Chapter XI: Book III: Letter III (2)

Bear[92] with, I pray thee, the short and unapt setting together of these my last lines, a token of true kindness, which I protest cometh out of an unfeigned heart of love to thee. For whose content, and to make satisfaction for the wrongs done to thee I have, since I saw thee more desired to return than for any other earthly cause. But being so low brought that, without God's miraculous favour, there is no great likelihood of it I, by this, if so it please God that I shall not, in earnestness make my last requests, which as ever thou lovest me lying so, I pray thee perform for me being dead. First, in greedy earnestness I desire thee not to offend God in grieving too much at His disposing of me: but let my assured hope that He hath done it for the saving of my soul rather comfort thee, considering that we ought most to rejoice, when we see a thing that it is either for the good of our souls or of our friends. And further I beg of thee that thou wilt take, as I have meant, in kindness the course I have set down for disposing of my estate and things left behind. Which truly, if I have not dealt most kindly with thee in, I am mistaken, and as ever thou lovest, (which I know thou hast done faithfully and truly) sweet Meg, let neither old conceit, new opinion, nor false lying tale, make thee fall to hard opinion nor suit with my brother. For this I protest now, when I tremble to speak that which upon any just colour may be turned to a lie, thou hast conceived wrong of him, for his nature is sweet, and though wrong conceit might well have urged him, yet he hath never to my knowledge said or done anything to harm thee or mine, but with tears hath often bemoaned himself to me that he could not devise how to make thee conceive rightly of him. And lastly, before the presence of God, I command thee, and in the nearest love of my heart I desire thee, to take great care that sweet Nan[93] whom God bless, may be carefully brought up in the fear of God, not to delight in worldly vanities, which I too well know be but baits to draw her out of the heavenly kingdom. And I pray thee thank thy kind uncle and aunt for her (?) and their many kindnesses to me. Thus, out of the bitter and greedy desire of a repentant heart, begging thy pardon for any wrong that ever in my life I did thee, I commend these my requests to thy wonted and undeserved kind wifely and lovely consideration, my body to God's disposing and my love (soul?) to His merciful commisseration.

Thine as wholly as man was ever woman's,

GEORGE CUMBERLAND.

To my dear wife, the Countess of Cumberland, give this, of whom, from the bottom of my heart in the presence of God, I ask forgiveness for all the wrongs I have done her.

FOOTNOTES:

[92] There is, as often, little or no punctuation in the original, of which Dr. Williamson's beautiful book gives a facsimile. I have ventured to adjust that of the printed text, here and there, to bring out the meaning.

[93] Lady Anne was at this time only 15. She seems to have been fond of her father and proud of him: nor is there any direct evidence that the fear of God was not in her. But she had no fear of man: and no excessive respect for her father's will. During the lives of her uncle Francis and her cousin Henry, 4th and 5th Earls, she fought it hard at law: and at last, Henry dying without issue, and the title lapsing, came into possession of the great Clifford estates in the North. She lived to be 86, and was masterful all her days.

JOHN DONNE (1573-1631)

"The first poet in the world for some things,"--as Ben
Jonson, who nevertheless did not like his metric, thought he
would perish for not being understood, and perhaps did not
understand him--called Donne with justice, might not be
thought likely to be among the first letter-writers. The
marvellous lightning-flashes of genius in a dark night of
context which illuminate his poetry and his sermons, can
hardly be expected--would indeed be almost out of place--in
ordinary letter-writing. Moreover, Donne is, perhaps, with
Browne, the most characteristic exponent of that magnificent
seventeenth century style which accommodates itself ill to
merely commonplace matters.

Browne, a younger man by an entire generation who lived far
into the age of Dryden, could drop this style when he chose:
with Donne it was rather the skin--if not even the very
flesh and bone and all but spirit--than the cloak of his
thought. Nevertheless there is no exact contemporary of
his--and certainly none possessing anything like his
literary power--who deserves selection as a representative
of his own school and time better than he does; and there is
something in him which adds distinction to any company in
which he appears. As mentioned in the Introduction, his
verse-epistles were even more noteworthy, but in prose he is
noteworthy enough.

The batch of letters here chosen was most fortunately
preserved by Izaak Walton, who published the first of them
_in_ the life not of Donne but of George Herbert, while the
rest were "added" to it in 1670.[94] The lady to whom they
were written, Magdalen Newport by maiden name, was mother
not only of the pious and poetical George, but of Edward
Lord Herbert of Cherbury, himself not a very bad poet but by
no means in the usual sense pious, a very great coxcomb, and
a hero chiefly by his own report. His mother, however, seems
to have been one of those "elect ladies" who were among the
chief glories of England in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, and were fortunately numerous. After her
widowhood she lived at Oxford for some time, but seems to
have moved to London when Donne, about 1607, wrote these
letters. He was himself living at Mitcham (spelt "Michin" in
one letter), not yet famous for golf though perhaps already
for lavender. Later he visited her at Montgomery Castle, the
famous seat of the Herberts. She is said to have been very
beautiful, and the subtle touch of not in the least fatuous
or foppish "devotion" is most agreeable.

