A Letter Book Part 8

wont, very small thanks for it all. He is said, indeed, to have had his life shortened by weariness and worry. But his son and daughter[82] may have been a comfort to him: and his wife must have been so. The letter itself, as will be seen, is not to himself but to his secretary: and there was more correspondence on the subject of their lodging and its difficulties. Lady Mary was not well, and there must be a place to see friends, and the Queen might come in! The original letter[83] is better spelt than others of hers, the princ.i.p.al curiosity being the form "hit" for "it," which, however, is by no means peculiar.

5. TO EDWARD MOLINEUX, ESQ.

You have used the matter very well; but we must do more yet for the good dear Lord [her husband] than let him be thus dealt withal. Hampton Court I never yet knew so full as there were not spare rooms in it, when it has been thrice better filled than at the present it is. But some would be sorry, perhaps, my Lord should have so sure a footing in the Court.

Well, all may be as well when the good G.o.d will. The whilst, I pray let us do what we may for our Lord's ease and quiet. Whereunto I think if you go to my Lord Howard, and in my Lord's name also move his Lordship to shew his brother my Lord, (as they call each other)--to show him a cast of his office[84] and that it should not be known allege your former causes, I think he will find out some place to serve that purpose. And also if you go to Mr Bowyer,[85] the gentleman-Usher, and tell him his mother requireth him (which is myself) to help my Lord with some one room, but only for the dispatch of the mult.i.tude of Welsh and Irish people that follow him; and that you will give your word in my Lord's behalf and mine, it shall not be accounted as a lodging[86] or known of, I believe he will make what shift he can: you must a.s.sure him it is but for the day-time for his business, as indeed it is.

As for my brother's answer of[87] my stay here for five or six days, he knows I have ventured far already with so long absence, and am ill thought of for it,[88] so as that may not be. But when the worst is known, old Lord Harry and his old Moll will do as well as they can in parting[89] like good friends the small portion allotted our long service in Court, which as little as it is, seems something too much.[90] And this being all I can say to the matter, farewell, Mr. Ned.

In haste this Monday 1578,

your a.s.sured loving mistress and friend,

M. SYDNEY.

If all this will not serve, prove[91] Mr Huggins, for I know my Lord would not for no good be dest.i.tute in this time for some convenient place for his followers and friends to resort to him, which in the case I am in, is not possible to be in _my_ chamber till after sunset, when the dear good Lord shall be, as best becomes him, Lord of his own.

FOOTNOTES:

[81] Her birth-date does not seem to be known, but she was married in 1551.

[82] He had another, of the (for an English girl) very unusual name of "Ambros[z]ia" who died unmarried, at twenty.

[83] Most kindly copied for me by the Rev. W. Hunt from Arthur Collins's _Sydney Papers_.

[84] An agreeable phrase, not in the least obsolete, though I have known ignorant persons who thought it so. The "office" was that of Lord Chamberlain; the holder was Lord Howard of Effingham, afterwards famous in the Armada fights.

[85] See _Kenilworth_ (chap. xvi.), where Scott brings him in as experiencing Gloriana's extreme uncertainty of temper.

[86] _I.e._ a permanent one such as Hampton Court affords to some.

[87] "About"?

[88] Either by the Queen herself, whose touchiness is well known, or by jealous and mischief-making fellow courtiers.

[89] "Sharing."

[90] "Is grudged."

[91] We should say "try."

GEORGE CLIFFORD EARL OF c.u.mBERLAND (1558-1605)

This not very fortunate or wholly blameless but very remarkable and representative person was the third holder of the earldom and the sixteenth of the famous barony of Clifford. He was great-grandson of Wordsworth's "Shepherd Lord"; father of Anne Countess of Dorset, Pembroke and Montgomery (pupil of Daniel the poet and a typical great lady of her time); one of the foremost of Elizabeth's privateering courtiers; one of the chief victims of her caprice and parsimony; a magnificent n.o.ble, but a great spendthrift, something of a libertine, never unkindly but hardly ever wise. This remarkable deathbed letter (the giving of which depended on the kindness of Dr. G. C.

