This chapter opens with a portion
of a letter written by Sir William Temple to his mistress,
dated Ireland, May 18, 1654. It is the only letter,
or rather scrap of letter which we have of his, and
by some good chance it has survived with the rest
of Dorothy’s letters. It will, I think,
throw great light on his character as a lover, showing
him to have been ardent and ecstatic in his suit,
making quite clear Dorothy’s wisdom in insisting,
as she often does, on the necessity of some more material
marriage portion than mere love and hope. His
reference to the “unhappy differences”
strengthens my view that the letters of the former
chapter belong all to one date.
Letter 57. Letter of Sir William
Temple.
May 18th, 1654.
... I am called upon for my letter,
but must have leave first to remember you of yours.
For God’s sake write constantly while I am here,
or I am undone past all recovery. I have lived
upon them ever since I came, but had thrived much
better had they been longer. Unless you use to
give me better measure, I shall not be in case to undertake
a journey to England. The despair I was in at
not hearing from you last week, and the belief that
all my letters had miscarried (by some treachery among
my good friends who, I am sorry, have the name of yours),
made me press my father by all means imaginable to
give me leave to go presently if I heard not from
you this post. But he would never yield to that,
because, he said, upon your silence he should suspect
all was not likely to be well between us, and then
he was sure I should not be in condition to be alone.
He remembered too well the letters I writ upon our
last unhappy differences, and would not trust me from
him in such another occasion. But, withal, he
told me he would never give me occasion of any discontent
which he could remedy; that if you desired my coming
over, and I could not be content without, he would
not hinder me, though he very much desired my company
a month or two longer, and that in that time ’twas
very likely I might have his as well.
Now, in very good earnest, do you
think ’tis time for me to come or no? Would
you be very glad to see me there, and could you do
it in less disorder, and with less surprise, than
you did at Chicksands?
I ask you these questions very seriously;
but yet how willingly would I venture all to be with
you. I know you love me still; you promised me,
and that’s all the security I can have in this
world. ’Tis that which makes all things
else seem nothing to it, so high it sets me; and so
high, indeed, that should I ever fall ’twould
dash me all to pieces. Methinks your very charity
should make you love me more now than ever, by seeing
me so much more unhappy than I used, by being so much
farther from you, for that is all the measure can
be taken of my good or ill condition. Justice,
I am sure, will oblige you to it, since you have no
other means left in the world of rewarding such a passion
as mine, which, sure, is of a much richer value than
anything in the world besides. Should you save
my life again, should you make me absolute master
of your fortune and your person too, I should accept
none of all this in any part of payment, but look
upon you as one behindhand with me still. ’Tis
no vanity this, but a true sense of how pure and how
refined a nature my passion is, which none can ever
know except my own heart, unless you find it out by
being there.
How hard it is to think of ending
when I am writing to you; but it must be so, and I
must ever be subject to other people’s occasions,
and so never, I think, master of my own. This
is too true, both in respect of this fellow’s
post that is bawling at me for my letter, and of my
father’s delays. They kill me; but patience, would
anybody but I were here! Yet you may command
me ever at one minute’s warning. Had I not
heard from you by this last, in earnest I had resolved
to have gone with this, and given my father the slip
for all his caution. He tells me still of a little
time; but, alas! who knows not what mischances and
how great changes have often happened in a little
time?
For God’s sake let me hear of
all your motions, when and where I may hope to see
you. Let us but hope this cloud, this absence
that has overcast all my contentment, may pass away,
and I am confident there’s a clear sky attends
us. My dearest dear, adieu.
Yours.
Pray, where is your lodging?
Have a care of all the despatch and security that
can be in our intelligence. Remember my fellow-servant;
sure, by the next I shall write some learned epistle
to her, I have been so long about it.
Letter 58. Dorothy
is now in London, staying probably with that aunt
whom she mentioned before as one who was always ready
to find her a husband other than Temple. Of the
plot against the Protector in which my Lord of Dorchester
is said to be engaged, an account is given in connection
with Letter 59; that is, presuming it to be
the same plot, and that Lord Dorchester is one of
the many persons arrested under suspicion of being
concerned in it. I cannot find anything which
identifies him with a special plot.
Lady Sandis [Sandys], who seems so
fond of race meetings and other less harmless amusements,
was the wife of William Lord Sandys, and daughter
of the Earl of Salisbury. Lord Sandys’ country
house was Motesfont or Mottisfont Priory, in Hampshire,
“which the King had given him in exchange for
Chelsea, in Westminster.” So says Leland,
the antiquary and scholar, in his Itinerary;
but it is a little puzzling to the modern mind with
preconceived notions of Chelsea, to hear it spoken
of as a seat or estate in Westminster. Colonel
Tom Paunton is to me merely a name; and J. Morton
is nothing more, unless we may believe him to be Sir
John Morton, Bart. of Milbourne, St. Andrew, in Nottinghamshire.
This addition of a local habitation and a name gives
us no further knowledge, however, of the scandal to
which Dorothy alludes.
Mistress Stanley and Mistress Witherington
have left no trace of their identity that I can find,
but Mistress Philadelphia Carey is not wholly unknown.
She was the second daughter of Thomas Carey, one of
the Earl of Monmouth’s sons, and readers may
be pleased to know that she did marry Sir Henry Littleton.
Of the scandal concerning Lord Rich
I am not sorry to know nothing.
May 25th .
This world is composed of nothing
but contrarieties and sudden accidents, only the proportions
are not at all equal; for to a great measure of trouble
it allows so small a quantity of joy, that one may
see ’tis merely intended to keep us alive withal.
This is a formal preface, and looks as if there were
something of very useful to follow; but I would not
wish you to expect it. I was only considering
my own ill-humour last night, I had not heard from
you in a week or more, my brother had been with me
and we had talked ourselves both out of breath and
patience too, I was not very well, and rose this morning
only because I was weary of lying in bed. When
I had dined I took a coach and went to see whether
there was ever a letter for me, and was this once so
lucky as to find one. I am not partial to myself
I know, and am contented that the pleasure I have
received with this, shall serve to sweeten many sad
thoughts that have interposed since your last, and
more that I may reasonably expect before I have another;
and I think I may (without vanity) say, that nobody
is more sensible of the least good fortune nor murmurs
less at an ill than I do, since I owe it merely to
custom and not to any constancy in my humour, or something
that is better. No, in earnest, anything of good
comes to me like the sun to the inhabitants of Greenland,
it raises them to life when they see it, and when
they miss it, it is not strange they expect a night
of half a year long.
You cannot imagine how kindly I take
it that you forgive my brother, and let me assure
you I shall never press you to anything unreasonable.
