The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54

by Dorothy Osborne

CHAPTER III

LIFE AT CHICKSANDS. 1653

Letter 9.—Temple's sister here mentioned was his only sister Martha, who married Sir Thomas Giffard in 1662, and was left a widow within two months of her marriage. She afterwards lived with Temple and his wife, was a great favourite with them, and their confidential friend. Lady Giffard has left a manuscript life of her brother from which the historian Courtenay deigned to extract some information, whereby we in turn have benefited. She outlived both her brother and his wife, to carry on a warlike encounter with her brother's amanuensis, Mr. Jonathan Swift, over Temple's literary remains. Esther Johnson, the unfortunate Stella, was Lady Giffard's maid.

Cléopâtre and Le Grand Cyrus appear to have been Dorothy's literary companions at this date. She would read these in the original French; and, as she tells us somewhere, had a scorn of translations. Both these romances were much admired, even by people of taste; a thing difficult to understand, until we remember that Fielding, the first and greatest English novelist, was yet unborn, and novels, as we know them, non-existing. Both the romances found translators; Cyrus, in one mysterious F.G. Gent—the translation was published in this year; Cléopâtre, in Richard Loveday, an elegant letter-writer of this time.

Artamenes, or Le Grand Cyrus, the masterpiece of Mademoiselle Madeleine de Scudéri, is contained in no less than ten volumes, each of which in its turn has many books; it is, in fact, more a collection of romances than a single romance. La Cléopâtre, a similar work, was originally published in twenty-three volumes of twelve parts, each part containing three or four books. It is but a collection of short stories. Its author rejoiced in the romantic title of Gauthier de Costes Chevalier Seigneur de la Calprenède; he published Cléopâtre in 1642; he was the author of other romances, and some tragedies, noted only for their worthlessness. Even Richelieu, "quoiqu' admirateur indulgent de la médiocrité," could not stand Calprenède's tragedies. Reine Marguerite is probably the translation by Robert Codrington of the Memorials of Margaret of Valois, first wife of Henri IV. Bussy is a servant of the Duke of Avenson, Margaret's brother, with whom Margaret is very intimate.

Of Lady Sunderland and Mr. Smith we have already sufficient knowledge. As for Sir Justinian, we are not to think he was already married; the reference to his "new wife" is merely jocular, meaning his new wife when he shall get one; for Sir Justinian is still wife-hunting, and comes back to renew his suit with Dorothy after this date. "Your fellow-servant," who is as often called Jane, appears to have been a friend and companion of Dorothy, in a somewhat lower rank of life. Mrs. Goldsmith, mentioned in a subsequent letter,—wife of Daniel Goldsmith, the rector of Campton, in which parish Chicksands was situated,—acted as chaperon or duenna companion to Dorothy, and Jane was, it seems to me, in a similar position; only, being a younger woman than the rector's wife, she was more the companion and less the duenna. The servants and companions of ladies of that date were themselves gentlewomen of good breeding. Waller writes verses to Mrs. Braughton, servant to Sacharissa, commencing his lines, "Fair fellow-servant." Temple, had he written verse to his mistress, would probably have left us some "Lines to Jane."

There is in Campton Church a tablet erected to Daniel Goldsmith, "Ecclesiae de Campton Pastor idem et Patronus;" also to Maria Goldsmith, "uxor dilectissima." This is erected by Maria's faithful sister, Jane Wright; and if the astute reader shall think fit to agree with me in believing Temple's "fellow-servant" to be this Jane Wright on such slender evidence and slight thread of argument, he may well do so. Failing this, all search after Jane will, I fear, prove futile at this distant date. There are constant references to Jane in the letters. "Her old woman," in the same passage, is, of course, a jocular allusion to Dorothy herself; and "the old knight" is, I believe, Sir Robert Cook, a Bedfordshire gentleman, of whom nothing is known except that he was knighted at Ampthill, July 21st, 1621. We hear some little more of him from Dorothy.

Note well the signature of this and following letters; it will help us to discover what passed between the friends in London. For my own part, I do not think Dorothy means that she has ceased to be faithful in that she has become "his affectionate friend and servant."

SIR—I was so kind as to write to you by the coachman, and let me tell you I think 'twas the greatest testimony of my friendship that I could give you; for, trust me, I was so tired with my journey, so dowd with my cold, and so out of humour with our parting, that I should have done it with great unwillingness to anybody else. I lay abed all next day to recover myself, and rised a Thursday to receive your letter with the more ceremony. I found no fault with the ill writing, 'twas but too easy to read, methought, for I am sure I had done much sooner than I could have wished. But, in earnest, I was heartily troubled to find you in so much disorder. I would not have you so kind to me as to be cruel to yourself, in whom I am more concerned. No; for God's sake, let us not make afflictions of such things as these; I am afraid we shall meet with too many real ones.

I am glad your journey holds, because I think 'twill be a good diversion for you this summer; but I admire your father's patience, that lets you rest with so much indifference when there is such a fortune offered. I'll swear I have great scruples of conscience myself on the point, and am much afraid I am not your friend if I am any part of the occasion that hinders you from accepting it. Yet I am sure my intentions towards you are very innocent and good, for you are one of those whose interests I shall ever prefer much above my own; and you are not to thank me for it, since, to speak truth, I secure my own by it; for I defy my ill fortune to make me miserable, unless she does it in the persons of my friends. I wonder how your father came to know I was in town, unless my old friend, your cousin Hammond, should tell him. Pray, for my sake, be a very obedient son; all your faults will be laid to my charge else, and, alas! I have too many of my own.

You say nothing how your sister does, which makes me hope there is no more of danger in her sickness. Pray, when it may be no trouble to her, tell her how much I am her servant; and have a care of yourself this cold weather. I have read your Reine Marguerite, and will return it you when you please. If you will have my opinion of her, I think she had a good deal of wit, and a great deal of patience for a woman of so high a spirit. She speaks with too much indifference of her husband's several amours, and commends Bussy as if she were a little concerned in him. I think her a better sister than a wife, and believe she might have made a better wife to a better husband. But the story of Mademoiselle de Tournon is so sad, that when I had read it I was able to go no further, and was fain to take up something else to divert myself withal. Have you read Cléopâtre? I have six tomes on't here that I can lend you if you have not; there are some stories in't you will like, I believe. But what an ass am I to think you can be idle enough at London to read romance! No, I'll keep them till you come hither; here they may be welcome to you for want of better company. Yet, that you may not imagine we are quite out of the world here, and so be frighted from coming, I can assure you we are seldom without news, such as it is; and at this present we do abound with stories of my Lady Sunderland and Mr. Smith; with what reverence he approaches her, and how like a gracious princess she receives him, that they say 'tis worth one's going twenty miles to see it. All our ladies are mightily pleased with the example, but I do not find that the men intend to follow it, and I'll undertake Sir Solomon Justinian wishes her in the Indias, for fear she should pervert his new wife.

Your fellow-servant kisses your hands, and says, "If you mean to make love to her old woman this is the best time you can take, for she is dying; this cold weather kills her, I think." It has undone me, I am sure, in killing an old knight that I have been waiting for this seven year, and now he dies and will leave me nothing, I believe, but leaves a rich widow for somebody. I think you had best come a wooing to her; I have a good interest in her, and it shall be all employed in your service if you think fit to make any addresses there. But to be sober now again, for God's sake send me word how your journey goes forward, when you think you shall begin it, and how long it may last, when I may expect your coming this way; and of all things, remember to provide a safe address for your letters when you are abroad. This is a strange, confused one, I believe; for I have been called away twenty times, since I sat down to write it, to my father, who is not well; but you will pardon it—we are past ceremony, and excuse me if I say no more now but that I am toujours le mesme, that is, ever

Letter 10.—Dorothy is suffering from the spleen, a disease as common to-day as then, though we have lost the good name for it. This and the ague plague her continually. My Lord Lisle's proposed embassy to Sweden is, we see, still delayed; ultimately Bulstrode Whitelocke is chosen ambassador.

Dorothy's cousin Molle, here mentioned, seems to have been an old bachelor, who spent his time at one country house or another, visiting his country friends; and playing the bore not a little, I should fear, with his gossip and imaginary ailments.

Temple's father was at this time trying to arrange a match for him with a certain Mrs. Ch. as Dorothy calls her. Courtenay thinks she may be one Mistress Chambers, an heiress, who ultimately married Temple's brother John, and this conjecture is here followed.

SIR,—Your last letter came like a pardon to one upon the block. I had given over the hopes on't, having received my letters by the other carrier, who was always [wont] to be last. The loss put me hugely out of order, and you would have both pitied and laughed at me if you could have seen how woodenly I entertained the widow, who came hither the day before, and surprised me very much. Not being able to say anything, I got her to cards, and there with a great deal of patience lost my money to her;—or rather I gave it as my ransom. In the midst of our play, in comes my blessed boy with your letter, and, in earnest, I was not able to disguise the joy it gave me, though one was by that is not much your friend, and took notice of a blush that for my life I could not keep back. I put up the letter in my pocket, and made what haste I could to lose the money I had left, that I might take occasion to go fetch some more; but I did not make such haste back again, I can assure you. I took time enough to have coined myself some money if I had had the art on't, and left my brother enough to make all his addresses to her if he were so disposed. I know not whether he was pleased or not, but I am sure I was.

You make so reasonable demands that 'tis not fit you should be denied. You ask my thoughts but at one hour; you will think me bountiful, I hope, when I shall tell you that I know no hour when you have them not. No, in earnest, my very dreams are yours, and I have got such a habit of thinking of you that any other thought intrudes and proves uneasy to me. I drink your health every morning in a drench that would poison a horse I believe, and 'tis the only way I have to persuade myself to take it. 'Tis the infusion of steel, and makes me so horridly sick, that every day at ten o'clock I am making my will and taking leave of all my friends. You will believe you are not forgot then. They tell me I must take this ugly drink a fortnight, and then begin another as bad; but unless you say so too, I do not think I shall. 'Tis worse than dying by the half.

I am glad your father is so kind to you. I shall not dispute it with him, because it is much more in his power than in mine, but I shall never yield that 'tis more in his desire, since he was much pleased with that which was a truth when you told it him, but would have been none if he had asked the question sooner. He thought there was no danger of you since you were more ignorant and less concerned in my being in town than he. If I were Mrs. Chambers, he would be more my friend; but, however, I am much his servant as he is your father. I have sent you your book. And since you are at leisure to consider the moon, you may be enough to read Cléopâtre, therefore I have sent you three tomes; when you have done with these you shall have the rest, and I believe they will please. There is a story of Artemise that I will recommend to you; her disposition I like extremely, it has a great deal of practical wit; and if you meet with one Brittomart, pray send me word how you like him. I am not displeased that my Lord [Lisle] makes no more haste, for though I am very willing you should go the journey for many reasons, yet two or three months hence, sure, will be soon enough to visit so cold a country, and I would not have you endure two winters in one year. Besides, I look for my eldest brother and cousin Molle here shortly, and I should be glad to have nobody to entertain but you, whilst you are here. Lord! that you had the invisible ring, or Fortunatus his wishing hat; now, at this instant, you should be here.

My brother has gone to wait upon the widow homewards,—she that was born to persecute you and I, I think. She has so tired me with being here but two days, that I do not think I shall accept of the offer she made me of living with her in case my father dies before I have disposed of myself. Yet we are very great friends, and for my comfort she says she will come again about the latter end of June and stay longer with me. My aunt is still in town, kept by her business, which I am afraid will not go well, they do so delay it; and my precious uncle does so visit her, and is so kind, that without doubt some mischief will follow. Do you know his son, my cousin Harry? 'Tis a handsome youth, and well-natured, but such a goose; and she has bred him so strangely, that he needs all his ten thousand a year. I would fain have him marry my Lady Diana, she was his mistress when he was a boy. He had more wit then than he has now, I think, and I have less wit than he, sure, for spending my paper upon him when I have so little. Here is hardly room for

Letter 11.—It is a curious thing to find the Lord General's son among our loyal Dorothy's servants; and to find, moreover, that he will be as acceptable to Dorothy as any other, if she may not marry Temple. Henry Cromwell was Oliver Cromwell's second son. How Dorothy became acquainted with him it is impossible to say. Perhaps they met in France. He seems to have been entirely unlike his father. Good Mrs. Hutchinson calls him "a debauched ungodly Cavalier," with other similar expressions of Presbyterian abhorrence; from which we need not draw any unkinder conclusion than that he was no solemn puritanical soldier, but a man of the world, brighter and more courteous than the frequenters of his father's Council, and therefore more acceptable to Dorothy. He was born at Huntingdon in 1627, the year of Dorothy's birth. He was captain under Harrison in 1647; colonel in Ireland with his father in 1649; and married at Kensington Church, on May 10th, 1653, to Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Francis Russell of Chippenham, Cambridgeshire. He was made Lord-Deputy in Ireland in 1657, but he wearied of the work of transplanting the Irish and planting the new settlers, which, he writes, only brought him disquiet of body and mind. This led to his retirement from public life in 1658. Two years afterwards, at the Restoration, he came to live at Spinney Abbey, near Isham, Cambridgeshire, and died on the 23rd of March 1673. These are shortly the facts which remain to us of the life of Henry Cromwell, Dorothy's favoured servant.

SIR,—I am so far from thinking you ill-natured for wishing I might not outlive you, that I should not have thought you at all kind if you had done otherwise; no, in earnest, I was never yet so in love with my life but that I could have parted with it upon a much less occasion than your death, and 'twill be no compliment to you to say it would be very uneasy to me then, since 'tis not very pleasant to me now. Yet you will say I take great pains to preserve it, as ill as I like it; but no, I'll swear 'tis not that I intend in what I do; all that I aim at is but to keep myself from proving a beast. They do so fright me with strange stories of what the spleen will bring me to in time, that I am kept in awe with them like a child; they tell me 'twill not leave me common sense, that I shall hardly be fit company for my own dogs, and that it will end either in a stupidness that will make me incapable of anything, or fill my head with such whims as will make me ridiculous. To prevent this, who would not take steel or anything,—though I am partly of your opinion that 'tis an ill kind of physic. Yet I am confident that I take it the safest way, for I do not take the powder, as many do, but only lay a piece of steel in white wine over night and drink the infusion next morning, which one would think were nothing, and yet 'tis not to be imagined how sick it makes me for an hour or two, and, which is the misery, all that time one must be using some kind of exercise. Your fellow-servant has a blessed time on't that ever you saw. I make her play at shuttlecock with me, and she is the veriest bungler at it ever you saw. Then am I ready to beat her with the battledore, and grow so peevish as I grow sick, that I'll undertake she wishes there were no steel in England. But then to recompense the morning, I am in good humour all the day after for joy that I am well again. I am told 'twill do me good, and am content to believe it; if it does not, I am but where I was.

I do not use to forget my old acquaintances. Almanzor is as fresh in my memory as if I had visited his tomb but yesterday, though it be at least seven year agone since. You will believe I had not been used to great afflictions when I made his story such a one to me, as I cried an hour together for him, and was so angry with Alcidiana that for my life I could never love her after it. You do not tell me whether you received the books I sent you, but I will hope you did, because you say nothing to the contrary. They are my dear Lady Diana's, and therefore I am much concerned that they should be safe. And now I speak of her, she is acquainted with your aunt, my Lady B., and says all that you say of her. If her niece has so much wit, will you not be persuaded to like her; or say she has not quite so much, may not her fortune make it up? In earnest, I know not what to say, but if your father does not use all his kindness and all his power to make you consider your own advantage, he is not like other fathers. Can you imagine that he that demands £5000 besides the reversion of an estate will like bare £4000? Such miracles are seldom seen, and you must prepare to suffer a strange persecution unless you grow conformable; therefore consider what you do, 'tis the part of a friend to advise you. I could say a great deal to this purpose, and tell you that 'tis not discreet to refuse a good offer, nor safe to trust wholly to your own judgment in your disposal. I was never better provided in my life for a grave admonishing discourse. Would you had heard how I have been catechized for you, and seen how soberly I sit and answer to interrogatories. Would you think that upon examination it is found that you are not an indifferent person to me? But the mischief is, that what my intentions or resolutions are, is not to be discovered, though much pains has been taken to collect all scattering circumstances; and all the probable conjectures that can be raised from thence has been urged, to see if anything would be confessed. And all this done with so much ceremony and compliment, so many pardons asked for undertaking to counsel or inquire, and so great kindness and passion for all my interests professed, that I cannot but take it well, though I am very weary on't. You are spoken of with the reverence due to a person that I seem to like, and for as much as they know of you, you do deserve a very good esteem; but your fortune and mine can never agree, and, in plain terms, we forfeit our discretions and run wilfully upon our own ruins if there be such a thought. To all this I make no reply, but that if they will needs have it that I am not without kindness for you, they must conclude withal that 'tis no part of my intention to ruin you, and so the conference breaks up for that time. All this is [from] my friend, that is not yours; and the gentleman that came upstairs in a basket, I could tell him that he spends his breath to very little purpose, and has but his labour for his pains. Without his precepts my own judgment would preserve me from doing anything that might be prejudicial to you or unjustifiable to the world; but if these be secured, nothing can alter the resolution I have taken of settling my whole stock of happiness upon the affection of a person that is dear to me, whose kindness I shall infinitely prefer before any other consideration whatsoever, and I shall not blush to tell you that you have made the whole world beside so indifferent to me that, if I cannot be yours, they may dispose of me how they please. Henry Cromwell will be as acceptable to me as any one else. If I may undertake to counsel, I think you shall do well to comply with your father as far as possible, and not to discover any aversion to what he desires further than you can give reason for. What his disposition may be I know not; but 'tis that of many parents to judge their children's dislikes to be an humour of approving nothing that is chosen for them, which many times makes them take up another of denying their children all they choose for themselves. I find I am in the humour of talking wisely if my paper would give me leave. 'Tis great pity here is room for no more but—

Your faithful friend and servant.

Letter 12.

SIR,—There shall be two posts this week, for my brother sends his groom up, and I am resolved to make some advantage of it. Pray, what the paper denied me in your last, let me receive by him. Your fellow-servant is a sweet jewel to tell tales of me. The truth is, I cannot deny but that I have been very careless of myself, but, alas! who would have been other? I never thought my life worth my care whilst nobody was concerned in't but myself; now I shall look upon't as something that you would not lose, and therefore shall endeavour to keep it for you. But then you must return my kindness with the same care of a life that's much dearer to me. I shall not be so unreasonable as to desire that, for my satisfaction, you should deny yourself a recreation that is pleasing to you, and very innocent, sure, when 'tis not used in excess, but I cannot consent you should disorder yourself with it, and Jane was certainly in the right when she told you I would have chid if I had seen you so endanger a health that I am so much concerned in. But for what she tell you of my melancholy you must not believe; she thinks nobody in good humour unless they laugh perpetually, as Nan and she does, which I was never given to much, and now I have been so long accustomed to my own natural dull humour that nothing can alter it. 'Tis not that I am sad (for as long as you and the rest of my friends are well), I thank God I have no occasion to be so, but I never appear to be very merry, and if I had all that I could wish for in the world, I do not think it would make any visible change in my humour. And yet with all my gravity I could not but laugh at your encounter in the Park, though I was not pleased that you should leave a fair lady and go lie upon the cold ground. That is full as bad as overheating yourself at tennis, and therefore remember 'tis one of the things you are forbidden. You have reason to think your father kind, and I have reason to think him very civil; all his scruples are very just ones, but such as time and a little good fortune (if we were either of us lucky to it) might satisfy. He may be confident I can never think of disposing myself without my father's consent; and though he has left it more in my power than almost anybody leaves a daughter, yet certainly I were the worst natured person in the world if his kindness were not a greater tie upon me than any advantage he could have reserved. Besides that, 'tis my duty, from which nothing can ever tempt me, nor could you like it in me if I should do otherwise, 'twould make me unworthy of your esteem; but if ever that may be obtained, or I left free, and you in the same condition, all the advantages of fortune or person imaginable met together in one man should not be preferred before you. I think I cannot leave you better than with this assurance. 'Tis very late, and having been abroad all this day, I knew not till e'en now of this messenger. Good-night to you. There need be no excuse for the conclusion of your letter. Nothing can please me better. Once more good-night. I am half in a dream already.

