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.
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 withLetter 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 hisItinerary; 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[1654].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.
May 25th[1654].
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.
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 ourThuilleriesis to theCourse; 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 beingYours.
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[1654].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.
June 13th[1654].
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 officialMercurius Politicusspeaks 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'sDavideis. 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 startFrom the due place and office first ordained,By thee were all things made and are sustained.Sometimes we see thee fully and can sayFrom hence thou took'st thy rise and went'st that way,But oft'ner the short beams of reason's eyeSee 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 framedA 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.
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[1654].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 Ame. Je vous souhait tout ce que vous desire.
June the 26th[1654].
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 Ame. Je vous souhait tout ce que vous desire.
Letter 63.
July the 4th[1654].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 amYours.[Directed.] For your master.
July the 4th[1654].
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 beYours.
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 ownLife 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.
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 meThat 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. TheMercurius Politicusof 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 theState 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.