The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54 Part 4

I shall expect your Diary next week, though this will be but a short letter: you may allow me to make excuses too sometimes; but, seriously, my father is now so continuously ill, that I have hardly time for anything. 'Tis but an ague that he has, but yet I am much afraid that is more than his age and weakness will be able to bear; he keeps his bed, and never rises but to have it made, and most times faints with that.

You ought in charity to write as much as you can, for, in earnest, my life here since my father's sickness is so sad that, to another humour than mine, it would be unsupportable; but I have been so used to misfortunes, that I cannot be much surprised with them, though perhaps I am as sensible of them as another. I'll leave you, for I find these thoughts begin to put me in ill humour; farewell, may you be ever happy.

If I am so at all, it is in being

Your

_Letter 15._--What Temple had written about Mr. Arbry's prophecy and "the falling down of the form," we cannot know. Mr. Arbry was probably William Erbury, vicar of St. Mary's, Cardiff, a noted schismatic. He is said to have been a "holy, harmless man," but incurred both the hate and ridicule of his opponents. Many of his tracts are still extant, and they contain extravagant prophecies couched in the peculiar phraseology of the day.

The celebrated Sir Samuel Luke was a near neighbour of the Osbornes, and Mr. Luke was one of his numerous family. Sir Samuel was Lord of the Manor of Hawnes, and in the Hawnes parish register there are notices of the christenings of his sons and daughters. Sir Samuel was not only a colonel in the Parliament Army, but Scout-Master-General in the counties of Bedford and Surrey. Samuel Butler, the author of _Hudibras_, lived with Sir Samuel Luke as his secretary, at some date prior to the Restoration; and Dr. Grey, his learned editor, believes that he wrote _Hudibras_ about that time, "because he had then the opportunity to converse with those living characters of rebellion, nonsense, and hypocrisy which he so lively and pathetically exposes throughout the whole work." Sir Samuel is said himself to be the original "Hudibras;"

and if Dr. Grey's conjecture on this matter is a right one, we have already in our minds a very complete portrait of Dorothy's neighbour.

The old ballad that Dorothy encloses to her lover has not been preserved with her letter. If it is older than the ballad of "The Lord of Lorne,"

it must have been composed before Henry VIII.'s reign; for Edward Guilpin, in his _Skialethia_ [1598], speaks of

Th' olde ballad of the Lord of Lorne, Whose last line in King Harrie's day was borne.

"The Lord of Learne" (this was the old spelling) may be found in Bishop Percy's well-known collection of Ballads and Romances.

SIR,--You must pardon me, I could not burn your other letter for my life; I was so pleased to see I had so much to read, and so sorry I had done so soon, that I resolved to begin them again, and had like to have lost my dinner by it. I know not what humour you were in when you writ it; but Mr. Arbry's prophecy and the falling down of the form did a little discompose my gravity. But I quickly recovered myself with thinking that you deserved to be chid for going where you knew you must of necessity lose your time. In earnest, I had a little scruple when I went with you thither, and but that I was a.s.sured it was too late to go any whither else, and believed it better to hear an ill sermon than none, I think I should have missed his _Belles remarques_. You had repented you, I hope, of that and all other your faults before you thought of dying.

What a satisfaction you had found out to make me for the injuries you say you have done me! And yet I cannot tell neither (though 'tis not the remedy I should choose) whether that were not a certain one for all my misfortunes; for, sure, I should have nothing then to persuade me to stay longer where they grow, and I should quickly take a resolution of leaving them and the world at once. I agree with you, too, that I do not see any great likelihood of the change of our fortunes, and that we have much more to wish than to hope for; but 'tis so common a calamity that I dare not murmur at it; better people have endured it, and I can give no reason why (almost) all are denied the satisfaction of disposing themselves to their own desires, but that it is a happiness too great for this world, and might endanger one's forgetting the next; whereas if we are crossed in that which only can make the world pleasing to us, we are quickly tired with the length of our journey and the disquiet of our inns, and long to be at home. One would think it were I who had heard the three sermons and were trying to make a fourth; these are truths that might become a pulpit better than Mr. Arbry's predictions. But lest you should think I have as many worms in my head as he, I'll give over in time, and tell you how far Mr. Luke and I are acquainted. He lives within three or four miles of me, and one day that I had been to visit a lady that is nearer him than me, as I came back I met a coach with some company in't that I knew, and thought myself obliged to salute. We all lighted and met, and I found more than I looked for by two damsels and their squires. I was afterwards told they were of the Lukes, and possibly this man might be there, or else I never saw him; for since these times we have had no commerce with that family, but have kept at great distance, as having on several occasions been disobliged by them.

