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—