Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne — 03 - Letters 11-15

SIR,--I am so far from thinking you ill-natured for wishing I might not outlive you, that I should not have thought you at all kind if you had done otherwise; no, in earnest, I was never yet so in love with my life but that I could have parted with it upon a much less occasion than your death, and 'twill be no compliment to you to say it would be very uneasy to me then, since 'tis not very pleasant to me now.

Yet you will say I take great pains to preserve it, as ill as I like it; but no, I'll swear 'tis not that I intend in what I do; all that I aim at is but to keep myself from proving a beast.

They do so fright me with strange stories of what the spleen will bring me to in time, that I am kept in awe with them like a child; they tell me 'twill not leave me common sense, that I shall hardly be fit company for my own dogs, and that it will end either in a stupidness that will make me incapable of anything, or fill my head with such whims as will make me ridiculous.

To prevent this, who would not take steel or anything,--though I am partly of your opinion that 'tis an ill kind of physic.

Yet I am confident that I take it the safest way, for I do not take the powder, as many do, but only lay a piece of steel in white wine over night and drink the infusion next morning, which one would think were nothing, and yet 'tis not to be imagined how sick it makes me for an hour or two, and, which is the misery, all that time one must be using some kind of exercise.

Your fellow-servant has a blessed time on't that ever you saw.

I make her play at shuttlecock with me, and she is the veriest bungler at it ever you saw.

Then am I ready to beat her with the battledore, and grow so peevish as I grow sick, that I'll undertake she wishes there were no steel in England.

But then to recompense the morning, I am in good humour all the day after for joy that I am well again.

I am told 'twill do me good, and am content to believe it; if it does not, I am but where I was.

I do not use to forget my old acquaintances.

Almanzor is as fresh in my memory as if I had visited his tomb but yesterday, though it be at least seven year agone since.

You will believe I had not been used to great afflictions when I made his story such a one to me, as I cried an hour together for him, and was so angry with Alcidiana that for my life I could never love her after it.

You do not tell me whether you received the books I sent you, but I will hope you did, because you say nothing to the contrary.

They are my dear Lady Diana's, and therefore I am much concerned that they should be safe.

And now I speak of her, she is acquainted with your aunt, my Lady B. , and says all that you say of her.

If her niece has so much wit, will you not be persuaded to like her; or say she has not quite so much, may not her fortune make it up?

In earnest, I know not what to say, but if your father does not use all his kindness and all his power to make you consider your own advantage, he is not like other fathers.

Can you imagine that he that demands £5000 besides the reversion of an estate will like bare £4000?

Such miracles are seldom seen, and you must prepare to suffer a strange persecution unless you grow conformable; therefore consider what you do, 'tis the part of a friend to advise you.

I could say a great deal to this purpose, and tell you that 'tis not discreet to refuse a good offer, nor safe to trust wholly to your own judgment in your disposal.

I was never better provided in my life for a grave admonishing discourse.

Would you had heard how I have been catechized for you, and seen how soberly I sit and answer to interrogatories.

Would you think that upon examination it is found that you are not an indifferent person to me?

But the mischief is, that what my intentions or resolutions are, is not to be discovered, though much pains has been taken to collect all scattering circumstances; and all the probable conjectures that can be raised from thence has been urged, to see if anything would be confessed.

And all this done with so much ceremony and compliment, so many pardons asked for undertaking to counsel or inquire, and so great kindness and passion for all my interests professed, that I cannot but take it well, though I am very weary on't. You are spoken of with the reverence due to a person that I seem to like, and for as much as they know of you, you do deserve a very good esteem; but your fortune and mine can never agree, and, in plain terms, we forfeit our discretions and run wilfully upon our own ruins if there be such a thought.

To all this I make no reply, but that if they will needs have it that I am not without kindness for you, they must conclude withal that 'tis no part of my intention to ruin you, and so the conference breaks up for that time.