I will not oblige you to court a person that has injured
you. I only beg that whatsoever he does in that
kind may be excused by his relation to me, and that
whenever you are moved to think he does you wrong,
you will at the same time remember that his sister
loves you passionately and nobly; that if he values
nothing but fortune, she despises it, and could love
you as much a beggar as she could do a prince; and
shall without question love you eternally, but whether
with any satisfaction to herself or you is a sad doubt.
I am not apt to hope, and whether it be the better
or the worse I know not. All sorts of differences
are natural to me, and that which (if your kindness
would give you leave) you would term a weakness in
me is nothing but a reasonable distrust of my own
judgment, which makes me desire the approbation of
my friends. I never had the confidence in my
life to presume anything well done that I had nobody’s
opinion in but my own; and as you very well observe,
there are so many that think themselves wise when
nothing equals their folly but their pride, that I
dread nothing so much as discovering such a thought
in myself because of the consequences of it.
Whenever you come you must not doubt
your welcome, but I can promise you nothing for the
manner on’t. I am afraid my surprise and
disorder will be more than ever. I have good
reason to think so, and none that you can take ill.
But I would not have you attempt it till your father
is ready for the journey too. No, really he deserves
that all your occasions should wait for his; and if
you have not much more than an ordinary obedience
for him, I shall never believe you have more than an
ordinary kindness for me; since (if you will pardon
me the comparison) I believe we both merit it from
you upon the same score, he as a very indulgent father,
and I as a very kind mistress. Don’t laugh
at me for commending myself, you will never do it
for me, and so I am forced to it.
I am still here in town, but had no
hand, I can assure you, in the new discovered plot
against the Protector. But my Lord of Dorchester,
they say, has, and so might I have had if I were as
rich as he, and then you might have been sure of me
at the Tower; now a worse lodging must serve
my turn. ’Tis over against Salisbury House
where I have the honour of seeing my Lady M. Sandis
every day unless some race or other carry her out
of town. The last week she went to one as far
as Winchester with Col. Paunton (if you know
such a one), and there her husband met her, and because
he did so (though it ’twere by accident) thought
himself obliged to invite her to his house but seven
miles off, and very modestly said no more for it,
but that he thought it better than an Inn, or at least
a crowded one as all in the town were now because of
the race. But she was so good a companion that
she would not forsake her company. So he invited
them too, but could prevail with neither. Only
my Lady grew kind at parting and said, indeed if Tom
Paunton and J. Morton and the rest would have gone
she could have been contented to have taken his offer.
Thus much for the married people, now for those that
are towards it.
There is Mr. Stanley and Mrs. Witherington;
Sir H. Littleton and Mrs. Philadelphia Carey, who
in earnest is a fine woman, such a one as will make
an excellent wife; and some say my Lord Rich and my
Lady Betty Howard, but others that pretend to know
more say his court to her is but to countenance a
more serious one to Mrs. Howard, her sister-in-law,
he not having courage to pretend so openly (as some
do) to another’s wife. Oh, but your old
acquaintance, poor Mr. Heningham, has no luck!
He was so near (as he thought at least) marrying Mrs.
Gerherd that anybody might have got his whole estate
in wagers upon’t that would have ventured but
a reasonable proportion of their own. And now
he looks more like an ass than ever he did. She
has cast him off most unhandsomely, that’s the
truth on’t, and would have tied him to such conditions
as he might have been her slave withal, but could
never be her husband. Is not this a great deal
of news for me that never stir abroad? Nay, I
had brought me to-day more than all this: that
I am marrying myself! And the pleasantness on’t
is that it should be to my Lord St. John. Would
he look on me, think you, that had pretty Mrs. Fretcheville?
My comfort is, I have not seen him since he was a
widower, and never spoke to him in my life. I
found myself so innocent that I never blushed when
they told it me. What would I give I could avoid
it when people speak of you? In earnest, I do
prepare myself all that is possible to hear it spoken
of, yet for my life I cannot hear your name without
discovering that I am more than ordinarily concerned
in’t. A blush is the foolishest thing that
can be, and betrays one more than a red nose does a
drunkard; and yet I would not so wholly have lost
them as some women that I know has, as much injury
as they do me. I can assure you now that I shall
be here a fortnight longer (they tell me no lodger,
upon pain of his Highness’s displeasure, must
remove sooner); but when I have his leave I go into
Suffolk for a month, and then come hither again to
go into Kent, where I intend to bury myself alive
again as I did in Bedfordshire, unless you call me
out and tell me I may be happy. Alas! how fain
I would hope it, but I cannot, and should it ever
happen, ’twould be long before I should believe
’twas meant for me in earnest, or that ’twas
other than a dream. To say truth, I do not love
to think on’t, I find so many things to fear
and so few to hope.
’Tis better telling you that
I will send my letters where you direct, that they
shall be as long ones as possibly my time will permit,
and when at any time you miss of one, I give you leave
to imagine as many kind things as you please, and
to believe I mean them all to you.
Farewell.
Letter 59. It is
a little astonishing to read, as one does in this
and the last letter, of race meetings, and Dorothy,
habited in a mask, disporting herself at New Spring
Gardens or in the Park. It opens one’s
eyes to the exaggerated gloom that has been thrown
over England during the Puritan reign by those historians
who have derived their information solely from State
papers and proclamations. It is one thing to proclaim
amusements, another to abolish them. The first
was undoubtedly done, but we doubt if there was ever
any long-continued effort to do the last; and in the
latter part of Cromwell’s reign the gloom, and
the strait-laced regulations that caused it, must
have almost entirely disappeared.
Spring Gardens seems at one time to
have had no very good reputation. Lady Alice
Halkett, writing in 1644, tells us that “so scrupulous
was I of giving any occasion to speak of me as I know
they did of others, that though I loved well to see
plays, and to walk in the Spring Gardens sometimes
(before it grew something scandalous by the abuses
of some), yet I cannot remember three times that ever
I went with any man besides my brother.”
However, fashions change in ten years, and Spring Gardens
is, doubtless, now quite demure and respectable, or
we should not find Dorothy there. Spring Gardens
was enclosed and laid out towards the end of the reign
of James I. The clump of houses which still bears its
name is supposed to indicate its position with tolerable
exactness. Evelyn tells us that Cromwell shut
up the Spring Gardens in 1600, and Knight thinks they
were closed until the Restoration, in which small matter
we may allow Dorothy to correct him. The fact
of the old gardens having been closed may account
for Dorothy referring to the place as “New Spring
Gardens.” Knight also quotes at second hand
from an account of Spring Gardens, complaining that
the author is unknown to him. This quotation
is, however, from one of Somers’ Tracts entitled
“A Character of England as it was lately represented
in a Letter to a Nobleman of France, 1659.”
