 Section 1 of Love Letters of Dorothy Osbourne. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Rhonda Federman. The Love Letters of Dorothy Osbourne. Section 1. Letter 1. Autumn, 1652. Sir, there is nothing moves my charity like gratitude, and when a beggar is thankful for a small relief, I always repent it was not more. But seriously, this place will not afford much towards the enlarging of a letter, and I am grown so dull with living in it, for I am not willing to confess yet I was always so, as to need all helps. Yet you shall see I will endeavor to satisfy you upon condition you will tell me why you quarreled so at your last letter. I cannot guess at it, unless it were that you repented you told me so much of your story, which I am not apt to believe, neither, because it would not become our friendship, a great part of it consisting, as I have been taught, in a mutual confidence. And to let you see that I believe it so, I will give you an account of myself, and begin my story, as you did yours, from our parting at Goring House. I came down hither not half so well pleased, as I went up, with an engagement upon me that I had little hope of shaking off. For I had made use of all the liberty my friends would allow me to preserve my own, and would not do. He was so weary of his, that he would part with it upon any terms. As my last refuge I got my brother to go down with him to see his house, who, when he came back, made the relation I wished. He said the seat was as ill as so good a country would permit, and the house so ruined for want of living in it, as it would take a good proportion of time and money to make it fit for a woman to confine herself to. This, though it were not much, I was willing to take hold of, and made it considerable enough to break the engagement. I had no quarrel to his person or his fortune, but was in love with neither, and much out of love with a thing called marriage, and have since, thank God, I was so. For it is not long since one of my brothers writ me word of him that he was killed in a duel, though since I have heard that was the other that was killed and he has fled upon it, which does not mend the matter much. Both made me glad I had escaped him, and sorry for his misfortune, which in earnest was the least return his many civilities to me could deserve. Presently, after this was at an end, my mother died, and I was left at liberty to mourn her loss awhile. At length my aunt, with whom I was when you last saw me, commanded me to wait on her at London, and when I came she told me how much I was in her care, how well she loved me for my mother's sake and something for my own, and drew out a long-sets speech which ended in a good motion, as she called it. And I truly saw no harm in it, for by what I had heard of the gentleman I guess he expected a better fortune than mine, and it proved so. Yet he protested he liked me so well that he was very angry my father would not be persuaded to give one thousand pounds more with me. And I, him so ill, that I vowed if I had a thousand pounds less, I should have thought it too much for him. And so we parted. Since he has made a story with a new mistress that is worth your knowing, but too long for a letter, I'll keep it for you. After this some friends that had observed a gravity in my face which might become an elderly man's wife, as they termed it, and a mother-in-law proposed a widower to me that had four daughters, all old enough to be my sisters, but he had a greatest state, was as fine a gentleman as ever England bread, and the very pattern of wisdom. I that knew how much I wanted it thought this was the safest place for me to engage in, and was mightily pleased to think I had met with one at last that had wid enough for himself and me too. But I shall tell you what I thought when I knew him. You will say nothing on it. Twas the vainest, impertinent, self-conceited, learned coxcomb that I ever yet saw to say more would spoil his marriage, which I hear as towards with the daughter of my Lord Colorane's. But for his sake I shall take care of a fine gentleman as long as I live. Before I have quite ended with him, coming to town about that and some other occasions of my own, I fell in Sir Thomas's way, and what humor took I cannot imagine, but he made very formal addresses to me, and engaged his mother and my brother to appear in it. This bred a story pleasanter than any I have told you yet, but so long a one that I must reserve it till we meet, or make it a letter of itself. The next thing I designed to be rid on was a scurvy spleen that I had been subject to, and to that purpose was advised to drink the waters. There I spent the latter end of the summer, and at my coming home found that a gentleman, who had some estate in this country, had been treating with my brother, and it yet goes on fair and softly. I do not know him so much as to give you much of his character. It is a modest, melancholy, reserved man, whose head is so taken up with little philosophic studies, that I admire how I found a room there. T'was sure by chance, and unless he is pleased with that part of my humor which other people think the worst, it is very possible the next new experiment may crowd me out again. Thus you have all my late adventures, and almost as much as this paper will hold. The rest shall be employed in telling you how sorry I am that you have got such a cold. I am the more sensible of your trouble by my own, for I have newly got one myself, but I will send you that which was to cure me. Tis like the rest of my medicines, if it do no good, T'will be sure to do no harm, and T'will be no great trouble to take a little on it now and then, for the taste on it, as it is not excellent, so T'is not very ill. One thing more I must tell you, which is that you are not to take it ill that I mistook your age by my computation of your journey through this country, for I was persuaded the other day that I could not be less than thirty years old by one that believed it himself, because he was sure it was a great while since he had heard of such a one as, your humble servant, Dorothy Osborne. Letter 2 December 24, 1652 Sir, you may please to let my old servant, as you call him, know that I confess I owe much to his merits and the many obligations his kindness and sensibilities has laid upon me, but for the ten pounds he claims, it is not yet due, and I think you may do well to persuade him, as a friend, to put it in the number of his desperate debts, for T'is a very uncertain one. In all things else, praise say I am his servant. And now, sir, let me tell you that I am extremely glad, whosoever gave you the occasion to hear from you. Since, without compliment, there are very few persons in the world I am more concerned in, to find that you have overcome your long journey and that you are well and in a place where T'is possible for me to see you, is such a satisfaction as I, who have not been used to many, may be allowed to doubt of. Yet I will hope my eyes do not deceive me and that I have not forgot to read, but if you please to confirm it to me by another, you know how to direct it. For I am where I was, still the same and always, your humble servant, D. Osborne. For Mrs. Painter, in Covent Garden, keep this letter till it be called for. Letter 3, January 2nd, 1653. Sir, if there were anything in my letter that pleased you, I am extremely glad on it. It was all due to you and made it but an equal return for the satisfaction yours gave me. And whatsoever you may believe, I shall never repent the good opinion I have with so much reason taken up. But I forget myself. I meant to chide, and I think this is nothing towards it. Is it possible you came so near me as Bedford and would not see me? Seriously, I should not have believed it from another. Would your horse had lost all his legs instead of a hoof that he might not have been able to carry you further, and you, something that you valued extremely, and could not hope to find anywhere but at Chick-Sans? I could wish you a thousand little mischances. I am so angry with you. For my life I could not imagine how I had lost you or why you should call that a silence of six or eight weeks which you intended so much longer. And when I had wearied myself with thinking of all the unpleasing accidents that might cause it, I at length sat down with a resolution to choose the best to believe, which was that at the end of one journey you had begun another, which I had heard you say you intended, and that your haste or something else had hindered you from letting me know it. In this ignorance your letter from Breeda found me. But for God's sake let me ask you what you have done all this while you have been away, what you have met with in Holland that could keep you there so long, why you went no further, and why I was not to know you went so far. You may do well to satisfy me in all these. I shall so persecute you with questions else when I see you, that you will be glad to go thither again to avoid me. Though when that will be I cannot certainly say, for my father has so small a proportion of health left him, since my mother's death, that I am in continual fear of him, and dare not often make use of the leave he gives me to be from home, lest he should at some time want such little services as I am able to lend him. Yet I think to be in London in the next term, and I am sure I shall desire it, because you are there. Sir, your humble servant, Dorothy Osborn. Letter 4, January 22nd, 1653. Sir, not to confirm you in your belief in dreams, but to