The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54 Part 13

_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 n.o.body 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 n.o.body 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 gla.s.s 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 n.o.ble family. After her father's death, she took the t.i.tle of Countess of Dysart, although there was some dispute about the right of her father to any t.i.tle. 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 compa.s.s 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, Staffords.h.i.+re. Her husband was Sir Thomas Vavasour, Bart. The Vavasours were a Roman Catholic family, and claimed descent from those who held the ancient office of King's Valvasour; and we need not therefore be surprised to find Lady Vavasour engaged in one of the numerous plots that surrounded and endangered the Protector's power. The plot itself seems to have created intense excitement in the capital, and resulted in three persons being tried for high treason, and two executed,--John Gerard, gentleman, Peter Vowel, schoolmaster of Islington, and one Summerset Fox, who pleaded guilty, and whose life was spared. "Some wise men," writes one Thomas Gower in a contemporary letter (still unprinted), "believe that a couple of coy-ducks drew in the rest, then revealed all, and were employed to that purpose that the execution of a few mean persons might deter wiser and more considerable persons." This seems not improbable. On June 6th the official _Mercurius Politicus_ speaks of this plot as follows:--"The traitorous conspiracy mentioned heretofore it appears every day more desperate and b.l.o.o.d.y. 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 a.s.sa.s.sination, they intended to have proclaimed Charles Stuart by the a.s.sistance of a tumult," etc. etc. This with constant accounts of further arrests troubles the public mind at this time.

The pa.s.sage of Cowley which Dorothy refers to is in the second book of Cowley's _Davideis_. It opens with a description of the friends.h.i.+p between David and Jonathan, and, upon that occasion, a digression concerning the nature of love. The poem was written by Cowley when a young man at Cambridge. One can picture Dorothy reading and musing over lines like these with sympathy and admiration:

What art thou, love, thou great mysterious thing?

From what hid stock does thy strange nature spring?

'Tis thou that mov'st the world through ev'ry part, And hold'st the vast frame close that nothing start From the due place and office first ordained, By thee were all things made and are sustained.

Sometimes we see thee fully and can say From hence thou took'st thy rise and went'st that way, But oft'ner the short beams of reason's eye See only there thou art, not how, nor why.

His lines on love, though overcharged with quaint conceits, are often n.o.ble and true, and end at least with one fine couplet:

Thus dost thou sit (like men e'er sin had framed A guilty blush), naked but not ashamed.

I promised in my last to write again before I went out of town, and now I'll be as good as my word. They are all gone this morning, and have left me much more at liberty than I have been of late, therefore I believe this will be a long letter; perhaps too long, at least if my letters are as little entertaining as my company is. I was carried yesterday abroad to a dinner that was designed for mirth, but it seems one ill-humoured person in the company is enough to put all the rest out of tune; for I never saw people perform what they intended worse, and could not forbear telling them so: but to excuse themselves and silence my reproaches, they all agreed to say that I spoiled their jollity by wearing the most unreasonable looks that could be put on for such an occasion. I told them I knew no remedy but leaving me behind next time, and could have told them that my looks were suitable to my fortune, though not to a feast. Fye! I am got into my complaining humour that tires myself as well as everybody else, and which (as you observe) helps not at all. Would it would leave me, and then I could believe I shall not always have occasion for it. But that's in n.o.body'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 n.o.body 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 n.o.body knew them, and where they pa.s.sed 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 friends.h.i.+p 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 a.s.sure 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 a.s.sure 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 circ.u.mstance 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 s.e.xes 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 pa.s.sion that must be subject to no decay, an even perfect kindness that must last perpetually, without the least intermission.

They laugh to hear me say that one unkind word would destroy all the satisfaction of my life, and that I should expect our kindness should increase every day, if it were possible, but never lessen. All this is perfect nonsense in their opinion; but I should not doubt the convincing them if I could hope to be so happy as to be

Yours.

_Letter 65._--Of William Lilly, a noted and extraordinary character of that day, the following account is taken from his own _Life and Times_, a lively book, full of amusing lies and astrological gossip, in which the author describes himself as a student of the Black Art. He was born in 1602 at Diseworth, an obscure town in the north of Leicesters.h.i.+re.

His family appear to have been yeomen in this town for many generations.