A Letter Book

2. Letter 784 (Gairdner)

    Date Feb. 1477

Right worshipful and well-beloved Valentine, in my most humble wise I recommend me unto you. And heartily I thank you for the letter which that ye send me by John Beckerton, whereby I am informed and know that ye be purposed to come to Topcroft in short time, and without any errand or matter but only to have a conclusion of the matter between my father and you. I would be most glad of any creature in life so that the matter might grow to effect. And there as ye say, an ye come and find the matter no more towards you than ye did aforetime, ye would no more put my father and my lady my mother to no cost nor business, for that cause, a good while after – which causeth mine heart to be full heavy: and if that ye come, and the matter take to none effect, then should I be much more sorry and full of heaviness.

And as for myself I have done and understood in the matter that I can and may, as good[77 - This may be a mere mis-spelling of "God," or a sort of euphemism like the modern "thank goodness!" to avoid the more sacred name.] knoweth: and I let you plainly understand that my father will no more money part withal in that behalf but £100 and one mark which is right far from the accomplishment of your desire.

Wherefore if that ye could be content with that good, and my poor person, I would be the merriest maiden on ground. And if ye think not yourself so satisfied, or that ye might have much more good, as I have understood by you afore – good, true, and loving Valentine,[78 - "I would" or "take care" or something similar to be supplied to make a somewhat softened imperative.] that ye take no such labour upon you as to come more for that matter but let it pass and never more be spoken of, as I may be your true lover and bedeswoman[79 - One who prays for you.] during my life.

No more unto you at this time but Almighty Jesus preserve you both body and soul.

    By your Valentine,
    M. B.

ROGER ASCHAM (1515-1568)

Although the old phrase about "the schoolmaster being abroad" has never before had anything like the amount of applicableness which it now possesses, there is perhaps still a certain prejudice against schoolmasters. Indeed even some who have more than served time in that capacity will admit that it is a dangerous employment, profession, or vocation. But if all of us had been ever, or ever would try to be, like Roger Ascham, our class would never have deserved, or would victoriously wiped off, any obloquy. It was extraordinary good quality, or more extraordinary good fortune, that made the same man write Toxophilus and The Schoolmaster. And there need hardly be any admission of possible good luck as causing, though some certainly helped, his performance as a letter-writer. Something was said before as to the importance of his "getting to English" in this matter. But it may be permissible to remind, or perhaps even inform, some readers of the curious combination which made this importance. As a Renaissance scholar; as a College tutor before the middle of the sixteenth century; as a Secretary of Embassy on the Continent; and as Latin Secretary at Court, he was positively unlikely to favour the vernacular. Nor could anyone be a warmer or wiser lover of the classics than he was. But what he, being all these things, did for English was all the more influential, while the manner of his doing it could hardly be bettered.

Ascham's letters being partly in English and partly in Latin, there is a certain temptation to translate one of the latter and put it side by side with one of the former. But the process might not be fair: and to give the fairer chance of comparison between originals in the two tongues would be out of the scheme of this book. I therefore choose a part of one of his long letters of travel to Cambridge friends – one of the earliest of the many "Up the Rhines" in English literature – and another part of his letters to Cecil. He has been reproached with the "begging" character of these, but it was the way of the time with Renaissance scholars. In the first "ioney" (Giles's text) must be wrong and towards the end "vile" is an amusing blunder for "oile." "Peter Ailand" a Cambridge friend's child. "Brant" = "steep." In the second "Denny" is Sir Anthony D., a great favourite of Henry VIII. and Edward VI. who was now dead. "Cheke" the still better known "Sir John" had "taught Cambridge and King Edward Greek," and so raised the "goodly crop" but had taken to politics, which were to bring him into trouble.[80 - The allusions to the writer's own Toxophilus at the end require, it is to be hoped, no annotation.]

3. To Mr. Edward Raven [extract]

    Augsburg Jan. 20 1551

13 Octob. We took a fair barge, with goodly glass windows, with seats of fir, as close as any house, we knew not whether it went or stood. Rhene is such a river that now I do not marvail that the poets make rivers gods. Rhene at Spires having a farther course to rin into the ocean sea than is the space betwixt Dover and Barwick is broader over a great deal than is Thames at Greenwich when it is calm weather. The Rhene runs fast and yet as smooth as the sea water stands in a vessel.