avoid your reproaches I will tell you a pleasant one of mine. The night before I received your first letter, I dreamt one brought me a packet, and told me it was from you. I, that remembered you were by your own appointment to be in Italy at that time, asked the messenger where he had it. Who told me my lady, your mother, sent him with it to me. Then my memory felled me a little, for I forgot you had told me she was dead, and meant to give her many humble thanks if ever I were so happy as to see her. When I had opened the letter, I found in it two rings. One was, as I remember, an emerald doublet, but broken in the carriage. I suppose, as it might well be, coming so far. The other was plain gold, with the longest and the strangest posy that ever was. Half on it was Italian, which for my life I could not guess at, though I spent much time about it. The rest was, there was a marriage in Canna of Galilee, which, though it was scripture, I had not that reverence for it in my sleep that I should have had, I think, if I had been awake. For an earnest the oddness on it put me into that violent laughing that I waked myself with it. And as a just punishment upon me from that hour to this I could never learn whom those rings were for, nor what was in the letter besides. This is but as extravagant as yours, for it is as likely that your mother should send me letters as that I should make a journey to see poor people hanged, or that your teeth should drop out at this age. And to remove the opinions you have of my niceness, or being hard to please, let me assure you that I am far from desiring my husband should be fond of me at three score, that I would not have him so at all. Tiz true I should be glad to have him always kind, and know no reason why he should be wearier of being my master than he was of being my servant. But it is very possible I may talk ignorantly of marriage, when I come to make sad experiments on it in my own person I shall know more, and say less for fear of disheartening others, since Tiz no advantage to foreknow a misfortune that cannot be avoided, and for fear of being pitied, which of all things I hate. Lest you should be of the same humor, I will not pity you, lame as you are, and to speak truth, if you did like it, you should not have it, for you do not deserve it. Would any one in the world but you make such haste for a new cold before the old one had left him? In a year, too, when mere colds kill as many as a plague used to do. Well, seriously, either resolve to have more care of yourself, or I renounce my friendship. And as a certain king, that my learned knight is very well acquainted with, who, seeing one of his confederates in so happy a condition as it was not likely to last, sent his ambassador presently to break off the league betwixt them, lest he should be obliged to mourn the change of his fortune if he continued his friend. So I, with a great deal more reason, do declare that I will no longer be a friend to one that's none to himself, nor apprehend the loss of what you hazard every day a tennis. They had served you well enough if they had crammed a dozen ounces of that medicine down your throat to have made you remember a Quincy. But I have done, and I am now at leisure to tell you, that it is that daughter of my lord of Holland, who makes, as you say, so many sore eyes with looking on her, that is here. And if I know her at all, or have any judgment, her beauty is the least of her excellences. And now I speak of her, she has given me the occasion to make a request to you. It will come very seasonably after my chiding, and I have great reason to expect you should be in the humour of doing anything for me. She says that seals are much in fashion, and by showing me some that she has, has set me a longing for some too, such as our oldest and oddest are most prized, and if you know anybody that has lately come out of Italy, tis ten to one, but they have a store, for they are very common there. I do remember you once sealed a letter to me with as fine a one as I have seen. It was a Neptune, I think, riding upon a dolphin, but I am afraid it was not yours for I saw it no more. My old Roman head is a present for a prince. If such things come in your way, pray remember me. I am sorry my new carrier makes you rise so early, tis not good for your cold. How might we do that you might lie a bed, and yet I have your letter? You must use to write before he comes, I think, that it may be sure to be ready against he goes. In earnest consider on it, and take some course that your health and my letters may be both secured, for the loss of either would be very sensible to your humble servant, Dorothy Osborn. Sir, since you are so easy to please, sure I shall not miss it, and if my idle dreams and thoughts will satisfy you, I am to blame if you want long letters. To begin this, let me tell you I had not forgot you in your absence. I always meant you, one of my daughters. You should have had your choice, and trust me, they say some of them are handsome. But since things did not succeed, I thought to have said nothing on it, lest you should imagine I expected thanks for my good intention, or rather lest you should be too much affected with the thought of what you have lost by my imprudence. It would have been a good strengthening to my party, as you say, but in earnest it was not that I aimed at. I only desired to have it in my power to oblige you, and to certain I had proved a most excellent mother-in-law. Oh, my conscience, we should all have joined against him as the common enemy, for those poor young wenches are as weary of his government as I could have been. He gives them such precepts, as they say my lord of Dorchester gives his wife, and keeps them so much prisoners to a vile house he has in Northamptonshire, that if but once I had let them loose, they and his learning would have been sufficient to have made him mad without my help, but his good fortune would have it otherwise, to which I will leave him and proceed to give you some reasons why the other motion was not accepted on. The truth is, I had not that longing to ask a mother-in-law's blessing, which you say you should have had, for I knew mine too well to think she could make a good one. Besides, I was not so certain of his nature as not to doubt whether she might not corrupt it, nor so confident of his kindness as to assure myself that it would last longer than other people of his age and humor. I am sorry to hear he looks ill, though I think there is no great danger of him. Tis but a fit of an ague he has got, that the next charm cures, yet he will be apt to fall into it again upon a new occasion, and one knows not how it may work upon his thin body if it comes too often. It spoiled his beauty, sure, before I knew him, for I could never see it, or else, which is as likely, I do not know it when I see it. Besides that, I never look for it in men. It was nothing that I expected made me refuse these, but something that I feared, and seriously I find I want courage to marry where I do not like. If we should once come to disputes, I know who would have the worst on it, and I have not faith enough to believe a doctrine that is often preached, which is that though at first one has no kindness for them, yet it will grow strongly after marriage. Let them trust to it that think good. For my part, I am clearly of opinion, and shall die in it, that as the more one sees and knows a person that one likes, one has still the more kindness for them. So, on the other side, one is but the more weary of, and the more averse to, an unpleasant humor for having it perpetually by one. And though I easily believe that to marry one for whom we have already some affection will infinitely increase that kindness, yet I shall never be persuaded that marriage has a charm to raise love out of nothing, much less out of dislike. This is next to telling you what I dreamed and when I rise, but you have promised to be content with it. I would now if I could tell you when I shall be in town, but I am engaged to my lady Diana Rich, my lord of Holland's daughter, who lies at a gentle woman's hard buy me for sore eyes, that I will not leave the country till she does. She is so much a stranger here and finds so little company that she is glad of mine till her eyes will give her leave to look out better. They are mending and she hopes to be at London before the end of this next term, and so do I, though I shall make but a short stay. For all my business there is at an end when I have seen you, and told you my stories. And indeed my brother is so perpetually from home that I can be very little, unless I would leave my father altogether alone, which would not be well. We hear of great disorders at your masks, but no particulars. Only they say the Spanish gravity was much discomposed. I shall expect the relation from you at your best leisure, and pray give me an account of how my medicine agrees with your cold. This, if you can read it, for it is strangely scribbled, will be enough to answer yours, which is not very long this week. And I am grown so provident that I will not lay out more than I receive. But I am just with all, and therefore you know how to make mine longer when you please. Though to speak truth, if I should make this so, you would hardly have it this week, for it is a good while since it was called for. Your humble servant, Dorothy Osbourne. 