Strange it is that the maiden meditations of more than two centuries ago should have recently been brought to light in the love-letters of Dorothy Osborne, so full of womanly tenderness, so humorous, so grave and gay by turns, and so valuable for the spirited pictures they give of the life and personages of the day.
Among stacks of dry-as-dust manuscripts, awaiting the discriminating inspection of the antiquarian, are doubtless other letters of sentiment worthy of the world’s reading, even if there are few equal in grace and style to those of the lovely mistress of Chicksands. A few such unknown or forgotten love-letters have come under the observation of the writer,—among these some yellowed pages traced by the hand of William Penn and addressed to Hannah Callowhill, whose name is now handed down to Philadelphians by the street which bears her family name, but who was known to her contemporaries as a woman of strong character and noble qualities, well fitted to be a helpmeet to the good Proprietary. These letters form pleasant reading for a leisure hour, not only on account of their quaint simplicity, but also because of the insight they give into the delicate and refined nature of the man who wrote them.[30]
We are wont to think of the founder of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as a man deeply immersed in religious questions, in legal business, land surveys and titles,—indeed, in all that affected the welfare of the little colony that he established on the banks of the Delaware. To picture him as an ardent lover requires some imagination, especially at a period when the early romance of his life was buried in the grave of his beloved Gulielma, and he figures on the pages of history as a widower, past middle age, with three children. Yet among his letters to his betrothed are some that glow with all the warmth and ardor of youthful affection, while, as befits a man of his years and position, they contain wise reflections on life, and passages marked by the prudence, the forethought, and the practical grasp that come with riper age; and always they are deeply and sincerely religious.
This Quaker lover does not write a sonnet to the eyebrows of his mistress, nor does he say, like a modern widower whose billet doux has come under our notice, that he has “lost his married partner and would be glad to renew his loss.” He tells her, in grave and simple language, that it is for the qualities of her heart and mind that he loves her and desires to win her, as in the following written from Worminghurst, Penn’s English home, in 1695:
“And now let me tell thee, my Dearest, that tho’ there are many qualitys, for which I admire thee, as well as love thee, yet yt of Compassionating the unhappy is none of the least. And whatsoever pittys has love, for it springs out of the same soft ground; and can never fail, as often as there is occasion to try it. That my Dearest H. has been a Mourner, a Sympathizer, an inhabitant of Dust, and so wean’d from the common tastes of pleasure, yt gratefy other Pallats, does so much exalt her character with me, yt if this were all she brought, she must be a treasure to yt happy man yt has a Title to her. And since, by an unusual goodness, she has made it my Lot, it shall be as much my pleasure as she has made it my duty to make her constantly sensible how much I am so of my obligation to her.”
One of the most tender of these missives includes some family details about Billy’s[31] health, who “is lively yet tender” and has just had his hair cut, and winds up with the following description of a most unromantic hamper which was intended as an offering to the beloved one:
“I presume by the next wagon, there comes an Hamper directed to thy father, the Contents for thee. Viz 3 Gallons of light french Brandy, one of wh’ pray present thy Mother. I ordered 2 lbs of Chocolate to keep them company. My Daughter prays thee to accept of 3 small pots of venson, yt she says will keep well & are of her own manufacture, as were all the last. She is concerned her pig brawn was not ready wc’h she fancys would not have been a disagreeable way of eating a pig, but another season will do. These are little things and yet would express tho’ meanly Love that is Great.”
Was Letitia Penn’s brawn the same sort as that over which dear old Lamb waxed so eloquent in a letter to his friend Manning? It had been sent to him by the cook of Trinity Hall and Caius College, and he says of it,—
“’Tis of all my hobbies the supreme in the eating way. He might have sent sops from the pan, skimmings, crumpets, chips, hog’s lard, the tender brown judiciously scalped from a fillet of veal (dexterously replaced by a salamander), the tops of asparagus, fugitive livers, run-away gizzards of fowls, the eyes of martyred pigs, the red spawn of lobsters, leverets’ ears, and such pretty filchings common to cooks; but these had been ordinary presents, the every-day courtesies of dish-washers to their sweethearts. Brawn was a noble thought.”