Your

Letter 13.—There is some allusion here to an inconstant lover of my Lady Diana Rich, who seems to have deserted his mistress on account of the sore eyes with which, Dorothy told us in a former letter, her friend was afflicted.

I cannot find any account of the great shop above the Exchange, "The Flower Pott." There were two or three "Flower Pots" in London at this time, one in Leadenhall Street and another in St. James' Market. An interesting account of the old sign is given in a work on London tradesmen's tokens, in which it is said to be "derived from the earlier representations of the salutations of the angel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary, in which either lilies were placed in his hand, or they were set as an accessory in a vase. As Popery declined, the angel disappeared, and the lily-pot became a vase of flowers; subsequently the Virgin was omitted, and there remained only the vase of flowers. Since, to make things more unmistakeable, two debonair gentlemen, with hat in hand, have superseded the floral elegancies of the olden time, and the poetry of the art seems lost."

SIR,—I am glad you 'scaped a beating, but, in earnest, would it had lighted on my brother's groom. I think I should have beaten him myself if I had been able. I have expected your letter all this day with the greatest impatience that was possible, and at last resolved to go out and meet the fellow; and when I came down to the stables, I found him come, had set up his horse, and was sweeping the stable in great order. I could not imagine him so very a beast as to think his horses were to be serv'd before me, and therefore was presently struck with an apprehension he had no letter for me: it went cold to my heart as ice, and hardly left me courage enough to ask him the question; but when he had drawled it out that he thought there was a letter for me in his bag, I quickly made him leave his broom. 'Twas well 'tis a dull fellow, he could not [but] have discern'd else that I was strangely overjoyed with it, and earnest to have it; for though the poor fellow made what haste he could to untie his bag, I did nothing but chide him for being so slow. Last I had it, and, in earnest, I know not whether an entire diamond of the bigness on't would have pleased me half so well; if it would, it must be only out of this consideration, that such a jewel would make me rich enough to dispute you with Mrs. Chambers, and perhaps make your father like me as well. I like him, I'll swear, and extremely too, for being so calm in a business where his desires were so much crossed. Either he has a great power over himself, or you have a great interest in him, or both. If you are pleased it should end thus, I cannot dislike it; but if it would have been happy for you, I should think myself strangely unfortunate in being the cause that it went not further. I cannot say that I prefer your interest before my own, because all yours are so much mine that 'tis impossible for me to be happy if you are not so; but if they could be divided I am certain I should. And though you reproached me with unkindness for advising you not to refuse a good offer, yet I shall not be discouraged from doing it again when there is occasion, for I am resolved to be your friend whether you will or no. And, for example, though I know you do not need my counsel, yet I cannot but tell you that I think 'twere very well that you took some care to make my Lady B. your friend, and oblige her by your civilities to believe that you were sensible of the favour was offered you, though you had not the grace to make good use on't. In very good earnest now, she is a woman (by all that I have heard of her) that one would not lose; besides that, 'twill become you to make some satisfaction for downright refusing a young lady—'twas unmercifully done.

Would to God you would leave that trick of making excuses! Can you think it necessary to me, or believe that your letters can be so long as to make them unpleasing to me? Are mine so to you? If they are not, yours never will be so to me. You see I say anything to you, out of a belief that, though my letters were more impertinent than they are, you would not be without them nor wish them shorter. Why should you be less kind? If your fellow-servant has been with you, she has told you I part with her but for her advantage. That I shall always be willing to do; but whensoever she shall think fit to serve again, and is not provided of a better mistress, she knows where to find me.

I have sent you the rest of Cléopâtre, pray keep them all in your hands, and the next week I will send you a letter and directions where you shall deliver that and the books for my lady. Is it possible that she can be indifferent to anybody? Take heed of telling me such stories; if all those excellences she is rich in cannot keep warm a passion without the sunshine of her eyes, what are poor people to expect; and were it not a strange vanity in me to believe yours can be long-lived? It would be very pardonable in you to change, but, sure, in him 'tis a mark of so great inconstancy as shows him of an humour that nothing can fix. When you go into the Exchange, pray call at the great shop above, "The Flower Pott." I spoke to Heams, the man of the shop, when I was in town, for a quart of orange-flower water; he had none that was good then, but promised to get me some. Pray put him in mind of it, and let him show it you before he sends it me, for I will not altogether trust to his honesty; you see I make no scruple of giving you little idle commissions, 'tis a freedom you allow me, and that I should be glad you would take. The Frenchman that set my seals lives between Salisbury House and the Exchange, at a house that was not finished when I was there, and the master of the shop, his name is Walker, he made me pay 50s. for three, but 'twas too dear. You will meet with a story in these parts of Cléopâtre that pleased me more than any that ever I read in my life; 'tis of one Délie, pray give me your opinion of her and her prince. This letter is writ in great haste, as you may see; 'tis my brother's sick day, and I'm not willing to leave him long alone. I forgot to tell you in my last that he was come hither to try if he can lose an ague here that he got in Gloucestershire. He asked me for you very kindly, and if he knew I writ to you I should have something to say from him besides what I should say for myself if I had room.

Yrs.

Letter 14.—This letter contains the most interesting political reference of the whole series. Either Temple has written Dorothy an account of Cromwell's dissolving the Long Parliament, or perhaps some news-letter has found its way to Chicksands with the astounding news. All England is filled with intense excitement over Cromwell's coup d'état; and it cannot be uninteresting to quote a short contemporary account of the business. Algernon Sydney's father, the Earl of Leicester, whose journal has already been quoted, under date Wednesday, April 20th, 1653, writes as follows:—"My Lord General came into the House clad in plain black clothes with grey worsted stockings, and sat down, as he used to do, in an ordinary place." Then he began to speak, and presently "he put on his hat, went out of his place, and walked up and down the stage or floor in the midst of the House, with his hat on his head, and chid them soundly." After this had gone on for some time, Colonel Harrison was called in to remove the Speaker, which he did; "and it happened that Algernon Sydney sat next to the Speaker on the right hand. The General said to Harrison, 'Put him out!'

"Harrison spake to Sydney to go out, but he said he would not go out and waited still.

"The General said again, 'Put him out!' Then Harrison and Wortley [Worsley] put their hands upon Sydney's shoulders as if they would force him to go out. Then he rose and went towards the door."

Such is the story which reaches Dorothy, and startles all England at this date.

SIR,—That you may be sure it was a dream that I writ that part of my letter in, I do not now remember what it was I writ, but seems it was very kind, and possibly you owe the discovery on't to my being asleep. But I do not repent it, for I should not love you if I did not think you discreet enough to be trusted with the knowledge of all my kindness. Therefore 'tis not that I desire to hide it from you, but that I do not love to tell it; and perhaps if you could read my heart, I should make less scruple of your seeing on't there than in my letters.

I can easily guess who the pretty young lady is, for there are but two in England of that fortune, and they are sisters, but I am to seek who the gallant should be. If it be no secret, you may tell me. However, I shall wish him all good success if he be your friend, as I suppose he is by his confidence in you. If it be neither of the Spencers, I wish it were; I have not seen two young men that looked as if they deserved better fortunes so much as those brothers.

But, bless me, what will become of us all now? Is not this a strange turn? What does my Lord Lisle? Sure this will at least defer your journey? Tell me what I must think on't; whether it be better or worse, or whether you are at all concern'd in't? For if you are not I am not, only if I had been so wise as to have taken hold of the offer was made me by Henry Cromwell, I might have been in a fair way of preferment, for, sure, they will be greater now than ever. Is it true that Algernon Sydney was so unwilling to leave the House, that the General was fain to take the pains to turn him out himself? Well, 'tis a pleasant world this. If Mr. Pim were alive again, I wonder what he would think of these proceedings, and whether this would appear so great a breach of the Privilege of Parliament as the demanding the 5 members? But I shall talk treason by and by if I do not look to myself. 'Tis safer talking of the orange-flower water you sent me. The carrier has given me a great charge to tell you that it came safe, and that I must do him right. As you say, 'tis not the best I have seen, nor the worst.

I shall expect your Diary next week, though this will be but a short letter: you may allow me to make excuses too sometimes; but, seriously, my father is now so continuously ill, that I have hardly time for anything. 'Tis but an ague that he has, but yet I am much afraid that is more than his age and weakness will be able to bear; he keeps his bed, and never rises but to have it made, and most times faints with that. You ought in charity to write as much as you can, for, in earnest, my life here since my father's sickness is so sad that, to another humour than mine, it would be unsupportable; but I have been so used to misfortunes, that I cannot be much surprised with them, though perhaps I am as sensible of them as another. I'll leave you, for I find these thoughts begin to put me in ill humour; farewell, may you be ever happy. If I am so at all, it is in being

Your

Letter 15.—What Temple had written about Mr. Arbry's prophecy and "the falling down of the form," we cannot know. Mr. Arbry was probably William Erbury, vicar of St. Mary's, Cardiff, a noted schismatic. He is said to have been a "holy, harmless man," but incurred both the hate and ridicule of his opponents. Many of his tracts are still extant, and they contain extravagant prophecies couched in the peculiar phraseology of the day.

The celebrated Sir Samuel Luke was a near neighbour of the Osbornes, and Mr. Luke was one of his numerous family. Sir Samuel was Lord of the Manor of Hawnes, and in the Hawnes parish register there are notices of the christenings of his sons and daughters. Sir Samuel was not only a colonel in the Parliament Army, but Scout-Master-General in the counties of Bedford and Surrey. Samuel Butler, the author of Hudibras, lived with Sir Samuel Luke as his secretary, at some date prior to the Restoration; and Dr. Grey, his learned editor, believes that he wrote Hudibras about that time, "because he had then the opportunity to converse with those living characters of rebellion, nonsense, and hypocrisy which he so lively and pathetically exposes throughout the whole work." Sir Samuel is said himself to be the original "Hudibras;" and if Dr. Grey's conjecture on this matter is a right one, we have already in our minds a very complete portrait of Dorothy's neighbour.

The old ballad that Dorothy encloses to her lover has not been preserved with her letter. If it is older than the ballad of "The Lord of Lorne," it must have been composed before Henry VIII.'s reign; for Edward Guilpin, in his Skialethia [1598], speaks of

Th' olde ballad of the Lord of Lorne,
Whose last line in King Harrie's day was borne.

"The Lord of Learne" (this was the old spelling) may be found in Bishop Percy's well-known collection of Ballads and Romances.

SIR,—You must pardon me, I could not burn your other letter for my life; I was so pleased to see I had so much to read, and so sorry I had done so soon, that I resolved to begin them again, and had like to have lost my dinner by it. I know not what humour you were in when you writ it; but Mr. Arbry's prophecy and the falling down of the form did a little discompose my gravity. But I quickly recovered myself with thinking that you deserved to be chid for going where you knew you must of necessity lose your time. In earnest, I had a little scruple when I went with you thither, and but that I was assured it was too late to go any whither else, and believed it better to hear an ill sermon than none, I think I should have missed his Belles remarques. You had repented you, I hope, of that and all other your faults before you thought of dying.

What a satisfaction you had found out to make me for the injuries you say you have done me! And yet I cannot tell neither (though 'tis not the remedy I should choose) whether that were not a certain one for all my misfortunes; for, sure, I should have nothing then to persuade me to stay longer where they grow, and I should quickly take a resolution of leaving them and the world at once. I agree with you, too, that I do not see any great likelihood of the change of our fortunes, and that we have much more to wish than to hope for; but 'tis so common a calamity that I dare not murmur at it; better people have endured it, and I can give no reason why (almost) all are denied the satisfaction of disposing themselves to their own desires, but that it is a happiness too great for this world, and might endanger one's forgetting the next; whereas if we are crossed in that which only can make the world pleasing to us, we are quickly tired with the length of our journey and the disquiet of our inns, and long to be at home. One would think it were I who had heard the three sermons and were trying to make a fourth; these are truths that might become a pulpit better than Mr. Arbry's predictions. But lest you should think I have as many worms in my head as he, I'll give over in time, and tell you how far Mr. Luke and I are acquainted. He lives within three or four miles of me, and one day that I had been to visit a lady that is nearer him than me, as I came back I met a coach with some company in't that I knew, and thought myself obliged to salute. We all lighted and met, and I found more than I looked for by two damsels and their squires. I was afterwards told they were of the Lukes, and possibly this man might be there, or else I never saw him; for since these times we have had no commerce with that family, but have kept at great distance, as having on several occasions been disobliged by them. But of late, I know not how, Sir Sam has grown so kind as to send to me for some things he desired out of this garden, and withal made the offer of what was in his, which I had reason to take for a high favour, for he is a nice florist; and since this we are insensibly come to as good degrees of civility for one another as can be expected from people that never meet.

Who those demoiselles should be that were at Heamses I cannot imagine, and I know so few that are concerned in me or my name that I admire you should meet with so many that seem to be acquainted with it. Sure, if you had liked them you would not have been so sullen, and a less occasion would have served to make you entertain their discourse if they had been handsome. And yet I know no reason I have to believe that beauty is any argument to make you like people; unless I had more on't myself. But be it what it will that displeased you, I am glad they did not fright you away before you had the orange-flower water, for it is very good, and I am so sweet with it a days that I despise roses. When I have given you humble thanks for it, I mean to look over your other letter and take the heads, and to treat of them in order as my time and your patience shall give me leave.

And first for my Sheriff, let me desire you to believe he has more courage than to die upon a denial. No (thanks be to God!), none of my servants are given to that; I hear of many every day that do marry, but of none that do worse. My brother sent me word this week that my fighting servant is married too, and with the news this ballad, which was to be sung in the grave that you dreamt of, I think; but because you tell me I shall not want company then, you may dispose of this piece of poetry as you please when you have sufficiently admired with me where he found it out, for 'tis much older than that of my "Lord of Lorne." You are altogether in the right that my brother will never be at quiet till he sees me disposed of, but he does not mean to lose me by it; he knows that if I were married at this present, I should not be persuaded to leave my father as long as he lives; and when this house breaks up, he is resolved to follow me if he can, which he thinks he might better do to a house where I had some power than where I am but upon courtesy myself. Besides that, he thinks it would be to my advantage to be well bestowed, and by that he understands richly. He is much of your sister's humour, and many times wishes me a husband that loved me as well as he does (though he seems to doubt the possibility on't), but never desires that I should love that husband with any passion, and plainly tells me so. He says it would not be so well for him, nor perhaps for me, that I should; for he is of opinion that all passions have more of trouble than satisfaction in them, and therefore they are happiest that have least of them. You think him kind from a letter that you met with of his; sure, there was very little of anything in that, or else I should not have employed it to wrap a book up. But, seriously, I many times receive letters from him, that were they seen without an address to me or his name, nobody would believe they were from a brother; and I cannot but tell him sometimes that, sure, he mistakes and sends me letters that were meant to his mistress, till he swears to me that he has none.

Next week my persecution begins again; he comes down, and my cousin Molle is already cured of his imaginary dropsy, and means to meet here. I shall be baited most sweetly, but sure they will not easily make me consent to make my life unhappy to satisfy their importunity. I was born to be very happy or very miserable, I know not which, but I am very certain that you will never read half this letter 'tis so scribbled; but 'tis no matter, 'tis not much worth it.

Your most faithful friend and servant.

Letter 16.—The trial of Lord Chandos for killing Mr. Compton in a duel was, just at this moment, exciting the fickle attention of the town, which had probably said its say on the subject of Cromwell's coup d'état, and was only too ready for another subject of conversation. The trial is not reported among the State Trials, but our observant friend the Earl of Leicester has again taken note of the matter in his journal, and can give us at least his own ideas of the trial and its political and social importance. Under date May 1653, he writes:—"Towards the end of Easter Term, the Lord Chandos, for killing in duel Mr. Compton the year before," that is to say, in March; the new year begins on March 25th, "and the Lord Arundel of Wardour, one of his seconds, were brought to their trial for their lives at the Upper Bench in Westminster Hall, when it was found manslaughter only, as by a jury at Kingston-upon-Thames it had been found formerly. The Lords might have had the privilege of peerage (Justice Rolles being Lord Chief Justice), but they declined it by the advice of Mr. Maynard and the rest of their counsel, least by that means the matter might have been brought about again, therefore they went upon the former verdict of manslaughter, and so were acquitted; yet to be burned in the hand, which was done to them both a day or two after, but very favourably." These were the first peers that had been burned in the hand, and the democratic Earl of Leicester expresses at the event some satisfaction, and derives from the whole circumstances of the trial comfortable assurance of the power and stability of the Government. The Earl, however, misleads us in one particular. Lord Arundel was Henry Compton's second. He had married Cecily Compton, and naturally enough acted as his brother-in-law's second. It is also interesting to remember that Lord Chandos was known to the world as something other than a duelist. He was an eminent loyalist, among the first of those nobles who left Westminster, and at Newbury fight had his three horses killed under him. Lady Carey was Mary, natural daughter of Lord Scrope, who married Henry Carey, commonly called Lord Leppington. Lady Leppington (or Carey) lost her husband in 1649, and her son died May 24, 1653. This helps us to date the letter. Of her "kindness to Compton," of which Dorothy writes in her next letter, nothing is known, but she married Charles Paulet, Lord St. John, afterwards the Duke of Bolton, early in 1654.

The jealous Sir T---- here mentioned may be Sir Thomas Osborne, who, we may suppose, was not well pleased at the refusal of his offer.

Sir Peter Lely did paint a portrait of Lady Diana Rich some months after this date. It is somewhat curious that he should remain in England during the Civil Wars; but his business was to paint all men's portraits. He had painted Charles I.; now he was painting Cromwell. It was to him Cromwell is said to have shouted: "Paint the warts! paint the warts!" when the courtly Sir Peter would have made a presentable picture even of the Lord General himself. Cromwell was a sound critic in this, and had detected the main fault of Sir Peter's portraits, whose value to us is greatly lessened by the artist's constant habit of flattery.

SIR,—If it were the carrier's fault that you stayed so long for your letters, you are revenged, for I have chid him most unreasonably. But I must confess 'twas not for that, for I did not know it then, but going to meet him (as I usually do), when he gave me your letter I found the upper seal broken open, and underneath where it uses to be only closed with a little wax, there was a seal, which though it were an anchor and a heart, methought it did not look like yours, but less, and much worse cut. This suspicion was so strong upon me, that I chid till the poor fellow was ready to cry, and swore to me that it had never been touched since he had it, and that he was careful of it, as he never put it with his other letters, but by itself, and that now it come amongst his money, which perhaps might break the seal; and lest I should think it was his curiosity, he told me very ingenuously he could not read, and so we parted for the present. But since, he has been with a neighbour of mine whom he sometimes delivers my letters to, and begged her that she would go to me and desire my worship to write to your worship to know how the letter was sealed, for it has so grieved him that he has neither eat nor slept (to do him any good) since he came home, and in grace of God this shall be a warning to him as long as he lives. He takes it so heavily that I think I must be friends with him again; but pray hereafter seal your letters, so that the difficulty of opening them may dishearten anybody from attempting it.

It was but my guess that the ladies at Heams' were unhandsome; but since you tell me they were remarkably so, sure I know them by it; they are two sisters, and might have been mine if the Fates had so pleased. They have a brother that is not like them, and is a baronet besides. 'Tis strange that you tell me of my Lords Shandoys [Chandos] and Arundel; but what becomes of young Compton's estate? Sure my Lady Carey cannot neither in honour nor conscience keep it; besides that, she needs it less now than ever, her son (being, as I hear) dead.

