A Letter Book

"Is grudged."

91

We should say "try."

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.

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"; Snakelessness 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.

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.

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.

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."

102

As such, it has commended itself to other selectors. But duplication, though it has been sedulously avoided here, is sometimes almost inevitable.

103

I.e. the part of facilitating the operation, and disappearing in the results aimed at.

104

The likeness, however, ended with the favouritism: for Madame de Grignan, in spite of good looks and good wits, was apparently detested by everybody, except her mother, and deserved it: while nobody has anything to say against Lady Bute.

105

It is, of course, not merely business-like – the mixture of something else makes it rather fascinating. They were curiously fond of elopements in the eighteenth century, Sheridan's satire in The Rivals having ample justification. Nor was this merely due to the more severe exercise of paternal authority. For they often preferred (as the philosophical parent of the celebrated Mrs. Greville remarked when his daughter ran away with Mr. G.) to "get out of the window when there was not the slightest objection to their passing through the door."

106

Ballard's Memoirs of Learned Ladies of Great Britain who have been celebrated for their writings or skill in the Learned Languages Arts & Sciences, appeared at Oxford in 4to (1752) and 8vo (1775). It contains some sixty lives, the most noteworthy names being those of Queens Elizabeth and Mary of Scotland, Lady Jane Grey, Margaret Countess of Richmond (the "Lady Margaret"), the Duchess of Newcastle, Lady Winchelsea, the two Countesses of Pembroke ("Sidney's sister" and Anne Clifford), Dame Juliana Barnes or Berners, Dryden's Anne Killigrew, Dorothy Pakington (the alleged author of The Whole Duty of Man), and "the matchless Orinda."

107

Perhaps a note should be added on "Mrs. Hopton" and "F. Turbe(r)ville." The former, born Susanna Harvey (1627-1709), was the wife of a Welsh judge, and wrote devotional works. The latter, Henry T. (d. 1678: the "F" of text is of course "Father"), was a writer of doctrinal and controversial manuals on the Roman side.

108

"St." is Richard Stonhewer, a Fellow of Peterhouse, secretary to the Duke of Grafton, and a man of considerable, though not public, importance in politics.

109

Anstey's – referred to in the Introduction.

110

By Sterne's friend, John Hall Stevenson.

111

Lord Strathmore.

112

There is an amicable dispute among Thackerayans whether this or the imitation-Spectator paper in Esmond is the more wonderful of their joint kind. To facilitate this comparison the letter part (for there is one) of that paper will be given here under Thackeray's own name.

113

"Acuminate" = "sharpen," is a perfectly good word in itself, but perhaps does not so perfectly suit "despair," which crushes rather than pierces.

114

One would expect either "did" or "other": but the actual combination is a very likely slip of pen or press.

115