Part 7 (1/2)
You told me of writing to your father, but you did not say whether you had heard from him, or how he did. May not I ask it? Is it possible that he saw me? Where were my eyes that I did not see him, for I believe I should have guessed at least that 'twas he if I had? They say you are very like him; but 'tis no wonder neither that I did not see him, for I saw not you when I met you there. 'Tis a place I look upon n.o.body in; and it was reproached to me by a kinsman, but a little before you came to me, that he had followed me to half a dozen shops to see when I would take notice of him, and was at last going away with a belief 'twas not I, because I did not seem to know him. Other people make it so much their business to gape, that I'll swear they put me so out of countenance I dare not look up for my life.
I am sorry for General Monk's misfortunes, because you say he is your friend; but otherwise she will suit well enough with the rest of the great ladies of the times, and become Greenwich as well as some others do the rest of the King's houses. If I am not mistaken, that Monk has a brother lives in Cornwall; an honest gentleman, I have heard, and one that was a great acquaintance of a brother of mine who was killed there during the war, and so much his friend that upon his death he put himself and his family into mourning for him, which is not usual, I think, where there is no relation of kindred.
I will take order that my letters shall be left with Jones, and yours called for there. As long as your last was, I read it over thrice in less than an hour, though, to say truth, I had skipped some on't the last time. I could not read my own confession so often. Love is a terrible word, and I should blush to death if anything but a letter accused me on't. Pray be merciful, and let it run friends.h.i.+p in my next charge. My Lady sends me word she has received those parts of _Cyrus_ I lent you. Here is another for you which, when you have read, you know how to dispose. There are four pretty stories in it, ”_L'Amant Absente_,”
”_L'Amant non Aime_,” ”_L'Amant Jaloux_,” _et_ ”_L'Amant dont La Maitresse est mort_.” Tell me which you have most compa.s.sion for when you have read what every one says for himself. Perhaps you will not think it so easy to decide which is the most unhappy, as you may think by the t.i.tles their stories bear. Only let me desire you not to pity the jealous one, for I remember I could do nothing but laugh at him as one that sought his own vexation. This, and the little journeys (you say) you are to make, will entertain you till I come; which, sure, will be as soon as possible I can, since 'tis equally desired by you and your faithful.
_Letter 32._--Things being more settled in that part of the world, Sir John Temple is returning to Ireland, where he intends taking his seat as Master of the Rolls once again. Temple joins his father soon after this, and stays in Ireland a few months.
Lady Ormond was the wife of the first Duke of Ormond. She had obtained her pa.s.s to go over to Ireland on August 24th, 1653. The Ormonds had indeed been in great straits for want of money, and in August 1652 Lady Ormond had come over from Caen, where they were then living, to endeavour to claim Cromwell's promise of reserving to her that portion of their estate which had been her inheritance. After great delays she obtained 500, and a grant of 2000 per annum out of their Irish lands ”lying most conveniently to Dunmore House.” It must have been this matter that Dorothy had heard of when she questions ”whether she will get it when she comes there.”
Francis Annesley, Lord Valentia, belonged to an ancient Nottinghams.h.i.+re family, though he himself was born in Newport, Buckinghams.h.i.+re. Of his daughter's marriage I can find nothing. Lord Valentia was at this time Secretary of State at Dublin.
Sir Justinian has at length found a second wife. Her name is Vere, and she is the daughter of Lord Leigh of Stoneleigh. Thus do Dorothy's suitors, one by one, recover and cease to lament her obduracy. When she declares that she would rather have chosen _a chain to lead her apes in_ than marry Sir Justinian, she refers to an old superst.i.tion as to the ultimate fate of spinsters--
Women, dying maids, lead apes in h.e.l.l,
runs the verse of an old play, and that is the whole superst.i.tion, the origin of which seems somewhat inexplicable. The phrase is thrice used by Shakespeare, and constantly occurs in the old burlesques and comedies; in one instance, in a comedy ent.i.tled ”Love's Convert” (1651), it is altered to ”lead an ape in _heaven_.” Many will remember the fate of ”The young Mary Anne” in the famous Ingoldsby legend, ”Bloudie Jacke:”--
So they say she is now leading apes-- Bloudie Jack, And mends bachelors' smallclothes below.
No learned editor that I am acquainted with has been able to suggest an explanation of this curious expression.
SIR,--All my quarrels to you are kind ones, for, sure, 'tis alike impossible for me to be angry as for you to give me the occasion; therefore, when I chide (unless it be that you are not careful enough of yourself, and hazard too much a health that I am more concerned in than my own), you need not study much for excuses, I can easily forgive you anything but want of kindness. The judgment you have made of the four lovers I recommended to you does so perfectly agree with what I think of them, that I hope it will not alter when you have read their stories.
