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.