Williamson of Hampstead, author of the _Life and Voyages of G. Clifford, 3rd Earl of c.u.mberland_, Cambridge University Press, 1920, in which it appeared, p. 270-1), pretty well explains itself. "Sweet Meg," his wife, was Lady Margaret Russell, daughter of the Earl of Bedford. The pair were on very affectionate terms for many years: but had latterly been estranged by certain infidelities on the Earl's part and by money disputes and difficulties, so that when his last illness attacked him Lady c.u.mberland was not with him.

She was not, however, proof against this repentant appeal: but returned with her daughter. Both were present at his death in the Savoy soon after he wrote. He had made, personally or by deputy, ten if not twelve voyages against the Spaniards, and though there was a good deal of mismanagement about them he took Porto Rico in one; captured, but made little profit out of, an enormously valuable prize, the _Madre de Dios_, in another; gave the warning which enabled Lord Thomas Howard to escape, but which Sir Richard Grenville refused to take "at Flores, in the Azores"; and built at his own expense, the largest privateer then or perhaps ever constructed, the _Malice Scourge_--for the remarkable subsequent history of which, see Mr. David Hannay's article, "_The Saga of a Ship_," in _Blackwood_, May, 1921.

6.

Sweet and dear Meg,

Bear[92] with, I pray thee, the short and unapt setting together of these my last lines, a token of true kindness, which I protest cometh out of an unfeigned heart of love to thee. For whose content, and to make satisfaction for the wrongs done to thee I have, since I saw thee more desired to return than for any other earthly cause. But being so low brought that, without G.o.d's miraculous favour, there is no great likelihood of it I, by this, if so it please G.o.d that I shall not, in earnestness make my last requests, which as ever thou lovest me lying so, I pray thee perform for me being dead. First, in greedy earnestness I desire thee not to offend G.o.d in grieving too much at His disposing of me: but let my a.s.sured hope that He hath done it for the saving of my soul rather comfort thee, considering that we ought most to rejoice, when we see a thing that it is either for the good of our souls or of our friends. And further I beg of thee that thou wilt take, as I have meant, in kindness the course I have set down for disposing of my estate and things left behind. Which truly, if I have not dealt most kindly with thee in, I am mistaken, and as ever thou lovest, (which I know thou hast done faithfully and truly) sweet Meg, let neither old conceit, new opinion, nor false lying tale, make thee fall to hard opinion nor suit with my brother. For this I protest now, when I tremble to speak that which upon any just colour may be turned to a lie, thou hast conceived wrong of him, for his nature is sweet, and though wrong conceit might well have urged him, yet he hath never to my knowledge said or done anything to harm thee or mine, but with tears hath often bemoaned himself to me that he could not devise how to make thee conceive rightly of him. And lastly, before the presence of G.o.d, I command thee, and in the nearest love of my heart I desire thee, to take great care that sweet Nan[93] whom G.o.d bless, may be carefully brought up in the fear of G.o.d, not to delight in worldly vanities, which I too well know be but baits to draw her out of the heavenly kingdom. And I pray thee thank thy kind uncle and aunt for her (?) and their many kindnesses to me. Thus, out of the bitter and greedy desire of a repentant heart, begging thy pardon for any wrong that ever in my life I did thee, I commend these my requests to thy wonted and undeserved kind wifely and lovely consideration, my body to G.o.d's disposing and my love (soul?) to His merciful commisseration.

Thine as wholly as man was ever woman's,

GEORGE c.u.mBERLAND.

To my dear wife, the Countess of c.u.mberland, give this, of whom, from the bottom of my heart in the presence of G.o.d, I ask forgiveness for all the wrongs I have done her.

FOOTNOTES:

[92] There is, as often, little or no punctuation in the original, of which Dr. Williamson's beautiful book gives a facsimile. I have ventured to adjust that of the printed text, here and there, to bring out the meaning.