From Colen this day we went to Bonna, the bishop's town, the country about Rhene here is plain and ioney. We were drawn up Rhene by horses. Little villages stand by Rhene side, and as the barge came by, six or seven children, some stonenaked, some in their shirts, of the bigness of Peter Ailand, would run by use on the sands, singing psalms, and would rin and sing with us half a mile, whilst they had some money.

We came late to Bonna at eight of the clock: our men were come afore with our horse: we could not be let into the town, no more than they do at Calise, after an hour. We stood cold at the gate a whole hour. At last we were fain, lord and lady, to lie in our barge all night, where I sat in my lady's side-saddle, leaning my head to a malle, better lodged than a dozen of my fellows.

14 Octob. We sailed to Brousik: 15 miles afore we come to Bonna begin the vines and hills keeping in Rhene on both sides for the space of five or six days journey as we made them almost to Mayence, like the hills that compass Halifax about, but far branter up, as though the rocks did cover you like a pentice (pent-house): on the Rhene side all this journey be pathways where horse and man go commonly a yard broad, so fair that no weather can make it foul: if you look upwards ye are afraid the rocks will fall on your head; if you look downwards ye are afraid to tumble into Rhene, and if your horse founder it is not seven to six that ye shall miss falling into Rhene, there be many times stairs down into Rhene that men may come from their boats and walk on his bank, as we did every day four or five miles at once, plucking grapes not with our hands but with our mouths if we list.

The grapes grow on the brant rocks so wonderfully that ye will marvel how men dare climb up to them, and yet so plentifully, that it is not only a marvel where men be found to labour it, but also almost where men dwell that drink it. Seven or eight days journey ye cannot cast your sight over the compass of vines. And surely this wine of Rhene is so good, so natural, so temperate, so ever like itself, as can be wished for man's use. I was afraid when I came out of England to miss beer; but I am more afraid when I shall come into England, that I cannot lack this wine.

It is wonder to see how many castles stand on the tops of these rocks unwinable. The three bishops electors, Colen, Trevers and Mayence; be the princes almost of whole Rhene. The lansgrave hath goodly castles upon Rhene which the emperor cannot get. The palatine of Rhene is also a great lord on this river, and hath his name of a castle standing in the midst of Rhene on a rock. There be also goodly isles in Rhene, so full of walnut trees that they cannot be spent with eating, but they make vile of them. In some of these isles stand fair abbeys and nunneries wonderfully pleasant. The stones that hang so high over Rhene be very much of that stone that you use to write on in tables; every poor man's house there is covered with them.

