Shall
such a girl as this awe me by her rigid virtue? No, she shall not.'
"Then I would resolve to be more in earnest. Yet my love was a
traitor, that was more faithful to _her_ than to _me_; it had more
honour in it at bottom than I had designed. Awed by her unaffected
innocence, and a virtue I had never before encountered, so uniform and
immovable, the moment I _saw_ her I was half disarmed; and I courted
her consent to that, which, though I was not likely to obtain, yet it
went against me to think of extorting by violence. Yet marriage was
never in my thoughts: I scorned so much as to promise it.
"To what numberless mean things did not this unmanly passion subject
me!--I used to watch for her letters, though mere prittle-prattle and
chit-chat, received them with delight, though myself was accused in
them, and stigmatized as I deserved.
"I would listen meanly at her chamber-door, try to overhear her little
conversation; in vain attempted to suborn Mrs. Jervis to my purposes,
inconsistently talking of honour, when no one step I took, or action
I attempted, shewed any thing like it: lost my dignity among my
servants; made a party in her favour against me, of every body,
but whom my money corrupted, and that hardly sufficient to keep my
partisans steady to my interest; so greatly did the virtue of the
servants triumph over the vice of the master, when confirmed by such
an example!
"I have been very tedious, ladies and my Lord Davers, in my narration:
but I am come within view of the point for which I now am upon my
trial at your dread tribunal (_bowing to us all_).
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