All this is [from] my friend, that is not yours; and the gentleman that came upstairs in a basket, I could tell him that he spends his breath to very little purpose, and has but his labour for his pains.

Without his precepts my own judgment would preserve me from doing anything that might be prejudicial to you or unjustifiable to the world; but if these be secured, nothing can alter the resolution I have taken of settling my whole stock of happiness upon the affection of a person that is dear to me, whose kindness I shall infinitely prefer before any other consideration whatsoever, and I shall not blush to tell you that you have made the whole world beside so indifferent to me that, if I cannot be yours, they may dispose of me how they please.

Henry Cromwell will be as acceptable to me as any one else.

If I may undertake to counsel, I think you shall do well to comply with your father as far as possible, and not to discover any aversion to what he desires further than you can give reason for.

What his disposition may be I know not; but 'tis that of many parents to judge their children's dislikes to be an humour of approving nothing that is chosen for them, which many times makes them take up another of denying their children all they choose for themselves.

I find I am in the humour of talking wisely if my paper would give me leave.

'Tis great pity here is room for no more but-- Your faithful friend and servant.

_Letter 12. _ SIR,--There shall be two posts this week, for my brother sends his groom up, and I am resolved to make some advantage of it.

Pray, what the paper denied me in your last, let me receive by him.

Your fellow-servant is a sweet jewel to tell tales of me.

The truth is, I cannot deny but that I have been very careless of myself, but, alas!

who would have been other?

I never thought my life worth my care whilst nobody was concerned in't but myself; now I shall look upon't as something that you would not lose, and therefore shall endeavour to keep it for you.

But then you must return my kindness with the same care of a life that's much dearer to me.

I shall not be so unreasonable as to desire that, for my satisfaction, you should deny yourself a recreation that is pleasing to you, and very innocent, sure, when 'tis not used in excess, but I cannot consent you should disorder yourself with it, and Jane was certainly in the right when she told you I would have chid if I had seen you so endanger a health that I am so much concerned in.

But for what she tell you of my melancholy you must not believe; she thinks nobody in good humour unless they laugh perpetually, as Nan and she does, which I was never given to much, and now I have been so long accustomed to my own natural dull humour that nothing can alter it.

'Tis not that I am sad (for as long as you and the rest of my friends are well), I thank God I have no occasion to be so, but I never appear to be very merry, and if I had all that I could wish for in the world, I do not think it would make any visible change in my humour.

And yet with all my gravity I could not but laugh at your encounter in the Park, though I was not pleased that you should leave a fair lady and go lie upon the cold ground.

That is full as bad as overheating yourself at tennis, and therefore remember 'tis one of the things you are forbidden.

You have reason to think your father kind, and I have reason to think him very civil; all his scruples are very just ones, but such as time and a little good fortune (if we were either of us lucky to it) might satisfy.

He may be confident I can never think of disposing myself without my father's consent; and though he has left it more in my power than almost anybody leaves a daughter, yet certainly I were the worst natured person in the world if his kindness were not a greater tie upon me than any advantage he could have reserved.

Besides that, 'tis my duty, from which nothing can ever tempt me, nor could you like it in me if I should do otherwise, 'twould make me unworthy of your esteem; but if ever that may be obtained, or I left free, and you in the same condition, all the advantages of fortune or person imaginable met together in one man should not be preferred before you.

I think I cannot leave you better than with this assurance.

'Tis very late, and having been abroad all this day, I knew not till e'en now of this messenger.

Good-night to you.

There need be no excuse for the conclusion of your letter.

Nothing can please me better.

Once more good-night.

I am half in a dream already.

Your _Letter 13. _--There is some allusion here to an inconstant lover of my Lady Diana Rich, who seems to have deserted his mistress on account of the sore eyes with which, Dorothy told us in a former letter, her friend was afflicted.

I cannot find any account of the great shop above the Exchange, "The Flower Pott."

There were two or three "Flower Pots" in London at this time, one in Leadenhall Street and another in St. James' Market.