6 March 5th, 1653 Sir, I know not how to oblige so civil a person as you are, more than by giving you the occasion of serving a fair lady. In sober earnest I know you will not think at a trouble to let your boy deliver these books, and this enclosed letter where it is directed for my lady, whom I would, the faintest in the world, have you acquainted with, that you might judge whether I had not reason to say somebody was to blame. But had you reason to be displeased that I said a change in you would be much more pardonable than in him, certainly you had not, I spake it very innocently, and out of a great sense how much she deserves more than anybody else. I shall take heed, though, hereafter, what I write, since you are so good at raising doubts to persecute yourself with all, and shall condemn my own easy face no more. For me it is a better nature and a less fault to believe too much than to distrust where there is no cause. If you were not so apt to quarrel, I would tell you that I am glad to hear your journey goes forwarder, but you would presently imagine, that is because I would be glad if you were gone, need I say, that is because I prefer your interest much before my own, because I would not have you lose so good a diversion and so pleasing an entertainment, as in all likelihood this voyage will be to you, and because the sooner you go, the sooner I may hope for your return. If it be necessary, I will confess all this, and something more, which is, that not withstanding all my gallantry and resolution, it is much for my credit that my courage is put to no greater a trial than parting with you at this distance. But you are not going yet, neither, and therefore we will leave the discourse on it till then, if you please, for I find no great entertainment in it. And let me ask you, whether it be possible that Mr. Gray makes love, they say he does, to my Lady Jane Seymour. If it were expected that one should give a reason for their passions, what could he say for himself? He would not offer sure to make us believe my Lady Jane a lovelier person than my Lady Anne Percy. I did not think I should have lived to have seen his frozen heart melted. It is the greatest conquest she will ever make. May it be happy to her. But in my opinion he has not a good natured look. The younger brother was a servant a great wild to my fair neighbour, but could not be received, and in earnest I could not blame her. I was his confidant, and heard him make his addresses. Not that I brag of the favour he did me for anybody might have been so that had been as often there, and he was less scrupulous in that point than one would have been that had had less reason. But in my life I never heard a man say more, nor less to the purpose, and if his brother had not a better gift in courtship he will owe my Lady's favour to his fortune rather than to his address. My Lady Anne Wentworth are here is marrying, but I cannot learn to whom, nor is it easy to guess who is worthy of her. In my judgment she is without dispute the finest Lady I know, one always accepted. Not that she is at all handsome, but infinitely virtuous and discreet, of a sober and very different humour from most of the young people of these times, but has as much wit and is as good company as anybody that ever I saw. What would you give that I had but the wit to know when to make an end of my letters? Never anybody was persecuted with such long epistles, but you will pardon my unwillingness to leave you, and notwithstanding all your little doubts, believe that I am very much your faithful friend and humble servant, Dorothy Osbourne. Letter Seven Sir, I am so great a lover of my bed myself that I can easily apprehend the trouble of rising at four o'clock these cold mornings. In earnest I'm troubled that you should be put to it, and have chid the carrier for coming out so soon. He swears to me he never comes out of town before eleven o'clock, and that my lady painter's footman, as he calls him, brings her letters two hours sooner than he needs to do. I told him he was gone one day before the letter came, he vows he was not, and that your old friend Collins never brought letters of my lady painters in his life. And, to speak truth, Collins did not bring me that letter. I had it from this Harold two hours before Collins came. Yet it is possible all that he says may not be so, for I have known better men than he, liar. Therefore, if Collins be more for your ease or conveniency, make use of him hereafter. I know not whether my letter were kind or not, but I'll swear yours was not, and I am sure mine was meant to be so. It is not kind in you to desire an increase of my friendship. That is to doubt it is not as great already as it can be, than which you cannot do me a greater injury. It is my misfortune indeed that it lies not in my power to give you better testimony on it than words. Otherwise I should soon convince you that it is the best quality I have, and that where I own a friendship I mean so perfect a one as time can neither lessen nor increase. If I said nothing of my coming to town, it was because I had nothing to say that I thought you would like to hear. For I do not know that ever I desired anything earnestly in my life but was denied me, and I am many times afraid to wish a thing, merely lest my fortune should take that occasion to use me ill. She cannot see, and therefore I may venture to write, that I intend to be in London, if it be possible, on Friday or Saturday come Saturday night. Be sure you do not read it aloud lest you hear it, and prevent me, or drive you away before I come. It is so like my luck, too, that you should be going, I know not wither again, but trust me, I have looked for it ever since I heard you a come home. You will laugh, sure, when I tell you that hearing that my Lord Lyle was to go ambassador into Sweden, I remembered your father's acquaintance in that family with an apprehension that he might be in the humour of sending you with him. But for God's sake, wither is it that you go? I would not willingly be at such a loss again as I was after your Yorkshire journey. If it proves longer one, I shall not forget you, but in earnest I shall be so possessed for the strong splenetic fancy that I shall never see you more in this world, as all the waters in England will not cure. Well, this is a sad story, we'll have no more on it. I humbly thank you for your offer of your head, but if you were an emperor I should not be so bold with you as to claim your promise. You might find twenty better employments for it. Only with your greatest leave I think I should be a little exalted with remembering that you had been once my friend, toward more endangering growing proud than being Sir Justinian's mistress, and yet he thought me pretty well inclined to it then. Lord, what would I give that I had a Latin letter of his for you that he writ to a great friend at Oxford, where he gives him a long and learned character of me, to would serve you to laugh at this seven years? If I remember what was told me on it, the worst of my faults was a height, he would not call it, pride, that was, as he had heard, the humour of my family, and the best of my commendations was, that I was capable of being company and conversation for him. But you do not tell me yet how you found him out. If I had gone about to conceal him I had been sweetly served. I shall take heed of you hereafter, because there is no very great likelihood of your being an emperor, or that if you were I should have your head. I have sent into Italy for seals. Since to be hoped by that time mine come over, they may be of fashion again, for it is in humour that your old acquaintance, Mr Smith, and his lady have brought up. They say she wears twenty strung upon a ribbon, like the nuts boys play with all, and I do not hear of anything else. Mr Howard presented his mistress but a dozen such seals as are not to be valued as times now go. But, apropos of Mr Smith, what escape he has made of my lady Barbary, and who would ere have dreamt that he should have had my lady Sunderland, though he be a very fine gentleman, and does more than deserve her? I think I shall never forgive her one thing she said of him, which was that she married him out of pity. It was the pitifulest saying that ever I heard, and made him so contemptible that I should not have married him for that reason. This is a strange letter, sure, I have not time to read it over, but I have said anything that came into my head to put you out of your dumps. For God's sake, be in better humour, and assure yourself I am as much as you can wish, your faithful friend and servant, Dorothy Osbourne. Letter 8 Sir, you have made me so rich as I am able to help my neighbours. There is a little head cutting and onyx that I take to be a very good one, and the dolphin is, as you say, the better for being cut less. The oddness of the figures makes the beauty of these things. If you saw one that my brother sent my lady Diana last week, you would believe it were meant to fright people with all. It was brought out of the indies and cut there for an idle's head. They took the devil himself for their pattern that did it, for in my life I never saw so uglier thing, and yet she is as fond on it as if it were as lovely as she herself is. Her eyes have not the flames they have had, nor is she like, I am afraid, to recover them here. But were they irrecoverably lost, the beauty of her mind were enough to make her outshine everybody else, and she would still be courted by all that knew how to value her, like La Bella Voix that would fill up the second of France his mistress. I am wholly ignorant of the story you mention, and am confident you