7. TO THE LADY MAGDALEN HERBERT

Madam,

Your favours to me are everywhere. I use them, and have them. I enjoy them at London, and leave them there: and yet find them at Mitcham. Such riddles as these become things inexpressible: and such is your goodness. I was almost sorry to find your servant here this day, because I was loath to have any witness of my not coming home last night, and indeed of my coming this morning. But my not coming was excusable, because earnest business detained me; and my coming this day is by example of your St. Mary Magdalen, who rose early upon Sunday, to seek that which she loved most; and so did I. And, from her and myself, I return such thanks as are due to one, to whom we owe all the good opinion that they, whom we need most, have of us. By this messenger and on this good day, I commit the enclosed Holy Hymns and Sonnets--which for the matter not the workmanship have yet escaped the fire,--to your judgment and to your protection too, if you think them worthy of it; and I have appointed this enclosed Sonnet to usher them to your happy hand.

Your unworthiest servant unless your accepting
him to be so have mended him

JO. DONNE.

(MITCHAM July 11. 1607)

TO THE LADY MAGDALEN HERBERT: OF ST. MARY MAGDALEN

Her of your name, whose fair inheritance
Bethina was, and jointure Magdalo,
An active faith so highly did advance,
That she once knew, more than the church did know,
The Resurrection! so much good there is
Delivered of her, that some Fathers be
Loath to believe one woman could do this;
But think these Magdalens were two or three.
Increase their number, Lady, and their fame:
To their devotion, add your innocence;
Take so much of the example as the name
The latter half--and in some recompense
That they did harbour Christ Himself--a guest
Harbour these Hymns, to His dear Name addressed.

8. TO THE LADY MAGDALEN HERBERT

Madam,

Every excuse hath in it somewhat of accusation; and since I am innocent, and yet must excuse, how shall I do for that part of accusing. By my troth, as desperate and perplexed men, grow from thence bold; so must I take the boldness of accusing you, who would draw so dark a Curtain betwixt me and your purposes, as that I had no glimmering, neither of your goings, nor the way which my Letters might haunt. Yet, I have given this Licence to Travel, but I know not whither, nor it. It is therefore rather a Pinnace to discover; and the entire Colony of Letters, of Hundreds and Fifties, must follow; whose employment is more honourable, than that which our State meditates to _Virginia_ because you are worthier than all that Country, of which that is a wretched inch; for you have better treasure and a harmlessness. If this sound like a flattery, tear it out. I am to my Letters as rigid a Puritan as Caesar was to his Wife. I can as ill endure a suspicious and misinterpretable word as a fault; and of the grossest flatteries there is this good use, that they tell us what we should be. But, _Madam_, you are beyond instruction, and therefore there can belong to you only praise; of which, though you be no good hearer, yet allow all my Letters leave to have in them one part of it, which is thankfulness towards you.

_Your unworthiest Servant Except your accepting have mended him_

JOHN DONNE.

MITCHAM, July 11, 1607.

9. _To the worthiest Lady, Mrs._ MAGDALEN HERBER(T)

_Madam_,

This is my second Letter, in which though I cannot tell you what is good, yet this is the worst, that I must be a great part of it; yet to me, that is recompensed, because you must be mingled. After I knew you were gone (for I must, little less than accusingly tell you, I knew not you would go) I sent my first Letter, like a _Bevis of Hampton_, to seek Adventures. This day I came to Town, and to the best part of it, your House; for your memory is a State-cloth and Presence; which I reverence, though you be away; though I need not seek that there which I have about and within me. There, though I found my accusation, yet anything to which your hand is, is a pardon; yet I would not burn my first Letter, because as in great destiny no small passage can be omitted or frustrated, so in my resolution of writing almost daily to you, I would have no link of the Chain broke by me, both because my Letters interpret one another, and because only their number can give them weight. If I had your Commission and Instructions to do you the service of a Legier Ambassador here, I could say something of the Countess of _Devon_: of the States, and such things. But since to you, who are not only a World alone, but the Monarchy of the World your self, nothing can be added, especially by me; I will sustain myself with the honour of being

_Your Servant Extraordinary And without place_

JOHN DONNE.

LONDON July 23, 1607

10. _To the worthiest Lady, Mrs_. MAGDALEN HERBERT

_Madam_,

As we must die before we can have full glory and happiness, so before I can have this degree of it, as to see you by a Letter, I must almost die, that is, come to _London_, to plaguy _London_; a place full of danger, and vanity, and vice, though the Court be gone. And such it will be, till your return redeem it: Not that, the greatest virtue in the World, which is you, can be such a Marshal, as to defeat, or disperse all the vice of this place; but as higher bodies remove, or contract themselves, when better come, so at your return we shall have one door open to innocence. Yet, Madam, you are not such an Ireland, as produceth neither ill, nor good; no Spiders or Nightingales, which is a rare degree of perfection: But you have found and practised that experiment, That even nature, out of her detesting of emptiness, if we will make that our work to remove bad, will fill us with good things. To abstain from it, was therefore but the Childhood and Minority of your Soul, which hath been long exercised since, in your manlier active part, of doing good. Of which since I have been a witness and subject, not to tell you some times, that by your influence and example I have attained to such a step of goodness, as to be thankful, were both to accuse your power and judgment of impotency and infirmity.