But of late, I know not how, Sir Sam has grown so kind as to send to me for some things he desired out of this garden, and withal made the offer of what was in his, which I had reason to take for a high favour, for he is a nice florist; and since this we are insensibly come to as good degrees of civility for one another as can be expected from people that never meet.

Who those demoiselles should be that were at Heamses I cannot imagine, and I know so few that are concerned in me or my name that I admire you should meet with so many that seem to be acquainted with it. Sure, if you had liked them you would not have been so sullen, and a less occasion would have served to make you entertain their discourse if they had been handsome. And yet I know no reason I have to believe that beauty is any argument to make you like people; unless I had more on't myself. But be it what it will that displeased you, I am glad they did not fright you away before you had the orange-flower water, for it is very good, and I am so sweet with it a days that I despise roses. When I have given you humble thanks for it, I mean to look over your other letter and take the heads, and to treat of them in order as my time and your patience shall give me leave.

And first for my Sheriff, let me desire you to believe he has more courage than to die upon a denial. No (thanks be to G.o.d!), none of my servants are given to that; I hear of many every day that do marry, but of none that do worse. My brother sent me word this week that my fighting servant is married too, and with the news this ballad, which was to be sung in the grave that you dreamt of, I think; but because you tell me I shall not want company then, you may dispose of this piece of poetry as you please when you have sufficiently admired with me where he found it out, for 'tis much older than that of my "Lord of Lorne." You are altogether in the right that my brother will never be at quiet till he sees me disposed of, but he does not mean to lose me by it; he knows that if I were married at this present, I should not be persuaded to leave my father as long as he lives; and when this house breaks up, he is resolved to follow me if he can, which he thinks he might better do to a house where I had some power than where I am but upon courtesy myself. Besides that, he thinks it would be to my advantage to be well bestowed, and by that he understands richly. He is much of your sister's humour, and many times wishes me a husband that loved me as well as he does (though he seems to doubt the possibility on't), but never desires that I should love that husband with any pa.s.sion, and plainly tells me so. He says it would not be so well for him, nor perhaps for me, that I should; for he is of opinion that all pa.s.sions have more of trouble than satisfaction in them, and therefore they are happiest that have least of them. You think him kind from a letter that you met with of his; sure, there was very little of anything in that, or else I should not have employed it to wrap a book up. But, seriously, I many times receive letters from him, that were they seen without an address to me or his name, n.o.body would believe they were from a brother; and I cannot but tell him sometimes that, sure, he mistakes and sends me letters that were meant to his mistress, till he swears to me that he has none.

Next week my persecution begins again; he comes down, and my cousin Molle is already cured of his imaginary dropsy, and means to meet here.

I shall be baited most sweetly, but sure they will not easily make me consent to make my life unhappy to satisfy their importunity. I was born to be very happy or very miserable, I know not which, but I am very certain that you will never read half this letter 'tis so scribbled; but 'tis no matter, 'tis not much worth it.

Your most faithful friend and servant.

_Letter 16._--The trial of Lord Chandos for killing Mr. Compton in a duel was, just at this moment, exciting the fickle attention of the town, which had probably said its say on the subject of Cromwell's _coup d'etat_, and was only too ready for another subject of conversation. The trial is not reported among the State Trials, but our observant friend the Earl of Leicester has again taken note of the matter in his journal, and can give us at least his own ideas of the trial and its political and social importance. Under date May 1653, he writes:--"Towards the end of Easter Term, the Lord Chandos, for killing in duel Mr. Compton the year before," that is to say, in March; the new year begins on March 25th, "and the Lord Arundel of Wardour, one of his seconds, were brought to their trial for their lives at the Upper Bench in Westminster Hall, when it was found manslaughter only, as by a jury at Kingston-upon-Thames it had been found formerly. The Lords might have had the privilege of peerage (Justice Rolles being Lord Chief Justice), but they declined it by the advice of Mr. Maynard and the rest of their counsel, least by that means the matter might have been brought about again, therefore they went upon the former verdict of manslaughter, and so were acquitted; yet to be burned in the hand, which was done to them both a day or two after, but very favourably." These were the first peers that had been burned in the hand, and the democratic Earl of Leicester expresses at the event some satisfaction, and derives from the whole circ.u.mstances of the trial comfortable a.s.surance of the power and stability of the Government. The Earl, however, misleads us in one particular. Lord Arundel was Henry Compton's second. He had married Cecily Compton, and naturally enough acted as his brother-in-law's second. It is also interesting to remember that Lord Chandos was known to the world as something other than a duelist. He was an eminent loyalist, among the first of those n.o.bles who left Westminster, and at Newbury fight had his three horses killed under him. Lady Carey was Mary, natural daughter of Lord Scrope, who married Henry Carey, commonly called Lord Leppington. Lady Leppington (or Carey) lost her husband in 1649, and her son died May 24, 1653. This helps us to date the letter.