are not well informed, for it is impossible that she should ever have done anything that were so unhandsome. If I knew who the person were that is concerned in it, she allows me so much freedom with her that I could easily put her upon the discourse, and I do not think she would use much of a disguise in it towards me. I should have guessed it, Algernon Sidney, but that I cannot see in him that likelihood of a fortune which he seemed to imply by saying it is not present. But if you should mean by that that this possible his wit and good parts may raise him to one, you must pardon if I am not of your opinion, for I do not think these times are for anybody to expect preferment in that deserves it, and in the best was ever too uncertain for a wise body to trust to. But I am altogether of your mind that my Lady Sunderland is not to be followed in her marrying fashion, and that Mr. Smith never appeared less her servant than in desiring it. To speak truth, it was convenient for neither of them, and in meaner people, had been plain undoing one another, which I cannot understand to be kindness of either side. She has lost by it much of the repute she had gained by keeping herself a widow. It was then believed that wit and discretion were to be reconciled in her person that have so seldom been persuaded to meet in anybody else. But we are all mortal. I did not mean that, Howard, towards a rundle, Howard, and the seals were some remainders that showed his father's love to antiquities, and therefore cost him dear enough if that would make them good. I am sorry I cannot follow your counsel in keeping fair with fortune. I am not apt to suspect without just cause. But in earnest, if I once find anybody faulty towards me, they lose me for ever. I have full sworn in being twice deceived by the same person. For God say, do not say she has the spleen, I shall hate it worse than ever I did, nor that it is a disease of the wits, I shall think you abuse me, for then I am sure it would not be mine. But were it certain that they went together always, I dare swear there is nobody so proud of their wit as to keep it upon such terms. But I would be glad, after they had endured it a while, to let them both go as they came. I know nothing yet that is likely to alter my resolution of being in town on Saturday next. But I am uncertain where I shall be, and therefore it will be best that I send you word when I am there. I should be glad to see you sooner, but that I do not know myself what company I may have with me. I meant this letter longer when I had begun it, but an extreme cold that I have taken lies so in my head, and makes it ache so violently that I hardly see what I do. I will e'en to bear, as soon as I have told you that I am very much your faithful friend and servant, Dorothy Osbourne. Letter 9 Sir, I was so kind as to write to you by the coachman, and let me tell you I think towards the greatest testimony of my friendship that I could give you, for, trust me, I was so tired with my journey, so dowed with my cold, and so out of humour with our parting, that I should have done it with great unwillingness to anybody else. I lay a bed all next day to recover myself, and rise the Thursday to receive your letter with the more ceremony. I found no fault with the ill writing, towards but too easy to read, me thought, for I am sure I had done much sooner than I could have wished. But in earnest I was hightly troubled to find you in so much disorder. I would not have you so kind to me as to be cruel to yourself, in whom I am more concerned. No, for God's sake, let us not make afflictions of such things as these. I am afraid we shall meet with too many real ones. I am glad your journey holds, because I think it will be a good diversion for you this summer. But I admire your father's patience that lets you rest with so much indifference, when there is such a fortune offered. I'll swear I have great scruples of conscience myself on the point, and am much afraid I am not your friend, if I am any part of the occasion that him does you from accepting it. Yet I am sure my intentions towards you are very innocent and good. For you are one of those whose interests I shall ever prefer much above my own, and you are not to thank me for it, since, to speak truth, I secure my own buy it, for I defy my ill fortune to make me miserable, unless she does it in the persons of my friends. I wonder how your father came to know I was in town, unless my old friend, your cousin Hermond, should tell him. Pray, for my sake, be a very obedient son. All your faults will be laid to my charge, else, and alas, I have too many of my own. You say nothing how your sister does, which makes me hope there is no more of danger in her sickness. Pray, when it may be no trouble to her, tell her how much I am her servant, and have a care of yourself this cold weather. I have read your Rhine Marguerite, and will return it to you when you please. If you will have my opinion of her, I think she had a good deal of wit, and a great deal of patience for a woman of so high a spirit. She speaks for too much indifference of her husband's several amours, and commends bossy as if she were a little concerned in him. I think her a better sister than a wife, and believe she might have made a better wife to a better husband. But the story of Mademoiselle de Tochno is so sad that when I read it I was able to go no further, and was feigned to take off something else to divert myself with all. Have you read Clare Patre? I have six toms on it here that I can lend you if you have not. There are some stories in it you will like, I believe. But what an ass I am to think you can be idling off at London to read romance. No, I'll keep them till you come hither. Here they may be welcome to you, for want of better company. Yet, that you may not imagine we are quite out of the world here, and so be frightened from coming, I can assure you we are seldom without news such as it is, and at this present we do abound with stories of my Lady Sunderland and Mr. Smith, with what reverence he approaches her, and how like a greatest princess she receives him, that they say it is worth one's going twenty miles to see it. All our ladies are mightily pleased with the example, but I do not find that the man intend to follow it, and I'll undertake Sir Solomon Justinian wishes her in the Indias, for fear she should pervert his new wife. Your fellow servant kisses your hands, and says, if you mean to make love to her old woman, this is the best time you can take, for she is dying, this cold weather kills her, I think. It has undone me, I am sure, in killing an old knight that I have been waiting for this seven year, and now he dies and will leave me nothing, I believe, but leaves a rich widow for somebody. I think you had best come a-wooing to her. I have a good interest in her, and it shall be all employed in your service, if you think it fit to make any addresses there. But to be sober now again, for God's sake send me word how your journey goes forward, when you think it shall begin it, and how long it may last, when I may expect your coming this way, and of all things remember to provide a safe address for your letters when you are abroad. This is a strange confused one, I believe, for I have been called away twenty times since I sat down to write it, to my father, who is not well, but you are pardoned, we are past ceremony, and excuse me, if I say no more now, but that I am to jus les meurs, that is, ever you are affectionate friend and servant, d'oeuvre the Osborne. LESTER TEN Sir, your last letter came like a pardon to one upon the block. I had given over the hopes on it, having received my letters by the other carrier, who was always wont to be last. The loss put me hugely out of order, and you would have both pitted and laughed at me if you could have seen how woodenly I entertained the widow, who came hither the day before, and surprised me very much. Not being able to say anything, I got her to cards, and there, with a great deal of patience, lost my money to her, or rather I gave it as my ransom. In the midst of our play in comes my blessed boy with your letter, and in earnest I was not able to disguise the joy it gave me, though one was by that is not much your friend, and took notice of a blush that for my life I could not keep back. I put up the letter in my pocket, and made what haste I could to lose the money I had left, that I might take occasion to go fetch some more. But I did not make such haste back again, I can assure you. I took time enough to have coined myself some money if I had had the art on it, and left my brother enough to make all his addresses to her, if he was so disposed. I know not whether he was pleased or not, but I am sure I was. You make so reasonable demands that his not fit you should be denied. You ask my thoughts, but at one hour you will think be bountiful, I hope, when I shall tell you that I know no hour when you have them not. No, in earnest, my very dreams are yours, and I have got such a habit of thinking of you, that any other thought intrudes and proves uneasy to me. I drink your health every morning in a drench that would poison a horse, I believe, and it is the only way I have to persuade myself to take it. Tis the infusion of steel, and makes me so horribly sick, that every day at ten o'clock I am making my will and taking leave of all my friends. You will believe you are not forgot then. They tell me I must take this ugly drink of fortnight, and then begin another as bad. But unless