The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54. Dorothy Osborne
2nd, 1653.
Sir—If there were anything in my letter that pleased you I am extremely glad on't, 'twas 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 Chicksands. 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 Breda 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 am sure I shall desire it because you are there.
Sir, your humble servant.
Letter 4.—The story of the king who renounced the league with his too fortunate friend is told in the third book of Herodotus. Amasis is the king, and Polycrates the confederate. Dorothy may have read the story in one of the French translations, either that of Pierre Saliat, a cramped duodecimo published in 1580, or that of P. du Ryer, a magnificent folio published in 1646.
My Lord of Holland's daughter, Lady Diana Rich, was one of Dorothy's dearest and most intimate friends. Dorothy had a high opinion of her excellent wit and noble character, which she is never tired of repeating. We find allusions to her in many of these letters; she is called "My lady," and her name is always linked to expressions of tenderness and esteem. Her father, Henry Rich, Lord Holland, the second son of the Earl of Warwick, has found place in sterner history than this. He was concerned in a rising in 1648, when the King was in the Isle of Wight, the object of which was to rescue and restore the royal prisoner. This rising, like Sir Thomas Peyton's, miscarried, and he suffered defeat at Kingston-on-Thames, on July 7th of that year. He was pursued, taken prisoner, and kept in the Tower until after the King's execution. Then he was brought to trial, and, in accordance with the forms and ceremonies of justice, adjudged to death. His head was struck off before the gate of Westminster Hall one cold March morning in the following year, and by his side died Capel and the Duke of Hamilton. By marriage he acquired Holland House, Kensington, which afterwards passed by purchase into the hands of a very different Lord Holland, and has become famous among the houses of London. Of his daughter, Lady Diana, I can learn nothing but that she died unmarried. She seems to have been of a lively, vivacious temperament, and very popular with the other sex. There is a slight clue to her character in the following scrap of letter-writing still preserved among some old manuscript papers of the Hutton family. She writes to Mr. Hutton to escort her in the Park, adding—"This, I am sure, you will do, because I am a friend to the tobacco-box, and such, I am sure, Mr. Hutton will have more respect for than for any other account that could be pretended unto by
"Your humble servant."
This, with Dorothy's praise, gives us a cheerful opinion of Lady Diana, of whom we must always wish to know more.
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 failed 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; t'other was plain gold, with the longest and the strangest posy that ever was; half on't 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 Cana 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 in earnest the oddness on't 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 I am far from desiring my husband should be fond of me at threescore, that I would not have him so at all. 'Tis 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 'tis 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 humour 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 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 at 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 quinzy.
But I have done, and 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 are oldest and oddest are most prized, and if you know anybody that is 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'm 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't, 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.
Letter 5.—Sir Justinian is the lover