Sir T., I suppose, avoids you as a friend of mine. My brother tells me they meet sometimes, and have the most ado to pull off their hats to one another that can be, and never speak. If I were in town I'll undertake he would venture the being choked for want of air rather than stir out of doors for fear of meeting me. But did you not say in your last that you took something very ill from me? If 'twas my humble thanks, well, you shall have no more of them then, nor no more servants. I think that they are not necessary among friends.

I take it very kindly that your father asked for me, and that you were not pleased with the question he made of the continuance of my friendship. I can pardon it him, because he does not know me, but I should never forgive you if you could doubt it. Were my face in no more danger of changing than my mind, I should be worth the seeing at threescore; and that which is but very ordinary now, would then be counted handsome for an old woman; but, alas! I am more likely to look old before my time with grief. Never anybody had such luck with servants; what with marrying and what with dying, they all leave me. Just now I have news brought me of the death of an old rich knight that has promised me this seven years to marry me whensoever his wife died, and now he's dead before her, and has left her such a widow, it makes me mad to think on't, £1200 a year jointure and £20,000 in money and personal estate, and all this I might have had if Mr. Death had been pleased to have taken her instead of him. Well, who can help these things? But since I cannot have him, would you had her! What say you? Shall I speak a good word for you? She will marry for certain, and perhaps, though my brother may expect I should serve him in it, yet if you give me commission I'll say I was engaged beforehand for a friend, and leave him to shift for himself. You would be my neighbour if you had her, and I should see you often. Think on't, and let me know what you resolve? My lady has writ me word that she intends very shortly to sit at Lely's for her picture for me; I give you notice on't, that you may have the pleasure of seeing it sometimes whilst 'tis there. I imagine 'twill be so to you, for I am sure it would be a great one to me, and we do not use to differ in our inclinations, though I cannot agree with you that my brother's kindness to me has anything of trouble in't; no, sure, I may be just to you and him both, and to be a kind sister will take nothing from my being a perfect friend.

Letter 17.—Lady Newcastle was Margaret Duchess of Newcastle. "The thrice noble, chaste, and virtuous, but again somewhat fantastical and original-brained, generous Margaret Newcastle," as Elia describes her. She was the youngest daughter of Sir Charles Lucas, and was born at Colchester towards the end of the reign of James I. Her mother appears to have been remarkably careful of her education in all such lighter matters as dancing, music, and the learning of the French tongue; but she does not seem to have made any deep study of the classics. In 1643 she joined the Court at Oxford, and was made one of the Maids of Honour to Henrietta Maria, whom she afterwards attended in exile. At Paris she met the Marquis of Newcastle, who married her in that city in 1645. From Paris they went to Rotterdam, she leaving the Queen to follow her husband's fortunes; and after stopping at Rotterdam and Brabant for short periods, they settled at Antwerp.

At the Restoration she returned to England with her husband, and employed her time in writing letters, plays, poems, philosophical discourses, and orations. There is a long catalogue of her works in Ballard's Memoirs, but all published at a date subsequent to 1653. However, from Anthony Wood and other sources one gathers somewhat different details of her life and writings; and the book to which Dorothy refers here and in Letter 21, is probably the Poems and Fancies, an edition of which was published, I believe, in this year [1653]. Many of her verses are more strangely incomprehensible than anything even in the poetry of to-day. Take, for instance, a poem of four lines, from the Poems and Fancies, entitled—

THE JOINING OF SEVERAL FIGUR'D ATOMS MAKES
OTHER FIGURES.
Several figur'd Atoms well agreeing
When joined, do give another figure being.
For as those figures joined several ways
The fabrick of each several creature raise.

This seems to be a rhyming statement of the Atomic theory, but whether it is a poem or a fancy we should find it hard to decide. It is not, however, an unfair example of Lady Newcastle's fantastic style. Lady Newcastle died in 1673, and was buried in Westminster Abbey,—"A wise, witty, and learned Lady, which her many books do well testify."

SIR,—I received your letter to-day, when I thought it almost impossible that I should be sensible of anything but my father's sickness and my own affliction in it. Indeed, he was then so dangerously ill that we could not reasonably hope he should outlive this day; yet he is now, I thank God, much better, and I am come so much to myself with it, as to undertake a long letter to you whilst I watch by him. Towards the latter end it will be excellent stuff, I believe; but, alas! you may allow me to dream sometimes. I have had so little sleep since my father was sick that I am never thoroughly awake. Lord, how I have wished for you! Here do I sit all night by a poor moped fellow that serves my father, and have much ado to keep him awake and myself too. If you heard the wise discourse that is between us, you would swear we wanted sleep; but I shall leave him to-night to entertain himself, and try if I can write as wisely as I talk. I am glad all is well again. In earnest, it would have lain upon my conscience if I had been the occasion of making your poor boy lose a service, that if he has the wit to know how to value it, he would never have forgiven me while he had lived.

But while I remember it, let me ask you if you did not send my letter and Cléopâtre where I directed you for my lady? I received one from her to-day full of the kindest reproaches, that she has not heard from me this three weeks. I have writ constantly to her, but I do not so much wonder that the rest are lost, as that she seems not to have received that which I sent to you nor the books. I do not understand it, but I know there is no fault of yours in't. But, mark you! if you think to 'scape with sending me such bits of letters, you are mistaken. You say you are often interrupted, and I believe it; but you must use then to begin to write before you receive mine, and whensoever you have any spare time allow me some of it. Can you doubt that anything can make your letters cheap? In earnest, 'twas unkindly said, and if I could be angry with you it should be for that. No, certainly they are, and ever will be, dear to me as that which I receive a huge contentment by. How shall I long when you are gone your journey to hear from you! how shall I apprehend a thousand accidents that are not likely nor will ever happen, I hope! Oh, if you do not send me long letters, then you are the cruellest person that can be! If you love me you will; and if you do not, I shall never love myself. You need not fear such a command as you mention. Alas! I am too much concerned that you should love me ever to forbid it you; 'tis all that I propose of happiness to myself in the world. The burning of my paper has waked me; all this while I was in a dream. But 'tis no matter, I am content you should know they are of you, and that when my thoughts are left most at liberty they are the kindest. I swear my eyes are so heavy that I hardly see what I write, nor do I think you will be able to read it when I have done; the best on't is 'twill be no great loss to you if you do not, for, sure, the greatest part on't is not sense, and yet on my conscience I shall go on with it. 'Tis like people that talk in their sleep, nothing interrupts them but talking to them again, and that you are not like to do at this distance; besides that, at this instant you are, I believe, more asleep than I, and do not so much as dream that I am writing to you. My fellow-watchers have been asleep too, till just now they begin to stretch and yawn; they are going to try if eating and drinking can keep them awake, and I am kindly invited to be of their company; and my father's man has got one of the maids to talk nonsense to to-night, and they have got between them a bottle of ale. I shall lose my share if I do not take them at their first offer. Your patience till I have drunk, and then I'll for you again.

And now on the strength of this ale, I believe I shall be able to fill up this paper that's left with something or other; and first let me ask you if you have seen a book of poems newly come out, made by my Lady Newcastle? For God's sake if you meet with it send it to me; they say 'tis ten times more extravagant than her dress. Sure, the poor woman is a little distracted, she could never be so ridiculous else as to venture at writing books, and in verse too. If I should not sleep this fortnight I should not come to that. My eyes grow a little dim though, for all the ale, and I believe if I could see it this is most strangely scribbled. Sure, I shall not find fault with your writing in haste, for anything but the shortness of your letter; and 'twould be very unjust in me to tie you to a ceremony that I do not observe myself. No, for God's sake let there be no such thing between us; a real kindness is so far beyond all compliment, that it never appears more than when there is least of t'other mingled with it. If, then, you would have me believe yours to be perfect, confirm it to me by a kind freedom. Tell me if there be anything that I can serve you in, employ me as you would do that sister that you say you love so well. Chide me when I do anything that is not well, but then make haste to tell me that you have forgiven me, and that you are what I shall ever be, a faithful friend.

Letter 18.—I cannot pass by this letter without saying that the first part of it is, to my thinking, the most dainty and pleasing piece of writing that Dorothy has left us. The account of her life, one day and every day, is like a gust of fresh country air clearing away the mist of time and enabling one to see Dorothy at Chicksands quite clearly. It is fashionable to deny Macaulay everything but memory; but he had the good taste and discernment to admire this letter, and quote from it in his Essay on Sir William Temple,—a quotation for which I shall always remain very grateful to him.

Sir Thomas Peyton, "Brother Peyton," was born in 1619, being, I believe, the second baronet of that name; his seat was at Knowlton, in the county of Kent. Early in the reign of Charles I. we find him as Member of Parliament for Sandwich, figuring in a Committee side by side with the two Sir Harry Vanes; the Committee having been sent into Kent to prevent the dispersal of rumours to the scandal of Parliament,—no light task, one would think. In 1643 he is in prison, charged among other things with being a malignant. An unjust charge, as he thinks; for he writes to his brother, "If to wish on earth peace, goodwill towards men, be a malignant, none is greater than your affectionate brother, Thomas Peyton." But in spite of these peaceful thoughts in prison, in May 1648 he is heading a loyalist rising in Kent. The other counties not joining in at the right moment, in accordance with the general procedure at Royalist risings, it is defeated by Fairfax. Sir Thomas's house is ransacked, he himself is taken prisoner near Bury St. Edmunds, brought to the House of Commons, and committed to the Tower. A right worthy son-in-law of good Sir Peter. We are glad to find him at large again in 1653, his head safe on his shoulders, and do not grudge him his grant of duties on sea-coal, dated 1660; nor are we sorry that he should once again grace the House of Commons with his presence as one of the members for loyal Kent in the good days when the King enjoyed his own again.

SIR,—I have been reckoning up how many faults you lay to my charge in your last letter, and I find I am severe, unjust, unmerciful, and unkind. Oh me, how should one do to mend all these! 'Tis work for an age, and 'tis to be feared I shall be so old before I am good, that 'twill not be considerable to anybody but myself whether I am so or not. I say nothing of the pretty humour you fancied me in, in your dream, because 'twas but a dream. Sure, if it had been anything else, I should have remembered that my Lord L. loves to have his chamber and his bed to himself. But seriously, now, I wonder at your patience. How could you hear me talk so senselessly, though 'twere but in your sleep, and not be ready to beat me? What nice mistaken points of honour I pretended to, and yet could allow him room in the same bed with me! Well, dreams are pleasant things to people whose humours are so; but to have the spleen, and to dream upon't, is a punishment I would not wish my greatest enemy. I seldom dream, or never remember them, unless they have been so sad as to put me into such disorder as I can hardly recover when I am awake, and some of those I am confident I shall never forget.

You ask me how I pass my time here. I can give you a perfect account not only of what I do for the present, but of what I am likely to do this seven years if I stay here so long. I rise in the morning reasonably early, and before I am ready I go round the house till I am weary of that, and then into the garden till it grows too hot for me. About ten o'clock I think of making me ready, and when that's done I go into my father's chamber, from whence to dinner, where my cousin Molle and I sit in great state in a room, and at a table that would hold a great many more. After dinner we sit and talk till Mr. B. comes in question, and then I am gone. The heat of the day is spent in reading or working, and about six or seven o'clock I walk out into a common that lies hard by the house, where a great many young wenches keep sheep and cows, and sit in the shade singing of ballads. I go to them and compare their voices and beauties to some ancient shepherdesses that I have read of, and find a vast difference there; but, trust me, I think these are as innocent as those could be. I talk to them, and find they want nothing to make them the happiest people in the world but the knowledge that they are so. Most commonly, when we are in the midst of our discourse, one looks about her, and spies her cows going into the corn, and then away they all run as if they had wings at their heels. I, that am not so nimble, stay behind; and when I see them driving home their cattle, I think 'tis time for me to return too. When I have supped, I go into the garden, and so to the side of a small river that runs by it, when I sit down and wish you were with me (you had best say this is not kind neither). In earnest, 'tis a pleasant place, and would be much more so to me if I had your company. I sit there sometimes till I am lost with thinking; and were it not for some cruel thoughts of the crossness of our fortunes that will not let me sleep there, I should forget that there were such a thing to be done as going to bed.

Since I writ this my company is increased by two, my brother Harry and a fair niece, the eldest of my brother Peyton's children. She is so much a woman that I am almost ashamed to say I am her aunt; and so pretty, that, if I had any design to gain of servants, I should not like her company; but I have none, and therefore shall endeavour to keep her here as long as I can persuade her father to spare her, for she will easily consent to it, having so much of my humour (though it be the worst thing in her) as to like a melancholy place and little company. My brother John is not come down again, nor am I certain when he will be here. He went from London into Gloucestershire to my sister who was very ill, and his youngest girl, of which he was very fond, is since dead. But I believe by that time his wife has a little recovered her sickness and loss of her child, he will be coming this way. My father is reasonably well, but keeps his chamber still, and will hardly, I am afraid, ever be so perfectly recovered as to come abroad again.

I am sorry for poor Walker, but you need not doubt of what he has of yours in his hands, for it seems he does not use to do his work himself. I speak seriously, he keeps a Frenchman that sets all his seals and rings. If what you say of my Lady Leppington be of your own knowledge, I shall believe you, but otherwise I can assure you I have heard from people that pretend to know her very well, that her kindness to Compton was very moderate, and that she never liked him so well as when he died and gave her his estate. But they might be deceived, and 'tis not so strange as that you should imagine a coldness and an indifference in my letters when I so little meant it; but I am not displeased you should desire my kindness enough to apprehend the loss of it when it is safest. Only I would not have you apprehend it so far as to believe it possible,—that were an injury to all the assurances I have given you, and if you love me you cannot think me unworthy. I should think myself so, if I found you grew indifferent to me, that I have had so long and so particular a friendship for; but, sure, this is more than I need to say. You are enough in my heart to know all my thoughts, and if so, you know better than I can tell you how much I am

Yours.

Letter 19.—Lady Ruthin is Susan, daughter and heiress of Charles Longueville Lord Grey de Ruthin. She married Sir Harry Yelverton, a match of which Dorothy thoroughly approved. We hear more of Dorothy's beautiful friend at the time when the treaty with Sir Harry Yelverton is going forward. Of Mr. Talbot I find nothing; we must rest contented in knowing him to be a fellow-servant.

R. Spencer is Robert Spencer, Earl of Sunderland, Lady Sunderland's brother-in-law. He was afterwards one of the inner council of four in Temple's Scheme of Government. "In him," says Macaulay, in a somewhat highly-coloured character-sketch, "the political immortality of his age was personified in the most lively manner. Nature had given him a keen understanding, a restless and mischievous temper, a cold heart, and an abject spirit. His mind had undergone a training by which all his vices had been nursed up to the rankest maturity."

Lady Lexington was Mary, daughter of Sir Anthony Leger; she was the third wife of Robert Sutton, Earl of Lexington. I cannot find that her daughter married one of the Spencers.

SIR,—If to know I wish you with me pleases you, 'tis a satisfaction you may always have, for I do it perpetually; but were it really in my power to make you happy, I could not miss being so myself, for I know nothing else I want towards it. You are admitted to all my entertainments; and 'twould be a pleasing surprise to me to see you amongst my shepherdesses. I meet some there sometimes that look very like gentlemen (for 'tis a road), and when they are in good humour they give us a compliment as they go by; but you would be so courteous as to stay, I hope, if we entreated you; 'tis in your way to this place, and just before the house. 'Tis our Hyde Park, and every fine evening, anybody that wanted a mistress might be sure to find one there. I have wondered often to meet my fair Lady Ruthin there alone; methinks it should be dangerous for an heir. I could find in my heart to steal her away myself, but it should be rather for her person than her fortune. My brother says not a word of you, nor your service, nor do I expect he should; if I could forget you, he would not help my memory. You would laugh, sure, if I could tell you how many servants he has offered me since he came down; but one above all the rest I think he is in love with himself, and may marry him too if he pleases, I shall not hinder him. 'Tis one Talbot, the finest gentleman he has seen this seven years; but the mischief on't is he has not above fifteen or sixteen hundred pound a year, though he swears he begins to think one might bate £500 a year for such a husband. I tell him I am glad to hear it; and if I was as much taken (as he) with Mr. Talbot, I should not be less gallant; but I doubted the first extremely. I have spleen enough to carry me to Epsom this summer; but yet I think I shall not go. If I make one journey, I must make more, for then I have no excuse. Rather than be obliged to that, I'll make none. You have so often reproached me with the loss of your liberty, that to make you some amends I am contented to be your prisoner this summer; but you shall do one favour for me into the bargain. When your father goes into Ireland, lay your commands upon some of his servants to get you an Irish greyhound. I have one that was the General's; but 'tis a bitch, and those are always much less than the dogs. I got it in the time of my favour there, and it was all they had. Henry Cromwell undertook to write to his brother Fleetwood for another for me; but I have lost my hopes there. Whomsoever it is that you employ, he will need no other instructions but to get the biggest he can meet with; 'tis all the beauty of those dogs, or of any kind, I think. A masty [mastif] is handsomer to me than the most exact little dog that ever lady played withal. You will not offer to take it ill that I employ you in such a commission, since I have told you that the General's son did not refuse it; but I shall take it ill if you do not take the same freedom with me whensoever I am capable of serving you. The town must needs be unpleasant now, and, methinks, you might contrive some way of having your letters sent to you without giving yourself the trouble of coming to town for them when you have no other business; you must pardon me if I think they cannot be worth it.

I am told that R. Spencer is a servant to a lady of my acquaintance, a daughter of my Lady Lexington's. Is it true? And if it be, what is become of the £2500 lady? Would you think it, that I have an ambassador from the Emperor Justinian, that comes to renew the treaty? In earnest, 'tis true, and I want your counsel extremely, what to do in it. You told me once that of all my servants you liked him the best. If I could do so too, there were no dispute in't. Well, I'll think on't, and if it succeed I will be as good as my word; you shall take your choice of my four daughters. Am not I beholding to him, think you? He says that he has made addresses, 'tis true, in several places since we parted, but could not fix anywhere; and, in his opinion, he sees nobody that would make so fit a wife for him as I. He has often inquired after me to hear if I were marrying, and somebody told him I had an ague, and he presently fell sick of one too, so natural a sympathy there is between us; and yet for all this, on my conscience, we shall never marry. He desires to know whether I am at liberty or not. What shall I tell him? Or shall I send him to you to know? I think that will be best. I'll say that you are much my friend, and that I have resolved not to dispose of myself but with your consent and approbation, and therefore he must make all his court to you; and when he can bring me a certificate under your hand, that you think him a fit husband for me, 'tis very likely I may have him. Till then I am his humble servant and your faithful friend.

Letter 20.—In this letter the journey into Sweden is given up finally, and Temple is once more without employment or the hope of employment. This was probably brought about by the alteration of the Government plans; and as Lord Lisle was not to go to Sweden, there was no chance of Temple's being attached to the Embassy.