you say so too, I do not think I shall. Tis worse than dying by the half. I am glad your father is so kind to you. I shall not dispute it with him, because it is much more in his power than in mine. But I shall never yield that it is more in his desire, since he was much pleased with that which was a truth when you told it him. But would have been none if he had asked the question sooner. He thought there was no danger of you, since you were more ignorant and less concerned in my being in town than he. If I were Mrs. Chambers, he would be more my friend. But, however, I am much his servant as he is your father. I have sent you your book, and since you are at leisure to consider the moon, you may be enough to read Cleopatrae. Therefore I have sent you three times. When you have done with these, you shall have the rest, and I believe they will please. There is a story of Artemis that I will recommend to you. Her disposition I like extremely. It has a great deal of practical wit. And if you meet with one Britomart, pray send me word how you like him. I am not displeased that my Lord Lyle makes no more haste, for though I am very willing that you should go the journey for many reasons, yet two or three months hence sure will be soon enough to visit so cold a country, and I would not have you endure two winters in one year. Besides, I look for my eldest brother and cousin Mole here shortly, and I should be glad to have nobody to entertain but you whilst you are here. Lord, that you had the invisible ring, or fortune-artist, his wishing-hat. Now, at this instant, you should be here. My brother has gone to wait upon the widow, Homewoods, she that was born to persecute you and I, I think. She has so tired me with being here but two days, that I do not think I shall accept of the offer she made of me living with her in case my father dies before I have disposed of myself. Yet we are very great friends, and for my comfort she says she will come again about the latter end of June, and stay longer with me. My aunt is still in town, kept by her business, which I am afraid will not go well. They do so delay it. And my precious uncle does so visit her, and is so kind, that without doubt some mischief will follow. Do you know his son, my cousin Harry? It is a handsome youth and well-natured, but such a goose, and she has bred him so strangely that he needs all his ten thousand a year. I would feign have him marry my Lady Diana. She was his mistress when he was a boy. He had more wit then than he has now, I think, and I have less wit than he, sure, for spending my paper upon him when I have so little. Here is hardly room for your affectionate friend and servant, Dorothy Osborne. Sir, I am so far from thinking you ill-natured, for wishing I might not outlive you, that I should not have thought you at all kind, if you had done otherwise. No, in earnest, I was never yet so in love with my life, but that I could have parted with it upon a much less occasion than your death, and will be no compliment to you to say it would be very uneasy to me then, since it is not very pleasant to me now. Yet you will say I take great pains to preserve it, as ill as I like it. But no, I'll swear it is not that I intend in what I do. All that I aim at is but to keep myself from proving a beast. They do so fright me with strange stories of what the spleen will bring me to in time, that I am kept in awe with them like a child. They tell me, to all not leave me common sense, that I shall hardly be fit company for my own dogs, and that it will end either in a stupidness that will make me incapable of anything, or fill my head with such whims as will make me ridiculous. To prevent this, who would not take steel or anything, though I am partly of your opinion that there's an ill kind of physics. Yet I am confident that I take it the safest way, for I do not take the powder, as many do, but only lay a piece of steel in white wine overnight, and drink the infusion next morning, which one would think were nothing, and yet there's not to be imagined how sick it makes me for an hour or two, and, which is the misery, all that time one must be using some kind of exercise. Your fellow servant has a blessed time on it that ever you saw. I make her play at shuttlecock with me, and she's the various bungler at it ever you saw. Then am I ready to beat her with the battle-door, and grow so peevish as I grow sick, that I'll undertake she wishes there were no steel in England. But then, to recompense the morning, I am in good humour all the day after, for joy that I am well again. I am told it will do me good, and I am content to believe it, if it does not I am but where I was. I do not use to forget my old acquaintances. Almanzor is as fresh in my memory as if I had visited his tomb but yesterday, though it be at least seven years ago and since. You will believe I had not been used to great afflictions when I made his story such a one to me, as I cried an hour together for him, and was so angry with Elsie Diana, that for my life I could never love her after it. You do not tell me whether you received the books I sent you, but I will hope you did, because you say nothing to the country. They are my dear Lady Diana's, and therefore I am much concerned that they should be safe. And now I speak of her, she is acquainted with your aunt, my Lady B, and says all that you say of her. If her niece has so much wit, will you not be persuaded to like her, or say she has not quite so much, may not her fortune make it up? In earnest I know not what to say, but if your father does not use all his kindness and all his power to make you consider your own advantage, he is not like other fathers. Can you imagine that he that demands five thousand pounds besides the reversion of an estate will like bath four thousand pounds? Such miracles are seldom seen, and you must prepare to suffer a strange prosecution unless you grow conformable. Therefore consider what you do, this the part of a friend to advise you. I could say a great deal to this purpose, and tell you that this not discreet to refuse a good offer, nor safe to trust wholly to your own judgment in your disposal. I was never better provided in my life for a grave admonishing discourse. Would you had heard how I have been catagized for you, and seen how soberly I sit and answer to interrogatories? Would you think that upon examination it is found that you are not an indifferent person to me? But the mischief is that what my intentions or resolutions are is not to be discovered, though much pains has been taken to collect all scattering circumstances, and all the probable conjectures that can be raised from lens has been urged to see if anything would be confessed, and all this done with so much ceremony and compliment, so many pardons asked for undertaking to counsel or inquire, and so great kindness and passion for all my interests professed, that I cannot but take it well, though I am very wary on it. You are spoken of with a reverence due to a person that I seem to like, and for as much as they know of you, you do deserve a very good esteem. But your fortune and mine can never agree, and in plain terms we forfeit our discretions and run woefully upon our own ruins if there be such a thought. To all this I make no reply, but that if they will needs have it, that I am not without kindness for you. They must conclude, with all, that this no part of my intention to ruin you, and so the conference breaks up for that time. All this is for my friend, that is not yours, and the gentleman that came upstairs in a basket, I could tell him that he spends his breath to very little purpose, and has put his labour for his pains. Without his precepts, my own judgment would preserve me from doing anything that might be prejudicial to you or unjustifiable to the world. But if these be secured, nothing can alter the resolution I have taken of settling my whole stock of happiness upon the affection of a person that is dear to me, whose kindness I shall infinitely prefer before any other consideration whatsoever, and I shall not blush to tell you that you have made the whole world beside so indifferent to me that if I cannot be yours, they may dispose of me how they please. Henry Cromwell will be as acceptable to me as anyone else. If I may undertake to cancel, I think you should do well to comply with your father as far as possible, and not to discover any aversion to what he desires further than you can give reason for. What his disposition may be, I know not, but is that of many parents to judge their children's dislikes to be in humour of approving nothing that is chosen for them, which many times makes them take up another of denying their children all they choose for themselves. I find I am in the humour of talking wisely, if my paper would give me leave. This great pity here isn't room for no more but your faithful friend and servant, Dorothy Osbourne. Sir, there shall be two posts this week, for my brother sends his groom up, and I am resolved to make some advantage of it. Pray what the paper denied me in your last, let me receive by him. Your fellow servant is a sweet jewel to tell tales of me. The truth is, I cannot deny but that I have been very careless of myself, but alas, who would have been other? I never thought my life worth my care whilst nobody was concerned in it but myself. Now I shall look upon it as something that you would not lose, and therefore shall endeavor to keep it for you. But then you must return my kindness with the same care of a