if he should ever enter on the dispute again. In earnest, I believed all
this before, but 'twas something an ignorant kind of faith in me. I was
satisfied myself, but could not tell how to persuade another of the
truth on't; and to speak indifferently, there are such multitudes that
abuse the names of love and friendship, and so very few that either
understand or practise it in reality, that it may raise great doubts
whether there is any such thing in the world or not, and such as do not
find it in themselves will hardly believe 'tis anywhere. But it will
easily be granted, that most people make haste to be miserable; that
they put on their fetters as inconsiderately as a woodcock runs into a
noose, and are carried by the weakest considerations imaginable to do a
thing of the greatest consequence of anything that concerns this world.
I was told by one (who pretends to know him very well) that nothing
tempted my cousin Osborne to marry his lady (so much) as that she was an
Earl's daughter; which methought was the prettiest fancy, and had the
least of sense in it, of any I had heard on, considering that it was no
addition to her person, that he had honour enough before for his
fortune, and how little it is esteemed in this age,--if it be anything
in a better,--which for my part I am not well satisfied in. Beside that,
in this particular it does not sound handsomely. My Lady Bridget Osborne
makes a worse name a great deal, methinks, than plain my Lady Osborne
would do.
I have been studying how Tom Cheeke might come by his intelligence, and
I verily believe he has it from my cousin Peters. She lives near them in
Essex, and in all likelihood, for want of other discourse to entertain
him withal, she has come out with all she knows. The last time I saw her
she asked me for you before she had spoke six words to me; and I, who of
all things do not love to make secrets of trifles, told her I had seen
you that day. She said no more, nor I neither; but perhaps it worked in
her little brain. The best on't is, the matter is not great, for though
I confess I had rather nobody knew it, yet 'tis that I shall never be
ashamed to own.
How kindly do I take these civilities of your father's; in earnest, you
cannot imagine how his letter pleased me. I used to respect him merely
as he was your father, but I begin now to owe it to himself; all that he
says is so kind and so obliging, so natural and so easy, that one may
see 'tis perfectly his disposition, and has nothing to disguise in it.
'Tis long since that I knew how well he writ, perhaps you have forgot
that you showed me a letter of his (to a French Marquis, I think, or
some such man of his acquaintance) when I first knew you; I remember it
very well, and that I thought it as handsome a letter as I had seen; but
I have not skill it seems, for I like yours too.
I can pardon all my cousin Franklin's little plots of discovery, if she
believed herself when she said she was confident our humours would agree
extremely well. In earnest, I think they do; for I mark that I am always
of your opinion, unless it be when you will not allow that you write
well, for there I am too much concerned. Jane told me t'other day very
soberly that we write very much alike. I think she said it with an
intent to please me, and did not fail in't; but if you write ill, 'twas
no great compliment to me. _À propos de_ Jane, she bids me tell you
that, if you liked your marmalade of quince, she would send you more,
and she thinks better, that has been made since.
'Twas a strange caprice, as you say, of Mrs. Harrison, but there is fate
as well as love in those things. The Queen took the greatest pains to
persuade her from it that could be; and (as somebody says, I know not
who) "Majesty is no ill orator;" but all would not do. When she had
nothing to say for herself, she told her she had rather beg with Mr.
Howard than live in the greatest plenty that could be with either my
Lord Broghill, Charles Rich, or Mr. Nevile,--for all these were dying
for her then. I am afraid she has altered her opinion since 'twas too
late, for I do not take Mr. Howard to be a person that can deserve one
should neglect all the world for him. And where there is no reason to
uphold a passion, it will sink of itself; but where there is, it may
last eternally.--I am yours.
_Letter 26._
SIR,--The day I should have received your letter I was invited to dine
at a rich widow's (whom I think I once told you of, and offered my
service in case you thought fit to make addresses there); and she was so
kind, and in so good humour, that if I had had any commission I should
have thought it a very fit time to speak. We had a huge dinner, though
the company was only of her own kindred that are in the house with her
and what I brought; but she is broke loose from an old miserable husband
that lived so long, she thinks if she does not make haste she shall not
have time to spend what he left. She is old and was never handsome, and
yet is courted a thousand times more than the greatest beauty in the
world would be that had not a fortune. We could not eat in quiet for the
letters and presents that came in from people that would not have looked
upon her when they had met her if she had been left poor. I could not
but laugh to myself at the meanness of their humour, and was merry
enough all day, for the company was very good; and besides, I expected
to find when I came home a letter from you that would be more a feast
and company to me than all that was there. But never anybody was so
defeated as I was to find none. I could not imagine the reason, only I
assured myself it was no fault of yours, but perhaps a just punishment
upon me for having been too much pleased in a company where you were
not.
After supper my brother and I fell into dispute about riches, and the
great advantages of it; he instanced in the widow that it made one
respected in the world. I said 'twas true, but that was a respect I
should not at all value when I owed it only to my fortune. And we
debated it so long till we had both talked ourselves weary enough to go
to bed. Yet I did not sleep so well but that I chid my maid for waking
me in the morning, till she stopped my mouth with saying she had letters
for me. I had not patience to stay till I could rise, but made her tie
up all the curtains to let in light; and among some others I found my
dear letter that was first to be read, and which made all the rest not
worth the reading. I could not but wonder to find in it that my cousin
Franklin should want a true friend when 'tis thought she has the best
husband in the world; he was so passionate for her before he had her,
and so pleased with her since, that, in earnest, I did not think it
possible she could have anything left to wish for that she had not
already in such a husband with such a fortune. But she can best tell
whether she is happy or not; only if she be not, I do not see how
anybody else can hope it. I know her the least of all the sisters, and
perhaps 'tis to my advantage that she knows me no more, since she speaks
so obligingly of me. But do you think it was altogether without design
she spoke it to you? When I remember she is Tom Cheeke's sister, I am
apt to think she might have heard his news, and meant to try whether
there was anything of truth in't. My cousin Molle, I think, means to end
the summer there. They say, indeed, 'tis a very fine seat, but if I did
not mistake Sir Thomas Cheeke, he told me there was never a good room in
the house. I was wondering how you came by an acquaintance there,
because I had never heard you speak that you knew them. I never saw him
in my life, but he is famous for a kind husband. Only 'twas found fault
with that he could not forbear kissing his wife before company, a
foolish trick that young married men are apt to; he has left it long
since, I suppose. But, seriously, 'tis as ill a sight as one would wish
to see, and appears very rude, methinks, to the company.
What a strange fellow this goldsmith is, he has a head fit for nothing
but horns. I chid him once for a seal he set me just of this fashion and
the same colours. If he were to make twenty they should be all so, his
invention can stretch no further than blue and red. It makes me think of
the fellow that could paint nothing but a flower-de-luce, who, when he
met with one that was so firmly resolved to have a lion for his sign
that there was no persuading him out on't, "Well," says the painter,
"let it be a lion then, but it shall be as like a flower-de-luce as e'er
you saw." So, because you would have it a dolphin, he consented to it,
but it is like an ill-favoured knot of ribbon. I did not say anything of
my father's being ill of late; I think I told you before, he kept his
chamber ever since his last sickness, and so he does still. Yet I cannot
say that he is at all sick, but has so general a weakness upon him that
I am much afraid their opinion of him has too much of truth in it, and
do extremely apprehend how the winter may work upon him. Will you pardon
this strange scribbled letter, and the disorderliness on't? I know you
would, though I should not tell you that I am not so much at leisure as
I used to be. You can forgive your friends anything, and when I am not
the faithfullest of those, never forgive me. You may direct your letters
how you please, here will be nobody to receive it but
Your.
_Letter 27._--Althorp, in Northamptonshire, was the seat of Lady
Sunderland's first husband, Robert Lord Spencer.
SIR,--Your last came safe, and I shall follow your direction for the
address of this, though, as you say, I cannot imagine what should tempt
anybody to so severe a search for them, unless it be that he is not yet
fully satisfied to what degree our friendship is grown, and thinks he
may best inform himself from them. In earnest, 'twould not be unpleasant
to hear our discourse. He forms his with so much art and design, and is
so pleased with the hopes of making some discovery, and I [who] know him
as well as he does himself, cannot but give myself the recreation
sometimes of confounding him and destroying all that his busy head had
been working on since the last conference. He gives me some trouble with
his suspicions; yet, on my conscience, he is a greater to himself, and I
deal with so much _franchise_ as to tell him so; and yet he has no more
the heart to ask me directly what he would so fain know, than a jealous
man has to ask (one that might tell him) whether he were a cuckold or
not, for fear of being resolved of that which is yet a doubt to him. My
eldest brother is not so inquisitive; he satisfies himself with
persuading me earnestly to marry, and takes no notice of anything that
may hinder me, but a carelessness of my fortune, or perhaps an aversion
to a kind of life that appears to have less of freedom in't than that
which at present I enjoy. But, sure, he gives himself another reason,
for 'tis not very long since he took occasion to inquire for you very
kindly of me; and though I could then give but little account of you, he
smiled as if he did not altogether believe me, and afterwards
maliciously said he wondered you did not marry. And I seemed to do so
too, and said, if I knew any woman that had a great fortune, and were a
person worthy of you, I should wish her you with all my heart. "But,
sister," says he, "would you have him love her?" "Do you doubt it?" did
I say; "he were not happy in't else." He laughed, and said my humour was
pleasant; but he made some question whether it was natural or not. He
cannot be so unjust as to let me lose him, sure, I was kind to him
though I had some reason not to take it very well when he made that a
secret to me which was known to so many that did not know him; but we
shall never fall out, I believe, we are not apt to it, neither of us.
If you are come back from Epsom, I may ask you how you like drinking
water? I have wished it might agree as well with you as it did with me;
and if it were as certain that the same thing would do us good as 'tis
that the same thing would please us, I should not need to doubt it.
Otherwise my wishes do not signify much, but I am forbid complaints, or
to express my fears. And be it so, only you must pardon me if I cannot
agree to give you false hopes; I must be deceived myself before I can
deceive you, and I have so accustomed myself to tell you all that I
think, that I must either say nothing, or that which I believe to be
true.