Of her "kindness to Compton," of which Dorothy writes in her next letter, nothing is known, but she married Charles Paulet, Lord St. John, afterwards the Duke of Bolton, early in 1654.

The jealous Sir T---- here mentioned may be Sir Thomas...o...b..rne, who, we may suppose, was not well pleased at the refusal of his offer.

Sir Peter Lely did paint a portrait of Lady Diana Rich some months after this date. It is somewhat curious that he should remain in England during the Civil Wars; but his business was to paint all men's portraits. He had painted Charles I.; now he was painting Cromwell. It was to him Cromwell is said to have shouted: "Paint the warts! paint the warts!" when the courtly Sir Peter would have made a presentable picture even of the Lord General himself. Cromwell was a sound critic in this, and had detected the main fault of Sir Peter's portraits, whose value to us is greatly lessened by the artist's constant habit of flattery.

SIR,--If it were the carrier's fault that you stayed so long for your letters, you are revenged, for I have chid him most unreasonably. But I must confess 'twas not for that, for I did not know it then, but going to meet him (as I usually do), when he gave me your letter I found the upper seal broken open, and underneath where it uses to be only closed with a little wax, there was a seal, which though it were an anchor and a heart, methought it did not look like yours, but less, and much worse cut. This suspicion was so strong upon me, that I chid till the poor fellow was ready to cry, and swore to me that it had never been touched since he had it, and that he was careful of it, as he never put it with his other letters, but by itself, and that now it come amongst his money, which perhaps might break the seal; and lest I should think it was his curiosity, he told me very ingenuously he could not read, and so we parted for the present. But since, he has been with a neighbour of mine whom he sometimes delivers my letters to, and begged her that she would go to me and desire my wors.h.i.+p to write to your wors.h.i.+p to know how the letter was sealed, for it has so grieved him that he has neither eat nor slept (to do him any good) since he came home, and in grace of G.o.d this shall be a warning to him as long as he lives. He takes it so heavily that I think I must be friends with him again; but pray hereafter seal your letters, so that the difficulty of opening them may dishearten anybody from attempting it.

It was but my guess that the ladies at Heams' were unhandsome; but since you tell me they were remarkably so, sure I know them by it; they are two sisters, and might have been mine if the Fates had so pleased. They have a brother that is not like them, and is a baronet besides. 'Tis strange that you tell me of my Lords Shandoys [Chandos] and Arundel; but what becomes of young Compton's estate? Sure my Lady Carey cannot neither in honour nor conscience keep it; besides that, she needs it less now than ever, her son (being, as I hear) dead.

Sir T., I suppose, avoids you as a friend of mine. My brother tells me they meet sometimes, and have the most ado to pull off their hats to one another that can be, and never speak. If I were in town I'll undertake he would venture the being choked for want of air rather than stir out of doors for fear of meeting me. But did you not say in your last that you took something very ill from me? If 'twas my humble thanks, well, you shall have no more of them then, nor no more servants. I think that they are not necessary among friends.

I take it very kindly that your father asked for me, and that you were not pleased with the question he made of the continuance of my friends.h.i.+p. I can pardon it him, because he does not know me, but I should never forgive you if you could doubt it. Were my face in no more danger of changing than my mind, I should be worth the seeing at threescore; and that which is but very ordinary now, would then be counted handsome for an old woman; but, alas! I am more likely to look old before my time with grief. Never anybody had such luck with servants; what with marrying and what with dying, they all leave me.

Just now I have news brought me of the death of an old rich knight that has promised me this seven years to marry me whensoever his wife died, and now he's dead before her, and has left her such a widow, it makes me mad to think on't, 1200 a year jointure and 20,000 in money and personal estate, and all this I might have had if Mr. Death had been pleased to have taken her instead of him. Well, who can help these things? But since I cannot have him, would you had her! What say you?

