And here let me add, with regard to my poor old man, that I often wish thee present but for one half hour in a day, to see the dregs of a gay life running off in the most excruciating tortures that the cholic, the stone, and the surgeon's knife can unitedly inflict, and to hear him bewail the dissoluteness of his past life, in the bitterest anguish of a spirit every hour expecting to be called to its last account.—Yet, by all his confessions, he has not to accuse himself, in sixty-seven years of life, of half the very vile enormities which you and I have committed in the last seven only.
I conclude with recommending to your serious consideration all I have written, as proceeding from the heart and soul of
Your assured friend, JOHN BELFORD
LETTER XIV
MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ. TUESDAY AFTERNOON, JUNE 6.
Difficulties still to be got over in procuring this plaguy license. I ever hated, and ever shall hate, these spiritual lawyers, and their court.
And now, Jack, if I have not secured victory, I have a retreat.
But hold—thy servant with a letter—
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