4. To Cecil [extract]

    Brussels March 24. 1553

If I should write oft, ye might think me too bold: and if I did leave off, ye might judge me either to forget your gentleness, or to mistrust your good will, who hath already so bound me unto you, as I shall rather forget myself, and wish God also to forget me, than not labour with all diligence and service to apply myself wholly to your will and purpose; and that ye shall well know how much I assure myself on your goodness, I will pass a piece of good manners, and be bold to borrow a little of your small leisure from your weighty affairs in the commonwealth. Therefore, if my letters shall find you at any leisure, they will trouble you a little in telling you ate length, as I promised in my last letters delivered unto you by Mr. Francis Yaxeley, why I am more desirous to have your help for my stay at Cambridge still than for any other kind of living elsewhere. I having now some experience of life led at home and abroad, and knowing what I can do most fitly, and how I would live most gladly, do well perceive there is no such quietness in England, nor pleasure in strange countries, as even in St. John's college, to keep company with the Bible, Plato, Aristotle, Demosthenes, and Tully. Which my choice of quietness is not purposed to lie in idleness, nor constrained by a wilful nature, because I will not or can not serve elsewhere, when I trust I could apply myself to mo kinds of life than I hope any need shall ever drive me to seek, but only because in choosing aptly for myself I might bring some profit to many others. And in this mine opinion I stand the more gladly, because it is grounded upon the judgment of worthy Mr. Denny. For the summer twelvemonth before he departed, dinner and supper he had me commonly with him, whose excellent wisdom, mingled with so pleasant mirth, I can never forget: emonges many other talks he would say oft unto me, if two duties did not command him to serve, the one his prince, the other his wife, he would surely become a student in St. John's, saying, "The Court, Mr. Ascham, is a place so slippery, that duty never so well done, is not a staff stiff enough to stand by always very surely, where ye shall many times reap most unkindness where ye have sown greatest pleasures, and those also ready to do you most hurt to whom you never intended to think any harm." Which sentences I heard very gladly then, and felt them soon after myself to be true. Thus I, first ready by mine own nature, then moved by good counsel, after driven by ill fortune, lastly called by quietness, thought it good to couch myself in Cambridge again. And in very deed, too many be pluckt from thence before they be ripe, though I myself am withered before I be gathered, and yet not so for that I have stood too long, but rather because the fruit which I bear is so very small. Yet seeing the goodly crop of Mr. Cheke is almost clean carried from thence, and I in a manner alone of that time left a standing straggler, peradventure though my fruit be very small, yet because the ground from whence it sprung was so good, I may yet be thought somewhat fit for seed, when all you the rest are taken up for better store, wherewith the king and his realm is now so nobly served. And in such a scarcity both of those, that were worthily called away when they were fit, and of such as unwisely part from thence, before they be ready, I dare now bolden myself, when the best be gone, to do some good among the mean that do tarry, trusting that my diligence shall deal with my disability, and the rather because the desire of shooting is so well shot away in me, either ended by time or left off for better purpose. Yet I do amiss to mislike shooting too much, which hath been hitherto my best friend, and even now looking back to the pleasure which I found in it, and perceiving small repentence to follow after it, by Plato's judgment I may think well of it. No, it never called me to go from my book, but it made both wit the lustier, and will the readier, to run to it again, and perchance going back sometimes from learning may serve even as well as it doth at leaping, to pass some of those which keep always their standing at their book.

LADY MARY SIDNEY (?[81 - Her birth-date does not seem to be known, but she was married in 1551.]-1586)

This "old Molly," as she so agreeably calls herself, was very unfortunate in her father (that intrusive holder for a short time of the title of Northumberland, who was offensive in success and abject in adversity) and not too lucky in her brother, Leicester. But she must have been far too good for her own breed; she had an excellent husband, Sir Henry Sidney, Deputy of Ireland and President of Wales, one of Elizabeth's best deserving and worst treated servants, and she was the mother of "Astrophel" and Astrophel's sister. "One has known persons more unfortunate," as a famous phrase of a French poem not very long after her own time has it. And she must have thoroughly deserved good fortune: for her letters show her as one of the best of wives and mothers (if not of spellers): though it is quite possible that she might not have made a good jurywoman or a good member of parliament. As her husband was not merely governor (repeatedly and with such success as was possible) of Ireland, but "President of Wales," they usually, when in England but not at Court or at Penshurst, lived at Ludlow Castle and so enjoyed two of the most beautiful homes in the country. But Sir Henry in these and other functions had seas of trouble, great expenses, and according to "Gloriana's" wont, very small thanks for it all. He is said, indeed, to have had his life shortened by weariness and worry. But his son and daughter[82 - He had another, of the (for an English girl) very unusual name of "Ambros[z]ia" who died unmarried, at twenty.] may have been a comfort to him: and his wife must have been so. The letter itself, as will be seen, is not to himself but to his secretary: and there was more correspondence on the subject of their lodging and its difficulties. Lady Mary was not well, and there must be a place to see friends, and the Queen might come in! The original letter[83 - Most kindly copied for me by the Rev. W. Hunt from Arthur Collins's Sydney Papers.] is better spelt than others of hers, the principal curiosity being the form "hit" for "it," which, however, is by no means peculiar.

