Your faithful friend

and servant,

D. OSBORNE.



CHAPTER III

LIFE AT CHICKSANDS. 1653

Letter 9.—Temple's sister here mentioned was his only sister Martha, who married Sir Thomas Giffard in 1662, and was left a widow within two months of her marriage. She afterwards lived with Temple and his wife, was a great favourite with them, and their confidential friend. Lady Giffard has left a manuscript life of her brother from which the historian Courtenay deigned to extract some information, whereby we in turn have benefited. She outlived both her brother and his wife, to carry on a warlike encounter with her brother's amanuensis, Mr. Jonathan Swift, over Temple's literary remains. Esther Johnson, the unfortunate Stella, was Lady Giffard's maid.

Cleopatre and Le Grand Cyrus appear to have been Dorothy's literary companions at this date. She would read these in the original French; and, as she tells us somewhere, had a scorn of translations. Both these romances were much admired, even by people of taste; a thing difficult to understand, until we remember that Fielding, the first and greatest English novelist, was yet unborn, and novels, as we know them, non-existing. Both the romances found translators; Cyrus, in one mysterious F.G. Gent—the translation was published in this year; Cleopatre, in Richard Loveday, an elegant letter-writer of this time.

Artamenes, or Le Grand Cyrus, the masterpiece of Mademoiselle Madeleine de Scuderi, is contained in no less than ten volumes, each of which in its turn has many books; it is, in fact, more a collection of romances than a single romance. La Cleopatre, a similar work, was originally published in twenty-three volumes of twelve parts, each part containing three or four books. It is but a collection of short stories. Its author rejoiced in the romantic title of Gauthier de Costes Chevalier Seigneur de la Calprenede; he published Cleopatre in 1642; he was the author of other romances, and some tragedies, noted only for their worthlessness. Even Richelieu, "quoiqu' admirateur indulgent de la mediocrite," could not stand Calprenede's tragedies. Reine Marguerite is probably the translation by Robert Codrington of the Memorials of Margaret of Valois, first wife of Henri IV. Bussy is a servant of the Duke of Avenson, Margaret's brother, with whom Margaret is very intimate.

Of Lady Sunderland and Mr. Smith we have already sufficient knowledge. As for Sir Justinian, we are not to think he was already married; the reference to his "new wife" is merely jocular, meaning his new wife when he shall get one; for Sir Justinian is still wife-hunting, and comes back to renew his suit with Dorothy after this date. "Your fellow-servant," who is as often called Jane, appears to have been a friend and companion of Dorothy, in a somewhat lower rank of life. Mrs. Goldsmith, mentioned in a subsequent letter,—wife of Daniel Goldsmith, the rector of Campton, in which parish Chicksands was situated,—acted as chaperon or duenna companion to Dorothy, and Jane was, it seems to me, in a similar position; only, being a younger woman than the rector's wife, she was more the companion and less the duenna. The servants and companions of ladies of that date were themselves gentlewomen of good breeding. Waller writes verses to Mrs. Braughton, servant to Sacharissa, commencing his lines, "Fair fellow-servant." Temple, had he written verse to his mistress, would probably have left us some "Lines to Jane."

There is in Campton Church a tablet erected to Daniel Goldsmith, "Ecclesiae de Campton Pastor idem et Patronus;" also to Maria Goldsmith, "uxor dilectissima." This is erected by Maria's faithful sister, Jane Wright; and if the astute reader shall think fit to agree with me in believing Temple's "fellow-servant" to be this Jane Wright on such slender evidence and slight thread of argument, he may well do so. Failing this, all search after Jane will, I fear, prove futile at this distant date. There are constant references to Jane in the letters. "Her old woman," in the same passage, is, of course, a jocular allusion to Dorothy herself; and "the old knight" is, I believe, Sir Robert Cook, a Bedfordshire gentleman, of whom nothing is known except that he was knighted at Ampthill, July 21st, 1621. We hear some little more of him from Dorothy.

Note well the signature of this and following letters; it will help us to discover what passed between the friends in London. For my own part, I do not think Dorothy means that she has ceased to be faithful in that she has become "his affectionate friend and servant."

SIR—I was so kind as to write to you by the coachman, and let me tell you I think 'twas the greatest testimony of my friendship that I could give you; for, trust me, I was so tired with my journey, so dowd with my cold, and so out of humour with our parting, that I should have done it with great unwillingness to anybody else. I lay abed all next day to recover myself, and rised a Thursday to receive your letter with the more ceremony. I found no fault with the ill writing, 'twas but too easy to read, methought, for I am sure I had done much sooner than I could have wished. But, in earnest, I was heartily troubled to find you in so much disorder. I would not have you so kind to me as to be cruel to yourself, in whom I am more concerned. No; for God's sake, let us not make afflictions of such things as these; I am afraid we shall meet with too many real ones.

I am glad your journey holds, because I think 'twill be a good diversion for you this summer; but I admire your father's patience, that lets you rest with so much indifference when there is such a fortune offered. I'll swear I have great scruples of conscience myself on the point, and am much afraid I am not your friend if I am any part of the occasion that hinders you from accepting it. Yet I am sure my intentions towards you are very innocent and good, for you are one of those whose interests I shall ever prefer much above my own; and you are not to thank me for it, since, to speak truth, I secure my own by it; for I defy my ill fortune to make me miserable, unless she does it in the persons of my friends. I wonder how your father came to know I was in town, unless my old friend, your cousin Hammond, should tell him. Pray, for my sake, be a very obedient son; all your faults will be laid to my charge else, and, alas! I have too many of my own.

You say nothing how your sister does, which makes me hope there is no more of danger in her sickness. Pray, when it may be no trouble to her, tell her how much I am her servant; and have a care of yourself this cold weather. I have read your Reine Marguerite, and will return it you when you please. If you will have my opinion of her, I think she had a good deal of wit, and a great deal of patience for a woman of so high a spirit. She speaks with too much indifference of her husband's several amours, and commends Bussy as if she were a little concerned in him. I think her a better sister than a wife, and believe she might have made a better wife to a better husband. But the story of Mademoiselle de Tournon is so sad, that when I had read it I was able to go no further, and was fain to take up something else to divert myself withal. Have you read Cleopatre? I have six tomes on't here that I can lend you if you have not; there are some stories in't you will like, I believe. But what an ass am I to think you can be idle enough at London to read romance! No, I'll keep them till you come hither; here they may be welcome to you for want of better company. Yet, that you may not imagine we are quite out of the world here, and so be frighted from coming, I can assure you we are seldom without news, such as it is; and at this present we do abound with stories of my Lady Sunderland and Mr. Smith; with what reverence he approaches her, and how like a gracious princess she receives him, that they say 'tis worth one's going twenty miles to see it. All our ladies are mightily pleased with the example, but I do not find that the men intend to follow it, and I'll undertake Sir Solomon Justinian wishes her in the Indias, for fear she should pervert his new wife.

Your fellow-servant kisses your hands, and says, "If you mean to make love to her old woman this is the best time you can take, for she is dying; this cold weather kills her, I think." It has undone me, I am sure, in killing an old knight that I have been waiting for this seven year, and now he dies and will leave me nothing, I believe, but leaves a rich widow for somebody. I think you had best come a wooing to her; I have a good interest in her, and it shall be all employed in your service if you think fit to make any addresses there. But to be sober now again, for God's sake send me word how your journey goes forward, when you think you shall begin it, and how long it may last, when I may expect your coming this way; and of all things, remember to provide a safe address for your letters when you are abroad. This is a strange, confused one, I believe; for I have been called away twenty times, since I sat down to write it, to my father, who is not well; but you will pardon it—we are past ceremony, and excuse me if I say no more now but that I am toujours le mesme, that is, ever

Your affectionate friend and servant.

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 Cleopatre, 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

Your affectionate friend and servant.

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 L5000 besides the reversion of an estate will like bare L4000? 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—

Your faithful friend and servant.

Letter 12.

