Part 5 (2/2)

I am not for disguises, it looks like guilt, and I would not do a thing I durst not own. I cannot tell whether (if there were a necessity of your coming) I should not choose to have it when he is at home, and rather expose him to the trouble of entertaining a person whose company (here) would not be pleasing to him, and perhaps an opinion that I did it purposely to cross him, than that your coming in his absence should be thought a concealment. 'Twas one reason more than I told you why I resolv'd not to go to Epsom this summer, because I knew he would imagine it an agreement between us, and that something besides my spleen carried me thither; but whether you see me or not you may be satisfied I am safe enough, and you are in no danger to lose your prisoner, since so great a violence as this has not broke her chains. You will have nothing to thank me for after this; my whole life will not yield such another occasion to let you see at what rate I value your friends.h.i.+p, and I have been much better than my word in doing but what I promised you, since I have found it a much harder thing not to yield to the power of a near relation, and a greater kindness than I could then imagine it.

To let you see I did not repent me of the last commission, I'll give you another. Here is a seal that Walker set for me, and 'tis dropt out; pray give it him to mend. If anything could be wonder'd at in this age, I should very much how you came by your informations. 'Tis more than I know if Mr. Freeman be my servant. I saw him not long since, and he told me no such thing. Do you know him? In earnest, he's a pretty gentleman, and has a great deal of good nature, I think, which may oblige him perhaps to speak well of his acquaintances without design. Mr. Fish is the Squire of Dames, and has so many mistresses that anybody may pretend a share in him and be believed; but though I have the honour to be his near neighbour, to speak freely, I cannot brag much that he makes any court to me; and I know no young woman in the country that he does not visit often.

I have sent you another tome of _Cyrus_, pray send the first to Mr.

Hollingsworth for my Lady. My cousin Molle went from hence to Cambridge on Thursday, and there's an end of Mr. Bennet. I have no company now but my niece Peyton, and my brother will be shortly for the term, but will make no long stay in town. I think my youngest brother comes down with him. Remember that you owe me a long letter and something for forgiving your last. I have no room for more than

Your.

_Letter 23._

SIR,--I will tell you no more of my servants. I can no sooner give you some little hints whereabouts they live, but you know them presently, and I meant you should be beholding to me for your acquaintance. But it seems this gentleman is not so easy access, but you may acknowledge something due to me, if I incline him to look graciously upon you, and therefore there is not much harm done. What has kept him from marrying all this time, or how the humour comes so furiously upon him now, I know not; but if he may be believed, he is resolved to be a most romance squire, and go in quest of some enchanted damsel, whom if he likes, as to her person (for fortune is a thing below him),--and we do not read in history that any knight or squire was ever so discourteous as to inquire what portions their ladies had,--then he comes with the power of the county to demand her, (which for the present he may dispose of, being Sheriff), so I do not see who is able to resist him. All that is to be hoped is, that since he may reduce whomsoever he pleases to his obedience, he will be very curious in his choice, and then I am secure.

It may be I dreamt it that you had met my brother, or else it was one of the reveries of my ague; if so, I hope I shall fall into no more of them. I have missed four fits, and had but five, and have recovered so much strength as made me venture to meet your letter on Wednesday, a mile from home. Yet my recovery will be nothing towards my leaving this place, where many reasons will oblige me to stay at least all this summer, unless some great alteration should happen in this family; that which I most own is my father's ill-health, which, though it be not in that extremity it has been, yet keeps him still a prisoner in his chamber, and for the most part to his bed, which is reason enough. But, besides, I can give you others. I am here much more out of people's way than in town, where my aunt and such as pretend an interest in me, and a power over me, do so persecute me with their good nature, and take it so ill that they are not accepted, as I would live in a hollow tree to avoid them. Here I have n.o.body but my brother to torment me, whom I can take the liberty to dispute with, and whom I have prevailed with hitherto to bring none of his pretenders to this place, because of the noise all such people make in a country, and the t.i.ttle-tattle it breeds among neighbours that have nothing to do but to inquire who marries and who makes love. If I can but keep him still in that humour Mr. Bennet and I are likely to preserve our state and treat at distance like princes; but we have not sent one another our pictures yet, though my cousin Molle, who was his agent here, begged mine very earnestly. But, I thank G.o.d, an imagination took him one morning that he was falling into a dropsy, and made him in such haste to go back to Cambridge to his doctor, that he never remembers anything he has to ask of me, but the coach to carry him away. I lent it most willingly, and gone he is. My eldest brother goes up to town on Monday too; perhaps you may see him, but I cannot direct you where to find him, for he is not yet resolved himself where to lie; only 'tis likely Nan may tell you when he is there. He will make no stay, I believe. You will think him altered (and, if it be possible) more melancholy than he was. If marriage agrees no better with other people than it does with him, I shall pray that all my friends may 'scape it. Yet if I were my cousin, H. Danvers, my Lady Diana should not, if I could help it, as well as I love her: I would try if ten thousand pound a year with a husband that doted on her, as I should do, could not keep her from being unhappy. Well, in earnest, if I were a prince, that lady should be my mistress, but I can give no rule to any one else, and perhaps those that are in no danger of losing their hearts to her may be infinitely taken with one I should not value at all; for (so says the Justinian) wise Providence has ordained it that by their different humours everybody might find something to please themselves withal, without envying their neighbours. And now I have begun to talk gravely and wisely, I'll try if I can go a little further without being out. No, I cannot, for I have forgot already what 'twas I would have said; but 'tis no matter, for, as I remember, it was not much to the purpose, and, besides, I have paper little enough left to chide you for asking so unkind a question as whether you were still the same in my thoughts. Have you deserved to be otherwise; that is, am I no more in yours? For till that be, it's impossible the other should; but that will never be, and I shall always be the same I am. My heart tells me so, and I believe it; for were it otherwise, Fortune would not persecute me thus. Oh, me! she's cruel, and how far her power may reach I know not, only I am sure, she cannot call back time that is past, and it is long since we resolved to be for ever