The Frenchman by whom the letter is written probably
an English satirist in disguise gives us
such a graphic account of the Parks before the Restoration,
that as the matter is fresh and bears upon the subject,
I have no hesitation in quoting it at length:
“I did frequently in the spring
accompany my Lord N. into a field near the town which
they call Hyde Park, the place not unpleasant,
and which they use as our ‘Course,’
but with nothing that order, equipage, and splendour;
being such an assembly of wretched jades and hackney
coaches, as, next to a regiment of car-men, there
is nothing approaches the resemblance. The Park
was, it seems, used by the late King and nobility
for the freshness of the air and the goodly prospect,
but it is that which now (besides all other exercises)
they pay for here in England, though it be free in
all the world beside; every coach and horse which
enters buying his mouthful and permission of the publican
who has purchased it, for which the entrance is guarded
with porters and long staves.
“The manner is, as the company
returns, to stop at the Spring Gardens so called,
in order to the Park as our Thuilleries is to
the Course; the inclosure not disagreeable
for the solemnness of the groves, the warbling of
the birds, and as it opens into the spacious walks
of St. James. But the company walk in it at such
a rate as you would think all the ladies were so many
Atalantas contending with their wooers, and, my Lord,
there was no appearance that I should prove the Hippomenes,
who could with very much ado keep pace with them.
But, as fast as they run, they stay there so long,
as if they wanted not to finish the race, for it is
usual here to find some of the young company till midnight,
and the thickets of the garden seem to be contrived
to all the advantages of gallantry after they have
refreshed with the collation, which is here seldom
omitted, at a certain cabaret in the middle of this
paradise, where the forbidden fruits are certain trifling
tarts, neats’ tongues, salacious meats, and
bad Rhenish, for which the gallants pay sauce, as
indeed they do at all such houses throughout England;
for they think it a piece of frugality beneath them
to bargain or account for what they eat in any place,
however unreasonably imposed upon.”
Dorothy is quite right in her correction
concerning Will Spencer. He was the first Earl
of Sunderland, and married Elizabeth, daughter of Lord
Gerard.
June the 6th, 1654.
I see you know how to punish me.
In earnest, I was so frightened with your short letter
as you cannot imagine, and as much troubled at the
cause on’t. What is it your father ails,
and how long has he been ill? If my prayers are
heard, he will not be so long. Why do you say
I failed you? Indeed, I did not. Jane is
my witness. She carried my letter to the White
Hart, by St. James’s, and ’twas a very
long one too. I carried one thither since, myself,
and the woman of the house was so very angry, because
I desired her to have a care on’t, that I made
the coachman drive away with all possible speed, lest
she should have beaten me. To say truth, I pressed
her too much, considering how little the letter deserved
it. ’Twas writ in such disorder, the company
prating about me, and some of them so bent on doing
me little mischiefs, that I know not what I did, and
believe it was the most senseless, disjointed thing
that ever was read.
I remember now that I writ Robin Spencer
instead of Will. ’Tis he that has married
Mrs. Gerherd, and I admire their courage. She
will have eight hundred pounds a year, ’tis
true, after her mother’s death; but how they
will live till then I cannot imagine. I shall
be even with you for your short letter. I’ll
swear they will not allow me time for anything, and
to show how absolutely I am governed I need but tell
you that I am every night in the Park and at New Spring
Gardens, where, though I come with a mask, I cannot
escape being known, nor my conversion being admired.
Are you not in some fear what will become on me?
These are dangerous courses. I do not find, though,
that they have altered me yet. I am much the
same person at heart I was in being
Yours.
Letter 60.
June 13th .
You have satisfied me very much with
this last long letter, and made some amends for the
short one I received before. I am convinced, too,
happiness is much such a kind of thing as you describe,
or rather such a nothing. For there is no one
thing can properly be called so, but every one is
left to create it to themselves in something which
they either have or would have; and so far it’s
well enough. But I do not like that one’s
happiness should depend upon a persuasion that this
is happiness, because nobody knows how long they shall
continue in a belief built upon no grounds, only to
bring it to what you say, and to make it absolutely
of the same nature with faith. We must conclude
that nobody can either create or continue such a belief
in themselves; but where it is there is happiness.
And for my part at this present, I verily believe I
could find it in the long walk at Dublin.
You say nothing of your father’s
sickness, therefore I hope he is well again; for though
I have a quarrel to him, it does not extend so far
as to wish him ill. But he made no good return
for the counsel I gave you, to say that there might
come a time when my kindness might fail. Do not
believe him, I charge you, unless you doubt yourself
that you may give me occasion to change; and when
he tells you so again, engage what you please upon’t,
and put it upon my account. I shall go out of
town this week, and so cannot possibly get a picture
drawn for you till I come up again, which will be
within these six weeks, but not to make any stay at
all. I should be glad to find you here then.
I would have had one drawn since I came, and consulted
my glass every morning when to begin; and to speak
freely to you that are my friend, I could never find
my face in a condition to admit on’t, and when
I was not satisfied with it myself, I had no reason
to hope that anybody else should. But I am afraid,
as you say, that time will not mend it, and therefore
you shall have it as it is as soon as Mr. Cooper will
vouchsafe to take the pains to draw it for you.
I am in great trouble to think how
I shall write out of Suffolk to you, or receive yours.
However, do not fail to write, though they lie awhile.
I shall have them at last, and they will not be the
less welcome; and, though you should miss of some
of mine, let it not trouble you; but if it be by my
fault, I’ll give you leave to demand satisfaction
for it when you come. Jane kisses your hands,
and says she will be ready in all places to do you
service; but I’ll prevent her, now you have put
me into a jealous humour. I’ll keep her
in chains before she shall quit scores with me.
Do not believe, sir, I beseech you, that the young
heirs are for you; content yourself with your old
mistress. You are not so handsome as Will Spencer,
nor I have not so much courage nor wealth as his mistress,
nor she has not so much as her aunt says by all the
money. I shall not have called her his mistress
now they have been married almost this fortnight.
I’ll write again before I leave
the town, and should have writ more now, but company
is come in. Adieu, my dearest.
Letter 61. Lady
Talmash was the eldest daughter of Mr. Murray, Charles
I.’s page and whipping boy. She married
Sir Lionel Talmash of Suffolk, a gentleman of noble
family. After her father’s death, she took
the title of Countess of Dysart, although there was
some dispute about the right of her father to any
title. Bishop Burnet says: “She was
a woman of great beauty, but of far greater parts.
She had a wonderful quickness of apprehension, and
an amazing vivacity in conversation. She had
studied not only divinity and history, but mathematics
and philosophy. She was violent in everything
she set about, a violent friend, but a
much more violent enemy. She had a restless ambition,
lived at a vast expense, and was ravenously covetous;
and would have stuck at nothing by which she might
compass her ends. She had been early in a correspondence
with Lord Lauderdale, that had given occasion to censure.
When he was a prisoner after Worcester fight, she made
him believe he was in great danger of his life, and
that she saved it by her intrigues with Cromwell,
which was not a little taken notice of. Cromwell
was certainly fond of her, and she took care to entertain
him in it; till he, finding what was said upon it,
broke it off. Upon the King’s Restoration
she thought that Lord Lauderdale made not those returns
she expected. They lived for some years at a distance.
But upon her husband’s death she made up all
quarrels; so that Lord Lauderdale and she lived so
much together that his Lady was offended at it and
went to Paris, where she died about three years after.”
This was in 1672, and soon afterwards Lady Dysart
and Lord Lauderdale were married. She had great
power over him, and employed it in trafficking with
such State patronage as was in Lord Lauderdale’s
power to bestow.
Cousin Hammond, who was going to take
Ludlow’s place in Ireland, would be the Colonel
Robert Hammond who commanded Carisbrooke when the King
was imprisoned there. He was one of a new council
formed in August and sent into Ireland about the end
of that month.
Lady Vavasour was Ursula, daughter
of Walter Gifford of Chillington, Staffordshire.
Her husband was Sir Thomas Vavasour, Bart. The
Vavasours were a Roman Catholic family, and claimed
descent from those who held the ancient office of
King’s Valvasour; and we need not therefore be
surprised to find Lady Vavasour engaged in one of the
numerous plots that surrounded and endangered the
Protector’s power. The plot itself seems
to have created intense excitement in the capital,
and resulted in three persons being tried for high
treason, and two executed, John Gerard,
gentleman, Peter Vowel, schoolmaster of Islington,
and one Summerset Fox, who pleaded guilty, and whose
life was spared. “Some wise men,”
writes one Thomas Gower in a contemporary letter (still
unprinted), “believe that a couple of coy-ducks
drew in the rest, then revealed all, and were employed
to that purpose that the execution of a few mean persons
might deter wiser and more considerable persons.”
This seems not improbable. On June 6th the official
Mercurius Politicus speaks of this plot as
follows: “The traitorous conspiracy
mentioned heretofore it appears every day more desperate
and bloody. It is discovered that their design
was to have destroyed his Highness’s person,
and all others at the helm of Government that they
could have laid hands on. Immediately upon the
villainous assassination, they intended to have proclaimed
Charles Stuart by the assistance of a tumult,”
etc. etc. This with constant accounts
of further arrests troubles the public mind at this
time.
The passage of Cowley which Dorothy
refers to is in the second book of Cowley’s
Davideis. It opens with a description of
the friendship between David and Jonathan, and, upon
that occasion, a digression concerning the nature
of love. The poem was written by Cowley when a
young man at Cambridge. One can picture Dorothy
reading and musing over lines like these with sympathy
and admiration:
What
art thou, love, thou great mysterious thing?
From
what hid stock does thy strange nature spring?
’Tis
thou that mov’st the world through ev’ry
part,
And
hold’st the vast frame close that nothing start
From
the due place and office first ordained,
By
thee were all things made and are sustained.
Sometimes
we see thee fully and can say
From
hence thou took’st thy rise and went’st
that way,
But
oft’ner the short beams of reason’s eye
See
only there thou art, not how, nor why.
His lines on love, though overcharged
with quaint conceits, are often noble and true, and
end at least with one fine couplet:
Thus
dost thou sit (like men e’er sin had framed
A
guilty blush), naked but not ashamed.
I promised in my last to write again
before I went out of town, and now I’ll be as
good as my word. They are all gone this morning,
and have left me much more at liberty than I have
been of late, therefore I believe this will be a long
letter; perhaps too long, at least if my letters are
as little entertaining as my company is. I was
carried yesterday abroad to a dinner that was designed
for mirth, but it seems one ill-humoured person in
the company is enough to put all the rest out of tune;
for I never saw people perform what they intended worse,
and could not forbear telling them so: but to
excuse themselves and silence my reproaches, they
all agreed to say that I spoiled their jollity by
wearing the most unreasonable looks that could be put
on for such an occasion. I told them I knew no
remedy but leaving me behind next time, and could
have told them that my looks were suitable to my fortune,
though not to a feast. Fye! I am got into
my complaining humour that tires myself as well as
everybody else, and which (as you observe) helps not
at all. Would it would leave me, and then I could
believe I shall not always have occasion for it.
But that’s in nobody’s power, and my Lady
Talmash, that says she can do whatsoever she will,
cannot believe whatsoever she pleases. ’Tis
not unpleasant, methinks, to hear her talk, how at
such a time she was sick and the physicians told her
she would have the small-pox, and showed her where
they were coming out upon her; but she bethought herself
that it was not at all convenient for her to have
them at that time; some business she had that required
her going abroad, and so she resolved she would not
be sick; nor was not. Twenty such stories as
these she tells; and then falls into discoveries of
strength of reason and the power of philosophy, till
she confounds herself and all that hear her.
You have no such ladies in Ireland?
Oh me, but I heard to-day your cousin
Hammond is going thither to be in Ludlow’s place.
Is it true? You tell me nothing what is done there,
but ’tis no matter. The less one knows
of State affairs I find it is the better. My
poor Lady Vavasour is carried to the Tower, and her
great belly could not excuse her, because she was
acquainted by somebody that there was a plot against
the Protector, and did not discover it. She has
told now all that was told her, but vows she will never
say from whence she had it: we shall see whether
her resolutions are as unalterable as those of my
Lady Talmash. I wonder how she behaved herself
when she was married. I never saw any one yet
that did not look simply and out of countenance, nor
ever knew a wedding well designed but one; and that
was of two persons who had time enough I confess to
contrive it, and nobody to please in’t but themselves.
He came down into the country where she was upon a
visit, and one morning married her. As soon as
they came out of the church they took coach and came
for the town, dined at an inn by the way, and at night
came into lodgings that were provided for them where
nobody knew them, and where they passed for married
people of seven years’ standing.
The truth is I could not endure to
be Mrs. Bride in a public wedding, to be made the
happiest person on earth. Do not take it ill,
for I would endure it if I could, rather than fail;
but in earnest I do not think it were possible for
me. You cannot apprehend the formalities of a
treaty more than I do, nor so much the success on’t.
Yet in earnest, your father will not find my brother
Peyton wanting in civility (though he is not a man
of much compliment, unless it be in his letters to
me), nor an unreasonable person in anything, so he
will allow him out of his kindness to his wife to
set a higher value upon her sister than she deserves.
I know not how he may be prejudiced as to the business,
but he is not deaf to reason when ’tis civilly
delivered, and is as easily gained with compliance
and good usage as anybody I know, but by no other
way. When he is roughly dealt with, he is like
me, ten times the worse for’t.
I make it a case of conscience to
discover my faults to you as fast as I know them,
that you may consider what you have to do. My
aunt told me no longer agone than yesterday that I
was the most wilful woman that ever she knew, and
had an obstinacy of spirit nothing could overcome.
Take heed! you see I give you fair warning.
I have missed a letter this Monday:
What is the reason? By the next, I shall be gone
into Kent, and my other journey is laid aside, which
I am not displeased at, because it would have broken
our intercourse very much.
Here are some verses of Cowley’s.
Tell me how you like them. ’Tis only a
piece taken out of a new thing of his; the whole is
very long, and is a description of, or rather a paraphrase
upon the friendship of David and Jonathan. ’Tis,
I think, the best I have seen of his, and I like the
subject because ’tis that I would be perfect
in. Adieu.
Je suis vostre.
Letter 62.
June the 26th .
I told you in my last that my Suffolk
journey was laid aside, and that into Kent hastened.
I am beginning it to-day; and have chosen to go as
far as Gravesend by water, though it be very gloomy
weather. If I drown by the way, this will be
my last letter; and, like a will, I bequeath all my
kindness to you in it, with a charge never to bestow
it all upon another mistress, lest my ghost rise again
and haunt you. I am in such haste that I can
say little else to you now. When you are come
over, we’l’ think where to meet, for at
this distance I can design nothing; only I should
be as little pleased with the constraint of my brother’s
house as you. Pray let me know whether your man
leaves you, and how you stand inclined to him I offer
you. Indeed, I like him extremely, and he is
commended to me, by people that know him very well
and are able to judge, for a most excellent servant,
and faithful as possible. I’ll keep him
unengaged till I hear from you. Adieu.
My next shall make amends for this short one.
[P.S.] I received
your last of June 22nd since I sealed up my letter,
and I durst not but make an excuse for another short
one, after you have chid me so for those you have
received already; indeed, I could not help it, nor
cannot now, but if that will satisfy I can assure you
I shall make a much better wife than I do a husband,
if I ever am one. Pardon, mon Cher Coeur, on m’attend.
Adieu, mon Âme. Je vous souhait tout ce que vous
desire.
Letter 63.
July the 4th .
Because you find fault with my other
letters, this is like to be shorter than they; I did
not intend it so though, I can assure you. But
last night my brother told me he did not send his
till ten o’clock this morning, and now he calls
for mine at seven, before I am up; and I can only
be allowed time to tell you that I am in Kent, and
in a house so strangely crowded with company that
I am weary as a dog already, though I have been here
but three or four days; that all their mirth has not
mended my humour, and that I am here the same I was
in other places; that I hope, merely because you bid
me, and lose that hope as often as I consider anything
but yours. Would I were easy of belief! they say
one is so to all that one desires. I do not find
it, though I am told I was so extremely when I believed
you loved me. That I would not find, and you
have only power to make me think it. But I am
called upon. How fain I would say more; yet ’tis
all but the saying with more circumstance than I am
Yours.
[Directed.] For your master.
Letter 64.
I see you can chide when you please,
and with authority; but I deserve it, I confess, and
all I can say for myself is, that my fault proceeded
from a very good principle in me. I am apt to
speak what I think; and to you have so accustomed
myself to discover all my heart that I do not believe
it will ever be in my power to conceal a thought from
you. Therefore I am afraid you must resolve to
be vexed with all my senseless apprehensions as my
brother Peyton is with some of his wife’s, who
is thought a very good woman, but the most troublesome
one in a coach that ever was. We dare not let
our tongues lie more on one side of our mouths than
t’other for fear of overturning it. You
are satisfied, I hope, ere this that I ’scaped
drowning. However, ’tis not amiss that my
will made you know now how to dispose of all my wealth
whensoever I die. But I am troubled much you
should make so ill a journey to so little purpose;
indeed, I writ by the first post after my arrival here,
and cannot imagine how you came to miss of my letters.
Is your father returned yet, and do you think of coming
over immediately? How welcome you will be.
But, alas! I cannot talk on’t at the rate
that you do. I am sensible that such an absence
is misfortune enough, but I dare not promise myself
that it will conclude ours; and ’tis more my
belief that you yourself speak it rather to encourage
me, and to your wishes than your hopes.
My humour is so ill at present, that
I dare say no more lest you chide me again. I
find myself fit for nothing but to converse with a
lady below, that is fallen out with all the world
because her husband and she cannot agree. ’Tis
the pleasantest thing that can be to hear us discourse.
She takes great pains to dissuade me from ever marrying,
and says I am the veriest fool that ever lived if
I do not take her counsel. Now we do not absolutely
agree in that point, but I promise her never to marry
unless I can find such a husband as I describe to her,
and she believes is never to be found; so that, upon
the matter, we differ very little. Whensoever
she is accused of maintaining opinions very destructive
of society, and absolutely prejudicial to all the young
people of both sexes that live in the house, she calls
out me to be her second, and by it has lost me the
favour of all our young gallants, who have got a custom
of expressing anything that is nowhere but in fiction
by the name of “Mrs. O ’s
husband.” For my life I cannot beat into
their heads a passion that must be subject to no decay,
an even perfect kindness that must last perpetually,
without the least intermission. They laugh to
hear me say that one unkind word would destroy all
the satisfaction of my life, and that I should expect
our kindness should increase every day, if it were
possible, but never lessen. All this is perfect
nonsense in their opinion; but I should not doubt the
convincing them if I could hope to be so happy as
to be
Yours.
Letter 65. Of William
Lilly, a noted and extraordinary character of that
day, the following account is taken from his own Life
and Times, a lively book, full of amusing lies
and astrological gossip, in which the author describes
himself as a student of the Black Art. He was
born in 1602 at Diseworth, an obscure town in the
north of Leicestershire. His family appear to
have been yeomen in this town for many generations.
Passing over the measles of his infancy, and other
trivial details of childhood, which he describes minutely,
we find him as a boy at Ashby-de-la-Zouche, where
he is the pupil of one Mr. John Brinsley. Here
he learned Latin and Greek, and began to study Hebrew.
In the sixteenth year of his age he was greatly troubled
with dreams concerning his damnation or salvation;
and at the age of eighteen he returned to his father’s
house, and there kept a school in great penury.
He then appears to have come up to London, leaving
his father in a debtor’s prison, and proceeded
in pursuit of fortune with a new suit of clothes and
seven shillings and sixpence in his pocket. In
London he entered the service of one Gilbert Wright,
an independent citizen of small means and smaller
education. To him Lilly was both man-servant and
secretary. The second Mrs. Wright seems to have
had a taste for astrology, and consulted some of the
quacks who then preyed on the silly women of the city.
She was very fond of young Lilly, who attended her
in her last illness, and, in return for his care and
attention, she bequeathed to him several “sigils”
or talismanic seals. Probably it was the foolishness
of this poor woman that first suggested to Lilly the
advantages to be gained from the profession of astrology.
Mr. Wright married a third wife, and soon afterwards
died, leaving his widow comfortably off. She fell
in love with Lilly, who married her in 1627, and for
five years, until her death, they lived happily together.