_Your Ladyship's in all Services_,

JOHN DONNE.[95]

August 2d, 1607.

FOOTNOTES:

[94] Mr. Gosse (who has inserted them in his _Life and Letters of Donne_) is perhaps right in putting letter 7 last. I give no opinion on this but merely keep the order in which they originally appeared in the text and in an appendix to the _Life of Herbert_ (1670 edit.). I am not certain to which "first" the "second" in letter 9 refers. "Bevis of Hampton" generally for "knight errant"; "Legier," a _resident_ Ambassador; "States" in the plural--always then "the Dutch"; _Snake_lessness is more often assigned to Ireland than spiderlessness.

[95] The first of these letters, with the sonnet, appears, I think, in all editions of Walton, who has apparently entered the date wrongly. The other three were copied for me from the 1670 original by Miss Elsie Hitchcock, I have slightly modernised a few spellings in them.

JAMES HOWELL (1593-1666)

"The Father" of something is an expression in the history of
literature which has become, more justly than some other
traditional expressions, rather odious to the modern mind.
For in the first place it is an irritatingly conventional
phrase, and in the second the paternity is usually
questionable. But "the priggish little clerk of the
Council," as Thackeray (who nevertheless loved his letters)
calls Howell, does really seem to deserve the fathership of
all such as in English write unofficial letters "for
publication."[96] He wrote a great deal else: and would no
doubt in more recent times have been a "polygraphic"
journalist of some distinction. And he had plenty to write
about. He was an Oxford man; he travelled abroad on
commercial errands (though by no means as what has been more
recently called a "commercial traveller"); he was one of Ben
Jonson's "sons," a Royalist sufferer from the Rebellion, and
finally Historiographer Royal as well as Clerk to the
Council. His letters, which are sometimes only titularly
such[97] but sometimes quite natural, deal with all sorts of
subjects--from the murder of Buckingham by Felton to the
story of the Oxenham "White Bird" which Kingsley has
utilised in _Westward Ho!_ And, to do him justice, there is
a certain character about the book which is not _merely_ the
expression of the character of the writer, though no doubt
connected with it. Now the possession of this is what makes
a book literature. It has been usual to select from Howell's
letters of travel, and from historical ones like the
Buckingham one above mentioned. I have preferred the "White
Bird"; and before it one of several documents, of the same
or nearly the same period, which deal with the old English
life of country houses--between the mediaeval time and the
degradation of the "servant" class, which came in with the
eighteenth century or a little earlier. Howell would
evidently have echoed Isopel Berners--that admirable girl
whom George Borrow slighted--in saying, "Long Melford for
ever!" though the house would not with him, as with her,
have meant a workhouse. Neither letter seems to require
annotation.

11. TO DAN CALDWELL, ESQ., FROM THE LORD SAVAGE'S HOUSE IN LONG MELFORD

My dear Dan,

Tho' considering my former condition of life, I may now be called a countryman, yet you cannot call me a rustic (as you would imply in your letter) as long as I live in so civil and noble a family, as long as I lodge in so virtuous and regular a house as any, I believe, in the land, both for economical government and the choice company; for I never saw yet such a dainty race of children in all my life together. I never saw yet such an orderly and punctual attendance of servants, nor a great house so neatly kept; here one shall see no dog, nor a cat, nor cage to cause any nastiness within the body of the house. The kitchen and gutters and other offices of noise and drudgery are at the fag-end; there's a back-gate for the beggars and the meaner sort of swains to come in at; the stables butt upon the park, which, for a cheerful rising ground, for groves and browsings for the deer, for rivulets of water, may compare with any of its bigness in the whole land; it is opposite to the front of the great house, whence from the gallery one may see much of the game when they are a-hunting. Now for the gardening and costly choice flowers, for ponds, for stately large walks green and gravelly, for orchards and choice fruits of all sorts, there are few the like in England; here you have your Bon Chretien pear and Burgamot in perfection; your Muscadel grapes in such plenty that there are some bottles of wine sent every year to the King: and one Mr. Daniel, a worthy gentleman hard by who hath been long abroad, makes good store in his vintage. Truly this house of Long Melford tho' it be not so great, yet is so well compacted and contriv'd with such dainty conveniences every way; that if you saw the landskip of it, you would be mightily taken with it and it would serve for a choice pattern to build and contrive a house by. If you come this summer to your Manor of Sheriff in Essex, you will not be far off hence; if your occasions will permit, it will be worth your coming hither, tho' it be only to see him, who would think it a short journey to go from St. David's Head to Dover Cliffs to see and serve you, were there occasion; if you would know who the same is, 'tis--

Yours,

J. H.

20. May, 1619.

12. TO MR. E. D.

Sir,

I thank you a thousand times for the noble entertainment you gave me at Bury; and the pains you took in showing me the antiquities of that place. In requital, I can tell you of a strange thing I saw lately here, and I believe 'tis true. As I passed by St. Dunstan's in Fleet Street the last Saturday, I stepped into a lapidary, or stone-cutter's shop, to treat with the master for a stone to be put upon my father's tomb; and casting my eyes up and down, I might spy a huge marble with a large inscription upon't, which was thus to my best remembrance:

_Here lies _John Oxenham_, a goodly young man, in whose
chamber, as he was struggling with the pangs of death, a
bird with a white breast was seen fluttering about his bed,
and so vanished._

_Here lies also _Mary Oxenham_, the sister of the said
_John_, who died the next day, and the said apparition was
seen in the room._

Then another sister is spoke of, then,

_Here lies hard by _James Oxenham_, the son of the said
_John_, who died a child in his cradle a little after; and
such a bird was seen fluttering about his head, a little
before he expired, which vanished afterwards._

At the bottom of the stone there is:

_Here lies _Elizabeth Oxenham_ the mother of the said
_John_, who died sixteen years since, when such a bird with
a white breast was seen about her bed before her death._

To all these there be divers witnesses, both squires and ladies, whose names are engraven upon the stone. This stone is to be sent to a town hard by Exeter, where this happened. Were you here, I could raise a choice discourse with you hereupon. So, hoping to see you the next term, to requite some of your favours,

I rest--

Your true friend to serve you,

J. H.

WESTMINSTER, 3 July. 1632

FOOTNOTES:

[96] _Epistolae Hoelianae or Familiar Letters_ (1657).

[97] Indeed his correspondents are probably sometimes, if not always, imaginary: and many of the letters are only what in modern periodicals are called "middle" articles on this and that subject, headed and tailed with the usual letter-formulas.

JOHN EVELYN (1620-1706)

As is naturally the case with writers of "Diaries,"
"Memoirs," "Autobiographies," and the like, a good deal of
matter is deflected into Evelyn's famous _Diary_ from
possible letters: while his numerous and voluminous
published works may also to some extent abstract from or
duplicate his correspondence. But there is enough of
this[98] to make him a noteworthy epistoler. And it is
interesting, though not perhaps surprising, to find that
while his Diary is less piquant than his friend Mr. Pepys's,
his letters are more so. Not surprising--first, because
official letter-writers (Evelyn did a good deal of public
work but was never _exactly_ an official) often get into a
habit of noncommittal; and secondly, because there is, in
these things as in others, a principle of compensation.
Evelyn was almost sure to be a good letter-writer[99] for he
had a ready pen, a rather extraordinary range of interests
and capacities, plenty of time and means, extensive
knowledge of the world, and last but not least, a
tendency--not missed by the aforesaid Mr. Pepys--to bestow
his information and opinion freely upon less fortunately
endowed and equipped mortals. If he never quite reaches in
letters the famous passages of the Diary, describing the
great Fire, and Whitehall on the eve of Charles the Second's
mortal seizure, he sometimes comes near to this, and
diffuses throughout a blend of humanism, and humanity, of
science and art, which is very agreeable. His wife also was
no mean letter-writer, but only one of the minor stars of
that day round the moon, Dorothy Osborne, to whom we come
next. Of Evelyn's own letters several are specially
tempting. His curious plan (a particularly favourite craze
of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries) for a small
"college" or lay convent of ladies and gentlemen, a sort of
miniature "Abbey of Thelema" is one. His magnificent eulogy
of the Duchess of Newcastle (Lamb's "dear Margaret"), which
puzzled his editor Bray (from this and other notes a rather
stupid man), is another: and his very interesting letter to
Pepys on Dreams (Oct. 4, 1689) a third. But on the whole I
have preferred the following, which may remind some readers
of Mr. Kipling's charming poem on the wonderful things our
fathers did and believed, with its invaluable reminder that
after all it would be lucky for us if we were no worse than
they. The date is not given: but the letter is printed
between one of August and one of September, 1668. [Greek:
kollourion] = Collyrium = "eyewash." "Stillatim" = "drop by
drop." "Lixivium" (Fr. "lessive") = "lye," "soapwater."
"Catoptrics" and "otacoustics" (though the "ot" = "ear" has
gone)--are fairly modern words, "phonocamptics" scarcely so.
In fact, I do not remember seeing it elsewhere. It does not
appear to be a classical Greek compound, but should mean
"the art of guiding and managing the voice."[100] The Tom
Whittal story shows that Evelyn, though given to
seriousness, could (God rest his soul) be a merry man
sometimes. The other proper names, from Mr. Oldenburg to
Thom. Fazzello, could be expounded without difficulty, but
with unnecessary expenditure of space.

