At another time William Penn is concerned about the health of his betrothed, and concludes his missive with an earnest recommendation to her to take some pills, that he sends her, at certain hours of the day, and a specified medicinal water, to be imbibed “three days before the full and changes of the moon.”
It appears to have been a not unusual practice among lovers of this period to prescribe for their sweethearts, as we find Dorothy Osborne writing about some infusion of steel in which she drinks Sir William Temple’s health every morning. She vows that it makes her horribly ill, says that it is a “drench that would poison a horse,” and declines to continue its use unless her lover insists upon her doing so. In another of her charming letters she gives Sir William many directions about the care of his precious health, and even does a little quacking on his behalf, sending him a new medicine for his cold, of which she says,—
“’Tis like the rest of my medicines: if it do no good ’twill do no harm and ’twill be no great trouble to take a little on’t now and then; for the taste on’t as it is not excellent, so ’tis not very ill.”
It is well that some of these old letters of sentiment and domestic life are left us, for did we not occasionally catch glimpses of the great men of the past penning tender messages to beloved objects (sometimes, indeed, spelling them very ill), writing about their children and sending them trinkets and gewgaws, they would become to us shadowy personages, very spectres, and hauntings of a dream.
To those who are only acquainted with James Logan, William Penn’s young secretary, through his official correspondence and endless business letters, he must appear a very didactic and uninteresting personage; yet reading between the lines, or scanning a stray letter addressed to some friend or relative, we catch a sight of the real man, of like passions with ourselves. Mrs. Hannah Penn, who survived her lover’s generous hampers and curious medical prescriptions and became a happy wife and the mother of a brood of sturdy young Penns, was well qualified to be a lover’s confidante, and to her James Logan was pleased to unburden his numerous and, it must be admitted, unsuccessful love-affairs. A disappointed lover may not be the most attractive object in every-day life, but for some indefinable reason it adds to the historic interest of a man, especially to the feminine reader, to know that he loved and wooed in vain and bewailed his fate in prose or verse. Otherwise, why should generations of school-girls weep over the sorrows of Werther? The young secretary was enamoured of Letitia Penn, her of the pig’s brawn, and Rebecca Moore, and several others, if we are to judge from his letters. Letitia married William Aubrey, for whom James Logan’s admiration was ever after of the scantest. His allusion to his rival’s rapacity in money-matters, saying that he was “a tiger for returns,” by which he referred to quit-rents and the like, may not have been high-minded, but was it not natural? and also that he should have found few words in which to praise Governor Evans, whom the fair Rebecca Moore made supremely happy? It was not, however, written in the book of fate that this excellent Quaker youth should forever woo in vain, and from some family treasure-trove there comes a charming letter that succeeded in bringing to his side the lady of his love, with whom he lived as long and as happily as the princes and princesses of fairy lore. After dwelling at length upon the “excellent virtues” and qualifications of this adorable Quaker maiden, and upon his ardent desire to claim them and her for his own, the writer says, with noble self-abnegation,—
“Yet, my Dearest, I cannot press it further, than thou with freedom canst condescend to it, and enjoy Peace and Satisfaction in thy own mind, for without this, I cannot so much as desire to obtain thee. I therefore here resign thee to that Gracious God, thy tender and merciful father, to whom thy innocent life and virtuous inclinations have certainly rendered thee very dear that He may dispose of thee according to His divine Pleasure, and as it may best suit thy happiness—humbly imploring at the same time, and beseeching His divine Goodness, that I may be made worthy to receive thee as a holy gift from his hands: and then thou wilt truly prove a Blessing, and we shall forever be happy in each other.”[32]
This letter of the young secretary is in striking contrast to the overloaded verbiage so prevalent in that day, which is exhibited in another Colonial letter of a few years’ earlier date, and which reads as if modelled on the style of Sir Charles Grandison. The writer of this last effusion, who calls himself the Rev. Elias Keach, apologizes elaborately for “rushing his rude and unpolished lines into the Heroik and most Excelent Presence” of his sweetheart, Mistress Mary Helm. After defining his financial status, which is at a rather low ebb, and giving forth as his opinion that “Pure Righteousness and Zeal exceeds a portion with a wife, so also in a Husband,” Mr. Keach launches his bark upon a troubled sea of rhetorical affection, in which he pleads the advantages of his person, mind, and estate, of whose claims he never loses sight, even when involved in the most high-flown metaphorical descriptions of the charms of his mistress. The style of Mr. Keach, however, is not to be described. Like Charles Lamb’s favorite dish, it must be tasted to be enjoyed. From the carefully pen-printed pages before us, we transcribe the following passages:
“Lady let me crave the mantle of your Virtue the which Noble and generous favor will hide my naked and deformed fault altho: it seems to be a renewed coldness to require such an incomparable favour from your tender heart, from whom I have deserved so little Kindness. Mrs. Mary: Solomon says Childhood and Youth are vanity; and if so you cannot expect that in my youth which the gray hairs of our Age (or at least of our wooden world) cannot afford; it is a common saying and a true, love is stronger than death, & it is as true a proverb where Love cannot go it will creep—you know Dear Lady, that the higher the sun riseth by degrees from the East the more influence hath the power and heat of its beams upon the Earth, so ever since I saw the sun-rise of your comely and gracious presence the sunbeams of your countenance and your discreet and virtuous behaviour, hath by degrees wroat such a virtuous heat and such Ammorouse Effects in my disconsolate heart that that which I cannot at present disclose in words in your gracious presence I am forct (altho far distant from you) to discover in ink and paper; trusting in god that this may be a Key to open the door of your virtuous and tender heart against the time I do appear in person; Dear Mistress: let me most submissively crave this favour of you among your generrosities that you would not in the least Imagine that I have any Bye Ends or reserves in writing these few lines to you: But that I am Virtuously truly and sincerely, upon the word of a Christian; and the main scope and intent of this letter is only and alone to discover unto you, these Amorous impressions of a virtuous Love which hath taken root or is Allready ingrafted in my heart; who have lifted myself under the Banner of your Love; provided I can by any means gain the honor to induce you to Acknowledge and account me your most obligeing Servant: I must needs say this is not a common practice of mine to write Letters of this nature but Love hath made that proper which is not common; Mrs. Mary if I had foreseen when I saw you what I have since experienced I would have foreshown a more Ample and courteous behavior than I then did; Through my Stupidity and dullness the reason then I could not tell: But the effects I now know and shall be careful and industrious to improve, not to your disadvantage, and I am persuaded to my exceeding comfort and contentment; as for my person you have in a measure seen it, and as for my practice you do in a measure Know it as for my parts the Effects of my Conversations will show it. I know it is folly to speak in my own Praise, seeing I have learnt this Leason Long ago wise is that man that speaks few words in his own praise....
“As for my parents I am obliged By the Law of god; to Honour them, & thus I say in short (first) they are of no mean Family; (secondly) they are of no mean Learning, & (thirdly) they are of no mean account and note in the World: tho they are not of ye world But the truth & certainty of this I Leave to be proved; By Severall of no mean note in this Province and the next.”
Mr. Keach evidently refers to the Provinces of Pennsylvania and New Jersey. After several lines that it is impossible to decipher, we extract the following hope: