The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54 Part 7

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 n.o.body 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 friends.h.i.+p 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 Aime_," "_L'Amant Jaloux_," _et_ "_L'Amant dont La Maitresse est mort_." Tell me which you have most compa.s.sion 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 t.i.tles 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 pa.s.s 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 Nottinghams.h.i.+re family, though he himself was born in Newport, Buckinghams.h.i.+re. 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 superst.i.tion as to the ultimate fate of spinsters--

Women, dying maids, lead apes in h.e.l.l,

runs the verse of an old play, and that is the whole superst.i.tion, 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 ent.i.tled "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 Aime_ was an a.s.s, 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 friends.h.i.+p 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 pa.s.sage, 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 mult.i.tude of willow garlands I shall weave before I die; I think I had best make them into f.a.ggots 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 n.o.ble author with a flunkey's enthusiasm,--

It is so rare and new a thing to see Aught that belongs to young n.o.bility 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 circ.u.mstance and the doggerel should be very instructive to the sn.o.bologist.

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 t.i.tle-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, Ill.u.s.trated 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 c.o.xcombs, 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'ill.u.s.tre Ba.s.sa_ 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. n.o.body 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 friends.h.i.+p 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 G.o.d's sake, when we meet, let us design one day to remember old stories in, to ask one another by what degrees our friends.h.i.+p 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 mult.i.tude 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 n.o.ble 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 fis.h.i.+ng-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 pa.s.sion 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.