Lilly was now a man of means, and was enabled to study
that science which he afterwards practised with so
much success. There were a good many professors
of the black art at this date, and Lilly studied under
one Evans, a scoundrelly ex-parson from Wales, until,
according to Lilly’s own account, he discovered
Evans to be the cheat he undoubtedly was. Lilly,
when he set up for himself, wrote many astrological
works, which seem to have been very successful.
He was known and visited by all the great men of the
day, and probably had brains enough only to prophesy
when he knew. His description of his political
creed is beautifully characteristic of the man:
“I was more Cavalier than Round-head, and so
taken notice of; but afterwards I engaged body and
soul in the cause of the Parliament, but still with
much affection to his Majesty’s person and unto
Monarchy, which I ever loved and approved beyond any
government whatsoever.” Lilly was, in a
word, a self-seeking but successful knave. People
who had been robbed, women in love, men in debt, all
in trouble and doubt, from the King downwards, sought
his aid. He pretended to be a man of science,
not a man gifted with supernatural powers. Whether
he succeeded in believing in astrology and deceiving
himself, it is impossible to say; he was probably
too clever for that, but he deceived others admirably,
and was one of the noted and most successful of the
old astrologers.
How long this letter will be I cannot
tell. You shall have all the time that is allowed
me, but upon condition that you shall not examine the
sense on’t too strictly, for you must know I
want sleep extremely. The sun was up an hour
before I went to bed to-day, and this is not the first
time I have done this since I came hither. ’Twill
not be for your advantage that I should stay here
long; for, in earnest, I shall be good for nothing
if I do. We go abroad all day and play all night,
and say our prayers when we have time. Well,
in sober earnest now, I would not live thus a twelvemonth
to gain all that the King has lost, unless it were
to give it him again. ’Tis a miracle to
me how my brother endures it. ’Tis as contrary
to his humour as darkness is to light, and only shows
the power he lets his wife have over him. Will
you be so good-natured? He has certainly as great
a kindness for her as can be, and, to say truth, not
without reason; but all the people that ever I saw,
I do not like his carriage towards her. He is
perpetually wrangling and finding fault, and to a
person that did not know him would appear the worst
husband and the most imperious in the world. He
is so amongst his children too, though he loves them
passionately. He has one son, and ’tis
the finest boy that e’er you saw, and has a noble
spirit, but yet stands in that awe of his father that
one word from him is as much as twenty whippings.
You must give me leave to entertain
you thus with discourses of the family, for I can
tell you nothing else from hence. Yet, now I remember.
I have another story for you. You little think
I have been with Lilly, and, in earnest, I was, the
day before I came out of town; and what do you think
I went for? Not to know when you would come home,
I can assure you, nor for any other occasion of my
own; but with a cousin of mine that had long designed
to make herself sport with him, and did not miss of
her aim. I confess I always thought him an impostor,
but I could never have imagined him so simple a one
as we found him. In my life I never heard so
ridiculous a discourse as he made us, and no old woman
who passes for a witch could have been more puzzled
to seek what to say to reasonable people than he was.
He asked us more questions than we did him, and caught
at everything we said without discerning that we abused
him and said things purposely to confound him; which
we did so perfectly that we made him contradict himself
the strangest that ever you saw. Ever since this
adventure, I have had so great a belief in all things
of this nature, that I could not forbear laying a
peas-cod with nine peas in’t under my door yesterday,
and was informed by it that my husband’s name
should be Thomas. How do you like that? But
what Thomas, I cannot imagine, for all the servants
I have got since I came hither I know none of that
name.
Here is a new song, I do
not send it to you but to your sister; the tune is
not worth the sending so far. If she pleases to
put any to it, I am sure it will be a better than
it has here. Adieu.
Letter 66. “The
Lost Lady” is a tragi-comedy by Sir William Berkely,
and is advertised to be sold at the shop of the Holy
Lamb in the year 1639, which we may take as the probable
date of its publication. Dorothy would play Hermione,
the heroine. We can imagine her speaking with
sympathetic accent lines such as these:
With
what harsh fate does Heaven afflict me
That
all the blessings which make others happy,
Must
be my ruin?
The five Portugals to whom Dorothy
refers as being hanged were the Portuguese ambassador’s
brother, Don Pantaleon Sa, and four of his men.
The Mercurius Politicus of November 1653 gives
the following account of the matters that led to the
execution; and as it is illustrative of the manners
of the day, the account is here quoted at length:
“NEW EXCHANGE IN THE STRAND.
November 21. In the evening there
happened a quarrel between the Portugal ambassador’s
brother and two or three others of that nation with
one Mr. Gerard, an English gentleman, whom they all
fell upon; but he being rescued out of their hands
by one Mr. Anstruther, they retired home, and within
an hour after returned with about twelve more of their
nation, armed with breastplates and headpieces; but
after two or three hours taken there, not finding
Anstruther, they went home again for that night.
“November 22. At
night the ambassador’s brother and the rest returned
again, and walking the upper Exchange, they met with
one Col. Mayo, who, being a proper man, they
supposed him to have been the same Anstruther that
repelled them the night before; and so shooting off
a pistol (which was as the watchword), the rest of
the Portugals (supposed about fifty) came in
with drawn swords, and leaving a sufficient number
to keep the stairs, the rest went up with the ambassador’s
brother, and there they fell upon Col. Mayo,
who, very gallantly defending himself, received seven
dangerous wounds, and lies in a mortal condition.
They fell also upon one Mr. Greenway, of Lincoln’s
Inn, as he was walking with his sister in one hand
and his mistress in the other (to whom, as I am informed,
he was to have been married on Tuesday next), and pistoled
him in the head, whereof he died immediately.
They brought with them several earthen jars stuffed
with gunpowder, stopped with wax, and fitted with
matches, intending, it seems, to have done some mischief
to the Exchange that they might complete their revenge,
but they were prevented.”
There is an account of their trial
in the State Trials, of some interest to lawyers;
it resulted in the execution of Don Pantaleon Sa and
four of his servants. By one of those curious
fateful coincidences, with which fact often outbids
fiction, Mr. Gerard, who was the first Englishman
attacked by the Portuguese, suffers on the same scaffold
as his would-be murderers, his offence being high
treason. Vowel, the other plotter, is also executed,
but the third saves himself, as we know, by confession.
July 20th [1654 in pencil].
I am very sorry I spoke too late,
for I am confident this was an excellent servant.
He was in the same house where I lay, and I had taken
a great fancy to him, upon what was told me of him
and what I saw. The poor fellow, too, was so
pleased that I undertook to inquire out a place for
him, that, though mine was, as I told him, uncertain,
yet upon the bare hopes on’t he refused two
or three good conditions; but I shall set him now
at liberty, and not think at all the worse of him for
his good-nature. Sure you go a little too far
in your condemnation on’t. I know it may
be abused, as the best things are most subject to be,
but in itself ’tis so absolutely necessary that
where it is wanting nothing can recompense the miss
on’t. The most contemptible person in the
world, if he has that, cannot be justly hated, and
the most considerable without it cannot deserve to
be loved. Would to God I had all that good-nature
you complain you have too much of, I could find ways
enough to dispose on’t amongst myself and my
friends; but ’tis well where it is, and I should
sooner wish you more on’t than less.