5. To Edward Molineux, Esq.

You have used the matter very well; but we must do more yet for the good dear Lord [her husband] than let him be thus dealt withal. Hampton Court I never yet knew so full as there were not spare rooms in it, when it has been thrice better filled than at the present it is. But some would be sorry, perhaps, my Lord should have so sure a footing in the Court. Well, all may be as well when the good God will. The whilst, I pray let us do what we may for our Lord's ease and quiet. Whereunto I think if you go to my Lord Howard, and in my Lord's name also move his Lordship to shew his brother my Lord, (as they call each other) – to show him a cast of his office[84 - An agreeable phrase, not in the least obsolete, though I have known ignorant persons who thought it so. The "office" was that of Lord Chamberlain; the holder was Lord Howard of Effingham, afterwards famous in the Armada fights.] and that it should not be known allege your former causes, I think he will find out some place to serve that purpose. And also if you go to Mr Bowyer,[85 - See Kenilworth (chap. xvi.), where Scott brings him in as experiencing Gloriana's extreme uncertainty of temper.] the gentleman-Usher, and tell him his mother requireth him (which is myself) to help my Lord with some one room, but only for the dispatch of the multitude of Welsh and Irish people that follow him; and that you will give your word in my Lord's behalf and mine, it shall not be accounted as a lodging[86 - I.e. a permanent one such as Hampton Court affords to some.] or known of, I believe he will make what shift he can: you must assure him it is but for the day-time for his business, as indeed it is.

As for my brother's answer of[87 - "About"?] my stay here for five or six days, he knows I have ventured far already with so long absence, and am ill thought of for it,[88 - Either by the Queen herself, whose touchiness is well known, or by jealous and mischief-making fellow courtiers.] so as that may not be. But when the worst is known, old Lord Harry and his old Moll will do as well as they can in parting[89 - "Sharing."] like good friends the small portion allotted our long service in Court, which as little as it is, seems something too much.[90 - "Is grudged."] And this being all I can say to the matter, farewell, Mr. Ned.

In haste this Monday 1578,

    your assured loving mistress and friend,
    M. Sydney.

If all this will not serve, prove[91 - We should say "try."] Mr Huggins, for I know my Lord would not for no good be destitute in this time for some convenient place for his followers and friends to resort to him, which in the case I am in, is not possible to be in my chamber till after sunset, when the dear good Lord shall be, as best becomes him, Lord of his own.

GEORGE CLIFFORD EARL OF CUMBERLAND

(1558-1605)

This not very fortunate or wholly blameless but very remarkable and representative person was the third holder of the earldom and the sixteenth of the famous barony of Clifford. He was great-grandson of Wordsworth's "Shepherd Lord"; father of Anne Countess of Dorset, Pembroke and Montgomery (pupil of Daniel the poet and a typical great lady of her time); one of the foremost of Elizabeth's privateering courtiers; one of the chief victims of her caprice and parsimony; a magnificent noble, but a great spendthrift, something of a libertine, never unkindly but hardly ever wise. This remarkable deathbed letter (the giving of which depended on the kindness of Dr. G. C. Williamson of Hampstead, author of the Life and Voyages of G. Clifford, 3rd Earl of Cumberland, Cambridge University Press, 1920, in which it appeared, p. 270-1), pretty well explains itself. "Sweet Meg," his wife, was Lady Margaret Russell, daughter of the Earl of Bedford. The pair were on very affectionate terms for many years: but had latterly been estranged by certain infidelities on the Earl's part and by money disputes and difficulties, so that when his last illness attacked him Lady Cumberland was not with him. She was not, however, proof against this repentant appeal: but returned with her daughter. Both were present at his death in the Savoy soon after he wrote. He had made, personally or by deputy, ten if not twelve voyages against the Spaniards, and though there was a good deal of mismanagement about them he took Porto Rico in one; captured, but made little profit out of, an enormously valuable prize, the Madre de Dios, in another; gave the warning which enabled Lord Thomas Howard to escape, but which Sir Richard Grenville refused to take "at Flores, in the Azores"; and built at his own expense, the largest privateer then or perhaps ever constructed, the Malice Scourge– for the remarkable subsequent history of which, see Mr. David Hannay's article, "The Saga of a Ship," in Blackwood, May, 1921.

6.

Sweet and dear Meg,

Bear[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.] 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 - 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.] 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.

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 - 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.] 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,