SIR,—I am sorry my last letter frighted you so; 'twas no part of my intention it should; but I am more sorry to see by your first chapter that your humour is not always so good as I could wish it. 'Twas the only thing I ever desired we might differ in, and therefore I think it is denied me. Whilst I read the description on't, I could not believe but that I had writ it myself, it was so much my own. I pity you in earnest much more than I do myself; and yet I may deserve yours when I shall have told you, that besides all that you speak of, I have gotten an ague that with two fits has made me so very weak, that I doubted extremely yesterday whether I should be able to sit up to-day to write to you. But you must not be troubled at this; that's the way to kill me indeed. Besides, it is impossible I should keep it long, for here is my eldest brother, and my cousin Molle, and two or three more that have great understanding in agues, as people that have been long acquainted with them, and they do so tutor and govern me, that I am neither to eat, drink, nor sleep without their leave; and, sure, my obedience deserves they should cure me, or else they are great tyrants to very little purpose. You cannot imagine how cruel they are to me, and yet will persuade me 'tis for my good. I know they mean it so, and therefore say nothing on't, I admit, and sigh to think those are not here that would be kinder to me. But you were cruel yourself when you seemed to apprehend I might oblige you to make good your last offer. Alack! if I could purchase the empire of the world at that rate, I should think it much too dear; and though, perhaps, I am too unhappy myself ever to make anybody else happy, yet, sure, I shall take heed that my misfortunes may not prove infectious to my friends. You ask counsel of a person that is very little able to give it. I cannot imagine whither you should go, since this journey is broke. You must e'en be content to stay at home, I think, and see what will become of us, though I expect nothing of good; and, sure, you never made a truer remark in your life than that all changes are for the worse. Will it not stay your father's journey too? Methinks it should. For God's sake write me all that you hear or can think of, that I may have something to entertain myself withal. I have a scurvy head that will not let me write longer.

I am your.

[Directed]—
For Mrs. Paynter, at her house
in Bedford Street, next ye Goate,
In Covent Garden.

Letter 21.—Sir Thomas Osborne is Dorothy's "Cousin Osborne" here mentioned. He was, you remember, a suitor for Dorothy's hand, but has now married Lady Bridget Lindsay.

The "squire that is as good as a knight," is, in all probability, Richard Bennet. Thomas Bennet, his father, an alderman of the city of London, had bought a seat near Cambridge, called Babraham or Babram, that had belonged to Sir Toby Palavicini. The alderman appears to have been a loyal citizen, as he was created baronet in 1660. His two sons, Sir Richard and Sir Thomas, married daughters of Sir Lavinius Munck;—so we need not accuse Dorothy of irretrievably breaking hearts by her various refusals.

When Dorothy says she will "sit like the lady of the lobster, and give audience at Babram," she simply means that she will sit among magnificent surroundings unsuited to her modest disposition. The "lady" of a lobster is a curious-shaped substance in the head of that fish, bearing some distant resemblance to the figure of a woman. The expression is still known to fishmongers and others, who also refer to the "Adam and Eve" in a shrimp, a kindred formation. Curiously enough, this very phrase has completely puzzled Dr. Grosart, the learned editor of Herrick, who confesses that he can make nothing of the allusion in the following passage from The Fairie Temple:—

"The saint to which the most he prayes,
And offers Incense Nights and Dayes,
The Lady of the Lobster is
Whose foot-pace he doth stroak and kiss."

Swift, too, uses the phrase in his Battle of the Books in describing the encounter between Virgil and Dryden, where he says, "The helmet was nine times too large for the head, which appeared situate far in the hinder part, even like the lady in a lobster, or a mouse under a canopy of state, or like a shrivelled beau from within the penthouse of a modern periwig."

SIR,—I do not know that anybody has frighted me, or beaten me, or put me into more passion than what I usually carry about me, but yesterday I missed my fit, and am not without hope I shall hear no more on't. My father has lost his too, and my eldest brother, but we all look like people risen from the dead. Only my cousin Molle keeps his still; and, in earnest, I am not certain whether he would lose it or not, for it gives him a lawful occasion of being nice and cautious about himself, to which he in his own humour is so much inclined that 'twere not easy for him to forbear it. You need not send me my Lady Newcastle's book at all, for I have seen it, and am satisfied that there are many soberer people in Bedlam. I'll swear her friends are much to blame to let her go abroad.

But I am hugely pleased that you have seen my Lady. I knew you could not choose but like her; but yet, let me tell you, you have seen but the worst of her. Her conversation has more charms than can be in mere beauty, and her humour and disposition would make a deformed person appear lovely. You had strange luck to meet my brother so soon. He went up but last Tuesday. I heard from him on Thursday, but he did not tell me he had seen you; perhaps he did not think it convenient to put me in mind of you; besides, he thought he told me enough in telling me my cousin Osborne was married. Why did you not send me that news and a garland? Well, the best on't is I have a squire now that is as good as a knight. He was coming as fast as a coach and six horses could carry him, but I desired him to stay till my ague was gone, and give me a little time to recover my good looks; for I protest if he saw me now he would never deign to see me again. Oh, me! I can but think how I shall sit like the lady of the lobster, and give audience at Babram. You have been there, I am sure. Nobody that is at Cambridge 'scapes it. But you were never so welcome thither as you shall be when I am mistress on't. In the meantime, I have sent you the first tome of Cyrus to read; when you have done with it, leave it at Mr. Hollingsworth's, and I'll send you another. I have had ladies with me all the afternoon that are for London to-morrow, and now I have as many letters to write as my Lord General's Secretary. Forgive me that this is no longer, for

I am your.

Addressed—
For Mrs. Paynter, at her house in
Bedford Street, next ye Goate,
In Covent Garden.

Letter 22.—Mr. Fish and Mr. Freeman were probably neighbours of Dorothy. There is a Mr. Ralph Freeman of Aspedon Hall, in Hertfordshire, mentioned in contemporary chronicles; he died in 1714, aged 88, and was therefore about 37 years of age at this time. His father seems to have been an ideal country gentleman, "who," says Sir Henry Chauncy, "made his house neat, his gardens pleasant, his groves delicious, his children cheerful, his servants easy, and kept excellent order in his family."

SIR,—You are more in my debt than you imagine. I never deserved a long letter so much as now, when you sent me a short one. I could tell you such a story ('tis too long to be written) as would make you see (what I never discover'd in myself before) that I am a valiant lady. In earnest, we have had such a skirmish, and upon so foolish an occasion, as I cannot tell which is strangest. The Emperor and his proposals began it; I talked merrily on't till I saw my brother put on his sober face, and could hardly then believe he was in earnest. It seems he was, for when I had spoke freely my meaning, it wrought so with him as to fetch up all that lay on his stomach. All the people that I had ever in my life refused were brought again upon the stage, like Richard the III.'s ghosts, to reproach me withal; and all the kindness his discoveries could make I had for you was laid to my charge. My best qualities (if I have any that are good) served but for aggravations of my fault, and I was allowed to have wit and understanding and discretion in other things, that it might appear I had none in this. Well, 'twas a pretty lecture, and I grew warm with it after a while; in short, we came so near an absolute falling out, that 'twas time to give over, and we said so much then that we have hardly spoken a word together since. But 'tis wonderful to see what curtseys and legs pass between us; and as before we were thought the kindest brother and sister, we are certainly the most complimental couple in England. 'Tis a strange change, and I am very sorry for it, but I'll swear I know not how to help it. I look upon't as one of my great misfortunes, and I must bear it, as that which is not my first nor likely to be my last. 'Tis but reasonable (as you say) that you should see me, and yet I know not now how it can well be. I am not for disguises, it looks like guilt, and I would not do a thing I durst not own. I cannot tell whether (if there were a necessity of your coming) I should not choose to have it when he is at home, and rather expose him to the trouble of entertaining a person whose company (here) would not be pleasing to him, and perhaps an opinion that I did it purposely to cross him, than that your coming in his absence should be thought a concealment. 'Twas one reason more than I told you why I resolv'd not to go to Epsom this summer, because I knew he would imagine it an agreement between us, and that something besides my spleen carried me thither; but whether you see me or not you may be satisfied I am safe enough, and you are in no danger to lose your prisoner, since so great a violence as this has not broke her chains. You will have nothing to thank me for after this; my whole life will not yield such another occasion to let you see at what rate I value your friendship, and I have been much better than my word in doing but what I promised you, since I have found it a much harder thing not to yield to the power of a near relation, and a greater kindness than I could then imagine it.

To let you see I did not repent me of the last commission, I'll give you another. Here is a seal that Walker set for me, and 'tis dropt out; pray give it him to mend. If anything could be wonder'd at in this age, I should very much how you came by your informations. 'Tis more than I know if Mr. Freeman be my servant. I saw him not long since, and he told me no such thing. Do you know him? In earnest, he's a pretty gentleman, and has a great deal of good nature, I think, which may oblige him perhaps to speak well of his acquaintances without design. Mr. Fish is the Squire of Dames, and has so many mistresses that anybody may pretend a share in him and be believed; but though I have the honour to be his near neighbour, to speak freely, I cannot brag much that he makes any court to me; and I know no young woman in the country that he does not visit often.

I have sent you another tome of Cyrus, pray send the first to Mr. Hollingsworth for my Lady. My cousin Molle went from hence to Cambridge on Thursday, and there's an end of Mr. Bennet. I have no company now but my niece Peyton, and my brother will be shortly for the term, but will make no long stay in town. I think my youngest brother comes down with him. Remember that you owe me a long letter and something for forgiving your last. I have no room for more than

Your.

Letter 23.

SIR,—I will tell you no more of my servants. I can no sooner give you some little hints whereabouts they live, but you know them presently, and I meant you should be beholding to me for your acquaintance. But it seems this gentleman is not so easy access, but you may acknowledge something due to me, if I incline him to look graciously upon you, and therefore there is not much harm done. What has kept him from marrying all this time, or how the humour comes so furiously upon him now, I know not; but if he may be believed, he is resolved to be a most romance squire, and go in quest of some enchanted damsel, whom if he likes, as to her person (for fortune is a thing below him),—and we do not read in history that any knight or squire was ever so discourteous as to inquire what portions their ladies had,—then he comes with the power of the county to demand her, (which for the present he may dispose of, being Sheriff), so I do not see who is able to resist him. All that is to be hoped is, that since he may reduce whomsoever he pleases to his obedience, he will be very curious in his choice, and then I am secure.

It may be I dreamt it that you had met my brother, or else it was one of the reveries of my ague; if so, I hope I shall fall into no more of them. I have missed four fits, and had but five, and have recovered so much strength as made me venture to meet your letter on Wednesday, a mile from home. Yet my recovery will be nothing towards my leaving this place, where many reasons will oblige me to stay at least all this summer, unless some great alteration should happen in this family; that which I most own is my father's ill-health, which, though it be not in that extremity it has been, yet keeps him still a prisoner in his chamber, and for the most part to his bed, which is reason enough. But, besides, I can give you others. I am here much more out of people's way than in town, where my aunt and such as pretend an interest in me, and a power over me, do so persecute me with their good nature, and take it so ill that they are not accepted, as I would live in a hollow tree to avoid them. Here I have nobody but my brother to torment me, whom I can take the liberty to dispute with, and whom I have prevailed with hitherto to bring none of his pretenders to this place, because of the noise all such people make in a country, and the tittle-tattle it breeds among neighbours that have nothing to do but to inquire who marries and who makes love. If I can but keep him still in that humour Mr. Bennet and I are likely to preserve our state and treat at distance like princes; but we have not sent one another our pictures yet, though my cousin Molle, who was his agent here, begged mine very earnestly. But, I thank God, an imagination took him one morning that he was falling into a dropsy, and made him in such haste to go back to Cambridge to his doctor, that he never remembers anything he has to ask of me, but the coach to carry him away. I lent it most willingly, and gone he is. My eldest brother goes up to town on Monday too; perhaps you may see him, but I cannot direct you where to find him, for he is not yet resolved himself where to lie; only 'tis likely Nan may tell you when he is there. He will make no stay, I believe. You will think him altered (and, if it be possible) more melancholy than he was. If marriage agrees no better with other people than it does with him, I shall pray that all my friends may 'scape it. Yet if I were my cousin, H. Danvers, my Lady Diana should not, if I could help it, as well as I love her: I would try if ten thousand pound a year with a husband that doted on her, as I should do, could not keep her from being unhappy. Well, in earnest, if I were a prince, that lady should be my mistress, but I can give no rule to any one else, and perhaps those that are in no danger of losing their hearts to her may be infinitely taken with one I should not value at all; for (so says the Justinian) wise Providence has ordained it that by their different humours everybody might find something to please themselves withal, without envying their neighbours. And now I have begun to talk gravely and wisely, I'll try if I can go a little further without being out. No, I cannot, for I have forgot already what 'twas I would have said; but 'tis no matter, for, as I remember, it was not much to the purpose, and, besides, I have paper little enough left to chide you for asking so unkind a question as whether you were still the same in my thoughts. Have you deserved to be otherwise; that is, am I no more in yours? For till that be, it's impossible the other should; but that will never be, and I shall always be the same I am. My heart tells me so, and I believe it; for were it otherwise, Fortune would not persecute me thus. Oh, me! she's cruel, and how far her power may reach I know not, only I am sure, she cannot call back time that is past, and it is long since we resolved to be for ever

Most faithful friends.

Letter 24.—Tom Cheeke is Sir Thomas Cheeke, Knight, of Purgo, in the county of Essex, or more probably his son, from the way Dorothy speaks of him; but it is difficult to discriminate among constant generations of Toms after a lapse of two hundred years. We find Sir Thomas's daughter was at this time the third wife of Lord Manchester; and it appears that Dorothy's great-grandfather married Catherine Cheeke, daughter of the then Sir Thomas. This will assist us to the connection between Dorothy, Tom Cheeke, and Lord Manchester. Sir Richard Franklin, Knight, married a daughter of Sir Thomas Cheeke. He purchased Moor Park, Hertfordshire, about this time. The park and the mansion he bought in 1652 from the Earl of Monmouth, and the manor in 1655 from Sir Charles Harbord. The gardens had been laid out by the Countess of Bedford, who had sold the place in 1626 to the Earl of Pembroke. The house was well known to Temple, who describes the gardens in his Essay on Gardening; and when he retired in later years to an estate near Farnham in Surrey, he gave to it the name of Moor Park.

Lord Manchester was Edward Montagu, second Earl of Manchester. He was educated at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, and sat for Huntingdonshire in the first two Parliaments of Charles I. He was called to the Upper House as Lord Kimbolton in 1626, and succeeded his father in 1642. His name is well known in history as that of the leader of the Puritans in the House of Lords, and as the only peer joined with the five members impeached by the King. He raised a regiment and fought under Essex at Edgehill, reconquered Lincolnshire, and took part in the battle of Marston Moor. At this time Cromwell was his subordinate, and to his directions Lord Manchester's successes are in all probability due. At the second battle of Newbury, Lord Manchester showed some hesitation in following up his success, and Cromwell accused him of lukewarmness in the cause from his place in the House of Commons. An inquiry was instituted, but the Committee never carried out their investigations, and in parliamentary language the matter then dropped. He afterwards held, among other offices, that of Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, and inducted a visitation and reform of that University. He resisted the trial of the King and the foundation of the Commonwealth, refused to sit in Cromwell's new House of Lords, and was among those Presbyterians who helped to bring about the Restoration.

Cooper and Hoskins were famous miniature painters of the day. Samuel Cooper was a nephew of John Hoskins, who instructed him in the art of miniature painting, in which he soon out-rivalled his master. Cooper, who is styled by contemporary eulogists the "prince of limners," gave a strength and freedom to the art which it had not formerly possessed; but where he attempted to express more of the figure than the head, his drawing is defective. His painting was famous for the beauty of his carnation tints, and the loose flowing lines in which he described the hair of his model. He was a friend of the famous Samuel Butler. Hoskins, though a painter of less merit, had had the honour of painting His Majesty King Charles I., his Queen, and many members of the Court; and had passed through the varying fortunes of a fashionable portrait-painter, whose position, leaning as it does on the fickle approbation of the connoisseurs, is always liable to be wrested from him by a younger rival.

It is noticeable that this is the first letter in which we have intimation of the world's gossip about Dorothy's love affairs. We may, perhaps not unfairly, trace the growth of Dorothy's affection for Temple by the actions of others. First her brother raises his objections, and then her relations begin to gossip; meanwhile the letters do not grow less kind.

SIR,—You amaze me with your story of Tom Cheeke. I am certain he could not have had it where you imagine, and 'tis a miracle to me that he remember that there is such a one in the world as his cousin D.O. I am sure he has not seen her this six year, and I think but once in his life. If he has spread his opinion in that family, I shall quickly hear on't, for my cousin Molle is now gone to Kimbolton to my Lord Manchester, and from there he goes to Moor Park to my cousin Franklin's, and in one, or both, he will be sure to meet with it. The matter is not great, for I confess I do naturally hate the noise and talk of the world, and should be best pleased never to be known in't upon any occasion whatsoever; yet, since it can never be wholly avoided, one must satisfy oneself by doing nothing that one need care who knows. I do not think à propos to tell anybody that you and I are very good friends, and it were better, sure, if nobody knew it but we ourselves. But if, in spite of all our caution, it be discovered, 'tis no treason nor anything else that's ill; and if anybody should tell me that I have had a greater kindness and esteem for you than for any one besides, I do not think I should deny it; howsoever you do, oblige me by not owning any such thing, for as you say, I have no reason to take it ill that you endeavour to preserve me a liberty, though I'm never likely to make use on't. Besides that, I agree with you too that certainly 'tis much better you should owe my kindness to nothing but your own merit and my inclination, than that there should lie any other necessity upon me of making good my words to you.

For God's sake do not complain so that you do not see me; I believe I do not suffer less in't than you, but 'tis not to be helped. If I had a picture that were fit for you, you should have it. I have but one that's anything like, and that's a great one, but I will send it some time or other to Cooper or Hoskins, and have a little one drawn by it, if I cannot be in town to sit myself. You undo me by but dreaming how happy we might have been, when I consider how far we are from it in reality. Alas! how can you talk of defying fortune; nobody lives without it, and therefore why should you imagine you could? I know not how my brother comes to be so well informed as you say, but I am certain he knows the utmost of the injuries you have received from her. 'Tis not possible she should have used you worse than he says. We have had another debate, but much more calmly. 'Twas just upon his going up to town, and perhaps he thought it not fit to part in anger. Not to wrong him, he never said to me (whate'er he thought) a word in prejudice of you in your own person, and I never heard him accuse any but your fortune and my indiscretion. And whereas I did expect that (at least in compliment to me) he should have said we had been a couple of fools well met, he says by his troth he does not blame you, but bids me not deceive myself to think you have any great passion for me.

If you have done with the first part of Cyrus, I should be glad Mr. Hollingsworth had it, because I mentioned some such thing in my last to my Lady; but there is no haste of restoring the other unless she should send to me for it, which I believe she will not. I have a third tome here against you have done with that second; and to encourage you, let me assure you that the more you read of them you will like them still better. Oh, me! whilst I think on't, let me ask you one question seriously, and pray resolve me truly;—do I look so stately as people apprehend? I vow to you I made nothing on't when Sir Emperor said so, because I had no great opinion of his judgment, but Mr. Freeman makes me mistrust myself extremely, not that I am sorry I did appear so to him (since it kept me from the displeasure of refusing an offer which I do not perhaps deserve), but that it is a scurvy quality in itself, and I am afraid I have it in great measure if I showed any of it to him, for whom I have so much respect and esteem. If it be so you must needs know it; for though my kindness will not let me look so upon you, you can see what I do to other people. And, besides, there was a time when we ourselves were indifferent to one another;—did I do so then, or have I learned it since? For God's sake tell me, that I may try to mend it. I could wish, too, that you would lay your commands on me to forbear fruit: here is enough to kill 1000 such as I am, and so extremely good, that nothing but your power can secure me; therefore forbid it me, that I may live to be

Your.

Letter 25.—Dorothy's dissertations on love and marriage are always amusing in their demureness. Who Cousin Peters was we cannot now say, but she was evidently a relation and a gossip. The episode concerning Mistress Harrison and the Queen is explained by the following quotation from the autobiography of the Countess of Warwick.