I wonder with what confidence you
can complain of my short letters that are so guilty
yourself in the same kind. I have not seen a letter
this month which has been above half a sheet.
Never trust me if I write more than you that live
in a desolated country where you might finish a romance
of ten tomes before anybody interrupted you I
that live in a house the most filled of any since
the Ark, and where, I can assure [you], one has hardly
time for the most necessary occasions. Well, there
was never any one thing so much desired and apprehended
at the same time as your return is by me; it will
certainly, I think, conclude me a very happy or a
most unfortunate person. Sometimes, methinks,
I would fain know my doom whatever it be; and at others,
I dread it so extremely, that I am confident the five
Portugals and the three plotters which were t’other
day condemned by the High Court of Justice had not
half my fears upon them. I leave you to judge
the constraint I live in, what alarms my thoughts
give me, and yet how unconcerned this company requires
I should be; they will have me at my part in a play,
“The Lost Lady” it is, and I am she.
Pray God it be not an ill omen!
I shall lose my eyes and you this
letter if I make it longer. Farewell.
I am, yours.
Letter 67. Elizabeth,
Queen of Bohemia, was the daughter of James I. She
married the Elector Frederick, who was driven from
his throne owing to his own misconduct and folly,
when his wife was forced to return and live as a pensioner
in her native country. She is said to have been
gifted in a superlative degree with all that is considered
most lovely in a woman’s character. On
her husband’s death in 1632 she went to live
at the Hague, where she remained until the Restoration.
There is a report that she married William, Earl of
Craven, but there is no proof of this. He was,
however, her friend and adviser through her years of
widowhood, and it was to his house in Drury Lane that
she returned to live in 1661. She is said to
have been a lover of literature, and Francis Quarles
and Sir Henry Wotton were her intimate friends.
The latter has written some quaint and elegant verses
to his mistress; the last verse, in which he apostrophizes
her as the sun, is peculiarly graceful. It runs
thus:
You meaner beauties of the
night,
That poorly satisfy our eyes,
More by your number than your light,
You common people of the skies,
What are you when the sun shall rise?
But the sun is set, and the beautiful
Queen’s sad, romantic story almost forgotten.
Sir John Grenvile was a son of the
valiant and loyal cavalier, Sir Bevil Grenvile, of
Kelkhampton, Cornwall. He served the King successfully
in the west of England, and was dangerously wounded
at Newbury. He was entrusted by Charles II. to
negotiate with General Monk. Monk’s brother
was vicar of Kelkhampton, so that Grenvile and Monk
would in all probability be well acquainted before
the time of the negotiation. We may remember,
too, that Dorothy’s younger brother was on intimate
terms with General Monk’s relations in Cornwall.
There must be letters missing here,
for we cannot believe more than a month passed without
Dorothy writing a single letter.
I wonder you did not come before your
last letter. ’Twas dated the 24th of August,
but I received it not till the 1st of September.
Would to God your journey were over! Every little
storm of wind frights me so, that I pass here for
the greatest coward that ever was born, though, in
earnest, I think I am as little so as most women, yet
I may be deceived, too, for now I remember me you
have often told me I was one, and, sure, you know
what kind of heart mine is better than anybody else.
I am glad you are pleased with that
description I made you of my humour, for, though you
had disliked it, I am afraid ’tis past my power
to help. You need not make excuses neither for
yours; no other would please me half so well.
That gaiety which you say is only esteemed would be
insupportable to me, and I can as little endure a tongue
that’s always in motion as I could the click
of a mill. Of all the company this place is stored
with, there is but two persons whose conversation is
at all easy; one is my eldest niece, who, sure, was
sent into the world to show ’tis possible for
a woman to be silent; the other, a gentleman whose
mistress died just when they should have married; and
though ’tis many years since, one may read it
in his face still. His humour was very good,
I believe, before that accident, for he will yet say
things pleasant enough, but ’tis so seldom that
he speaks at all, and when he does ’tis with
so sober a look, that one may see he is not moved at
all himself when he diverts the company most.
You will not be jealous though I say I like him very
much. If you were not secure in me, you might
be so in him. He would expect his mistress should
rise again to reproach his inconstancy if he made
court to anything but her memory. Methinks we
three (that is, my niece, and he and I) do become this
house the worst that can be, unless I should take
into the number my brother Peyton himself too; for
to say truth his, for another sort of melancholy, is
not less than ours. What can you imagine we did
this last week, when to our constant company there
was added a colonel and his lady, a son of his and
two daughters, a maid of honour to the Queen of Bohemia,
and another colonel or a major, I know not which,
besides all the tongue they brought with them; the
men the greatest drinkers that ever I saw, which did
not at all agree with my brother, who would not be
drawn to it to save a kingdom if it lay at stake and
no other way to redeem it? But, in earnest, there
was one more to be pitied besides us, and that was
Colonel Thornhill’s wife, as pretty a young woman
as I have seen. She is Sir John Greenvil’s
sister, and has all his good-nature, with a great
deal of beauty and modesty, and wit enough. This
innocent creature is sacrificed to the veriest beast
that ever was. The first day she came hither
he intended, it seems, to have come with her, but by
the way called in to see an old acquaintance, and
bid her go on, he would overtake her, but did not
come till next night, and then so drunk he was led
immediately to bed, whither she was to follow him when
she had supped. I blest myself at her patience,
as you may do that I could find anything to fill up
this paper withal. Adieu.
Letter 68. In this
scrap of writing we find that Temple is again in England
with certain proposals from his father, and ready to
discuss the “treaty,” as Dorothy calls
it, with her brother Peyton. The few remaining
letters deal with the treaty. Temple would probably
return to London when he left Ireland, and letters
would pass frequently between them. There seems
to have been some hitch as to who should appear in
the treaty. Dorothy’s brother had spoken
of and behaved to Temple with all disrespect, but,
now that he is reconciled to the marriage, Dorothy
would have him appear, at least formally, in the negotiations.
The last letter of this chapter, which is dated October
2nd, calls on Temple to come down to Kent, to Peyton’s
house; and it is reasonable to suppose that at this
interview all was practically settled to the satisfaction
of those two who were most deeply concerned in the
negotiation.
I did so promise myself a letter on
Friday that I am very angry I had it not, though I
know you were not come to town when it should have
been writ. But did not you tell me you should
not stay above a day or two? What is it that
has kept you longer? I am pleased, though, that
you are out of the power of so uncertain things as
the winds and the sea, which I never feared for myself,
but did extremely apprehend for you. You will
find a packet of letters to read, and maybe have met
with them already. If you have, you are so tired
that ’tis but reasonable I should spare you
in this. For, [to] say truth, I have not time
to make this longer; besides that if I had, my pen
is so very good that it writes an invisible hand,
I think; I am sure I cannot read it myself. If
your eyes are better, you will find that I intended
to assure you I am
Yours.
