I cannot learn from my only oracle, Baker, who this famous leader, and his reverend brother were. Neither does he at all ascertain for me the event alluded to in the second of these couplets. I am not yet possessed of Warton, who probably explains it, nor can be for a month to come. Consult him for me if you have him, or, if you have him not, consult some other. Or you may find the intelligence perhaps in your own budget; no matter how you come by it, only send it to me if you can, and as soon as you can, for I hate to leave unsolved difficulties behind me.[610] In the first year of Charles the First, Milton was seventeen years of age, and then wrote this elegy. The period therefore to which I would refer you, is the two or three last years of James the First.
Ever yours,
W. C.
TO THE REV. MR. KING.[611]
Weston, Sept. 23, 1791.
Dear Sir,—We are truly concerned at your account of Mrs. King's severe indisposition; and, though you had no better news to tell us, are much obliged to you for writing to inform us of it, and to Mrs. King for desiring you to do it. We take a lively interest in what concerns her. I should never have ascribed her silence to neglect, had she neither written to me herself nor commissioned you to write for her. I had, indeed, for some time expected a letter from her by every post, but accounted for my continual disappointment by supposing her at Edgeware, to which place she intended a visit, as she told me long since, and hoped that she would write immediately on her return.
Her sufferings will be felt here till we learn that they are removed; for which reason we shall be much obliged by the earliest notice of her recovery, which we most sincerely wish, if it please God, and which will not fail to be a constant subject of prayer at Weston.
I beg you, sir, to present Mrs. Unwin's and my affectionate remembrances to Mrs. King, in which you are equally a partaker, and to believe me, with true esteem and much sincerity,
Yours,
W. C.
TO MRS. KING.[612]
Weston, Oct. 21, 1791.