_L'Amant Absente_ has (in my opinion) a mistress so much beyond any of the rest, that to be in danger of losing her is more than to have lost the others; _L'Amant non Aime_ was an a.s.s, under favour (notwithstanding the _Princesse Cleobuline's_ letter); his mistress had caprices that would have suited better with our _Amant Jaloux_ than with anybody else; and the _Prince Artibie_ was much to blame that he outlived his _belle Leontine_. But if you have met with the beginning of the story of _Amestris and Aglatides_, you will find the rest of it in this part I send you now; and 'tis, to me, one of the prettiest I have read, and the most natural. They say the gentleman that writes this romance has a sister that lives with him, a maid, and she furnishes him with all the little stories that come between, so that he only contrives the main design; and when he wants something to entertain his company withal, he calls to her for it. She has an excellent fancy, sure, and a great wit; but, I am sorry to tell it you, they say 'tis the most ill-favoured creature that ever was born. And 'tis often so; how seldom do we see a person excellent in anything but they have some great defect with it that pulls them low enough to make them equal with other people; and there is justice in't. Those that have fortunes have nothing else, and those that want it deserve to have it. That's but small comfort, though, you'll say; 'tis confessed, but there is no such thing as perfect happiness in this world, those that have come the nearest it had many things to wish; and,--bless me, whither am I going? Sure, 'tis the death's head I see stand before me puts me into this grave discourse (pray do not think I meant that for a conceit neither); how idly have I spent two sides of my paper, and am afraid, besides, I shall not have time to write two more. Therefore I'll make haste to tell you that my friends.h.i.+p for you makes me concerned in all your relations; that I have a great respect for Sir John, merely as he is your father, and that 'tis much increased by his kindness to you; that he has all my prayers and wishes for his safety; and that you will oblige me in letting me know when you hear any good news from him. He has met with a great deal of good company, I believe. My Lady Ormond, I am told, is waiting for a pa.s.sage, and divers others; but this wind (if I am not mistaken) is not good for them. In earnest, 'tis a most sad thing that a person of her quality should be reduced to such a fortune as she has lived upon these late years, and that she should lose that which she brought, as well as that which was her husband's. Yet, I hear, she has now got some of her own land in Ireland granted her; but whether she will get it when she comes there is, I think, a question.
We have a lady new come into this country that I pity, too, extremely.
She is one of my Lord of Valentia's daughters, and has married an old fellow that is some threescore and ten, who has a house that is fitter for the hogs than for her, and a fortune that will not at all recompense the least of these inconveniences. Ah! 'tis most certain I should have chosen a handsome chain to lead my apes in before such a husband; but marrying and hanging go by destiny, they say. It was not mine, it seems, to have an emperor; the spiteful man, merely to vex me, has gone and married my countrywoman, my Lord Lee's daughter. What a mult.i.tude of willow garlands I shall weave before I die; I think I had best make them into f.a.ggots this cold weather, the flame they would make in a chimney would be of more use to me than that which was in the hearts of all those that gave them me, and would last as long. I did not think I should have got thus far. I have been so persecuted with visits all this week I have had no time to despatch anything of business, so that now I have done this I have forty letters more to write; how much rather would I have them all to you than to anybody else; or, rather, how much better would it be if there needed none to you, and that I could tell you without writing how much I am
Yours.
_Letter 33._--Sir Thomas Peyton, we must remember, had married Dorothy's eldest sister; she died many years ago, and Sir Thomas married again, in 1648, one Dame Cicely Swan, a widow, whose character Dorothy gives us.
Lord Monmouth was the eldest son of the Earl of Monmouth, and was born in 1596. He was educated at Exeter College, Oxford. His literary work was, at least, copious, and included some historical writing, as well as the translations mentioned by Dorothy. He published, among other things, _An Historical Relation of the United Provinces_, a _History of the Wars in Flanders_, and a _History of Venice_.
Sir John Suckling, in the following doggerel, hails our n.o.ble author with a flunkey's enthusiasm,--
It is so rare and new a thing to see Aught that belongs to young n.o.bility In print, but their own clothes, that we must praise You, as we would do those first show the ways To arts or to new worlds.
In such strain writes the author of _Why so pale and wan, fond lover?_ and both the circ.u.mstance and the doggerel should be very instructive to the sn.o.bologist.
The literary work of Lord Broghill is not unknown to fame, and Mr.
Waller's verse is still read by us; but I have never seen a history of the Civil Wars from Mr. Waller's pen, and cannot find that he ever published one.
_Prazimene_ and _Polexander_ are two romances translated from the French,--the former, a neat little duodecimo; the latter, a huge folio of more than three hundred and fifty closely-printed pages. The t.i.tle-page of _Prazimene_, a very good example of its kind, runs as follows:--”Two delightful Novels, or the Unlucky Fair One; being the Amours of Milistrate and Prazimene, Ill.u.s.trated with variety of Chance and Fortune. Translated from the French by a Person of Quality, London.