She is writing of Mr. Charles Rich, and says: "He was then in love with a Maid of Honour to the Queen, one Mrs. Hareson, that had been chamber-fellow to my sister-in-law whilst she lived at Court, and that brought on the acquaintance between him and my sister. He continued to be much with us for about five or six months, till my brother Broghill then (afterwards Earl of Orrery) grew also to be passionately in love with the same Mrs. Hareson. My brother then having a quarrel with Mr. Thomas Howard, second son to the Earl of Berkshire, about Mrs. Hareson (with whom he also was in love), Mr. Rich brought my brother a challenge from Mr. Howard, and was second to him against my brother when they fought, which they did without any great hurt of any side, being parted. This action made Mr. Rich judge it not civil to come to our house, and so for some time forbore doing it; but at last my brother's match with Mrs. Hareson being unhandsomely (on her side) broken off, when they were so near being married as the wedding clothes were to be made, and she after married Mr. Thomas Howard (to my father's great satisfaction), who always was averse to it, though, to comply with my brother's passion, he consented to it." There is a reference to the duel in a letter of Lord Cork, which fixes the date as 1639-40, but Mr. Nevile's name is nowhere mentioned.

Lord Broghill is well known to the history of that time, both literary and political. He was Roger Boyle, afterwards Earl of Orrery, the fifth son of the "great Earl of Cork." He acted for the Parliament against the Catholics in Ireland, but was still thought to retain some partiality for the King's party. Cromwell, however, considered himself secure in Lord Broghill's attachment; and, indeed, he continued to serve not only Cromwell during his lifetime, but his son Richard, after his father's death, with great fidelity. Lord Broghill was active in forwarding the Restoration in Ireland, and in reward of his services was made Earl of Orrery. He died in 1679.

SIR,—You have furnished me now with arguments to convince my brother, if he should ever enter on the dispute again. In earnest, I believed all this before, but 'twas something an ignorant kind of faith in me. I was satisfied myself, but could not tell how to persuade another of the truth on't; and to speak indifferently, there are such multitudes that abuse the names of love and friendship, and so very few that either understand or practise it in reality, that it may raise great doubts whether there is any such thing in the world or not, and such as do not find it in themselves will hardly believe 'tis anywhere. But it will easily be granted, that most people make haste to be miserable; that they put on their fetters as inconsiderately as a woodcock runs into a noose, and are carried by the weakest considerations imaginable to do a thing of the greatest consequence of anything that concerns this world. I was told by one (who pretends to know him very well) that nothing tempted my cousin Osborne to marry his lady (so much) as that she was an Earl's daughter; which methought was the prettiest fancy, and had the least of sense in it, of any I had heard on, considering that it was no addition to her person, that he had honour enough before for his fortune, and how little it is esteemed in this age,—if it be anything in a better,—which for my part I am not well satisfied in. Beside that, in this particular it does not sound handsomely. My Lady Bridget Osborne makes a worse name a great deal, methinks, than plain my Lady Osborne would do.

I have been studying how Tom Cheeke might come by his intelligence, and I verily believe he has it from my cousin Peters. She lives near them in Essex, and in all likelihood, for want of other discourse to entertain him withal, she has come out with all she knows. The last time I saw her she asked me for you before she had spoke six words to me; and I, who of all things do not love to make secrets of trifles, told her I had seen you that day. She said no more, nor I neither; but perhaps it worked in her little brain. The best on't is, the matter is not great, for though I confess I had rather nobody knew it, yet 'tis that I shall never be ashamed to own.

How kindly do I take these civilities of your father's; in earnest, you cannot imagine how his letter pleased me. I used to respect him merely as he was your father, but I begin now to owe it to himself; all that he says is so kind and so obliging, so natural and so easy, that one may see 'tis perfectly his disposition, and has nothing to disguise in it. 'Tis long since that I knew how well he writ, perhaps you have forgot that you showed me a letter of his (to a French Marquis, I think, or some such man of his acquaintance) when I first knew you; I remember it very well, and that I thought it as handsome a letter as I had seen; but I have not skill it seems, for I like yours too.

I can pardon all my cousin Franklin's little plots of discovery, if she believed herself when she said she was confident our humours would agree extremely well. In earnest, I think they do; for I mark that I am always of your opinion, unless it be when you will not allow that you write well, for there I am too much concerned. Jane told me t'other day very soberly that we write very much alike. I think she said it with an intent to please me, and did not fail in't; but if you write ill, 'twas no great compliment to me. À propos de Jane, she bids me tell you that, if you liked your marmalade of quince, she would send you more, and she thinks better, that has been made since.

'Twas a strange caprice, as you say, of Mrs. Harrison, but there is fate as well as love in those things. The Queen took the greatest pains to persuade her from it that could be; and (as somebody says, I know not who) "Majesty is no ill orator;" but all would not do. When she had nothing to say for herself, she told her she had rather beg with Mr. Howard than live in the greatest plenty that could be with either my Lord Broghill, Charles Rich, or Mr. Nevile,—for all these were dying for her then. I am afraid she has altered her opinion since 'twas too late, for I do not take Mr. Howard to be a person that can deserve one should neglect all the world for him. And where there is no reason to uphold a passion, it will sink of itself; but where there is, it may last eternally.—I am yours.

Letter 26.

SIR,—The day I should have received your letter I was invited to dine at a rich widow's (whom I think I once told you of, and offered my service in case you thought fit to make addresses there); and she was so kind, and in so good humour, that if I had had any commission I should have thought it a very fit time to speak. We had a huge dinner, though the company was only of her own kindred that are in the house with her and what I brought; but she is broke loose from an old miserable husband that lived so long, she thinks if she does not make haste she shall not have time to spend what he left. She is old and was never handsome, and yet is courted a thousand times more than the greatest beauty in the world would be that had not a fortune. We could not eat in quiet for the letters and presents that came in from people that would not have looked upon her when they had met her if she had been left poor. I could not but laugh to myself at the meanness of their humour, and was merry enough all day, for the company was very good; and besides, I expected to find when I came home a letter from you that would be more a feast and company to me than all that was there. But never anybody was so defeated as I was to find none. I could not imagine the reason, only I assured myself it was no fault of yours, but perhaps a just punishment upon me for having been too much pleased in a company where you were not.

After supper my brother and I fell into dispute about riches, and the great advantages of it; he instanced in the widow that it made one respected in the world. I said 'twas true, but that was a respect I should not at all value when I owed it only to my fortune. And we debated it so long till we had both talked ourselves weary enough to go to bed. Yet I did not sleep so well but that I chid my maid for waking me in the morning, till she stopped my mouth with saying she had letters for me. I had not patience to stay till I could rise, but made her tie up all the curtains to let in light; and among some others I found my dear letter that was first to be read, and which made all the rest not worth the reading. I could not but wonder to find in it that my cousin Franklin should want a true friend when 'tis thought she has the best husband in the world; he was so passionate for her before he had her, and so pleased with her since, that, in earnest, I did not think it possible she could have anything left to wish for that she had not already in such a husband with such a fortune. But she can best tell whether she is happy or not; only if she be not, I do not see how anybody else can hope it. I know her the least of all the sisters, and perhaps 'tis to my advantage that she knows me no more, since she speaks so obligingly of me. But do you think it was altogether without design she spoke it to you? When I remember she is Tom Cheeke's sister, I am apt to think she might have heard his news, and meant to try whether there was anything of truth in't. My cousin Molle, I think, means to end the summer there. They say, indeed, 'tis a very fine seat, but if I did not mistake Sir Thomas Cheeke, he told me there was never a good room in the house. I was wondering how you came by an acquaintance there, because I had never heard you speak that you knew them. I never saw him in my life, but he is famous for a kind husband. Only 'twas found fault with that he could not forbear kissing his wife before company, a foolish trick that young married men are apt to; he has left it long since, I suppose. But, seriously, 'tis as ill a sight as one would wish to see, and appears very rude, methinks, to the company.

What a strange fellow this goldsmith is, he has a head fit for nothing but horns. I chid him once for a seal he set me just of this fashion and the same colours. If he were to make twenty they should be all so, his invention can stretch no further than blue and red. It makes me think of the fellow that could paint nothing but a flower-de-luce, who, when he met with one that was so firmly resolved to have a lion for his sign that there was no persuading him out on't, "Well," says the painter, "let it be a lion then, but it shall be as like a flower-de-luce as e'er you saw." So, because you would have it a dolphin, he consented to it, but it is like an ill-favoured knot of ribbon. I did not say anything of my father's being ill of late; I think I told you before, he kept his chamber ever since his last sickness, and so he does still. Yet I cannot say that he is at all sick, but has so general a weakness upon him that I am much afraid their opinion of him has too much of truth in it, and do extremely apprehend how the winter may work upon him. Will you pardon this strange scribbled letter, and the disorderliness on't? I know you would, though I should not tell you that I am not so much at leisure as I used to be. You can forgive your friends anything, and when I am not the faithfullest of those, never forgive me. You may direct your letters how you please, here will be nobody to receive it but

Your.

Letter 27.—Althorp, in Northamptonshire, was the seat of Lady Sunderland's first husband, Robert Lord Spencer.

SIR,—Your last came safe, and I shall follow your direction for the address of this, though, as you say, I cannot imagine what should tempt anybody to so severe a search for them, unless it be that he is not yet fully satisfied to what degree our friendship is grown, and thinks he may best inform himself from them. In earnest, 'twould not be unpleasant to hear our discourse. He forms his with so much art and design, and is so pleased with the hopes of making some discovery, and I [who] know him as well as he does himself, cannot but give myself the recreation sometimes of confounding him and destroying all that his busy head had been working on since the last conference. He gives me some trouble with his suspicions; yet, on my conscience, he is a greater to himself, and I deal with so much franchise as to tell him so; and yet he has no more the heart to ask me directly what he would so fain know, than a jealous man has to ask (one that might tell him) whether he were a cuckold or not, for fear of being resolved of that which is yet a doubt to him. My eldest brother is not so inquisitive; he satisfies himself with persuading me earnestly to marry, and takes no notice of anything that may hinder me, but a carelessness of my fortune, or perhaps an aversion to a kind of life that appears to have less of freedom in't than that which at present I enjoy. But, sure, he gives himself another reason, for 'tis not very long since he took occasion to inquire for you very kindly of me; and though I could then give but little account of you, he smiled as if he did not altogether believe me, and afterwards maliciously said he wondered you did not marry. And I seemed to do so too, and said, if I knew any woman that had a great fortune, and were a person worthy of you, I should wish her you with all my heart. "But, sister," says he, "would you have him love her?" "Do you doubt it?" did I say; "he were not happy in't else." He laughed, and said my humour was pleasant; but he made some question whether it was natural or not. He cannot be so unjust as to let me lose him, sure, I was kind to him though I had some reason not to take it very well when he made that a secret to me which was known to so many that did not know him; but we shall never fall out, I believe, we are not apt to it, neither of us.

If you are come back from Epsom, I may ask you how you like drinking water? I have wished it might agree as well with you as it did with me; and if it were as certain that the same thing would do us good as 'tis that the same thing would please us, I should not need to doubt it. Otherwise my wishes do not signify much, but I am forbid complaints, or to express my fears. And be it so, only you must pardon me if I cannot agree to give you false hopes; I must be deceived myself before I can deceive you, and I have so accustomed myself to tell you all that I think, that I must either say nothing, or that which I believe to be true.

I cannot say but that I have wanted Jane; but it has been rather to have somebody to talk with of you, than that I needed anybody to put me in mind of you, and with all her diligence I should have often prevented her in that discourse. Were you at Althorp when you saw my Lady Sunderland and Mr. Smith, or are they in town? I have heard, indeed, that they are very happy; but withal that, as she is a very extraordinary person herself, so she aimed at doing extraordinary things, and when she had married Mr. Smith (because some people were so bold as to think she did it because she loved him) she undertook to convince the world that what she had done was in mere pity to his sufferings, and that she could not go a step lower to meet anybody than that led her, though when she thought there were no eyes on her, she was more gracious to him. But perhaps this might not be true, or it may be she is now grown weary of that constraint she put upon herself. I should have been sadder than you if I had been their neighbour to have seen them so kind; as I must have been if I had married the Emperor. He used to brag to me always of a great acquaintance he had there, what an esteem my lady had for him, and had the vanity (not to call it impudence) to talk sometimes as if he would have had me believe he might have had her, and would not; I'll swear I blushed for him when I saw he did not. He told me too, that though he had carried his addresses to me with all the privacy that was possible, because he saw I liked it best, and that 'twas partly his own humour too, yet she had discovered it, and could tell that there had been such a thing, and that it was broke off again, she knew not why; which certainly was a lie, as well as the other, for I do not think she ever heard there was such a one in the world as

Your faithful friend.

Letter 28.—Dorothy's allusion to the "Seven Sleepers" refers to a story which occurs in the Golden Legend and other places, of seven noble youths of Ephesus, who fled from persecution to a cave in Mount Celion. After two hundred and thirty years they awoke, but only to die soon afterwards. The fable is said to have arisen from a misinterpretation of the text, "They fell asleep in the Lord."

SIR,—I did not lay it as a fault to your charge that you were not good at disguise; if it be one, I am too guilty on't myself to accuse another. And though I have been told it shows an unpractisedness in the world, and betrays to all that understand it better, yet since it is a quality I was not born with, nor ever like to get, I have always thought good to maintain that 'twas better not to need it than to have it.

I give you many thanks for your care of my Irish dog, but I am extremely out of countenance your father should be troubled with it. Sure, he will think I have a most extravagant fancy; but do me the right as to let him know I am not so possessed with it as to consent he should be employed in such a commission.

Your opinion of my eldest brother is, I think, very just, and when I said maliciously, I meant a French malice, which you know does not signify the same with an English one. I know not whether I told it you or not, but I concluded (from what you said of your indisposition) that it was very like the spleen; but perhaps I foresaw you would not be willing to own a disease that the severe part of the world holds to be merely imaginary and affected, and therefore proper only to women. However, I cannot but wish you had stayed longer at Epsom and drunk the waters with more order though in a less proportion. But did you drink them immediately from the well? I remember I was forbid it, and methought with a great deal of reason, for (especially at this time of year) the well is so low, and there is such a multitude to be served out on't, that you can hardly get any but what is thick and troubled; and I have marked that when it stood all night (for that was my direction) the bottom of the vessel it stood in would be covered an inch thick with a white clay, which, sure, has no great virtue in't, and is not very pleasant to drink.

What a character of a young couple you give me! Would you would ask some one who knew him, whether he be not much more of an ass since his marriage than he was before. I have some reason to doubt that it alters people strangely. I made a visit t'other day to welcome a lady into this country whom her husband had newly brought down, and because I knew him, though not her, and she was a stranger here, 'twas a civility I owed them. But you cannot imagine how I was surprised to see a man that I had known so handsome, so capable of being made a pretty gentleman (for though he was no proud philosopher, as the Frenchmen say, he was that which good company and a little knowledge of the world would have made equal to many that think themselves very well, and are thought so), transformed into the direct shape of a great boy newly come from school. To see him wholly taken up with running on errands for his wife, and teaching her little dog tricks! And this was the best of him; for when he was at leisure to talk, he would suffer no one else to do it, and what he said, and the noise he made, if you had heard it, you would have concluded him drunk with joy that he had a wife and a pack of hounds. I was so weary on't that I made haste home, and could not but think of the change all the way till my brother (who was with me) thought me sad, and so, to put me in better humour, said he believed I repented me I had not this gentleman, now I saw how absolutely his wife governed him. But I assured him, that though I thought it very fit such as he should be governed, yet I should not like the employment by no means. It becomes no woman, and did so ill with this lady that in my opinion it spoiled a good face and a very fine gown. Yet the woman you met upon the way governed her husband and did it handsomely. It was, as you say, a great example of friendship, and much for the credit of our sex.

You are too severe to Walker. I'll undertake he would set me twenty seals for nothing rather than undergo your wrath. I am in no haste for it, and so he does it well we will not fall out; perhaps he is not in the humour of keeping his word at present, and nobody can blame him if he be often in an ill one. But though I am merciful to him, as to one that has suffered enough already, I cannot excuse you that profess to be my friend and yet are content to let me live in such ignorance, write to me every week, and yet never send me any of the new phrases of the town. I could tell you, without abandoning the truth, that it is part of your devoyre to correct the imperfections you find under my hand, and that my trouble resembles my wonder you can let me be dissatisfied. I should never have learnt any of these fine things from you; and, to say truth, I know not whether I shall from anybody else, if to learn them be to understand them. Pray what is meant by wellness and unwellness; and why is to some extreme better than to some extremity? I believe I shall live here till there is quite a new language spoke where you are, and shall come out like one of the Seven Sleepers, a creature of another age. But 'tis no matter so you understand me, though nobody else do, when I say how much I am

Your faithful.

Letter 29.

SIR,—I can give you leave to doubt anything but my kindness, though I can assure you I spake as I meant when I said I had not the vanity to believe I deserv'd yours, for I am not certain whether 'tis possible for anybody to deserve that another should love them above themselves, though I am certain many may deserve it more than me. But not to dispute this with you, let me tell you that I am thus far of your opinion, that upon some natures nothing is so powerful as kindness, and that I should give that to yours which all the merit in the world besides would not draw from me. I spake as if I had not done so already; but you may choose whether you will believe me or not, for, to say truth, I do not much believe myself in that point. No, all the kindness I have or ever had is yours; nor shall I ever repent it so, unless you shall ever repent yours. Without telling you what the inconveniences of your coming hither are, you may believe they are considerable, or else I should not deny you or myself the happiness of seeing one another; and if you dare trust me where I am equally concerned with you, I shall take hold of the first opportunity that may either admit you here or bring me nearer you. Sure you took somebody else for my cousin Peters? I can never believe her beauty able to smite anybody. I saw her when I was last in town, but she appear'd wholly the same to me, she was at St. Malo, with all her innocent good nature too, and asked for you so kindly, that I am sure she cannot have forgot you; nor do I think she had so much address as to do it merely in compliment to me. No, you are mistaken certainly; what should she do amongst all that company, unless she be towards a wedding? She has been kept at home, poor soul, and suffered so much of purgatory in this world that she needs not fear it in the next; and yet she is as merry as ever she was, which perhaps might make her look young, but that she laughs a little too much, and that will bring wrinkles, they say. Oh, me! now I talk of laughing, it makes me think of poor Jane. I had a letter from her the other day; she desired me to present her humble service to her master,—she did mean you, sure, for she named everybody else that she owes any service to,—and bid me say that she would keep her word with him. God knows what you have agreed on together. She tells me she shall stay long enough there to hear from me once more, and then she is resolved to come away.

Here is a seal, which pray give Walker to set for me very handsomely, and not of any of those fashions he made my others, but of something that may differ from the rest. 'Tis a plain head, but not ill cut, I think. My eldest brother is now here, and we expect my youngest shortly, and then we shall be altogether, which I do not think we ever were twice in our lives. My niece is still with me, but her father threatens to fetch her away. If I can keep her to Michaelmas I may perhaps bring her up to town myself, and take that occasion of seeing you; but I have no other business that is worth my taking a journey, for I have had another summons from my aunt, and I protest I am afraid I shall be in rebellion there; but 'tis not to be helped. The widow writes me word, too, that I must expect her here about a month hence; and I find that I shall want no company, but only that which I would have, and for which I could willingly spare all the rest. Will it be ever thus? I am afraid it will. There has been complaints made on me already to my eldest brother (only in general, or at least he takes notice of no more), what offers I refuse, and what a strange humour has possessed me of being deaf to the advice of all my friends. I find I am to be baited by them all by turns. They weary themselves, and me too, to very little purpose, for to my thinking they talk the most impertinently that ever people did; and I believe they are not in my debt, but think the same of me. Sometimes I tell them I will not marry, and then they laugh at me; sometimes I say, "Not yet," and they laugh more, and would make me believe I shall be old within this twelvemonth. I tell them I shall be wiser then. They say 'twill be to no purpose. Sometimes we are in earnest and sometimes in jest, but always saying something since my brother Henry found his tongue again. If you were with me I could make sport of all this; but "patience is my penance" is somebody's motto, and I think it must be mine.

