ) Most 
 certainly in many places of the letter I did 
 mean, and would now be understood to mean, 
 a strong and virtual Contract, broadly implied, 
 and obvious to the most uneducated mind. 
 The same may be said of the sixth question, 
 which refers to that letter. But I disregard 
 any contract that is not Honor able >. any obliga* 
 Uon to which lienor hath not affixed, its. seal. 
 
13 
 
 Having made these observations, it is with 
 pain 1 find myself compelled to enlarge farther 
 on the nature and import of the contract in 
 question. But since the first publication of this 
 tract, report has busily said, that Miss Dobbin 
 declares she had never favoured my addresses. 
 
 Such is my respect for tin's excellent lady, 
 and such my high opinion of her worth, that I 
 am unwilling to believe the report to have ori- 
 ginated with herself. I must impute it, therefore, 
 to the zeal of those officious but mistaken friends, 
 whose counsels have proved so injurious to her. 
 If however, they would be her friends, let them 
 answer the following questions; u or else," in 
 the language of the marriage ceremony itself, 
 * hereafter for ever hold their peace." 
 
 1st. What was the reason, that they deferred 
 their denial of Miss Dobbin having honored me 
 with her favor, until after that lady and myself 
 had mutually extinguished the records of our 
 correspondence ? 
 
 2d. What was the reason, that Miss Dobbin 
 preserved my letters with so much care, and 
 burthened her Escritoire with them for so many 
 years,* if she had set no value on them ? Was 
 it because she had never favored the writer ? 
 
 3d. What was the reason, that upon the 
 unequivocal avowal of my affection and its 
 
 * See Appendix, No. I. 
 
14 
 
 honorable object, as declared and set forth in 
 my letter to her of the 5th. of September, 1804,, 
 the same which I told her father, I had that 
 evening put into her hand at Mrs. Lefanu's — 
 (see letter IV.) What was the reason that after 
 such affectionate avowal, Miss Dobbin conti- 
 nued to correspond with me for the space of 
 several weeks? Was it because she was not 
 favoring my addresses ? 
 
 4th, What was the reason, that on the late 
 conflagration of my letters, Miss Dobbin took 
 care to inform me she had that day, viz. Novem- 
 ber, 29th, destroyed this particular letter ? 
 
 5th. What was the reason, that when I 
 appealed to a confidential letter which I had 
 written her in March, 1807, for the proofs of 
 her favor and encouragement;* that when I 
 stated such letter to be at that very time in 
 Miss Dobbin's own possession, and urged its 
 strong and prompt obligation ; — What was the 
 reason, that Miss Dobbin's possession of the 
 letter was not denied ? And what the reason 
 that its obligation was not questioned ? 
 
 6th. What was the reason, that these Re- 
 porters waited till the Document in question 
 had been destroyed, before they gave out that 
 \ had never been honored with Miss Dobbin's 
 
 * For these proofs see, passim, Letter to Doctor Dobbiii, 
 Letter IV. 
 
15 
 
 favor? Was not the proper time for disowning 
 the contract, whe,n the reference to it was fresh, 
 and its obligation pressed home? And was not 
 that also the proper time for discrediting and 
 disclaiming altogether both the contract itself 
 and its possession with Miss Dobbin, had they 
 not been conscious she had encouraged my ad- 
 dresses, and that the proofs of her favor at that 
 very moment flashed them in the face? The 
 solution of the question is not difficult. They 
 knew I myself had likewise the possession of 
 Letters Then, whose production might em- 
 barrass their denial, should they provoke or 
 defy me to it. And they had treated me with 
 so much disrespect, they could not tell but 
 that in my indignance I might put the zinques- 
 ticnable argument. True, indeed, nothing could 
 have forced me on a proof so ungallant and 
 dishonorable : for I would have burned, as I 
 told Miss Dobbin's confidential friend, my two 
 hands to the stumps, sooner than allow human 
 eye to inspect a line of her letters, without 
 her authority and permission. But they knew 
 not the honor of my heart, which they seem 
 to have measured by a standard of their own : 
 and the apprehension entertained by her father, 
 that should I once get possession of the Docu* 
 ments, I might be induced to employ them in 
 a w r ay not very agreeable to their wishes, will 
 account for their caution then, as it accounts for 
 their denial nozv. 
 
16 
 
 ^th. What was the reason, they should so 
 frequently have proclaimed and boasted, that 
 Emiiy was in possession of innumerable avowals 
 of my affect ion and promises of marriage, had 
 nothing of the sort subsisted between Us, or that 
 I had not been favored by her ? see Letter IV. 
 
 8th. What was the reason, that they caused 
 Miss Dobbin to hold over her answer to my 
 affectionate letter for the space of five months; 
 that is, from the second of June to the twentieth 
 of November, before she was allowed to ac- 
 knowledge it? And what was the reason that she 
 told me then, what she had never told me be- 
 fore, that " she positively declined my proposal?" 
 Strange, that the Honor of an Honorable Lady 
 was not suffered to act for itself! Strange, that 
 others should take the management of it into 
 their own hands ! 
 
 9th. What was the reason, that when she 
 positively declined the Proposal, she did not po- 
 sitively decline the Contract r Had I not for se- 
 veral months been urging its claim upon her ? 
 And what fairer opportunity could have offered 
 for silencing that claim, had she not felt its 
 positive obligation ? 
 
 10th. What was the reason, that when she 
 composed that ingenious letter, the same inge^ 
 
17 
 
 nuity could not draw from the Documents — • 
 they were then in her possession— one solitary 
 argument, one poor inference, either to con- 
 found the Contract, or to stagger its authority? 
 Was it out of regard to her own Honor, or from 
 tenderness for mine, that her delicacy omitted 
 to touch the subject r* 
 
 11th. What was the reason, that when, on 
 her own confidential friend intimating a wish 
 to examine her letters, I told that friend I should 
 have pleasure in submitting them to his in- 
 spection, provided I had the leave of Miss 
 Dobbin ; — What was the reason, that although 
 I made her two different applications for the 
 purpose,^ Miss Dobbin declined to permit the 
 favor ? 
 
 12th. Above all, these forward Reporters 
 are called upon to assign their reasons, that 
 as I had ceased to press upon Miss Dobbin the 
 obligation of the Contract in which, she had 
 8tood bound to me ;-— that as I had renounced 
 to Mr. Lefanu my anterior claims upon her 
 
 v C 
 
 * See Appendix, No. II. ~ 
 
 f Viz. One on the 10th. the ether on the H 1st. of November. 
 The destruction of the correspondence, as we have seen, did 
 not take place till the 29 th of the same month. 
 
IS 
 
 Honor, and of my own spontaneous grace had 
 resigned her to him ; — and that as in my answer 
 to her affecting letter, as well as in the two 
 letters which I afterward wrote to Mr. Lefanu, I 
 had left her then, as I leave her now, unclaimed 
 and unobstructed ;-^-I ask these Agitators, what 
 is the reason that they disturb the question NOW ? 
 and why they take such pains to evade a Contract 
 which stands no longer in their way ? 
 
 Miss Dobbin has now had an impartial trial 
 by her Peers, twelve fair Questions. Until 
 these shall be severally and sufficiently resolved, 
 her Reporters would do well to discontinue their 
 denial that she had honored me with her favor. 
 
 When Documents are destroyed* and destroyed 
 too by mutual agreement, that party comes 
 with an aukward grace into court, who disputes 
 their original existence, and affects to forget 
 their solemn obligation. Had they not existed, 
 they could not have been destroyed ; and their 
 very destruction, by inter 'changed assent, is at 
 once proof of their value, and evidence of their 
 validity . No Truth so stubborn as fact fortified 
 by Circumstances; and these will always have 
 authority with the sober and reflecting part of 
 mankind. They will continue, when fugacious 
 declarations pass away as lightly as the winds 
 that waft them. 
 
IS 
 
 The industry of the family in denying that I 
 had been favored by Miss Dobbin, and the zeal 
 of their Deputies in propagating that denial, 
 have rendered it necessary to my own justifica- 
 tion, that I should be somewhat more circum- 
 stantial and specific than hitherto I had been, 
 or in kindness had intended to be. Let them 
 remember I but stated facts, and had left their 
 own Letters to discredit or confirm them. Those 
 facts spoke for themselves, and every one might 
 draw his own inference. But since they oblige 
 me to speak out, and to be explicit with them, 
 they must stand to all consequences ; and I now 
 assert in broad and express terms, that the En- 
 couragement I had received from M.ss Dobbin, 
 and her present Contract with Mr. Lefanu, 
 are at open variance ; and that she had been 
 forced by her family into a most high and 
 flagrant Breach of Faith. This Breach of Faith, 
 as I told Mr. Lefanu, no silence of mine could 
 sofider ; and 1 now tell both Him and Her, no 
 language of mine can enfiame, and the pen. 
 of no moralist excuse it. 
 
 Her detention of my letters after the avowed 
 and acknowledged terms, on which it was un- 
 derstood between us that she might retain them, 
 I considered, and those friends who knew the 
 circumstance then considered, as a positive and 
 unequivocal Compact. These terms I had ex- 
 
20 
 
 plained to her in a confidential letter ; and 1 
 stated expressly, that whenever the " Subsequent 
 Period" should arrive, she would find me faithful, 
 and ready to give her a proof of " my immutable 
 affection*." — The Subsequent Period arrived : — 
 But when I expected the honorable performance 
 of the condition, on which she had preserved 
 u the memorials," as I phrased it, of my affection 
 and fidelity, I received from her family not only 
 resistance, but insult : While those who had 
 caused her to break her faith, now say, that she 
 had never held out any encouragement, or had 
 entered into any prospective union with me ! 
 
 Had it not been the intention of Miss Dobbin 
 to perform the condition on which she retained 
 the memorials of my fidelity, I would ask that 
 correct Lady what Jwnorable motive induced 
 her to keep them ? Or what construction can 
 be put on her careful detention and preservation 
 of these memorials, except that of favor and 
 encouragement ? 
 
 The letter that explained the terms, on which 
 she might retain the numerous proofs I had 
 given iier of my " immoveable resolution," 
 
 * Or, as the Letter in another place more fully expressed it, 
 That proud pre-eminence which you possess in the fondest 
 and sincerest heart that ever warmed the human breast." 
 
12 
 
 as I then called it, never to forsake her, 
 was dated March 19, 1807; and arose out 
 of that other confidential letter of the fifth 
 of September 1804,. which I had put into' her 
 hand at Mrs. Lefanu's. Among other objects, 
 the letter was intended to renew and strength- 
 en the solemn avowals of my honorable af- 
 fection and fidelity, as expressed in the former 
 confidential letter. The one was but the echo 
 of the other, and the last the confirmation 
 of the first. Was then her Correspondence 
 with me for the space of several weeks after 
 her reception of that first confidential letter, no 
 Encouragement? And was her reservation of 
 that very letter, among all my other affectio- 
 nate communications, as conditioned in my let* 
 let of March, neither favoring my addresses, 
 nor cherishing my hopes? What Splitter of 
 conscience will assert that they were not ? What 
 Dissecter of honor will stand up, and laving 
 his hand upon his heart, will aver, that in such 
 Explanations and such Conditions nothing pros- 
 pective was implied ? And that in the Breach 
 of these conditions, no Faith, no Honor have- 
 been violated ? 
 
 I would not, however, arraign the Honor of 
 Miss Dobbin. Left to herself, there remains 
 not a doubt of her Honorable intent. Her 
 gracious reception of my letter, when pre- 
 
22 
 
 sented to her by the Lady on the morning of 
 the third of June, is strong evidence of her 
 favor; and it proves also that her intention then 
 was honorable. I impeach not, therefore, the 
 Honor of the unoffending Emily : but I question 
 that of the individual, who had dictated, with- 
 out her knowledge, the disrespectful answer that 
 was sent me in July; which disrespectful an- 
 swer gave birth both to the unfortunate Cor- 
 respondence that followed, and to the necessity 
 of its publication afterward. Hoc fonte dcrivata 
 clades. And I further charge that same Indivi- 
 dual with inducing Emily to postpone Her own 
 answer, till Circumstances should render it expc* 
 dient to send one. Do they require an Explana- 
 tion ? If they do, 1 shall not be found sleeping 
 on my post. 
 
 Again I must repeat my earnest hope, that 
 my friends will do me the great justice to 
 believe, that neither by the questions I have 
 proposed, nor by any new observations that I 
 have offered, it had been my object— sure I am 
 it was far, very far from my heart — to disparage 
 the Honor of the virtuous Lady, to whom they 
 refer; or to wound by one offending word the 
 Excellence I so regard and esteem. True it is, 
 that for the peace of her family, by whose 
 counsels she had been guided, and to who>se 
 wishes she had submitted, I did resign her te 
 
22 
 
 Mr. Lefanu : but it is equally true, I did not 
 resign my Honor; or surrender my privilege of 
 discussing any question that -should affect it, 
 And I am the more particular on this head, 
 because it has been reported, that when I sent 
 my last letter to Miss Dobbin, I had made 
 her a promise that I would not publish any 
 thing on the present subject. I MADE NO 
 SUCH PROMISE. The promise I made was, 
 that I would not publish certain " Memoiis" 
 then in the press, lest it should obstruct her 
 marriage with Mr. Lefanu, to whom I had just 
 then resigned her. Those Memoirs exist no 
 more. The flames have extinguished them ; 
 and I hope I shall not be under the necessity of 
 reviving them in a new shape. 
 
 It is also reported, that I had promised not 
 to write to Mr. Lefanu. I MADE No SUCH 
 PROMISE. I promised, indeed, to suppress Tfte 
 letter which had failed to be delivered. Miss 
 Dobbin understands me. Like the Memoirs, 
 that letter exists no more. But I did not un- 
 dertake, that should her friends deceive me, 
 first, by representing her as going to be married 
 to Mr. Lefanu; and then, when they had ac- 
 complished their point, and secured my ac- 
 quiescence, by disowning that intimation, and 
 signifying it was not to IIIM she was going to 
 bo married :— I say, I did not undertake that 
 
24 
 
 I would not apply to CEdipus for a solution of 
 the riddle. What Sphinx had artfully involved, 
 the candor of Mr. Lefanu expounds ; Sphingos 
 iniquce ambages resolvit ; and if he solicited my 
 silence, he did not equivocate to procure it, 
 To their own disingenuousness, then, and their 
 own ambiguous intimations, they owe the ap- 
 plication I had the honor to make him. The 
 suppressed letter was cautionary ; and had been 
 composed in the form of an Admonition, ad- 
 vising Mr. Lefanu that I had a Contract with 
 Miss Dobbin antecedent to his own, and should 
 assert that Contract against any other he might 
 set up. But the letters I did send him, were 
 exactly the reverse : they were inquisitorial : 
 they were permissory : they were induced by 
 Miss Dobbin's own letter to myself, which had 
 moved me to resign her to him. And when I 
 promised her confidential friend not to publish 
 the " Memoirs/* that would have wounded her 
 feelings, and might have injured her preferment 
 with Mr. Lefanu, I did not undertake to sup- 
 press a " Correspondence" that should expose 
 the insults of her family, and leave her to 
 marry the Gentleman which had been managed 
 for her.* 
 
 To conclude. I do insist, and whilst I have 
 a finger to command a pen, I shall never cease 
 to insist, tliat under the implied Contract Miss 
 
 * See Appendix,, No. III. 
 
25 
 
 Dobbin was bound, I do not say in Law, for 
 I know she was not ; — but in Honor, in strong 
 and imperative Honor, I do insist that she was 
 bound to have married me ; and to have resisted 
 the addresses of Mr. Lefanu, let those addresses 
 have come in what shape they might. This \ shall 
 continue to repeat and proclaim as often as her 
 Reporters shall call into question the solemn Ob- 
 ligation by which she had bound herself to me. 
 
 Had the Misrepresented of Miss Dobbin less 
 busily denied that I had been favored by her, 
 they would have rendered the present Introduc- 
 tion unnecessary. Or had I myself in the first 
 Edition been more explicit with them, which 
 from motives of delicacy only I had declined to 
 be, they had not perhaps afforded me this new 
 occasion to examine their conduct. In kindness 
 I had preferred an insufficient detail to a painful 
 explanation ; and I do still hope they will not 
 compel me to a more minute discussion of a 
 subject, that has redounded so little either to 
 their Credit or to their Honor. 
 
 THEOPHILUS SWIFT, 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 TO THE THIRD EDITION. 
 
 VyONCERNING the third Edition of a work 
 which has been honored by my friends with so 
 much of their kindness and partiality, it will 
 be expected that something should be offered 
 by way of Preface or Introduction. 
 
 Since the publication of the former Editions, 
 two circumstances have occured to render the 
 present somewhat more interesting than those 
 which preceded it : — A Challenge, and a Mar* 
 riage. — Of the first an account had been given 
 separately, in a work bearing thatTit!e: but 
 forming a material link in the great chain, it is 
 here re- published in a connected manner, as 
 part of that uniform System on which the Doc- 
 tor and his family had acted toward me. 
 
 On the subject of Miss Dobbin's marriage 
 I shall not detain my friends : but it is necessary 
 they should be informed, that for some time 
 prior to that Event, I had entirely extruded her 
 from my heart. It will scarcely, however, be 
 imputed to me, that after the numerous proofs 
 which I had given for so many years of inviolable 
 Fidelity, I should capriciously and lightly 
 renounce her; or that I should all at once with- 
 draw my Esteem, without good and sufficient 
 cause. This were to invert the laws both of 
 
n 
 
 Nature and of Reason ; and even to suppose 
 Virtue a shadow, and Honor indeed a bubble I 
 My friends, by whom alone I would be judged, 
 will not believe it of me. The marriage of Miss 
 Dobbin did not take place till the last day of 
 July; but under the seal whose confidenc they 
 had broken, her whole family had discovered, 
 that so early as the fifth of June, I had declared 
 her " undeserving of my affection.'' (See Letter 
 XIV.) For this sudden change Miss Dobbin 
 and her Reporters may suggest any motive they 
 think proper. Alike indifferent to their good 
 or their ill opinion of me, I shall not stop to 
 argue its morality with them. 
 
 The numerous applications of my friends not 
 having left a single copy remaining to me of 
 the old Editions, and being almost daily called 
 on by some acquaintance or stranger to favor 
 them with one, a new impression has been ren- 
 dered necessarv. In ths impression the detached 
 parts of the work, which had been separately 
 published, are united, and the whole thrown 
 into regular order ; with such additional remarks 
 and explanations as the subject seemed to require. 
 But I have been particularly careful not to 
 burthen my friends with any long or unnecessary 
 observations ; or if with any long one, with the 
 note only in page 29, and one other, being the 
 fourth number of the Appendix -, which, however, 
 is the place allotted both by custom and conve- 
 nience to all such extended Expositions, 
 
But although t have much pleasure in publish^ 
 iug the present Edition for the use and accom- 
 modation of my friends, I confess that I have a 
 private satisfaction also. • It serves to remove 
 an objection which might possibly be made, 
 That so long as Miss Dobbin remained unmar- 
 ried, I had continued to publish ; but that as 
 soon as she had married, I had ceased to print. 
 And this satisfaction is not lessened by the 
 consideration* that it cannot be inferred by any 
 ingenuity of Malice, that I publish from Disap- 
 pointment now; having long before recreantly 
 fled the field, when 1 declined the challenge of 
 her Champion, and refused to " erect a new 
 • c reputation for her/' (See Letter XIV.) With 
 this impression of my long-previous and unchi- 
 valrous Repudiation* of her, it is requested 
 that my friends will read the present Edition. 
 
 Strong, however, and many as my induce- 
 ments are for presenting my friends with this 
 newedition* I stand bound to publish. A Lady 
 who is to make a distinguished figure in these 
 pages, has imperatively required it of me;— 
 the fair Fitz-David. Deeming her first letter 
 not sufficiently insulting, she folio vvs it with a 
 
 * With Chremes in the Comedy, but for reasons somewhat 
 more serious, I exclaim, " Rccte ego has fugi nuptias." 
 Tercnt. Jndr. Act IV, Sc. iv. 
 
li 
 
 second;* and abusing Providence for the years 
 his goodness had extended to me, threatens to 
 cut them short " for the peace of the Dobbin. 
 " family.'* I am to be sent into " the world of 
 " Spirits," having to dread " the resentment of 
 cl a Protector NOW, who will terminate the affair 
 
 * This second letter of the kind-hearted Lady I feel 
 concerned that I cannot give entire to ray friends, as it might 
 he imputed to me, that from motives of vanity I had published 
 the very flattering, and in some places not inelegant compli- 
 ments which She condescends to bestow on my w Genius and 
 " Talents.'* That I may/ not, however, be charged with** 
 worse motive, and of wilfully suppressing those parts of her 
 letter in which her Consistence be»spatters me, I shall cull a 
 few of her Classic Flowers, as a present to my friends. At 
 this season of the year they may not be found unacceptable. 
 