SIR,—There shall be two posts this week, for my brother sends his groom up, and I am resolved to make some advantage of it. Pray, what the paper denied me in your last, let me receive by him. Your fellow-servant is a sweet jewel to tell tales of me. The truth is, I cannot deny but that I have been very careless of myself, but, alas! who would have been other? I never thought my life worth my care whilst nobody was concerned in't but myself; now I shall look upon't as something that you would not lose, and therefore shall endeavour to keep it for you. But then you must return my kindness with the same care of a life that's much dearer to me. I shall not be so unreasonable as to desire that, for my satisfaction, you should deny yourself a recreation that is pleasing to you, and very innocent, sure, when 'tis not used in excess, but I cannot consent you should disorder yourself with it, and Jane was certainly in the right when she told you I would have chid if I had seen you so endanger a health that I am so much concerned in. But for what she tell you of my melancholy you must not believe; she thinks nobody in good humour unless they laugh perpetually, as Nan and she does, which I was never given to much, and now I have been so long accustomed to my own natural dull humour that nothing can alter it. 'Tis not that I am sad (for as long as you and the rest of my friends are well), I thank God I have no occasion to be so, but I never appear to be very merry, and if I had all that I could wish for in the world, I do not think it would make any visible change in my humour. And yet with all my gravity I could not but laugh at your encounter in the Park, though I was not pleased that you should leave a fair lady and go lie upon the cold ground. That is full as bad as overheating yourself at tennis, and therefore remember 'tis one of the things you are forbidden. You have reason to think your father kind, and I have reason to think him very civil; all his scruples are very just ones, but such as time and a little good fortune (if we were either of us lucky to it) might satisfy. He may be confident I can never think of disposing myself without my father's consent; and though he has left it more in my power than almost anybody leaves a daughter, yet certainly I were the worst natured person in the world if his kindness were not a greater tie upon me than any advantage he could have reserved. Besides that, 'tis my duty, from which nothing can ever tempt me, nor could you like it in me if I should do otherwise, 'twould make me unworthy of your esteem; but if ever that may be obtained, or I left free, and you in the same condition, all the advantages of fortune or person imaginable met together in one man should not be preferred before you. I think I cannot leave you better than with this assurance. 'Tis very late, and having been abroad all this day, I knew not till e'en now of this messenger. Good-night to you. There need be no excuse for the conclusion of your letter. Nothing can please me better. Once more good-night. I am half in a dream already.

Your

Letter 13.—There is some allusion here to an inconstant lover of my Lady Diana Rich, who seems to have deserted his mistress on account of the sore eyes with which, Dorothy told us in a former letter, her friend was afflicted.

I cannot find any account of the great shop above the Exchange, "The Flower Pott." There were two or three "Flower Pots" in London at this time, one in Leadenhall Street and another in St. James' Market. An interesting account of the old sign is given in a work on London tradesmen's tokens, in which it is said to be "derived from the earlier representations of the salutations of the angel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary, in which either lilies were placed in his hand, or they were set as an accessory in a vase. As Popery declined, the angel disappeared, and the lily-pot became a vase of flowers; subsequently the Virgin was omitted, and there remained only the vase of flowers. Since, to make things more unmistakeable, two debonair gentlemen, with hat in hand, have superseded the floral elegancies of the olden time, and the poetry of the art seems lost."

SIR,—I am glad you 'scaped a beating, but, in earnest, would it had lighted on my brother's groom. I think I should have beaten him myself if I had been able. I have expected your letter all this day with the greatest impatience that was possible, and at last resolved to go out and meet the fellow; and when I came down to the stables, I found him come, had set up his horse, and was sweeping the stable in great order. I could not imagine him so very a beast as to think his horses were to be serv'd before me, and therefore was presently struck with an apprehension he had no letter for me: it went cold to my heart as ice, and hardly left me courage enough to ask him the question; but when he had drawled it out that he thought there was a letter for me in his bag, I quickly made him leave his broom. 'Twas well 'tis a dull fellow, he could not [but] have discern'd else that I was strangely overjoyed with it, and earnest to have it; for though the poor fellow made what haste he could to untie his bag, I did nothing but chide him for being so slow. Last I had it, and, in earnest, I know not whether an entire diamond of the bigness on't would have pleased me half so well; if it would, it must be only out of this consideration, that such a jewel would make me rich enough to dispute you with Mrs. Chambers, and perhaps make your father like me as well. I like him, I'll swear, and extremely too, for being so calm in a business where his desires were so much crossed. Either he has a great power over himself, or you have a great interest in him, or both. If you are pleased it should end thus, I cannot dislike it; but if it would have been happy for you, I should think myself strangely unfortunate in being the cause that it went not further. I cannot say that I prefer your interest before my own, because all yours are so much mine that 'tis impossible for me to be happy if you are not so; but if they could be divided I am certain I should. And though you reproached me with unkindness for advising you not to refuse a good offer, yet I shall not be discouraged from doing it again when there is occasion, for I am resolved to be your friend whether you will or no. And, for example, though I know you do not need my counsel, yet I cannot but tell you that I think 'twere very well that you took some care to make my Lady B. your friend, and oblige her by your civilities to believe that you were sensible of the favour was offered you, though you had not the grace to make good use on't. In very good earnest now, she is a woman (by all that I have heard of her) that one would not lose; besides that, 'twill become you to make some satisfaction for downright refusing a young lady—'twas unmercifully done.

Would to God you would leave that trick of making excuses! Can you think it necessary to me, or believe that your letters can be so long as to make them unpleasing to me? Are mine so to you? If they are not, yours never will be so to me. You see I say anything to you, out of a belief that, though my letters were more impertinent than they are, you would not be without them nor wish them shorter. Why should you be less kind? If your fellow-servant has been with you, she has told you I part with her but for her advantage. That I shall always be willing to do; but whensoever she shall think fit to serve again, and is not provided of a better mistress, she knows where to find me.

I have sent you the rest of Cleopatre, pray keep them all in your hands, and the next week I will send you a letter and directions where you shall deliver that and the books for my lady. Is it possible that she can be indifferent to anybody? Take heed of telling me such stories; if all those excellences she is rich in cannot keep warm a passion without the sunshine of her eyes, what are poor people to expect; and were it not a strange vanity in me to believe yours can be long-lived? It would be very pardonable in you to change, but, sure, in him 'tis a mark of so great inconstancy as shows him of an humour that nothing can fix. When you go into the Exchange, pray call at the great shop above, "The Flower Pott." I spoke to Heams, the man of the shop, when I was in town, for a quart of orange-flower water; he had none that was good then, but promised to get me some. Pray put him in mind of it, and let him show it you before he sends it me, for I will not altogether trust to his honesty; you see I make no scruple of giving you little idle commissions, 'tis a freedom you allow me, and that I should be glad you would take. The Frenchman that set my seals lives between Salisbury House and the Exchange, at a house that was not finished when I was there, and the master of the shop, his name is Walker, he made me pay 50s. for three, but 'twas too dear. You will meet with a story in these parts of Cleopatre that pleased me more than any that ever I read in my life; 'tis of one Delie, pray give me your opinion of her and her prince. This letter is writ in great haste, as you may see; 'tis my brother's sick day, and I'm not willing to leave him long alone. I forgot to tell you in my last that he was come hither to try if he can lose an ague here that he got in Gloucestershire. He asked me for you very kindly, and if he knew I writ to you I should have something to say from him besides what I should say for myself if I had room.

Yrs.

Letter 14.—This letter contains the most interesting political reference of the whole series. Either Temple has written Dorothy an account of Cromwell's dissolving the Long Parliament, or perhaps some news-letter has found its way to Chicksands with the astounding news. All England is filled with intense excitement over Cromwell's coup d'etat; and it cannot be uninteresting to quote a short contemporary account of the business. Algernon Sydney's father, the Earl of Leicester, whose journal has already been quoted, under date Wednesday, April 20th, 1653, writes as follows:—"My Lord General came into the House clad in plain black clothes with grey worsted stockings, and sat down, as he used to do, in an ordinary place." Then he began to speak, and presently "he put on his hat, went out of his place, and walked up and down the stage or floor in the midst of the House, with his hat on his head, and chid them soundly." After this had gone on for some time, Colonel Harrison was called in to remove the Speaker, which he did; "and it happened that Algernon Sydney sat next to the Speaker on the right hand. The General said to Harrison, 'Put him out!'

"Harrison spake to Sydney to go out, but he said he would not go out and waited still.

"The General said again, 'Put him out!' Then Harrison and Wortley [Worsley] put their hands upon Sydney's shoulders as if they would force him to go out. Then he rose and went towards the door."

Such is the story which reaches Dorothy, and startles all England at this date.

SIR,—That you may be sure it was a dream that I writ that part of my letter in, I do not now remember what it was I writ, but seems it was very kind, and possibly you owe the discovery on't to my being asleep. But I do not repent it, for I should not love you if I did not think you discreet enough to be trusted with the knowledge of all my kindness. Therefore 'tis not that I desire to hide it from you, but that I do not love to tell it; and perhaps if you could read my heart, I should make less scruple of your seeing on't there than in my letters.