13. JOHN EVELYN TO DOCTOR BEALE

Sir,

I happened to be with Mr Oldenburg some time since, almost upon the article of his receiving the notice you sent him of your fortunate and useful invention; and I remember I did first of all incite him, both to insert it into his next transactions, and to provoke your further prosecution of it; which I exceedingly rejoice to find has been so successful, that you give us hopes of your further thoughts upon that, and those other subjects which you mention. You may haply call to remembrance a passage of the Jesuit Honorati Fabri, who speaking of perspectives, observes, that an object looked on through a small hole appears magnified; from whence he suggests, the casting of two plates neatly perforated, and fitted to look through, preferable to glasses, whose refractions injure the sight. Though I begin to advance in years (being now on the other side of forty), yet the continuance of the perfect use of my senses (for which I bless Almighty God) has rendered me the less solicitous about those artificial aids; which yet I foresee I must shortly apply myself to, and therefore you can receive but slender hints from me which will be worthy your acceptance upon that argument; only, I well remember, that besides Tiberius of old (whom you seem to instance in), Joseph Scaliger affirms the same happened both to his father Julius and himself, in their younger years. And sometimes, methinks, I myself have fancied to have discerned things in a very dark place, when the curtains about my bed have been drawn, as my hands, fingers, the sheet, and bedclothes; but since my too intent poring upon a famous eclipse of the sun, about twelve years since, at which time I could as familiarly have stared with open eyes upon the glorious planet in its full lustre, as now upon a glow-worm (comparatively speaking), I have not only lost the acuteness of sight, but much impaired the vigour of it for such purposes as it then served me. But besides that, I have treated mine eyes very ill near these twenty years, during all which time I have rarely put them together, or composed them to sleep, before one at night, and sometimes much later: that I may in some sort redeem my losses by day, in which I am continually importuned with visits from my neighbours and acquaintance, or taken up by other impertinencies of my life in this place. I am plainly ashamed to tell you this, considering how little I have improved myself by it; but I have rarely been in bed before twelve o'clock as I said, in the space of twenty years; and yet I read the least print, even in a jolting coach, without other assistance, save that I now and then used to rub my shut eye-lids over with a spirit of wine well rectified, in which I distil a few rosemary flowers much after the process of the Queen of Hungary's water, which does exceedingly fortify, not only my sight, but the rest of my senses, especially my hearing and smelling; a drop or two being distilled into the nose or ears, when they are never so dull; and other [Greek: kollourion] I never apply. Indeed, in the summer time, I have found wonderful benefit in bathing my head with a decoction of some hot and aromatical herbs, in a lixivium made of the ashes of vine branches; and when my head is well washed with this, I immediately cause abundance of cold fountain water to be poured upon me _stillatim_, for a good half-hour together; which for the present is not only one of the most voluptuous and grateful refreshments imaginable, but an incredible benefit to me the whole year after: for I never need other powdering to my hair, to preserve it bright and clean, as the gallants do; but which does certainly greatly prejudice transpiration by filling up, or lying heavy upon the pores. Those, therefore, who (since the use of perukes) accustom to wash their heads, instead of powdering, would doubtless find the benefit of it; both as to the preventing of aches in their head, teeth, and ears, if the vicissitude and inconstancy of the weather, and consequently the use of their monstrous perukes, did not expose them to the danger of catching colds. When I travelled in Italy, and the Southern parts, I did sometimes frequent the public baths (as the manner is), but seldom without peril of my life, till I used this frigid effusion, or rather profusion of cold water before I put on my garments, or durst expose myself to the air; and for this method I was obliged to the old and noble Rantzow, in whose book _De conservanda valetudine_ I had read a passage to this purpose; though I might have remembered how the Dutchmen treated their labouring horses when they are all over in a froth, which they wash off with several buckets of cold water, as I have frequently observed it in the Low Countries.

Concerning other aids; besides what the masters of the catoptrics, phonocamptics, otacoustics, &c., have done, something has been attempted by the Royal Society; and you know the industrious Kircher has much laboured. The rest of those artificial helps are summed up by the Jesuit And. Schottus. I remember that Monsieur Huygens (author of the pendulum), who brought up the learned father of that incomparable youth Monsieur de Zulichem, who used to prescribe to me the benefit of his little wax taper (a type whereof is, with the history of it, in some of our Registers) for night elucubrations, preferable to all other candle or lamp light whatsoever. And because it explodes all glaring of the flame, which by no means ought to dart upon the eyes, it seems very much to establish your happy invention of tubes instead of spectacles, which have not those necessary defences.

Touching the sight of cats in the night, I am not well satisfied of the exquisiteness of that sense in them. I believe their smelling or hearing does much contribute to their dexterity in catching mice, as to all those animals who are born with those prolix smelling hairs. Fish will gather themselves in shoals to any extraordinary light in the dark night, and many are best caught by that artifice. But whatever may be said of these, and other senses of fish, you know how much the sagacity of birds and beasts excel us; how far eagles and vultures, ravens and other fowls will smell the carcase; _odorumque canum vis_, as Lucretius expresses it, and we daily find by their drawing after the games. Gesner affirms that an otter will wind a fish four miles distance in the water, and my Lord Verulam (cent. 8) speaks of that element's being also a medium of sounds, as well as air. Eels do manifestly stir at the cracking of thunder, but that may also be attributed to some other tremulous motion; yet carps and other fish are known to come at the call and the sound of a bell, as I have been informed. Notorious is the story of Arion, and of Lucullus's lampreys which came _ad nomen_; and you have formerly minded me of Varro's Greek pipe, of which Lucian and Cicero (ad Atticum) take occasion to speak. Pliny's dolphin is famous, and what is related of the American Manati: but the most stupendous instance, that of the xiphia or sword-fish, which the Mamertines can take up by no other strategem than a song of certain barbarous words, as the thing is related by Thom. Fazzello. It is certain that we hear more accurately when we hold our mouths a little open, than when we keep them shut; and I have heard of a dumb gentleman in England who was taught to speak (and therefore certainly brought to hear in some degree) by applying the head of a base viol against his teeth, and striking upon the strings with the bow. You may remember the late effect of the drum extending the tympanum of a deaf person to great improvement of his hearing, so long as that was beaten upon; and I could at present name a friend of mine, who though he be exceedingly thick of hearing, by applying a straight stick of what length soever, provided it touch the instrument and his ear, does perfectly and with great pleasure hear every tune that is played: all which, with many more, will flow into your excellent work, whilst the argument puts me in mind of one Tom Whittal, a student of Christ Church, who would needs maintain, that if a hole could dexterously be bored through the skull to the brain in the midst of the forehead, a man might both see and hear and smell without the use of any other organs; but you are to know, that this learned problematist was brother to him, who, preaching at St. Mary's, Oxford, took his text out of the history of Balaam, Numb. xxii., "Am I not thine ass?" Dear Sir, pardon this rhapsody of,