 Of Jonson Dryden has finely observed, that he may be 
 tracked in the Snow of Plautus and Terence: and of Miss 
 Fitz- David, it may be said with equal truth, that she may be 
 
 tracked in the Mire of their Cousin James. " The folly 
 
 « and madness of a man on the Verge of the Grave, having 
 " the presumption to pretend to the heart of a person so much 
 " your Junior."— This is quite Cousin James; we track he/ 
 in his Snow. — " You are a worthless Character. "—Cousin 
 James told me so before, but in language somewhat mote 
 coarse and homely. — M You are deranged;"— So I could have 
 told her, are well known to he certain u Individuals of a 
 " family," whom She would be very sorry that I should name. — 
 ** You are in your second Childhood."— So I was, when I 
 proved for seven years my fidelity to an undeserving woman.— 
 " You are called The Knight of the Snow white Locks." 
 Here again we track her in the Snow of Cousin James, 
 who had told, me before that I was koary : but the Gibe is 
 not new ; for we know that littie children had mocked, 
 ami said «' Go up, Thou Bald Head ! Go up, Thou Bald 
 Head !" — •* Do not flatter yourself your Old Age and its 
 concomitant infirmities will defend you."— Cousia James 
 
30 
 
 more seriously than I had imagined.- 
 
 If en, me miserum /—This is the third challenge 
 I have received from the infatuated family -, one 
 of them expressly from a Sister of Miss Dobbin, 
 who offered to fight by Proxy, as Ghosts in 
 armour territate with their Shadows. 
 
 Dl te eradkent : ita viq miserum territas ! 
 
 Terent. 
 
 had given me a proof that these should be no protection to 
 me. Between Cousin James and Miss I itz-David there 
 appears a striking uffmitij ; and they stand committed in the 
 good old Proverb, " It the one be in the Mud, the other is 
 " in the Mire." 
 
 One thing, however, for whose truth we have the authority 
 of Miss Fitz-David, gives me real satisfaction ; and 1 had 
 rather be charged with Vanity, than that the circumstance 
 should not be known. After some courteous compliments to 
 my pen, which, she is pleased to tell me, might have been 
 employed in a manner more useful to the world, and in 
 immortalizing my own name instead of that of Miss Dobbin, 
 she adds, " Your writings have held her up to the admiration 
 M of the world : but for them, her Virtues would have been 
 " buried in obscurity, or known only to those who had the 
 " happiness of being acquainted tuith hcr"-~ I rejoice with 
 Miss Fitz-David and the other friends of Miss Dobbin, that 
 any humble effort of mine should have drawn forth the Virtues 
 of this obscure Lady, and added a Cubit to her Stature : But 
 as Miss Fitz-David confidently assures U3, that those who know- 
 Miss Dobbin find happiness in Iter acquaintance, we are bound 
 to conclude that herself is one of that number, and familiar 
 with her Virtues. Should this be true, it follows of course that 
 Miss Dobbin has the happiness of knowing Miss F<tz-David : 
 we have the best authority for it. This accounts for the Cake, 
 and for the Letter also with which it was accompanied. Those, 
 therefore, who give out that the family were unacquainted 
 with the writer, will have some difficulty to prove that they 
 ■were nov privy to the insult. 
 
31 
 
 Like the FinglasianThalestris, the pistols of whose 
 near and dear relations were to muzzle me, 
 unless I should muzzle myself, the formidable 
 Fitz-David with her puissant Protector is to 
 terminate me, and pop me into the world of 
 Spirits, should I not submit to dishonorable 
 silence ! — Sic notus Ulysses f — What cause did 
 1 ever give the assuming family to suppose, 
 that I would allow them to controul the motions 
 of my pen, or would repress the folds of my lips 
 at the sound of their Mandate ? From their 
 long experience of me, they knew very well, 
 that I was not to be scared into compliance; 
 and that to their * Knight of the snow-white 
 locks" no argument had been so persuasive as 
 3, Threat. The menace, therefore, of the fair 
 Fitz David I receive as a Command; and in 
 obedience to that Command, I publish. 
 
 Meanwhile, I desire MissCa^cilia (for so she 
 subscribes her baptismal name, which in her 
 extreme haste to communicate the Tidings of 
 Miss Dobbin's marriage, she had forgot to do 
 in her first letter) will have the goodness to 
 acquaint the new Family -Champion-^ I beg 
 pardon, their NOW Protector — that I have an 
 odd mode of regarding a Threat; and that in 
 defiance of the Mination held out to me, I shall 
 defend my Honor whenever Malice p.r Perfidy 
 shall call it into question. 
 
32 
 
 An Author, with whose text the family of a 
 Clergyman should be better acquainted than 
 myself, hath laid it down for a maxim, that 
 tc In the multitude of Counsellors there is safety." 
 (Prov. XV.) Were we not bound to receive it for 
 a truth, we might be apt to exclaim " How 
 " unfavored that family, how inauspiciously 
 *• distinguished, whom Providence taketh out 
 *' of its rule, and in the multitude of whose 
 
 * c Counsellors there is danger!" With the 
 
 possession of talents which might have rendered 
 them prosperous and respected, they want the 
 wisdom to be wise ; and with all the fatality of 
 experience, are doomed, inevitably doomed to 
 ^err, and be unfortunate \ 
 
 So much fresh mattter had mixed itself in 
 this new Edition, which embraces the whole 
 that has been published, from my first letter to 
 Miss Dobbin to the Oblation of the Bridal Cake, 
 that 1 found it necessary to change the original 
 title of the ■* Recent Correspondence '* &c. and 
 to call it by another more comprehensive, " The 
 Touch-stone of Truth." For a like reason, I have 
 changed the former motto of 
 
 " In tasks so bold can little men engage, 
 And in soft bosons dwells such mighty rage ?'* 
 
 for one more appropriate to the miserable 
 counsels that actuate the unhappy family, and 
 have induced this new Exhibition of them, 
 
 Jubent renovare dolor em. Virg. 
 
 THJEOPHIJLUS SWIFT. 
 
TOUCH-STONE, &c. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 Mr. Swift to Miss Emily Dobbin. 
 
 Dorset-street, Circular-road, June. 2, 1810. 
 MADAM. 
 
 T. 
 
 O have incurred your displeasure, was the 
 heaviest misfortune that could befall me -, to re- 
 gain your favor, would be the pride and the 
 happiness of my life. 
 
 If I have greatly offended, I have likewise 
 greatly suffered. Those sufferings I do not 
 plead in extenuation of my conduct ; but let 
 them, I beseech you, mitigate your resentment, 
 and atone, in some measure, for the pain I have 
 caused you. It is the only offering I have to 
 make; yet, humble as it is, your goodness can 
 give it value, and animate Pythagoras's sacrifice. 
 
 Much as I have angered you, I have angered 
 myself more : for I have not attained that per- 
 fection of philosophy, whose wisdom is too 
 sturdy to own a weakness, and too proud to drop 
 a tear over wounded or departed friendship. 
 Yet, Madam, I respect Truth ; and dear as you 
 are to me, and bitterly as I have bled, that Truth 
 
 £ 
 
34 
 
 compels me to say, I would hazard your displea- 
 sure a second time, with all its pains and penal- 
 ties, sooner than I would steal into your favour, 
 or take any bye- path to preserve it. Had I 
 deceived you, had I dissembled, I might still 
 have retained your good opinion— without de- 
 serving it ; but then I should have wronged 
 myself, and violated that morality to which you 
 deemed me a stranger. I could not avoid loving 
 you ; but I could avoid being an hypocrite. To 
 shun the semblance, I lost the substance ; I 
 lost your good opinion, and your friendship 
 vanished with it. If, however, I had loved you 
 with hypocricy, how should I now approach 
 you in sincerity, or what confidence could I 
 deserve or expect ? Ah, Madam, you will not 
 severely judge me. The fine ingenuousness of 
 your own nature will plead for me at the tri- 
 bunal of your forgiving breast 5 and the dignity 
 of your cultivated mind will acquit me of mo* 
 tives as repugnant to my general habits and 
 principles, as to those virtuous studies which 
 at all times have been my pursuit ; — studies, 
 Madam, that adorn yourself with so much 
 lustre, and teach the hearts, of other to ad- 
 mire you. 
 
 Allow me then, to hope, you will think less 
 unkindly of me; and humbly to request, that 
 should such old-fashioned morality not offend, 
 
35 
 
 you will restore me to peace by drawing a veil 
 over that which I have done. To repeat it, is 
 beyond my power : and had I that power, I 
 would lay down the life I but value for your 
 sake, rather than give you a moment's dis- 
 quiet. In the ambitious pursuit of happiness, 
 if it was ray misfortune to err, that error was 
 not stained by any crime of the heart, nor 
 polluted by one unworthy or disrespectful enti- 
 ment. But where is the virtue that is at all 
 times correct ? or the wisdom that has never 
 been foolish ? Your goodness then will not 
 always abhor the sorrowing offender that sues 
 to your feeling heart, and would personally 
 supplicate its forgiveness. Were I the lowest 
 of your domestics, as I am the humblest of 
 your servants, you would not deny me this 
 favor, or refuse to let me hear you pronounce 
 my pardon. It is less poetical than true, that 
 from the scotched serpent there goeth forth a 
 balm, whose sympathy attracts its severed parts, 
 and unites them as before. The balm of your 
 goodness is equally healing, and can as easily 
 reconcile a division which, I am very certain, 
 hath no other property of the serpent in it. 
 
 You may have closed your door against me ; 
 but you cannot have shut your heart against the 
 charities which soften and ennoble human 
 nature ; and which, dear Madam, when the 
 
 E<2 
 
36 
 
 violences of the world have driven them from 
 man, fly naturally to your sex for protection. 
 If you had an enemy, that enemy would allow 
 the kindness of your heart, and I will never 
 believe that its resentments are eternal. 
 
 Whatever may have been my offences, a want 
 of candor formed no part of them. With the 
 same sincerity, I repeat the same tale of ardent 
 and unalterable affection. That sincerity, it is 
 hoped, can no longer offend ; yet should you 
 still disregard it, } r ou can never take from me 
 the proud privilege of respecting you, nor obli- 
 terate the dear recollection that I once had been 
 honored with your friendship.* These, Madam, 
 neither Time nor Chance, though they happen to 
 all men, can destroy. With my knowlege of 
 you my esteem began, and only with my latest 
 breath it will expire. Though not quite so an- 
 cient as Jacob, with the patriarch I may say, 
 " Seven years have I served Laban's younger 
 u daughter, the fair, the beautiful Rachel :— . 
 " In the day the drought consumed me, and the 
 " frost by night, and the sleep departed from 
 tc mine eyes ; yet they seemed to me but a few 
 " days for the love I bare unto her." 
 
 * In the original draught of the Letter from whence I 
 now transcribe, it was Confidence* Over it my pen is drawn, 
 and the word Friendship interlined. But Confidence being 
 a word which her family would soon have construed into an 
 unfavourable allusion, from motives both of policy and respect 
 I changed it for one less exceptionable, Friendship, 
 
37 
 
 With all ingenuousness then, but with all 
 respect, I once more entreat your permission 
 that I may wait upon you, not only, Madam, 
 to beseech your pardon and obtain your for- 
 giveness, but to lay at you feet an heart bleed- 
 ing with affection ; — an affection that hath 
 never varied, for it is the nature of truth to he 
 always the same. Could it have been added to, 
 it had not been perfect; and could it have 
 been diminished, it had not been sincere. With 
 Honor I have loved, I have che.ishedyou in my 
 heart; and with Honor shall retain, whilst I 
 Jiave an heart, the same sentiments of esteem 
 for you. 
 
 I have not sought the intercession of friends, 
 or solicited mediation. Favors thus procured 
 are seldom attended with satisfaction, and never 
 fwith sincerity. Like the forced flower, they 
 have their day, but want the sustaining sun to 
 cheer and quicken them. To be valuable, the 
 concession should be voluntary : its spontane- 
 ousness is its worth ; without it, I should but 
 distress you, and deceive myself. 
 
 No Madam, I will not distress vou : never 
 again will I offend or give you pain ; and that 
 I may observe my word, I shall not trespass 
 longer on your goodness, but close this exube- 
 rant transcript of my heart, in the hope you 
 will allow me to evince that honorable affection 
 toward you, which a late event enables me txow 
 to demonstrate. 
 
- 58 
 
 May I hope, Madam, after what I have said 
 you will not be displeased with this address ; 
 but that you will have the kindness to let me 
 hear from you ? For though I should be so un^ 
 fortunate as to meet your disapprobation, it 
 would be some little consolation to me that you 
 had deemed me not unworthy of your attention. 
 At all events, I shall wait your pleasure with 
 the most agitated suspence. 
 
 In the meanwhile, Madam, I entreat you will 
 believe that I have the honor to be, with all 
 possible respect and truth, your most affectio- 
 nate and most faithful 
 
 THEOPHILUS SWIFT. 
 
 The foregoing Letter requires some little ex- 
 planation ; and my friends should be informed, 
 that not ignorant of the jealousy with which 
 I had been regarded by some of Miss Dobbin's 
 relations, I endeavoured to render it as little 
 offensive to them, as courteous to herself. Had I 
 been certain that the Letter would not have 
 been submitted to their inspection, before she 
 had honored me with her own answer, I should 
 have written her one not less affectionate, in- 
 deed, or less respectful, but one of a firmer and 
 more confidential nature ; not less strong than 
 that which I had written her about three years 
 before, in March, 1807. Which Letter I am 
 induced from many circumstances to think, she 
 had withheld from her family ; and that they 
 
39 
 
 knew nothing of it, until it wa3 pressed by 
 myself on the notice of her father, in my Letter 
 to him of the 22d. of July, (see Letter IV.) It 
 was not possible, however, to keep the Contract 
 so entirely out of sight that nothing should 
 be found to bear upon it; as where I say, 
 " Seven years have I served Laban's younger 
 daughter :" — " My affection hath never varied, 
 for it is the nature of Truth to be always the 
 same :" — " With Honor* I have loved, I have 
 cherished you in my heart :" — " Allow me to 
 evince that honorable affection toward you, 
 which a Late Event enables me NOW to demon- 
 strate:" — " Your most affectionate and most 
 faithful,* ' &c. &c. These were unavoidable 
 allusions, and could not be dispensed with. 
 Reference of some sort I soon found essential to 
 the Letter. It eternally offered itselfto my pen. 
 .The difficulty was to throw it into shade ; and 
 when I could not do that, to gild it. I had the 
 whole family to contend with, of whose fC deter- 
 " mined" hostility her own father did afterward 
 assure me. (See Letter V.) The Trout was 
 to be tickled : they must all be courted, or the 
 facilities of her gentle heart (the only fault she 
 possesses, but arising from its own excess of 
 goodness) would yield to their authority. But 
 without one friend in the family, like Sisyphus 
 in the fable, I was to heave the huge round stone 
 up the high hill; which was destined to be 
 rolled down again with more impetuosity than 
 it ascended. At such a moment the mention 
 
40 
 
 of the Contract had been fatal to my hopes, 
 and had thrown me back into my old situation. 
 I dreaded the remotest allusion to it. 
 
 With the single exception of a Letter I had 
 formerly written to the fair object of my affec- 
 tion, the present was the only one I had ever 
 found it difficult to compose. It cost me a whole 
 morning, and 1 was dissatisfied with it after- 
 ward. But I knew it would be time enough to 
 resort to the Contract, when I should be driven 
 to it. It came too soon upon me. In my first 
 Letter to her father I am compelled not only to 
 notice it, but to insist at large on its perform- 
 ance. This, however, carrying the appearance 
 of force, I drop the Contract, assume a new cha- 
 racter, turn supplicant, and address him as the 
 father of ft his and my beloved Emily;" " humbly 
 beseeching his permission to renew my affectio- 
 nate addresses," &c. It was my interest to 
 court, not to compel ; to soften, not to inflame. 
 To the whole therefore of the foregoing Letter 
 I strove to give the air and cast of an original 
 proposal ; that being more likely to succeed 
 than any retrospective reference. 
 
 After this explanation, should my friends have 
 observed any mystery, or apparent inconsistence 
 in the frame or texture of the Letter, they will 
 set it down to the account of the embarrassing 
 situation in which I stood ; where it was next 
 to impossible that I should please the only one 
 whom I had studied to please, without offending 
 
41 
 
 f every individual of her family/' as her father 
 broadly expressed it. It was their approbation 
 I was to regard; and it subsequently turned 
 out that I was correctly right in a strong asser- 
 tion I had made, that the pretended answer 
 sent me to the foregoing Letter-by her younger 
 sister " was not dictated by the excellent 
 Emma,"* but by an Elder Sister. Had Miss 
 Dobbin been permitted to act for herself ; that is, 
 had she been allowed to write her own answer, 
 the dignity of her conduct on all other occasions, 
 aided by a mind highly illumined, and adorned 
 with the fairest graces of literature, are pledges 
 of what might have been expected of her. Her 
 Pride of character, of which no lady possesses 
 more, would most honorably have fulfilled its 
 prior engagement. 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 Mr. Sivift to Miss Harriet Dobbin. 
 
 Dorset-street, Circular-road, July 5, 1310 
 MADAM, 
 
 I 
 
 N a letter I had the honor to write your sis- 
 ter, I gave her my word — and I am not apt to 
 break it— that I would never again distress or 
 
 F 
 • See Letter VII I < 
 
4<2 
 
 offend her. The Letter was delivered to her so 
 long ago as the third of last month, and com- 
 posed, it is hoped, in no disrespectful language. 
 Lest however, she should suppose me importu- 
 nate or inconsistent, I address myself to you, 
 Madam, and make it my request that you will 
 let me know the cause of her silence, and the 
 motive to which I am to ascribe it. What your 
 politeness cannot refuse, your kindness will con- 
 cede, when I inform you, that I have atrange- 
 ments to make of importance to myself. Your 
 knowledge of this circumstance will, I am per- 
 suaded, go hand in hand with your politeness, 
 to inform me whether it be the intention of your 
 sister that I shall be honored with an answer ? 
 It is all that I require ; and the request, it is 
 hoped, will not be deemed unreasonable. 
 
 I am as little apt to flatter as to break my 
 word. I trust therefore you will credit the sin- 
 cerity of my concern on the report of your late 
 indisposition: Be assured, Madam, I most 
 deeply regretted it. I felt likewise, felt un- 
 feignedly for your whole family, notwithstand- 
 ing they had discovered so little charity toward 
 myself: and I now, Madam, in the same since- 
 rity of heart^felicitate you all on the happy res- 
 toration of your health. It will give me real 
 pleasure to understand it is perfectly established. 
 
43 
 
 I told your sister I should wait her answer 
 with anxious and painful suspence ; and now 
 Madam, I wait yours with the same bleeding 
 solicitude. Long may you enjoy the return of 
 your health ! and may you always be as happy 
 as I have been miserable ! ! ! It is the best wish 
 I can offer you, and the prayer of him who has 
 the honor to be, with high esteem and regaid, 
 your most obliged and faithful servant, 
 
 THEOPHILUS SWIFT. 
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 Miss Harriet Dobbin to Mr. Swift. 
 
 M, 
 
 ISS Harriet Dobbin's compliments to Mr. 
 Swift, and informs him, from her sister, that 
 she is much surprised he should imagine she 
 would enter into any correspondence with him, 
 and requests that he will not give himself so 
 much unnecessary trouble, as she is determined 
 to have no communication whatever with him. 
 Miss H. Dobbin is much obliged to Mr. Swift 
 for his inquiries for her health, which is much 
 
 better. 
 
 F 2 
 
 July 6, 1810. 
 
1 
 
 44 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 Mr. Swift to the Bev. Doctor Dobbin. 
 
 Dorset-street, Circular-road, July 22, IS 10, 
 SIR, 
 
 T never was my wish to distress you or your 
 family ; and your goodnes will excuse the pre- 
 sent trouble I give you. 
 
 In our last correspondence, now more than 
 five years ago, you were pleased to return me 
 some books 1 had presented to the Ladies. My 
 Letters to the object of my affection not having 
 accompanied the Volumes, led me to suppose 
 they had been detained as securities for the en- 
 gagement to which I stood bound in so many 
 promises. Conscious, however, that I required 
 no written obligation to remind me of my duty, 
 either as a man or as a gentleman, I acquiesced 
 in their detention, from a thorough belief that 
 had your family judged less unfavourably of me, 
 they would have known the obligation to he 
 written on my heart ; — never, never to be 
 effaced !— The promises I had made were 
 sacred; and nothing human could have induced 
 me to violate them. 
 
 About two years after, viz. id the month of 
 March, 1807, being informed that the object to 
 whom my Letters had been addressed, was on 
 
the point of marriage with another gentleman, 
 J wrote her a hasty* but affectionate Letter. 
 After expressing my concern and surprise at the 
 intelligence, the Letter goes on to say, "Should 
 there be any foundation for this unhappy re- 
 port, I beseech you to return me all the Let- 
 ters I have a i any time written you, toge* 
 ther with such poems and other literary memo- 
 rials of my affection, as you may possess.— 
 In that event, they can be of no sort of use to 
 
 you." 
 
 Here Sir, you will please to observe, the re- 
 quest is conditional '. If the report was true, the 
 Letters were to be returned. The report was 
 not true, and the Letters were withheld. 
 