I can easily guess who the pretty young lady is, for there are but two in England of that fortune, and they are sisters, but I am to seek who the gallant should be. If it be no secret, you may tell me. However, I shall wish him all good success if he be your friend, as I suppose he is by his confidence in you. If it be neither of the Spencers, I wish it were; I have not seen two young men that looked as if they deserved better fortunes so much as those brothers.

But, bless me, what will become of us all now? Is not this a strange turn? What does my Lord Lisle? Sure this will at least defer your journey? Tell me what I must think on't; whether it be better or worse, or whether you are at all concern'd in't? For if you are not I am not, only if I had been so wise as to have taken hold of the offer was made me by Henry Cromwell, I might have been in a fair way of preferment, for, sure, they will be greater now than ever. Is it true that Algernon Sydney was so unwilling to leave the House, that the General was fain to take the pains to turn him out himself? Well, 'tis a pleasant world this. If Mr. Pim were alive again, I wonder what he would think of these proceedings, and whether this would appear so great a breach of the Privilege of Parliament as the demanding the 5 members? But I shall talk treason by and by if I do not look to myself. 'Tis safer talking of the orange-flower water you sent me. The carrier has given me a great charge to tell you that it came safe, and that I must do him right. As you say, 'tis not the best I have seen, nor the worst.

I shall expect your Diary next week, though this will be but a short letter: you may allow me to make excuses too sometimes; but, seriously, my father is now so continuously ill, that I have hardly time for anything. 'Tis but an ague that he has, but yet I am much afraid that is more than his age and weakness will be able to bear; he keeps his bed, and never rises but to have it made, and most times faints with that. You ought in charity to write as much as you can, for, in earnest, my life here since my father's sickness is so sad that, to another humour than mine, it would be unsupportable; but I have been so used to misfortunes, that I cannot be much surprised with them, though perhaps I am as sensible of them as another. I'll leave you, for I find these thoughts begin to put me in ill humour; farewell, may you be ever happy. If I am so at all, it is in being

Your

Letter 15.—What Temple had written about Mr. Arbry's prophecy and "the falling down of the form," we cannot know. Mr. Arbry was probably William Erbury, vicar of St. Mary's, Cardiff, a noted schismatic. He is said to have been a "holy, harmless man," but incurred both the hate and ridicule of his opponents. Many of his tracts are still extant, and they contain extravagant prophecies couched in the peculiar phraseology of the day.

The celebrated Sir Samuel Luke was a near neighbour of the Osbornes, and Mr. Luke was one of his numerous family. Sir Samuel was Lord of the Manor of Hawnes, and in the Hawnes parish register there are notices of the christenings of his sons and daughters. Sir Samuel was not only a colonel in the Parliament Army, but Scout-Master-General in the counties of Bedford and Surrey. Samuel Butler, the author of Hudibras, lived with Sir Samuel Luke as his secretary, at some date prior to the Restoration; and Dr. Grey, his learned editor, believes that he wrote Hudibras about that time, "because he had then the opportunity to converse with those living characters of rebellion, nonsense, and hypocrisy which he so lively and pathetically exposes throughout the whole work." Sir Samuel is said himself to be the original "Hudibras;" and if Dr. Grey's conjecture on this matter is a right one, we have already in our minds a very complete portrait of Dorothy's neighbour.

The old ballad that Dorothy encloses to her lover has not been preserved with her letter. If it is older than the ballad of "The Lord of Lorne," it must have been composed before Henry VIII.'s reign; for Edward Guilpin, in his Skialethia [1598], speaks of

Th' olde ballad of the Lord of Lorne, Whose last line in King Harrie's day was borne.

"The Lord of Learne" (this was the old spelling) may be found in Bishop Percy's well-known collection of Ballads and Romances.

SIR,—You must pardon me, I could not burn your other letter for my life; I was so pleased to see I had so much to read, and so sorry I had done so soon, that I resolved to begin them again, and had like to have lost my dinner by it. I know not what humour you were in when you writ it; but Mr. Arbry's prophecy and the falling down of the form did a little discompose my gravity. But I quickly recovered myself with thinking that you deserved to be chid for going where you knew you must of necessity lose your time. In earnest, I had a little scruple when I went with you thither, and but that I was assured it was too late to go any whither else, and believed it better to hear an ill sermon than none, I think I should have missed his Belles remarques. You had repented you, I hope, of that and all other your faults before you thought of dying.

What a satisfaction you had found out to make me for the injuries you say you have done me! And yet I cannot tell neither (though 'tis not the remedy I should choose) whether that were not a certain one for all my misfortunes; for, sure, I should have nothing then to persuade me to stay longer where they grow, and I should quickly take a resolution of leaving them and the world at once. I agree with you, too, that I do not see any great likelihood of the change of our fortunes, and that we have much more to wish than to hope for; but 'tis so common a calamity that I dare not murmur at it; better people have endured it, and I can give no reason why (almost) all are denied the satisfaction of disposing themselves to their own desires, but that it is a happiness too great for this world, and might endanger one's forgetting the next; whereas if we are crossed in that which only can make the world pleasing to us, we are quickly tired with the length of our journey and the disquiet of our inns, and long to be at home. One would think it were I who had heard the three sermons and were trying to make a fourth; these are truths that might become a pulpit better than Mr. Arbry's predictions. But lest you should think I have as many worms in my head as he, I'll give over in time, and tell you how far Mr. Luke and I are acquainted. He lives within three or four miles of me, and one day that I had been to visit a lady that is nearer him than me, as I came back I met a coach with some company in't that I knew, and thought myself obliged to salute. We all lighted and met, and I found more than I looked for by two damsels and their squires. I was afterwards told they were of the Lukes, and possibly this man might be there, or else I never saw him; for since these times we have had no commerce with that family, but have kept at great distance, as having on several occasions been disobliged by them. But of late, I know not how, Sir Sam has grown so kind as to send to me for some things he desired out of this garden, and withal made the offer of what was in his, which I had reason to take for a high favour, for he is a nice florist; and since this we are insensibly come to as good degrees of civility for one another as can be expected from people that never meet.

Who those demoiselles should be that were at Heamses I cannot imagine, and I know so few that are concerned in me or my name that I admire you should meet with so many that seem to be acquainted with it. Sure, if you had liked them you would not have been so sullen, and a less occasion would have served to make you entertain their discourse if they had been handsome. And yet I know no reason I have to believe that beauty is any argument to make you like people; unless I had more on't myself. But be it what it will that displeased you, I am glad they did not fright you away before you had the orange-flower water, for it is very good, and I am so sweet with it a days that I despise roses. When I have given you humble thanks for it, I mean to look over your other letter and take the heads, and to treat of them in order as my time and your patience shall give me leave.

And first for my Sheriff, let me desire you to believe he has more courage than to die upon a denial. No (thanks be to God!), none of my servants are given to that; I hear of many every day that do marry, but of none that do worse. My brother sent me word this week that my fighting servant is married too, and with the news this ballad, which was to be sung in the grave that you dreamt of, I think; but because you tell me I shall not want company then, you may dispose of this piece of poetry as you please when you have sufficiently admired with me where he found it out, for 'tis much older than that of my "Lord of Lorne." You are altogether in the right that my brother will never be at quiet till he sees me disposed of, but he does not mean to lose me by it; he knows that if I were married at this present, I should not be persuaded to leave my father as long as he lives; and when this house breaks up, he is resolved to follow me if he can, which he thinks he might better do to a house where I had some power than where I am but upon courtesy myself. Besides that, he thinks it would be to my advantage to be well bestowed, and by that he understands richly. He is much of your sister's humour, and many times wishes me a husband that loved me as well as he does (though he seems to doubt the possibility on't), but never desires that I should love that husband with any passion, and plainly tells me so. He says it would not be so well for him, nor perhaps for me, that I should; for he is of opinion that all passions have more of trouble than satisfaction in them, and therefore they are happiest that have least of them. You think him kind from a letter that you met with of his; sure, there was very little of anything in that, or else I should not have employed it to wrap a book up. But, seriously, I many times receive letters from him, that were they seen without an address to me or his name, nobody would believe they were from a brother; and I cannot but tell him sometimes that, sure, he mistakes and sends me letters that were meant to his mistress, till he swears to me that he has none.

Next week my persecution begins again; he comes down, and my cousin Molle is already cured of his imaginary dropsy, and means to meet here. I shall be baited most sweetly, but sure they will not easily make me consent to make my life unhappy to satisfy their importunity. I was born to be very happy or very miserable, I know not which, but I am very certain that you will never read half this letter 'tis so scribbled; but 'tis no matter, 'tis not much worth it.

Your most faithful friend and servant.

Letter 16.—The trial of Lord Chandos for killing Mr. Compton in a duel was, just at this moment, exciting the fickle attention of the town, which had probably said its say on the subject of Cromwell's coup d'etat, and was only too ready for another subject of conversation. The trial is not reported among the State Trials, but our observant friend the Earl of Leicester has again taken note of the matter in his journal, and can give us at least his own ideas of the trial and its political and social importance. Under date May 1653, he writes:—"Towards the end of Easter Term, the Lord Chandos, for killing in duel Mr. Compton the year before," that is to say, in March; the new year begins on March 25th, "and the Lord Arundel of Wardour, one of his seconds, were brought to their trial for their lives at the Upper Bench in Westminster Hall, when it was found manslaughter only, as by a jury at Kingston-upon-Thames it had been found formerly. The Lords might have had the privilege of peerage (Justice Rolles being Lord Chief Justice), but they declined it by the advice of Mr. Maynard and the rest of their counsel, least by that means the matter might have been brought about again, therefore they went upon the former verdict of manslaughter, and so were acquitted; yet to be burned in the hand, which was done to them both a day or two after, but very favourably." These were the first peers that had been burned in the hand, and the democratic Earl of Leicester expresses at the event some satisfaction, and derives from the whole circumstances of the trial comfortable assurance of the power and stability of the Government. The Earl, however, misleads us in one particular. Lord Arundel was Henry Compton's second. He had married Cecily Compton, and naturally enough acted as his brother-in-law's second. It is also interesting to remember that Lord Chandos was known to the world as something other than a duelist. He was an eminent loyalist, among the first of those nobles who left Westminster, and at Newbury fight had his three horses killed under him. Lady Carey was Mary, natural daughter of Lord Scrope, who married Henry Carey, commonly called Lord Leppington. Lady Leppington (or Carey) lost her husband in 1649, and her son died May 24, 1653. This helps us to date the letter. Of her "kindness to Compton," of which Dorothy writes in her next letter, nothing is known, but she married Charles Paulet, Lord St. John, afterwards the Duke of Bolton, early in 1654.

The jealous Sir T—— here mentioned may be Sir Thomas Osborne, who, we may suppose, was not well pleased at the refusal of his offer.

Sir Peter Lely did paint a portrait of Lady Diana Rich some months after this date. It is somewhat curious that he should remain in England during the Civil Wars; but his business was to paint all men's portraits. He had painted Charles I.; now he was painting Cromwell. It was to him Cromwell is said to have shouted: "Paint the warts! paint the warts!" when the courtly Sir Peter would have made a presentable picture even of the Lord General himself. Cromwell was a sound critic in this, and had detected the main fault of Sir Peter's portraits, whose value to us is greatly lessened by the artist's constant habit of flattery.

SIR,—If it were the carrier's fault that you stayed so long for your letters, you are revenged, for I have chid him most unreasonably. But I must confess 'twas not for that, for I did not know it then, but going to meet him (as I usually do), when he gave me your letter I found the upper seal broken open, and underneath where it uses to be only closed with a little wax, there was a seal, which though it were an anchor and a heart, methought it did not look like yours, but less, and much worse cut. This suspicion was so strong upon me, that I chid till the poor fellow was ready to cry, and swore to me that it had never been touched since he had it, and that he was careful of it, as he never put it with his other letters, but by itself, and that now it come amongst his money, which perhaps might break the seal; and lest I should think it was his curiosity, he told me very ingenuously he could not read, and so we parted for the present. But since, he has been with a neighbour of mine whom he sometimes delivers my letters to, and begged her that she would go to me and desire my worship to write to your worship to know how the letter was sealed, for it has so grieved him that he has neither eat nor slept (to do him any good) since he came home, and in grace of God this shall be a warning to him as long as he lives. He takes it so heavily that I think I must be friends with him again; but pray hereafter seal your letters, so that the difficulty of opening them may dishearten anybody from attempting it.

It was but my guess that the ladies at Heams' were unhandsome; but since you tell me they were remarkably so, sure I know them by it; they are two sisters, and might have been mine if the Fates had so pleased. They have a brother that is not like them, and is a baronet besides. 'Tis strange that you tell me of my Lords Shandoys [Chandos] and Arundel; but what becomes of young Compton's estate? Sure my Lady Carey cannot neither in honour nor conscience keep it; besides that, she needs it less now than ever, her son (being, as I hear) dead.

Sir T., I suppose, avoids you as a friend of mine. My brother tells me they meet sometimes, and have the most ado to pull off their hats to one another that can be, and never speak. If I were in town I'll undertake he would venture the being choked for want of air rather than stir out of doors for fear of meeting me. But did you not say in your last that you took something very ill from me? If 'twas my humble thanks, well, you shall have no more of them then, nor no more servants. I think that they are not necessary among friends.

I take it very kindly that your father asked for me, and that you were not pleased with the question he made of the continuance of my friendship. I can pardon it him, because he does not know me, but I should never forgive you if you could doubt it. Were my face in no more danger of changing than my mind, I should be worth the seeing at threescore; and that which is but very ordinary now, would then be counted handsome for an old woman; but, alas! I am more likely to look old before my time with grief. Never anybody had such luck with servants; what with marrying and what with dying, they all leave me. Just now I have news brought me of the death of an old rich knight that has promised me this seven years to marry me whensoever his wife died, and now he's dead before her, and has left her such a widow, it makes me mad to think on't, L1200 a year jointure and L20,000 in money and personal estate, and all this I might have had if Mr. Death had been pleased to have taken her instead of him. Well, who can help these things? But since I cannot have him, would you had her! What say you? Shall I speak a good word for you? She will marry for certain, and perhaps, though my brother may expect I should serve him in it, yet if you give me commission I'll say I was engaged beforehand for a friend, and leave him to shift for himself. You would be my neighbour if you had her, and I should see you often. Think on't, and let me know what you resolve? My lady has writ me word that she intends very shortly to sit at Lely's for her picture for me; I give you notice on't, that you may have the pleasure of seeing it sometimes whilst 'tis there. I imagine 'twill be so to you, for I am sure it would be a great one to me, and we do not use to differ in our inclinations, though I cannot agree with you that my brother's kindness to me has anything of trouble in't; no, sure, I may be just to you and him both, and to be a kind sister will take nothing from my being a perfect friend.

Letter 17.—Lady Newcastle was Margaret Duchess of Newcastle. "The thrice noble, chaste, and virtuous, but again somewhat fantastical and original-brained, generous Margaret Newcastle," as Elia describes her. She was the youngest daughter of Sir Charles Lucas, and was born at Colchester towards the end of the reign of James I. Her mother appears to have been remarkably careful of her education in all such lighter matters as dancing, music, and the learning of the French tongue; but she does not seem to have made any deep study of the classics. In 1643 she joined the Court at Oxford, and was made one of the Maids of Honour to Henrietta Maria, whom she afterwards attended in exile. At Paris she met the Marquis of Newcastle, who married her in that city in 1645. From Paris they went to Rotterdam, she leaving the Queen to follow her husband's fortunes; and after stopping at Rotterdam and Brabant for short periods, they settled at Antwerp.

At the Restoration she returned to England with her husband, and employed her time in writing letters, plays, poems, philosophical discourses, and orations. There is a long catalogue of her works in Ballard's Memoirs, but all published at a date subsequent to 1653. However, from Anthony Wood and other sources one gathers somewhat different details of her life and writings; and the book to which Dorothy refers here and in Letter 21, is probably the Poems and Fancies, an edition of which was published, I believe, in this year [1653]. Many of her verses are more strangely incomprehensible than anything even in the poetry of to-day. Take, for instance, a poem of four lines, from the Poems and Fancies, entitled—

THE JOINING OF SEVERAL FIGUR'D ATOMS MAKES OTHER FIGURES.

Several figur'd Atoms well agreeing When joined, do give another figure being. For as those figures joined several ways The fabrick of each several creature raise.

This seems to be a rhyming statement of the Atomic theory, but whether it is a poem or a fancy we should find it hard to decide. It is not, however, an unfair example of Lady Newcastle's fantastic style. Lady Newcastle died in 1673, and was buried in Westminster Abbey,—"A wise, witty, and learned Lady, which her many books do well testify."

SIR,—I received your letter to-day, when I thought it almost impossible that I should be sensible of anything but my father's sickness and my own affliction in it. Indeed, he was then so dangerously ill that we could not reasonably hope he should outlive this day; yet he is now, I thank God, much better, and I am come so much to myself with it, as to undertake a long letter to you whilst I watch by him. Towards the latter end it will be excellent stuff, I believe; but, alas! you may allow me to dream sometimes. I have had so little sleep since my father was sick that I am never thoroughly awake. Lord, how I have wished for you! Here do I sit all night by a poor moped fellow that serves my father, and have much ado to keep him awake and myself too. If you heard the wise discourse that is between us, you would swear we wanted sleep; but I shall leave him to-night to entertain himself, and try if I can write as wisely as I talk. I am glad all is well again. In earnest, it would have lain upon my conscience if I had been the occasion of making your poor boy lose a service, that if he has the wit to know how to value it, he would never have forgiven me while he had lived.

But while I remember it, let me ask you if you did not send my letter and Cleopatre where I directed you for my lady? I received one from her to-day full of the kindest reproaches, that she has not heard from me this three weeks. I have writ constantly to her, but I do not so much wonder that the rest are lost, as that she seems not to have received that which I sent to you nor the books. I do not understand it, but I know there is no fault of yours in't. But, mark you! if you think to 'scape with sending me such bits of letters, you are mistaken. You say you are often interrupted, and I believe it; but you must use then to begin to write before you receive mine, and whensoever you have any spare time allow me some of it. Can you doubt that anything can make your letters cheap? In earnest, 'twas unkindly said, and if I could be angry with you it should be for that. No, certainly they are, and ever will be, dear to me as that which I receive a huge contentment by. How shall I long when you are gone your journey to hear from you! how shall I apprehend a thousand accidents that are not likely nor will ever happen, I hope! Oh, if you do not send me long letters, then you are the cruellest person that can be! If you love me you will; and if you do not, I shall never love myself. You need not fear such a command as you mention. Alas! I am too much concerned that you should love me ever to forbid it you; 'tis all that I propose of happiness to myself in the world. The burning of my paper has waked me; all this while I was in a dream. But 'tis no matter, I am content you should know they are of you, and that when my thoughts are left most at liberty they are the kindest. I swear my eyes are so heavy that I hardly see what I write, nor do I think you will be able to read it when I have done; the best on't is 'twill be no great loss to you if you do not, for, sure, the greatest part on't is not sense, and yet on my conscience I shall go on with it. 'Tis like people that talk in their sleep, nothing interrupts them but talking to them again, and that you are not like to do at this distance; besides that, at this instant you are, I believe, more asleep than I, and do not so much as dream that I am writing to you. My fellow-watchers have been asleep too, till just now they begin to stretch and yawn; they are going to try if eating and drinking can keep them awake, and I am kindly invited to be of their company; and my father's man has got one of the maids to talk nonsense to to-night, and they have got between them a bottle of ale. I shall lose my share if I do not take them at their first offer. Your patience till I have drunk, and then I'll for you again.

And now on the strength of this ale, I believe I shall be able to fill up this paper that's left with something or other; and first let me ask you if you have seen a book of poems newly come out, made by my Lady Newcastle? For God's sake if you meet with it send it to me; they say 'tis ten times more extravagant than her dress. Sure, the poor woman is a little distracted, she could never be so ridiculous else as to venture at writing books, and in verse too. If I should not sleep this fortnight I should not come to that. My eyes grow a little dim though, for all the ale, and I believe if I could see it this is most strangely scribbled. Sure, I shall not find fault with your writing in haste, for anything but the shortness of your letter; and 'twould be very unjust in me to tie you to a ceremony that I do not observe myself. No, for God's sake let there be no such thing between us; a real kindness is so far beyond all compliment, that it never appears more than when there is least of t'other mingled with it. If, then, you would have me believe yours to be perfect, confirm it to me by a kind freedom. Tell me if there be anything that I can serve you in, employ me as you would do that sister that you say you love so well. Chide me when I do anything that is not well, but then make haste to tell me that you have forgiven me, and that you are what I shall ever be, a faithful friend.

Letter 18.—I cannot pass by this letter without saying that the first part of it is, to my thinking, the most dainty and pleasing piece of writing that Dorothy has left us. The account of her life, one day and every day, is like a gust of fresh country air clearing away the mist of time and enabling one to see Dorothy at Chicksands quite clearly. It is fashionable to deny Macaulay everything but memory; but he had the good taste and discernment to admire this letter, and quote from it in his Essay on Sir William Temple,—a quotation for which I shall always remain very grateful to him.

Sir Thomas Peyton, "Brother Peyton," was born in 1619, being, I believe, the second baronet of that name; his seat was at Knowlton, in the county of Kent. Early in the reign of Charles I. we find him as Member of Parliament for Sandwich, figuring in a Committee side by side with the two Sir Harry Vanes; the Committee having been sent into Kent to prevent the dispersal of rumours to the scandal of Parliament,—no light task, one would think. In 1643 he is in prison, charged among other things with being a malignant. An unjust charge, as he thinks; for he writes to his brother, "If to wish on earth peace, goodwill towards men, be a malignant, none is greater than your affectionate brother, Thomas Peyton." But in spite of these peaceful thoughts in prison, in May 1648 he is heading a loyalist rising in Kent. The other counties not joining in at the right moment, in accordance with the general procedure at Royalist risings, it is defeated by Fairfax. Sir Thomas's house is ransacked, he himself is taken prisoner near Bury St. Edmunds, brought to the House of Commons, and committed to the Tower. A right worthy son-in-law of good Sir Peter. We are glad to find him at large again in 1653, his head safe on his shoulders, and do not grudge him his grant of duties on sea-coal, dated 1660; nor are we sorry that he should once again grace the House of Commons with his presence as one of the members for loyal Kent in the good days when the King enjoyed his own again.

SIR,—I have been reckoning up how many faults you lay to my charge in your last letter, and I find I am severe, unjust, unmerciful, and unkind. Oh me, how should one do to mend all these! 'Tis work for an age, and 'tis to be feared I shall be so old before I am good, that 'twill not be considerable to anybody but myself whether I am so or not. I say nothing of the pretty humour you fancied me in, in your dream, because 'twas but a dream. Sure, if it had been anything else, I should have remembered that my Lord L. loves to have his chamber and his bed to himself. But seriously, now, I wonder at your patience. How could you hear me talk so senselessly, though 'twere but in your sleep, and not be ready to beat me? What nice mistaken points of honour I pretended to, and yet could allow him room in the same bed with me! Well, dreams are pleasant things to people whose humours are so; but to have the spleen, and to dream upon't, is a punishment I would not wish my greatest enemy. I seldom dream, or never remember them, unless they have been so sad as to put me into such disorder as I can hardly recover when I am awake, and some of those I am confident I shall never forget.

You ask me how I pass my time here. I can give you a perfect account not only of what I do for the present, but of what I am likely to do this seven years if I stay here so long. I rise in the morning reasonably early, and before I am ready I go round the house till I am weary of that, and then into the garden till it grows too hot for me. About ten o'clock I think of making me ready, and when that's done I go into my father's chamber, from whence to dinner, where my cousin Molle and I sit in great state in a room, and at a table that would hold a great many more. After dinner we sit and talk till Mr. B. comes in question, and then I am gone. The heat of the day is spent in reading or working, and about six or seven o'clock I walk out into a common that lies hard by the house, where a great many young wenches keep sheep and cows, and sit in the shade singing of ballads. I go to them and compare their voices and beauties to some ancient shepherdesses that I have read of, and find a vast difference there; but, trust me, I think these are as innocent as those could be. I talk to them, and find they want nothing to make them the happiest people in the world but the knowledge that they are so. Most commonly, when we are in the midst of our discourse, one looks about her, and spies her cows going into the corn, and then away they all run as if they had wings at their heels. I, that am not so nimble, stay behind; and when I see them driving home their cattle, I think 'tis time for me to return too. When I have supped, I go into the garden, and so to the side of a small river that runs by it, when I sit down and wish you were with me (you had best say this is not kind neither). In earnest, 'tis a pleasant place, and would be much more so to me if I had your company. I sit there sometimes till I am lost with thinking; and were it not for some cruel thoughts of the crossness of our fortunes that will not let me sleep there, I should forget that there were such a thing to be done as going to bed.

Since I writ this my company is increased by two, my brother Harry and a fair niece, the eldest of my brother Peyton's children. She is so much a woman that I am almost ashamed to say I am her aunt; and so pretty, that, if I had any design to gain of servants, I should not like her company; but I have none, and therefore shall endeavour to keep her here as long as I can persuade her father to spare her, for she will easily consent to it, having so much of my humour (though it be the worst thing in her) as to like a melancholy place and little company. My brother John is not come down again, nor am I certain when he will be here. He went from London into Gloucestershire to my sister who was very ill, and his youngest girl, of which he was very fond, is since dead. But I believe by that time his wife has a little recovered her sickness and loss of her child, he will be coming this way. My father is reasonably well, but keeps his chamber still, and will hardly, I am afraid, ever be so perfectly recovered as to come abroad again.

I am sorry for poor Walker, but you need not doubt of what he has of yours in his hands, for it seems he does not use to do his work himself. I speak seriously, he keeps a Frenchman that sets all his seals and rings. If what you say of my Lady Leppington be of your own knowledge, I shall believe you, but otherwise I can assure you I have heard from people that pretend to know her very well, that her kindness to Compton was very moderate, and that she never liked him so well as when he died and gave her his estate. But they might be deceived, and 'tis not so strange as that you should imagine a coldness and an indifference in my letters when I so little meant it; but I am not displeased you should desire my kindness enough to apprehend the loss of it when it is safest. Only I would not have you apprehend it so far as to believe it possible,—that were an injury to all the assurances I have given you, and if you love me you cannot think me unworthy. I should think myself so, if I found you grew indifferent to me, that I have had so long and so particular a friendship for; but, sure, this is more than I need to say. You are enough in my heart to know all my thoughts, and if so, you know better than I can tell you how much I am

Yours.

Letter 19.—Lady Ruthin is Susan, daughter and heiress of Charles Longueville Lord Grey de Ruthin. She married Sir Harry Yelverton, a match of which Dorothy thoroughly approved. We hear more of Dorothy's beautiful friend at the time when the treaty with Sir Harry Yelverton is going forward. Of Mr. Talbot I find nothing; we must rest contented in knowing him to be a fellow-servant.

R. Spencer is Robert Spencer, Earl of Sunderland, Lady Sunderland's brother-in-law. He was afterwards one of the inner council of four in Temple's Scheme of Government. "In him," says Macaulay, in a somewhat highly-coloured character-sketch, "the political immortality of his age was personified in the most lively manner. Nature had given him a keen understanding, a restless and mischievous temper, a cold heart, and an abject spirit. His mind had undergone a training by which all his vices had been nursed up to the rankest maturity."

Lady Lexington was Mary, daughter of Sir Anthony Leger; she was the third wife of Robert Sutton, Earl of Lexington. I cannot find that her daughter married one of the Spencers.

SIR,—If to know I wish you with me pleases you, 'tis a satisfaction you may always have, for I do it perpetually; but were it really in my power to make you happy, I could not miss being so myself, for I know nothing else I want towards it. You are admitted to all my entertainments; and 'twould be a pleasing surprise to me to see you amongst my shepherdesses. I meet some there sometimes that look very like gentlemen (for 'tis a road), and when they are in good humour they give us a compliment as they go by; but you would be so courteous as to stay, I hope, if we entreated you; 'tis in your way to this place, and just before the house. 'Tis our Hyde Park, and every fine evening, anybody that wanted a mistress might be sure to find one there. I have wondered often to meet my fair Lady Ruthin there alone; methinks it should be dangerous for an heir. I could find in my heart to steal her away myself, but it should be rather for her person than her fortune. My brother says not a word of you, nor your service, nor do I expect he should; if I could forget you, he would not help my memory. You would laugh, sure, if I could tell you how many servants he has offered me since he came down; but one above all the rest I think he is in love with himself, and may marry him too if he pleases, I shall not hinder him. 'Tis one Talbot, the finest gentleman he has seen this seven years; but the mischief on't is he has not above fifteen or sixteen hundred pound a year, though he swears he begins to think one might bate L500 a year for such a husband. I tell him I am glad to hear it; and if I was as much taken (as he) with Mr. Talbot, I should not be less gallant; but I doubted the first extremely. I have spleen enough to carry me to Epsom this summer; but yet I think I shall not go. If I make one journey, I must make more, for then I have no excuse. Rather than be obliged to that, I'll make none. You have so often reproached me with the loss of your liberty, that to make you some amends I am contented to be your prisoner this summer; but you shall do one favour for me into the bargain. When your father goes into Ireland, lay your commands upon some of his servants to get you an Irish greyhound. I have one that was the General's; but 'tis a bitch, and those are always much less than the dogs. I got it in the time of my favour there, and it was all they had. Henry Cromwell undertook to write to his brother Fleetwood for another for me; but I have lost my hopes there. Whomsoever it is that you employ, he will need no other instructions but to get the biggest he can meet with; 'tis all the beauty of those dogs, or of any kind, I think. A masty [mastif] is handsomer to me than the most exact little dog that ever lady played withal. You will not offer to take it ill that I employ you in such a commission, since I have told you that the General's son did not refuse it; but I shall take it ill if you do not take the same freedom with me whensoever I am capable of serving you. The town must needs be unpleasant now, and, methinks, you might contrive some way of having your letters sent to you without giving yourself the trouble of coming to town for them when you have no other business; you must pardon me if I think they cannot be worth it.

I am told that R. Spencer is a servant to a lady of my acquaintance, a daughter of my Lady Lexington's. Is it true? And if it be, what is become of the L2500 lady? Would you think it, that I have an ambassador from the Emperor Justinian, that comes to renew the treaty? In earnest, 'tis true, and I want your counsel extremely, what to do in it. You told me once that of all my servants you liked him the best. If I could do so too, there were no dispute in't. Well, I'll think on't, and if it succeed I will be as good as my word; you shall take your choice of my four daughters. Am not I beholding to him, think you? He says that he has made addresses, 'tis true, in several places since we parted, but could not fix anywhere; and, in his opinion, he sees nobody that would make so fit a wife for him as I. He has often inquired after me to hear if I were marrying, and somebody told him I had an ague, and he presently fell sick of one too, so natural a sympathy there is between us; and yet for all this, on my conscience, we shall never marry. He desires to know whether I am at liberty or not. What shall I tell him? Or shall I send him to you to know? I think that will be best. I'll say that you are much my friend, and that I have resolved not to dispose of myself but with your consent and approbation, and therefore he must make all his court to you; and when he can bring me a certificate under your hand, that you think him a fit husband for me, 'tis very likely I may have him. Till then I am his humble servant and your faithful friend.

Letter 20.—In this letter the journey into Sweden is given up finally, and Temple is once more without employment or the hope of employment. This was probably brought about by the alteration of the Government plans; and as Lord Lisle was not to go to Sweden, there was no chance of Temple's being attached to the Embassy.

SIR,—I am sorry my last letter frighted you so; 'twas no part of my intention it should; but I am more sorry to see by your first chapter that your humour is not always so good as I could wish it. 'Twas the only thing I ever desired we might differ in, and therefore I think it is denied me. Whilst I read the description on't, I could not believe but that I had writ it myself, it was so much my own. I pity you in earnest much more than I do myself; and yet I may deserve yours when I shall have told you, that besides all that you speak of, I have gotten an ague that with two fits has made me so very weak, that I doubted extremely yesterday whether I should be able to sit up to-day to write to you. But you must not be troubled at this; that's the way to kill me indeed. Besides, it is impossible I should keep it long, for here is my eldest brother, and my cousin Molle, and two or three more that have great understanding in agues, as people that have been long acquainted with them, and they do so tutor and govern me, that I am neither to eat, drink, nor sleep without their leave; and, sure, my obedience deserves they should cure me, or else they are great tyrants to very little purpose. You cannot imagine how cruel they are to me, and yet will persuade me 'tis for my good. I know they mean it so, and therefore say nothing on't, I admit, and sigh to think those are not here that would be kinder to me. But you were cruel yourself when you seemed to apprehend I might oblige you to make good your last offer. Alack! if I could purchase the empire of the world at that rate, I should think it much too dear; and though, perhaps, I am too unhappy myself ever to make anybody else happy, yet, sure, I shall take heed that my misfortunes may not prove infectious to my friends. You ask counsel of a person that is very little able to give it. I cannot imagine whither you should go, since this journey is broke. You must e'en be content to stay at home, I think, and see what will become of us, though I expect nothing of good; and, sure, you never made a truer remark in your life than that all changes are for the worse. Will it not stay your father's journey too? Methinks it should. For God's sake write me all that you hear or can think of, that I may have something to entertain myself withal. I have a scurvy head that will not let me write longer.

I am your.

[Directed]—

For Mrs. Paynter, at her house in Bedford Street, next ye Goate, In Covent Garden.

Letter 21.—Sir Thomas Osborne is Dorothy's "Cousin Osborne" here mentioned. He was, you remember, a suitor for Dorothy's hand, but has now married Lady Bridget Lindsay.

The "squire that is as good as a knight," is, in all probability, Richard Bennet. Thomas Bennet, his father, an alderman of the city of London, had bought a seat near Cambridge, called Babraham or Babram, that had belonged to Sir Toby Palavicini. The alderman appears to have been a loyal citizen, as he was created baronet in 1660. His two sons, Sir Richard and Sir Thomas, married daughters of Sir Lavinius Munck;—so we need not accuse Dorothy of irretrievably breaking hearts by her various refusals.

When Dorothy says she will "sit like the lady of the lobster, and give audience at Babram," she simply means that she will sit among magnificent surroundings unsuited to her modest disposition. The "lady" of a lobster is a curious-shaped substance in the head of that fish, bearing some distant resemblance to the figure of a woman. The expression is still known to fishmongers and others, who also refer to the "Adam and Eve" in a shrimp, a kindred formation. Curiously enough, this very phrase has completely puzzled Dr. Grosart, the learned editor of Herrick, who confesses that he can make nothing of the allusion in the following passage from The Fairie Temple:—

"The saint to which the most he prayes, And offers Incense Nights and Dayes, The Lady of the Lobster is Whose foot-pace he doth stroak and kiss."

Swift, too, uses the phrase in his Battle of the Books in describing the encounter between Virgil and Dryden, where he says, "The helmet was nine times too large for the head, which appeared situate far in the hinder part, even like the lady in a lobster, or a mouse under a canopy of state, or like a shrivelled beau from within the penthouse of a modern periwig."

SIR,—I do not know that anybody has frighted me, or beaten me, or put me into more passion than what I usually carry about me, but yesterday I missed my fit, and am not without hope I shall hear no more on't. My father has lost his too, and my eldest brother, but we all look like people risen from the dead. Only my cousin Molle keeps his still; and, in earnest, I am not certain whether he would lose it or not, for it gives him a lawful occasion of being nice and cautious about himself, to which he in his own humour is so much inclined that 'twere not easy for him to forbear it. You need not send me my Lady Newcastle's book at all, for I have seen it, and am satisfied that there are many soberer people in Bedlam. I'll swear her friends are much to blame to let her go abroad.

But I am hugely pleased that you have seen my Lady. I knew you could not choose but like her; but yet, let me tell you, you have seen but the worst of her. Her conversation has more charms than can be in mere beauty, and her humour and disposition would make a deformed person appear lovely. You had strange luck to meet my brother so soon. He went up but last Tuesday. I heard from him on Thursday, but he did not tell me he had seen you; perhaps he did not think it convenient to put me in mind of you; besides, he thought he told me enough in telling me my cousin Osborne was married. Why did you not send me that news and a garland? Well, the best on't is I have a squire now that is as good as a knight. He was coming as fast as a coach and six horses could carry him, but I desired him to stay till my ague was gone, and give me a little time to recover my good looks; for I protest if he saw me now he would never deign to see me again. Oh, me! I can but think how I shall sit like the lady of the lobster, and give audience at Babram. You have been there, I am sure. Nobody that is at Cambridge 'scapes it. But you were never so welcome thither as you shall be when I am mistress on't. In the meantime, I have sent you the first tome of Cyrus to read; when you have done with it, leave it at Mr. Hollingsworth's, and I'll send you another. I have had ladies with me all the afternoon that are for London to-morrow, and now I have as many letters to write as my Lord General's Secretary. Forgive me that this is no longer, for

I am your.

Addressed—

For Mrs. Paynter, at her house in Bedford Street, next ye Goate, In Covent Garden.

Letter 22.—Mr. Fish and Mr. Freeman were probably neighbours of Dorothy. There is a Mr. Ralph Freeman of Aspedon Hall, in Hertfordshire, mentioned in contemporary chronicles; he died in 1714, aged 88, and was therefore about 37 years of age at this time. His father seems to have been an ideal country gentleman, "who," says Sir Henry Chauncy, "made his house neat, his gardens pleasant, his groves delicious, his children cheerful, his servants easy, and kept excellent order in his family."

SIR,—You are more in my debt than you imagine. I never deserved a long letter so much as now, when you sent me a short one. I could tell you such a story ('tis too long to be written) as would make you see (what I never discover'd in myself before) that I am a valiant lady. In earnest, we have had such a skirmish, and upon so foolish an occasion, as I cannot tell which is strangest. The Emperor and his proposals began it; I talked merrily on't till I saw my brother put on his sober face, and could hardly then believe he was in earnest. It seems he was, for when I had spoke freely my meaning, it wrought so with him as to fetch up all that lay on his stomach. All the people that I had ever in my life refused were brought again upon the stage, like Richard the III.'s ghosts, to reproach me withal; and all the kindness his discoveries could make I had for you was laid to my charge. My best qualities (if I have any that are good) served but for aggravations of my fault, and I was allowed to have wit and understanding and discretion in other things, that it might appear I had none in this. Well, 'twas a pretty lecture, and I grew warm with it after a while; in short, we came so near an absolute falling out, that 'twas time to give over, and we said so much then that we have hardly spoken a word together since. But 'tis wonderful to see what curtseys and legs pass between us; and as before we were thought the kindest brother and sister, we are certainly the most complimental couple in England. 'Tis a strange change, and I am very sorry for it, but I'll swear I know not how to help it. I look upon't as one of my great misfortunes, and I must bear it, as that which is not my first nor likely to be my last. 'Tis but reasonable (as you say) that you should see me, and yet I know not now how it can well be. I am not for disguises, it looks like guilt, and I would not do a thing I durst not own. I cannot tell whether (if there were a necessity of your coming) I should not choose to have it when he is at home, and rather expose him to the trouble of entertaining a person whose company (here) would not be pleasing to him, and perhaps an opinion that I did it purposely to cross him, than that your coming in his absence should be thought a concealment. 'Twas one reason more than I told you why I resolv'd not to go to Epsom this summer, because I knew he would imagine it an agreement between us, and that something besides my spleen carried me thither; but whether you see me or not you may be satisfied I am safe enough, and you are in no danger to lose your prisoner, since so great a violence as this has not broke her chains. You will have nothing to thank me for after this; my whole life will not yield such another occasion to let you see at what rate I value your friendship, and I have been much better than my word in doing but what I promised you, since I have found it a much harder thing not to yield to the power of a near relation, and a greater kindness than I could then imagine it.

To let you see I did not repent me of the last commission, I'll give you another. Here is a seal that Walker set for me, and 'tis dropt out; pray give it him to mend. If anything could be wonder'd at in this age, I should very much how you came by your informations. 'Tis more than I know if Mr. Freeman be my servant. I saw him not long since, and he told me no such thing. Do you know him? In earnest, he's a pretty gentleman, and has a great deal of good nature, I think, which may oblige him perhaps to speak well of his acquaintances without design. Mr. Fish is the Squire of Dames, and has so many mistresses that anybody may pretend a share in him and be believed; but though I have the honour to be his near neighbour, to speak freely, I cannot brag much that he makes any court to me; and I know no young woman in the country that he does not visit often.

I have sent you another tome of Cyrus, pray send the first to Mr. Hollingsworth for my Lady. My cousin Molle went from hence to Cambridge on Thursday, and there's an end of Mr. Bennet. I have no company now but my niece Peyton, and my brother will be shortly for the term, but will make no long stay in town. I think my youngest brother comes down with him. Remember that you owe me a long letter and something for forgiving your last. I have no room for more than

Your.

Letter 23.

SIR,—I will tell you no more of my servants. I can no sooner give you some little hints whereabouts they live, but you know them presently, and I meant you should be beholding to me for your acquaintance. But it seems this gentleman is not so easy access, but you may acknowledge something due to me, if I incline him to look graciously upon you, and therefore there is not much harm done. What has kept him from marrying all this time, or how the humour comes so furiously upon him now, I know not; but if he may be believed, he is resolved to be a most romance squire, and go in quest of some enchanted damsel, whom if he likes, as to her person (for fortune is a thing below him),—and we do not read in history that any knight or squire was ever so discourteous as to inquire what portions their ladies had,—then he comes with the power of the county to demand her, (which for the present he may dispose of, being Sheriff), so I do not see who is able to resist him. All that is to be hoped is, that since he may reduce whomsoever he pleases to his obedience, he will be very curious in his choice, and then I am secure.

It may be I dreamt it that you had met my brother, or else it was one of the reveries of my ague; if so, I hope I shall fall into no more of them. I have missed four fits, and had but five, and have recovered so much strength as made me venture to meet your letter on Wednesday, a mile from home. Yet my recovery will be nothing towards my leaving this place, where many reasons will oblige me to stay at least all this summer, unless some great alteration should happen in this family; that which I most own is my father's ill-health, which, though it be not in that extremity it has been, yet keeps him still a prisoner in his chamber, and for the most part to his bed, which is reason enough. But, besides, I can give you others. I am here much more out of people's way than in town, where my aunt and such as pretend an interest in me, and a power over me, do so persecute me with their good nature, and take it so ill that they are not accepted, as I would live in a hollow tree to avoid them. Here I have nobody but my brother to torment me, whom I can take the liberty to dispute with, and whom I have prevailed with hitherto to bring none of his pretenders to this place, because of the noise all such people make in a country, and the tittle-tattle it breeds among neighbours that have nothing to do but to inquire who marries and who makes love. If I can but keep him still in that humour Mr. Bennet and I are likely to preserve our state and treat at distance like princes; but we have not sent one another our pictures yet, though my cousin Molle, who was his agent here, begged mine very earnestly. But, I thank God, an imagination took him one morning that he was falling into a dropsy, and made him in such haste to go back to Cambridge to his doctor, that he never remembers anything he has to ask of me, but the coach to carry him away. I lent it most willingly, and gone he is. My eldest brother goes up to town on Monday too; perhaps you may see him, but I cannot direct you where to find him, for he is not yet resolved himself where to lie; only 'tis likely Nan may tell you when he is there. He will make no stay, I believe. You will think him altered (and, if it be possible) more melancholy than he was. If marriage agrees no better with other people than it does with him, I shall pray that all my friends may 'scape it. Yet if I were my cousin, H. Danvers, my Lady Diana should not, if I could help it, as well as I love her: I would try if ten thousand pound a year with a husband that doted on her, as I should do, could not keep her from being unhappy. Well, in earnest, if I were a prince, that lady should be my mistress, but I can give no rule to any one else, and perhaps those that are in no danger of losing their hearts to her may be infinitely taken with one I should not value at all; for (so says the Justinian) wise Providence has ordained it that by their different humours everybody might find something to please themselves withal, without envying their neighbours. And now I have begun to talk gravely and wisely, I'll try if I can go a little further without being out. No, I cannot, for I have forgot already what 'twas I would have said; but 'tis no matter, for, as I remember, it was not much to the purpose, and, besides, I have paper little enough left to chide you for asking so unkind a question as whether you were still the same in my thoughts. Have you deserved to be otherwise; that is, am I no more in yours? For till that be, it's impossible the other should; but that will never be, and I shall always be the same I am. My heart tells me so, and I believe it; for were it otherwise, Fortune would not persecute me thus. Oh, me! she's cruel, and how far her power may reach I know not, only I am sure, she cannot call back time that is past, and it is long since we resolved to be for ever

Most faithful friends.

Letter 24.—Tom Cheeke is Sir Thomas Cheeke, Knight, of Purgo, in the county of Essex, or more probably his son, from the way Dorothy speaks of him; but it is difficult to discriminate among constant generations of Toms after a lapse of two hundred years. We find Sir Thomas's daughter was at this time the third wife of Lord Manchester; and it appears that Dorothy's great-grandfather married Catherine Cheeke, daughter of the then Sir Thomas. This will assist us to the connection between Dorothy, Tom Cheeke, and Lord Manchester. Sir Richard Franklin, Knight, married a daughter of Sir Thomas Cheeke. He purchased Moor Park, Hertfordshire, about this time. The park and the mansion he bought in 1652 from the Earl of Monmouth, and the manor in 1655 from Sir Charles Harbord. The gardens had been laid out by the Countess of Bedford, who had sold the place in 1626 to the Earl of Pembroke. The house was well known to Temple, who describes the gardens in his Essay on Gardening; and when he retired in later years to an estate near Farnham in Surrey, he gave to it the name of Moor Park.

Lord Manchester was Edward Montagu, second Earl of Manchester. He was educated at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, and sat for Huntingdonshire in the first two Parliaments of Charles I. He was called to the Upper House as Lord Kimbolton in 1626, and succeeded his father in 1642. His name is well known in history as that of the leader of the Puritans in the House of Lords, and as the only peer joined with the five members impeached by the King. He raised a regiment and fought under Essex at Edgehill, reconquered Lincolnshire, and took part in the battle of Marston Moor. At this time Cromwell was his subordinate, and to his directions Lord Manchester's successes are in all probability due. At the second battle of Newbury, Lord Manchester showed some hesitation in following up his success, and Cromwell accused him of lukewarmness in the cause from his place in the House of Commons. An inquiry was instituted, but the Committee never carried out their investigations, and in parliamentary language the matter then dropped. He afterwards held, among other offices, that of Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, and inducted a visitation and reform of that University. He resisted the trial of the King and the foundation of the Commonwealth, refused to sit in Cromwell's new House of Lords, and was among those Presbyterians who helped to bring about the Restoration.

Cooper and Hoskins were famous miniature painters of the day. Samuel Cooper was a nephew of John Hoskins, who instructed him in the art of miniature painting, in which he soon out-rivalled his master. Cooper, who is styled by contemporary eulogists the "prince of limners," gave a strength and freedom to the art which it had not formerly possessed; but where he attempted to express more of the figure than the head, his drawing is defective. His painting was famous for the beauty of his carnation tints, and the loose flowing lines in which he described the hair of his model. He was a friend of the famous Samuel Butler. Hoskins, though a painter of less merit, had had the honour of painting His Majesty King Charles I., his Queen, and many members of the Court; and had passed through the varying fortunes of a fashionable portrait-painter, whose position, leaning as it does on the fickle approbation of the connoisseurs, is always liable to be wrested from him by a younger rival.

It is noticeable that this is the first letter in which we have intimation of the world's gossip about Dorothy's love affairs. We may, perhaps not unfairly, trace the growth of Dorothy's affection for Temple by the actions of others. First her brother raises his objections, and then her relations begin to gossip; meanwhile the letters do not grow less kind.

SIR,—You amaze me with your story of Tom Cheeke. I am certain he could not have had it where you imagine, and 'tis a miracle to me that he remember that there is such a one in the world as his cousin D.O. I am sure he has not seen her this six year, and I think but once in his life. If he has spread his opinion in that family, I shall quickly hear on't, for my cousin Molle is now gone to Kimbolton to my Lord Manchester, and from there he goes to Moor Park to my cousin Franklin's, and in one, or both, he will be sure to meet with it. The matter is not great, for I confess I do naturally hate the noise and talk of the world, and should be best pleased never to be known in't upon any occasion whatsoever; yet, since it can never be wholly avoided, one must satisfy oneself by doing nothing that one need care who knows. I do not think a propos to tell anybody that you and I are very good friends, and it were better, sure, if nobody knew it but we ourselves. But if, in spite of all our caution, it be discovered, 'tis no treason nor anything else that's ill; and if anybody should tell me that I have had a greater kindness and esteem for you than for any one besides, I do not think I should deny it; howsoever you do, oblige me by not owning any such thing, for as you say, I have no reason to take it ill that you endeavour to preserve me a liberty, though I'm never likely to make use on't. Besides that, I agree with you too that certainly 'tis much better you should owe my kindness to nothing but your own merit and my inclination, than that there should lie any other necessity upon me of making good my words to you.

For God's sake do not complain so that you do not see me; I believe I do not suffer less in't than you, but 'tis not to be helped. If I had a picture that were fit for you, you should have it. I have but one that's anything like, and that's a great one, but I will send it some time or other to Cooper or Hoskins, and have a little one drawn by it, if I cannot be in town to sit myself. You undo me by but dreaming how happy we might have been, when I consider how far we are from it in reality. Alas! how can you talk of defying fortune; nobody lives without it, and therefore why should you imagine you could? I know not how my brother comes to be so well informed as you say, but I am certain he knows the utmost of the injuries you have received from her. 'Tis not possible she should have used you worse than he says. We have had another debate, but much more calmly. 'Twas just upon his going up to town, and perhaps he thought it not fit to part in anger. Not to wrong him, he never said to me (whate'er he thought) a word in prejudice of you in your own person, and I never heard him accuse any but your fortune and my indiscretion. And whereas I did expect that (at least in compliment to me) he should have said we had been a couple of fools well met, he says by his troth he does not blame you, but bids me not deceive myself to think you have any great passion for me.