life that is much dearer to me. I shall not be so unreasonable as to desire that, for my satisfaction, you should deny yourself a recreation that is pleasing to you, and very innocent, sure, when it is not used in excess. But I cannot consent you should disorder yourself with it. And Jane was certainly in the right when she told you, I would have chit if I had seen you so in danger of health that I am so much concerned in. But for what she tell you of my melancholy you must not believe. She thinks nobody in good humour unless they laugh perpetually, as Nan and she does, which I was never given too much, and now I have been so long accustomed to my own natural dull humour that nothing can alter it. It is not that I am sad, for as long as you and the rest of my friends are well, I thank God I have no occasion to be so. But I never appear to be very merry, and if I had all that I could wish for in the world, I do not think it would make any visible change in my humour. And yet, with all my gravity, I could not but laugh at your encounter in the park, though I was not pleased that you should leave a fair lady and go lie upon the cold ground. That is full as bad as overheating yourself at tennis, and therefore, remember, it is one of the things you are forbidden. You have reason to think your father kind, and I have reason to think him very civil. All his scruples are very just ones, but such as time and a little good fortune, if we were either of us lucky to it, might satisfy. He may be confident I can never think of disposing myself without my father's consent, and though he has left it more in my power than almost anybody leaves a daughter, yet certainly I were the worst natured person in the world if his kindness were not a great or tie upon me than any advantage he could have reserved. Besides that, this my duty, from which nothing can ever tempt me, nor could you like it in me if I should do otherwise, would make me unworthy of your esteem. But if ever that may be obtained, or I left free, and you in the same condition, all the advantages of fortune nor person imaginable met together in one man should not be preferred before you. I think I cannot leave you better than with this assurance. This very late, and having been abroad all this day, I know not till even now of this messenger. Good night to you. There need be no excuse for the conclusion of your letter. Nothing can please me better. Once more, good night. I am half in a dream already. Your faithful friend and servant, Dorothy Osbourne. Letter 13. Sir, I am glad you escaped a beating, but, in earnest, would it had lighted on my brother's groom. I think I should have beaten him myself if I had been able. I have expected your letter all this day with the greatest impatience that was possible, and at last resolved to go out and meet the fellow, and when I came down to the stables, I found him come, had set up his horse, and was sweeping the stable in great order. I could not imagine him so very obese as I think his horses were to be served before me, and therefore was presently struck with an apprehension he had no letter for me. It went cold to my heart as ice, and hardly left me courage enough to ask him the question. But when he had rolled it out that he thought there was a letter for me in his bag, I quickly made him leave his broom. It was welled as a dull fellow. He could not, but have discerned else, that I was strangely overjoyed with it, and earnest to have it. For though the poor fellow made what haste he could to enti his bag, I did nothing but chide him for being so slow. Last I had it, and in earnest I know not whether an entire diamond of the bigness on it would have pleased me half so well. If it would, it must be only out of this consideration that such a jewel would make me rich enough to dispute you with Mrs. Chambers, and perhaps make your father like me as well. I like him, I'll swear, and extremely too, for being so calm in a business where his desires were so much crossed. Either he has a great power over himself, or you have a great interest in him, or both. If you are pleased it should end thus, I cannot dislike it. But if it would have been happy for you, I should think myself strangely unfortunate in being the cause that it went not further. I cannot say that I prefer your interest before my own, because all yours are so much mine that it is impossible for me to be happy if you are not so. But if they could be divided, I am certain I should. And though you reproach me with unkindness for advising you not to refuse a good offer, yet I shall not be discouraged from doing it again when there is occasion, for I am resolved to be your friend whether you will or know. And for example, though I know you do not need my counsel, yet I cannot but tell you that I think to her very well that you took some care to make my lady be your friend, and obliged her by your civilities to believe that you were sensible of the favor was offered to you, though you had not the grace to make good use on it. In very good earnest now, she is a woman, by all that I have heard of her, that one would not lose. Besides that, it will become you to make some satisfaction for downright refusing a young lady. It was unmercifully done. Would to God you would leave that trick of making excuses? Can you think it necessary to me, or believe that your letters can be so long as to make them unpleasing to me? Are minds so to you? If they are not, yours never will be so to me. You see, I say anything to you, out of a belief that, though my letters were more impertinent than they are, you would not be without them, nor wish them shorter. Why should you be less kind? If your fellow servant has been with you, she has told you I part with her, but for her advantage, that I shall always be willing to do. But whensoever she shall think fit to serve again, and is not provided of a better mistress, she knows where to find me. I have sent you the rest of Cleopatra. Pray keep them all in your hands, and the next week I will send you a letter and directions where you shall deliver that and the books for my lady. Is it possible that she can be indifferent to anybody? Take heed of telling me such stories. If all those excellences she is rich in cannot keep warm a passion without the sunshine of her eyes, what are poor people to expect, and where not a strange vanity in me to believe yours can be long lived? It would be very pardonable in you to change, but, sure, in him does a mark of so great inconstancy as shows him of a humour that nothing can fix. When you go into the exchange pray call at the great shop above, the flower pot. I spoke to Himes, the man of the shop, when I was in town, for a quart of orange flower water. He had none that was good then, but promised to get me some. Pray put him in mind of it, and let him show it to you before he sends it me, for I will not altogether trust to his honesty. You see, I make no scruple of giving you little idle commissions. It is a freedom you allow me, and that I should be glad you would take. The Frenchman that set my seals lives between Salesbury House and the Exchange, at a house that was not finished when I was there, and the master of the shop, his name's Walker, he made me pay fifty shillings for three, but was too dear. You will meet with a story in these parts of Cleopatra that pleased me more than any that ever I read in my life. It is a one daily. Pray give me your opinion of her and her prince. This letter is written great haste as you may see. It is my brother's sick day, and I am not willing to leave him long alone. I forgot to tell you in my last that he was come hither to try if he can lose an ache here that he got in Glossoschar. He asked me for you very kindly, and if he knew I read to you I should have something to say from him besides what I should say for myself if I had room. Your faithful friend and servant, Dorothy Osbourne, Letter 14. Sir, that you may be sure it was a dream that I read that part of my letter in, I do not now remember what it was I read, but seems it was very kind, and possibly you owe the discovery on it to my being asleep. But I do not repent it, for I should not love you if I did not think you discreet enough to be trusted with the knowledge of all my kindness. Therefore does not that I desire to hide it from you, but that I do not love to tell it, and perhaps if you could read my heart I should make less scruple of your seeing on it there than in my letters. I can easily guess who the pretty young lady is, for there are but two in England of that fortune, and they are sisters, but I am to seek who the gallant should be. If it be no secret you may tell me, however I shall wish him all good success if he be your friend as I suppose he is by his confidence in you. If it be neither of the Spencers, I wish it were. I have not seen two young men that looked as if they deserved better fortunes so much as those brothers. But bless me, what will become of us all now? It is not this a strange turn. What does my Lord Lyle? Sure, this will at least defer your journey. Tell me what I must think on it, whether it be better or worse, or whether you are at all concerned in it. For if you are not, I am not. Only, if I had been so wise as to have taken hold of the offer, was made me by Henry Cromwell, I might have been in a fair way of preferment. For, sure, they will be greater now than ever. Is it true that Algon and Sidney were so unwilling to leave the house, that the General was feigned to take the pains to turn him out himself? Well, it is a pleasant world this. If Mr Pym were alive again I wonder what he would think of these proceedings, and whether this would appear so great a breach of the privilege of Parliament as to demanding the five members. But I shall talk treason by and by, if I do not look to myself. Dissaver talking of the orange flower water you sent me. The Carrier has given me a great charge to tell you that it came safe, and that I must do him right. As you say, it is not the best I have seen, nor the worst. 