off, ye might judge me either to forget your gentleness, or to mistrust
your good will, who hath already so bound me unto you, as I shall rather
forget myself, and wish God also to forget me, than not labour with all
diligence and service to apply myself wholly to your will and purpose;
and that ye shall well know how much I assure myself on your goodness, I
will pass a piece of good manners, and be bold to borrow a little of
your small leisure from your weighty affairs in the commonwealth.
Therefore, if my letters shall find you at any leisure, they will
trouble you a little in telling you ate length, as I promised in my last
letters delivered unto you by Mr. Francis Yaxeley, why I am more
desirous to have your help for my stay at Cambridge still than for any
other kind of living elsewhere. I having now some experience of life led
at home and abroad, and knowing what I can do most fitly, and how I
would live most gladly, do well perceive there is no such quietness in
England, nor pleasure in strange countries, as even in St. John's
college, to keep company with the Bible, Plato, Aristotle, Demosthenes,
and Tully. Which my choice of quietness is not purposed to lie in
idleness, nor constrained by a wilful nature, because I will not or can
not serve elsewhere, when I trust I could apply myself to mo kinds of
life than I hope any need shall ever drive me to seek, but only because
in choosing aptly for myself I might bring some profit to many others.
And in this mine opinion I stand the more gladly, because it is grounded
upon the judgment of worthy Mr. Denny. For the summer twelvemonth before
he departed, dinner and supper he had me commonly with him, whose
excellent wisdom, mingled with so pleasant mirth, I can never forget:
emonges many other talks he would say oft unto me, if two duties did not
command him to serve, the one his prince, the other his wife, he would
surely become a student in St. John's, saying, "The Court, Mr. Ascham,
is a place so slippery, that duty never so well done, is not a staff
stiff enough to stand by always very surely, where ye shall many times
reap most unkindness where ye have sown greatest pleasures, and those
also ready to do you most hurt to whom you never intended to think any
harm." Which sentences I heard very gladly then, and felt them soon
after myself to be true. Thus I, first ready by mine own nature, then
moved by good counsel, after driven by ill fortune, lastly called by
quietness, thought it good to couch myself in Cambridge again. And in
very deed, too many be pluckt from thence before they be ripe, though I
myself am withered before I be gathered, and yet not so for that I have
stood too long, but rather because the fruit which I bear is so very
small. Yet seeing the goodly crop of Mr. Cheke is almost clean carried
from thence, and I in a manner alone of that time left a standing
straggler, peradventure though my fruit be very small, yet because the
ground from whence it sprung was so good, I may yet be thought somewhat
fit for seed, when all you the rest are taken up for better store,
wherewith the king and his realm is now so nobly served. And in such a
scarcity both of those, that were worthily called away when they were
fit, and of such as unwisely part from thence, before they be ready, I
dare now bolden myself, when the best be gone, to do some good among the
mean that do tarry, trusting that my diligence shall deal with my
disability, and the rather because the desire of shooting is so well
shot away in me, either ended by time or left off for better purpose.
Yet I do amiss to mislike shooting too much, which hath been hitherto my
best friend, and even now looking back to the pleasure which I found in
it, and perceiving small repentence to follow after it, by Plato's
judgment I may think well of it. No, it never called me to go from my
book, but it made both wit the lustier, and will the readier, to run to
it again, and perchance going back sometimes from learning may serve
even as well as it doth at leaping, to pass some of those which keep
always their standing at their book.
FOOTNOTES:
[80] The allusions to the writer's own _Toxophilus_ at the end require,
it is to be hoped, no annotation.
LADY MARY SIDNEY (?[81]-1586)
This "old Molly," as she so agreeably calls herself, was
very unfortunate in her father (that intrusive holder for a
short time of the title of Northumberland, who was offensive
in success and abject in adversity) and not too lucky in her
brother, Leicester. But she must have been far too good for
her own breed; she had an excellent husband, Sir Henry
Sidney, Deputy of Ireland and President of Wales, one of
Elizabeth's best deserving and worst treated servants, and
she was the mother of "Astrophel" and Astrophel's sister.
"One has known persons more unfortunate," as a famous phrase
of a French poem not very long after her own time has it.
And she must have thoroughly deserved good fortune: for her
letters show her as one of the best of wives and mothers (if
not of spellers): though it is quite possible that she might
not have made a good jurywoman or a good member of
parliament. As her husband was not merely governor
(repeatedly and with such success as was possible) of
Ireland, but "President of Wales," they usually, when in
England but not at Court or at Penshurst, lived at Ludlow
Castle and so enjoyed two of the most beautiful homes in the
country. But Sir Henry in these and other functions had seas
of trouble, great expenses, and according to "Gloriana's"
wont, very small thanks for it all. He is said, indeed, to
have had his life shortened by weariness and worry. But his
son and daughter[82] may have been a comfort to him: and his
wife must have been so. The letter itself, as will be seen,
is not to himself but to his secretary: and there was more
correspondence on the subject of their lodging and its
difficulties. Lady Mary was not well, and there must be a
place to see friends, and the Queen might come in! The
original letter[83] is better spelt than others of hers, the
principal curiosity being the form "hit" for "it," which,
however, is by no means peculiar.
5. TO EDWARD MOLINEUX, ESQ.
You have used the matter very well; but we must do more yet for the good
dear Lord [her husband] than let him be thus dealt withal. Hampton Court
I never yet knew so full as there were not spare rooms in it, when it
has been thrice better filled than at the present it is. But some would
be sorry, perhaps, my Lord should have so sure a footing in the Court.
Well, all may be as well when the good God will. The whilst, I pray let
us do what we may for our Lord's ease and quiet. Whereunto I think if
you go to my Lord Howard, and in my Lord's name also move his Lordship
to shew his brother my Lord, (as they call each other)--to show him a
cast of his office[84] and that it should not be known allege your
former causes, I think he will find out some place to serve that
purpose. And also if you go to Mr Bowyer,[85] the gentleman-Usher, and
tell him his mother requireth him (which is myself) to help my Lord
with some one room, but only for the dispatch of the multitude of Welsh
and Irish people that follow him; and that you will give your word in my
Lord's behalf and mine, it shall not be accounted as a lodging[86] or
known of, I believe he will make what shift he can: you must assure him
it is but for the day-time for his business, as indeed it is.
As for my brother's answer of[87] my stay here for five or six days, he
knows I have ventured far already with so long absence, and am ill
thought of for it,[88] so as that may not be. But when the worst is
known, old Lord Harry and his old Moll will do as well as they can in
parting[89] like good friends the small portion allotted our long
service in Court, which as little as it is, seems something too
much.[90] And this being all I can say to the matter, farewell, Mr. Ned.
In haste this Monday 1578,
your assured loving mistress and friend,
M. SYDNEY.
If all this will not serve, prove[91] Mr Huggins, for I know my Lord
would not for no good be destitute in this time for some convenient
place for his followers and friends to resort to him, which in the case
I am in, is not possible to be in _my_ chamber till after sunset, when
the dear good Lord shall be, as best becomes him, Lord of his own.
FOOTNOTES:
[81] Her birth-date does not seem to be known, but she was married in
1551.
[82] He had another, of the (for an English girl) very unusual name of
"Ambros[z]ia" who died unmarried, at twenty.
[83] Most kindly copied for me by the Rev. W. Hunt from Arthur Collins's
_Sydney Papers_.
[84] An agreeable phrase, not in the least obsolete, though I have known
ignorant persons who thought it so. The "office" was that of Lord
Chamberlain; the holder was Lord Howard of Effingham, afterwards famous
in the Armada fights.
[85] See _Kenilworth_ (chap. xvi.), where Scott brings him in as
experiencing Gloriana's extreme uncertainty of temper.
[86] _I.e._ a permanent one such as Hampton Court affords to some.
[87] "About"?
[88] Either by the Queen herself, whose touchiness is well known, or by
jealous and mischief-making fellow courtiers.
[89] "Sharing."
[90] "Is grudged."
[91] We should say "try."
GEORGE CLIFFORD EARL OF CUMBERLAND
(1558-1605)
This not very fortunate or wholly blameless but very
remarkable and representative person was the third holder of
the earldom and the sixteenth of the famous barony of
Clifford. He was great-grandson of Wordsworth's "Shepherd
Lord"; father of Anne Countess of Dorset, Pembroke and
Montgomery (pupil of Daniel the poet and a typical great
lady of her time); one of the foremost of Elizabeth's
privateering courtiers; one of the chief victims of her
caprice and parsimony; a magnificent noble, but a great
spendthrift, something of a libertine, never unkindly but
hardly ever wise. This remarkable deathbed letter (the
giving of which depended on the kindness of Dr. G. C.
Williamson of Hampstead, author of the _Life and Voyages of
G. Clifford, 3rd Earl of Cumberland_, Cambridge University
Press, 1920, in which it appeared, p. 270-1), pretty well
explains itself. "Sweet Meg," his wife, was Lady Margaret
Russell, daughter of the Earl of Bedford. The pair were on
very affectionate terms for many years: but had latterly
been estranged by certain infidelities on the Earl's part
and by money disputes and difficulties, so that when his
last illness attacked him Lady Cumberland was not with him.
She was not, however, proof against this repentant appeal:
but returned with her daughter. Both were present at his
death in the Savoy soon after he wrote. He had made,
personally or by deputy, ten if not twelve voyages against
the Spaniards, and though there was a good deal of
mismanagement about them he took Porto Rico in one;
captured, but made little profit out of, an enormously
valuable prize, the _Madre de Dios_, in another; gave the
warning which enabled Lord Thomas Howard to escape, but
which Sir Richard Grenville refused to take "at Flores, in
the Azores"; and built at his own expense, the largest
privateer then or perhaps ever constructed, the _Malice
Scourge_--for the remarkable subsequent history of which,
see Mr. David Hannay's article, "_The Saga of a Ship_," in
_Blackwood_, May, 1921.
6.
Sweet and dear Meg,
Bear[92] with, I pray thee, the short and unapt setting together of
these my last lines, a token of true kindness, which I protest cometh
out of an unfeigned heart of love to thee. For whose content, and to
make satisfaction for the wrongs done to thee I have, since I saw thee
more desired to return than for any other earthly cause. But being so
low brought that, without God's miraculous favour, there is no great
likelihood of it I, by this, if so it please God that I shall not, in
earnestness make my last requests, which as ever thou lovest me lying
so, I pray thee perform for me being dead. First, in greedy earnestness
I desire thee not to offend God in grieving too much at His disposing of
me: but let my assured hope that He hath done it for the saving of my
soul rather comfort thee, considering that we ought most to rejoice,
when we see a thing that it is either for the good of our souls or of
our friends. And further I beg of thee that thou wilt take, as I have
meant, in kindness the course I have set down for disposing of my estate
and things left behind. Which truly, if I have not dealt most kindly
with thee in, I am mistaken, and as ever thou lovest, (which I know thou
hast done faithfully and truly) sweet Meg, let neither old conceit, new
opinion, nor false lying tale, make thee fall to hard opinion nor suit
with my brother. For this I protest now, when I tremble to speak that
which upon any just colour may be turned to a lie, thou hast conceived
wrong of him, for his nature is sweet, and though wrong conceit might
well have urged him, yet he hath never to my knowledge said or done
anything to harm thee or mine, but with tears hath often bemoaned
himself to me that he could not devise how to make thee conceive rightly
of him. And lastly, before the presence of God, I command thee, and in
the nearest love of my heart I desire thee, to take great care that
sweet Nan[93] whom God bless, may be carefully brought up in the fear of
God, not to delight in worldly vanities, which I too well know be but
baits to draw her out of the heavenly kingdom. And I pray thee thank thy
kind uncle and aunt for her (?) and their many kindnesses to me. Thus,
out of the bitter and greedy desire of a repentant heart, begging thy
pardon for any wrong that ever in my life I did thee, I commend these my
requests to thy wonted and undeserved kind wifely and lovely
consideration, my body to God's disposing and my love (soul?) to His
merciful commisseration.
Thine as wholly as man was ever woman's,
GEORGE CUMBERLAND.
To my dear wife, the Countess of Cumberland, give this, of whom, from
the bottom of my heart in the presence of God, I ask forgiveness for all
the wrongs I have done her.
FOOTNOTES:
[92] There is, as often, little or no punctuation in the original, of
which Dr. Williamson's beautiful book gives a facsimile. I have ventured
to adjust that of the printed text, here and there, to bring out the
meaning.
[93] Lady Anne was at this time only 15. She seems to have been fond of
her father and proud of him: nor is there any direct evidence that the
fear of God was not in her. But she had no fear of man: and no excessive
respect for her father's will. During the lives of her uncle Francis and
her cousin Henry, 4th and 5th Earls, she fought it hard at law: and at
last, Henry dying without issue, and the title lapsing, came into
possession of the great Clifford estates in the North. She lived to be
86, and was masterful all her days.
JOHN DONNE (1573-1631)
"The first poet in the world for some things,"--as Ben
Jonson, who nevertheless did not like his metric, thought he
would perish for not being understood, and perhaps did not
understand him--called Donne with justice, might not be
thought likely to be among the first letter-writers. The
marvellous lightning-flashes of genius in a dark night of
context which illuminate his poetry and his sermons, can
hardly be expected--would indeed be almost out of place--in
ordinary letter-writing. Moreover, Donne is, perhaps, with
Browne, the most characteristic exponent of that magnificent
seventeenth century style which accommodates itself ill to
merely commonplace matters.
Browne, a younger man by an entire generation who lived far
into the age of Dryden, could drop this style when he chose:
with Donne it was rather the skin--if not even the very
flesh and bone and all but spirit--than the cloak of his
thought. Nevertheless there is no exact contemporary of
his--and certainly none possessing anything like his
literary power--who deserves selection as a representative
of his own school and time better than he does; and there is
something in him which adds distinction to any company in
which he appears. As mentioned in the Introduction, his
verse-epistles were even more noteworthy, but in prose he is
noteworthy enough.
The batch of letters here chosen was most fortunately
preserved by Izaak Walton, who published the first of them
_in_ the life not of Donne but of George Herbert, while the
rest were "added" to it in 1670.[94] The lady to whom they
were written, Magdalen Newport by maiden name, was mother
not only of the pious and poetical George, but of Edward
Lord Herbert of Cherbury, himself not a very bad poet but by
no means in the usual sense pious, a very great coxcomb, and
a hero chiefly by his own report. His mother, however, seems
to have been one of those "elect ladies" who were among the
chief glories of England in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, and were fortunately numerous. After her
widowhood she lived at Oxford for some time, but seems to
have moved to London when Donne, about 1607, wrote these
letters. He was himself living at Mitcham (spelt "Michin" in
one letter), not yet famous for golf though perhaps already
for lavender. Later he visited her at Montgomery Castle, the
famous seat of the Herberts. She is said to have been very
beautiful, and the subtle touch of not in the least fatuous
or foppish "devotion" is most agreeable.
7. TO THE LADY MAGDALEN HERBERT
Madam,
Your favours to me are everywhere. I use them, and have them. I enjoy
them at London, and leave them there: and yet find them at Mitcham. Such
riddles as these become things inexpressible: and such is your goodness.
I was almost sorry to find your servant here this day, because I was
loath to have any witness of my not coming home last night, and indeed
of my coming this morning. But my not coming was excusable, because
earnest business detained me; and my coming this day is by example of
your St. Mary Magdalen, who rose early upon Sunday, to seek that which
she loved most; and so did I. And, from her and myself, I return such
thanks as are due to one, to whom we owe all the good opinion that they,
whom we need most, have of us. By this messenger and on this good day, I
commit the enclosed Holy Hymns and Sonnets--which for the matter not the
workmanship have yet escaped the fire,--to your judgment and to your
protection too, if you think them worthy of it; and I have appointed
this enclosed Sonnet to usher them to your happy hand.
Your unworthiest servant unless your accepting
him to be so have mended him
JO. DONNE.
(MITCHAM July 11. 1607)
TO THE LADY MAGDALEN HERBERT: OF ST. MARY MAGDALEN
Her of your name, whose fair inheritance
Bethina was, and jointure Magdalo,
An active faith so highly did advance,
That she once knew, more than the church did know,
The Resurrection! so much good there is
Delivered of her, that some Fathers be
Loath to believe one woman could do this;
But think these Magdalens were two or three.
Increase their number, Lady, and their fame:
To their devotion, add your innocence;
Take so much of the example as the name
The latter half--and in some recompense
That they did harbour Christ Himself--a guest
Harbour these Hymns, to His dear Name addressed.
8. TO THE LADY MAGDALEN HERBERT
Madam,
Every excuse hath in it somewhat of accusation; and since I am innocent,
and yet must excuse, how shall I do for that part of accusing. By my
troth, as desperate and perplexed men, grow from thence bold; so must I
take the boldness of accusing you, who would draw so dark a Curtain
betwixt me and your purposes, as that I had no glimmering, neither of
your goings, nor the way which my Letters might haunt. Yet, I have given
this Licence to Travel, but I know not whither, nor it. It is therefore
rather a Pinnace to discover; and the entire Colony of Letters, of
Hundreds and Fifties, must follow; whose employment is more honourable,
than that which our State meditates to _Virginia_ because you are
worthier than all that Country, of which that is a wretched inch; for
you have better treasure and a harmlessness. If this sound like a
flattery, tear it out. I am to my Letters as rigid a Puritan as Caesar
was to his Wife. I can as ill endure a suspicious and misinterpretable
word as a fault; and of the grossest flatteries there is this good use,
that they tell us what we should be. But, _Madam_, you are beyond
instruction, and therefore there can belong to you only praise; of
which, though you be no good hearer, yet allow all my Letters leave to
have in them one part of it, which is thankfulness towards you.
_Your unworthiest Servant
Except your accepting
have mended him_
JOHN DONNE.
MITCHAM, July 11, 1607.
9. _To the worthiest Lady, Mrs._ MAGDALEN HERBER(T)
_Madam_,
This is my second Letter, in which though I cannot tell you what is
good, yet this is the worst, that I must be a great part of it; yet to
me, that is recompensed, because you must be mingled. After I knew you
were gone (for I must, little less than accusingly tell you, I knew not
you would go) I sent my first Letter, like a _Bevis of Hampton_, to seek
Adventures. This day I came to Town, and to the best part of it, your
House; for your memory is a State-cloth and Presence; which I reverence,
though you be away; though I need not seek that there which I have about
and within me. There, though I found my accusation, yet anything to
which your hand is, is a pardon; yet I would not burn my first Letter,
because as in great destiny no small passage can be omitted or
frustrated, so in my resolution of writing almost daily to you, I would
have no link of the Chain broke by me, both because my Letters interpret
one another, and because only their number can give them weight. If I
had your Commission and Instructions to do you the service of a Legier
Ambassador here, I could say something of the Countess of _Devon_: of
the States, and such things. But since to you, who are not only a World
alone, but the Monarchy of the World your self, nothing can be added,
especially by me; I will sustain myself with the honour of being
_Your Servant Extraordinary
And without place_
JOHN DONNE.
