The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54 Part 14

Pa.s.sing 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 d.a.m.nation 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 pa.s.sionately. He has one son, and 'tis the finest boy that e'er you saw, and has a n.o.ble 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 a.s.sure 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 pa.s.ses 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 me That all the blessings which make others happy, Must be my ruin?

The five Portugals to whom Dorothy refers as being hanged were the Portuguese amba.s.sador's brother, Don Pantaleon Sa, and four of his men.

The _Mercurius Politicus_ of November 1653 gives the following account of the matters that led to the execution; and as it is ill.u.s.trative 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 amba.s.sador'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 amba.s.sador'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 amba.s.sador'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 the _State 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.

_July 20th_ [1654 in pencil].

I am very sorry I spoke too late, for I am confident this was an excellent servant. He was in the same house where I lay, and I had taken a great fancy to him, upon what was told me of him and what I saw. The poor fellow, too, was so pleased that I undertook to inquire out a place for him, that, though mine was, as I told him, uncertain, yet upon the bare hopes on't he refused two or three good conditions; but I shall set him now at liberty, and not think at all the worse of him for his good-nature. Sure you go a little too far in your condemnation on't. I know it may be abused, as the best things are most subject to be, but in itself 'tis so absolutely necessary that where it is wanting nothing can recompense the miss on't. The most contemptible person in the world, if he has that, cannot be justly hated, and the most considerable without it cannot deserve to be loved. Would to G.o.d I had all that good-nature you complain you have too much of, I could find ways enough to dispose on't amongst myself and my friends; but 'tis well where it is, and I should sooner wish you more on't than less.

I wonder with what confidence you can complain of my short letters that are so guilty yourself in the same kind. I have not seen a letter this month which has been above half a sheet. Never trust me if I write more than you that live in a desolated country where you might finish a romance of ten tomes before anybody interrupted you--I that live in a house the most filled of any since the Ark, and where, I can a.s.sure [you], one has hardly time for the most necessary occasions. Well, there was never any one thing so much desired and apprehended at the same time as your return is by me; it will certainly, I think, conclude me a very happy or a most unfortunate person. Sometimes, methinks, I would fain know my doom whatever it be; and at others, I dread it so extremely, that I am confident the five Portugals and the three plotters which were t'other day condemned by the High Court of Justice had not half my fears upon them. I leave you to judge the constraint I live in, what alarms my thoughts give me, and yet how unconcerned this company requires I should be; they will have me at my part in a play, "The Lost Lady" it is, and I am she. Pray G.o.d it be not an ill omen!

I shall lose my eyes and you this letter if I make it longer. Farewell.

I am, yours.

_Letter 67._--Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia, was the daughter of James I.

She married the Elector Frederick, who was driven from his throne owing to his own misconduct and folly, when his wife was forced to return and live as a pensioner in her native country. She is said to have been gifted in a superlative degree with all that is considered most lovely in a woman's character. On her husband's death in 1632 she went to live at the Hague, where she remained until the Restoration. There is a report that she married William, Earl of Craven, but there is no proof of this. He was, however, her friend and adviser through her years of widowhood, and it was to his house in Drury Lane that she returned to live in 1661. She is said to have been a lover of literature, and Francis Quarles and Sir Henry Wotton were her intimate friends. The latter has written some quaint and elegant verses to his mistress; the last verse, in which he apostrophizes her as the sun, is peculiarly graceful. It runs thus:

You meaner beauties of the night, That poorly satisfy our eyes, More by your number than your light,-- You common people of the skies, What are you when the sun shall rise?

But the sun is set, and the beautiful Queen's sad, romantic story almost forgotten.

Sir John Grenvile was a son of the valiant and loyal cavalier, Sir Bevil Grenvile, of Kelkhampton, Cornwall. He served the King successfully in the west of England, and was dangerously wounded at Newbury. He was entrusted by Charles II. to negotiate with General Monk. Monk's brother was vicar of Kelkhampton, so that Grenvile and Monk would in all probability be well acquainted before the time of the negotiation. We may remember, too, that Dorothy's younger brother was on intimate terms with General Monk's relations in Cornwall.

There must be letters missing here, for we cannot believe more than a month pa.s.sed without Dorothy writing a single letter.

I wonder you did not come before your last letter. 'Twas dated the 24th of August, but I received it not till the 1st of September. Would to G.o.d your journey were over! Every little storm of wind frights me so, that I pa.s.s here for the greatest coward that ever was born, though, in earnest, I think I am as little so as most women, yet I may be deceived, too, for now I remember me you have often told me I was one, and, sure, you know what kind of heart mine is better than anybody else.

I am glad you are pleased with that description I made you of my humour, for, though you had disliked it, I am afraid 'tis past my power to help.