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. It has been an ache that he has, but yet I am much afraid that it 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 feigns 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 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 faithful friend and servant, Dorothy Osborne. Letter 15 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 liked to have lost my dinner by it. I know not what humour you were in when you read it, but Mr Arbery'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 assured it was too late to go anywhere else, and believed it better to hear an ill sermon than none I think I should have missed his bell remark. You had repented you, I hope, of that, and order your faults before you thought of dying. What a satisfaction you had found out to make me for the injuries you say have done me, and yet I cannot tell neither, though it is 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 the way of much more to wish than to hope for, but to 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 once 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 ins 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. Arbery'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'd been to visit a lady that is nearer him than me, as I came back I met a coach with some company in it 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 looks, 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 disabliged 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 with all 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 damsels should be that were at Hemsis 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 on 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 it myself. But be it what it will that displeased you, I am glad that it 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 God, 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 you found it out, for it is 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 it, but never desires that I should love that husband with any passion, 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 passions 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. Nobody would believe they were from our 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 Maul 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, this so scribbled, but this no matter, does not much worth it. Your most faithful friend and servant, Dorothy Osbourne. End of Section 3 Section 4 of Love Letters of Dorothy Osbourne This is a LibriVox recording, all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org The Love Letters of Dorothy Osbourne Section 4 Section 16 Sir, if it were the carrier's fault that you stayed so long for your letters, you are revenged, for I have cheated most unreasonably. But I must confess it was 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 in a heart, me thought it did not look like yours, but less, and much worse, cut. This suspicion was so strong upon me that I chewed till the poor fellow was ready to cry, and swore to me that it had never been touched since he had it. And 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. Unless 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 worship to write to your worship to know how the letter was sealed, for it has so grieved him that he is neither at or slept to do him any good, since she came home. And in grace of God 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 here after 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 Heems were so unhandsome, but since you tell me they are remarkably so, then 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 beside. It is strange that you tell me of my Lord Shandoir, Chandus, and Arendelle, but what becomes of young Compton's estate? Sure, my Lady Kerry can neither in honour nor conscience keep it, beside that she needs it less now than ever, her son being, as I hear, dead. So, T, I suppose, avoid you as a friend of mine. My brother tells me they meet sometimes, and have the most to do to pull off their hats to one another than can be, and never speak. If I were in town, I'd undertake your adventure of 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 it was 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 asks for me, and that you are not pleased with the question he made of the continuance of my friendship. I can pardon that 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 it through score, 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 bought me of the death of an old rich knight that had promised me this seven years to marry me, when, so ever, his wife died, and now he is dead before him, and has left us such a widow that makes me mad to think on it. One thousand two hundred a year jointure, and twenty thousand 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 a commission, I'll say I was engaged beforehand for a friend, and leave him to shift for himself. You would be my neighbour if you had her, and I should see you often. Think on it, and let me know what you resolve. My lady has written me a word that she intends very shortly to sit at Lele's for her picture for me. I give you notice on it, that you may have the pleasure of seeing it sometimes whilst it's there. I imagined it will be so to you, for I'm sure it would be a great one to me, and we do not use it to differ in our inclinations, though I cannot agree with you that my brother's kindness to me has anything of trouble in it. 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. Your faithful friend and servant, Dorothy Osborne, Letter 17. Sir, I received your letter today 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 God, much better, and I am come so much to myself with it, as to want to take a long letter to you whilst I watch by him. Toward 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 to do to keep him awake and myself, too. If you heard the wide 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 came to 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 boiler as 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 clear Patrick, where I directed you for my lady. I received one for her today, full of the kindness reproachers that she has not heard from me these three weeks. I have it constantly to her, but I do not so much wonder that the rest are lost, as 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 it. But, Mark you, if you think to escape 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, it was unkindly said, and if I could be angry with you, it should be for that. No, certainly there 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 and nor will ever happen, I hope? Oh, if you do not send me long letters, then you are the cruelest 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 to you. It is 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 it is no matter, I am content that 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 can hardly see what I write, nor do I think you will be able to read it when I have done. The best honest is twirling no great lust to you, if you do not. For sure the greatest partont is not sense, and yet on my conscience I shall go on with it. Just 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. Beside that, at this instant you are, I believe, more asleep than I, and do not so much 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 tonight, 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 still 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 God's sake, if you meet it, send it to me. They say it is ten times more extravagant than her dress. Sure the poor woman is a little distracted. She could never be so ridiculous else's 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 the most strangely scribbled note. Sure I shall not find fault with your writing in haste, for anything but the shortness of your letter, and it would be very unjust in me to tire you to a ceremony that I do not observe myself. No, for God's sake, let there be no such thing between us. A real kind this is so far beyond all compliment, that it never appears more than when there is least of tether mingled with it. If then you would have me believe yours to be perfect, confirm it to me by a kind of freedom. Tell me if there be anything that I can serve you in, employ me as you would, that sister you say you love so well. Child 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. Dorothy Olsman Letter 18 Sir, I have been reckoning up how many faults you lay to my charge in your last letter, and I find am severe, unjust, unmerciful, and unkind. Oh me, how should one do to mend all these? It is work for an age, and just to be feared I shall be so old before I am good, that will not be considerable to anybody but myself, whether I am so or not. I say nothing of the pretty humour you have fancied me in, in your dream, cause to us but a dream. Sure, if it had been anything else, I should have remembered that my lord El 