Most faithful friends.

_Letter 24._--Tom Cheeke is Sir Thomas Cheeke, Knight, of Purgo, in the county of Ess.e.x, or more probably his son, from the way Dorothy speaks of him; but it is difficult to discriminate among constant generations of Toms after a lapse of two hundred years. We find Sir Thomas's daughter was at this time the third wife of Lord Manchester; and it appears that Dorothy's great-grandfather married Catherine Cheeke, daughter of the then Sir Thomas. This will a.s.sist us to the connection between Dorothy, Tom Cheeke, and Lord Manchester. Sir Richard Franklin, Knight, married a daughter of Sir Thomas Cheeke. He purchased Moor Park, Hertfords.h.i.+re, about this time. The park and the mansion he bought in 1652 from the Earl of Monmouth, and the manor in 1655 from Sir Charles Harbord. The gardens had been laid out by the Countess of Bedford, who had sold the place in 1626 to the Earl of Pembroke. The house was well known to Temple, who describes the gardens in his Essay on Gardening; and when he retired in later years to an estate near Farnham in Surrey, he gave to it the name of Moor Park.

Lord Manchester was Edward Montagu, second Earl of Manchester. He was educated at Sidney Suss.e.x College, Cambridge, and sat for Huntingdons.h.i.+re in the first two Parliaments of Charles I. He was called to the Upper House as Lord Kimbolton in 1626, and succeeded his father in 1642. His name is well known in history as that of the leader of the Puritans in the House of Lords, and as the only peer joined with the five members impeached by the King. He raised a regiment and fought under Ess.e.x at Edgehill, reconquered Lincolns.h.i.+re, and took part in the battle of Marston Moor. At this time Cromwell was his subordinate, and to his directions Lord Manchester's successes are in all probability due. At the second battle of Newbury, Lord Manchester showed some hesitation in following up his success, and Cromwell accused him of lukewarmness in the cause from his place in the House of Commons. An inquiry was inst.i.tuted, but the Committee never carried out their investigations, and in parliamentary language the matter then dropped.

He afterwards held, among other offices, that of Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, and inducted a visitation and reform of that University. He resisted the trial of the King and the foundation of the Commonwealth, refused to sit in Cromwell's new House of Lords, and was among those Presbyterians who helped to bring about the Restoration.

Cooper and Hoskins were famous miniature painters of the day. Samuel Cooper was a nephew of John Hoskins, who instructed him in the art of miniature painting, in which he soon out-rivalled his master. Cooper, who is styled by contemporary eulogists the ”prince of limners,” gave a strength and freedom to the art which it had not formerly possessed; but where he attempted to express more of the figure than the head, his drawing is defective. His painting was famous for the beauty of his carnation tints, and the loose flowing lines in which he described the hair of his model. He was a friend of the famous Samuel Butler. Hoskins, though a painter of less merit, had had the honour of painting His Majesty King Charles I., his Queen, and many members of the Court; and had pa.s.sed through the varying fortunes of a fas.h.i.+onable portrait-painter, whose position, leaning as it does on the fickle approbation of the connoisseurs, is always liable to be wrested from him by a younger rival.

It is noticeable that this is the first letter in which we have intimation of the world's gossip about Dorothy's love affairs. We may, perhaps not unfairly, trace the growth of Dorothy's affection for Temple by the actions of others. First her brother raises his objections, and then her relations begin to gossip; meanwhile the letters do not grow less kind.