 " Hitherto," said the same affectionate Let- 
 ter, M I was well pleased you had retained 
 them." And I was well pleased. They were 
 the images of my soul, the mirror of my very 
 heart, and I did wish her to view it there. They 
 might " be of use to her; they might survive to 
 my reproach, should I at any Subsequent Pe- 
 riod dishonourably forget myself, and thus dis- 
 honourably forget HER." So I explained it; 
 and I now as distinctly state, that I am well 
 pleased she should retain them for the very same 
 purpose; — retain them to my confusion, if 
 I dishonourably forget her. She could not 
 mistake the obvious tendency of a Letter which 
 
 * See Appendix, No. IV, 
 
had but one object; and if I expressed it un- 
 gracefully, it was not therefore unintelligible. 
 She knew the terms of the tenure : she knew 
 that she was holding the bonds of my allegi- 
 ance, " Whose existing testimonies might serve 
 as riaity and living witnesses against me/' should 
 I dishonorably recede — dishonorably renounce 
 *< The solemn Assurances I had given her father, 
 that I would never give her up;" or belie "The 
 good opinion of her brother, who was better 
 acquainted with my true character, than any of 
 her family ; and knew that I was incapable of 
 sajing one thing, and acting another ; or of 
 breaking my word with the beloved object of 
 my affection." 
 
 These were the impassioned bursts of an heart 
 that never yet deceived man or woman; an 
 heart, which then thought it was losing for 
 ever the single object for which it had a wish 
 to beat; — an heart, prompted by the impulse 
 only of Truth and of Honor, and warmed by 
 that ardent fidelity which the Poet of Paradise 
 imagined in the fervent and unshaken Abdiek 
 Whatever therefore may be the present state of 
 my heart, or howsoever it hath been wronged or 
 mis-judged, it doth not regret that it should 
 have so little of earth in its composition ; 
 though it may lament perhaps the humanity of 
 other people's. 
 
47 
 
 The quoted passages are from a Letter whose 
 original may always be resorted to. Was ever 
 language more explicit, or more binding? If 
 deficient in eloquence, it was strong in since- 
 rity ; and it is now three years and more, since 
 I sealed that sincerity with my heart. 
 
 And shall I now be told, that after these so- 
 lemn and unambiguous explanations, she is sur- 
 prised I should expect her to acknowledge the 
 respectful Letter of her old Correspondent? 
 Were the proofs I had given her of my fidelity 
 and affection so few, or so questionable, as to 
 surprize her into a doubt of my Honor ? Or have 
 I no demand on her own Honor, which has de- 
 tained for so many years the deposits of mine ? 
 Did I not stand committed to her in those depo- 
 sits for the performance of that which would 
 naturally be expected of me, when the Subse- 
 quent Period should arrive ? And can she now 
 affect ignorance, or say that I have dealt equi- 
 vocally by her? Sir, the Call of Honor, as dear 
 to me as that of Affection itself, tells me I am 
 not in error; and as a man of Honor, I feel 
 bound to obey it ; imperatively bound to fulfil 
 my part of the condition. — " Wlthlfouor I have 
 loved, I have cherished you in my heart; and 
 with Honor shall retain, whilst I HAVE an heart, 
 the same sentiments of esteem for you." — Such 
 Sir, was the language of the honorable Letter I 
 lately wrote her, and from it I shall not now 
 dishonorably depart. 
 
4S 
 
 That I may not be misunderstood, I would 
 say explicitly, that having besought her to re- 
 turn my Letters, should it be true that she was 
 then preferring another to me, her Reservation 
 of them implied, and gave me reason to con- 
 clude, that she was not preferring another; but 
 that she reserved those bonds of affection as 
 hostages and sureties for my fealty; and with 
 a view of encouraging me to look forward to 
 happier days. In that light, and in no other, I 
 did then consider it, do now consider it, and shall 
 ever consider it. What other construction, 
 I would ask, could it possibly bear? Or 
 what other interpretation will the world put 
 upon it ? It is the Broad Seal of the charter, 
 confirmed to me by the voice of general assent, 
 that, regarded and admired as she is, she hath 
 not from that time to the present, favoured the 
 pretensions of any other gentleman. And re- 
 newed Sir, repeatedly renewed, by the boasts 
 and proclamations of her own family, that she 
 is in possession of Letters from me without 
 number, where I have given her every assurance 
 of my affection, 
 
 This part of my Letter shall be concluded 
 with briefly requesting the restoration of those 
 boasted documents; more immediately that 
 which is dated Wednesday September the 5th, 
 1804, the same which I put into her hand that 
 evening at Mrs. Lefanu's. Possibly, it may be 
 Tuesday the 4th. It was scribbled, however, on 
 
49 
 
 an ordinary piece of paper. I was then on a 
 visit at Finglas, and well recollect I had not 
 better at command. But you will do me a favor 
 by seeing that this Letter in particular be re- 
 stored to me. 
 
 Sir, I intend you no disrespect ; you know 
 very well it is impossible that I should. But I 
 now in the warm and assured sincerity of my 
 heart, repeat the same honorable proposal I 
 lately made to your own as well as to my be- 
 loved Emily. I ask nothing with her but your 
 Blessing. To me Sir, it would prove an inesti- 
 mable Dower. The disproportion I acknow- 
 ledge in our j r ears; none can be more sensible 
 of it, or has more cause to lament it, than myself. 
 But to deny Age its capacity to make another 
 happy, were to belie the goodness of Provi- 
 dence, and to limit the extent of his power. If 
 Time hath unsummered my brow, his Snows 
 have not wintered my heart; nor will I yield to 
 the youngest of her admirers in warmth of 
 esteem for her numerous and unequalled virtues; 
 nor in Honor, nor in Truth, nor in tried 
 Fidelity, nor yet in long and suffering Affec- 
 tion. In none of these will I allow the proudest 
 candidate for her favor to precede me. What 
 I may want in youth, shall be made up to her 
 in a whole life of tenderness, and one unfailing 
 spring of affection. More I cannot promise, 
 and less I will not perform. May I then 
 
50 
 
 hope, Sir, that whatever displeasure I have 
 caused you, length of time hath abated your 
 anger? And that my respectful deportment 
 toward the individuals of your family, under 
 all our unhappy differences; together with the 
 repeated proofs I have given of my unvaried 
 affection through so many trials aud difficulties, 
 may induce you to alter your unkind opinion 
 of me ? Soften Sir, I beseech you, your ex- 
 treme resentment ; and permit me, I entreat, 
 both to renew my affectionate addresses, and 
 to press them in the manner that may be 
 deemed best suited to favor my respectful hope. 
 
 Believe me Sir, I have the honor to be with 
 high esteem and truth, your most faithful, 
 humble servant. 
 
 THEOPHILUS SWIFT. 
 
51 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 Doctor Dobbin to Mr. Swift. 
 SIR, 
 
 I 
 
 DID conceive that my daughter and I had 
 been sufficiently explicit on the subject of your 
 Letter — but for fear of misconception I now re- 
 peat that we both continue unalterably fixed in 
 our determination, that the union you desire 
 shall never take place, a determination in which 
 every individual of my family decidedly concurs. 
 I have the honor to be, Sir, 
 Your most obedient and very 
 Humble Servant, 
 
 WILL. DOBBIN. 
 
 July 27, 1810. 
 MR. SWIFT. 
 
 The Doctor's curtness of expression brings 
 to my mind that of Western in the Novel, 
 " Shan't have her— shan't have her — shan't 
 have her, tell you — shan't have her—shan't have 
 her — shan't have her." Misfortune affects men 
 differently. The boisterous and the sturdy for 
 the most part are tamed by her rod, and scourged 
 into feeling. The fierce, the iron-hearted 
 
 G2 
 
5% 
 
 Suwarrow wept when Misfortune had laid her 
 hand upon him, On those of an opposite mould 
 Misfortune acts the other way. The meek and 
 the gentle callously brave her strokes. Afflic- 
 tion takes away their understanding with their 
 feelings. The mild, the charitable Doctor 
 Dobbin, in proportion as his misfortunes multi- 
 ple, becomes " unalterably" stern, and stiffens 
 into a " determined" enemy. — Themelancholy 
 progress of the human mind teaches this severe 
 but instructive lesson to man. 
 
 Error is the mother of misfortune. To want 
 consistence, is to want principle ; and the ab- 
 sence of principle is the absence of Truth ; that 
 moral Truth, I would say, which leads to honor 
 and to happiness. In the month of April, 1805, 
 I passed through KingVcourt, in my way to 
 Cavan. Miss Jane Dobbin was there, and I 
 waited upon her. As usual, my affection for 
 Emily was the subject of our conversation. 
 I mentioned her father, and the hope I had in 
 him She observed, that her father had not in- 
 terfered in the marriages of her other sisters, 
 and therefore was not likely to interfere now. I 
 thought it an unwise policy; but the motive to 
 it was obvious, though to my own pride not very 
 flattering. Nevertheless, I augured favourably 
 from the circumstance ; and expected, if riot 
 ronsistence, at least politeness. Another month 
 
53 
 
 undeceived me. His consistence writes me two 
 laconic Letters, rings in each the same changes, 
 and chimes as he does now the very same set of 
 bells, the same brief argument, " Shan't have 
 her, Shan't have her, 4 ' 
 
 Well — Three of his daughters he leaves un- 
 controlled. But when a fourth daughter con- 
 tracts herself to a gentleman no way her inferior 
 in honor or in birth, he that had not interfered 
 where his interference might have been expected, 
 takes the alarm ! Nothing shall move him from 
 his (( fixed and unalterable determination." Her 
 other sisters may do as they like, but on Emily 
 he lays an Embargo : t,he must have his Permit. 
 Western will have it so. The Family Drum 
 beats to arms, " Every individual" is sum- 
 moned to the field, and " Shan't have her, 
 Shan't have her" becomes the watch-word of 
 all. — The fortunes of the fluctuating man neces- 
 sarily fluctuate with him ; nor is it possible that 
 the counsels of inconsistence should prosper. 
 Happy for those who come not within the 
 range of their influence ! 
 
I 
 
 54 
 
 LETTER VL 
 
 Mr. Swift to Doctor Dobbin. 
 
 Dorset-street, Circular-road, July 2.8, 1810, 
 SIR, 
 
 TAKE an early opportunity to acknowledge 
 your Letter, which might have formed a more 
 specific answer to that I had the honor to write 
 you. 
 
 I had stared at large my request, that my Let- 
 ters to your daughter Emily might be returned. 
 No one out of your own family will say, that 
 she ought to detain them. You affect however 
 to disregard my request, and pass it over in 
 silence, as if it had formed no part of my Let- 
 ter, or was in itself of any consequence. Once 
 more I beseech the restoration of those boasted 
 documents. It will prevent another application. 
 So long as they are withheld, I shall continue 
 to apply for them, and to repeal the very same 
 argument I used before, that she detains them 
 as Hostages ; and I now further add in explana- 
 tion, that I shall deem myself not unfavored by 
 Iter, while she continues to hold back the nu- 
 merous and unequivocal explanations I had with 
 her. It is but reasonable, that if I am given up, 
 my Letters should be given up with me. 
 
55 
 
 It was my design to notice in this place the 
 " sufficient explicitness," which you assume as 
 a fact, that she had given me of her " unal- 
 terable determination. " But that discussion I 
 reserve for another Letter, should she give me 
 the opportunity by withholding those I have 
 already written her. 
 
 I might stop here : but as you lay more than 
 ordinary stress on the collective determination 
 of your family, it is possible they might accuse 
 me of unpoliteness, were I to overlook a circum- 
 stance of such importance. 
 
 Allow me then to assure you on all the honor 
 of a gentleman, which I never pledged with 
 more sincerity in my life, that their determina- 
 tion on this point neither moves nor surprises 
 me. I did not ask their permission to marry 
 your daughter; and I do not yet know that it 
 concerns them the one way or the other. Most 
 undoubtedly I shall not court their consent, nor 
 solicit their instruction after what manner I am 
 to comport myself. It had been time enough for 
 them to announce their determination, when 
 I should call upon them for it. I cannot there- 
 fore be swayed or affected by any of their reso- 
 lutions. But if by the " decided concurrence 
 of every individual of your family, I am to 
 
66 
 
 understand that they have arrayed themselves 
 against me, I do not hesitate to say, that I meet 
 their intimidation as it deserves. 
 
 I would not offend you, Sir : but I cannot 
 avoid observing that the unfortunate connections 
 formed in your family leave little room for asto- 
 nishment, that it should deprecate an alliance 
 of another description. 
 I have the honor to be, 
 
 Sir, 
 With all proper respect, 
 
 Your most obedient, humble servant, 
 
 THEOPHILUS SWIFT- 
 
 LETTER VII. 
 
 Doctor Dobbin to Mr. Swift. 
 
 i 
 
 SIR, 
 
 BEG leave to assure you that it was my wish 
 to treat you with every possible respect, and it 
 gives me real concern that my silence on the 
 subject of the Letters addressed by you to my 
 daughter, appears to you as a mark of neglect. 
 I did conceive that the declaration contained in 
 my Letter, on the part of my daughter and my- 
 self was a decisive proof that they could not be 
 considered as hostages, and I therefore thought 
 it unnecessary to speak of them. As to my 
 
57 
 
 familjr being arrayed against you for the purpose 
 of intimidation, you may rest assured that they 
 did not entertain the most distant idea of inti- 
 midation to you. With respect to my daughter 
 it was perfectly unnecessary, as she never hesi- 
 tated for a single moment in her resolution— 
 they merely declared their concurrence in her 
 determination. 
 
 May I be permitted to add, without giving 
 you offence, which it is my ardent wish to 
 avoid, that as nothing new can occur to me on 
 the subject, it is my desire that our correspon- 
 dence may now be finally closed. 
 
 I have the honor to be, with great respect, 
 Sir, 
 Your most obedient, 
 
 And very humble servant, 
 WILL. DOBBIN. 
 August 4th, 1810. 
 MR. SWIFT. 
 
 It was natural that the Doctor should desire 
 t\\e final close of a correspondence by which he 
 had gained so little, and by whose continuance 
 some of his family were not likely much to 
 profit. He found however that he had gone 
 somewhat too far. He had offended the lion, 
 and must now stroke him with civility. But a 
 quarter of a year after, when the apprehended 
 danger was out of sight, his charity refuses all 
 
 H 
 
58 
 
 conciliation, notwithstanding the entreaty of 
 his own old friend, one of the meekest and most 
 amiable of men, who at my request had 
 besought him to allow me an interview ; in order, 
 as I stated, that we might shake hands, and 
 come to a better understanding. In vain :— 
 the Doctor positively refused it; — and in the same 
 breath as positively refuses, to surrender the 
 hostages of my honor; assigning it for a reason, 
 that should I get possession of them, I might 
 avail myself of their contents, and publish. 
 
 Had the Doctor not refused me the solicited 
 interview, or had he not withheld those docu- 
 ments of the Contract, I had been spared the 
 pain of writing, and he the mortification of 
 receiving the following Letter; productive, as 
 it turned out, of consequences highly serious to 
 his family. I shall only add, that this amiable 
 friend who had solicited the interview, having 
 represented to him, that should the Letters not 
 be returned, it was possible I might address 
 Miss Dobbin at the approaching Glassnevin 
 Ball, and publickly demand them of her, the 
 Doctor courtly answered*—" Then, she shan't 
 go;" and he actually kept her from the Ball, 
 making her thereby the Talk of the room, 
 rather than give up the Letters, or acknowledge 
 my politeness. (Seepage 6lJ. It looks as if 
 the family had " determined" not only to oppose 
 me in every way, but to oppose themselves m 
 whatever should be right orproper for them to do. 
 
59 
 
 LETTER VIII. 
 
 Mr. Swift to the Rev. Doctor Dobbin. 
 
 Dorset-street, Circular-road, Nov. 5, 1810. 
 
 SIR, 
 
 JL HIS Letter it is hoped you will by no 
 means consider as an answer to your last, dated 
 August the 4th. My reply to it I reserve for a 
 future opportunity, should the renewed appli- 
 cation for my Letters, which I have now the 
 honor to make, be resisted. 
 
 There is however an important mistake in 
 your Letter of the 27th. of July, which I forbore 
 to correct at the time ; but which I apprized 
 you in my answer, it was my intention to set 
 right, should the withholding of my Letters give 
 me occasion. I allude to that part of it where 
 you observe that your daughter had been suffici- 
 ently explicit. 
 
 Sir, I do assure you on the honor of a gentle- 
 man, that so far from her having been explicit 
 at all, both the Letter which I wrote her, and the 
 proposal which it contained, to this hour con- 
 tinue unanswered. So that the matter in ques- 
 tion stands at this time precisely where it did on 
 H 2 
 
60 
 
 the second of June : with this difference how- 
 ever, that Silence implies consent > and that the 
 detention of my Letters leads to a supposition 
 that the overture I had the honor to make her, 
 has not been rejected. 
 
 I reeeived indeed a disrespectful note from 
 Finglas, evidently not dictated by the Excellent 
 Emma ; but manufactured by her whose rude- 
 £- ness had menaced me with the chastisement 
 of her * c Near and Dear relations. " Its coarse 
 accordance with such unfeminine violence and 
 insult, betrays the quarter from whence it origi- 
 nated. You will please however to assure its 
 author, that respectful attention shall be paid 
 to her threat. You will likewise let Miss Har- 
 riet know, that her polite communication will 
 not be overlooked. And yourself, Sir, I inform, 
 that I shall not forget your own charitable and 
 courteous treatment of me, The hour I appre- 
 hend is fast approaching, when I shall be 
 <c sufficiently explicit" with you all j and shall 
 give to " every individual of your family" a 
 " decided" proof of " my fixed and unalterable 
 determination." 
 
 But these observations were not designed for 
 the present Letter, which had merely purposed 
 to say, that, offended and irritated by the insults 
 I had received, and no less violent mode of re- 
 dress lying open tome, I did certainly say, that 
 
61 
 
 it was extremely possible I might take the op- 
 portunity of the Glasnevin Ball to address your 
 daughter, and audibly to demand my Letters of 
 her. I did certainly intend it. Of two evils, I 
 chose the minor: and I deemed it less unpolite 
 to adopt that mode of obtaining the Letters, 
 than to address her in a more public manner ; 
 which yet I may be compelled to do. Certainly, 
 however, I did not intend her the slightest dis- 
 respect. But understanding, Sir, that in con- 
 sequence of what I had let drop, it is her design 
 to absent herself from the Ball, I request 30U 
 will present her with my affectionate respects; 
 and give her the fullest and most honorable as- 
 surance my heart can offer her, that I shall not 
 distress her by my presence there, nor in any- 
 way interrupt her evening's amusement. I do 
 hope therefore, that as from motives of the 
 purest delicacy and esteem for her, I shall en- 
 tirely ktep away, she will accept the promise I 
 make her as a test of that esteem, and of my 
 sincere wishes for her peace, her honor, and her 
 happiness. And should you think proper, Sir, 
 you may farther assure her, it will give me abun- 
 dant pleasure to hear that she has attended the 
 Ball in good spirits, and with unembarrassed 
 cheerfulness. 
 
 I have the honor to be, 
 Sir, 
 Your most humble Servant, 
 
 THEOPHILUS SWIFT. 
 
LETTER IX. 
 
 Miss Emily Dobbin to Mr. Sivifl. 
 SIR, Finglas, Nov. 20. 
 
 A.. 
 
 .S I understand with much regret that you 
 lie under some mistake respecting my senti- 
 ments on the subject of your Letter of the 2d. 
 of June, I beg leave to inform you that I posi- 
 tively decline the proposal you had the goodness 
 to make, at the same time I feel fully sensible 
 dt the honor you have done me, and infinitely 
 obliged for the opinion which you entertain 
 of me. 
 
 I send the Letters for which you express a 
 wish, and have no doubt of vour seeing the 
 propriety of harbouring no other sentiments 
 towards me, than such friendly wishes for my 
 welfare, as I shall ever feel for yours. 
 I remain, Sir, with respect, 
 
 Your much obliged, humble servant. 
 
 E. L. DOBBIN. 
 
 Concerning the Letter which my friends have 
 just read, I shall offer a few words after I have 
 introduced to their acquaintance two other 
 Ladies, now no more, with whose friendship 
 and correspondence it had been my good fortune 
 to be honoured. 
 
63 
 
 One, the great Miss Seward, the Raflfaelle of 
 epistolary eloquence. It was not possible to 
 know, and not to admire the Litchfield Thalia. 
 Her conversation was the page of fancy illumi- 
 nated by philosophy, and fired by the phrensy 
 of an eye in which her whole soul stood beaming, 
 but which her heart often watered with a tear : 
 for she possessed all those finer sensations that are 
 found to accompany true genius. Compassion 
 as she spoke — and she loved an interesting 
 tale — would break in sighs from her feeling 
 and fervent bosom, and fan the friendship that 
 in her was affection. I have listened, I have 
 gazed on her with amazement, and almost fan- 
 cied myself in the company of a Muse, as the 
 varied modulation of her voice recommended 
 the tide of wisdom and genius that poured from 
 her lips. The world has seldom produced such 
 a woman ! The last time I saw her, I spent 
 Jour entire days with her, to the total exclusion 
 of all other visitors ; and at night returned to 
 my Inn delighted, instructed, astonished ! She 
 allowed me to weep over the recent events of 
 her life. She who was so well able to give advice 
 to others, requested mine. I gave it her in all 
 the prompt ardenee of sincerity; and left her, 
 at her own solicitation, some written instruc- 
 tions, for which her eye thanked me with a 
 parting tear — we parted indeed to meet no 
 more ! 
 