Shall I speak a good word for you? She will marry for certain, and perhaps, though my brother may expect I should serve him in it, yet if you give me commission I'll say I was engaged beforehand for a friend, and leave him to s.h.i.+ft for himself. You would be my neighbour if you had her, and I should see you often. Think on't, and let me know what you resolve? My lady has writ me word that she intends very shortly to sit at Lely's for her picture for me; I give you notice on't, that you may have the pleasure of seeing it sometimes whilst 'tis there. I imagine 'twill be so to you, for I am sure it would be a great one to me, and we do not use to differ in our inclinations, though I cannot agree with you that my brother's kindness to me has anything of trouble in't; no, sure, I may be just to you and him both, and to be a kind sister will take nothing from my being a perfect friend.

_Letter 17._--Lady Newcastle was Margaret d.u.c.h.ess of Newcastle. "The thrice n.o.ble, chaste, and virtuous, but again somewhat fantastical and original-brained, generous Margaret Newcastle," as Elia describes her.

She was the youngest daughter of Sir Charles Lucas, and was born at Colchester towards the end of the reign of James I. Her mother appears to have been remarkably careful of her education in all such lighter matters as dancing, music, and the learning of the French tongue; but she does not seem to have made any deep study of the cla.s.sics. In 1643 she joined the Court at Oxford, and was made one of the Maids of Honour to Henrietta Maria, whom she afterwards attended in exile. At Paris she met the Marquis of Newcastle, who married her in that city in 1645. From Paris they went to Rotterdam, she leaving the Queen to follow her husband's fortunes; and after stopping at Rotterdam and Brabant for short periods, they settled at Antwerp.

At the Restoration she returned to England with her husband, and employed her time in writing letters, plays, poems, philosophical discourses, and orations. There is a long catalogue of her works in Ballard's _Memoirs_, but all published at a date subsequent to 1653.

However, from Anthony Wood and other sources one gathers somewhat different details of her life and writings; and the book to which Dorothy refers here and in Letter 21, is probably the _Poems and Fancies_, an edition of which was published, I believe, in this year [1653]. Many of her verses are more strangely incomprehensible than anything even in the poetry of to-day. Take, for instance, a poem of four lines, from the _Poems and Fancies_, ent.i.tled--

THE JOINING OF SEVERAL FIGUR'D ATOMS MAKES OTHER FIGURES.

Several figur'd Atoms well agreeing When joined, do give another figure being.

For as those figures joined several ways The fabrick of each several creature raise.

This seems to be a rhyming statement of the Atomic theory, but whether it is a poem or a fancy we should find it hard to decide. It is not, however, an unfair example of Lady Newcastle's fantastic style. Lady Newcastle died in 1673, and was buried in Westminster Abbey,--"A wise, witty, and learned Lady, which her many books do well testify."

SIR,--I received your letter to-day, when I thought it almost impossible that I should be sensible of anything but my father's sickness and my own affliction in it. Indeed, he was then so dangerously ill that we could not reasonably hope he should outlive this day; yet he is now, I thank G.o.d, much better, and I am come so much to myself with it, as to undertake a long letter to you whilst I watch by him. Towards the latter end it will be excellent stuff, I believe; but, alas! you may allow me to dream sometimes. I have had so little sleep since my father was sick that I am never thoroughly awake. Lord, how I have wished for you! Here do I sit all night by a poor moped fellow that serves my father, and have much ado to keep him awake and myself too. If you heard the wise discourse that is between us, you would swear we wanted sleep; but I shall leave him to-night to entertain himself, and try if I can write as wisely as I talk. I am glad all is well again. In earnest, it would have lain upon my conscience if I had been the occasion of making your poor boy lose a service, that if he has the wit to know how to value it, he would never have forgiven me while he had lived.