Letter 69.
I am but newly waked out of an unquiet
sleep, and I find it so late that if I write at all
it must be now. Some company that was here last
night kept us up till three o’clock, and then
we lay three in a bed, which was all the same to me
as if we had not gone to bed at all. Since dinner
they are all gone, and our company with them part of
the way, and with much ado I got to be excused, that
I might recover a little sleep, but am so moped yet
that, sure, this letter will be nonsense.
I would fain tell you, though, that
your father is mistaken, and that you are not, if
you believe that I have all the kindness and tenderness
for you my heart is capable of. Let me assure
you (whatever your father thinks) that had you L20,000
a year I could love you no more than I do, and should
be far from showing it so much lest it should look
like a desire of your fortune, which, as to myself,
I value as little as anybody in the world, and in
this age of changes; but certainly I know what an
estate is. I have seen my father’s reduced,
better than L4000, to not L400 a year, and I thank
God I never felt the change in anything that I thought
necessary. I never wanted, nor am confident I
never shall. But yet, I would not be thought
so inconsiderate a person as not to remember that
it is expected from all people that have sense that
they should act with reason, that to all persons some
proportion of fortune is necessary, according to their
several qualities, and though it is not required that
one should tie oneself to just so much, and something
is left for one’s inclination, and the difference
in the persons to make, yet still within such a compass, and
such as lay more upon these considerations than they
will bear, shall infallibly be condemned by all sober
persons. If any accident out of my power should
bring me to necessity though never so great, I should
not doubt with God’s assistance but to bear
it as well as anybody, and I should never be ashamed
on’t if He pleased to send it me; but if by my
own folly I had put it upon myself, the case would
be extremely altered. If ever this comes to a
treaty, I shall declare that in my own choice I prefer
you much before any other person in the world, and
all that this inclination in me (in the judgment of
any persons of honour and discretion) will bear, I
shall desire may be laid upon it to the uttermost
of what they can allow. And if your father please
to make up the rest, I know nothing that is like to
hinder me from being yours. But if your father,
out of humour, shall refuse to treat with such friends
as I have, let them be what they will, it must end
here; for though I was content, for your sake, to
lose them, and all the respect they had for me, yet,
now I have done that, I’ll never let them see
that I have so little interest in you and yours as
not to prevail that my brother may be admitted to
treat for me. Sure, when a thing of course and
so much reason as that (unless I did disclose to all
the world he were my enemy), it must be expected whensoever
I dispose of myself he should be made no stranger
to it. When that shall be refused me, I may be
justly reproached that I deceived myself when I expected
to be at all valued in a family that I am a stranger
to, or that I should be considered with any respect
because I had a kindness for you, that made me not
value my own interests.
I doubt much whether all this be sense
or not; I find my head so heavy. But that which
I would say is, in short, this: if I did say once
that my brother should have nothing to do in’t,
’twas when his carriage towards me gave me such
an occasion as could justify the keeping that distance
with him; but now it would look extremely unhandsome
in me, and, sure, I hope your father would not require
it of me. If he does, I must conclude he has
no value for me, and, sure, I never disobliged him
to my knowledge, and should, with all the willingness
imaginable, serve him if it lay in my power.
Good God! what an unhappy person am
I. All the world is so almost. Just now they
are telling me of a gentleman near us that is the most
wretched creature made (by the loss of a wife that
he passionately loved) that can be. If your father
would but in some measure satisfy my friends that
I might but do it in any justifiable manner, you should
dispose me as you pleased, carry me whither you would,
all places of the world would be alike to me where
you were, and I should not despair of carrying myself
so towards him as might deserve a better opinion from
him.
I am yours.
Letter 70.
My doubts and fears were not at all
increased by that which gives you so many, nor did
I apprehend that your father might not have been prevailed
with to have allowed my brother’s being seen
in the treaty; for as to the thing itself, whether
he appears in’t or not, ’twill be the same.
He cannot but conclude my brother Peyton would not
do anything in it without the others’ consent.
I do not pretend to any share in your
father’s kindness, as having nothing in me to
merit it; but as much a stranger as I am to him, I
should have taken it very ill if I had desired it of
him, and he had refused it me. I do not believe
my brother has said anything to his prejudice, unless
it were in his persuasions to me, and there it did
not injure him at all. If he takes it ill that
my brother appears so very averse to the match, I
may do so too, that he was the same; and nothing less
than my kindness for you could have made me take so
patiently as I did his saying to some that knew me
at York that he was forced to bring you thither and
afterwards to send you over lest you should have married
me. This was not much to my advantage, nor hardly
civil, I think, to any woman; yet I never so much
as took the least notice on’t, nor had not now,
but for this occasion; yet, sure, it concerns me to
be at least as nice as he in point of honour.
I think ’tis best for me to end here lest my
anger should make me lose that respect I would always
have for your father, and ’twere not amiss,
I think, that I devoted it all towards you for being
so idle as to run out of your bed to catch such a cold.
If you come hither you must expect
to be chidden so much that you will wish that you
had stayed till we came up, when perhaps I might have
almost forgot half my quarrel to you. At this
present I can assure you I am pleased with nobody
but your sister, and her I love extremely, and will
call her pretty; say what you will, I know she must
be so, though I never saw more of her than what her
letters show. She shall have two “spots”
[carriage dogs] if she please (for I had just such
another given me after you were gone), or anything
else that is in the power of
Yours.
Letter 71.
Monday, October the 2nd .
After a long debate with myself how
to satisfy you and remove that rock (as you call it),
which in your apprehensions is of so great danger,
I am at last resolved to let you see that I value
your affections for me at as high a rate as you yourself
can set it, and that you cannot have more of tenderness
for me and my interests than I shall ever have for
yours. The particulars how I intend to make this
good you shall know when I see you; which since I
find them here more irresolute in point of time (though
not as to the journey itself) than I hoped they would
have been, notwithstanding your quarrel to me, and
the apprehension you would make me believe you had
that I do not care to see you, pray come hither and
try whether you shall be welcome or not! In sober
earnest now I must speak with you; and to that end
if your occasions will [serve] come down to Canterbury.
Send some one when you are there, and you shall have
further directions.
You must be contented not to stay
here above two or three hours. I shall tell you
my reason when you come. And pray inform yourself
of all that your father will do on this occasion,
that you may tell it me only; therefore let it be
plainly and sincerely what he intends and all.
I will not hinder your coming away
so much as the making this letter a little longer
might take away from your time in reading it.
’Tis enough to tell you I am ever
Yours.