64 
 
 My other fair friend was the soft Trefusis, 
 the Guide of epistolary grace; or, as I had 
 named her, nor did she disdain the compliment, 
 " The Tenth Muse pf tenderness." H her 
 Letters did not blaze with the fire that burned 
 in those of the mighty Seward j if like hers, 
 they did not storm your heart, they stole it. All 
 the delicacies of composition were at her com- 
 mand; all the eloquent feelings of the heart, all 
 the felicitous expression of the soul animated 
 her gentle page. Her eye was the softness of 
 the Evening Star; her voice the whisper of a 
 Seraph, tuned to the sweetest harmonies; andas 
 her mind, so was her person cloathed with an- 
 gelic beauty, the dignity of the one reflecting 
 its fairest graces in the other. Her lustre was 
 unborrowed, it was her own; an immutable 
 Moon of the serenest splendor. She possessed 
 all my friendship, because she had never disap- 
 pointed it; and had all my esteem, because she 
 deserved it beyond every other woman. I ad- 
 mired Luna, but was fated to love Emily, Miss 
 Dobbin must remember, that in several of my 
 Letters I had noticed my delightful correspond- 
 ent; to whose taste and kindness, I have often told 
 her, that I owed whatever grace of composition 
 I might possess. She refined all the roughness 
 of my uncourtly muse, gave to my very heart a 
 new polish, and taught my pen to move in uni- 
 
65 
 
 son with it. At this moment, might I be 
 allowed to say it, I feel the advantage of her 
 amiable tuition; and could she hear me from 
 the tomb where her gentle spirit now sleeps 
 in peace, I should thank her with my loudest 
 gratitude. To associate the Moon of Finglas 
 with this admirable lady, were no mean test of 
 the respect I bear to her own mild and com- 
 manding genius. 
 
 These ladies I have mentioned, in order to 
 observe, that should the Letters of Miss Dobbin 
 possess neither the tempest of the one, nor the 
 zephyr of the other, they possess that which is 
 better than either, the Divinus Afflatus of both ; 
 and I would place her a Third Grace between 
 her two literary sisters. The finest Letters I 
 have ever read were some of those with which 
 I had been honored by her: and one in parti- 
 cular, which for grace of composition and 
 courtliness of expression, was never surpassed 
 by either of my respected friends. This Letter, 
 however, which Attila himself would have 
 spared, my own destructive hand lately anni- 
 hilated, in the same flame that consumed 
 all her other Letters to me ; but could not 
 obliterate its language from my heart, where 
 Affection had transcribed it with a sun-beam! 
 It was dated the 19th of September, 1804, 
 one fortnight exactly after the unfortunate 
 Letter which T gave her at Mrs. Lefarm's ; bu<; 
 
 I 
 
•which Letter she sent me word a few weeks ago> 
 she had just then destroyed. It is not however 
 on her Letters to Myself that I ground my judg- 
 ment of her great epistolary talents. I am in 
 possession of one of hers, not written to myself, 
 and most certainly not intended for my inspec- 
 tion, which gives me the highest opinion of her 
 literary genius. Should Miss Dobbin question 
 the Letter, or wish to possess it, any morning 
 that she appoints I will put it into the hand that 
 wrote it. The happiness of its language, com- 
 bined with other motives, induced me to take 
 two copies of it, lest the original, or one of 
 them, should be lost. And though on my own 
 account, I have no cause to applaud it, my 
 candour must acknowledge its admirable com- 
 position. 
 
 My friends are now in full possession of Miss 
 Dobbin's talents as a Letter- writer. They will 
 not wonder therefore that I was delighted with 
 herCorrespondence; nor will they be astonished 
 at the excellence of the Letter they have just 
 read; which, considering the difficulties she 
 had to encounter, the embarrassment, the alarm, 
 the distraction under which it was composed, is 
 a happy eiTort of a disciplined and enlightened 
 mind. Novels themselves do not often present 
 situations so distressing or so discouraging. 
 She is less however to be envied under the pres- 
 sure of such accumulated difficulties, than 
 admired for her address in getting out of them* 
 
€7 
 
 Bat she knew the power she had over me ; she 
 knew that a Letter from herself would prove her 
 best passport fro my favour; she knew I would 
 never carry my resentment into her beloved 
 bosom, fj he judged -me right; and though so 
 vastly her inferior in the art of epistolary 
 composition, my answer to her excellent Letter 
 will, I trust, be found a proof that she was not 
 deceived ia me. 
 
 The first emotion her fine Letter raised in my 
 jnind, was admiration : this was succeeded by 
 pity : and when I came to the word " HAR- 
 BOURING," connected as it stood with the return 
 of the Letters, my heart rained tears of blood. 
 I had been less than man to have misused 
 the power she had so voluntarily, and so 
 generously confided to me. My eyes gushed 
 a mingled torrent of compassion, affection and 
 grief: — the workings of Nature gave way:— 
 that instant I resigned my own happiness to 
 hers, resigned her to the very man for whom 
 she had deserted me, and to ensure whose unob- 
 structed union with her, she had written me 
 that excellent Letter. Nor was this all: I 
 returned on the spot, untouched, and unopened, 
 the proofs with which she had armed me ; 
 giving her in that act a further test of the affec- 
 tion I bore her. Her Letter, her admirable Letter 
 accomplished all this! Had it been composed 
 in terms less kind or less respectful, or had its 
 affecting appeal been less touchingiy made, 
 
 I 2 
 
03 
 
 it would " have failed of its effect: — I had 
 followed the example of her own father, and 
 remained " determined" It is not possible that 
 to her exalted genius I can pay a more respect- 
 ful compliment, than to say, that I bowed to 
 its influence, and sacrificed all the peace of 
 my days to its power and authority. 
 
 But how intricate, how multiplied the ways 
 of Error ! What a scale they form of delusion ! 
 How the links of the chain lengthen, and one 
 fatal step leads to another ! Miss Dobbin erred 
 in breaking her engagement: — To correct that, 
 she treats my Letter with silent disrespect: — To 
 correct that, her sister is deputed to offend 
 me:— 'To correct that, the documents of the 
 Contract are withheld: — To correct that, her 
 father writes me an insulting Letter : — To 
 correct that, he writes me a civil one : — To Cor- 
 rect that, his Chanty refuses me an interview: 
 — To correct that, he compels me to write him 
 an alarming Letter : — To correct that, she who 
 was " surprized. I should imagine she would 
 enter into any correspondence with me," 
 surprizes me with a Letter; — she who "requests 
 1 will not give myself so much unnecessary 
 trouble," necessarily takes that trouble upon 
 herself; — she who is "determined to have no 
 communication whatever with me," opens that 
 communication; — she who tenaciously with- 
 holds my Letters, obligingly restores them;— 
 she who fears the detection of the Contract, 
 
69 
 
 furnishes the Proofs; — she who dreads lh 
 publication, ministers the means; and she 
 who breaks her Honorable Engagement, throws 
 herself on my Honor! — On the Honor of the 
 very man whom she had so feared, so wronged, 
 and so deceived! 
 
 Such is the progress of Error ! and with it the 
 progress of Pride ; which is sure to he attended 
 with Obstinacy, and that again as certainly 
 attended with Misfortune. That Pride, that 
 Obstinacy humbled them: and they have now 
 to thank themselves only, and their own inve- 
 terate errors, for ail the uufortunate events 
 that have resulted to them from the first infrac- 
 tion of the Contract to the last effort of their 
 weak and misguided counsels. 
 
 LETTER X. 
 
 Mr. Swift to Miss Emily Dobbin. 
 
 Dorset-street, Circular-road, Nov. 23, IS 10. 
 
 MADAM, 
 
 J? OR the favour of your polite and very kind 
 attention to the Letter I had the honor to write 
 you, I beg leave to return you my sincere thanks. 
 
70 
 
 Though it conveys such unhappy intelligence, 
 3 our goodness will always he respectfully and 
 gratefully acknowledged by me. And should 
 any unpleasant circumstance have resulted from 
 your silence, I beseech you that it may be 
 remembered no more. I assure you, Madam, 
 it shall be blotted for ever from my heart. 
 
 Let appearances have assumed what late 
 forms they may, I declare to you for a truth, 
 that I never once indulged a thought disrespect- 
 ful of you, or one that was unfavourable to your 
 happiness. So far from it, that it will always 
 contribute to my own — should happiness 
 remain for me the short time I have to live — 
 to hear that you enjoy that felicity, and that 
 peace of mind which has passed from me, 
 never to return ! I cannot promote your 
 happiness; but I sincerely wish it you in the 
 connexion you are about to form with a more 
 fortunate and more deserving, but oh ! not 
 more affectionate man ! 
 
 And here, Madam, I thank you from my 
 heart for your own kind wishes towards me. 
 The propitiation of such embodied Goodness 
 might once have availed : but I must not now 
 expect that it will please God I should survive 
 long enough to enjoy the fruits of it. — I look 
 back, and find myself a poor ship-wrecked 
 solitary mariner, that eyes with hopeless regard 
 the last faint rays of the parting sun yet lingering 
 
71 
 
 on the agitated bosom of the waters.— He 
 weeps!— The darkness covers him! — The plank 
 to which he clung, forsakes him ! — He drops 
 into that ocean which gapes to swallow him ! 
 
 As to the Letters — those pictures of my yet 
 unfading affection, but unperishable esteem— \t 
 will be sufficient that you let me know you have 
 committed them to the flames; and with them, 
 the papers I had communicated to your sister, 
 whose injuries I forgive, and wish entirely to 
 forget. When I hear you have destroyed them, 
 I shall at the same instant destroy the last and 
 only remnant of peace left to me; — yes Madam, 
 shall sacrifice in the flames also those dear and 
 precious memorials of your hand that had been 
 the solace of my life; but which I now must 
 treasure only a t'tWy few days, and then— lose 
 them for ever ! 
 
 I have nothing left to add but a heart whose 
 affection I must recal the moment that I hear it 
 is dangerous, and even dishonorable, that it 
 should continue to be your's: and you judge 
 very justly of me when you observe, that I must 
 see the propriety of entertaining for you no 
 other sentiments than those of kindness and 
 good wishes. 
 
 The pen trembles in my hand as I bid you 
 farewell — an eternal farewell! — Dear, dear 
 Emma, whilst yet I may call you so, farewel ! — 
 Sweetest, best beloved of women, farewel J— • 
 
7 6 i 
 
 Be happy f—Happ)' as a man so unfortunate 
 can wish HER whom for so many years he had 
 cherished in the recesses of his soul ! Happy, 
 happy may you be !— Happy, as I am left 
 wretched beyond the power of medicine or 
 consolation i 
 
 THEOPHILUS SWIFT. 
 
 LETTER XI. 
 
 Mr. Swift to the Rev. Thos. Ph. Lcfanu. 
 
 Dorset- street, Circular-road, Dec. 12, 131ft 
 
 SIR, 
 
 A 
 
 FTEKmany struggles with myself, lest the 
 motive which induces me to trouble you should 
 be misapprehended, I have the honor to address 
 you on a subject that deeply affects the happi- 
 ness of my life. I cannot possibly intend you. 
 Sir, the slightest disrespect, as both your cha- 
 racter and your profession entitle you to mv 
 esteem : I trust, therefore, you will not ascribe 
 to me any motives inconsistent with politeness. 
 
 I could not permit myself to enclose you a 
 late correspondence that I have had with a 
 family best known by their misfortunes, and 
 numbered amongst the unhappy. Delicacy and 
 respect for you prevent roe from laying thai 
 
is 
 
 correspondence before you : but might I be 
 allowed to communicate it, you would find, Sir, 
 that I had been for several years bound in an 
 honorable obligation of marriage to Miss Emily 
 Dobbin ; and that I was to have been united to 
 her on the completion of an event which took 
 place about ten months ago. 
 
 On reviving my addresses, however, and urg^ 
 ing that honorable obligation, I found in the 
 family a very disrespectful and very unexpected 
 resistance : and after some heated altercations, 
 it was imparted to me through the friends of 
 Miss Dobbin, that she could not receive my 
 addresses, for that she had formed an engage- 
 ment with another: and on asking with whom 
 that new engagement was formed, You, Sir, 
 were named as the gentleman ; and your union 
 with her said to be peremptorily determined. 
 
 In a fewdays after this unexpected communi- 
 cation, I was surprised with a Letter from Miss 
 Dobbin herself; informing me, what she had 
 not hitherto done, that she positively declined 
 the union I had looked o. Finding that the 
 family were under a domestic cloud, and that it 
 was not probable they would ever emerge from 
 it, I wrote Miss Dobbin a respectful answer, 
 and there made tier a voluntary, and I do hope, 
 Sir, an honorable surrender in your favor of all 
 my prior pretensions; and without one reproach- 
 ful word, sacrificed my long-cherished and 
 abused atfectionVto your mutual happiness. 
 
 K 
 
74 
 
 It was not possible, Sir, had you known the 
 state of my wounded and afflicted heart, that 
 one man could have made to another a more 
 generous or a more disinterested sacrifice. And 
 as it was entirely unknown to yourself, I hope 
 you will not refuse to inform me which of two 
 contradictory reports I am to credit ? That 
 which I have already mentioned as coming from 
 Miss Dobbin's own friends, in order, it should 
 seem, to frustrate my anterior pretensions : — or 
 that other coming also from the same quarter, 
 That the report of your intended marriage with 
 her is not founded in truth ; for that you are 
 not to be married to her. From the family 
 themselves I am not likely to obtain informa- 
 tion : but should the latter prove to be the 
 truth, it is my design to resume those preten- 
 sions which I had relinquished in your favor ; 
 and to assert them also in the manner, and at 
 such time, as I may best be advised to do. To 
 no Gentleman, however, except to yourself, 
 will I surrender my long and strong claims 
 upon her honor. The truth of one or the other 
 of these reports will determine either the acqui- 
 escence in your favor, which 1 have already 
 expressed in my answer to Miss Dobbin's 
 Letter ; or the active and steady resumption of 
 my claims. 
 
 4: 
 
75 
 
 I stand suspended between the two discrepant 
 reports, and know not which to believe ; but 
 suspect it to be a finesse of the family, with 
 a design to mislead me. On your obliging 
 answer, however, will depend the whole color 
 and impression of my future life. As a clergy- 
 man, your Love of truth will, I am very certain, 
 respect that truth ; and as a gentleman, your 
 Candor, I am equally certain, will assure it to 
 me. Could these be absent from you for a 
 moment, your Humanity will not trifle with my 
 peace ; nor your Politeness hesitate to remove 
 the doubt that perplexes my heart. 
 
 Should it be your good fortune to be favored 
 by this amiable but misguided Lady, I must 
 wish you, Sir, that happiness in her which has 
 been denied to me ; but whicii I had entertained 
 the hope she would not have disappointed. 
 J have the honor to be, Sir, 
 With perfect respect, 
 
 Your most obedient, humble Servant. 
 THEOPHILUS SWIFT. 
 
I do not conceive myself at liberty to publish 
 Mr. LeFanu's answer to the foregoing Letter; 
 and must regret that without his permission I 
 have it not in my power to oblige my friends, or 
 to make it a part of the present Correspondence. 
 Mr. Lefanu, however, does not dispute that Miss 
 Dobbin had been pra>contracted to me ; or 
 affect to say, that he was ignorant of the fact 
 when he formed his own contract with her. On 
 the contrary, he " relies on my honor and deli- 
 cacy as a Gentleman, that I will not mention 
 the circu distance ; as thus situated, it would be 
 distressing for a female to be the subject of 
 public conversation." 
 
 I am the guardian of my own honor, andean 
 suffer no person to direct it. Honor is a living 
 and wakeful principle of the soul, which God 
 and Nature had designed should never be stilled, 
 and which cannot possibly be laid to sleep in 
 the breast of a Gentleman. Never was I known 
 to compound my honor, never did I vacillate 
 between Truth and Falsehood. I had told her 
 father, and Mr. Lefanu could not but know it 
 that " the Call of Honor was as dear to me as 
 that of Affect ion itself/' and that I would 
 never " dishonorably forsake my beloved Emily." 
 How then could it be supposed that I would 
 compromise my affection - 3 or imagined that I 
 would silence my own Honor, in order to accom- 
 
77 
 
 modate that of another? I must hope, therefore, 
 that my friends will not unfavorably judge me, 
 but allow that through the course of this severe 
 and painful trial, 1 have acted with the Spirit 
 and with the Honor of a Gentleman. 
 
 LETTER XII. 
 
 Mr. Swift to the Rev. T/ios. Ph. Lefanu. 
 
 Dorset-sireet, Circular- road, Dec. 13/ 1810. 
 SIR, 
 
 M 
 
 Y absence from Dublin prevented me from 
 sooner returning you my thanks for your oblig- 
 ing communication; but I am concerned it will 
 not be in my power to comply with the request 
 you make, as it might be supposed from my 
 silence that I had dishonorably abandoned Miss 
 Dobbin, and broken the solemn engagement 
 into which I had entered with her; or that I 
 had connived at the treatment I had received, 
 and chose to hush up my own conduct. For 
 these and other considerations, it cannot be 
 expected that I should impose a seal oft my 
 lips, or withhold a truth by which I have been 
 so wronged and injured. 
 
7$ 
 
 I would respectfully observe, that your pro* 
 jected marriage with Miss Dobbin is by no 
 means a secret, and that it has been for some 
 time past a subject of public conversation. — 
 In all the later copies of my correspondence 
 which I had caused to be transcribed and circu- 
 lated, I found it necessary your name and her's 
 should be referred to. It is not possible to stop 
 the Talk of a Tea-table, or for Silence to 
 solder a Breach of Faith. But as Miss Dobbin 
 formed a second engagement before she had 
 cancelled her first, it should not be concealed 
 that I have honorably resigned her to you, and 
 that she is now contracted to another; for her 
 own honor as well as for mine, it should be 
 generally go understood. 
 
 I repeat, Sir, my good wishes for your hap- 
 piness; and should have wanted all your's for 
 myself, had it been my lot to enter a family so 
 uniformly inauspicious, and one that Misfor- 
 tune indefatigably pursues. I am not a super- 
 stitious man : but in the moral and political 
 World, an 111 fate is often observed to follow 
 states and families; and the same III fate to 
 extend its shade over their remotest connexions. 
 The Dobbin family are an instance of it.— 
 Nothing but Misfortune attends their calamitous 
 counsels. Sure I am that 1 found its truth, 
 when I found in the infatuated father of the 
 tutored Emily such implacable disrespect, such 
 dark and tenacious resistance to my alliance j— ^ 
 
79 
 
 to my taking an unprovided daughter from the 
 house of Sorrow and Poverty, and the raising 
 her to Independence and Respect. It is only to 
 be ascribed to that Fatality which never forsakes 
 them. Your union with them may, however, 
 break the spell, and disenchant the phantom 
 that watches their door, and glooms their 
 concerns within. For your own sake, I sin- 
 cerely wish it may: but when I have applied 
 the principle to myself, my reasoning could 
 never resist its truth, nor my firmest philosophy 
 banish from about me the Spectre of that 
 devoted family. 
 
 I ask your pardon for such unwelcome 
 words; but I never disguise the sentiments or 
 the operations of my heart : and most assuredly, 
 that which 1 have just observed will be found 
 less visionary than many of our waking dreams. 
 I have the honor to be, Sir, 
 With much respect, 
 
 Your obliged, humble servant, 
 
 THEOPHILUS SWIFT. 
 
THE CHALLENGE 
 
 IN win CM 
 
 THE CONDUCT 
 
 OP 
 
 DOCTOR DOBBIN'S FAMILY 
 
 IS CONSIDERED. 
 
 ^Dublin : 
 
 1811. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 TO THE FIRST EDITION. 
 
 A 
 
 LATE Imposture having been contrived 
 and carried on for the purpose of insulting me, 
 I owe it to myself, that the conduct of those 
 concerned in it should be made known to my 
 respected friends. 
 
 About the beginning of June, I received a 
 letter from a person describing himself the 
 Nephew of Doctor Dobbin, and calling upon 
 me to fight him in that capacity. The letter 
 having been composed much in the style and 
 manner of another which I had before received 
 from one of the Doctor's family; and issuing, 
 as it purported to do, from his house at Finglas; 
 I could neither dispute its authenticity or doubt 
 by whom it had been dictated. And I had the 
 less reason to question its Veraciousness, because 
 that person had been in the habit of dictating 
 disrespectful letters to me, under the name and 
 signature of the family. The present letter was 
 signed James Dobbyn ; and his Uncle's house at 
 Finglas named as his address. 
 