LONDON
July 23, 1607
10. _To the worthiest Lady, Mrs_. MAGDALEN HERBERT
_Madam_,
As we must die before we can have full glory and happiness, so before I
can have this degree of it, as to see you by a Letter, I must almost
die, that is, come to _London_, to plaguy _London_; a place full of
danger, and vanity, and vice, though the Court be gone. And such it will
be, till your return redeem it: Not that, the greatest virtue in the
World, which is you, can be such a Marshal, as to defeat, or disperse
all the vice of this place; but as higher bodies remove, or contract
themselves, when better come, so at your return we shall have one door
open to innocence. Yet, Madam, you are not such an Ireland, as produceth
neither ill, nor good; no Spiders or Nightingales, which is a rare
degree of perfection: But you have found and practised that experiment,
That even nature, out of her detesting of emptiness, if we will make
that our work to remove bad, will fill us with good things. To abstain
from it, was therefore but the Childhood and Minority of your Soul,
which hath been long exercised since, in your manlier active part, of
doing good. Of which since I have been a witness and subject, not to
tell you some times, that by your influence and example I have attained
to such a step of goodness, as to be thankful, were both to accuse your
power and judgment of impotency and infirmity.
_Your Ladyship's in all Services_,
JOHN DONNE.[95]
August 2d, 1607.
FOOTNOTES:
[94] Mr. Gosse (who has inserted them in his _Life and Letters of
Donne_) is perhaps right in putting letter 7 last. I give no opinion on
this but merely keep the order in which they originally appeared in the
text and in an appendix to the _Life of Herbert_ (1670 edit.). I am not
certain to which "first" the "second" in letter 9 refers. "Bevis of
Hampton" generally for "knight errant"; "Legier," a _resident_
Ambassador; "States" in the plural--always then "the Dutch";
_Snake_lessness is more often assigned to Ireland than spiderlessness.
[95] The first of these letters, with the sonnet, appears, I think, in
all editions of Walton, who has apparently entered the date wrongly. The
other three were copied for me from the 1670 original by Miss Elsie
Hitchcock, I have slightly modernised a few spellings in them.
JAMES HOWELL (1593-1666)
"The Father" of something is an expression in the history of
literature which has become, more justly than some other
traditional expressions, rather odious to the modern mind.
For in the first place it is an irritatingly conventional
phrase, and in the second the paternity is usually
questionable. But "the priggish little clerk of the
Council," as Thackeray (who nevertheless loved his letters)
calls Howell, does really seem to deserve the fathership of
all such as in English write unofficial letters "for
publication."[96] He wrote a great deal else: and would no
doubt in more recent times have been a "polygraphic"
journalist of some distinction. And he had plenty to write
about. He was an Oxford man; he travelled abroad on
commercial errands (though by no means as what has been more
recently called a "commercial traveller"); he was one of Ben
Jonson's "sons," a Royalist sufferer from the Rebellion, and
finally Historiographer Royal as well as Clerk to the
Council. His letters, which are sometimes only titularly
such[97] but sometimes quite natural, deal with all sorts of
subjects--from the murder of Buckingham by Felton to the
story of the Oxenham "White Bird" which Kingsley has
utilised in _Westward Ho!_ And, to do him justice, there is
a certain character about the book which is not _merely_ the
expression of the character of the writer, though no doubt
connected with it. Now the possession of this is what makes
a book literature. It has been usual to select from Howell's
letters of travel, and from historical ones like the
Buckingham one above mentioned. I have preferred the "White
Bird"; and before it one of several documents, of the same
or nearly the same period, which deal with the old English
life of country houses--between the mediaeval time and the
degradation of the "servant" class, which came in with the
eighteenth century or a little earlier. Howell would
evidently have echoed Isopel Berners--that admirable girl
whom George Borrow slighted--in saying, "Long Melford for
ever!" though the house would not with him, as with her,
have meant a workhouse. Neither letter seems to require
annotation.
11. TO DAN CALDWELL, ESQ., FROM THE LORD SAVAGE'S HOUSE IN LONG MELFORD
My dear Dan,