I cannot say but that I have wanted Jane; but it has been rather to have
somebody to talk with of you, than that I needed anybody to put me in
mind of you, and with all her diligence I should have often prevented
her in that discourse. Were you at Althorp when you saw my Lady
Sunderland and Mr. Smith, or are they in town? I have heard, indeed,
that they are very happy; but withal that, as she is a very
extraordinary person herself, so she aimed at doing extraordinary
things, and when she had married Mr. Smith (because some people were so
bold as to think she did it because she loved him) she undertook to
convince the world that what she had done was in mere pity to his
sufferings, and that she could not go a step lower to meet anybody than
that led her, though when she thought there were no eyes on her, she was
more gracious to him. But perhaps this might not be true, or it may be
she is now grown weary of that constraint she put upon herself. I should
have been sadder than you if I had been their neighbour to have seen
them so kind; as I must have been if I had married the Emperor. He used
to brag to me always of a great acquaintance he had there, what an
esteem my lady had for him, and had the vanity (not to call it
impudence) to talk sometimes as if he would have had me believe he might
have had her, and would not; I'll swear I blushed for him when I saw he
did not. He told me too, that though he had carried his addresses to me
with all the privacy that was possible, because he saw I liked it best,
and that 'twas partly his own humour too, yet she had discovered it, and
could tell that there had been such a thing, and that it was broke off
again, she knew not why; which certainly was a lie, as well as the
other, for I do not think she ever heard there was such a one in the
world as
Your faithful friend.
_Letter 28._--Dorothy's allusion to the "Seven Sleepers" refers to a
story which occurs in the _Golden Legend_ and other places, of seven
noble youths of Ephesus, who fled from persecution to a cave in Mount
Celion. After two hundred and thirty years they awoke, but only to die
soon afterwards. The fable is said to have arisen from a
misinterpretation of the text, "They fell asleep in the Lord."
SIR,--I did not lay it as a fault to your charge that you were not good
at disguise; if it be one, I am too guilty on't myself to accuse
another. And though I have been told it shows an unpractisedness in the
world, and betrays to all that understand it better, yet since it is a
quality I was not born with, nor ever like to get, I have always thought
good to maintain that 'twas better not to need it than to have it.
I give you many thanks for your care of my Irish dog, but I am extremely
out of countenance your father should be troubled with it. Sure, he will
think I have a most extravagant fancy; but do me the right as to let him
know I am not so possessed with it as to consent he should be employed
in such a commission.
Your opinion of my eldest brother is, I think, very just, and when I
said maliciously, I meant a French malice, which you know does not
signify the same with an English one. I know not whether I told it you
or not, but I concluded (from what you said of your indisposition) that
it was very like the spleen; but perhaps I foresaw you would not be
willing to own a disease that the severe part of the world holds to be
merely imaginary and affected, and therefore proper only to women.
However, I cannot but wish you had stayed longer at Epsom and drunk the
waters with more order though in a less proportion. But did you drink
them immediately from the well? I remember I was forbid it, and
methought with a great deal of reason, for (especially at this time of
year) the well is so low, and there is such a multitude to be served out
on't, that you can hardly get any but what is thick and troubled; and I
have marked that when it stood all night (for that was my direction) the
bottom of the vessel it stood in would be covered an inch thick with a
white clay, which, sure, has no great virtue in't, and is not very
pleasant to drink.
What a character of a young couple you give me! Would you would ask some
one who knew him, whether he be not much more of an ass since his
marriage than he was before. I have some reason to doubt that it alters
people strangely. I made a visit t'other day to welcome a lady into this
country whom her husband had newly brought down, and because I knew him,
though not her, and she was a stranger here, 'twas a civility I owed
them. But you cannot imagine how I was surprised to see a man that I had
known so handsome, so capable of being made a pretty gentleman (for
though he was no proud philosopher, as the Frenchmen say, he was that
which good company and a little knowledge of the world would have made
equal to many that think themselves very well, and are thought so),
transformed into the direct shape of a great boy newly come from school.
To see him wholly taken up with running on errands for his wife, and
teaching her little dog tricks! And this was the best of him; for when
he was at leisure to talk, he would suffer no one else to do it, and
what he said, and the noise he made, if you had heard it, you would have
concluded him drunk with joy that he had a wife and a pack of hounds. I
was so weary on't that I made haste home, and could not but think of the
change all the way till my brother (who was with me) thought me sad, and
so, to put me in better humour, said he believed I repented me I had not
this gentleman, now I saw how absolutely his wife governed him. But I
assured him, that though I thought it very fit such as he should be
governed, yet I should not like the employment by no means. It becomes
no woman, and did so ill with this lady that in my opinion it spoiled a
good face and a very fine gown. Yet the woman you met upon the way
governed her husband and did it handsomely. It was, as you say, a great
example of friendship, and much for the credit of our sex.
You are too severe to Walker. I'll undertake he would set me twenty
seals for nothing rather than undergo your wrath. I am in no haste for
it, and so he does it well we will not fall out; perhaps he is not in
the humour of keeping his word at present, and nobody can blame him if
he be often in an ill one. But though I am merciful to him, as to one
that has suffered enough already, I cannot excuse you that profess to be
my friend and yet are content to let me live in such ignorance, write to
me every week, and yet never send me any of the new phrases of the town.
I could tell you, without abandoning the truth, that it is part of your
_devoyre_ to correct the imperfections you find under my hand, and that
my trouble resembles my wonder you can let me be dissatisfied. I should
never have learnt any of these fine things from you; and, to say truth,
I know not whether I shall from anybody else, if to learn them be to
understand them. Pray what is meant by _wellness_ and _unwellness_; and
why is _to some extreme_ better than _to some extremity_? I believe I
shall live here till there is quite a new language spoke where you are,
and shall come out like one of the Seven Sleepers, a creature of another
age. But 'tis no matter so you understand me, though nobody else do,
when I say how much I am
Your faithful.
_Letter 29._
SIR,--I can give you leave to doubt anything but my kindness, though I
can assure you I spake as I meant when I said I had not the vanity to
believe I deserv'd yours, for I am not certain whether 'tis possible for
anybody to deserve that another should love them above themselves,
though I am certain many may deserve it more than me. But not to dispute
this with you, let me tell you that I am thus far of your opinion, that
upon some natures nothing is so powerful as kindness, and that I should
give that to yours which all the merit in the world besides would not
draw from me. I spake as if I had not done so already; but you may
choose whether you will believe me or not, for, to say truth, I do not
much believe myself in that point. No, all the kindness I have or ever
had is yours; nor shall I ever repent it so, unless you shall ever
repent yours. Without telling you what the inconveniences of your coming
hither are, you may believe they are considerable, or else I should not
deny you or myself the happiness of seeing one another; and if you dare
trust me where I am equally concerned with you, I shall take hold of the
first opportunity that may either admit you here or bring me nearer you.
Sure you took somebody else for my cousin Peters? I can never believe
her beauty able to smite anybody. I saw her when I was last in town, but
she appear'd wholly the same to me, she was at St. Malo, with all her
innocent good nature too, and asked for you so kindly, that I am sure
she cannot have forgot you; nor do I think she had so much address as to
do it merely in compliment to me. No, you are mistaken certainly; what
should she do amongst all that company, unless she be towards a wedding?
She has been kept at home, poor soul, and suffered so much of purgatory
in this world that she needs not fear it in the next; and yet she is as
merry as ever she was, which perhaps might make her look young, but that
she laughs a little too much, and that will bring wrinkles, they say.
Oh, me! now I talk of laughing, it makes me think of poor Jane. I had a
letter from her the other day; she desired me to present her humble
service to her master,--she did mean you, sure, for she named everybody
else that she owes any service to,--and bid me say that she would keep
her word with him. God knows what you have agreed on together. She tells
me she shall stay long enough there to hear from me once more, and then
she is resolved to come away.
Here is a seal, which pray give Walker to set for me very handsomely,
and not of any of those fashions he made my others, but of something
that may differ from the rest. 'Tis a plain head, but not ill cut, I
think. My eldest brother is now here, and we expect my youngest shortly,
and then we shall be altogether, which I do not think we ever were twice
in our lives. My niece is still with me, but her father threatens to
fetch her away. If I can keep her to Michaelmas I may perhaps bring her
up to town myself, and take that occasion of seeing you; but I have no
other business that is worth my taking a journey, for I have had another
summons from my aunt, and I protest I am afraid I shall be in rebellion
there; but 'tis not to be helped. The widow writes me word, too, that I
must expect her here about a month hence; and I find that I shall want
no company, but only that which I would have, and for which I could
willingly spare all the rest. Will it be ever thus? I am afraid it will.
There has been complaints made on me already to my eldest brother (only
in general, or at least he takes notice of no more), what offers I
refuse, and what a strange humour has possessed me of being deaf to the
advice of all my friends. I find I am to be baited by them all by turns.
They weary themselves, and me too, to very little purpose, for to my
thinking they talk the most impertinently that ever people did; and I
believe they are not in my debt, but think the same of me. Sometimes I
tell them I will not marry, and then they laugh at me; sometimes I say,
"Not yet," and they laugh more, and would make me believe I shall be old
within this twelvemonth. I tell them I shall be wiser then. They say
'twill be to no purpose. Sometimes we are in earnest and sometimes in
jest, but always saying something since my brother Henry found his
tongue again. If you were with me I could make sport of all this; but
"patience is my penance" is somebody's motto, and I think it must be
mine.
I am your.
_Letter 30._--Here is Lord Lisle's embassage discussed again! We know
that in the end it comes to nothing; Whitelocke going, but without
Temple. The statute commanding the marriage ceremony to be conducted
before Justices of the Peace was passed in August 1653; it is to some
extent by such references as these that the letters have been dated and
grouped. The Marriage Act of 1653, with the other statutes of this
period, have been erased from the Statute Book; but a draft of it in
Somers' Tracts remains to us for reference. It contained provisions for
the names of those who intended being joined together in holy matrimony
to be posted, with certain other particulars, upon the door of the
common meeting-house, commonly called the parish church or chapel; and
after the space of three weeks the parties, with two witnesses, might go
before a magistrate, who, having satisfied himself, by means of
examining witnesses on oath or otherwise, that all the preliminaries
commanded by the Act had been properly fulfilled, further superintended
the proceedings to perfect the said intended marriage as follows:--The
man taking the woman by the hand pronounced these words, "I, A.B., do
hereby in the presence of God take thee C.D. to be my wedded wife, and
do also in the presence of God, and before these witnesses, promise to
be unto thee a loving and faithful husband." Then the woman in similar
formula promises to be a "loving, faithful, and obedient wife," and the
magistrate pronounced the parties to be man and wife. This ceremony, and
this only, was to be a legal marriage. It is probable that parties
might and did add a voluntary religious rite to this compulsory civil
ceremony, as is done at this day in many foreign countries.
SIR,--You cannot imagine how I was surpris'd to find a letter that began
"Dear brother;" I thought sure it could not belong at all to me, and was
afraid I had lost one by it; that you intended me another, and in your
haste had mistook this for that. Therefore, till I found the permission
you gave me, I had laid it by with a resolution not to read it, but to
send it again. If I had done so, I had missed a great deal of
satisfaction which I received from it. In earnest, I cannot tell you how
kindly I take all the obliging things you say in it of me; nor how
pleased I should be (for your sake) if I were able to make good the
character you give me to your brother, and that I did not owe a great
part of it wholly to your friendship for me. I dare call nothing on't my
own but faithfulness; that I may boast of with truth and modesty, since
'tis but a simple virtue; and though some are without it, yet 'tis so
absolutely necessary, that nobody wanting it can be worthy of any
esteem. I see you speak well of me to other people, though you complain
always to me. I know not how to believe I should misuse your heart as
you pretend; I never had any quarrel to it, and since our friendship it
has been dear to me as my own. 'Tis rather, sure, that you have a mind
to try another, than that any dislike of yours makes you turn it over to
me; but be it as it will, I am contented to stand to the loss, and
perhaps when you have changed you will find so little difference that
you'll be calling for your own again. Do but assure me that I shall find
you almost as merry as my Lady Anne Wentworth is always, and nothing
shall fright me from my purpose of seeing you as soon as I can with any
conveniency. I would not have you insensible of our misfortunes, but I
would not either that you should revenge them on yourself; no, that
shows a want of constancy (which you will hardly yield to be your
fault); but 'tis certain that there was never anything more mistaken
than the Roman courage, when they killed themselves to avoid misfortunes
that were infinitely worse than death. You confess 'tis an age since our
story began, as is not fit for me to own. Is it not likely, then, that
if my face had ever been good, it might be altered since then; or is it
as unfit for me to own the change as the time that makes it? Be it as
you please, I am not enough concerned in't to dispute it with you; for,
trust me, if you would not have my face better, I am satisfied it should
be as it is; since if ever I wished it otherwise, 'twas for your sake.
I know not how I stumbled upon a news-book this week, and, for want of
something else to do read it; it mentions my Lord Lisle's embassage
again. Is there any such thing towards? I met with somebody else too
in't that may concern anybody that has a mind to marry; 'tis a new form
for it, that, sure, will fright the country people extremely, for they
apprehend nothing like going before a Justice; they say no other
marriage shall stand good in law. In conscience, I believe the old one
is the better; and for my part I am resolved to stay till that comes in
fashion again.
Can your father have so perfectly forgiven already the injury I did him
(since you will not allow it to be any to you), in hindering you of Mrs.
Chambers, as to remember me with kindness? 'Tis most certain that I am
obliged to him, and, in earnest, if I could hope it might ever be in my
power to serve him I would promise something for myself. But is it not
true, too, that you have represented me to him rather as you imagine me
than as I am; and have you not given him an expectation that I shall
never be able to satisfy? If you have, I can forgive you, because I know
you meant well in't; but I have known some women that have commended
others merely out of spite, and if I were malicious enough to envy
anybody's beauty, I would cry it up to all that had not seen them;
there's no such way to make anybody appear less handsome than they are.
You must not forget that you are some letters in my debt, besides the
answer to this. If there were not conveniences of sending, I should
persecute you strangely. And yet you cannot wonder at it; the constant
desire I have to hear from you, and the satisfaction your letters give
me, would oblige one that has less time to write often. But yet I know
what 'tis to be in the town. I could never write a letter from thence in
my life of above a dozen lines; and though I see as little company as
anybody that comes there, yet I always met with something or other that
kept me idle. Therefore I can excuse it, though you do not exactly pay
all that you owe, upon condition you shall tell me when I see you all
that you should have writ if you had had time, and all that you can
imagine to say to a person that is
Your faithful friend.
_Letter 31._--Dorothy is in mourning for her youngest brother, Robert,
who died about this time. As she does not mention his death to Temple,
we may take it that he was, though her brother, practically a stranger
to her, living away from Chicksands, and rarely visiting her.
General Monk's brother, to whom Dorothy refers, was Mr. Nicholas Monk,
vicar of Kelkhampton, in Cornwall. General Monk's misfortune is no less
a calamity than his marriage. The following extract from Guizot's _Life
of Monk_ will fully explain the allusion: "The return of the new admiral
[Monk] was marked by a domestic event which was not without its
influence on his public conduct and reputation. Unrefined tastes, and
that need of repose in his private life which usually accompanies
activity in public affairs, had consigned him to the dominion of a woman
of low character, destitute even of the charms which seduce, and whose
manners did not belie the rumour which gave her for extraction a market
stall, or even, according to some, a much less respectable profession.
She had lived for some time past with Monk, and united to the influence
of habit an impetuosity of will and words difficult to be resisted by
the tranquil apathy of her lover. It is asserted that she had managed,
as long since as 1649, to force him to a marriage; but this marriage was
most certainly not declared until 1653." M. Guizot then quotes a letter,
dated September 19, 1653, announcing the news of General Monk's
marriage, and this would about correspond with the presumed date of
Dorothy's letter. Greenwich Palace was probably occupied by Monk at this
time, and Dorothy meant to say that Ann Clarges would be as much at home
in Greenwich Palace as, say, the Lord Protector's wife at Whitehall.
SIR,--It was, sure, a less fault in me to make a scruple of reading your
letter to your brother, which in all likelihood I could not be concerned
in, than for you to condemn the freedom you take of giving me directions
in a thing where we are equally concerned. Therefore, if I forgive you
this, you may justly forgive me t'other; and upon these terms we are
friends again, are we not? No, stay! I have another fault to chide you
for. You doubted whether you had not writ too much, and whether I could
have the patience to read it or not. Why do you dissemble so abominably;
you cannot think these things? How I should love that plain-heartedness
you speak of, if you would use it; nothing is civil but that amongst
friends. Your kind sister ought to chide you, too, for not writing to
her, unless you have been with her to excuse it. I hope you have; and
pray take some time to make her one visit from me, and carry my humble
service with you, and tell her that 'tis not my fault that you are no
better. I do not think I shall see the town before Michaelmas, therefore
you may make what sallies you please. I am tied here to expect my
brother Peyton, and then possibly we may go up together, for I should be
at home again before the term. Then I may show you my niece; and you may
confess that I am a kind aunt to desire her company, since the
disadvantage of our being together will lie wholly upon me. But I must
make it my bargain, that if I come you will not be frighted to see me;
you think, I'll warrant, you have courage enough to endure a worse
sight. You may be deceived, you never saw me in mourning yet; nobody
that has will e'er desire to do it again, for their own sakes as well as
mine. Oh, 'tis a most dismal dress,--I have not dared to look in the
glass since I wore it; and certainly if it did so ill with other people
as it does with me, it would never be worn.
You told me of writing to your father, but you did not say whether you
had heard from him, or how he did. May not I ask it? Is it possible that
he saw me? Where were my eyes that I did not see him, for I believe I
should have guessed at least that 'twas he if I had? They say you are
very like him; but 'tis no wonder neither that I did not see him, for I
saw not you when I met you there. 'Tis a place I look upon nobody in;
and it was reproached to me by a kinsman, but a little before you came
to me, that he had followed me to half a dozen shops to see when I would
take notice of him, and was at last going away with a belief 'twas not
I, because I did not seem to know him. Other people make it so much
their business to gape, that I'll swear they put me so out of
countenance I dare not look up for my life.
I am sorry for General Monk's misfortunes, because you say he is your
friend; but otherwise she will suit well enough with the rest of the
great ladies of the times, and become Greenwich as well as some others
do the rest of the King's houses. If I am not mistaken, that Monk has a
brother lives in Cornwall; an honest gentleman, I have heard, and one
that was a great acquaintance of a brother of mine who was killed there
during the war, and so much his friend that upon his death he put
himself and his family into mourning for him, which is not usual, I
think, where there is no relation of kindred.
I will take order that my letters shall be left with Jones, and yours
called for there. As long as your last was, I read it over thrice in
less than an hour, though, to say truth, I had skipped some on't the
last time. I could not read my own confession so often. Love is a
terrible word, and I should blush to death if anything but a letter
accused me on't. Pray be merciful, and let it run friendship in my next
charge. My Lady sends me word she has received those parts of _Cyrus_ I
lent you. Here is another for you which, when you have read, you know
how to dispose. There are four pretty stories in it, "_L'Amant Absente_,"
"_L'Amant non Aimé_," "_L'Amant Jaloux_," _et_ "_L'Amant dont La Maitresse
est mort_." Tell me which you have most compassion for when you have
read what every one says for himself. Perhaps you will not think it so
easy to decide which is the most unhappy, as you may think by the titles
their stories bear. Only let me desire you not to pity the jealous one,
for I remember I could do nothing but laugh at him as one that sought
his own vexation. This, and the little journeys (you say) you are to
make, will entertain you till I come; which, sure, will be as soon as
possible I can, since 'tis equally desired by you and your faithful.
_Letter 32._--Things being more settled in that part of the world, Sir
John Temple is returning to Ireland, where he intends taking his seat as
Master of the Rolls once again. Temple joins his father soon after this,
and stays in Ireland a few months.
Lady Ormond was the wife of the first Duke of Ormond. She had obtained
her pass to go over to Ireland on August 24th, 1653. The Ormonds had
indeed been in great straits for want of money, and in August 1652 Lady
Ormond had come over from Caen, where they were then living, to
endeavour to claim Cromwell's promise of reserving to her that portion
of their estate which had been her inheritance. After great delays she
obtained £500, and a grant of £2000 per annum out of their Irish lands
"lying most conveniently to Dunmore House." It must have been this
matter that Dorothy had heard of when she questions "whether she will
get it when she comes there."
Francis Annesley, Lord Valentia, belonged to an ancient Nottinghamshire
family, though he himself was born in Newport, Buckinghamshire. Of his
daughter's marriage I can find nothing. Lord Valentia was at this time
Secretary of State at Dublin.
Sir Justinian has at length found a second wife. Her name is Vere, and
she is the daughter of Lord Leigh of Stoneleigh. Thus do Dorothy's
suitors, one by one, recover and cease to lament her obduracy. When she
declares that she would rather have chosen _a chain to lead her apes in_
than marry Sir Justinian, she refers to an old superstition as to the
ultimate fate of spinsters--
Women, dying maids, lead apes in hell,
runs the verse of an old play, and that is the whole superstition, the
origin of which seems somewhat inexplicable. The phrase is thrice used
by Shakespeare, and constantly occurs in the old burlesques and
comedies; in one instance, in a comedy entitled "Love's Convert" (1651),
it is altered to "lead an ape in _heaven_." Many will remember the fate
of "The young Mary Anne" in the famous Ingoldsby legend, "Bloudie
Jacke:"--
So they say she is now leading apes--
Bloudie Jack,
And mends bachelors' smallclothes below.
No learned editor that I am acquainted with has been able to suggest an
explanation of this curious expression.
SIR,--All my quarrels to you are kind ones, for, sure, 'tis alike
impossible for me to be angry as for you to give me the occasion;
therefore, when I chide (unless it be that you are not careful enough of
yourself, and hazard too much a health that I am more concerned in than
my own), you need not study much for excuses, I can easily forgive you
anything but want of kindness. The judgment you have made of the four
lovers I recommended to you does so perfectly agree with what I think of
them, that I hope it will not alter when you have read their stories.
_L'Amant Absente_ has (in my opinion) a mistress so much beyond any of
the rest, that to be in danger of losing her is more than to have lost
the others; _L'Amant non Aimé_ was an ass, under favour (notwithstanding
the _Princesse Cleobuline's_ letter); his mistress had caprices that
would have suited better with our _Amant Jaloux_ than with anybody else;
and the _Prince Artibie_ was much to blame that he outlived his _belle
Leontine_. But if you have met with the beginning of the story of
_Amestris and Aglatides_, you will find the rest of it in this part I
send you now; and 'tis, to me, one of the prettiest I have read, and the
most natural. They say the gentleman that writes this romance has a
sister that lives with him, a maid, and she furnishes him with all the
little stories that come between, so that he only contrives the main
design; and when he wants something to entertain his company withal, he
calls to her for it. She has an excellent fancy, sure, and a great wit;
but, I am sorry to tell it you, they say 'tis the most ill-favoured
creature that ever was born. And 'tis often so; how seldom do we see a
person excellent in anything but they have some great defect with it
that pulls them low enough to make them equal with other people; and
there is justice in't. Those that have fortunes have nothing else, and
those that want it deserve to have it. That's but small comfort, though,
you'll say; 'tis confessed, but there is no such thing as perfect
happiness in this world, those that have come the nearest it had many
things to wish; and,--bless me, whither am I going? Sure, 'tis the
death's head I see stand before me puts me into this grave discourse
(pray do not think I meant that for a conceit neither); how idly have I
spent two sides of my paper, and am afraid, besides, I shall not have
time to write two more. Therefore I'll make haste to tell you that my
friendship for you makes me concerned in all your relations; that I have
a great respect for Sir John, merely as he is your father, and that 'tis
much increased by his kindness to you; that he has all my prayers and
wishes for his safety; and that you will oblige me in letting me know
when you hear any good news from him. He has met with a great deal of
good company, I believe. My Lady Ormond, I am told, is waiting for a
passage, and divers others; but this wind (if I am not mistaken) is not
good for them. In earnest, 'tis a most sad thing that a person of her
quality should be reduced to such a fortune as she has lived upon these
late years, and that she should lose that which she brought, as well as
that which was her husband's. Yet, I hear, she has now got some of her
own land in Ireland granted her; but whether she will get it when she
comes there is, I think, a question.
We have a lady new come into this country that I pity, too, extremely.
She is one of my Lord of Valentia's daughters, and has married an old
fellow that is some threescore and ten, who has a house that is fitter
for the hogs than for her, and a fortune that will not at all recompense
the least of these inconveniences. Ah! 'tis most certain I should have
chosen a handsome chain to lead my apes in before such a husband; but
marrying and hanging go by destiny, they say. It was not mine, it seems,
to have an emperor; the spiteful man, merely to vex me, has gone and
married my countrywoman, my Lord Lee's daughter. What a multitude of
willow garlands I shall weave before I die; I think I had best make them
into faggots this cold weather, the flame they would make in a chimney
would be of more use to me than that which was in the hearts of all
those that gave them me, and would last as long. I did not think I
should have got thus far. I have been so persecuted with visits all this
week I have had no time to despatch anything of business, so that now I
have done this I have forty letters more to write; how much rather would
I have them all to you than to anybody else; or, rather, how much better
would it be if there needed none to you, and that I could tell you
without writing how much I am
Yours.
_Letter 33._--Sir Thomas Peyton, we must remember, had married Dorothy's
eldest sister; she died many years ago, and Sir Thomas married again, in
1648, one Dame Cicely Swan, a widow, whose character Dorothy gives us.
Lord Monmouth was the eldest son of the Earl of Monmouth, and was born
in 1596. He was educated at Exeter College, Oxford. His literary work
was, at least, copious, and included some historical writing, as well as
the translations mentioned by Dorothy. He published, among other things,
_An Historical Relation of the United Provinces_, a _History of the Wars
in Flanders_, and a _History of Venice_.
Sir John Suckling, in the following doggerel, hails our noble author
with a flunkey's enthusiasm,--
It is so rare and new a thing to see
Aught that belongs to young nobility
In print, but their own clothes, that we must praise
You, as we would do those first show the ways
To arts or to new worlds.
In such strain writes the author of _Why so pale and wan, fond lover?_
and both the circumstance and the doggerel should be very instructive to
the snobologist.
The literary work of Lord Broghill is not unknown to fame, and Mr.
Waller's verse is still read by us; but I have never seen a history of
the Civil Wars from Mr. Waller's pen, and cannot find that he ever
published one.
_Prazimene_ and _Polexander_ are two romances translated from the
French,--the former, a neat little duodecimo; the latter, a huge folio
of more than three hundred and fifty closely-printed pages. The
title-page of _Prazimene_, a very good example of its kind, runs as
follows:--"Two delightful Novels, or the Unlucky Fair One; being the
Amours of Milistrate and Prazimene, Illustrated with variety of Chance
and Fortune. Translated from the French by a Person of Quality, London.
Sold by Eben Tracy, at the Three Bibles on London Bridge." _Polexander_
was "done into English by William Browne, Gent.," for the benefit and
behoof of the Earl of Pembroke.
William Fiennes, Lord Say and Sele, was one of the chiefs of the
Independent party, a Republican, and one of the first to bear arms
against the King. He had, for that day, extravagant notions of civil
liberty, and on the disappointment of his hopes, he appears to have
retired to the Isle of Lundy, on the coast of Devon, and continued a
voluntary prisoner there until Cromwell's death. After the Restoration
he was made Lord Chamberlain of the Household, and Lord Privy Seal. He
published some political tracts, none of which are now in existence; and
Anthony Wood mentions having seen other things of his, among which,
maybe, was the romance that Dorothy had heard of, but which is lost to
us.
SIR,--Pray, let not the apprehension that others say fine things to me
make your letters at all the shorter; for, if it were so, I should not
think they did, and so long you are safe. My brother Peyton does,
indeed, sometimes send me letters that may be excellent for aught I
know, and the more likely because I do not understand them; but I may
say to you (as to a friend) I do not like them, and have wondered that
my sister (who, I may tell you too, and you will not think it vanity in
me, had a great deal of wit, and was thought to write as well as most
women in England) never persuaded him to alter his style, and make it a
little more intelligible. He is an honest gentleman, in earnest, has
understanding enough, and was an excellent husband to two very different
wives, as two good ones could be. My sister was a melancholy, retired
woman, and, besides the company of her husband and her books, never
sought any, but could have spent a life much longer than hers was in
looking to her house and her children. This lady is of a free, jolly
humour, loves cards and company, and is never more pleased than when she
sees a great many others that are so too. Now, with both these he so
perfectly complied that 'tis hard to judge which humour he is more
inclined to in himself; perhaps to neither, which makes it so much the
more strange. His kindness to his first wife may give him an esteem for
her sister; but he was too much smitten with this lady to think of
marrying anybody else, and, seriously, I could not blame him, for she
had, and has yet, great loveliness in her; she was very handsome, and is
very good (one may read it in her face at first sight). A woman that is
hugely civil to all people, and takes as generally as anybody that I
know, but not more than my cousin Molle's letters do, but which, yet,
you do not like, you say, nor I neither, I'll swear; and if it be
ignorance in us both we'll forgive it one another. In my opinion these
great scholars are not the best writers (of letters, I mean); of books,
perhaps they are. I never had, I think, but one letter from Sir
Justinian, but 'twas worth twenty of anybody's else to make me sport. It
was the most sublime nonsense that in my life I ever read; and yet, I
believe, he descended as low as he could to come near my weak
understanding. 'Twill be no compliment after this to say I like your
letters in themselves; not as they come from one that is not indifferent
to me, but, seriously, I do. All letters, methinks, should be free and
easy as one's discourse; not studied as an oration, nor made up of hard
words like a charm. 'Tis an admirable thing to see how some people will
labour to find out terms that may obscure a plain sense. Like a
gentleman I know, who would never say "the weather grew cold," but that
"winter began to salute us." I have no patience for such coxcombs, and
cannot blame an old uncle of mine that threw the standish at his man's
head because he writ a letter for him where, instead of saying (as his
master bid him), "that he would have writ himself, but he had the gout
in his hand," he said, "that the gout in his hand would not permit him
to put pen to paper." The fellow thought he had mended it mightily, and
that putting pen to paper was much better than plain writing.
I have no patience neither for these translations of romances. I met
with _Polexander_ and _L'illustre Bassa_ both so disguised that I, who
am their old acquaintance, hardly know them; besides that, they were
still so much French in words and phrases that 'twas impossible for one
that understands not French to make anything of them. If poor
_Prazimene_ be in the same dress, I would not see her for the world. She
has suffered enough besides. I never saw but four tomes of her, and was
told the gentleman that writ her story died when those were finished. I
was very sorry for it, I remember, for I liked so far as I had seen of
it extremely. Is it not my good Lord of Monmouth, or some such
honourable personage, that presents her to the English ladies? I have
heard many people wonder how he spends his estate. I believe he undoes
himself with printing his translations. Nobody else will undergo the
charge, because they never hope to sell enough of them to pay themselves
withal. I was looking t'other day in a book of his where he translates
_Pipero_ as piper, and twenty words more that are as false as this.
My Lord Broghill, sure, will give us something worth the reading. My
Lord Saye, I am told, has writ a romance since his retirement in the
Isle of Lundy, and Mr. Waller, they say, is making one of our wars,
which, if he does not mingle with a great deal of pleasing fiction,
cannot be very diverting, sure, the subject is so sad.
But all this is nothing to my coming to town, you'll say. 'Tis confest;
and that I was willing as long as I could to avoid saying anything when
I had nothing to say worth your knowing. I am still obliged to wait my
brother Peyton and his lady coming. I had a letter from him this week,
which I will send you, that you may see what hopes he gives. As little
room as I have left, too, I must tell you what a present I had made me
to-day. Two of the finest young Irish greyhounds that e'er I saw; a
gentleman that serves the General sent them me. They are newly come
over, and sent for by Henry Cromwell, he tells me, but not how he got
them for me. However, I am glad I have them, and much the more because
it dispenses with a very unfit employment that your father, out of his
kindness to you and his civility to me, was content to take upon him.
_Letter 34._
SIR,--Jane was so unlucky as to come out of town before your return, but
she tells me she left my letter with Nan Stacy for you. I was in hope
she would have brought me one from you; and because she did not I was
resolv'd to punish her, and kept her up till one o'clock telling me all
her stories. Sure, if there be any truth in the old observation, your
cheeks glowed notably; and 'tis most certain that if I were with you, I
should chide notably. What do you mean to be so melancholy? By her
report your humour is grown insupportable. I can allow it not to be
altogether what she says, and yet it may be very ill too; but if you
loved me you would not give yourself over to that which will infallibly
kill you, if it continue. I know too well that our fortunes have given
us occasion enough to complain and to be weary of her tyranny; but,
alas! would it be better if I had lost you or you me; unless we were
sure to die both together, 'twould but increase our misery, and add to
that which is more already than we can well tell how to bear. You are
more cruel than she regarding a life that's dearer to me than that of
the whole world besides, and which makes all the happiness I have or
ever shall be capable of. Therefore, by all our friendship I conjure you
and, by the power you have given me, command you, to preserve yourself
with the same care that you would have me live. 'Tis all the obedience I
require of you, and will be the greatest testimony you can give me of
your faith. When you have promised me this, 'tis not impossible that I
may promise you shall see me shortly; though my brother Peyton (who says
he will come down to fetch his daughter) hinders me from making the
journey in compliment to her. Yet I shall perhaps find business enough
to carry me up to town. 'Tis all the service I expect from two girls
whose friends have given me leave to provide for, that some order I must
take for the disposal of them may serve for my pretence to see you; but
then I must find you pleased and in good humour, merry as you were wont
to be when we first met, if you will not have me show that I am nothing
akin to my cousin Osborne's lady.
But what an age 'tis since we first met, and how great a change it has
wrought in both of us; if there had been as great a one in my face, it
could be either very handsome or very ugly. For God's sake, when we
meet, let us design one day to remember old stories in, to ask one
another by what degrees our friendship grew to this height 'tis at. In
earnest, I am lost sometimes with thinking on't; and though I can never
repent the share you have in my heart, I know not whether I gave it you
willingly or not at first. No, to speak ingenuously, I think you got an
interest there a good while before I thought you had any, and it grew so
insensibly, and yet so fast, that all the traverses it has met with
since has served rather to discover it to me than at all to hinder it.
By this confession you will see I am past all disguise with you, and
that you have reason to be satisfied with knowing as much of my heart as
I do myself. Will the kindness of this letter excuse the shortness on't?
For I have twenty more, I think, to write, and the hopes I had of
receiving one from you last night kept me writing this when I had more
time; or if all this will not satisfy, make your own conditions, so you
do not return it me by the shortness of yours. Your servant kisses your
hands, and I am
Your faithful.
_Letter 35._--This is written on the back of a letter of Sir Thomas
Peyton to Dorothy, and is probably a postscript to _Letter 34_. Sir
Thomas's letter is a good example of the stilted letter-writing in vogue
at that time, which Dorothy tells us was so much admired. The affairs
that are troubling him are legal matters in connection with his
brother-in-law Henry Oxenden's estate. There is a multitude of letters
in the MSS. in the British Museum referring to this business; but we are
not greatly concerned with Oxenden's financial difficulties. Sir Edward
Hales was a gentleman of noble family in Kent. There is one of the same
name who in 1688 declares himself openly to be a Papist, and is tried
under the Test Act. He is concerned in the same year in the escape of
King James, providing him with a fishing-boat to carry him into France.
This is in all probability the Sir Edward Hales referred to by Sir
Thomas Peyton, unless it be a son of the same name. Here is the
letter:--
"Good sister,--I am very sorry to hear the loss of our good brother,
whose short time gives us a sad example of our frail condition. But I
will not say the loss, knowing whom I write to, whose religion and
wisdom is a present stay to support in all worldly accidents.
"'Tis long since we resolved to have given you a visit, and have
relieved you of my daughter. But I have had the following of a most
laborious affair, which hath cost me the travelling, though in our own
country style, fifty ...; and I have been less at home than elsewhere
ever since I came from London; which hath vext me the more in regard I
have been detained from the desire I had of being with you before this
time. Such entertainment, however, must all those have that have to do
with such a purse-proud and wilful person as Sir Edward Hales. This next
week being Michaelmas week, we shall end all and I be at liberty, I
hope, to consider my own contentments. In the meantime I know not what
excuses to make for the trouble I have put you to already, of which I
grow to be ashamed; and I should much more be so if I did not know you
to be as good as you are fair. In both which regards I have a great
honour to be esteemed,
"My good sister,
"Your faithful brother and servant,
"THOMAS PEYTON.
"KNOWLTON, _Sept. 22, 1653_."
_On the other side of Sir T. Peyton's Letter._
Nothing that is paper can 'scape me when I have time to write, and 'tis
to you. But that I am not willing to excite your envy, I would tell you
how many letters I have despatched since I ended yours; and if I could
show them you 'twould be a certain cure for it, for they are all very
short ones, and most of them merely compliments, which I am sure you
care not for.
I had forgot in my other to tell you what Jane requires for the
satisfaction of what you confess you owe her. You must promise her to be
merry, and not to take cold when you are at the tennis court, for there
she hears you are found.
Because you mention my Lord Broghill and his wit, I have sent you some
of his verses. My brother urged them against me one day in a dispute,
where he would needs make me confess that no passion could be long
lived, and that such as were most in love forgot that ever they had been
so within a twelvemonth after they were married; and, in earnest, the
want of examples to bring for the contrary puzzled me a little, so that
I was fain to bring out those pitiful verses of my Lord Biron to his
wife, which was so poor an argument that I was e'en ashamed on't myself,
and he quickly laughed me out of countenance with saying they were just
such as a married man's flame would produce and a wife inspire. I send
you a love letter, too; which, simple as you see, it was sent me in very
good earnest, and by a person of quality, as I was told. If you read it
when you go to bed, 'twill certainly make your sleep approved.
I am yours.
_Letter 36._--My Lady Carlisle was, as Dorothy says, "an extraordinary
person." She was the daughter of Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland,
and at the age of eighteen, against her father's will and under somewhat
romantic circumstances, married James Hay, Earl of Carlisle. Her sister
married the Earl of Leicester, and she is therefore aunt to Lady
Sunderland and Algernon Sydney. She was a favourite attendant of Queen
Henrietta, and there are evil rumours connecting her name with that of
Strafford. On Strafford's death, it is asserted that she transferred her
affections to Pym, to whom she is said to have betrayed the secrets of
the Court. There seems little doubt that it was she who gave notice to
Pym of the King's coming to the House to seize the five members. In 1648
she appears, however, to have assisted the Royalists with money for the
purpose of raising a fleet to attack England, and at the Restoration she
was received at Court, and employed herself in intriguing for the return
of Queen Henrietta to England, which was opposed at the time by
Clarendon and others. Soon after this, and in the year of the
Restoration, she died suddenly. Poets of all grades, from Waller
downwards, have sung of her beauty, vivacity, and wit; and Sir Toby
Matthew speaks of her as "too lofty and dignified to be capable of
friendship, and having too great a heart to be susceptible of
love,"--an extravagance of compliment hardly satisfactory in this plain
age.
My Lord Paget, at whose house at Marlow Mr. Lely was staying, was a
prominent loyalist both in camp and council chamber. He married Frances,
the eldest daughter of the Earl of Holland, my Lady Diana's sister.
Whether or not Dorothy really assisted young Sir Harry Yelverton in his
suit for the hand of fair Lady Ruthin we cannot say, but they were
undoubtedly married. Sir Harry Yelverton seems to have been a man of
superior accomplishments and serious learning. He was at this time
twenty years of age, and had been educated at St. Paul's School, London,
and afterwards at Wadham College, Oxford, under the tutorship of Dr.
Wilkins, Cromwell's brother-in-law, a learned and philosophical
mathematician. He was admitted gentleman commoner in 1650, and it is
said "made great proficiency in several branches of learning, being as
exact a Latin and Grecian as any in the university of his age or time."
He succeeded to his father's title soon after coming of age, and took a
leading part in the politics of the day, becoming Knight of the Shire of
Northampton in the Restoration Parliament. He was a high Tory, and a
great defender of the Church and its ejected ministers, one of whom, Dr.
Thomas Morton, the learned theologian, Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield,
died in his house in 1659. He wrote a discourse on the "Truth and
Reasonableness of the Religion delivered by Jesus Christ," a Preface to
Dr. Morton's work on Episcopacy, and a vindication of the Church of
England against the attacks of the famous Edward Bagshawe.
In this letter Dorothy describes some husbands whom she could _not_
marry. See what she expects in a lover! Have we not here some local
squires hit off to the life? Could George Eliot herself have done more
for us in like space?
SIR,--Why are you so sullen, and why am I the cause? Can you believe
that I do willingly defer my journey? I know you do not. Why, then,
should my absence now be less supportable to you than heretofore? Nay,
it shall not be long (if I can help it), and I shall break through all
inconveniences rather than deny you anything that lies in my power to
grant. But by your own rules, then, may I not expect the same from you?
Is it possible that all I have said cannot oblige you to a care of
yourself? What a pleasant distinction you make when you say that 'tis
not melancholy makes you do these things, but a careless forgetfulness.
Did ever anybody forget themselves to that degree that was not
melancholy in extremity? Good God! how you are altered; and what is it
that has done it? I have known you when of all the things in the world
you would not have been taken for a discontent; you were, as I thought,
perfectly pleased with your condition; what has made it so much worse
since? I know nothing you have lost, and am sure you have gained a
friend that is capable of the highest degree of friendship you can
propound, that has already given an entire heart for that which she
received, and 'tis no more in her will than in her power ever to recall
it or divide it; if this be not enough to satisfy you, tell me what I
can do more?
There are a great many ingredients must go to the making me happy in a
husband. First, as my cousin Franklin says, our humours must agree; and
to do that he must have that kind of breeding that I have had, and used
that kind of company. That is, he must not be so much a country
gentleman as to understand nothing but hawks and dogs, and be fonder of
either than his wife; nor of the next sort of them whose aim reaches no
further than to be Justice of the Peace, and once in his life High
Sheriff, who reads no book but statutes, and studies nothing but how to
make a speech interlarded with Latin that may amaze his disagreeing poor
neighbours, and fright them rather than persuade them into quietness. He
must not be a thing that began the world in a free school, was sent from
thence to the university, and is at his furthest when he reaches the
Inns of Court, has no acquaintance but those of his form in these
places, speaks the French he has picked out of old laws, and admires
nothing but the stories he has heard of the revels that were kept there
before his time. He must not be a town gallant neither, that lives in a
tavern and an ordinary, that cannot imagine how an hour should be spent
without company unless it be in sleeping, that makes court to all the
women he sees, thinks they believe him, and laughs and is laughed at
equally. Nor a travelled Monsieur whose head is all feather inside and
outside, that can talk of nothing but dances and duets, and has courage
enough to wear slashes when every one else dies with cold to see him. He
must not be a fool of no sort, nor peevish, nor ill-natured, nor proud,
nor covetous; and to all this must be added, that he must love me and I
him as much as we are capable of loving. Without all this, his fortune,
though never so great, would not satisfy me; and with it, a very
moderate one would keep me from ever repenting my disposal.
I have been as large and as particular in my descriptions as my cousin
Molle is in his of Moor Park,--but that you know the place so well I
would send it you,--nothing can come near his patience in writing it,
but my reading on't. Would you had sent me your father's letter, it
would not have been less welcome to me than to you; and you may safely
believe that I am equally concerned with you in anything. I should be
pleased to see something of my Lady Carlisle's writing, because she is
so extraordinary a person. I have been thinking of sending you my
picture till I could come myself; but a picture is but dull company, and
that you need not; besides, I cannot tell whether it be very like me or
not, though 'tis the best I ever had drawn for me, and Mr. Lilly [Lely]
will have it that he never took more pains to make a good one in his
life, and that was it I think that spoiled it. He was condemned for
making the first he drew for me a little worse than I, and in making
this better he has made it as unlike as t'other. He is now, I think, at
my Lord Pagett's at Marloe [Marlow], where I am promised he shall draw a
picture of my Lady for me,--she gives it me, she says, as the greatest
testimony of her friendship to me, for by her own rule she is past the
time of having pictures taken of her. After eighteen, she says, there is
no face but decays apparently; I would fain have had her excepted such
as had never been beauties, for my comfort, but she would not.
When you see your friend Mr. Heningham, you may tell him in his ear
there is a willow garland coming towards him. He might have sped better
in his suit if he had made court to me, as well as to my Lady Ruthin.
She has been my wife this seven years, and whosoever pretends there must
ask my leave. I have now given my consent that she shall marry a very
pretty little gentleman, Sir Christopher Yelverton's son, and I think we
shall have a wedding ere it be long. My Lady her mother, in great
kindness, would have recommended Heningham to me, and told me in a
compliment that I was fitter for him than her daughter, who was younger,
and therefore did not understand the world so well; that she was certain
if he knew me he would be extremely taken, for I would make just that
kind of wife he looked for. I humbly thanked her, but said I was certain
he would not make that kind of husband I looked for,--and so it went no
further.
I expect my eldest brother here shortly, whose fortune is well mended by
my other brother's death, so as if he were satisfied himself with what
he has done, I know no reason why he might not be very happy; but I am
afraid he is not. I have not seen my sister since I knew she was so;
but, sure, she can have lost no beauty, for I never saw any that she
had, but good black eyes, which cannot alter. He loves her, I think, at
the ordinary rate of husbands, but not enough, I believe, to marry her
so much to his disadvantage if it were to do again; and that would kill
me were I as she, for I could be infinitely better satisfied with a
husband that had never loved me in hopes he might, than with one that
began to love me less than he had done.
I am yours.
_Letter 37._
SIR,--You say I abuse you; and Jane says you abuse me when you say you
are not melancholy: which is to be believed? Neither, I think; for I
could not have said so positively (as it seems she did) that I should
not be in town till my brother came back: he was not gone when she writ,
nor is not yet; and if my brother Peyton had come before his going, I
had spoiled her prediction. But now it cannot be; he goes on Monday or
Tuesday at farthest. I hope you did truly with me, too, in saying that
you are not melancholy (though she does not believe it). I am thought
so, many times, when I am not at all guilty on't. How often do I sit in
company a whole day, and when they are gone am not able to give an
account of six words that was said, and many times could be so much
better pleased with the entertainment my own thoughts give me, that 'tis
all I can do to be so civil as not to let them see they trouble me. This
may be your disease. However, remember you have promised me to be
careful of yourself, and that if I secure what you have entrusted me
with, you will answer for the rest. Be this our bargain then; and look
that you give me as good an account of one as I shall give you of
t'other. In earnest, I was strangely vexed to see myself forced to
disappoint you so, and felt your trouble and my own too. How often I
have wished myself with you, though but for a day, for an hour: I would
have given all the time I am to spend here for it with all my heart.
You could not but have laughed if you had seen me last night. My brother
and Mr. Gibson were talking by the fire; and I sat by, but as no part of
the company. Amongst other things (which I did not at all mind), they
fell into a discourse of flying; and both agreed it was very possible to
find out a way that people might fly like birds, and despatch their
journeys: so I, that had not said a word all night, started up at that,
and desired they would say a little more on't, for I had not marked the
beginning; but instead of that, they both fell into so violent a
laughing, that I should appear so much concerned in such an art; but
they little knew of what use it might have been to me. Yet I saw you
last night, but 'twas in a dream; and before I could say a word to you,
or you to me, the disorder my joy to see you had put me into awakened
me. Just now I was interrupted, too, and called away to entertain two
dumb gentlemen;--you may imagine whether I was pleased to leave my
writing to you for their company;--they have made such a tedious visit,
too; and I am so tired with making of signs and tokens for everything I
had to say. Good God! how do those that live with them always? They are
brothers; and the eldest is a baronet, has a good estate, a wife and
three or four children. He was my servant heretofore, and comes to see
me still for old love's sake; but if he could have made me mistress of
the world I could not have had him; and yet I'll swear he has nothing to
be disliked in him but his want of tongue, which in a woman might have
been a virtue.
I sent you a part of _Cyrus_ last week, where you will meet with one
Doralise in the story of Abradah and Panthée. The whole story is very
good; but the humour makes the best part of it. I am of her opinion in
most things that she says in her character of "_L'honnest homme_" that
she is in search of, and her resolution of receiving no heart that had
been offered to anybody else. Pray, tell me how you like her, and what
fault you find in my Lady Carlisle's letter? Methinks the hand and the
style both show her a great person, and 'tis writ in the way that's now
affected by all that pretend to wit and good breeding; only, I am a
little scandalized to confess that she uses that word faithful,--she
that never knew how to be so in her life.
I have sent you my picture because you wished for it; but, pray, let it
not presume to disturb my Lady Sunderland's. Put it in some corner where
no eyes may find it out but yours, to whom it is only intended. 'Tis not
a very good one, but the best I shall ever have drawn of me; for, as my
Lady says, my time for pictures is past, and therefore I have always
refused to part with this, because I was sure the next would be a worse.
There is a beauty in youth that every one has once in their lives; and I
remember my mother used to say there was never anybody (that was not
deformed) but were handsome, to some reasonable degree, once between
fourteen and twenty. It must hang with the light on the left hand of it;
and you may keep it if you please till I bring you the original. But
then I must borrow it (for 'tis no more mine, if you like it), because
my brother is often bringing people into my closet where it hangs, to
show them other pictures that are there; and if he miss this long
thence, 'twould trouble his jealous head.
You are not the first that has told me I knew better what quality I
would not have in a husband than what I would; but it was more
pardonable in them. I thought you had understood better what kind of
person I liked than anybody else could possibly have done, and therefore
did not think it necessary to make you that description too. Those that
I reckoned up were only such as I could not be persuaded to have upon no
terms, though I had never seen such a person in my life as Mr. Temple:
not but that all those may make very good husbands to some women; but
they are so different from my humour that 'tis not possible we should
ever agree; for though it might be reasonably enough expected that I
should conform mine to theirs (to my shame be it spoken), I could never
do it. And I have lived so long in the world, and so much at my own
liberty, that whosoever has me must be content to take me as they find
me, without hope of ever making me other than I am. I cannot so much as
disguise my humour. When it was designed that I should have had Sir
Jus., my brother used to tell he was confident that, with all his
wisdom, any woman that had wit and discretion might make an ass of him,
and govern him as she pleased. I could not deny that possibly it might
be so, but 'twas that I was sure I could never do; and though 'tis
likely I should have forced myself to so much compliance as was
necessary for a reasonable wife, yet farther than that no design could
ever have carried me; and I could not have flattered him into a belief
that I admired him, to gain more than he and all his generation are
worth.
'Tis such an ease (as you say) not to be solicitous to please others: in
earnest, I am no more concerned whether people think me handsome or
ill-favoured, whether they think I have wit or that I have none, than I
am whether they think my name Elizabeth or Dorothy. I would do nobody no
injury; but I should never design to please above one; and that one I
must love too, or else I should think it a trouble, and consequently not
do it. I have made a general confession to you; will you give me
absolution? Methinks you should; for you are not much better by your own
relation; therefore 'tis easiest to forgive one another. When you hear
anything from your father, remember that I am his humble servant, and
much concerned in his good health.
I am yours.
_Letter 38._--Lady Isabella is Lady Isabella Rich, my Lady Diana's
eldest sister. She married Sir James Thynne. Many years ago she had an
intrigue with the Duke of Ormond, by whom she had a son, but Dorothy
speaks, I think, of some later scandal than this.
My Lady Pembroke was the daughter of the Earl of Cumberland. She first
married Richard Earl of Dorset, and afterwards the Earl of Pembroke. She
is described as a woman whose mind was endowed by nature with very
extraordinary attributes. Lord Pembroke, on the other hand, according to
Clarendon, pretended to no other qualification "than to understand
horses and dogs very well, and to be believed honest and generous." His
stables vied with palaces, and his falconry was furnished at immense
expense; but in his private life he was characterized by gross
ignorance and vice, and his public character was marked by ingratitude
and instability. The life of Lady Pembroke was embittered by this man
for near twenty years, and she was at length compelled to separate from
him. She lived alone, until her husband's death, which took place in
January 1650. One can understand that they were entirely unsuited to
each other, when Lady Pembroke in her Memorials is found to write thus
of her husband: "He was no scholar, having passed but three or four
months at Oxford, when he was taken thence after his father's death. He
was of quick apprehension, sharp understanding, very crafty withal; of a
discerning spirit, but a choleric nature, increased by the office he
held of Chamberlain to the King." Why, then, did the accomplished Lady
Anne Clifford unite herself to so worthless a person? Does she not
answer this question for us when she writes that he was "the greatest
nobleman in England"?
It is of some interest to us to remember that Francis Osborne, Dorothy's
uncle (her father's youngest brother), was Master of the Horse to this
great nobleman.
Whether Lord and Lady Leicester were, as Dorothy says, "in great
disorder" at this time, it is impossible to say. Lady Leicester is said
to have been of a warm and irritable temper, and Lord Leicester is
described by Clarendon as "staggering and irresolute in his nature."
However, nothing is said of their quarrels; but, on the other hand,
there is a very pathetic account in Lord Leicester's journal of his
wife's death in 1659, which shows that, whatever this "disorder" may
have been, a complete reconciliation was afterwards effected.
SIR,--You would have me say something of my coming. Alas! how fain I
would have something to say, but I know no more than you saw in that
letter I sent you. How willingly would I tell you anything that I
thought would please you; but I confess I do not like to give uncertain
hopes, because I do not care to receive them. And I thought there was no
need of saying I would be sure to take the first occasion, and that I
waited with impatience for it, because I hoped you had believed all that
already; and so you do, I am sure. Say what you will, you cannot but
know my heart enough to be assured that I wish myself with you, for my
own sake as well as yours. 'Tis rather that you love to hear me say it
often, than that you doubt it; for I am no dissembler. I could not cry
for a husband that were indifferent to me (like your cousin); no, nor
for a husband that I loved neither. I think 'twould break my heart
sooner than make me shed a tear. 'Tis ordinary griefs that make me weep.
In earnest, you cannot imagine how often I have been told that I had too
much _franchise_ in my humour, and that 'twas a point of good breeding
to disguise handsomely; but I answered still for myself, that 'twas not
to be expected I should be exactly bred, that had never seen a Court
since I was capable of anything. Yet I know so much,--that my Lady
Carlisle would take it very ill if you should not let her get the point
of honour; 'tis all she aims at, to go beyond everybody in compliment.
But are you not afraid of giving me a strong vanity with telling me I
write better than the most extraordinary person in the world? If I had
not the sense to understand that the reason why you like my letters
better is only because they are kinder than hers, such a word might have
undone me.
But my Lady Isabella, that speaks, and looks, and sings, and plays, and
all so prettily, why cannot I say that she is free from faults as her
sister believes her? No; I am afraid she is not, and sorry that those
she has are so generally known. My brother did not bring them for an
example; but I did, and made him confess she had better have married a
beggar than that beast with all his estate. She cannot be excused; but
certainly they run a strange hazard that have such husbands as makes
them think they cannot be more undone, whatever course they take. Oh,
'tis ten thousand pities! I remember she was the first woman that ever I
took notice of for extremely handsome; and, in earnest, she was then the
loveliest lady that could be looked on, I think. But what should she do
with beauty now? Were I as she, I should hide myself from all the world;
I should think all people that looked on me read it in my face and
despised me in their hearts; and at the same time they made me a leg, or
spoke civilly to me, I should believe they did not think I deserved
their respect. I'll tell you who he urged for an example though, my Lord
Pembroke and my Lady, who, they say, are upon parting after all his
passion for her, and his marrying her against the consent of all his
friends; but to that I answered, that though he pretended great kindness
he had for her, I never heard of much she had for him, and knew she
married him merely for advantage. Nor is she a woman of that discretion
as to do all that might become her, when she must do it rather as things
fit to be done than as things she inclined to. Besides that, what with a
spleenatick side and a chemical head, he is but an odd body himself.
But is it possible what they say, that my Lord Leicester and my Lady are
in great disorder, and that after forty years' patience he has now taken
up the cudgels and resolved to venture for the mastery? Methinks he
wakes out of his long sleep like a froward child, that wrangles and
fights with all that comes near it. They say he has turned away almost
every servant in the house, and left her at Penshurst to digest it as
she can.
What an age do we live in, where 'tis a miracle if in ten couples that
are married, two of them live so as not to publish to the world that
they cannot agree. I begin to be of your opinion of him that (when the
Roman Church first propounded whether it were not convenient for priests
not to marry) said that it might be convenient enough, but sure it was
not our Saviour's intention, for He commanded that all should take up
their cross and follow Him; and for his part, he was confident there was
no such cross as a wife. This is an ill doctrine for me to preach; but
to my friends I cannot but confess that I am afraid much of the fault
lies in us; for I have observed that formerly, in great families, the
men seldom disagree, but the women are always scolding; and 'tis most
certain, that let the husband be what he will, if the wife have but
patience (which, sure, becomes her best), the disorder cannot be great
enough to make a noise; his anger alone, when it meets with nothing that
resists it, cannot be loud enough to disturb the neighbours. And such a
wife may be said to do as a kinswoman of ours that had a husband who was
not always himself; and when he was otherwise, his humour was to rise in
the night, and with two bedstaves labour on the table an hour together.
She took care every night to lay a great cushion upon the table for him
to strike on, that nobody might hear him, and so discover his madness.
But 'tis a sad thing when all one's happiness is only that the world
does not know you are miserable.
For my part, I think it were very convenient that all such as intend to
marry should live together in the same house some years of probation;
and if, in all that time, they never disagreed, they should then be
permitted to marry if they please; but how few would do it then! I do
not remember that I ever saw or heard of any couple that were bred up so
together (as many you know are, that are designed for one another from
children), but they always disliked one another extremely; parted, if it
were left in their choice. If people proceeded with this caution, the
world would end sooner than is expected, I believe; and because, with
all my wariness, 'tis not impossible but I may be caught, nor likely
that I should be wiser than anybody else, 'twere best, I think, that I
said no more on this point.
What would I give to know that sister of yours that is so good at
discovering; sure she is excellent company; she has reason to laugh at
you when you would have persuaded her the "moss was sweet." I remember
Jane brought some of it to me, to ask me if I thought it had no ill
smell, and whether she might venture to put it in the box or not. I told
her as I thought, she could not put a more innocent thing there, for I
did not find it had any smell at all; besides, I was willing it should
do me some service in requital for the pains I had taken for it. My
niece and I wandered through some eight hundred acres of wood in search
of it, to make rocks and strange things that her head is full of, and
she admires it more than you did. If she had known I had consented it
should have been used to fill up a box, she would have condemned me
extremely. I told Jane that you liked her present, and she, I find, is
resolved to spoil your compliment, and make you confess at last that
they are not worth the eating; she threatens to send you more, but you
would forgive her if you saw how she baits me every day to go to London;
all that I can say will not satisfy her. When I urge (as 'tis true) that
there is a necessity of my stay here, she grows furious, cries you will
die with melancholy, and confounds me so with stories of your
ill-humour, that I'll swear I think I should go merely to be at quiet,
if it were possible, though there were no other reason for it. But I
hope 'tis not so ill as she would have me believe it, though I know your
humour is strangely altered from what it was, and am sorry to see it.
Melancholy must needs do you more hurt than to another to whom it may be
natural, as I think it is to me; therefore if you loved me you would
take heed on't. Can you believe that you are dearer to me than the whole
world beside, and yet neglect yourself? If you do not, you wrong a
perfect friendship; and if you do, you must consider my interest in you,
and preserve yourself to make me happy. Promise me this, or I shall
haunt you worse than she does me. Scribble how you please, so you make
your letter long enough; you see I give you good example; besides, I can
assure you we do perfectly agree if you receive not satisfaction but
from my letters, I have none but what yours give me.
_Letter 39._--Dorothy has been in London since her last letter, but
unfortunately she has either not met with Temple, or he has left town
suddenly whilst she was there, on some unexplained errand. This would
therefore seem a natural place to begin a new chapter; but as we have
very shortly to come to a series of unhappy letters, quite distinct in
their character from these, I have thought fit to place in this long
chapter yet a few more letters after Dorothy's autumn visit to London.
Stephen Marshall was, like Hugh Peters, one of those preachers who was
able to exchange the obscurity of a country parish for the public fame
of a London pulpit, by reason of a certain gift of rhetorical power,
the value of which it is impossible to estimate to-day. Such of his
sermons as are still extant are prosy, long-winded, dogmatic
absurdities, overloaded with periphrastic illustrations in scriptural
language. They are meaningless to a degree, which would make one wonder
at the docility and patience of a seventeenth century congregation, if
one had not witnessed a similar spirit in congregations of to-day.