I am your.

Letter 30.—Here is Lord Lisle's embassage discussed again! We know that in the end it comes to nothing; Whitelocke going, but without Temple. The statute commanding the marriage ceremony to be conducted before Justices of the Peace was passed in August 1653; it is to some extent by such references as these that the letters have been dated and grouped. The Marriage Act of 1653, with the other statutes of this period, have been erased from the Statute Book; but a draft of it in Somers' Tracts remains to us for reference. It contained provisions for the names of those who intended being joined together in holy matrimony to be posted, with certain other particulars, upon the door of the common meeting-house, commonly called the parish church or chapel; and after the space of three weeks the parties, with two witnesses, might go before a magistrate, who, having satisfied himself, by means of examining witnesses on oath or otherwise, that all the preliminaries commanded by the Act had been properly fulfilled, further superintended the proceedings to perfect the said intended marriage as follows:—The man taking the woman by the hand pronounced these words, "I, A.B., do hereby in the presence of God take thee C.D. to be my wedded wife, and do also in the presence of God, and before these witnesses, promise to be unto thee a loving and faithful husband." Then the woman in similar formula promises to be a "loving, faithful, and obedient wife," and the magistrate pronounced the parties to be man and wife. This ceremony, and this only, was to be a legal marriage. It is probable that parties might and did add a voluntary religious rite to this compulsory civil ceremony, as is done at this day in many foreign countries.

SIR,—You cannot imagine how I was surpris'd to find a letter that began "Dear brother;" I thought sure it could not belong at all to me, and was afraid I had lost one by it; that you intended me another, and in your haste had mistook this for that. Therefore, till I found the permission you gave me, I had laid it by with a resolution not to read it, but to send it again. If I had done so, I had missed a great deal of satisfaction which I received from it. In earnest, I cannot tell you how kindly I take all the obliging things you say in it of me; nor how pleased I should be (for your sake) if I were able to make good the character you give me to your brother, and that I did not owe a great part of it wholly to your friendship for me. I dare call nothing on't my own but faithfulness; that I may boast of with truth and modesty, since 'tis but a simple virtue; and though some are without it, yet 'tis so absolutely necessary, that nobody wanting it can be worthy of any esteem. I see you speak well of me to other people, though you complain always to me. I know not how to believe I should misuse your heart as you pretend; I never had any quarrel to it, and since our friendship it has been dear to me as my own. 'Tis rather, sure, that you have a mind to try another, than that any dislike of yours makes you turn it over to me; but be it as it will, I am contented to stand to the loss, and perhaps when you have changed you will find so little difference that you'll be calling for your own again. Do but assure me that I shall find you almost as merry as my Lady Anne Wentworth is always, and nothing shall fright me from my purpose of seeing you as soon as I can with any conveniency. I would not have you insensible of our misfortunes, but I would not either that you should revenge them on yourself; no, that shows a want of constancy (which you will hardly yield to be your fault); but 'tis certain that there was never anything more mistaken than the Roman courage, when they killed themselves to avoid misfortunes that were infinitely worse than death. You confess 'tis an age since our story began, as is not fit for me to own. Is it not likely, then, that if my face had ever been good, it might be altered since then; or is it as unfit for me to own the change as the time that makes it? Be it as you please, I am not enough concerned in't to dispute it with you; for, trust me, if you would not have my face better, I am satisfied it should be as it is; since if ever I wished it otherwise, 'twas for your sake.

I know not how I stumbled upon a news-book this week, and, for want of something else to do read it; it mentions my Lord Lisle's embassage again. Is there any such thing towards? I met with somebody else too in't that may concern anybody that has a mind to marry; 'tis a new form for it, that, sure, will fright the country people extremely, for they apprehend nothing like going before a Justice; they say no other marriage shall stand good in law. In conscience, I believe the old one is the better; and for my part I am resolved to stay till that comes in fashion again.

Can your father have so perfectly forgiven already the injury I did him (since you will not allow it to be any to you), in hindering you of Mrs. Chambers, as to remember me with kindness? 'Tis most certain that I am obliged to him, and, in earnest, if I could hope it might ever be in my power to serve him I would promise something for myself. But is it not true, too, that you have represented me to him rather as you imagine me than as I am; and have you not given him an expectation that I shall never be able to satisfy? If you have, I can forgive you, because I know you meant well in't; but I have known some women that have commended others merely out of spite, and if I were malicious enough to envy anybody's beauty, I would cry it up to all that had not seen them; there's no such way to make anybody appear less handsome than they are.

You must not forget that you are some letters in my debt, besides the answer to this. If there were not conveniences of sending, I should persecute you strangely. And yet you cannot wonder at it; the constant desire I have to hear from you, and the satisfaction your letters give me, would oblige one that has less time to write often. But yet I know what 'tis to be in the town. I could never write a letter from thence in my life of above a dozen lines; and though I see as little company as anybody that comes there, yet I always met with something or other that kept me idle. Therefore I can excuse it, though you do not exactly pay all that you owe, upon condition you shall tell me when I see you all that you should have writ if you had had time, and all that you can imagine to say to a person that is

Your faithful friend.

Letter 31.—Dorothy is in mourning for her youngest brother, Robert, who died about this time. As she does not mention his death to Temple, we may take it that he was, though her brother, practically a stranger to her, living away from Chicksands, and rarely visiting her.

General Monk's brother, to whom Dorothy refers, was Mr. Nicholas Monk, vicar of Kelkhampton, in Cornwall. General Monk's misfortune is no less a calamity than his marriage. The following extract from Guizot's Life of Monk will fully explain the allusion: "The return of the new admiral [Monk] was marked by a domestic event which was not without its influence on his public conduct and reputation. Unrefined tastes, and that need of repose in his private life which usually accompanies activity in public affairs, had consigned him to the dominion of a woman of low character, destitute even of the charms which seduce, and whose manners did not belie the rumour which gave her for extraction a market stall, or even, according to some, a much less respectable profession. She had lived for some time past with Monk, and united to the influence of habit an impetuosity of will and words difficult to be resisted by the tranquil apathy of her lover. It is asserted that she had managed, as long since as 1649, to force him to a marriage; but this marriage was most certainly not declared until 1653." M. Guizot then quotes a letter, dated September 19, 1653, announcing the news of General Monk's marriage, and this would about correspond with the presumed date of Dorothy's letter. Greenwich Palace was probably occupied by Monk at this time, and Dorothy meant to say that Ann Clarges would be as much at home in Greenwich Palace as, say, the Lord Protector's wife at Whitehall.

SIR,—It was, sure, a less fault in me to make a scruple of reading your letter to your brother, which in all likelihood I could not be concerned in, than for you to condemn the freedom you take of giving me directions in a thing where we are equally concerned. Therefore, if I forgive you this, you may justly forgive me t'other; and upon these terms we are friends again, are we not? No, stay! I have another fault to chide you for. You doubted whether you had not writ too much, and whether I could have the patience to read it or not. Why do you dissemble so abominably; you cannot think these things? How I should love that plain-heartedness you speak of, if you would use it; nothing is civil but that amongst friends. Your kind sister ought to chide you, too, for not writing to her, unless you have been with her to excuse it. I hope you have; and pray take some time to make her one visit from me, and carry my humble service with you, and tell her that 'tis not my fault that you are no better. I do not think I shall see the town before Michaelmas, therefore you may make what sallies you please. I am tied here to expect my brother Peyton, and then possibly we may go up together, for I should be at home again before the term. Then I may show you my niece; and you may confess that I am a kind aunt to desire her company, since the disadvantage of our being together will lie wholly upon me. But I must make it my bargain, that if I come you will not be frighted to see me; you think, I'll warrant, you have courage enough to endure a worse sight. You may be deceived, you never saw me in mourning yet; nobody that has will e'er desire to do it again, for their own sakes as well as mine. Oh, 'tis a most dismal dress,—I have not dared to look in the glass since I wore it; and certainly if it did so ill with other people as it does with me, it would never be worn.

You told me of writing to your father, but you did not say whether you had heard from him, or how he did. May not I ask it? Is it possible that he saw me? Where were my eyes that I did not see him, for I believe I should have guessed at least that 'twas he if I had? They say you are very like him; but 'tis no wonder neither that I did not see him, for I saw not you when I met you there. 'Tis a place I look upon nobody in; and it was reproached to me by a kinsman, but a little before you came to me, that he had followed me to half a dozen shops to see when I would take notice of him, and was at last going away with a belief 'twas not I, because I did not seem to know him. Other people make it so much their business to gape, that I'll swear they put me so out of countenance I dare not look up for my life.

I am sorry for General Monk's misfortunes, because you say he is your friend; but otherwise she will suit well enough with the rest of the great ladies of the times, and become Greenwich as well as some others do the rest of the King's houses. If I am not mistaken, that Monk has a brother lives in Cornwall; an honest gentleman, I have heard, and one that was a great acquaintance of a brother of mine who was killed there during the war, and so much his friend that upon his death he put himself and his family into mourning for him, which is not usual, I think, where there is no relation of kindred.

I will take order that my letters shall be left with Jones, and yours called for there. As long as your last was, I read it over thrice in less than an hour, though, to say truth, I had skipped some on't the last time. I could not read my own confession so often. Love is a terrible word, and I should blush to death if anything but a letter accused me on't. Pray be merciful, and let it run friendship in my next charge. My Lady sends me word she has received those parts of Cyrus I lent you. Here is another for you which, when you have read, you know how to dispose. There are four pretty stories in it, "L'Amant Absente," "L'Amant non Aimé," "L'Amant Jaloux," et "L'Amant dont La Maitresse est mort." Tell me which you have most compassion for when you have read what every one says for himself. Perhaps you will not think it so easy to decide which is the most unhappy, as you may think by the titles their stories bear. Only let me desire you not to pity the jealous one, for I remember I could do nothing but laugh at him as one that sought his own vexation. This, and the little journeys (you say) you are to make, will entertain you till I come; which, sure, will be as soon as possible I can, since 'tis equally desired by you and your faithful.

Letter 32.—Things being more settled in that part of the world, Sir John Temple is returning to Ireland, where he intends taking his seat as Master of the Rolls once again. Temple joins his father soon after this, and stays in Ireland a few months.

Lady Ormond was the wife of the first Duke of Ormond. She had obtained her pass to go over to Ireland on August 24th, 1653. The Ormonds had indeed been in great straits for want of money, and in August 1652 Lady Ormond had come over from Caen, where they were then living, to endeavour to claim Cromwell's promise of reserving to her that portion of their estate which had been her inheritance. After great delays she obtained £500, and a grant of £2000 per annum out of their Irish lands "lying most conveniently to Dunmore House." It must have been this matter that Dorothy had heard of when she questions "whether she will get it when she comes there."

Francis Annesley, Lord Valentia, belonged to an ancient Nottinghamshire family, though he himself was born in Newport, Buckinghamshire. Of his daughter's marriage I can find nothing. Lord Valentia was at this time Secretary of State at Dublin.

Sir Justinian has at length found a second wife. Her name is Vere, and she is the daughter of Lord Leigh of Stoneleigh. Thus do Dorothy's suitors, one by one, recover and cease to lament her obduracy. When she declares that she would rather have chosen a chain to lead her apes in than marry Sir Justinian, she refers to an old superstition as to the ultimate fate of spinsters—

Women, dying maids, lead apes in hell,

runs the verse of an old play, and that is the whole superstition, the origin of which seems somewhat inexplicable. The phrase is thrice used by Shakespeare, and constantly occurs in the old burlesques and comedies; in one instance, in a comedy entitled "Love's Convert" (1651), it is altered to "lead an ape in

heaven

." Many will remember the fate of "The young Mary Anne" in the famous Ingoldsby legend, "Bloudie Jacke:"—

So they say she is now leading apes—
Bloudie Jack,
And mends bachelors' smallclothes below.

No learned editor that I am acquainted with has been able to suggest an explanation of this curious expression.

SIR,—All my quarrels to you are kind ones, for, sure, 'tis alike impossible for me to be angry as for you to give me the occasion; therefore, when I chide (unless it be that you are not careful enough of yourself, and hazard too much a health that I am more concerned in than my own), you need not study much for excuses, I can easily forgive you anything but want of kindness. The judgment you have made of the four lovers I recommended to you does so perfectly agree with what I think of them, that I hope it will not alter when you have read their stories. L'Amant Absente has (in my opinion) a mistress so much beyond any of the rest, that to be in danger of losing her is more than to have lost the others; L'Amant non Aimé was an ass, under favour (notwithstanding the Princesse Cleobuline's letter); his mistress had caprices that would have suited better with our Amant Jaloux than with anybody else; and the Prince Artibie was much to blame that he outlived his belle Leontine. But if you have met with the beginning of the story of Amestris and Aglatides, you will find the rest of it in this part I send you now; and 'tis, to me, one of the prettiest I have read, and the most natural. They say the gentleman that writes this romance has a sister that lives with him, a maid, and she furnishes him with all the little stories that come between, so that he only contrives the main design; and when he wants something to entertain his company withal, he calls to her for it. She has an excellent fancy, sure, and a great wit; but, I am sorry to tell it you, they say 'tis the most ill-favoured creature that ever was born. And 'tis often so; how seldom do we see a person excellent in anything but they have some great defect with it that pulls them low enough to make them equal with other people; and there is justice in't. Those that have fortunes have nothing else, and those that want it deserve to have it. That's but small comfort, though, you'll say; 'tis confessed, but there is no such thing as perfect happiness in this world, those that have come the nearest it had many things to wish; and,—bless me, whither am I going? Sure, 'tis the death's head I see stand before me puts me into this grave discourse (pray do not think I meant that for a conceit neither); how idly have I spent two sides of my paper, and am afraid, besides, I shall not have time to write two more. Therefore I'll make haste to tell you that my friendship for you makes me concerned in all your relations; that I have a great respect for Sir John, merely as he is your father, and that 'tis much increased by his kindness to you; that he has all my prayers and wishes for his safety; and that you will oblige me in letting me know when you hear any good news from him. He has met with a great deal of good company, I believe. My Lady Ormond, I am told, is waiting for a passage, and divers others; but this wind (if I am not mistaken) is not good for them. In earnest, 'tis a most sad thing that a person of her quality should be reduced to such a fortune as she has lived upon these late years, and that she should lose that which she brought, as well as that which was her husband's. Yet, I hear, she has now got some of her own land in Ireland granted her; but whether she will get it when she comes there is, I think, a question.

We have a lady new come into this country that I pity, too, extremely. She is one of my Lord of Valentia's daughters, and has married an old fellow that is some threescore and ten, who has a house that is fitter for the hogs than for her, and a fortune that will not at all recompense the least of these inconveniences. Ah! 'tis most certain I should have chosen a handsome chain to lead my apes in before such a husband; but marrying and hanging go by destiny, they say. It was not mine, it seems, to have an emperor; the spiteful man, merely to vex me, has gone and married my countrywoman, my Lord Lee's daughter. What a multitude of willow garlands I shall weave before I die; I think I had best make them into faggots this cold weather, the flame they would make in a chimney would be of more use to me than that which was in the hearts of all those that gave them me, and would last as long. I did not think I should have got thus far. I have been so persecuted with visits all this week I have had no time to despatch anything of business, so that now I have done this I have forty letters more to write; how much rather would I have them all to you than to anybody else; or, rather, how much better would it be if there needed none to you, and that I could tell you without writing how much I am

Yours.

Letter 33.—Sir Thomas Peyton, we must remember, had married Dorothy's eldest sister; she died many years ago, and Sir Thomas married again, in 1648, one Dame Cicely Swan, a widow, whose character Dorothy gives us.

Lord Monmouth was the eldest son of the Earl of Monmouth, and was born in 1596. He was educated at Exeter College, Oxford. His literary work was, at least, copious, and included some historical writing, as well as the translations mentioned by Dorothy. He published, among other things, An Historical Relation of the United Provinces, a History of the Wars in Flanders, and a History of Venice.

Sir John Suckling, in the following doggerel, hails our noble author with a flunkey's enthusiasm,—

It is so rare and new a thing to see
Aught that belongs to young nobility
In print, but their own clothes, that we must praise
You, as we would do those first show the ways
To arts or to new worlds.

In such strain writes the author of Why so pale and wan, fond lover? and both the circumstance and the doggerel should be very instructive to the snobologist.

The literary work of Lord Broghill is not unknown to fame, and Mr. Waller's verse is still read by us; but I have never seen a history of the Civil Wars from Mr. Waller's pen, and cannot find that he ever published one.

Prazimene and Polexander are two romances translated from the French,—the former, a neat little duodecimo; the latter, a huge folio of more than three hundred and fifty closely-printed pages. The title-page of Prazimene, a very good example of its kind, runs as follows:—"Two delightful Novels, or the Unlucky Fair One; being the Amours of Milistrate and Prazimene, Illustrated with variety of Chance and Fortune. Translated from the French by a Person of Quality, London. Sold by Eben Tracy, at the Three Bibles on London Bridge." Polexander was "done into English by William Browne, Gent.," for the benefit and behoof of the Earl of Pembroke.

William Fiennes, Lord Say and Sele, was one of the chiefs of the Independent party, a Republican, and one of the first to bear arms against the King. He had, for that day, extravagant notions of civil liberty, and on the disappointment of his hopes, he appears to have retired to the Isle of Lundy, on the coast of Devon, and continued a voluntary prisoner there until Cromwell's death. After the Restoration he was made Lord Chamberlain of the Household, and Lord Privy Seal. He published some political tracts, none of which are now in existence; and Anthony Wood mentions having seen other things of his, among which, maybe, was the romance that Dorothy had heard of, but which is lost to us.

SIR,—Pray, let not the apprehension that others say fine things to me make your letters at all the shorter; for, if it were so, I should not think they did, and so long you are safe. My brother Peyton does, indeed, sometimes send me letters that may be excellent for aught I know, and the more likely because I do not understand them; but I may say to you (as to a friend) I do not like them, and have wondered that my sister (who, I may tell you too, and you will not think it vanity in me, had a great deal of wit, and was thought to write as well as most women in England) never persuaded him to alter his style, and make it a little more intelligible. He is an honest gentleman, in earnest, has understanding enough, and was an excellent husband to two very different wives, as two good ones could be. My sister was a melancholy, retired woman, and, besides the company of her husband and her books, never sought any, but could have spent a life much longer than hers was in looking to her house and her children. This lady is of a free, jolly humour, loves cards and company, and is never more pleased than when she sees a great many others that are so too. Now, with both these he so perfectly complied that 'tis hard to judge which humour he is more inclined to in himself; perhaps to neither, which makes it so much the more strange. His kindness to his first wife may give him an esteem for her sister; but he was too much smitten with this lady to think of marrying anybody else, and, seriously, I could not blame him, for she had, and has yet, great loveliness in her; she was very handsome, and is very good (one may read it in her face at first sight). A woman that is hugely civil to all people, and takes as generally as anybody that I know, but not more than my cousin Molle's letters do, but which, yet, you do not like, you say, nor I neither, I'll swear; and if it be ignorance in us both we'll forgive it one another. In my opinion these great scholars are not the best writers (of letters, I mean); of books, perhaps they are. I never had, I think, but one letter from Sir Justinian, but 'twas worth twenty of anybody's else to make me sport. It was the most sublime nonsense that in my life I ever read; and yet, I believe, he descended as low as he could to come near my weak understanding. 'Twill be no compliment after this to say I like your letters in themselves; not as they come from one that is not indifferent to me, but, seriously, I do. All letters, methinks, should be free and easy as one's discourse; not studied as an oration, nor made up of hard words like a charm. 'Tis an admirable thing to see how some people will labour to find out terms that may obscure a plain sense. Like a gentleman I know, who would never say "the weather grew cold," but that "winter began to salute us." I have no patience for such coxcombs, and cannot blame an old uncle of mine that threw the standish at his man's head because he writ a letter for him where, instead of saying (as his master bid him), "that he would have writ himself, but he had the gout in his hand," he said, "that the gout in his hand would not permit him to put pen to paper." The fellow thought he had mended it mightily, and that putting pen to paper was much better than plain writing.