Sir, your, &c.

FOOTNOTES:

[98] Some 400 pages from and to him in the most compendious edition.

[99] He thought, writing to Lord Spencer about 1690, that we have "few tolerable letters of our own country" excepting--and that only in a fashion--those of Bacon, Donne and Howell.

[100] "_Odorumque canum vis_--as Lucretius expresses it"--perhaps requires a note. Evelyn ought to have known his Lucretius, the first book of which he translated and which he was only prevented from completing by some foolish scruples which Jeremy Taylor wisely but vainly combated. And Lucretius is fond of _vis_ as meaning "quality" or "faculty." But Evelyn almost certainly was thinking also, more or less, of Virgil's "odora canum vis," _Aen._ iv. 132.

DOROTHY OSBORNE (1627-1695)

This very delightful lady--who became the wife of Sir
William Temple, famous in political and literary history,
and, by so doing or being, mistress of the household in
which Swift lived, suffered, but met Stella--was the
daughter of Sir Peter Osborne, one of the stoutest of
Royalists who, as Governor of Guernsey, held its Castle
Cornet for years against the rebels. Whether she was (in
1627) born there--her father had been made _Lieutenant_
Governor six years earlier--is not known and has been
thought unlikely: but the present writer (who has danced,
and played whist within its walls) hopes she was. When we
come to know her she was living at Chicksands in
Bedfordshire and hoping to marry Temple, though the course
of love ran by no means smooth. Attention was first drawn to
her letters, and some of them were partly printed, in
Courtenay's _Life_ of her husband--a book which was reviewed
by Macaulay in a famous essay, not overlooking Dorothy. But
as a body, they waited till some half century later, when
they were published by Judge Parry and received with joy by
all fit folk. They were written between 1652 and 1654. The
first passage is in her pleasant mood and touches on a
subject--aviation--which interested that day and interests
this. The second strikes some people as one of the most
charming specimens of the love-letter--written neither in
the violent delight that has violent end, nor in namby-pamby
fashion.[101]

14. TO SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE

Sir,--

You say I abuse you; and Jane says you abuse me when you say you are not melancholy: which is to be believed? Neither, I think; for I could not have said so positively (as it seems she did) that I should not be in town till my brother came back: he was not gone when she writ, nor is not yet; and if my brother Peyton had come before his going, I had spoiled her prediction. But now it cannot be; he goes on Monday or Tuesday at farthest. I hope you did truly with me, too, in saying that you are not melancholy (though she does not believe it). I am thought so, many times, when I am not at all guilty on't. How often do I sit in company a whole day, and when they are gone am not able to give an account of six words that was said, and many times could be so much better pleased with the entertainment my own thoughts give me, that 'tis all I can do to be so civil as not to let them see they trouble me. This may be your disease. However, remember you have promised me to be careful of yourself, and that if I secure what you have entrusted me with, you will answer for the rest. Be this our bargain then; and look that you give me as good an account of one as I shall give you of t'other. In earnest I was strangely vexed to see myself forced to disappoint you so, and felt your trouble and my own too. How often I have wished myself with you, though but for a day, for an hour: I would have given all the time I am to spend here for it with all my heart.

You could not but have laughed if you had seen me last night. My brother and Mr. Gibson were talking by the fire; and I sat by, but as no part of the company. Amongst other things (which I did not at all mind), they fell into a discourse of flying; and both agreed it was very possible to find out a way that people might fly like birds, and despatch their journeys: so I, that had not said a word all night, started up at that, and desired they would say a little more on't, for I had not marked the beginning; but instead of that, they both fell into so violent a laughing, that I should appear so much concerned in such an art; but they little knew of what use it might have been to me. Yet I saw you last night, but 'twas in a dream; and before I could say a word to you, or you to me, the disorder my joy to see you had put me into awakened me. Just now I was interrupted, too, and called away to entertain two dumb gentlemen;--you may imagine whether I was pleased to leave my writing to you for their company;--they have made such a tedious visit, too; and I am so tired with making of signs and tokens for everything I had to say. Good God! how do those that live with them always? They are brothers; and the eldest is a baronet, has a good estate, a wife and three or four children. He was my servant heretofore, and comes to see me still for old love's sake; but if he could have made me mistress of the world I could not have had him; and yet I'll swear he has nothing to be disliked in him but his want of tongue, which in a woman might have been a virtue.