SIR,--You amaze me with your story of Tom Cheeke. I am certain he could not have had it where you imagine, and 'tis a miracle to me that he remember that there is such a one in the world as his cousin D.O. I am sure he has not seen her this six year, and I think but once in his life. If he has spread his opinion in that family, I shall quickly hear on't, for my cousin Molle is now gone to Kimbolton to my Lord Manchester, and from there he goes to Moor Park to my cousin Franklin's, and in one, or both, he will be sure to meet with it. The matter is not great, for I confess I do naturally hate the noise and talk of the world, and should be best pleased never to be known in't upon any occasion whatsoever; yet, since it can never be wholly avoided, one must satisfy oneself by doing nothing that one need care who knows. I do not think _a propos_ to tell anybody that you and I are very good friends, and it were better, sure, if n.o.body knew it but we ourselves. But if, in spite of all our caution, it be discovered, 'tis no treason nor anything else that's ill; and if anybody should tell me that I have had a greater kindness and esteem for you than for any one besides, I do not think I should deny it; howsoever you do, oblige me by not owning any such thing, for as you say, I have no reason to take it ill that you endeavour to preserve me a liberty, though I'm never likely to make use on't. Besides that, I agree with you too that certainly 'tis much better you should owe my kindness to nothing but your own merit and my inclination, than that there should lie any other necessity upon me of making good my words to you.

For G.o.d's sake do not complain so that you do not see me; I believe I do not suffer less in't than you, but 'tis not to be helped. If I had a picture that were fit for you, you should have it. I have but one that's anything like, and that's a great one, but I will send it some time or other to Cooper or Hoskins, and have a little one drawn by it, if I cannot be in town to sit myself. You undo me by but dreaming how happy we might have been, when I consider how far we are from it in reality.

Alas! how can you talk of defying fortune; n.o.body lives without it, and therefore why should you imagine you could? I know not how my brother comes to be so well informed as you say, but I am certain he knows the utmost of the injuries you have received from her. 'Tis not possible she should have used you worse than he says. We have had another debate, but much more calmly. 'Twas just upon his going up to town, and perhaps he thought it not fit to part in anger. Not to wrong him, he never said to me (whate'er he thought) a word in prejudice of you in your own person, and I never heard him accuse any but your fortune and my indiscretion.

And whereas I did expect that (at least in compliment to me) he should have said we had been a couple of fools well met, he says by his troth he does not blame you, but bids me not deceive myself to think you have any great pa.s.sion for me.

If you have done with the first part of _Cyrus_, I should be glad Mr.

Hollingsworth had it, because I mentioned some such thing in my last to my Lady; but there is no haste of restoring the other unless she should send to me for it, which I believe she will not. I have a third tome here against you have done with that second; and to encourage you, let me a.s.sure you that the more you read of them you will like them still better. Oh, me! whilst I think on't, let me ask you one question seriously, and pray resolve me truly;--do I look so stately as people apprehend? I vow to you I made nothing on't when Sir Emperor said so, because I had no great opinion of his judgment, but Mr. Freeman makes me mistrust myself extremely, not that I am sorry I did appear so to him (since it kept me from the displeasure of refusing an offer which I do not perhaps deserve), but that it is a scurvy quality in itself, and I am afraid I have it in great measure if I showed any of it to him, for whom I have so much respect and esteem. If it be so you must needs know it; for though my kindness will not let me look so upon you, you can see what I do to other people. And, besides, there was a time when we ourselves were indifferent to one another;--did I do so then, or have I learned it since? For G.o.d's sake tell me, that I may try to mend it. I could wish, too, that you would lay your commands on me to forbear fruit: here is enough to kill 1000 such as I am, and so extremely good, that nothing but your power can secure me; therefore forbid it me, that I may live to be

Your.

_Letter 25._--Dorothy's dissertations on love and marriage are always amusing in their demureness. Who Cousin Peters was we cannot now say, but she was evidently a relation and a gossip. The episode concerning Mistress Harrison and the Queen is explained by the following quotation from the autobiography of the Countess of Warwick.

She is writing of Mr. Charles Rich, and says: ”He was then in love with a Maid of Honour to the Queen, one Mrs. Hareson, that had been chamber-fellow to my sister-in-law whilst she lived at Court, and that brought on the acquaintance between him and my sister. He continued to be much with us for about five or six months, till my brother Broghill then (afterwards Earl of Orrery) grew also to be pa.s.sionately in love with the same Mrs. Hareson. My brother then having a quarrel with Mr.

Thomas Howard, second son to the Earl of Berks.h.i.+re, about Mrs. Hareson (with whom he also was in love), Mr. Rich brought my brother a challenge from Mr. Howard, and was second to him against my brother when they fought, which they did without any great hurt of any side, being parted.

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