I have no patience neither for these translations of romances. I met with Polexander and L'illustre Bassa both so disguised that I, who am their old acquaintance, hardly know them; besides that, they were still so much French in words and phrases that 'twas impossible for one that understands not French to make anything of them. If poor Prazimene be in the same dress, I would not see her for the world. She has suffered enough besides. I never saw but four tomes of her, and was told the gentleman that writ her story died when those were finished. I was very sorry for it, I remember, for I liked so far as I had seen of it extremely. Is it not my good Lord of Monmouth, or some such honourable personage, that presents her to the English ladies? I have heard many people wonder how he spends his estate. I believe he undoes himself with printing his translations. Nobody else will undergo the charge, because they never hope to sell enough of them to pay themselves withal. I was looking t'other day in a book of his where he translates Pipero as piper, and twenty words more that are as false as this.

My Lord Broghill, sure, will give us something worth the reading. My Lord Saye, I am told, has writ a romance since his retirement in the Isle of Lundy, and Mr. Waller, they say, is making one of our wars, which, if he does not mingle with a great deal of pleasing fiction, cannot be very diverting, sure, the subject is so sad.

But all this is nothing to my coming to town, you'll say. 'Tis confest; and that I was willing as long as I could to avoid saying anything when I had nothing to say worth your knowing. I am still obliged to wait my brother Peyton and his lady coming. I had a letter from him this week, which I will send you, that you may see what hopes he gives. As little room as I have left, too, I must tell you what a present I had made me to-day. Two of the finest young Irish greyhounds that e'er I saw; a gentleman that serves the General sent them me. They are newly come over, and sent for by Henry Cromwell, he tells me, but not how he got them for me. However, I am glad I have them, and much the more because it dispenses with a very unfit employment that your father, out of his kindness to you and his civility to me, was content to take upon him.

Letter 34.

SIR,—Jane was so unlucky as to come out of town before your return, but she tells me she left my letter with Nan Stacy for you. I was in hope she would have brought me one from you; and because she did not I was resolv'd to punish her, and kept her up till one o'clock telling me all her stories. Sure, if there be any truth in the old observation, your cheeks glowed notably; and 'tis most certain that if I were with you, I should chide notably. What do you mean to be so melancholy? By her report your humour is grown insupportable. I can allow it not to be altogether what she says, and yet it may be very ill too; but if you loved me you would not give yourself over to that which will infallibly kill you, if it continue. I know too well that our fortunes have given us occasion enough to complain and to be weary of her tyranny; but, alas! would it be better if I had lost you or you me; unless we were sure to die both together, 'twould but increase our misery, and add to that which is more already than we can well tell how to bear. You are more cruel than she regarding a life that's dearer to me than that of the whole world besides, and which makes all the happiness I have or ever shall be capable of. Therefore, by all our friendship I conjure you and, by the power you have given me, command you, to preserve yourself with the same care that you would have me live. 'Tis all the obedience I require of you, and will be the greatest testimony you can give me of your faith. When you have promised me this, 'tis not impossible that I may promise you shall see me shortly; though my brother Peyton (who says he will come down to fetch his daughter) hinders me from making the journey in compliment to her. Yet I shall perhaps find business enough to carry me up to town. 'Tis all the service I expect from two girls whose friends have given me leave to provide for, that some order I must take for the disposal of them may serve for my pretence to see you; but then I must find you pleased and in good humour, merry as you were wont to be when we first met, if you will not have me show that I am nothing akin to my cousin Osborne's lady.

But what an age 'tis since we first met, and how great a change it has wrought in both of us; if there had been as great a one in my face, it could be either very handsome or very ugly. For God's sake, when we meet, let us design one day to remember old stories in, to ask one another by what degrees our friendship grew to this height 'tis at. In earnest, I am lost sometimes with thinking on't; and though I can never repent the share you have in my heart, I know not whether I gave it you willingly or not at first. No, to speak ingenuously, I think you got an interest there a good while before I thought you had any, and it grew so insensibly, and yet so fast, that all the traverses it has met with since has served rather to discover it to me than at all to hinder it. By this confession you will see I am past all disguise with you, and that you have reason to be satisfied with knowing as much of my heart as I do myself. Will the kindness of this letter excuse the shortness on't? For I have twenty more, I think, to write, and the hopes I had of receiving one from you last night kept me writing this when I had more time; or if all this will not satisfy, make your own conditions, so you do not return it me by the shortness of yours. Your servant kisses your hands, and I am

Your faithful.

Letter 35.—This is written on the back of a letter of Sir Thomas Peyton to Dorothy, and is probably a postscript to Letter 34. Sir Thomas's letter is a good example of the stilted letter-writing in vogue at that time, which Dorothy tells us was so much admired. The affairs that are troubling him are legal matters in connection with his brother-in-law Henry Oxenden's estate. There is a multitude of letters in the MSS. in the British Museum referring to this business; but we are not greatly concerned with Oxenden's financial difficulties. Sir Edward Hales was a gentleman of noble family in Kent. There is one of the same name who in 1688 declares himself openly to be a Papist, and is tried under the Test Act. He is concerned in the same year in the escape of King James, providing him with a fishing-boat to carry him into France. This is in all probability the Sir Edward Hales referred to by Sir Thomas Peyton, unless it be a son of the same name. Here is the letter:—

"Good sister,—I am very sorry to hear the loss of our good brother, whose short time gives us a sad example of our frail condition. But I will not say the loss, knowing whom I write to, whose religion and wisdom is a present stay to support in all worldly accidents.

"'Tis long since we resolved to have given you a visit, and have relieved you of my daughter. But I have had the following of a most laborious affair, which hath cost me the travelling, though in our own country style, fifty ...; and I have been less at home than elsewhere ever since I came from London; which hath vext me the more in regard I have been detained from the desire I had of being with you before this time. Such entertainment, however, must all those have that have to do with such a purse-proud and wilful person as Sir Edward Hales. This next week being Michaelmas week, we shall end all and I be at liberty, I hope, to consider my own contentments. In the meantime I know not what excuses to make for the trouble I have put you to already, of which I grow to be ashamed; and I should much more be so if I did not know you to be as good as you are fair. In both which regards I have a great honour to be esteemed,

On the other side of Sir T. Peyton's Letter.

Nothing that is paper can 'scape me when I have time to write, and 'tis to you. But that I am not willing to excite your envy, I would tell you how many letters I have despatched since I ended yours; and if I could show them you 'twould be a certain cure for it, for they are all very short ones, and most of them merely compliments, which I am sure you care not for.

I had forgot in my other to tell you what Jane requires for the satisfaction of what you confess you owe her. You must promise her to be merry, and not to take cold when you are at the tennis court, for there she hears you are found.

Because you mention my Lord Broghill and his wit, I have sent you some of his verses. My brother urged them against me one day in a dispute, where he would needs make me confess that no passion could be long lived, and that such as were most in love forgot that ever they had been so within a twelvemonth after they were married; and, in earnest, the want of examples to bring for the contrary puzzled me a little, so that I was fain to bring out those pitiful verses of my Lord Biron to his wife, which was so poor an argument that I was e'en ashamed on't myself, and he quickly laughed me out of countenance with saying they were just such as a married man's flame would produce and a wife inspire. I send you a love letter, too; which, simple as you see, it was sent me in very good earnest, and by a person of quality, as I was told. If you read it when you go to bed, 'twill certainly make your sleep approved.

I am yours.

Letter 36.—My Lady Carlisle was, as Dorothy says, "an extraordinary person." She was the daughter of Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, and at the age of eighteen, against her father's will and under somewhat romantic circumstances, married James Hay, Earl of Carlisle. Her sister married the Earl of Leicester, and she is therefore aunt to Lady Sunderland and Algernon Sydney. She was a favourite attendant of Queen Henrietta, and there are evil rumours connecting her name with that of Strafford. On Strafford's death, it is asserted that she transferred her affections to Pym, to whom she is said to have betrayed the secrets of the Court. There seems little doubt that it was she who gave notice to Pym of the King's coming to the House to seize the five members. In 1648 she appears, however, to have assisted the Royalists with money for the purpose of raising a fleet to attack England, and at the Restoration she was received at Court, and employed herself in intriguing for the return of Queen Henrietta to England, which was opposed at the time by Clarendon and others. Soon after this, and in the year of the Restoration, she died suddenly. Poets of all grades, from Waller downwards, have sung of her beauty, vivacity, and wit; and Sir Toby Matthew speaks of her as "too lofty and dignified to be capable of friendship, and having too great a heart to be susceptible of love,"—an extravagance of compliment hardly satisfactory in this plain age.

My Lord Paget, at whose house at Marlow Mr. Lely was staying, was a prominent loyalist both in camp and council chamber. He married Frances, the eldest daughter of the Earl of Holland, my Lady Diana's sister.

Whether or not Dorothy really assisted young Sir Harry Yelverton in his suit for the hand of fair Lady Ruthin we cannot say, but they were undoubtedly married. Sir Harry Yelverton seems to have been a man of superior accomplishments and serious learning. He was at this time twenty years of age, and had been educated at St. Paul's School, London, and afterwards at Wadham College, Oxford, under the tutorship of Dr. Wilkins, Cromwell's brother-in-law, a learned and philosophical mathematician. He was admitted gentleman commoner in 1650, and it is said "made great proficiency in several branches of learning, being as exact a Latin and Grecian as any in the university of his age or time." He succeeded to his father's title soon after coming of age, and took a leading part in the politics of the day, becoming Knight of the Shire of Northampton in the Restoration Parliament. He was a high Tory, and a great defender of the Church and its ejected ministers, one of whom, Dr. Thomas Morton, the learned theologian, Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, died in his house in 1659. He wrote a discourse on the "Truth and Reasonableness of the Religion delivered by Jesus Christ," a Preface to Dr. Morton's work on Episcopacy, and a vindication of the Church of England against the attacks of the famous Edward Bagshawe.

In this letter Dorothy describes some husbands whom she could not marry. See what she expects in a lover! Have we not here some local squires hit off to the life? Could George Eliot herself have done more for us in like space?

SIR,—Why are you so sullen, and why am I the cause? Can you believe that I do willingly defer my journey? I know you do not. Why, then, should my absence now be less supportable to you than heretofore? Nay, it shall not be long (if I can help it), and I shall break through all inconveniences rather than deny you anything that lies in my power to grant. But by your own rules, then, may I not expect the same from you? Is it possible that all I have said cannot oblige you to a care of yourself? What a pleasant distinction you make when you say that 'tis not melancholy makes you do these things, but a careless forgetfulness. Did ever anybody forget themselves to that degree that was not melancholy in extremity? Good God! how you are altered; and what is it that has done it? I have known you when of all the things in the world you would not have been taken for a discontent; you were, as I thought, perfectly pleased with your condition; what has made it so much worse since? I know nothing you have lost, and am sure you have gained a friend that is capable of the highest degree of friendship you can propound, that has already given an entire heart for that which she received, and 'tis no more in her will than in her power ever to recall it or divide it; if this be not enough to satisfy you, tell me what I can do more?

There are a great many ingredients must go to the making me happy in a husband. First, as my cousin Franklin says, our humours must agree; and to do that he must have that kind of breeding that I have had, and used that kind of company. That is, he must not be so much a country gentleman as to understand nothing but hawks and dogs, and be fonder of either than his wife; nor of the next sort of them whose aim reaches no further than to be Justice of the Peace, and once in his life High Sheriff, who reads no book but statutes, and studies nothing but how to make a speech interlarded with Latin that may amaze his disagreeing poor neighbours, and fright them rather than persuade them into quietness. He must not be a thing that began the world in a free school, was sent from thence to the university, and is at his furthest when he reaches the Inns of Court, has no acquaintance but those of his form in these places, speaks the French he has picked out of old laws, and admires nothing but the stories he has heard of the revels that were kept there before his time. He must not be a town gallant neither, that lives in a tavern and an ordinary, that cannot imagine how an hour should be spent without company unless it be in sleeping, that makes court to all the women he sees, thinks they believe him, and laughs and is laughed at equally. Nor a travelled Monsieur whose head is all feather inside and outside, that can talk of nothing but dances and duets, and has courage enough to wear slashes when every one else dies with cold to see him. He must not be a fool of no sort, nor peevish, nor ill-natured, nor proud, nor covetous; and to all this must be added, that he must love me and I him as much as we are capable of loving. Without all this, his fortune, though never so great, would not satisfy me; and with it, a very moderate one would keep me from ever repenting my disposal.

I have been as large and as particular in my descriptions as my cousin Molle is in his of Moor Park,—but that you know the place so well I would send it you,—nothing can come near his patience in writing it, but my reading on't. Would you had sent me your father's letter, it would not have been less welcome to me than to you; and you may safely believe that I am equally concerned with you in anything. I should be pleased to see something of my Lady Carlisle's writing, because she is so extraordinary a person. I have been thinking of sending you my picture till I could come myself; but a picture is but dull company, and that you need not; besides, I cannot tell whether it be very like me or not, though 'tis the best I ever had drawn for me, and Mr. Lilly [Lely] will have it that he never took more pains to make a good one in his life, and that was it I think that spoiled it. He was condemned for making the first he drew for me a little worse than I, and in making this better he has made it as unlike as t'other. He is now, I think, at my Lord Pagett's at Marloe [Marlow], where I am promised he shall draw a picture of my Lady for me,—she gives it me, she says, as the greatest testimony of her friendship to me, for by her own rule she is past the time of having pictures taken of her. After eighteen, she says, there is no face but decays apparently; I would fain have had her excepted such as had never been beauties, for my comfort, but she would not.

When you see your friend Mr. Heningham, you may tell him in his ear there is a willow garland coming towards him. He might have sped better in his suit if he had made court to me, as well as to my Lady Ruthin. She has been my wife this seven years, and whosoever pretends there must ask my leave. I have now given my consent that she shall marry a very pretty little gentleman, Sir Christopher Yelverton's son, and I think we shall have a wedding ere it be long. My Lady her mother, in great kindness, would have recommended Heningham to me, and told me in a compliment that I was fitter for him than her daughter, who was younger, and therefore did not understand the world so well; that she was certain if he knew me he would be extremely taken, for I would make just that kind of wife he looked for. I humbly thanked her, but said I was certain he would not make that kind of husband I looked for,—and so it went no further.

I expect my eldest brother here shortly, whose fortune is well mended by my other brother's death, so as if he were satisfied himself with what he has done, I know no reason why he might not be very happy; but I am afraid he is not. I have not seen my sister since I knew she was so; but, sure, she can have lost no beauty, for I never saw any that she had, but good black eyes, which cannot alter. He loves her, I think, at the ordinary rate of husbands, but not enough, I believe, to marry her so much to his disadvantage if it were to do again; and that would kill me were I as she, for I could be infinitely better satisfied with a husband that had never loved me in hopes he might, than with one that began to love me less than he had done.

I am yours.

Letter 37.

SIR,—You say I abuse you; and Jane says you abuse me when you say you are not melancholy: which is to be believed? Neither, I think; for I could not have said so positively (as it seems she did) that I should not be in town till my brother came back: he was not gone when she writ, nor is not yet; and if my brother Peyton had come before his going, I had spoiled her prediction. But now it cannot be; he goes on Monday or Tuesday at farthest. I hope you did truly with me, too, in saying that you are not melancholy (though she does not believe it). I am thought so, many times, when I am not at all guilty on't. How often do I sit in company a whole day, and when they are gone am not able to give an account of six words that was said, and many times could be so much better pleased with the entertainment my own thoughts give me, that 'tis all I can do to be so civil as not to let them see they trouble me. This may be your disease. However, remember you have promised me to be careful of yourself, and that if I secure what you have entrusted me with, you will answer for the rest. Be this our bargain then; and look that you give me as good an account of one as I shall give you of t'other. In earnest, I was strangely vexed to see myself forced to disappoint you so, and felt your trouble and my own too. How often I have wished myself with you, though but for a day, for an hour: I would have given all the time I am to spend here for it with all my heart.

You could not but have laughed if you had seen me last night. My brother and Mr. Gibson were talking by the fire; and I sat by, but as no part of the company. Amongst other things (which I did not at all mind), they fell into a discourse of flying; and both agreed it was very possible to find out a way that people might fly like birds, and despatch their journeys: so I, that had not said a word all night, started up at that, and desired they would say a little more on't, for I had not marked the beginning; but instead of that, they both fell into so violent a laughing, that I should appear so much concerned in such an art; but they little knew of what use it might have been to me. Yet I saw you last night, but 'twas in a dream; and before I could say a word to you, or you to me, the disorder my joy to see you had put me into awakened me. Just now I was interrupted, too, and called away to entertain two dumb gentlemen;—you may imagine whether I was pleased to leave my writing to you for their company;—they have made such a tedious visit, too; and I am so tired with making of signs and tokens for everything I had to say. Good God! how do those that live with them always? They are brothers; and the eldest is a baronet, has a good estate, a wife and three or four children. He was my servant heretofore, and comes to see me still for old love's sake; but if he could have made me mistress of the world I could not have had him; and yet I'll swear he has nothing to be disliked in him but his want of tongue, which in a woman might have been a virtue.

I sent you a part of Cyrus last week, where you will meet with one Doralise in the story of Abradah and Panthée. The whole story is very good; but the humour makes the best part of it. I am of her opinion in most things that she says in her character of "L'honnest homme" that she is in search of, and her resolution of receiving no heart that had been offered to anybody else. Pray, tell me how you like her, and what fault you find in my Lady Carlisle's letter? Methinks the hand and the style both show her a great person, and 'tis writ in the way that's now affected by all that pretend to wit and good breeding; only, I am a little scandalized to confess that she uses that word faithful,—she that never knew how to be so in her life.

I have sent you my picture because you wished for it; but, pray, let it not presume to disturb my Lady Sunderland's. Put it in some corner where no eyes may find it out but yours, to whom it is only intended. 'Tis not a very good one, but the best I shall ever have drawn of me; for, as my Lady says, my time for pictures is past, and therefore I have always refused to part with this, because I was sure the next would be a worse. There is a beauty in youth that every one has once in their lives; and I remember my mother used to say there was never anybody (that was not deformed) but were handsome, to some reasonable degree, once between fourteen and twenty. It must hang with the light on the left hand of it; and you may keep it if you please till I bring you the original. But then I must borrow it (for 'tis no more mine, if you like it), because my brother is often bringing people into my closet where it hangs, to show them other pictures that are there; and if he miss this long thence, 'twould trouble his jealous head.

You are not the first that has told me I knew better what quality I would not have in a husband than what I would; but it was more pardonable in them. I thought you had understood better what kind of person I liked than anybody else could possibly have done, and therefore did not think it necessary to make you that description too. Those that I reckoned up were only such as I could not be persuaded to have upon no terms, though I had never seen such a person in my life as Mr. Temple: not but that all those may make very good husbands to some women; but they are so different from my humour that 'tis not possible we should ever agree; for though it might be reasonably enough expected that I should conform mine to theirs (to my shame be it spoken), I could never do it. And I have lived so long in the world, and so much at my own liberty, that whosoever has me must be content to take me as they find me, without hope of ever making me other than I am. I cannot so much as disguise my humour. When it was designed that I should have had Sir Jus., my brother used to tell he was confident that, with all his wisdom, any woman that had wit and discretion might make an ass of him, and govern him as she pleased. I could not deny that possibly it might be so, but 'twas that I was sure I could never do; and though 'tis likely I should have forced myself to so much compliance as was necessary for a reasonable wife, yet farther than that no design could ever have carried me; and I could not have flattered him into a belief that I admired him, to gain more than he and all his generation are worth.