I sent you a part of _Cyrus_ last week, where you will meet with one Doralise in the story of Abradate and Panthee. The whole story is very good; but the humour makes the best part of it. I am of her opinion in most things that she says in her character of "L'honnest homme" that she is in search of, and her resolution of receiving no heart that had been offered to anybody else. Pray, tell me how you like her, and what fault you find in my Lady Carlisle's letter? Methinks the hand and the style both show her a great person, and 'tis writ in the way that's now affected by all that pretend to wit and good breeding; only, I am a little scandalized to confess that she uses that word faithful,--she that never knew how to be so in her life.

I have sent you my picture because you wished for it; but, pray, let it not presume to disturb my Lady Sunderland's. Put it in some corner where no eyes may find it out but yours, to whom it is only intended. 'Tis not a very good one, but the best I shall ever have drawn of me; for, as my Lady says, my time for pictures is past, and therefore I have always refused to part with this, because I was sure the next would be a worse. There is a beauty in youth that every one has once in their lives; and I remember my mother used to say there was never anybody (that was not deformed) but were handsome, to some reasonable degree, once between fourteen and twenty. It must hang with the light on the left hand of it; and you may keep it if you please till I bring you the original. But then I must borrow it (for 'tis no more mine, if you like it), because my brother is often bringing people into my closet where it hangs, to show them other pictures that are there; and if he miss this long thence, 'twould trouble his jealous head.

15.

Sir,--

Who would be kind to one that reproaches one so cruelly? Do you think, in earnest, I could be satisfied the world should think me a dissembler, full of avarice or ambition? No, you are mistaken; but I'll tell you what I could suffer, that they should say I married where I had no inclination, because my friends thought it fit, rather than that I had run wilfully to my own ruin in pursuit of a fond passion of my own. To marry for love were no reproachful thing if we did not see that of the thousand couples that do it, hardly one can be brought for an example that it may be done and not repented afterwards. Is there anything thought so indiscreet, or that makes one more contemptible? 'Tis true that I do firmly believe we should be, as you say, _toujours les mesmes_; but if (as you confess) 'tis that which hardly happens once in two ages, we are not to expect the world should discern we were not like the rest. I'll tell you stories another time, you return them so handsomely upon me. Well, the next servant I tell you of shall not be called a whelp, if 'twere not to give you a stick to beat myself with. I would confess that I looked upon the impudence of this fellow as a punishment upon me for my over care in avoiding the talk of the world; yet the case is very different, and no woman shall ever be blamed that an inconsolable person pretends to her when she gives no allowance to it, whereas none shall 'scape that owns a passion, though in return of a person much above her. The little tailor that loved Queen Elizabeth was suffered to talk out, and none of her Council thought it necessary to stop his mouth; but the Queen of Sweden's kind letter to the King of Scots was intercepted by her own ambassador, because he thought it was not for his mistress's honour (at least that was his pretended reason), and thought justifiable enough. But to come to my Beagle again. I have heard no more of him, though I have seen him since; we meet at Wrest again. I do not doubt but I shall be better able to resist his importunity than his tutor was; but what do you think it is that gives him his encouragement? He was told I had thought of marrying a gentleman that had not above two hundred pound a year, only out of my liking to his person. And upon that score his vanity allows him to think he may pretend as far as another. Thus you see 'tis not altogether without reason that I apprehend the noise of the world, since 'tis so much to my disadvantage.

Is it in earnest that you say your being there keeps me from the town? If so, 'tis very unkind. No, if I had gone, it had been to have waited on my neighbour, who has now altered her resolution and goes not herself. I have no business there, and am so little taken with the place that I could sit here seven years without so much as thinking once of going to it. 'Tis not likely, as you say, that you should much persuade your father to what you do not desire he should do; but it is hard if all the testimonies of my kindness are not enough to satisfy without my publishing to the world that I can forget my friends and all my interest to follow my passion; though, perhaps, it will admit of a good sense, 'tis that which nobody but you or I will give it, and we that are concerned in't can only say 'twas an act of great kindness and something romance, but must confess it had nothing of prudence, discretion, nor sober counsel in't. 'Tis not that I expect, by all your father's offers, to bring my friends to approve it. I don't deceive myself thus far, but I would not give them occasion to say that I hid myself from them in the doing it; nor of making my action appear more indiscreet than it is. It will concern me that all the world should know what fortune you have, and upon what terms I marry you, that both may not be made to appear ten times worse than they are. 'Tis the general custom of all people to make those that are rich to have more mines of gold than are in the Indies, and such as have small fortunes to be beggars. If an action take a little in the world, it shall be magnified and brought into comparison with what the heroes or senators of Rome performed; but, on the contrary, if it be once condemned, nothing can be found ill enough to compare it with; and people are in pain till they find out some extravagant expression to represent the folly on't. Only there is this difference, that as all are more forcibly inclined to ill than good, they are much apter to exceed in detraction than in praises. Have I not reason then to desire this from you; and may not my friendship have deserved it? I know not; 'tis as you think; but if I be denied it, you will teach me to consider myself. 'Tis well the side ended here. If I had not had occasion to stop there, I might have gone too far, and showed that I had more passions than one. Yet 'tis fit you should know all my faults, lest you should repent your bargain when 'twill not be in your power to release yourself; besides, I may own my ill-humour to you that cause it; 'tis the discontent my crosses in this business have given me makes me thus peevish. Though I say it myself, before I knew you I was thought as well an humoured young person as most in England; nothing displeased, nothing troubled me. When I came out of France, nobody knew me again. I was so altered, from a cheerful humour that was always alike, never over merry but always pleased, I was grown heavy and sullen, froward and discomposed; and that country which usually gives people a jolliness and gaiety that is natural to the climate, had wrought in me so contrary effects that I was as new a thing to them as my clothes. If you find all this to be sad truth hereafter, remember that I gave you fair warning.