But while I remember it, let me ask you if you did not send my letter and _Cleopatre_ where I directed you for my lady? I received one from her to-day full of the kindest reproaches, that she has not heard from me this three weeks. I have writ constantly to her, but I do not so much wonder that the rest are lost, as that she seems not to have received that which I sent to you nor the books. I do not understand it, but I know there is no fault of yours in't. But, mark you! if you think to 'scape with sending me such bits of letters, you are mistaken. You say you are often interrupted, and I believe it; but you must use then to begin to write before you receive mine, and whensoever you have any spare time allow me some of it. Can you doubt that anything can make your letters cheap? In earnest, 'twas unkindly said, and if I could be angry with you it should be for that. No, certainly they are, and ever will be, dear to me as that which I receive a huge contentment by. How shall I long when you are gone your journey to hear from you! how shall I apprehend a thousand accidents that are not likely nor will ever happen, I hope! Oh, if you do not send me long letters, then you are the cruellest person that can be! If you love me you will; and if you do not, I shall never love myself. You need not fear such a command as you mention. Alas! I am too much concerned that you should love me ever to forbid it you; 'tis all that I propose of happiness to myself in the world. The burning of my paper has waked me; all this while I was in a dream. But 'tis no matter, I am content you should know they are of you, and that when my thoughts are left most at liberty they are the kindest.

I swear my eyes are so heavy that I hardly see what I write, nor do I think you will be able to read it when I have done; the best on't is 'twill be no great loss to you if you do not, for, sure, the greatest part on't is not sense, and yet on my conscience I shall go on with it.

'Tis like people that talk in their sleep, nothing interrupts them but talking to them again, and that you are not like to do at this distance; besides that, at this instant you are, I believe, more asleep than I, and do not so much as dream that I am writing to you. My fellow-watchers have been asleep too, till just now they begin to stretch and yawn; they are going to try if eating and drinking can keep them awake, and I am kindly invited to be of their company; and my father's man has got one of the maids to talk nonsense to to-night, and they have got between them a bottle of ale. I shall lose my share if I do not take them at their first offer. Your patience till I have drunk, and then I'll for you again.

And now on the strength of this ale, I believe I shall be able to fill up this paper that's left with something or other; and first let me ask you if you have seen a book of poems newly come out, made by my Lady Newcastle? For G.o.d's sake if you meet with it send it to me; they say 'tis ten times more extravagant than her dress. Sure, the poor woman is a little distracted, she could never be so ridiculous else as to venture at writing books, and in verse too. If I should not sleep this fortnight I should not come to that. My eyes grow a little dim though, for all the ale, and I believe if I could see it this is most strangely scribbled.

Sure, I shall not find fault with your writing in haste, for anything but the shortness of your letter; and 'twould be very unjust in me to tie you to a ceremony that I do not observe myself. No, for G.o.d's sake let there be no such thing between us; a real kindness is so far beyond all compliment, that it never appears more than when there is least of t'other mingled with it. If, then, you would have me believe yours to be perfect, confirm it to me by a kind freedom. Tell me if there be anything that I can serve you in, employ me as you would do that sister that you say you love so well. Chide me when I do anything that is not well, but then make haste to tell me that you have forgiven me, and that you are what I shall ever be, a faithful friend.

_Letter 18._--I cannot pa.s.s by this letter without saying that the first part of it is, to my thinking, the most dainty and pleasing piece of writing that Dorothy has left us. The account of her life, one day and every day, is like a gust of fresh country air clearing away the mist of time and enabling one to see Dorothy at Chicksands quite clearly. It is fas.h.i.+onable to deny Macaulay everything but memory; but he had the good taste and discernment to admire this letter, and quote from it in his Essay on Sir William Temple,--a quotation for which I shall always remain very grateful to him.

Sir Thomas Peyton, "Brother Peyton," was born in 1619, being, I believe, the second baronet of that name; his seat was at Knowlton, in the county of Kent. Early in the reign of Charles I. we find him as Member of Parliament for Sandwich, figuring in a Committee side by side with the two Sir Harry Vanes; the Committee having been sent into Kent to prevent the dispersal of rumours to the scandal of Parliament,--no light task, one would think. In 1643 he is in prison, charged among other things with being a malignant. An unjust charge, as he thinks; for he writes to his brother, "If to wish on earth peace, goodwill towards men, be a malignant, none is greater than your affectionate brother, Thomas Peyton." But in spite of these peaceful thoughts in prison, in May 1648 he is heading a loyalist rising in Kent. The other counties not joining in at the right moment, in accordance with the general procedure at Royalist risings, it is defeated by Fairfax. Sir Thomas's house is ransacked, he himself is taken prisoner near Bury St. Edmunds, brought to the House of Commons, and committed to the Tower. A right worthy son-in-law of good Sir Peter. We are glad to find him at large again in 1653, his head safe on his shoulders, and do not grudge him his grant of duties on sea-coal, dated 1660; nor are we sorry that he should once again grace the House of Commons with his presence as one of the members for loyal Kent in the good days when the King enjoyed his own again.