 A few days after, it was intimated to me 
 that this James Dobbyn was an impostor ; but 
 that the family had opened my answer to his 
 
84 PREFACE. 
 
 letter, and possessed themselves of its contents. 
 I was not astonished, but I deemed it dishono- 
 rable ; because the servant who carried my letter 
 to Finglas, when he delivered it, had sent it in, 
 as I had instructed him to do, with my own 
 immediate compliments; for though we were 
 at variance, I did not think it necessary that I 
 should be impolite. And he signified, in the 
 like respectful manner, that the letter so sent in 
 had come from Me. But this was not all : the 
 letter itself was superscribed with my own Hand, 
 and sealed with my own Arms, both of which 
 were familiar to them. Mistake there could be 
 none : the insult was manifest, though the 
 motive remained to be accounted for. Never- 
 theless, I suppressed my indignation, and 
 wrote in a respectful manner to the Doctor, 
 requesting he would return me the letter addressed 
 to his Nephew. From delicacy however, and 
 in the expectation he would restore it with 
 some expression of concern for the accident, 
 I forbore to notice the dishonorable circumstance; 
 and indeed I was unwilling, by any offensive 
 word, to check or disappoint the apology he 
 might intend. But my delicacy was in no 
 danger: for he withholds the letter which I had 
 requested him to return ; and that addressed tc* 
 himself he sends back, unopened* 
 
 * It should here be observed, that when I sent my letter to 
 the Doctor, it was brought him by the same servant, v\ho deli- 
 vered it with the same expressions of homage to the same servant 
 
PREFACE. 85 
 
 On the morning of the day that the Doctor 
 had so returned my letter, an accident disabled 
 my right hand from holding a pen. This 
 circumstance, together with a wish to give the 
 family the fullest opportunity of restoring the 
 letter, and explaining their conduct, caused the 
 matter to stand over for a week or ten days. 
 On the twenty-first of June, being then just able 
 to resume my pen, my friendsjudged itadvisea- 
 ble that I should lose no time in making Mr. 
 Lefanu acquainted with the fact; lest those who 
 had shown so little respect for my Seal, under 
 whose confidence the name of Miss Dobbin had 
 been familiarly introduced, should show as 
 little respect for Truth ; and availing themselves 
 of their own act, should represent the fraud to 
 have been contrived by myself, for the purpose 
 of casting reflections upon her. The imputation 
 I disdained ; but their conduct had justified ihe 
 suspicion, and they had vowed inextinguishable 
 hostility to me. I did not hesitate : I yielded in 
 a moment to the suggestion of those whose 
 judgment I respected, and in whose friendship 
 I was secure. I should not, however, deem 
 the circumstance worth noticing, but to account 
 iiow it happened that I troubled Mr. Lefanu. 
 
 to whom he had delivered my former letter ; that when he sertt 
 it in, the Ladies were standing at U"ie parlour window ; and that 
 the two letters were superscribed with the very same Hand, and 
 seated with the very same Arms — How the Contrivers happened 
 to mistake the one Tor the other, is always within iheir power to 
 explain. 
 
SG PREFACE. 
 
 My friends should be informed, that having 
 detained my reply to the letter of his pretended 
 Nephew for the long space of nineteen days ; 
 that is, from the fifth to the twenty-fourth of 
 June; the Doctor returned it with its impression 
 fractured and disfigured, and its leaves soiled 
 and rubbed in the most unhandsome manner ! 
 If my former book had displeased him, this was 
 not the way to answer it : the press was as open 
 to him and to his family, as it had been to me : 
 and I had neither monopolized it nor intimidated 
 printers. The Doctor, therefore, might have 
 returned my answer to his Nephew's challenge 
 with the same alacrity that he returned my letter 
 to himself; that is, he might have returned it, 
 unopened, within forty hours. Had he done 
 this ; — had he even tinkered it up again after his 
 curiosity had taken a peep — it would have saved 
 us all abundance of trouble ; and what to them 
 had been of far more importance, would have 
 prevented the necessity of the present publication. 
 But having opened the letter which I had not 
 addressed to him, yet having not opened that 
 Avhich I had, he has compelled me to open it for 
 him ; and to make it as public as himself had 
 made that other which was private ; but whose 
 contents, for the sake of her whom they sacri- 
 fice to the Genius of their ill-fated politics, I do 
 sincerely lament that her own Father should 
 have been the first to expose and exhibit. 
 
PREFACE. 87 
 
 To break a seal, and get at the knowledge of 
 another's secrets, is an offence suited only to the 
 Vulgar : in a Gentleman, whose education 
 should teach him a fairer morality, highly- disho- 
 norable ; but in a Clergyman, most irreverent. 
 Should a Lady infringe a seal, or advise its 
 infringement in another, I should say of her, 
 that she is dangerous, and unworthy to be 
 trusted ; for that she who would violate a sea!, 
 would violate her faith, and break in sunder the 
 bands which the dearest confidence had bound. 
 I do not wish to be severe, or to strain the moral; 
 but I conceive it incumbent on the Doctor and 
 his family to defend themselves from the charge. 
 
 Miss Dobbin will accept my humble, but 
 well-intended vindication of her from the impu- 
 tation of combining with her family either in 
 their impotent imposture or their dishonorable 
 breach of my seal. I entirely and whslly acquit 
 her of both. Faithless as she has been to me, I 
 am very certain she would not conspire to insult 
 me. Nor can I possibly suppose, that at this 
 time of herlife,\she would collude with others, 
 be their influence over her never so dominant, 
 in the forging of an instrument calculated at 
 every point to injure her own prospects and 
 advancement. It is too monstrous for belief; 
 but nottoo monstrous for INTOXICATED Projects. 
 
// 
 
 83 PREFACE. 
 
 Their motive for writing the letter breaks out 
 in the Postcript, where they had supposed it 
 would pass undiscovered. Sore from the effects 
 of my book, and with all their superior and 
 combined talents, not venturing to answer a 
 page of it, they sought and hoped redress in 
 another way. Fraud and Menace were at hand. 
 1£ Intimidation failed, I was to be duped into 
 " ATONEMENT;" and too proud to acknowledge 
 their errors, they were to find in Ale that defence 
 which they despaired of in Themselves. This 
 was their argument ; " We'll get him to direct 
 his answer to Finglas : 'twill have a good 
 appearance : and we'll put him into this situa- 
 tion, that he shall either fight, or make an 
 " Atonement." But sooner than fight, he'll 
 revoke what he has said of us: and when we 
 have got his revocation, addressed to one of our 
 own name, and sent to our own house, we can 
 always prefer it against him ; and prove him, 
 under his hand, a misrepresenter of the truth. 
 His book will then fall to the ground : and we 
 shall have this further advantage, that 'twill 
 look to the woild as if 'twas not WE who had been 
 dishonorable, but " HIMSELF." — That such was 
 their motive for writing the letter, and such their 
 mode of arguing, none will dispute, except 
 those who are unacquainted with the Profundity 
 of their Politics, and the soberness of their 
 Counsels. 
 
89 
 
 TREFACE. 
 
 Let us for a moment suppose, that from dread 
 of the tremendous Captain, and his ireful impa* 
 tience, I had made the " Atonement" on which 
 they relied, would they not have availed them- 
 selves of the concession, and have published it 
 in their vindication, as their best answer to my 
 book ? They had been less ingenious than the 
 world supposes them to be, had they omitted 
 the opporunity. 
 
 Under a supposition that they would reflect, and 
 that themselves would make some atonement, 
 I delayed to send these papers to the Press. 
 But not having condescended to take any farther 
 notice, I am bound to conclude the offence to 
 have been studied and designed ; and therefore 
 am obliged to lay the transaction before those 
 kind friends who had interested themselves in 
 my former publication ; that they may judge 
 of the treatment I have received, and the medi- 
 tated insults which have been offered to me. 
 1 could enlarge these observation, and read the 
 family a Lesson in Ethics, for which some of 
 them might not be thankful. But, lest it should 
 be imputed to me, that I had seized the oppor- 
 tunity to disparage Miss Dobbin, I close the 
 page upon them ; and forbear to extend the 
 lecture in morality which I had designed ; but 
 which, I do trust and hope, they will not, by 
 another experiment, call upon me to renew. 
 
 THEOPHILUS SWIFT 
 
 July 27th, 1811. ' 
 
 M 
 
PREFACE 
 
 TO THE PRESENT EDITION. 
 
 I had designed not to trouble my friends with 
 a second Preface; but since the first publication 
 of The Challenge, Miss Dobbin's Reporters have 
 again beea at work; and unable to invalidate 
 a page of its truth, give out in Corners, 
 That in the letter I had occasion to write Mr. 
 Lefanu, I had made him an Apology for the 
 opinion I had delivered of Miss Dobbin. The 
 Letter is before my friends :* They will judge 
 how far it was composed in the spirit of Apology. 
 I feel, indeed, great and sincere concern, that 
 I should either have had occasion to form that 
 opinion, or been compelled to communicate it 
 to others: and I still hope that Miss Dobbin, 
 for so I shall continue to call her, will believe 
 that I take no pleasure in reviving this delicate 
 part of the subject. But her own Reporters 
 have rendered it necessary to my credit, that I 
 should be explicit with them. Her Character and 
 mine are at issue : her's I respect ; but my own 
 is as dear to me as Herself had ever been. 
 M 2 
 
 * Letter XVI. 
 
92 
 
 PRFFACE. 
 
 When her family observed that Atonement had 
 failed, they fasten me with Apology. In their 
 eagerness for error, they mistook Politeness for 
 Concession, and " Painful Explanation" for 
 Evasive Apology. Those who ascribe to my 
 heart such equivocal Morality, know very little 
 of its movements : it may suit those who are 
 steady in nothing but Inconsistence, but is ill 
 adapted to the decided principles of a Gentleman. 
 I made no Apology ; and I intended none : it 
 was not possible that I should ; for none had 
 been demanded, and Truth did not require it. 
 The opinion which I had formed of Miss Dobbin, 
 was of their own Discovery * and if I commu- 
 nicated that opinion to Mr. Lefanu, their own 
 Act had compelled it. I then deplored, as I told 
 him, and I now deplore, the weakness of 
 her own father who had sacrificed his own. 
 Daughter to the passions of his deluded family. 
 The opinion had been locked within my own 
 breast; and there it would have abided but for 
 their own illaudable Curiosity. I had not framed 
 it to answer a purpose; and never to answer 
 any purpose, did I yet retract a Truth, or dis- 
 credit my Integrity. I do lament, and shall 
 ever lament, that Miss Dobbin should have 
 induced that opinion : but it was extorted from 
 me: her own family, her own misguided and 
 unfortunate family had extorted it: and their 
 own " infatuated politics," as I told Mr. Lefanu, 
 
93 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 had imposed its disclosure on me. The opinion 
 was my own ; the offence their's : and I could 
 not have apologized for the offence of others. 
 I left them to make their own Apology. 
 
 In this distinction, Courtesy and Truth had 
 gone hand in hand : they were concurrent But 
 to coarse comprehensions Civility and Insincerity 
 are qualities of the same nature, and terms that 
 import the same thing. In some, however, this 
 loose morality, this fluctuating, this indiscri- 
 minate philosophy— I know not by what name 
 to call it — may be excused : for Ignorance is 
 its own Apology, and Vulgarity is entitled to 
 the tenderness of those whose opportunities of 
 better Knowledge and better Breeding furnish 
 a better Lesson. Offenders may have felt my 
 pen ; but felt, I hope, its Point only of Polite- 
 ness. Should I, then, have expressed myself 
 in a gracious and becoming manner toward the 
 Gentleman who was going to marry Miss 
 Dobbin, shall it be imputed to me that I had 
 recalled or qualified the Truth? Shall Ignorance 
 be allowed to tell me so ? — I tell Ignorance and 
 all its vulgar Reporters, I would no more be 
 guilty of an Apology for Truth, than I would be 
 guilty of an AtonemaiL 
 
94 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 Perspicuity is the Grace of composition. A 
 .great Critic has classed it among the Virtues.* 
 Sure I am, that I respect it as the Muse of 
 Truth ; and sure I am also, that I never design- 
 edly, and therefore immorally, wrote to be mis- 
 apprehended. It is the duty of a writer not 
 only to make himself understood, but to take 
 care that he be not misundcr stood. I have often 
 been accused of too much perspicuity, but till 
 lately had never been charged with a want of 
 <*f plain-speaking THEREFORE, I acquaint 
 Reporters, in the unqualified language of Truth, 
 that should there be any one word in my letter 
 to Mr. Lefanu which Ignorance or Perversion 
 Im'jth assumed as Apology, I have been most 
 grossly and wrongfully misapprehended. Lest, 
 however, I should again be misapprehended, 
 1 farther acquaint Them and their Employers, 
 that much as I regret the Revival of the unhappy 
 subject, and deprecate on Miss Dobbin s account 
 the discussion into which they have forced me, 
 I maintain, and do now repeat the same unaltered 
 opinion: which opinion, however, her own 
 Near and Dear Relations had themselves pro- 
 mulgated, and been the first to expose, when 
 they broke into the sanctuary of my private 
 thoughts. And this opinion — I express it with 
 concern — I am bound to proclaim, and do 
 
 * Frima est Virtus Pcrspicuila*. Quifttil. 
 
95 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 proclaim, not in Holes and Corners, after the 
 manner of Whisperers and Reporters, but on 
 the House top, that I may be distinctly heard 
 and perspicuously understood. 
 
 Should these Reflexions be deemed uncourtly, 
 I observe, that I had endeavoured to accommo- 
 date their language to the apprehension of those 
 whose perverseness repels all Delicacy. For 
 such, however, these pages were not designed : 
 but for those enlightened and indulgent friends, 
 whose judgment will discriminate between 
 TRUTH and Atonement, between Consistciuze and 
 Apology ; and whose kindness will make allow- 
 ance for the Embarrassments of that Politeness 
 which had studied to give as little offence as 
 possible to Mr. Lefanu. 
 
 THEOPHILUS SWIFT, 
 October 31st. 
 
■ 
 
CHALLENGE, &c. 
 
 LETTER XIII. 
 
 To Theophilus Swift, Esq. 
 Dublin Vd. June 1811. 
 
 1SIR, 
 ONLY arrived yesterday from fighting the bat- 
 tles of my country in Spain, and before I had 
 eat a single morsel in my native land after an 
 absence of two years, your infamous attack on the 
 family of my respected Uncle Doctor Dobbyn, 
 was put into my hands. I have read it with 
 the just indignation an Irishman must, to see 
 an old hoary letcher attempt to brow- beat an 
 old Clergyman into the sacrifice of his youthful 
 Daughter to the arms of such an old miscreant : 
 but as you profess yourself to be a man of honor 
 and a gentleman, I will expect you to give me 
 that satisfaction the sufferings of my family 
 demands from your false and infamous assertions, 
 by meeting me at the Obelisk Phenix in the 
 Park on fifth of June at the hour of twelve ia 
 the forenoon. 
 
 If you decline it, I will post you as an Incen- 
 diary, Coward, Liar and Scoundrel. 
 I am Sir, 
 Your injured servant, 
 
 JAMES DOEBYN. 
 Postcript. If you wish to make a proper 
 atonement for your malignant attack on my dear 
 friends, a line directed to me at my Uncle's Fin- 
 glas, will be instantly attended to by me, 
 
 N 
 
98 
 
 LETTER XIV. 
 
 To James Dobhyn, Esq* 
 
 At the Rev. Doctor Dobbin's, Finglas. 
 Dorset-street, June 5th, 1811. 
 Two o'Clock in the Morning;, 
 SIR, 
 
 I 
 
 am not accustomed to receive or to answer 
 disrespectful Letters: but as you tell me you 
 have been qualifying yourself in Spain to fight 
 the battles of Miss Dobbin in Ireland, I must 
 presume that she sends you as her Champion, 
 in order to put me out of the way, lest I should 
 stand between her and her more youthful Lover.* 
 I am warranted in this conclusion, because, Sir, 
 you are pleased to treat the years with which 
 God has honored me, with indecent and unbe- 
 coming Reflections. As you seem, however, to 
 have formed some very imperfect and erroneous 
 
 * This sentiment Dryden had applied to a Princess, of 
 whom he says, 
 
 " Meantime she stands provided with a Laius, 
 More young and vigorous too, by twenty Springs." 
 It is curious to observe, that the family should deem me too old 
 for Miss Dobbin, but young enough to encounter her Champion. 
 
99 
 
 ideas of Miss Dobbin's differences with me, I 
 must acquaint you, that I have long since 
 handed her over to Mr. Lef$pu ; and that I do 
 not intend to molest her marriage with him. In 
 truth, Sir, I should never have entertained a 
 thought of her, had not herself drawn me on, 
 by leading me to suppose that the addresses 
 which she had encouraged, would have been 
 acceptable to her. 
 
 I have also to acquaint you, that let my 
 former opinion of Miss Dobbin have been what 
 it might, I no longer entertain the same esteem 
 of her. Her late conduct has entirely changed 
 the respect I had for her: and if all which I 
 have heard be true, I have no difficulty to declare 
 that she is undeserving of my affections. I shall 
 not, therefore, fight you ou her accouut ; or 
 erect a new reputation for her by staining my 
 honor in lier service. 
 
 You say Sir, I have " injured" you.-— It is 
 impossible. — I have not the honor to know you. 
 Till I received your letter I had never heard of 
 such a person as Mr. James Dobbyn, or knew 
 that the family had so " Near and Dear a Rela- 
 tion." Your mistake, therefore, I impute to 
 the same delusive source of information from 
 whence you derived your other misconceptions. 
 
100 
 
 In a letter which I wrote to Mr. Lefami, 
 I stated a painful truth- — That an 111- fate is often 
 observed to follow particular families: and in 
 proof of it, I instanced that of the Dobbins. 
 Yourself, Sir, has confirmed what I had before 
 asserted; and your imprudent dragging of Miss 
 Dobbin into a yet more public notice than by 
 her own conduct she had drawn herself* has lite- 
 rally made good the words which I had used 
 on the occasion, that " It can only be ascribed 
 to that fatality which never forsakes them." 
 I have the honor to be, Sir, 
 Your most Obedient Servant 
 
 THEOPIIILUS SWIFT. 
 
 i " j \ m 
 
 P. S. Your letter of the 2d. did not reach 
 Dorset-street until a late hour yesterday. I had 
 left home early in the morning, and did not 
 return till after midnight. — Had I been within 
 when it arrived, I should have given it an imme- 
 diate answer. 
 
101 
 LETTER XV. 
 
 To the Rev. Doctor Dobbin. 
 
 Dorset-street, June 10, 181], 
 
 SIR, 
 
 L 
 
 ast week I received a letter of a most extra- 
 ordinary nature, subscribed James Dobbyn. It 
 bore date, " Dublin June 2d.", but was not 
 delivered in Dorset street till the fourth, at a very 
 advanced hour of the day. I had been absent 
 from home the entire of it; and not having 
 returned till long after midnight, was prevented 
 from giving it an answer until the morning of the 
 fifth. The writer named you, Sir, as his Uncle ; 
 and your house at Finglas as his <c Direction" 
 
 Although his letter was evidently intended 
 to insult me, and from the cast of its language 
 not entitled to regard, yet Sir, as it bore the 
 name of Dobbin, I felt myself bound to acknow- 
 ledge it, and even to give it an instant reply. 
 Accordingly, Sir, 1 dispatched a servant with 
 my answer that very morning, between the hours 
 of eight and nine. The servant informs me, that 
 he delivered my letter to a Female servant who 
 opened your door, and told him the family had 
 not yet came down stairs; but that she would 
 take care to let them have it. My servant, in 
 obedience to the instruction I had given him, 
 when he delivered the letter, delivered also My 
 
compliments with it ; and was very particular, 
 as I had likewise instructed him to be, both in 
 signifying from whom the letter had come, and in 
 observing that it was for Mr. James Dob by n. 
 
 Mr. Dobbyn had menaced me with his resent- 
 ment ; and I had impatiently waited the execu- 
 tion of his threat: but nothing having subsequent- 
 ly occurred, I was induced, Sir, to take the 
 liberty of enquiring whether you had a Nephew 
 in Dublin, or elsewhere, bearing the name of 
 the Subscriber? — The result is, that should the 
 letter prove an Imposture, it was not only a weak 
 and very unfeeling joke, but if designed as an 
 act of friendship lo your family, a very mistaken 
 kindness, and such as deserves theft severest 
 reprehension. 
 
 Should my answer, therefore, to this ill-ad- 
 vised Letter not have been delivered to any gen- 
 tleman of that name and description, you will 
 extremely oblige me by ordering it to be returned 
 to me. It was sealed with my Arms ; and super- 
 scribed, " James Dobbyn, Esq. at the Rev. 
 Doctor Djbbin's, Finglas." 
 
 I am greatly concerned that I should give you 
 so much trouble ; but you must perceive, Sir, 
 the delicacy of my situation; and your good 
 ness, I hope, will accept it as my apology. 
 I have the honor to be, 
 Sir, 
 Your very obedient Servant 
 
 THEOPIIILUS SWIFT. 
 
103 
 
 LETTER XVI. 
 
 To the Rev. Thomas Philip Lefanu, 
 
 Dorset-street, June 21, 18 H. 
 SIR, 
 
 A 
 
 severe disability in my right-hand prevented 
 me from the honor of sooner writing to you on 
 the same distressing subject, with which I had 
 hoped I should never again have cause to trouble 
 you. But the late conduct of the family who 
 had obliged me to trouble you before, has 
 imposed a new task on me ; and I have now to 
 communicate the copy of a letter sent me some 
 short time ago, subscribed James Dobbyn ; toge- 
 ther with my answer to that letter. I have 
 likewise to communicate an original letter which 
 I wrote to Doctor Dobbin on the occasion. 
 You will find it, I hope, very different from 
 that which Imposture had contrived ; and such, 
 I apprehend, as the Doctor should have attended 
 to. It is necessary also I should let you know, 
 that he detained a letter which he ought to have 
 returned^ and returned a letter which he ought 
 to have acknowledged : in other words, that he 
 opened a letter which was not addressed to him; 
 but sent back, unopened, a letter that was. 
 
1 104 
 
 Had the doctor, as any one acquainted with 
 Good-manners would have done, acknowledged 
 the letter addressed to Himself', and returned, 
 as I had respectfully solicited, that addressed 
 to Another ; I should not now, Sir, have occa- 
 sion to lay the transaction before you. The 
 matter would have ended there, without further 
 observation. Instead, however, of shewing both 
 his Ignorance and his want of Manners by the 
 return of my letter unopened, it would have 
 been more becoming in him, had he expressed, 
 in a letter of his own, his concern both for the 
 Imposture itself and for the Breach of my Seal. 
 If he did not know it before, he cannot now 
 affect Ignorance, 
 
 I know but two ways of accounting for such 
 departure from Politeness. — Either, Sir, through 
 that Fatality which follows him as the shade 
 pursues the substance : or, that he feared the 
 Retort Courteous, and chose to infringe the 
 private confidence of my pen, rather than meet 
 n\y direct reprehension. If he has any better 
 reasons to offer, I am willing to receive them. 
 