You need not make excuses neither for yours; no other would please me half so well. That gaiety which you say is only esteemed would be insupportable to me, and I can as little endure a tongue that's always in motion as I could the click of a mill. Of all the company this place is stored with, there is but two persons whose conversation is at all easy; one is my eldest niece, who, sure, was sent into the world to show 'tis possible for a woman to be silent; the other, a gentleman whose mistress died just when they should have married; and though 'tis many years since, one may read it in his face still. His humour was very good, I believe, before that accident, for he will yet say things pleasant enough, but 'tis so seldom that he speaks at all, and when he does 'tis with so sober a look, that one may see he is not moved at all himself when he diverts the company most. You will not be jealous though I say I like him very much. If you were not secure in me, you might be so in him. He would expect his mistress should rise again to reproach his inconstancy if he made court to anything but her memory. Methinks we three (that is, my niece, and he and I) do become this house the worst that can be, unless I should take into the number my brother Peyton himself too; for to say truth his, for another sort of melancholy, is not less than ours. What can you imagine we did this last week, when to our constant company there was added a colonel and his lady, a son of his and two daughters, a maid of honour to the Queen of Bohemia, and another colonel or a major, I know not which, besides all the tongue they brought with them; the men the greatest drinkers that ever I saw, which did not at all agree with my brother, who would not be drawn to it to save a kingdom if it lay at stake and no other way to redeem it? But, in earnest, there was one more to be pitied besides us, and that was Colonel Thornhill's wife, as pretty a young woman as I have seen. She is Sir John Greenvil's sister, and has all his good-nature, with a great deal of beauty and modesty, and wit enough. This innocent creature is sacrificed to the veriest beast that ever was. The first day she came hither he intended, it seems, to have come with her, but by the way called in to see an old acquaintance, and bid her go on, he would overtake her, but did not come till next night, and then so drunk he was led immediately to bed, whither she was to follow him when she had supped. I blest myself at her patience, as you may do that I could find anything to fill up this paper withal. Adieu.

_Letter 68._--In this sc.r.a.p of writing we find that Temple is again in England with certain proposals from his father, and ready to discuss the "treaty," as Dorothy calls it, with her brother Peyton. The few remaining letters deal with the treaty. Temple would probably return to London when he left Ireland, and letters would pa.s.s frequently between them. There seems to have been some hitch as to who should appear in the treaty. Dorothy's brother had spoken of and behaved to Temple with all disrespect, but, now that he is reconciled to the marriage, Dorothy would have him appear, at least formally, in the negotiations. The last letter of this chapter, which is dated October 2nd, calls on Temple to come down to Kent, to Peyton's house; and it is reasonable to suppose that at this interview all was practically settled to the satisfaction of those two who were most deeply concerned in the negotiation.

I did so promise myself a letter on Friday that I am very angry I had it not, though I know you were not come to town when it should have been writ. But did not you tell me you should not stay above a day or two?

What is it that has kept you longer? I am pleased, though, that you are out of the power of so uncertain things as the winds and the sea, which I never feared for myself, but did extremely apprehend for you. You will find a packet of letters to read, and maybe have met with them already.

If you have, you are so tired that 'tis but reasonable I should spare you in this. For, [to] say truth, I have not time to make this longer; besides that if I had, my pen is so very good that it writes an invisible hand, I think; I am sure I cannot read it myself. If your eyes are better, you will find that I intended to a.s.sure you I am

Yours.

_Letter 69._

I am but newly waked out of an unquiet sleep, and I find it so late that if I write at all it must be now. Some company that was here last night kept us up till three o'clock, and then we lay three in a bed, which was all the same to me as if we had not gone to bed at all. Since dinner they are all gone, and our company with them part of the way, and with much ado I got to be excused, that I might recover a little sleep, but am so moped yet that, sure, this letter will be nonsense.