'Tis such an ease (as you say) not to be solicitous to please others: in earnest, I am no more concerned whether people think me handsome or ill-favoured, whether they think I have wit or that I have none, than I am whether they think my name Elizabeth or Dorothy. I would do nobody no injury; but I should never design to please above one; and that one I must love too, or else I should think it a trouble, and consequently not do it. I have made a general confession to you; will you give me absolution? Methinks you should; for you are not much better by your own relation; therefore 'tis easiest to forgive one another. When you hear anything from your father, remember that I am his humble servant, and much concerned in his good health.

I am yours.

Letter 38.—Lady Isabella is Lady Isabella Rich, my Lady Diana's eldest sister. She married Sir James Thynne. Many years ago she had an intrigue with the Duke of Ormond, by whom she had a son, but Dorothy speaks, I think, of some later scandal than this.

My Lady Pembroke was the daughter of the Earl of Cumberland. She first married Richard Earl of Dorset, and afterwards the Earl of Pembroke. She is described as a woman whose mind was endowed by nature with very extraordinary attributes. Lord Pembroke, on the other hand, according to Clarendon, pretended to no other qualification "than to understand horses and dogs very well, and to be believed honest and generous." His stables vied with palaces, and his falconry was furnished at immense expense; but in his private life he was characterized by gross ignorance and vice, and his public character was marked by ingratitude and instability. The life of Lady Pembroke was embittered by this man for near twenty years, and she was at length compelled to separate from him. She lived alone, until her husband's death, which took place in January 1650. One can understand that they were entirely unsuited to each other, when Lady Pembroke in her Memorials is found to write thus of her husband: "He was no scholar, having passed but three or four months at Oxford, when he was taken thence after his father's death. He was of quick apprehension, sharp understanding, very crafty withal; of a discerning spirit, but a choleric nature, increased by the office he held of Chamberlain to the King." Why, then, did the accomplished Lady Anne Clifford unite herself to so worthless a person? Does she not answer this question for us when she writes that he was "the greatest nobleman in England"?

It is of some interest to us to remember that Francis Osborne, Dorothy's uncle (her father's youngest brother), was Master of the Horse to this great nobleman.

Whether Lord and Lady Leicester were, as Dorothy says, "in great disorder" at this time, it is impossible to say. Lady Leicester is said to have been of a warm and irritable temper, and Lord Leicester is described by Clarendon as "staggering and irresolute in his nature." However, nothing is said of their quarrels; but, on the other hand, there is a very pathetic account in Lord Leicester's journal of his wife's death in 1659, which shows that, whatever this "disorder" may have been, a complete reconciliation was afterwards effected.

SIR,—You would have me say something of my coming. Alas! how fain I would have something to say, but I know no more than you saw in that letter I sent you. How willingly would I tell you anything that I thought would please you; but I confess I do not like to give uncertain hopes, because I do not care to receive them. And I thought there was no need of saying I would be sure to take the first occasion, and that I waited with impatience for it, because I hoped you had believed all that already; and so you do, I am sure. Say what you will, you cannot but know my heart enough to be assured that I wish myself with you, for my own sake as well as yours. 'Tis rather that you love to hear me say it often, than that you doubt it; for I am no dissembler. I could not cry for a husband that were indifferent to me (like your cousin); no, nor for a husband that I loved neither. I think 'twould break my heart sooner than make me shed a tear. 'Tis ordinary griefs that make me weep. In earnest, you cannot imagine how often I have been told that I had too much franchise in my humour, and that 'twas a point of good breeding to disguise handsomely; but I answered still for myself, that 'twas not to be expected I should be exactly bred, that had never seen a Court since I was capable of anything. Yet I know so much,—that my Lady Carlisle would take it very ill if you should not let her get the point of honour; 'tis all she aims at, to go beyond everybody in compliment. But are you not afraid of giving me a strong vanity with telling me I write better than the most extraordinary person in the world? If I had not the sense to understand that the reason why you like my letters better is only because they are kinder than hers, such a word might have undone me.

But my Lady Isabella, that speaks, and looks, and sings, and plays, and all so prettily, why cannot I say that she is free from faults as her sister believes her? No; I am afraid she is not, and sorry that those she has are so generally known. My brother did not bring them for an example; but I did, and made him confess she had better have married a beggar than that beast with all his estate. She cannot be excused; but certainly they run a strange hazard that have such husbands as makes them think they cannot be more undone, whatever course they take. Oh, 'tis ten thousand pities! I remember she was the first woman that ever I took notice of for extremely handsome; and, in earnest, she was then the loveliest lady that could be looked on, I think. But what should she do with beauty now? Were I as she, I should hide myself from all the world; I should think all people that looked on me read it in my face and despised me in their hearts; and at the same time they made me a leg, or spoke civilly to me, I should believe they did not think I deserved their respect. I'll tell you who he urged for an example though, my Lord Pembroke and my Lady, who, they say, are upon parting after all his passion for her, and his marrying her against the consent of all his friends; but to that I answered, that though he pretended great kindness he had for her, I never heard of much she had for him, and knew she married him merely for advantage. Nor is she a woman of that discretion as to do all that might become her, when she must do it rather as things fit to be done than as things she inclined to. Besides that, what with a spleenatick side and a chemical head, he is but an odd body himself.

But is it possible what they say, that my Lord Leicester and my Lady are in great disorder, and that after forty years' patience he has now taken up the cudgels and resolved to venture for the mastery? Methinks he wakes out of his long sleep like a froward child, that wrangles and fights with all that comes near it. They say he has turned away almost every servant in the house, and left her at Penshurst to digest it as she can.

What an age do we live in, where 'tis a miracle if in ten couples that are married, two of them live so as not to publish to the world that they cannot agree. I begin to be of your opinion of him that (when the Roman Church first propounded whether it were not convenient for priests not to marry) said that it might be convenient enough, but sure it was not our Saviour's intention, for He commanded that all should take up their cross and follow Him; and for his part, he was confident there was no such cross as a wife. This is an ill doctrine for me to preach; but to my friends I cannot but confess that I am afraid much of the fault lies in us; for I have observed that formerly, in great families, the men seldom disagree, but the women are always scolding; and 'tis most certain, that let the husband be what he will, if the wife have but patience (which, sure, becomes her best), the disorder cannot be great enough to make a noise; his anger alone, when it meets with nothing that resists it, cannot be loud enough to disturb the neighbours. And such a wife may be said to do as a kinswoman of ours that had a husband who was not always himself; and when he was otherwise, his humour was to rise in the night, and with two bedstaves labour on the table an hour together. She took care every night to lay a great cushion upon the table for him to strike on, that nobody might hear him, and so discover his madness. But 'tis a sad thing when all one's happiness is only that the world does not know you are miserable.

For my part, I think it were very convenient that all such as intend to marry should live together in the same house some years of probation; and if, in all that time, they never disagreed, they should then be permitted to marry if they please; but how few would do it then! I do not remember that I ever saw or heard of any couple that were bred up so together (as many you know are, that are designed for one another from children), but they always disliked one another extremely; parted, if it were left in their choice. If people proceeded with this caution, the world would end sooner than is expected, I believe; and because, with all my wariness, 'tis not impossible but I may be caught, nor likely that I should be wiser than anybody else, 'twere best, I think, that I said no more on this point.

What would I give to know that sister of yours that is so good at discovering; sure she is excellent company; she has reason to laugh at you when you would have persuaded her the "moss was sweet." I remember Jane brought some of it to me, to ask me if I thought it had no ill smell, and whether she might venture to put it in the box or not. I told her as I thought, she could not put a more innocent thing there, for I did not find it had any smell at all; besides, I was willing it should do me some service in requital for the pains I had taken for it. My niece and I wandered through some eight hundred acres of wood in search of it, to make rocks and strange things that her head is full of, and she admires it more than you did. If she had known I had consented it should have been used to fill up a box, she would have condemned me extremely. I told Jane that you liked her present, and she, I find, is resolved to spoil your compliment, and make you confess at last that they are not worth the eating; she threatens to send you more, but you would forgive her if you saw how she baits me every day to go to London; all that I can say will not satisfy her. When I urge (as 'tis true) that there is a necessity of my stay here, she grows furious, cries you will die with melancholy, and confounds me so with stories of your ill-humour, that I'll swear I think I should go merely to be at quiet, if it were possible, though there were no other reason for it. But I hope 'tis not so ill as she would have me believe it, though I know your humour is strangely altered from what it was, and am sorry to see it. Melancholy must needs do you more hurt than to another to whom it may be natural, as I think it is to me; therefore if you loved me you would take heed on't. Can you believe that you are dearer to me than the whole world beside, and yet neglect yourself? If you do not, you wrong a perfect friendship; and if you do, you must consider my interest in you, and preserve yourself to make me happy. Promise me this, or I shall haunt you worse than she does me. Scribble how you please, so you make your letter long enough; you see I give you good example; besides, I can assure you we do perfectly agree if you receive not satisfaction but from my letters, I have none but what yours give me.

Letter 39.—Dorothy has been in London since her last letter, but unfortunately she has either not met with Temple, or he has left town suddenly whilst she was there, on some unexplained errand. This would therefore seem a natural place to begin a new chapter; but as we have very shortly to come to a series of unhappy letters, quite distinct in their character from these, I have thought fit to place in this long chapter yet a few more letters after Dorothy's autumn visit to London.

Stephen Marshall was, like Hugh Peters, one of those preachers who was able to exchange the obscurity of a country parish for the public fame of a London pulpit, by reason of a certain gift of rhetorical power, the value of which it is impossible to estimate to-day. Such of his sermons as are still extant are prosy, long-winded, dogmatic absurdities, overloaded with periphrastic illustrations in scriptural language. They are meaningless to a degree, which would make one wonder at the docility and patience of a seventeenth century congregation, if one had not witnessed a similar spirit in congregations of to-day.

There is no honest biography of Stephen Marshall. In the news-books and tracts of the day we find references to sermons preached by him, by command, before the Army of the Parliament, and we have reprints of some of these. I have searched in vain to find the sermon which Dorothy heard, but it was probably not a sermon given on any great occasion, and we may believe it was never printed. There is an amusing scandalous tract, called the Life and Death of Stephen Marshall, which is so full of "evil speaking, lying, and slandering," as to be quite unworthy of quotation. From this we may take it, however, that he was born at Gormanchester, in Cromwell's county, was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and that before he came to London his chief cure of souls was at Finchingfield in Essex. These, and the records of his London preaching, are the only facts in his life's history which have come to my notice.

My Lord Whitelocke did go to Sweden, as Dorothy surmises; setting sail from Plymouth with one hundred honest men, on October 26, 1653, or very soon afterwards, as one may read in his journal of the progress of the Embassy. That he should fill this office, appears to have been proposed to him by Cromwell in September of this year.

An Act of Parliament to abolish the Chancery was indeed passed in the August of this year. Well may Lord Keble sore lament, and the rest of the world rejoice, at such news. Joseph Keble was a well-known law reporter, a son of Serjeant Richard Keble. He was a Fellow of All Souls, and a Bencher of Gray's Inn; and, furthermore, was one of the Lords Commissioners of the Great Seal from 1648-1654. There was "some debate," says Whitelocke, "whether they should be styled 'Commissioners' or 'Lords Commissioners,'" and though the word Lords was far less acceptable at this time than formerly, yet that they might not seem to lessen their own authority, nor the honour of their office constituted by them, they voted the title to be "Lords Commissioners."

SIR,—If want of kindness were the only crime I exempted from pardon, 'twas not that I had the least apprehension you could be guilty of it; but to show you (by excepting only an impossible thing) that I excepted nothing. No, in earnest, I can fancy no such thing of you, or if I could, the quarrel would be to myself; I should never forgive my own folly that let me to choose a friend that could be false. But I'll leave this (which is not much to the purpose) and tell you how, with my usual impatience, I expected your letter, and how cold it went to my heart to see it so short a one. 'Twas so great a pain to me that I am resolv'd you shall not feel it; nor can I in justice punish you for a fault unwillingly committed. If I were your enemy, I could not use you ill when I saw Fortune do it too, and in gallantry and good nature both, I should think myself rather obliged to protect you from her injury (if it lay in my power) than double them upon you. These things considered, I believe this letter will be longer than ordinary,—kinder I think it cannot be. I always speak my heart to you; and that is so much your friend, it never furnishes me with anything to your disadvantage. I am glad you are an admirer of Telesile as well as I; in my opinion 'tis a fine Lady, but I know you will pity poor Amestris strongly when you have read her story. I'll swear I cried for her when I read it first, though she were but an imaginary person; and, sure, if anything of that kind can deserve it, her misfortunes may.

God forgive me, I was as near laughing yesterday where I should not. Would you believe that I had the grace to go hear a sermon upon a week day? In earnest, 'tis true; a Mr. Marshall was the man that preached, but never anybody was so defeated. He is so famed that I expected rare things of him, and seriously I listened to him as if he had been St. Paul; and what do you think he told us? Why, that if there were no kings, no queens, no lords, no ladies, nor gentlemen, nor gentlewomen, in the world, 'twould be no loss to God Almighty at all. This we had over some forty times, which made me remember it whether I would or not. The rest was much at this rate, interlarded with the prettiest odd phrases, that I had the most ado to look soberly enough for the place I was in that ever I had in my life. He does not preach so always, sure? If he does, I cannot believe his sermons will do much towards bringing anybody to heaven more than by exercising their patience. Yet, I'll say that for him, he stood stoutly for tithes, though, in my opinion, few deserve them less than he; and it may be he would be better without them.

Yet you are not convinced, you say, that to be miserable is the way to be good; to some natures I think it is not, but there are many of so careless and vain a temper, that the least breath of good fortune swells them with so much pride, that if they were not put in mind sometimes by a sound cross or two that they are mortal, they would hardly think it possible; and though 'tis a sign of a servile nature when fear produces more of reverence in us than love, yet there is more danger of forgetting oneself in a prosperous fortune than in the contrary, and affliction may be the surest (though not the pleasantest) guide to heaven. What think you, might not I preach with Mr. Marshall for a wager? But you could fancy a perfect happiness here, you say; that is not much, many people do so; but I never heard of anybody that ever had it more than in fancy, so that will not be strange if you should miss on't. One may be happy to a good degree, I think, in a faithful friend, a moderate fortune, and a retired life; further than this I know nothing to wish; but if there be anything beyond it, I wish it you.

You did not tell me what carried you out of town in such haste. I hope the occasion was good, you must account to me for all that I lost by it. I shall expect a whole packet next week. Oh, me! I have forgot this once or twice to tell you, that if it be no inconvenience to you, I could wish you would change the place of direction for my letters. Certainly that Jones knows my name, I bespoke a saddle of him once, and though it be a good while agone, yet I was so often with him about it,—having much ado to make him understand how I would have it, it being of a fashion he had never seen, though, sure, it be common,—that I am confident he has not forgot me. Besides that, upon it he got my brother's custom; and I cannot tell whether he does not use the shop still. Jane presents her humble service to you, and has sent you something in a box; 'tis hard to imagine what she can find here to present you withal, and I am much in doubt whether you will not pay too dear for it if you discharge the carriage. 'Tis a pretty freedom she takes, but you may thank yourself; she thinks because you call her fellow-servant, she may use you accordingly. I bred her better, but you have spoiled her.

Is it true that my Lord Whitlocke goes Ambassador where my Lord Lisle should have gone? I know not how he may appear in a Swedish Court, but he was never meant for a courtier at home, I believe. Yet 'tis a gracious Prince; he is often in this country, and always does us the favour to send for his fruit hither. He was making a purchase of one of the best houses in the county. I know not whether he goes on with it; but 'tis such a one as will not become anything less than a lord. And there is a talk as if the Chancery were going down; if so, his title goes with it, I think. 'Twill be sad news for my Lord Keble's son; he will have nothing left to say when "my Lord, my father," is taken from him. Were it not better that I had nothing to say neither, than that I should entertain you with such senseless things. I hope I am half asleep, nothing else can excuse me; if I were quite asleep, I should say fine things to you; I often dream I do; but perhaps if I could remember them they are no wiser than my wakening discourses. Good-night.

Letter 40.—A letter has been lost; whether Harrold or Collins, the two carriers, were either or both of them guilty of carelessness in the delivery of these letters, it is quite impossible to say now. Dorothy seems to think Harrold delivered the letter, and it was mislaid in London. Perhaps it was this letter, and what was written about it, that caused all those latent feelings of despair and discontent to awaken in the breasts of the two lovers. Was this the spark that loneliness and absence fanned into flame? You shall judge for yourself, reader, in the next chapter.

SIR,—That you may be at more certainty hereafter what to think, let me tell you that nothing could hinder me from writing to you (as well for my own satisfaction as yours) but an impossibility of doing it; nothing but death or a dead palsy in my hands, or something that had the same effect. I did write it, and gave it Harrold, but by an accident his horse fell lame, so that he could not set out on Monday; but on Tuesday he did come to town; on Wednesday, carried the letter himself (as he tells me) where 'twas directed, which was to Mr. Copyn in Fleet Street. 'Twas the first time I made use of that direction; no matter and I had not done it then, since it proves no better. Harrold came late home on Thursday night with such an account as your boy gave you: that coming out of town the same day he came in, he had been at Fleet Street again, but there was no letter for him. I was sorry, but I did not much wonder at it because he gave so little time, and resolved to make my best of that I had by Collins. I read it over often enough to make it equal with the longest letter that ever was writ, and pleased myself, in earnest (as much as it was possible for me in the humour I was in), to think how by that time you had asked me pardon for the little reproaches you had made me, and that the kindness and length of my letter had made you amends for the trouble it had given you in expecting it. But I am not a little annoyed to find you had it not. I am very confident it was delivered, and therefore you must search where the fault lies.

Were it not that you had suffered too much already, I would complain a little of you. Why should you think me so careless of anything that you were concerned in, as to doubt that I had writ? Though I had received none from you, I should not have taken that occasion to revenge myself. Nay, I should have concluded you innocent, and have imagined a thousand ways how it might happen, rather than have suspected your want of kindness. Why should not you be as just to me? But I will not chide, it may be (as long as we have been friends) you do not know me so well yet as to make an absolute judgment of me; but if I know myself at all, if I am capable of being anything, 'tis a perfect friend. Yet I must chide too. Why did you get such a cold? Good God! how careless you are of a life that (by your own confession) I have told you makes all the happiness of mine. 'Tis unkindly done. What is left for me to say, when that will not prevail with you; or how can you persuade me to a cure of myself, when you refuse to give me the example? I have nothing in the world that gives me the least desire of preserving myself, but the opinion I have you would not be willing to lose me; and yet, if you saw with what caution I live (at least to what I did before), you would reproach it to yourself sometimes, and might grant, perhaps, that you have not got the advantage of me in friendship so much as you imagine. What (besides your consideration) could oblige me to live and lose all the rest of my friends thus one after another? Sure I am not insensible nor very ill-natured, and yet I'll swear I think I do not afflict myself half so much as another would do that had my losses. I pay nothing of sadness to the memory of my poor brother, but I presently disperse it with thinking what I owe in thankfulness that 'tis not you I mourn for.

Well, give me no more occasions to complain of you, you know not what may follow. Here was Mr. Freeman yesterday that made me a very kind visit, and said so many fine things to me, that I was confounded with his civilities, and had nothing to say for myself. I could have wished then that he had considered me less and my niece more; but if you continue to use me thus, in earnest, I'll not be so much her friend hereafter. Methinks I see you laugh at all my threatenings; and not without reason. Mr. Freeman, you believe, is designed for somebody that deserves him better. I think so too, and am not sorry for it; and you have reason to believe I never can be other than

Your faithful friend.

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