 For your clearer understanding of the letters, 
 I have numbered them in the order they should 
 be read; and particularly, Sir, I have opened 
 the cover of the letter which I had written to 
 the Doctor, lest your delicacy might hesitate 
 to break a seal which Secrecy had imposed, and 
 
105 
 
 Honor had rendered sacred. It is the letter 
 itself that I had sent to him, the very same that 
 his Weakness had returned. I assure you, Sir, 
 upon my honor, that I have not even taken it 
 from out of its original Envelope. 
 
 And here, Sir, I have to offer my concern 
 for any thing that may give you pain in a Corres- 
 pondence entirely unprovoked by me ; a Corres- 
 pondence begun by themselves, and continued 
 by their own act — the Infraction of my private 
 Seal. Not considering the letter suppositious, 
 or that it had been contrived by them to extort 
 an " Atonement," as they called it, and Revo- 
 cation of my Book, I could not foresee that they 
 would break a seal which Confidence had 
 secured: Neither, Sir, did I suspect that one 
 could be found amongst them, who would over- 
 step the laws which Society had established for 
 its safety, in order to come at my secret opinion ; 
 an opinion that should never have escaped my 
 pen, put for their own unhandsome Imposture; 
 nor would even now have been divulged or 
 known, but for the Curiosity that discovered it. 
 I could not, therefore, have meditated any dis- 
 respect either to you, Sir, or to Miss Dobbin ; 
 and I hope, although I do not wish or require 
 your answer, you and she will do me thejustice 
 to believe, that I had not designed to offend. 
 The offence' He* entirely with those who pro- 
 
 o 
 
106 
 
 vokcd it, and those only are answerable for it. 
 The explanation is painful, and can give no 
 pleasure to either of us: but I judged it necessary 
 for my own reputation, lest to their Breach of 
 Confidence they should have added a Breach 
 of Truth, and misrepresented me to you. 
 
 I write in great pain, and fear you will find 
 it difficult to make out my hand ; but I would 
 not longer defer sending you the letters, or giv- 
 ing you tile necessary information. 
 
 1 cannot better than in this place request you 
 will have the goodness to inform Miss Dobbin, 
 that be my discovered opinion what it may, I 
 do not believe she would either forge a letter, or 
 infringe a seal. I am not disposed to judge so 
 dishonorably of her. I request you will likewise 
 assure her— and she knows I will no more break 
 my word, than herself would break a seal- 
 that should I find it necessary to make the 
 transaction known, I shall do her all possible 
 justice; and to the utmost of my power, shall 
 acquit her to the world, both of the forgery 
 itself, and the violation of the Wax. 
 
 But of her Family she must allow me to think 
 very differently. When thej r reserved my answer, 
 they assumed the forgery; when they broke 
 my seal, they committed themselves with it : 
 
107 
 
 what before was but a shadow, they sub- 
 stantiated ; and legitimated that which might 
 have passed for spurious. Like the Spear of 
 Ithuriel — if angelic Virtue may be imputed to 
 them— they touched the Toad into its native 
 deformity ; they gave truth to the falsehood, 
 and by their own act gathered that falsehood 
 to themselves. Meanwhile Iphigenia suffers ; the 
 victim, the fated victim of parental weakness ! 
 In Garlands and Fillets she is led bound to 
 the altar, the Gaze and the Song of crowding 
 Curiosity. 
 
 ■ ■ ■ "Pueri circum inmiptosque puell<e 
 Sacra canunt. 
 
 Agamemnon himself precedes the sacrifice ; 
 and instead of the Knife, her * Near and Dear 
 " Relations" provide the Sword. — Nothing is 
 wanting but the hand that shall plunge it in her 
 bosom. 
 
 How far they may have succeeded in their 
 object, they best understand : but to attain it, 
 they were not solicitous about the means, whe- 
 ther by violated Faith or open Intimidation ; 
 little caring how much they exposed her, pro- 
 vided they might insult me with their Ill-manners, 
 or fraudfully pry into the secrets of my breast. 
 
 O 2 
 
108 
 
 But although I have not met them in the field, 
 should I meet them in another place, I shall 
 teach them a Morality, to which, at present, 
 they appear to be strangers. 
 
 Talents 1 have never denied them. The letter 
 from their Spanish Cousin is a proof of what 
 they can perform ; and that, doubtless, is the 
 best Ingenuity which succeeds the best. Its 
 Speciousness, I own, deceived me ; but I was 
 not the first on whom Imposture had been prac- 
 tised with success, : 
 
 " For let a man be ne'er so wise. 
 
 He may be caught by SOBER lies." 
 
 And as its Speciousness deceived, so its Boldness 
 secured it from detection, Its very Vulgarity 
 gave it a cast of truth ; and if it produced not 
 an 4C Atonement/* it produced an Answer, as 
 that Answer produced a Discovery ! The name 
 of Dobbin, they well knew, would kindle my 
 attention. It was a Talisman of Gun-powder: 
 —a Touch would set it in a blaze. They knew 
 also, that as it was not the first time I had been 
 challenged by the name, the Imposture would 
 be likely to succeed. One of them, not in 
 forgery or mendacious defiance, but under her 
 own authentic hand and seal, had warned my 
 pen to repress its Sallies; for that should it 
 presume to write or make public any circum- 
 
109 
 
 stance of or concerning her Sister, she had 
 relations every where whom she would send out 
 to have a shot at me :— .» FIRE A SHOT," I 
 think she called.it. When, therefore, I beheld 
 the doughty Nephew of her Father dressed up 
 and deputed for the purpose, I naturally- 
 concluded the Lady had been as good as her 
 word, and had procured some PHOENIX of 
 her family to correct > my presumption. — The 
 whole is of apiece. 
 
 But in the plan the}' had contrived for Me, 
 they over-looked the Lady contrived for You ; 
 and never once took into account the injury 
 they would do her, should I go out to defend 
 with my Sword that which I had published with 
 my Pen. No, Sir ! — Tell Miss Dobbin there 
 was a time,— and that time not long since passed 
 —when I should have deemed fifty lives laid 
 down for her sake, too few and insufficient : 
 but tell her also* ************* 
 
 No matter, Sir; — let it go , — Tell her, that not- 
 withstanding Diseoveiies, it would have pained 
 me to the last hour of the life which is still left 
 to me, had I yielded to my fust impulse, and 
 sacrificed her to their infatuated Politics. 
 I have the honor to be, Sir, 
 Your most humble Servant, 
 
 THfcOPHILUS SWIFT. 
 
110 
 
 STRICTURE 
 
 M 
 
 -Y kind and respected friend*, of whom I 
 now take my leave, are entreated to believe and 
 to bear in mind, that these papers had been sent 
 to press, and the whole of them nearly printed 
 off, before the marriage of Miss Dobbin had 
 taken place, or been communicated to me. Un- 
 important as this circumstance may appear, it 
 must not be over-looked, lest malignance should 
 suppose that I had caused their publication 
 through some invidious or other unworthy motive. 
 Not enduring the suspicion, on the first intima- 
 tion of her marriage, I determined, instanter, 
 to suppress the work ; and indeed I felt no 
 wish to cloud or imbitter the happiness she 
 had hoped in the union which had been 
 accomplished for her. I paused not a single 
 moment ; but in the generosity of my heart, 
 wrote immediately to my printer, and assigning 
 my reasons, countermanded the publication. 
 
Ill 
 
 On the receit, however, of a letter, which like 
 that of Mr. James Dobbyn, w T as framed with a 
 design to offend me, and to carry that offence to 
 the extremest point of insult, I as speedily 
 determined that the publication should go on : 
 and disregarding every other consideration, 
 directed the promptest dispatch. Should any 
 delay ensue, my friends will impute it to those 
 unavoidable causes which impede the Press of 
 every printer, and retard the quickest motions 
 of his Office. 
 
 The letter is written in a neat female hand, 
 not wholly unconstrained, but expressed in 
 happier language than that of their other letter 
 fabricated in the same forge. As their condnct 
 toward me has been marked with invariable 
 insult, from my first proposal of alliance with 
 the unprosperous family, to this the last effort 
 of their Malice and Ill-manners, I have directed 
 my printer to publish their new forgery, that 
 they may not be partially understood, or judged 
 of in detail. That conduct I now offer them 
 the opportunity either of disclaiming, or of 
 confirming it for ever by their acquiescence 
 and submission. -67 Charts sikant, mercedem 
 tulerint. Their Silence will be their Shame; 
 and that Shame their Reward, 
 
uz 
 
 The band- writing of the letter extremely 
 resembles that of the individual ladies of the 
 family ; all of whose writing bears, like their 
 minds, a conformity of character. The flames 
 having destroyed their letters, I am not prepared 
 to establish that conformity, or to determine 
 the likeness of the present letter with their 
 usual hand-wriring : but as far as memory will 
 allow, the letter in question is the ve\y hand of 
 the family ; or, to speak with more precision, 
 the family-hand. Should, however, any lady 
 or gentleman, acquainted with their writing, 
 wish to compare the letter with an acknowledged 
 one of their own, and will do me the favour to 
 call upon me, 1 shall have great satisfaction in 
 submitting it to their examination. 
 
 And here it is material to observe, that Miss 
 Fitz- David carefully notes the precise hour of 
 Twelve as the moment of the marriage. Now, 
 by her extreme accuracy, and the assured 
 manner in which she states that to be the hour, 
 its truth must have been familiar to her; and to 
 such correctness it was necessary also, that she 
 should herself have been present at the ceremony, 
 and even have felt an interest in the Event. To 
 jjt person not interested, the specific hour was of 
 indifferent concern, and its communication of 
 idle account. The same may be said of the 
 Place ; which, had Miss Fitz-David not been 
 
113 
 
 one of the party, it was not likely she would 
 have regarded ; and still less would have known, 
 the Church of Finglas lying three miles in the 
 Country, and out of the line of much resort^ or 
 if much resorted, by Horned Cattle only. The 
 same, indeed, might not be said of the populous 
 parish of St. Mary, where a Sister of Miss 
 Dobbin not long before had made her matrimo- 
 nial Debut : but to Miss Fitz-David it was a 
 matter of fact, and She found no difficulty to 
 give under her hand the Combinations of Time 
 and Place. Like Aristotle, She had studied the 
 Unities ; and was as correct as that philosopher 
 in her observance of them — " Finglas Church 
 at Twelve o'Clock."-— When too she dwells 
 so minutely on the hour that Miss Dobbin was 
 clocked into happiness, it proves the importance 
 which they had all attached to it, and how 
 much the circumstance had pressed itself on their 
 minds ; the absence of Doctor Dobbin having 
 deferred the ceremony to the last ofthe Canonical 
 Hours, and thereby thrown them into confusion 
 and alarm. 
 
 I have been informed — but not being in the 
 secrets of the family, cannot assure it by the 
 Finglas-Clock; — I have been informed, that 
 much of their alarm arose from an apprehension 
 that I should pounce upon them ; and by 
 showing " just cause" where the ceremony 
 
 P 
 
114 
 
 prescribes it, interdict the marriage. A moment's 
 reflection — had that been the moment for it- 
 would have told them, however, they had 
 little to dread : I had previously repudiated 
 the bride, and had expressly informed her 
 Champion James that I should not molest her 
 marriage, in as much as I had assigned her to 
 Mr. Lefanu.* This they knew very well, 
 having more than a month before read my 
 determination in manuscript. But conscious 
 how much they had incurred my displeasure, 
 and how much too they were in my power, 
 with the fears of childrenf they expected I would 
 
 * See Letter XIV. page 99 
 
 f That these childish fears had not been imputed to them 
 without sufficient cause, a little Adventure, uninteresting in 
 itself, yet important in its application, will serve to prove. 
 Great characters are distinguished by great circumstances ; but 
 humble circumstances determine humble characters ; and th« 
 following familiar Anecdote, which on any other occasion had 
 not deserved regard, will set the present matter in its due light. 
 
 On the 25th. of last May I had walked to Finglas, not to 
 visit Miss Dobbin, but to see a friend of hers who lives there. 
 Passing near the Church, who should turn a corner, but Miss 
 Dobbin and Mr. Lefanu ? — They are arm in arm — they see me 
 —they start— they hesitate — they loose their hold— and then— 
 in the dread of meeting, and the hope of eluding me, accelerate 
 their Steps to the retreat of a wall that stood out of the road. — 
 Observing me to advance, and that should I introduce myself to 
 them, they had no means of escape, off they set, and ran home 
 faster than I had wishes to follow them. Should Reporters, 
 
115 
 
 exercise that power, and up-set their triumph. 
 And naturally enough : yet, had they known 
 me as well by Character as they knew me by 
 Contract, they could not have been ignorant 
 that I had both too much spirit to take an advan* 
 tage so ungenerous, and too much pride to 
 accept a Wife at Second-hand. But the oppor- 
 tune arrival of the Doctor having dispelled their 
 fears, and finding that they had made assurance 
 doubly sure, their courage takes a new spring, 
 and triumphantly proclaims a Victory that I had 
 left to them I 
 
 My book is the Touch-Stone of Truth, and I 
 would not endanger its veracity by the assertion 
 of a fact to which I had not been witness, or 
 which I did not know to be true. I give it 
 therefore, as Report only, yet grounded on good 
 authority, and such as I am bound to respect. 
 To judge, however, of Cause by Effect, the 
 assuming tone of their Jetter gives it a strong air 
 of credit. 
 
 P 2 
 
 among their other Denials, deny this, I shall produce evidence 
 of its truth.— This is the Protector, whose prowess was to 
 muzzle me 1— But I do assure Miss Dobbin, that she was in no 
 more danger that I would have pounced upon her near the 
 Church, than she was in danger that I should have pounced 
 upon her in the Church. — The two Stories tell together as con- 
 clusively as Miss Fitz-David's Time and Place, 
 [[ And each from each contracts new Strength and Light/' 
 
116 
 
 But this is not all. The family had not 
 required to be told, that the procrastination of 
 a single day might be fatal : for had the hour of 
 Twelve gone by, the marriage must have stood 
 over till the next Canonical Hour should come 
 round, and matters in the interval might take a 
 new turn. They had not only to go through 
 the Purgatory of their old fears, but had disco- 
 vered, or their Reporters have much wronged 
 them, that the History of their Challenge was 
 on the eve of publication ; and Laius might not 
 be in the humor of marrying to-morrow the 
 Princess who had been so treasonably spoken of 
 to-day. He had read my letter to the Champion 
 of her Honor, and might hesitate: he might 
 feel somewhat doubtful ; he might not chuse 
 momtrari dtgito, two Latin words which himself 
 has translated for me, to be made " the distressing 
 subject of public conversation ';* Like his 
 name-sake in the Play, he might make a 
 Discovery ; and, to have done with my Greek, he 
 might leave the Lady to her first Contract. Her 
 old Knight had renounced her ; and should her 
 new one give her up, her friends might not 
 with equal dexterity manage a third for her. 
 They prudently, therefore, precipitated her 
 marriage ; and if report say true, (Reporters 
 sometimes are yery angry if we do not believe 
 them,) were in such a hurry to get her off, that 
 her new Kriifht had not time to provide for her : 
 
117 
 
 which Improvidence, by the way, might have 
 been managed to the same advantage, and with 
 the very same facility, eight months before, had 
 the same necessity then existed. But the Moon 
 of Finglas was in her wane ; her lustre required 
 Repair ; another month might eclipse it for ever \ 
 and to preserve what yet remained of its Splendor, 
 New Light must be added. They re-Jumed her, 
 therefore, with all due dispatch. And now 
 that they had brought their management to bear, 
 and that Laius, like Macbeth, had taken a Baud 
 of Fate, Miss Fitz- David is deputed in the 
 Elation of their hearts to announce the Tidings 
 of their Success; hoping at the same time, that 
 the certainty of that Success might induce me 
 to suppress the Challenge ; as the other letter of 
 Miss Dobbin had induced me to suppress the 
 Memoirs, lest that publication should stand in 
 the way of her preferment. 
 
 For these and other obvious reasons, Miss 
 Fitz-David will be found to have been neither 
 an indifferent Spectator nor an officious Intruder, 
 but a Member of their own Council, that had 
 shared in their alarm and in their triumph, in 
 their fears and in their exultations, who had 
 tasted the Spousal Cake, and was determined 
 that I too should taste it. Is there now the 
 person who will saj r , that it was a stranger, 
 disinterested, and wholly unconnected with 
 
118 
 
 Miss Dobbin and the circumstances of the day, 
 who wrote me the letter in question ? Or who 
 would have ventured, without her concurrence 
 and assent, to write me that insulting page 
 which has called forth these observations? But 
 which I should have remitted to the wretched 
 family, but for the venom of the heart that took 
 s> much trouble to be malicious. 
 
 If these facts be not as I fiave stated them, 
 
 those whom they concern can show how they 
 
 differ from the truth : and when they show this, 
 
 I hope they will disclaim all privity and knowledge 
 
 whatever both of the letter and of its writer. 
 
 If this they fail to do in the same open and 
 
 unequivocal! ng manner that I have charged and 
 
 brought it home to their own parlour, their 
 
 silence will prove, better than any argument of 
 
 mine, that Miss Fitz- David is no other than 
 
 Miss Fitz- Dobbin. 
 
 Be, however, rrjy present opinion of Miss 
 Dobbin what it may, I have no difficulty to 
 own, that had I found her where I had left her; 
 that is, in the sequestered Sanctuary of her 
 father's house, to whose walls her unadulterated 
 manners gave lustre and respect ;--that house, 
 those walls where her Love of retirement had 
 first recommended her to my heart, and where 
 her Virtues and unabated ardor after wisdom 
 
119 
 
 and knowledge did subsequently endear her to 
 me : — days, when her Ambition had not strayed 
 beyond the may-pole in her village $ — days* 
 when her Wishes like her walks were bounded 
 by her own parochial meadows: — I do confess, 
 that had I found her where I had left her, in the 
 same innocent and undissipated Retirement 
 she would still have possessed my undiminished 
 esteem ; and I should have felt a pang at losing 
 a wife— iTJie Wife of My Soiil, &s in my letters t 
 had been used to call her — whom Nature and 
 Education had so fitted for me. Our Habits, 
 our Objects, our Tastes, our Studies, our 
 Pursuits were THEN the same: in these there 
 was no Disparity ; and their assimilation by- 
 identifying us in the same community of interests, 
 would have assured to us the same reciprocated 
 happiness. But the Serpent entered Paradise, 
 and her father's Garden ceased to be Eden.* 
 Those who took her from the Shade, and placed 
 her in the Sun, have much to answer for ; and 
 I have nothing to regret in the loss of her who 
 became the Eleve of the Noted Calypso, j- 
 
 These strictures would have appeared to far 
 greater advantage in the preface, which had 
 
 * Miss Dobbin has not forgot that I had been used to call it 
 by that name. 
 
 + See appendix No. V, 
 
no 
 
 been the proper place for them. But that part 
 of the work was struck off, when Miss Fitz- 
 David honored me with her correspondence: 
 and I regret that the only place left for the 
 Lady should be the Back-ground of the Picture ; 
 where she is likely to make a less conspicuous 
 figure than her merit may be found to deserve. 
 
 What I had remarked in the Sixteenth letter, 
 (page 109) will conclude thes^ papers better 
 than any thing new which I am able to offer ; 
 viz.—" The whole of their conduct is or 
 
 APIECE." 
 
 THEOPHILUS SWIFT. 
 August 3d. 1 3! I. 
 
121 
 
 LETTER XVII 
 Miss Fitz-David to Mr. Swift. 
 
 SIR, 
 
 H 
 
 AVING read your publication respecting 
 Miss Dobbin, I have the pleasure to inform 
 you that her Marriage with Mr. Lefanu was 
 solemnized yesterday morning in Finglas 
 Church at Twelve o'CIock : and in order that 
 you may indulge yourself with a pleasant 
 dream, I enclose a piece of the Bride-cake, &c. 
 &c* 
 
 Wishing you every consolation under so heavy 
 an affliction, 
 
 I am sir, 
 with great respect, 
 your humble servant 
 FITZ-DAVID. 
 Thursday August I, IS 11. 
 
 * The Bride-Cake was surmounted with a Trophy of White 
 Ribband. 
 
 Q 
 
APPENDIX, 
 
Advertisement. 
 
 A HAVE to apologize for the length of this 
 Appendix, upon whose extent I had not 
 calculated when I noticed its brevity, in page 
 27- The trtith is, that when I told my friends 
 I should not burthen them with lone: or unneces- 
 sary annotations, no part of the Appendix, with 
 the exception of Number iv, had been composed ; 
 and I had not then estimated the fulness of the 
 References I should be obliged to make. It was 
 unfortunate : but so it stood, when my printer 
 reminded me it was high time I should put the 
 appended materials into form. 
 