I would fain tell you, though, that your father is mistaken, and that you are not, if you believe that I have all the kindness and tenderness for you my heart is capable of. Let me a.s.sure you (whatever your father thinks) that had you 20,000 a year I could love you no more than I do, and should be far from showing it so much lest it should look like a desire of your fortune, which, as to myself, I value as little as anybody in the world, and in this age of changes; but certainly I know what an estate is. I have seen my father's reduced, better than 4000, to not 400 a year, and I thank G.o.d I never felt the change in anything that I thought necessary. I never wanted, nor am confident I never shall. But yet, I would not be thought so inconsiderate a person as not to remember that it is expected from all people that have sense that they should act with reason, that to all persons some proportion of fortune is necessary, according to their several qualities, and though it is not required that one should tie oneself to just so much, and something is left for one's inclination, and the difference in the persons to make, yet still within such a compa.s.s,--and such as lay more upon these considerations than they will bear, shall infallibly be condemned by all sober persons. If any accident out of my power should bring me to necessity though never so great, I should not doubt with G.o.d's a.s.sistance but to bear it as well as anybody, and I should never be ashamed on't if He pleased to send it me; but if by my own folly I had put it upon myself, the case would be extremely altered. If ever this comes to a treaty, I shall declare that in my own choice I prefer you much before any other person in the world, and all that this inclination in me (in the judgment of any persons of honour and discretion) will bear, I shall desire may be laid upon it to the uttermost of what they can allow. And if your father please to make up the rest, I know nothing that is like to hinder me from being yours. But if your father, out of humour, shall refuse to treat with such friends as I have, let them be what they will, it must end here; for though I was content, for your sake, to lose them, and all the respect they had for me, yet, now I have done that, I'll never let them see that I have so little interest in you and yours as not to prevail that my brother may be admitted to treat for me. Sure, when a thing of course and so much reason as that (unless I did disclose to all the world he were my enemy), it must be expected whensoever I dispose of myself he should be made no stranger to it. When that shall be refused me, I may be justly reproached that I deceived myself when I expected to be at all valued in a family that I am a stranger to, or that I should be considered with any respect because I had a kindness for you, that made me not value my own interests.

I doubt much whether all this be sense or not; I find my head so heavy.

But that which I would say is, in short, this: if I did say once that my brother should have nothing to do in't, 'twas when his carriage towards me gave me such an occasion as could justify the keeping that distance with him; but now it would look extremely unhandsome in me, and, sure, I hope your father would not require it of me. If he does, I must conclude he has no value for me, and, sure, I never disobliged him to my knowledge, and should, with all the willingness imaginable, serve him if it lay in my power.

Good G.o.d! what an unhappy person am I. All the world is so almost. Just now they are telling me of a gentleman near us that is the most wretched creature made (by the loss of a wife that he pa.s.sionately loved) that can be. If your father would but in some measure satisfy my friends that I might but do it in any justifiable manner, you should dispose me as you pleased, carry me whither you would, all places of the world would be alike to me where you were, and I should not despair of carrying myself so towards him as might deserve a better opinion from him.

I am yours.

_Letter 70._

My doubts and fears were not at all increased by that which gives you so many, nor did I apprehend that your father might not have been prevailed with to have allowed my brother's being seen in the treaty; for as to the thing itself, whether he appears in't or not, 'twill be the same. He cannot but conclude my brother Peyton would not do anything in it without the others' consent.

I do not pretend to any share in your father's kindness, as having nothing in me to merit it; but as much a stranger as I am to him, I should have taken it very ill if I had desired it of him, and he had refused it me. I do not believe my brother has said anything to his prejudice, unless it were in his persuasions to me, and there it did not injure him at all. If he takes it ill that my brother appears so very averse to the match, I may do so too, that he was the same; and nothing less than my kindness for you could have made me take so patiently as I did his saying to some that knew me at York that he was forced to bring you thither and afterwards to send you over lest you should have married me. This was not much to my advantage, nor hardly civil, I think, to any woman; yet I never so much as took the least notice on't, nor had not now, but for this occasion; yet, sure, it concerns me to be at least as nice as he in point of honour. I think 'tis best for me to end here lest my anger should make me lose that respect I would always have for your father, and 'twere not amiss, I think, that I devoted it all towards you for being so idle as to run out of your bed to catch such a cold.

If you come hither you must expect to be chidden so much that you will wish that you had stayed till we came up, when perhaps I might have almost forgot half my quarrel to you. At this present I can a.s.sure you I am pleased with n.o.body but your sister, and her I love extremely, and will call her pretty; say what you will, I know she must be so, though I never saw more of her than what her letters show. She shall have two "spots" [carriage dogs] if she please (for I had just such another given me after you were gone), or anything else that is in the power of

Yours.

_Letter 71._

_Monday, October the 2nd_ [1654].

After a long debate with myself how to satisfy you and remove that rock (as you call it), which in your apprehensions is of so great danger, I am at last resolved to let you see that I value your affections for me at as high a rate as you yourself can set it, and that you cannot have more of tenderness for me and my interests than I shall ever have for yours. The particulars how I intend to make this good you shall know when I see you; which since I find them here more irresolute in point of time (though not as to the journey itself) than I hoped they would have been, notwithstanding your quarrel to me, and the apprehension you would make me believe you had that I do not care to see you, pray come hither and try whether you shall be welcome or not! In sober earnest now I must speak with you; and to that end if your occasions will [serve] come down to Canterbury. Send some one when you are there, and you shall have further directions.