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 to a butt in your sleep, and not be ready to beat me? What nice mistake and 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 this bling and to dream upon it is a punishment I would not wish on 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 pass 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 to my father's chamber, from whence to dinner, where my cousin Moll 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 rid 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 I am not so nimble stay behind, and when I see them driving home their cattle I think it is time for me to return too. When I have sucked I go into the garden, and so to the side of a small river that runs by it, and I sit down and wish you were with me. You had best say this is not kind neither. In earnest is 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 things to be done as going to bed. Since I have rid this my company has increased by two. My brother Harry and a fair niece, the elder of my brother Paton'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 designs 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 Gloucestershire to my sister who was very ill, and his youngest girl, of whom he was very fond, is since dead. But I believe that by the 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, be ever so perfectly recovered as to come abroad again. I am sorry for Paul 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 sails and rings. If what you say of my Lady Leppington be of your own knowledge I shall believe you, but otherwise I assure you that I have heard from people that pretend to know her very well, that her kindness to Compton was very moderate, and she never liked him so well as when he died and gave her his estate. But they might be deceived, and it is not so strange as that you should imagine a coldness and indifference in my letter 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. I now would not have you apprehended so far as to believe it possible, that were an injury to all the assurances 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 friendship for, but sure this is more than I need to say. You are enough in my heart to know all of my thoughts, and if so you know better than I can tell you how much I am. Your faithful friend and servant, Dorothy Osfin. Letter 19 Sir, if to know I wish you with me pleases you, it is a satisfaction you may always have, for I do it perpetually, but were it really in my power to make you happy, I could not miss being so myself, for I know nothing else I want towards it. You are admitted to all my entertainments, and would be a pleasing surprise to me to see you among my shepherdesses. I meet some there sometimes that look very like gentlemen, for it is a road, and when they are in a good humour they give us a compliment as they go by, but you would be so courteous as to stay, I hope, if we entreated you. It is in your way to this place, and just before the house. It is our hide-park, and every fine evening anybody that wanted a mistress might be sure to find one there. I have wandered often to meet my fair lady, rather than there alone, be thinks it should be dangerous for an heir. I could find it in my heart to steal her away myself, but it should rather be for her person than her fortune. My brother says not a word of you, nor your service, nor do I expect he should, if I could forget you he would not help my memory. He would laugh sure if I could tell you how many servants he has offered me since he came down, but one above all the rest I think he is in love with himself. I may marry him too if he pleases, I shall not hinder him. There is one Talbot, the finest gentleman he has seen these seven years, but the mischief on't is he has not above fifteen or sixteen hundred pound a year, though he swears he begins to think one might bait five hundred a year for such asment. I tell him I am glad to hear it, and if I were as much taken as he with Mr Talbot, I should not be less gallant, but I doubt did the first extremely. I have spleen enough to carry me to Epsom this summer, but yet I think I shall not go. If I make one journey I must make more, for then I have no excuse. Rather than be obliged to that I'll make none. You have so often reproached me with the loss of your liberty that to make you some amends I am contented to be your prisoner this summer, but you shall do one favour for me into the bargain. When your father goes to Ireland, lay your commands upon some of his servants to get you an Irish greyhound. I have one that was the generals, but is a bitch, and those are always much less than the dogs. I got it in the time of my favour there, and it was all they had. Henry Cromwell undertook to write to his brother Fleetwood for another for me, but I have lost my hopes there. Whomsoever it is that you employ, he will need no other instruction but to get the biggest he can meet with. It is all the beauty of those dogs of any kind, I think. Amasti Mestef is hancer to me than the most exact little dog that ever lady played with all. He will not offer to take it ill that I employ you in such a commission, since I have told you that the general's son did not refuse it. But I shall take it ill if you do not take the same freedom with me whensoever I am capable of serving you. The town must need to be unpleasant now, and me thinks you might contrive some way of having your letters sent to you without giving yourself the trouble of coming to town for them when you have no other business. You must pardon me if I think they cannot be worth it. I am told that Arspinser is a servant to a lady of my acquaintance, a daughter of my lady of exodus. Is it true? And if it be, what has become of the £2,500 lady? Would you think it that I have an ambassador from the Emperor Justinian that comes to renew the treaty? In earnest it is true, and I want your council extremely what to do in it. You told me once that of all my servants you liked him the best. If I could do so too there were no disputes in it. Well I think if it succeed I will be as good as my word. You shall take your choice of my four daughters. And not I beholding to him, think you. He says that he has made addresses, just true in several places since we parted, but could not fix anywhere. And in his opinion he sees nobody that would make so fit a wife for him. As I. He is often inquired after me to hear if I were marrying. And somebody told him I had an aegyo, and he presently fell sick of one too. So naturally a sympathy there is between us. And yet for all this on my conscience we shall never marry. He desires to know whether I am at liberty or not. What shall I tell him? Or shall I send him to you to know? I think that will be best. I'll say that you are much my friend. And I have resolved not to dispose myself but with your consent and approbation. And therefore he must make all court to you. And when he can bring me a certificate under your hand that you think him a fit husband for me, it is very likely I may have him. Till then I am his humble servant and your faithful friend, Dorothy Osven. Letter 20 Sir, I am sorry my last letter frighted you so. It was no part of my intention it should, but I am more sorry to see by your first chapter that your humor is not always so good as I could wish it. It was the only thing I ever desired we might differ in. And therefore I think it has denied me. Whilst I read the description on it I could not believe but that I had written myself it was so much my own. I pity you and us much more than I do myself, and yet I may deserve yours when I shall have told you that beside all that you speak of I have gotten an anger that with two fits has made me so very weak that I doubted extremely yesterday whether I should be able to sit up today to write to you. But you must not be troubled at this. That is the way to kill me indeed. Besides it is impossible I should keep it long, for here is my oldest brother and my cousin Moll and two or three more that have great understanding in argues as people that have been long equated with them and they do so tutor and govern me that I neither to eat or drink or sleep without their leave. And sure my obedience deserves they should cure me, or else they are great tyrants to very little purpose. You cannot imagine how cruel they are to me and yet will persuade me it is for my own good. I know they mean it so and therefore say nothing on it. I admit and sigh to think those are not here that would be kinder to me. But you were cruel yourself when you seemed to apprehend that I might oblige you to make good your last offer. I lack. If I could purchase the empire of the world at that rate I should think it much to dear. And though perhaps I am too unhappy myself ever to make anybody else happy yet sure I shall take heed that my misfortunes may not prove infectious to my friends. You ask counsel of a person that is little able to give it. I cannot imagine whether you should go since this journey has broke. You must even be content to stay at home I think and see what will become of us though I expect nothing of good. And sure you never made a true remark in your life then that all changes are for the worst. Will it not stay your father's journey too? He thinks it should. For God's sake write me all that you hear or can think of that I may have something to entertain myself with all. I have a scurvy head that will not let me write longer. I am your faithful friend and servant. Dorothy Osborne End of section 4