 While these were under composition, several 
 observations pressed themselves upon me, which 
 though in themselves not very long, were yet 
 not unnecessary. Many passages required 
 explanation, on some of which, it is hoped, a 
 little light has been thrown; while others, it is 
 feared, will ever remain but half- unfolded, or 
 beheld as through a darkened glass. They cannot 
 now be satisfactorily cleared up, through the loss 
 of those papers which Miss Dobbin and myself 
 had destroyed, in the moment that I imagined 
 the unkindnes of her family had disappeared. 
 
 Q2 
 
12* 
 
 That unkindness is one of the things which 
 principally requires explanation, but for which 
 I confess myself unable to account, as I had 
 never in thought, in word, or in deed offended 
 any of them; not supposing that a wish to marry 
 Miss Dobbin was a Crime ; or that she had 
 sinned in having deemed it none. 
 
 To have had some, at least, of the darker 
 passages cleared up, the most effectual mode 
 had been their own Answer to my book. JBetween 
 us much truth might have been elicited, and 
 many circumstances brought to light that would 
 have illustrated others, and uncloaked the 
 obscurity of the whole, Admitted facts would 
 have supplied the place of proofs, and inevitable 
 conclusions have followed from those admissions. 
 But this they discreetly avoided, deeming it more 
 scriptural to turn the other cheek ; though had 
 they minded the scripture a little more, These 
 thi?igs had not been done in a Corner. Had they 
 come to the point at once, and discovered a 
 disposition to meet the facts in acknowledged 
 day, they would have found me less their enemy 
 than their friend : I should have met them more 
 than half way, and like the long- absent Bird, 
 have greeted them with returning regard: whether 
 wisely, or weakly, is not here the question. 
 But as I would not monopolize the Press, so I 
 would not monopolize the Truth, of which the 
 
125 
 
 Press is the Organ ; or, by a familiar figure, 
 the Speaking- Trumpet : and therefore I beseeeh 
 them by that friendship I once had for them all, 
 and which I had never violated, not to force me 
 by Whispers and dark Abnegations into a fourth 
 Edition. — My Nature has belter thoughts; I 
 would not mill them : but had rather say with 
 old Entellus, 
 
 flic Castas arfcmque repono. 
 
 THF-OfHILUS SWIFT. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 Page 13. Burthened her Escritoire with them 
 for so many years.'] The following, as I am 
 credibly informed, is the answer which the 
 ci-devant Miss Jane Dobbin gives, for her Sister, 
 to this provoking question : viz. <c That it is not 
 true her Sister had preserved my letters: for 
 that she had left them in the Card- racks and on 
 the Mantel-piece in the common parlour." 
 
 There is something so confident, yet so ridicu- 
 lous, in this Tale of wonder, that it deserves 
 no better notice than a Smile ! Nevertheless, 
 as the Tale has been roundly told, I as roundly 
 ask this same ci-devant Miss Jane Dobbin a few 
 intelligible questions. 
 
 1st. And first, Madam, had your Sister led 
 my letters for common inspection in the Card- 
 racks of her parlour, you will please to assign 
 the reason that her Father should have entertained 
 so much dread and apprehension of their 
 becoming public ? 
 
 2d. Had my Letters' contained nothing 
 which might not be confided to a Card- rack, 
 why did he resist so many indignant applications 
 
us 
 
 for them ? Why keep such fearful, such tena- 
 cious possession ? Why so jealous of their 
 inoffensive pages ? 
 
 3d. How happened it, that her family should 
 have averred so often, and boasted to their 
 friends, that your Sister was in possession of 
 innumerable Documents of my affection and 
 promises of marriage,* had she left such Docu- 
 ments to the precarious security of a Card-rack? 
 
 4th. Had my letters been silent on the 
 subject; had their gilded edges served only to 
 decorate a Card- rack ; why did her father not 
 publish them at once? Would they not have 
 been a full and complete disproof of the Contract, 
 and the best Vindication also of his beloved 
 Daughter ? Was it my literary, or my moral 
 reputation that was dearer to him than the 
 Honor of his House f He denies that he detained 
 them as Hostages j but he. does not deny the 
 Contract itself, or the Truths contained in their 
 impassioned pages. 
 
 5\\\. On the IsWtfc of November, J 8 10, (I 
 have yet the letter of that date) your Sister 
 apprized me, she had that morning committed 
 to the flames the confidential letter which I had 
 wiitten her six years before ; that is, on the 
 
 ft Sze Letter IV. page 4l 
 
129 
 
 • 
 
 fifth of September, 1804. You will find it alluded 
 to in the question which follows that of the 
 Escritoire. But I, would here ask you two 
 unambiguous questions, to either of which your 
 answer will be sufficient. 
 
 During the whole of those six years, had this 
 same confidential letter been sticking in a 
 Card-rack ? 
 
 Was it preserved, during that period, in the 
 Sanctum of your Sisters Escritoire? 
 
 Your Truth, I am certain, will find a ready an- 
 swer. But pray inform us, how this same Tenant 
 of a Card- rack, this volant and fugitive Leaf, 
 which your Sister, we are told, had disclaimed and 
 abandoned as of no account, should, after a Lapse 
 of Six years, find its way to her Writing-table ? 
 And whether a letter whose fate she had 
 recorded with such distinguished and favored 
 notice, was proper to ornament a Card-rack ?- 
 
 6th. It is far from my wish to offend Her 
 whose worth and truth I had once so respected 
 but had the Weakness of your Sister left my 
 unfortunate Correspondence in the Card-racks of 
 her parlour, how will you account for her Candor 
 in affecting to return that Correspondence as 
 undiminished and entire as she had originally 
 received it ? conscious as she must have been, 
 that she had not preserved it unimpaired, but 
 
 R 
 
ISO 
 
 had exposed its detached pages to annual and 
 & diurnal depredation. For the sake of that injured 
 and once-beloved sister, I will not credit the 
 account you give of her. 
 
 7th. Had that once-beloved Sister left these 
 Documents of my Heart'sTruth in the Card-racks 
 of her parlour, could she be very certain that 
 in the course of six or seven years, no Hand but 
 her own had touched them ; no Finger had 
 purloined, no Curiosity had pocketted, no Wind 
 had wafted any one of them from its place - y but 
 that they had all abided stationary and 
 immoveable, during that whole period ; and that 
 (you understand a little Latin) Quaciinque in 
 chartis descripsi, ilia mantnt immota locis f — Will 
 your once-ingenuous, your once-respected Sister 
 aver this ? And if she will not, shall another 
 be allowed to aver it for her ? But should her 
 new Morality have taught her no better Lesson, 
 where will you direct us to find her Integrity f 
 Is it to be looked for in Card-racks ? Or shall 
 we brush it from a Mantel-piece ? Ah Madam ! 
 your assertion proves more than you had intended, 
 or expected that it would : for, if all her Familj r , 
 all her Friends, all her Neighbours, all her 
 Visitors, all her Domestics ; — if these, and all 
 others, had at all times and seasons free access to, 
 and the handling and the turning of these 
 ' Documents, how, I beseech you, could the 
 
131 
 
 ■Good Faith of her whom I had then so esteemed, 
 have restored them to me as the imviolated 
 records of my Affection ; — the unmutilated pages 
 of my Truth and Affiance; — the unaltered, and 
 unalterable Vows of that marriage which my 
 Heart, my wronged and wounded Heart, had so 
 often made her ? Do not say, Madam, that 
 notwithstanding this insurmountable argument, 
 these sacred Hostages ' of my Honor, these 
 solemn Pledges of my Heart more than of my 
 Pen, might yet have been mounted on a Mantel- 
 piece, or stuck in the Lamina of her Card-racks, 
 for that — must I, Madam ? — must I speak it ? 
 — A Breach of Good Faith had not been 
 UNFAMILIAR TO HER. — The Argument would 
 come with a better grace from any other lips 
 than your own. 
 
 8th. And where shall be found the Consistence of 
 Her whose steadiness I had been used to admire, 
 in pertinaciously refusing for so many months 
 to restore these vital Pledges of my heart, lest I 
 should print and exhibit them to the world, had 
 Herself, Madam, been daily in the habit of 
 publishing them to all Comers and Goers ? 
 No, no : The Invention of the Card-racks was 
 to screen the Contract, and have it supposed 
 that nothing of the sort had ever existed between 
 us. It is difficult to account in any other way 
 for as notable a Fable, without its Moral, as any 
 I remember to have met with. 
 
13% . 
 
 9th« One other question, and I will dismiss 
 you : I am sure you will thank me for it. Don't 
 be afraid; it has nothing to do with the 
 Card-racks.— -When you were denj'ing the 
 question of the Escritoire^ why did you not 
 deny the firsts and dispose of that before you 
 had proceeded to the second ? And why did 
 you stop at the second, without advancing on 
 the remaining eight? Should you make no 
 better hand of the nine you have left undisposed 
 of, or of the two others which are introduced 
 into the present Edition for the exercise of your 
 ingenuity, be assured, Madam, yourunfortunate 
 Sister will find little to applaud in the zeal of 
 her advocate. But should you manage the 
 nine questions now first propounded to you, no 
 better than you have managed the only one of 
 the ten, which you had ventured to touch ; — 
 and should all your other assertions, together 
 with those of your Whisperers and Reporters, 
 be no better founded than that whose fallacy I 
 have just exposed; — Be assured again, the Truth 
 of these papers will live and continue, when the 
 Efforts employed to silence and discredit them 
 shall have perished and passed away. 
 
 . It was natural however, that you should have 
 defended the Honor of your deluded Sister in 
 the best manner it had allowed. Your manage- 
 ment had brought her into all her difficulties; 
 
133 
 
 and it was but fair that your management should 
 take her out of them. To that management she 
 had owed the easy Violation of her Faith, and 
 the yet easier Frustration of her Honorable Intent .* 
 A little Kindness, a little Politeness, a little 
 Explanation, against which, however, you took 
 care to close the door, might have accommodated 
 matters in a way more satisfactory to us all, and 
 less discreditable to some. Nor is it, perhaps, 
 the least of the misfortunes which have marked 
 and invariably pursued your ill-fated family, 
 unto the present hour of the words of my pen, 
 that through your miserable management and 
 enflaming counsels, they should have courted 
 my resentment, and combined, and determined 
 to insult me; that they should have labored to 
 offend, and even have defied and challenged the 
 man, whose pen, they well knew, was his 
 armour; his only armour against the concerted, 
 but unprovoked assaults of inveterate and 
 associated Enemies. — Dux Foemina FactL 
 
 * See pages 21 and 22. There unfortunately happens in 
 pages 21 and 23 a typographical Error, which occasions some 
 little confusion. The pen, however, will easily correct these 
 unavoidable mistakes. 
 
No. II. 
 
 Page If. Her delicacy omitted to touch the Subject:'] 
 It is singularly curious that Miss Dobbins Let- 
 ter* should assume the air of an original commu- 
 nication > as if that had been the first and 
 only time that I had proposed or mentioned 
 Marriage to her ; or as if neither the Contract 
 itself, nor its Obligation, had been pressed upon 
 her, or had formed any part whatever of the 
 only question then between us. 
 
 It is worthy also of remark, that Miss Dobbin 
 should observe the strictest silence respecting 
 the confidential friend, to whom at that very- 
 moment she was entrusting the impassioned 
 Deposits of my Heart, and committing the care 
 and management of her own letter to myself: 
 which letter, by the way, it has lately come out, 
 her friend had himself counselled and advised, 
 as the only means of arresting my resentment, 
 and keeping from Mr. Lefanu the knowledge of 
 her Contract with me.f Owing, however, to 
 
 * Letter IX. 
 
 f It has lately come out also, that this confidential friend 
 was sitting at Miss Dobbin's Elbow during the whole of the time 
 that the pen was in her hand. 
 
135 
 
 some accident, she forgets to mention her 
 confidential Ambassador, on the success o£ 
 whose negociation depended all her hopes ! 
 
 And this is the more extraordinary, because 
 her Ambassador was to keep the matter a 
 profound secret: and, should my information 
 be true, that secret he faithfully kept till it ceased 
 to be one; that is, until after 1 myself had applied 
 in Cuffe- street for an explanation. What happened 
 upon that discovery, or how Miss Dobbin's 
 friend settled it with Mr. Lefanu, and accom- 
 modated that Gentleman to her, I never heard 
 or enquired: but this is certain, Miss Dobbin 
 became extremely alarmed, lest, should it reach 
 the ear of her new lover that she was adjusting 
 the circumstance of an old Contract, that new 
 lover would leave her to that old Contract, and 
 abandon his own inchoate Engagement, which 
 hung, then, in fearful and hesitating uncertainty. 
 
 With the permission of my friends, I shall 
 state for their information, and as briefly as I 
 can, one or two other facts connected with the 
 present circumstance. They will tend to throve 
 much light on the general subject. 
 
 My pen is unable to describe the anxiousness 
 of Miss Dobbin's confidential friend, when I 
 
136 
 
 entered on the subject of the Contract,* and 
 told him I had determined to enforce it. He 
 was, however, far more collected than myself. 
 My own agitation exceeded all measure. 
 
 And now he produced Miss Dobbin's Letter.— 
 In an instant J disdained to touch it. — My words, 
 as he presented theietter, are fresh on my memory. 
 — -«* No, Sir ! — No !*— Take it back to her !— - 
 Tell her there was a time my Heart would have 
 sprung from my bosom to receive a letter from 
 
 * On the subject of the Contract, as mentioned in the text, 
 I had before conferred with Miss Dobbin's confidential friend, 
 though I did not then know him in that character. But it is here 
 proper to observe, that the present conversation took place oft 
 the 21st. of November, 1810: that on the 18th. I had heard, 
 for the first time, that Miss Dobbin had entered into a new 
 Gontract ; that on the 1 9th. it had been communicated to Miss 
 Dobbin's friend, that the circumstance of her late Contract had 
 reached my knowledge, and that she had every thing to 
 apprehend from my resentment; that on the 20th. her 
 confidential friend repaired to Finglas, and apprised her of her 
 danger; that he then suggested to her the expedience of her 
 losing no time in writing me an appeasing letter ; that in concert 
 with that friend, she composed the letter whose date ifbears ; 
 and that on the 21st. her confidential friend brought me the letter 
 so composed. 
 
 These little circumstances are highly important : united, 
 they become irresistible Evidence : and though dates are often 
 unattended to, and set at small account, they are always essential 
 hi the investigation of Truth* 
 
137 
 
 her. — Tell her, I think more unhandsomely* of 
 her now, than I had done an hour ago. — Tell 
 her I will write to Mr. Lefanu, and acquaint 
 him with her Conduct !" 
 
 At the name of Mr. Lefanu, the Solicitude 
 that had embarrassed his cheek, changed 
 suddenly into dismay : and after some mild 
 expostulations on his part, and as many angry 
 answers on mine, he returned the Letter to his 
 pocket, and we parted. 
 
 I 
 On advising with my friends, and apprehend- 
 ing that in my indignance, I had transgressed 
 the bounds of gallantry and politeness, about 
 midnight, (for I could not bring myself to do it 
 sooner) I dispatched a hasty note to Miss 
 Dobbin's friend ; telliag him I would receive 
 her letter, if he had not returned it ; but that if 
 he had, I would accept any other she might 
 write me. 
 
 He had not seen Miss Dobbin, for it was 
 nearly dark when he left Dorset-street : but at 
 an early hour in the morning he sent her letter to 
 me, enclosed in a very kind one of his own. I was 
 alone when I found it on the table. I read it with 
 various Emotion, till she touched my feelings 
 
 s 
 
 * The word that I used was not unhandsomely ; but one of a 
 disrespectful nature, which I trust my friends will pardon me 
 for not inserting in this place. 
 
138 
 
 with " the propriety of harbouring toward her no 
 other sentiments than those of friendly wishes 
 for her happiness/' The appeal was so movingly 
 made, so delicately addressed to my tenderness 
 and generosity, That, as every word which 
 com posed her letter possessed a spell for my heart, 
 hers I resolved to leave at rest, and not to 
 obstruct tier happiness in the new Contract She 
 had formed. 
 
 But happy her relations would not suffer her 
 to be. As her unmannered family would owe 
 nothing to my politeness,* so they had resolved 
 to owe as little to my kindness, or to the immense 
 sacrifice I had made. They had declared their 
 <( united determination" to disappoint me ; and 
 having accomplished that object, they cared and 
 they looked no farther. In solitary silence, 
 however, and for the sake of her toward whom 
 I had ceased to harbour resentment, I resolved 
 to keep my sorrows to myself, and to breathe not 
 a murmur more that should disquiet their peace, 
 when their triumphant Equivocations started me 
 from my Dream ! And now rousing from the 
 Illusion that had mocked me, and shaking the 
 Dew-drops from the mane of the Lion, 1 found 
 it high time to look about me, and to enquire 
 into the Fact, and its Truth, from Mr. Lefanu 
 himself. 
 
 * Seepages 58 and 6U 
 
1S9 
 
 After this statement, few will enquire— I 
 say it with respect— What had been the motive 
 of Miss Dobbin for writing a propitiatory letter, 
 at the end of five months, to the very man with 
 whom she had broken Faith, and was then at 
 open and " determined" war ? To the man 
 himself whose correspondence she had insultingly 
 renounced ; and who on account of that very 
 insult, had just before* astounded the Father 
 of her affection with an alarming letter; a letter 
 which had produced tremendous effects ! and 
 struck consternation into the hearts of them all ! 
 —That Father, whom she had worshipped 
 nearly with the same adoration which she payd 
 to her Father that is in Heaven ; and whom to 
 offend, had been equal blasphemy in her sight, 
 and the sin as little to be forgiven.— Was it filial 
 Piety, that caused her to do such violence to 
 her feelings ? My Friends, and every other 
 Friend to Truth, know what interpretation to 
 put upon it. 
 
 This is the short history of a long Tale. 
 Should my friends have found it tedious, they 
 have found also a clue to the Labyrinth, which, 
 though neither so long nor so certain as Ariadne's 
 thread, yet, as far as it extends, will serve to 
 guide them through the dark passages of my pen. 
 
 * S^Z^rVIII. 
 
140 
 
 Something of the sort many of my friends 
 had required, and even judged necessary; but 
 it had not been proper to break in upon the 
 text, or to oppress its page with marginal 
 explications: and I had deemed it better that 
 some few circumstances should continue in 
 unimportant obscurity, than that they should 
 all be explained by appended annotations -, 
 which, though not calculated to mislead, are 
 sure to distract, and even to abate a portion of 
 that pleasure which results from an uninterrupted 
 perusal. 
 
 But it may be said, that my Letter to Miss 
 Dobbin, to which her's is the answer, is obscure. 
 It is indeed a tissue of Obscurities. But herself 
 had been able to unravel them all, and was 
 sensible that I could not venture to be more 
 explicit, without endangering the object I had 
 in view.* Her family had thrown every obstacle 
 in my way. They had bound me fast in the 
 Strait-waste-coat of their politics, and then 
 pushed me to walk with a bare foot on the edge 
 
 * So necessary was it, \m addressing Miss Dobbin, to observe 
 a respectful Obscurity, that we see by her father's first letter, 
 how mush the subject had curdled the milk of his Heart. I 
 must repeat here what I had lately said before, that until I 
 received his insulting letter, for which I am even yet unable to 
 account, I had never offered the slightest oftence whatever, 
 either to himself or to any one of his family.— I loved Emma : 
 and had extended my affection to them all. 
 
lit 
 
 of a razor. The whole, however, of that 
 embarrassed letter may be explained in a few 
 lines : viz. That I had loved Miss Dobbin with 
 long and unaltered affection : — that she had 
 encouraged my earliest and my latest hopes, and 
 that I now expected the reward of my fidelity, 
 could she remove the prejudices of her relations : 
 that the period had arrived to which we had each 
 looked, and that I was ready to fulfil the 
 promises my heart had so often made her.- ■■» 
 All this she could not but understand ; and her 
 family understood it also, though I was obliged 
 to offer the Honied Cake to Cerberus. My 
 friends will now understand it : and the 
 explanation will be a sufficient key to the obscu- 
 rities of my letter, whose mysteries it unlocks, 
 without breaking its Seal, or violating it* 
 Confidence, 
 
142 
 
 No. IIL 
 
 Page 24. The gentleman which had beat 
 managed for her.] Notwihstanding this fuff, 
 and 1 had hoped, satisfactory explanation, the 
 same mendacious Babblers continue to report 
 the same mendacious falsehood : as if Pertinacity 
 could make that true which is false ; of 
 Perseverance in error alter the nature of right 
 and wrong. This I term Holiday Honor, and 
 its Morality is suited to its wearers. Had the 
 Employers of these Reporters understood the 
 value of Truth, or had they not dreaded its 
 investigation, they would long ago have challenged 
 me to the question, in the same unwhispered 
 manner that I had charged THEM with the 
 falsehood. It was material to their reputation 
 that they should not have succumbed in silence; 
 and they had time enough to shape and prepare 
 their answer, could they have ventured upon it 
 with security. 
 