There is no honest biography of Stephen Marshall. In the news-books and
tracts of the day we find references to sermons preached by him, by
command, before the Army of the Parliament, and we have reprints of some
of these. I have searched in vain to find the sermon which Dorothy
heard, but it was probably not a sermon given on any great occasion, and
we may believe it was never printed. There is an amusing scandalous
tract, called the _Life and Death of Stephen Marshall_, which is so full
of "evil speaking, lying, and slandering," as to be quite unworthy of
quotation. From this we may take it, however, that he was born at
Gormanchester, in Cromwell's county, was educated at Emmanuel College,
Cambridge, and that before he came to London his chief cure of souls was
at Finchingfield in Essex. These, and the records of his London
preaching, are the only facts in his life's history which have come to
my notice.
My Lord Whitelocke did go to Sweden, as Dorothy surmises; setting sail
from Plymouth with one hundred honest men, on October 26, 1653, or very
soon afterwards, as one may read in his journal of the progress of the
Embassy. That he should fill this office, appears to have been proposed
to him by Cromwell in September of this year.
An Act of Parliament to abolish the Chancery was indeed passed in the
August of this year. Well may Lord Keble sore lament, and the rest of
the world rejoice, at such news. Joseph Keble was a well-known law
reporter, a son of Serjeant Richard Keble. He was a Fellow of All Souls,
and a Bencher of Gray's Inn; and, furthermore, was one of the Lords
Commissioners of the Great Seal from 1648-1654. There was "some debate,"
says Whitelocke, "whether they should be styled 'Commissioners' or
'Lords Commissioners,'" and though the word _Lords_ was far less
acceptable at this time than formerly, yet that they might not seem to
lessen their own authority, nor the honour of their office constituted
by them, they voted the title to be "Lords Commissioners."
SIR,--If want of kindness were the only crime I exempted from pardon,
'twas not that I had the least apprehension you could be guilty of it;
but to show you (by excepting only an impossible thing) that I excepted
nothing. No, in earnest, I can fancy no such thing of you, or if I
could, the quarrel would be to myself; I should never forgive my own
folly that let me to choose a friend that could be false. But I'll leave
this (which is not much to the purpose) and tell you how, with my usual
impatience, I expected your letter, and how cold it went to my heart to
see it so short a one. 'Twas so great a pain to me that I am resolv'd
you shall not feel it; nor can I in justice punish you for a fault
unwillingly committed. If I were your enemy, I could not use you ill
when I saw Fortune do it too, and in gallantry and good nature both, I
should think myself rather obliged to protect you from her injury (if it
lay in my power) than double them upon you. These things considered, I
believe this letter will be longer than ordinary,--kinder I think it
cannot be. I always speak my heart to you; and that is so much your
friend, it never furnishes me with anything to your disadvantage. I am
glad you are an admirer of Telesile as well as I; in my opinion 'tis a
fine Lady, but I know you will pity poor Amestris strongly when you have
read her story. I'll swear I cried for her when I read it first, though
she were but an imaginary person; and, sure, if anything of that kind
can deserve it, her misfortunes may.
God forgive me, I was as near laughing yesterday where I should not.
Would you believe that I had the grace to go hear a sermon upon a week
day? In earnest, 'tis true; a Mr. Marshall was the man that preached,
but never anybody was so defeated. He is so famed that I expected rare
things of him, and seriously I listened to him as if he had been St.
Paul; and what do you think he told us? Why, that if there were no
kings, no queens, no lords, no ladies, nor gentlemen, nor gentlewomen,
in the world, 'twould be no loss to God Almighty at all. This we had
over some forty times, which made me remember it whether I would or not.
The rest was much at this rate, interlarded with the prettiest odd
phrases, that I had the most ado to look soberly enough for the place I
was in that ever I had in my life. He does not preach so always, sure?
If he does, I cannot believe his sermons will do much towards bringing
anybody to heaven more than by exercising their patience. Yet, I'll say
that for him, he stood stoutly for tithes, though, in my opinion, few
deserve them less than he; and it may be he would be better without
them.
Yet you are not convinced, you say, that to be miserable is the way to
be good; to some natures I think it is not, but there are many of so
careless and vain a temper, that the least breath of good fortune swells
them with so much pride, that if they were not put in mind sometimes by
a sound cross or two that they are mortal, they would hardly think it
possible; and though 'tis a sign of a servile nature when fear produces
more of reverence in us than love, yet there is more danger of
forgetting oneself in a prosperous fortune than in the contrary, and
affliction may be the surest (though not the pleasantest) guide to
heaven. What think you, might not I preach with Mr. Marshall for a
wager? But you could fancy a perfect happiness here, you say; that is
not much, many people do so; but I never heard of anybody that ever had
it more than in fancy, so that will not be strange if you should miss
on't. One may be happy to a good degree, I think, in a faithful friend,
a moderate fortune, and a retired life; further than this I know nothing
to wish; but if there be anything beyond it, I wish it you.
You did not tell me what carried you out of town in such haste. I hope
the occasion was good, you must account to me for all that I lost by it.
I shall expect a whole packet next week. Oh, me! I have forgot this once
or twice to tell you, that if it be no inconvenience to you, I could
wish you would change the place of direction for my letters. Certainly
that Jones knows my name, I bespoke a saddle of him once, and though it
be a good while agone, yet I was so often with him about it,--having
much ado to make him understand how I would have it, it being of a
fashion he had never seen, though, sure, it be common,--that I am
confident he has not forgot me. Besides that, upon it he got my
brother's custom; and I cannot tell whether he does not use the shop
still. Jane presents her humble service to you, and has sent you
something in a box; 'tis hard to imagine what she can find here to
present you withal, and I am much in doubt whether you will not pay too
dear for it if you discharge the carriage. 'Tis a pretty freedom she
takes, but you may thank yourself; she thinks because you call her
fellow-servant, she may use you accordingly. I bred her better, but you
have spoiled her.
Is it true that my Lord Whitlocke goes Ambassador where my Lord Lisle
should have gone? I know not how he may appear in a Swedish Court, but
he was never meant for a courtier at home, I believe. Yet 'tis a
gracious Prince; he is often in this country, and always does us the
favour to send for his fruit hither. He was making a purchase of one of
the best houses in the county. I know not whether he goes on with it;
but 'tis such a one as will not become anything less than a lord. And
there is a talk as if the Chancery were going down; if so, his title
goes with it, I think. 'Twill be sad news for my Lord Keble's son; he
will have nothing left to say when "my Lord, my father," is taken from
him. Were it not better that I had nothing to say neither, than that I
should entertain you with such senseless things. I hope I am half
asleep, nothing else can excuse me; if I were quite asleep, I should say
fine things to you; I often dream I do; but perhaps if I could remember
them they are no wiser than my wakening discourses. Good-night.
_Letter 40._--A letter has been lost; whether Harrold or Collins, the
two carriers, were either or both of them guilty of carelessness in the
delivery of these letters, it is quite impossible to say now. Dorothy
seems to think Harrold delivered the letter, and it was mislaid in
London. Perhaps it was this letter, and what was written about it, that
caused all those latent feelings of despair and discontent to awaken in
the breasts of the two lovers. Was this the spark that loneliness and
absence fanned into flame? You shall judge for yourself, reader, in the
next chapter.
SIR,--That you may be at more certainty hereafter what to think, let me
tell you that nothing could hinder me from writing to you (as well for
my own satisfaction as yours) but an impossibility of doing it; nothing
but death or a dead palsy in my hands, or something that had the same
effect. I did write it, and gave it Harrold, but by an accident his
horse fell lame, so that he could not set out on Monday; but on Tuesday
he did come to town; on Wednesday, carried the letter himself (as he
tells me) where 'twas directed, which was to Mr. Copyn in Fleet Street.
'Twas the first time I made use of that direction; no matter and I had
not done it then, since it proves no better. Harrold came late home on
Thursday night with such an account as your boy gave you: that coming
out of town the same day he came in, he had been at Fleet Street again,
but there was no letter for him. I was sorry, but I did not much wonder
at it because he gave so little time, and resolved to make my best of
that I had by Collins. I read it over often enough to make it equal with
the longest letter that ever was writ, and pleased myself, in earnest
(as much as it was possible for me in the humour I was in), to think how
by that time you had asked me pardon for the little reproaches you had
made me, and that the kindness and length of my letter had made you
amends for the trouble it had given you in expecting it. But I am not a
little annoyed to find you had it not. I am very confident it was
delivered, and therefore you must search where the fault lies.
Were it not that you had suffered too much already, I would complain a
little of you. Why should you think me so careless of anything that you
were concerned in, as to doubt that I had writ? Though I had received
none from you, I should not have taken that occasion to revenge myself.
Nay, I should have concluded you innocent, and have imagined a thousand
ways how it might happen, rather than have suspected your want of
kindness. Why should not you be as just to me? But I will not chide, it
may be (as long as we have been friends) you do not know me so well yet
as to make an absolute judgment of me; but if I know myself at all, if I
am capable of being anything, 'tis a perfect friend. Yet I must chide
too. Why did you get such a cold? Good God! how careless you are of a
life that (by your own confession) I have told you makes all the
happiness of mine. 'Tis unkindly done. What is left for me to say, when
that will not prevail with you; or how can you persuade me to a cure of
myself, when you refuse to give me the example? I have nothing in the
world that gives me the least desire of preserving myself, but the
opinion I have you would not be willing to lose me; and yet, if you saw
with what caution I live (at least to what I did before), you would
reproach it to yourself sometimes, and might grant, perhaps, that you
have not got the advantage of me in friendship so much as you imagine.
What (besides your consideration) could oblige me to live and lose all
the rest of my friends thus one after another? Sure I am not insensible
nor very ill-natured, and yet I'll swear I think I do not afflict myself
half so much as another would do that had my losses. I pay nothing of
sadness to the memory of my poor brother, but I presently disperse it
with thinking what I owe in thankfulness that 'tis not you I mourn for.
Well, give me no more occasions to complain of you, you know not what
may follow. Here was Mr. Freeman yesterday that made me a very kind
visit, and said so many fine things to me, that I was confounded with
his civilities, and had nothing to say for myself. I could have wished
then that he had considered me less and my niece more; but if you
continue to use me thus, in earnest, I'll not be so much her friend
hereafter. Methinks I see you laugh at all my threatenings; and not
without reason. Mr. Freeman, you believe, is designed for somebody that
deserves him better. I think so too, and am not sorry for it; and you
have reason to believe I never can be other than
Your faithful friend.