SIR,--I have been reckoning up how many faults you lay to my charge in your last letter, and I find I am severe, unjust, unmerciful, and unkind. Oh me, how should one do to mend all these! 'Tis work for an age, and 'tis to be feared I shall be so old before I am good, that 'twill not be considerable to anybody but myself whether I am so or not.

I say nothing of the pretty humour you fancied me in, in your dream, because 'twas but a dream. Sure, if it had been anything else, I should have remembered that my Lord L. loves to have his chamber and his bed to himself. But seriously, now, I wonder at your patience. How could you hear me talk so senselessly, though 'twere but in your sleep, and not be ready to beat me? What nice mistaken points of honour I pretended to, and yet could allow him room in the same bed with me! Well, dreams are pleasant things to people whose humours are so; but to have the spleen, and to dream upon't, is a punishment I would not wish my greatest enemy.

I seldom dream, or never remember them, unless they have been so sad as to put me into such disorder as I can hardly recover when I am awake, and some of those I am confident I shall never forget.

You ask me how I pa.s.s my time here. I can give you a perfect account not only of what I do for the present, but of what I am likely to do this seven years if I stay here so long. I rise in the morning reasonably early, and before I am ready I go round the house till I am weary of that, and then into the garden till it grows too hot for me. About ten o'clock I think of making me ready, and when that's done I go into my father's chamber, from whence to dinner, where my cousin Molle and I sit in great state in a room, and at a table that would hold a great many more. After dinner we sit and talk till Mr. B. comes in question, and then I am gone. The heat of the day is spent in reading or working, and about six or seven o'clock I walk out into a common that lies hard by the house, where a great many young wenches keep sheep and cows, and sit in the shade singing of ballads. I go to them and compare their voices and beauties to some ancient shepherdesses that I have read of, and find a vast difference there; but, trust me, I think these are as innocent as those could be. I talk to them, and find they want nothing to make them the happiest people in the world but the knowledge that they are so.

Most commonly, when we are in the midst of our discourse, one looks about her, and spies her cows going into the corn, and then away they all run as if they had wings at their heels. I, that am not so nimble, stay behind; and when I see them driving home their cattle, I think 'tis time for me to return too. When I have supped, I go into the garden, and so to the side of a small river that runs by it, when I sit down and wish you were with me (you had best say this is not kind neither). In earnest, 'tis a pleasant place, and would be much more so to me if I had your company. I sit there sometimes till I am lost with thinking; and were it not for some cruel thoughts of the crossness of our fortunes that will not let me sleep there, I should forget that there were such a thing to be done as going to bed.

Since I writ this my company is increased by two, my brother Harry and a fair niece, the eldest of my brother Peyton's children. She is so much a woman that I am almost ashamed to say I am her aunt; and so pretty, that, if I had any design to gain of servants, I should not like her company; but I have none, and therefore shall endeavour to keep her here as long as I can persuade her father to spare her, for she will easily consent to it, having so much of my humour (though it be the worst thing in her) as to like a melancholy place and little company. My brother John is not come down again, nor am I certain when he will be here. He went from London into Gloucesters.h.i.+re to my sister who was very ill, and his youngest girl, of which he was very fond, is since dead. But I believe by that time his wife has a little recovered her sickness and loss of her child, he will be coming this way. My father is reasonably well, but keeps his chamber still, and will hardly, I am afraid, ever be so perfectly recovered as to come abroad again.

I am sorry for poor Walker, but you need not doubt of what he has of yours in his hands, for it seems he does not use to do his work himself.

I speak seriously, he keeps a Frenchman that sets all his seals and rings. If what you say of my Lady Leppington be of your own knowledge, I shall believe you, but otherwise I can a.s.sure you I have heard from people that pretend to know her very well, that her kindness to Compton was very moderate, and that she never liked him so well as when he died and gave her his estate. But they might be deceived, and 'tis not so strange as that you should imagine a coldness and an indifference in my letters when I so little meant it; but I am not displeased you should desire my kindness enough to apprehend the loss of it when it is safest.

Only I would not have you apprehend it so far as to believe it possible,--that were an injury to all the a.s.surances I have given you, and if you love me you cannot think me unworthy. I should think myself so, if I found you grew indifferent to me, that I have had so long and so particular a friends.h.i.+p for; but, sure, this is more than I need to say. You are enough in my heart to know all my thoughts, and if so, you know better than I can tell you how much I am

Yours.