[93] Lady Anne was at this time only 15. She seems to have been fond of her father and proud of him: nor is there any direct evidence that the fear of G.o.d was not in her. But she had no fear of man: and no excessive respect for her father's will. During the lives of her uncle Francis and her cousin Henry, 4th and 5th Earls, she fought it hard at law: and at last, Henry dying without issue, and the t.i.tle lapsing, came into possession of the great Clifford estates in the North. She lived to be 86, and was masterful all her days.

JOHN DONNE (1573-1631)

"The first poet in the world for some things,"--as Ben Jonson, who nevertheless did not like his metric, thought he would perish for not being understood, and perhaps did not understand him--called Donne with justice, might not be thought likely to be among the first letter-writers. The marvellous lightning-flashes of genius in a dark night of context which illuminate his poetry and his sermons, can hardly be expected--would indeed be almost out of place--in ordinary letter-writing. Moreover, Donne is, perhaps, with Browne, the most characteristic exponent of that magnificent seventeenth century style which accommodates itself ill to merely commonplace matters.

Browne, a younger man by an entire generation who lived far into the age of Dryden, could drop this style when he chose: with Donne it was rather the skin--if not even the very flesh and bone and all but spirit--than the cloak of his thought. Nevertheless there is no exact contemporary of his--and certainly none possessing anything like his literary power--who deserves selection as a representative of his own school and time better than he does; and there is something in him which adds distinction to any company in which he appears. As mentioned in the Introduction, his verse-epistles were even more noteworthy, but in prose he is noteworthy enough.

The batch of letters here chosen was most fortunately preserved by Izaak Walton, who published the first of them _in_ the life not of Donne but of George Herbert, while the rest were "added" to it in 1670.[94] The lady to whom they were written, Magdalen Newport by maiden name, was mother not only of the pious and poetical George, but of Edward Lord Herbert of Cherbury, himself not a very bad poet but by no means in the usual sense pious, a very great c.o.xcomb, and a hero chiefly by his own report. His mother, however, seems to have been one of those "elect ladies" who were among the chief glories of England in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and were fortunately numerous. After her widowhood she lived at Oxford for some time, but seems to have moved to London when Donne, about 1607, wrote these letters. He was himself living at Mitcham (spelt "Michin" in one letter), not yet famous for golf though perhaps already for lavender. Later he visited her at Montgomery Castle, the famous seat of the Herberts. She is said to have been very beautiful, and the subtle touch of not in the least fatuous or foppish "devotion" is most agreeable.

7. TO THE LADY MAGDALEN HERBERT

Madam,

Your favours to me are everywhere. I use them, and have them. I enjoy them at London, and leave them there: and yet find them at Mitcham. Such riddles as these become things inexpressible: and such is your goodness.

I was almost sorry to find your servant here this day, because I was loath to have any witness of my not coming home last night, and indeed of my coming this morning. But my not coming was excusable, because earnest business detained me; and my coming this day is by example of your St. Mary Magdalen, who rose early upon Sunday, to seek that which she loved most; and so did I. And, from her and myself, I return such thanks as are due to one, to whom we owe all the good opinion that they, whom we need most, have of us. By this messenger and on this good day, I commit the enclosed Holy Hymns and Sonnets--which for the matter not the workmanship have yet escaped the fire,--to your judgment and to your protection too, if you think them worthy of it; and I have appointed this enclosed Sonnet to usher them to your happy hand.

Your unworthiest servant unless your accepting him to be so have mended him

JO. DONNE.

(MITCHAM July 11. 1607)

TO THE LADY MAGDALEN HERBERT: OF ST. MARY MAGDALEN

Her of your name, whose fair inheritance Bethina was, and jointure Magdalo, An active faith so highly did advance, That she once knew, more than the church did know, The Resurrection! so much good there is Delivered of her, that some Fathers be Loath to believe one woman could do this; But think these Magdalens were two or three.