 I respectfully acquaint Miss Dobbin, that I 
 have broke no Faith with her; that I have 
 committed no Breach of Honor, toward her ! She 
 knows that I have not. But I inform her menda- 
 cious Reporters, that should any of them be 
 
143 
 
 Clergymen, who have presumed to assert in any 
 Hole or in any Corner, that I infringed a 
 promise which I had made her, and published a 
 work which I had undertaken to suppress,, such 
 Clergymen are not acquainted with the nature of 
 Truth, nor have practised that which they affect to 
 preach ; but that they have gone about scattering 
 false charges, and bearing false witness against 
 their virtuous neighbour. — Should any of them 
 be Lay-men, 1 acquaint such her mendacious 
 Whisperers and Scatterers of false charges, that 
 the truth is neither in their hearts nor on their 
 lips ; and that they are deficient in that principle 
 which distinguishes men of Honor from men of 
 Report; that although themselves may have no 
 character either to lose or to preserve, yet thafc 
 they should respect those who have ; that I have 
 some character to sustain, and one too that 
 I value; and that I would perish rather than 
 lose it ky PERFip.Y 1 
 
 Should any Bablers for Miss Dobbin feel 
 themselves comprehended in the present obser-j 
 vation, they are acquainted with my address ; 
 and whatever morning they may clnfse to 
 appoint, they will find me at home to receive 
 their commands. 
 
 It is difficult to prove a negative; and to 
 require impossibilities, would be unreasonable. 
 But were it necessary to establish the mendacity 
 
144 
 
 of these Reporters, one Circumstance would 
 fix them with it. Before they can assert, with 
 even the semblance of truth, that I have broke 
 my word with Miss Dobbin, and published that 
 which I had promised her to suppress, they 
 must be very sure that they had read the 
 Memoirs in manuscript; and that the manuscript 
 which they had so read is the work itself which 
 J published. Unless they do this, their Babling 
 xvill go for no more than it is worth. Nor is 
 this all; they must prove the work so published 
 to be 
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 DOBBIX FAMILY, 
 
 BEGINNING WITH ENNISKILLEN, 
 
 AND 
 
 ENDING IN SHIBrSTREET. 
 
 For such was its Title, and such its Tendency. 
 They must do more ; they must prove this 
 paradox, That what \s permissory is monitory-, or 
 else, that I had published the monitory, instead 
 ©f tho permissory letter ; and suppressed the 
 
145 
 
 permissory, and sent the monitory to Mr. Lefanu, 
 There is also another difficulty with which I 
 must bring them acquainted : let them get over 
 it as they can. 
 
 At the time that I promised Miss Dobbin to 
 suppress the memoirs and monitory letter, I had 
 neither composed, nor had in contemplation 
 to compose, the work which I did publish. 
 Neither was it within human possibility, that a 
 book which did not exist, and was not then 
 so much as thought of, could have been suppressed, 
 or undertaken to be suppressed :— a book too, 
 that would never have been composed at all, but 
 for the Masked-Battery which themselves had 
 afterward opened upon me ; when their own 
 Subterfuges and low Reservations forced me for 
 an explanation on Mr. Lefanu, and compelled 
 me under that explanation to rescue the Honor 
 of my Character. I call upon these Babblers 
 for Miss Dobbin to deny the fact; leaving, as 
 I do, Folly and Falsehood to those who find them 
 their best, and their only Advocates. 
 
 Miss Dobbin's confidential friend cannot 
 forget, and I am sure he will do me the justice 
 to own, that although I had refused to shew him 
 the Manuscript of the Memoirs, yet that I had 
 mentioned to him, as forming a part of that 
 work, a Phcenomenon which I had met with in 
 old Lithgow. The Phoenomenon was tha,t of 
 
 T 
 
U6 
 
 two Sister-streams in the neighbourhood of 
 Candia,* which, notwithstanding that they 
 issued from the same source, and that in their 
 progress they nearly touched one another, 
 retained opposite qualities; the one being 
 extremely sweet, the other extremely bitter. 
 He will recollect also, that I told him I had 
 applied this piece of Natural History to Emily 
 and Jane Dobbin. 
 
 Now, I should be glad that some one of these 
 Babblers would report to us, in which page of 
 the book that I published this Phenomenon is 
 to be found? Had it been possible that two 
 works, wholly differing in their matter and in 
 their manner, in their means and in their end ; 
 and as distinct also in their qualities as the two 
 Sister-streams themselves -, — Had it been possible 
 that two such discordant and dissimilar works 
 could have been one and the same composition, 
 the Morceau, as the French Critics term it, had 
 been too applique, that I should have ejected it 
 from the place it so happily fitted. I should 
 have lost an apt and apposite allusion, that had 
 equally embellished my page and illustrated its 
 argument. Those who have harrowed as much 
 as I have ploughed, know the value of the Corn 
 which they sow, and toil only to reap the 
 
 * The principal City in Crete, 
 
147 
 
 harvest of their industry : and the Jeweller will 
 not spurn the Pearl that Fortune had thrown in 
 his way, or his own Diligence had found and 
 polished to his purpose. It was a Star in my 
 Book; which, though not a Comet, was new; 
 and its absence, had my weakness cast it from 
 its conspicuous station, would have left a void 
 which I must have filled up with Stars of another 
 sort— the Asterisks of a Printing-office. — If Miss 
 Dobbin's Reporters would think a little before 
 they speak, they would serve the cause of their 
 Employer to far greater advantage. 
 
 T % 
 
148 
 
 No. IV. 
 
 Page 45. / wrote her a hasty but affectionate 
 Letter.] I call it a hasty letter, for such it was. 
 The report had that instant reached me; and 
 that instant also I was speeding out of town. 
 Alarmed, I snatched up my pen; but in my 
 hurry and perturbation, wrote her one of the 
 most confused and incorrect letters I had ever 
 put out of my hand ; agitated as my heart, 
 embarrassed every where, and tautological 
 throughout. It was this circumstance, though 
 he did not then know it, which occasioned me 
 to say to her father, speaking of a passage in 
 the letter, " If I expressed it ungracefully, it 
 was not therefore unintelligible :" and again, 
 speaking of the letter itself, " If deficient in 
 Eloquence, it was strong in Sincerity."* I 
 would print it at large, were it not incorporated 
 with other matters as unpleasant as they had been 
 private : but Miss Dobbin need only to express 
 her wish through some one of her Reporters, that 
 it may be made public, and I faithfully undertake 
 in the next edition to make honorable mention of it, 
 
 * See pages 4§ and 47« 
 
149 
 
 The Letter, as I have said, had been written 
 under great agitation. On folding it up, some 
 half dozen mistakes, which my pen as I went 
 on had amended, arrested my eye: The 
 amendments themselves were amended, as the 
 letter yet evinces. Its pages disfigured, its 
 emendations disrespectful, I hesitated whether 
 I ought not in politeness to write it over again. 
 Time pressed ; but convenience gave way, and I 
 transcribed in haste that letter which Miss Dobbin 
 was to read at leisure, but to which I then little 
 imagined I should ever have occasion to refer. 
 Hurrying out of town, I threw the disfigured 
 copy, with some other papers then on my table, 
 not into the fire, but into a Drawer; and 
 locking them up, never after asked myself the 
 question, whether I had, or had not the manu- 
 script? My heart was too full of the Substance, 
 to bestow a thought on the Sliadow -, and it 
 reposed in its Sa?ic turn, till Miss Dobbin's silence 
 to my letter of the second of June, occasioned 
 me to search the Drawer for another purpose. 
 Not careing about it, I had not indorsed it, as 
 is my custom with papers of consequence ; but 
 taking it up, and supposing it some idle Scrip 
 that had strayed from its p'ace, I found it to be 
 the \try letter now in question. Instantly it 
 brought the several circumstances to my 
 recollection, though I require no Filip to remind 
 me of the minutest article, even of dates and 
 
I5J 
 
 hours, to which Miss Dobbin and myself have 
 at any time been a party. It accounts, however, 
 for my present possession of this solitary, but 
 now not unnecessary letter* 
 
 I have been obliged to dwell longer on this 
 slovenly and ill-written epistle than it deserved, 
 the Doctor having most logically inferred, that 
 because I had happened to possess this solitary 
 effusion, I had taken copies of all the letters I had 
 ever written Miss Dobbin ! As if I had deemed the 
 prompt, and always impetuous scribbles of my 
 pen deserving of commemoration ; or had cared 
 about them once that I wassure they had reached 
 her hand ; — I had almost said, reached her Heart. 
 No, no, Doctor ! To have copied them, had 
 been to copy my whole heart, and to transcribe 
 impressions as indelible as the Fidelity it had 
 vowed was immutable. 
 
 The Doctor — I thought he had known me 
 better — requires to be told, and Emily could 
 have informed him— that J write always, as I 
 write now, car rente c alamo, and seldom draw 
 breath till I get to my journey *s end. With the 
 exception of a few Letters on high and important 
 business ; and with the exception also of a 
 certain " Recent Correspondence" with my 
 Finglas friends, my letters to whom politeness 
 
161 
 
 had induced me to transcribe, I do not possess, 
 and would burn them if I did possess, the half 
 of half a dozen copies of the thousands of 
 Letters that I have written in my life. I ask 
 pardon of my friends for this protracted account 
 of an idle letter and its careless author : but I 
 judged it necessary that they should understand 
 how it came to pass that the transcription of a letter, 
 seemingly so unimportant, should have survived 
 to the present hour. Its Ungracefulness is the 
 best proof that if it hath continued to exist, 
 Accident alone could have preserved it 
 
 But of this solitary letter I have not yet 
 disposed. — Alluding to the report, for it turned 
 out to be nothing more, the letter says, " This 
 Intelligence of your approaching marriage 
 extremely shocked and surprised me."— -It 
 naturally shocked, it naturally surprised me, 
 because I could not have expected it. — The 
 Surprize was sudden as the Shock : between the 
 Flash and the Clap was no pause. The letter, 
 the whole of it, was written in confidence. It 
 conditioned terms : in that confidence she 
 retains the pledges, the conditioned pledges of 
 my affection and fidelity. — She in fact assures me 
 I have no cause of surprise, for that she is not, 
 as in truth she was not, encouraging any other 
 gentleman. The circumstance is very material ; 
 and may be referred to those passages in th^ 
 
first and second Introduction where mention is 
 made of this confidential and most explicit 
 Letter * Solitary indeed ! but bearing the 
 unequivocal marks and tokens of something 
 beyond an implied Contract ;— The Impression 
 itself of HONOR, the very Image and Superscript 
 tion of TRUTH. 
 
 * See note in page 4, and pages 12, 14, and 20^ 
 
153 
 
 No. V. 
 
 Page 119. Who became the Eleve of the Noted 
 Cah/pso.] Did we not know from the highest 
 authority, that God had made man after his 
 own likeness, Nature, which is only God 
 declared in his works, proclaims its divine truth 
 to the whole earth. Before the Passions haye 
 entered our hearts, and taken possession of 
 them, a sagacious observer, if his mind's eye 
 be good, shall discern in the human countenance 
 the lustre of original Innocence. When Moses 
 came down from the Mount, his face shone ; 
 for his conversation had been with God. Some 
 faces Nature has lighted with distinguished 
 splendor; and once I was happy in the 
 smile of an highly-favored Lady, whose Brow 
 resembled that of Heaven, as if Heaven had 
 illumed it for the delight and the instruction 
 of Man. Her Mind was the Beauty of Innocence, 
 and her Face was the Mirror of that Mind : it 
 was indeed the Image of Him that made it.— 
 It did not dazzle: — it was the mild radiance 
 of the Morn; bat that radiance he must have 
 had a bad heart who could behold without 
 
 u 
 
154 
 
 emotions of respect. — Such was its power over 
 me, that Miss Dobbin was the only Human 
 Being before whom I had ever, for a single 
 moment, stood in awe! It is now seven years 
 since I last told her so ~, but not the less true 
 on that account ; and I have not forgotten an 
 expression in one of my unfortunate Letters :— 
 " I never can look steadily at you : You awe my 
 very Soul.'*— My words 1 remember well ; because 
 her countenance was divine, and on my very Soul 
 its Divinity had impressed its Seal.* That Heaven 
 which it resembled can attest the Holy Devotion 
 it commanded of my Heart ; and never yet 
 had Brahmin kneeled to Mithra with a purer or 
 more exalted Zeal, than that affectionate Heart 
 had bowed to her unclouded Sun. — Those who 
 
 * I cannot too often observe, that neither the Splendor 
 which the text attributes to Miss Dobbin's countenance, nor 
 the Effect produced by that Splendor, are feigned : Fancy 
 hath no share in them. Her face was ineffably divine : it 
 ,*honc: for her conversation had been with Innocence. I have 
 too much respect for the Book of Eternal Life, to treat with 
 levity its sacred and important truths - y but I could no more 
 behold without awe the Lumen of Miss Dobbin's countenance, 
 than the children of Israel could behold that of Moses, when 
 ** they were afraid to come nigh ntra.* If ever I had the 
 Wi&j I have not now the Temptation to flatter : I gain 
 n Uhing by having its truth believed^ but I hazard much should 
 it be discredited. I sum it up, therefore, in this short but 
 solemn declaration,. That my own faithful Eyes had beheld if T 
 and that my own faithful Heart had Jilt it. 
 
us 
 
 knew Miss Dobbin before her Elevation^ will 
 owri that I have not added a Ray to the Heaven 
 that beamed on her Brow. 
 
 With the same fidelity of pencil, the same 
 fearlessness of Truth, I observe, but observe 
 with infinite concern, that when this correct and 
 admirable Lady exchanged the Sanctuary of her 
 father's Walls, and the Paradise of his garden, 
 for the Bower of Calypso, the Splendor of her 
 countenance went down: other Passions entered 
 her heart, discomposed it, changed it ; and in 
 that change dimmed the Human Face Divine. 
 In vain we look for Original Brightness : we 
 find there Glory obscured, not eclipsed, but 
 fading fast into that cloud whose Fatality 
 over-hangs them all, and darkens their unfor- 
 tunate days! — Those who know Miss Dobbin 
 Now, will confess thajt I have not deepened the 
 Shade. 
 
 In these Observations — I speak it with the 
 strictest truth — I have not been governed by 
 any flourish of Fancy, or affectation of Wit ; 
 and still less by the remembrance of past 
 Affection, or the feelings of present Disappoint- 
 ment. If pain of any sort I feel, that pain 
 arises out of the Moral, the bitter and afflicting 
 y % 
 
156 
 
 Moral which it offers to Man. My fair Readers, 
 I trust, will profit by its salutary lesson ; nor 
 deem that Novel of light account, whose 
 Characters, though not pourtrayed by the hand 
 of a Clarendon, are drawn from real life, and 
 still exist to instruct by their example : but 
 above all, by setting before the young mind 
 The Importance of Truth, and the Beauty 
 of Original Innocence. 
 
 theophilus swift. 
 
 FINIS. 
 
157 
 
 POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 H 
 
 AVING concluded my book, it was not 
 my wish to add another word : but that I may 
 not be supposed to have gilded a tale, or ascribed 
 an imaginary splendor to the Brow of her whom 
 I had loved with such transcendent affection, 
 with the leave of my friends I shall present them 
 with a Proof- impression of its truth, as far as 
 that Impression is capable of proof. 
 
 My page has been the field of war: Should I 
 strew it with a few unexpected Flowers, or plant 
 an Olive by the side of a Thistle, the friends of 
 Humanity will not think the worse of the Mau, 
 howsoever they may judge the Bard, whose 
 Pegasus had run away with him. But they 
 will forgive the unbridled impetuosity of his 
 speed, when they are informed, that the lines 
 with which I shall have the honor to present 
 them, were birthed in the instant of conception, 
 under the influence itself of that unclouded Sun, 
 whose -truth it is the object of this Postscript to 
 establish. Their Irregularity, their Incoherence, 
 their Obscurity^ notwithstanding the Splendor to 
 
which they had owed their birth, arc so many 
 proofs of the fact. Bat I neither offer them as 
 a Morceau, nor would defend their defects: 
 their w r ildness I acknowledge, not determining 
 the boundaries of Poetic Licence, nor disputing 
 whether Bdlerophon in his flight had reached 
 the confines of Reason, or had o'er-leapt the 
 Flammantia McBnia of Poetry. The lines are 
 not worth the disquisition. 
 
 Miss Dobbin was in a Ball-room.— It was 
 past the noon of N ight. — She had sat down, and 
 was resting her arm on the back of a chair. — I 
 was sitting opposite, at a short distance. Her 
 Countenance had acquired new lustre from the 
 pleasure of the evening.— It resembled the first 
 Break of the Dawn ;— when, like the Brahmin 
 described above, my Devotion refrained only from 
 prostrating itself at her feet. Well for us both, 
 that I did not fall down and worship her! 
 
 Star ©f my Soul ! Whose bright ascendant power 
 Marked the sure fortunes of my natal liour ! 
 Fair Planet of my fate ! — I feel thee now ! — 
 Thine influence rushes, to its rule I bow ! 
 And awed with all a Brahmin's prostrate Zeal, 
 Before thy Beauty's Sun devoutly kneel. 
 
 *##*###*#*####*######.!£ 
 
 Here lowly as I bend, and turn to thee — 
 O would'st thou turn one tender look on me i 
 
159 
 
 To the fair Heaven of thy unclouded day 
 
 Affection pours the consecrated lay. 
 
 Warm from the heart it flows ! — Hear, Emma, hear ! 
 
 The Vow comes watered with a gushing tear f 
 
 Delightful drop, if thou accept the strain 1 
 
 A drop of Pleasure in a Fount of Pain ! 
 
 Star of my Hope ! Sweet Harbinger of Peace ! 
 At whose approach the Mourner's Sorrows cease. 
 
 ********************* 
 ********************# 
 Star of each gentle, each exalted grace. 
 That dignifies the Soul, or decks the Face I 
 
 **************** 
 **************** 
 
 Lamp of my Love \ — 'Tis Heaven that lights the Vow I 
 And Love and Heaven have lighted all thy brow ! 
 Sun of my Soul ! — Thy Splendors warm the lay : — 
 The Beams of Rapture round the poet play : — 
 Their Lightnings kindle, and their Rapture rings, 
 Love hears, and leaps for joy, and claps his purple wings : 
 Through my fired frame the headlong transports roll, 
 And agitate the Bard, and harmonise his soul.* 
 
 * Having lost th£ paper-slip en which I had set down the 
 Lines when I returned home, I have depended for their 
 correctness on a memory that never was a good one, and 
 vei'bally was always had. They had consisted of several 
 others, that have left not a wreck in recollection. — The BaU 
 occurred on the twenty-ninth of October, 1806: — days and 
 hours, as I. have said, had been engraves on my heart:—- 
 
1 60 
 
 Nor were these the only numbers her unclouded 
 Sun had that night inspired. I am not an 
 tmpfowtio poet : neither do I admire the affecta- 
 tion that prides itself on unpremeditated metres. 
 They deserve no higher name; and are always 
 inferior to those happy efforts which Judgement 
 has disciplined, and Taste and Patience have 
 corrected. But to convince my friends that I 
 have not led them an illusory Dance, I shall offer 
 them another Olive, that grew and flourished 
 under the same auspicious Sky. The Song 
 that I shall sing them possesses less fire, is less 
 unconnected, and less precipitous than the 
 abrupt lines they have just read; for Pegasus 
 fyad run his first heat, and like other jades, 
 had broke down. In its measured Stanzas, 
 whose original now lies before me, there is a 
 method and sedateness that ill accord with 
 disordered Dithyramb, and constitute therefore 
 ttiore legitimate poetry. But as the first and 
 last of these Stanzas allude to the " Heaven" 
 which had that night more immediately 
 
 and I find myself at midnight writing this account of it on 
 the twenty n'rmh of October, J81 1. At the end of five years, 
 apery hour of which has been edged by some keen reflexion, 
 01 barbed with some bitter thorn, I may be allowed to forget 
 a few evanescent Verses! But be the events of- that period 
 good or evil, whether as they affect the unhappy family, or 
 m they apply to myself, none of us, I apprehend, will hastily 
 forget the LAST YEAR OF THE LUSTRUM. 
 
1*51 
 
 illuminated her Brow, I am induced to trouble 
 my friends with this second specimen of its 
 -power — Miss Dobbin was dancing at the time : 
 and it was a Charity-Ball, in the very Village 
 where I had first beheld— and first had loved 
 her. 
 
 SONG. 
 
 How sweet is my Emma ! How graceful and fair I 
 Her Brow is all Heaven ! — What Divinity there ! 
 Through the dance as she moves, like the Star of the night, 
 An Angel she seems, robed in Charity's white. 
 
 Be still, <Xmy heart ! — What is Emma to thee ? 
 Or why should her Presence give transport to me ? 
 What means this wild Tumult, that throbs in my breast f* 
 O Love, 'tis thy pulse: — wilt thou ne'er be at rest ? 
 
 Break, break, foolish heart ! — No; go tell her once more 
 Thy Sorrow's sad tale, and her pardon implore : 
 Not long in that bosom can Anger abide, 
 And Pity is still on sweet Charity's side. 
 
 Then kneel at her feet : — it may soothe her disdain: — 
 
 The Smile of that Heaven shall forgive thee again. 
 
 No; break, foolish Heart ! — perish instantly here: 
 
 Too late she will pity, and drop thee a tear. 
 
 X 
 
 THEOPHILUS SWJFT. 
 
ERRATA. 
 
 Page 27, Line 20-for ths, read this. 
 
 Page 58, Line 24-Jtbr courtly, read curtly. 
 
 Page 60, Line 9-for nianaccd, read menaced. 
 
 Page 68, Line 22-for surprise, read «^^ 
 
 Page 92, Line JO and 11— for of nf •** • „ / • 
 
 A Ior # <v plain-speaking, read 
 qr plain-speaking. 
 
% 
 
14 DAY USE 
 
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 This book is due on the last date stamped below, or 
 
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 Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. 
 
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