Here is a ring: it must not be at all wider than this, which is rather too big for me than otherwise; but that is a good fault, and counted lucky by superstitious people. I am not so, though: 'tis indifferent whether there be any word in't or not; only 'tis as well without, and will make my wearing it the less observed. You must give Nan leave to cut a lock of your hair for me, too. Oh, my heart! what a sigh was there! I will not tell you how many this journey causes; nor the fear and apprehensions I have for you. No, I long to be rid of you, am afraid you will not go soon enough: do not you believe this? No, my dearest, I know you do not, whatever you say, you cannot doubt that I am yours.

FOOTNOTES:

[101] The second passage needs little annotation except that Wrest, in Bedfordshire, where Dorothy met her importunate lover, was the seat of Anthony Grey, Earl of Kent. There is said to be a picture there of Sir William Temple--a copy of Lely's. Wrest Park is only a few miles from Chicksands. In the first "Lady Carlisle" is Lucy Percy or Hay, a "_great person_" in many ways--beauty, rank, wit, influence etc.--but hardly a good one. As for "Doralise" Dorothy is quite right. She is one of the brightest features of the huge _Grand Cyrus_. Perhaps it may be just necessary to remind readers that "servant" constantly = "lover"; that "side" refers to the sheet of paper she is using; and that "abuse" = "deceive," not "misuse" or "vituperate."

JONATHAN SWIFT (1667-1745)

The Introduction has dealt rather more fully with Swift than
with some others: and a further reference to a dominant
influence or conflict of influences on his letters will be
found below in the head-note on Thackeray. But a little more
may be said here. It is rather unfortunate that we have not
more _early_ letters from him (we have some, if only
fragments, from Thackeray, and they are no small "light").
We should like some concerning that curious career at
Trinity College, Dublin, which was ended _speciali gratia_,
leaving the usual wranglers to their usual wrangle whether
the last word meant "grace" or "_dis_grace." Others, written
in various moods from the time when Sir William Temple
"spoiled a fine gentleman," and Esther Johnson set running a
life-long course of _un_-smooth love, would be more welcome
still. They would no doubt be stumbling-blocks to those apt
to stumble, just as the existing epistles are: but they
would be stepping-stones for the wise. As it is, we have to
do without them and perhaps, like most things that are, it
is better. For the stumblers are saved the sin of stumbling,
and the wise men the nuisance of seeing them do it, and
trying to set them right. And there might have been only
more painful revelations of the time when, to adjust the
words of the famous epitaph "fierce indignation still
_could_ lacerate the heart," that had felt so fondly and so
bitterly what it had to feel.

What follows is characteristic enough[102] and intelligible
enough to those who will give their intelligence fair play,
asking only for information of _facts_. These latter can be
supplied at no great length even to those who are
unacquainted with Swift's biography. "M. D." is the pet name
for Stella, and her rather mysterious companion Mrs. Dingley
who lived with her in Dublin and played something like the
part of the alloys which are used in experimenting with some
metals.[103] "Presto" is Swift himself. "Prior" is the poet.
"Sir A. Fountaine" was a Norfolk squire and a great
collector of artistic things, most of which were sold not
very long ago. "Sterne" (John) was an Irish clergyman and
afterwards a bishop, but not of the same family as the
novelist. "Cousin _Dryden_ Leach" reminds us that Swift was
also a cousin of Dryden the poet. "Oroonoko" refers to Afra
Behn's introduction of the "noble savage" to English
interest. "Patrick" was Swift's very unsatisfactory
man-servant. "Bernage" a French Huguenot refugee. "George
Granville," of the family of the hero of the _Revenge_, was
a great Tory, a peer a little later with the title of
Lansdowne, and a rather better poet than Johnson thought
him. "St. John" and "Harley," if not also "Masham," should
not need annotation. Notice the seven, (literally seven!)
leagued word at the end. Swift calls their attention to it
when beginning his next instalment.

16. TO STELLA

LONDON, January 16, 1710-11.