An interesting account of the old sign is given in a work on London tradesmen's tokens, in which it is said to be "derived from the earlier representations of the salutations of the angel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary, in which either lilies were placed in his hand, or they were set as an accessory in a vase.

As Popery declined, the angel disappeared, and the lily-pot became a vase of flowers; subsequently the Virgin was omitted, and there remained only the vase of flowers.

Since, to make things more unmistakeable, two debonair gentlemen, with hat in hand, have superseded the floral elegancies of the olden time, and the poetry of the art seems lost."

SIR,--I am glad you 'scaped a beating, but, in earnest, would it had lighted on my brother's groom.

I think I should have beaten him myself if I had been able.

I have expected your letter all this day with the greatest impatience that was possible, and at last resolved to go out and meet the fellow; and when I came down to the stables, I found him come, had set up his horse, and was sweeping the stable in great order.

I could not imagine him so very a beast as to think his horses were to be serv'd before me, and therefore was presently struck with an apprehension he had no letter for me: it went cold to my heart as ice, and hardly left me courage enough to ask him the question; but when he had drawled it out that he thought there was a letter for me in his bag, I quickly made him leave his broom.

'Twas well 'tis a dull fellow, he could not [but] have discern'd else that I was strangely overjoyed with it, and earnest to have it; for though the poor fellow made what haste he could to untie his bag, I did nothing but chide him for being so slow.

Last I had it, and, in earnest, I know not whether an entire diamond of the bigness on't would have pleased me half so well; if it would, it must be only out of this consideration, that such a jewel would make me rich enough to dispute you with Mrs. Chambers, and perhaps make your father like me as well.

I like him, I'll swear, and extremely too, for being so calm in a business where his desires were so much crossed.

Either he has a great power over himself, or you have a great interest in him, or both.

If you are pleased it should end thus, I cannot dislike it; but if it would have been happy for you, I should think myself strangely unfortunate in being the cause that it went not further.

I cannot say that I prefer your interest before my own, because all yours are so much mine that 'tis impossible for me to be happy if you are not so; but if they could be divided I am certain I should.

And though you reproached me with unkindness for advising you not to refuse a good offer, yet I shall not be discouraged from doing it again when there is occasion, for I am resolved to be your friend whether you will or no. And, for example, though I know you do not need my counsel, yet I cannot but tell you that I think 'twere very well that you took some care to make my Lady B. your friend, and oblige her by your civilities to believe that you were sensible of the favour was offered you, though you had not the grace to make good use on't. In very good earnest now, she is a woman (by all that I have heard of her) that one would not lose; besides that, 'twill become you to make some satisfaction for downright refusing a young lady--'twas unmercifully done.

Would to God you would leave that trick of making excuses!

Can you think it necessary to me, or believe that your letters can be so long as to make them unpleasing to me?

Are mine so to you?

If they are not, yours never will be so to me.

You see I say anything to you, out of a belief that, though my letters were more impertinent than they are, you would not be without them nor wish them shorter.

Why should you be less kind?

If your fellow-servant has been with you, she has told you I part with her but for her advantage.

That I shall always be willing to do; but whensoever she shall think fit to serve again, and is not provided of a better mistress, she knows where to find me.

I have sent you the rest of _Cléopâtre_, pray keep them all in your hands, and the next week I will send you a letter and directions where you shall deliver that and the books for my lady.

Is it possible that she can be indifferent to anybody?

Take heed of telling me such stories;

if all those excellences she is rich in cannot keep warm a passion without the sunshine of her eyes, what are poor people to expect; and were it not a strange vanity in me to believe yours can be long-lived?

It would be very pardonable in you to change, but, sure, in him 'tis a mark of so great inconstancy as shows him of an humour that nothing can fix.

When you go into the Exchange, pray call at the great shop above, "The Flower Pott."

I spoke to Heams, the man of the shop, when I was in town, for a quart of orange-flower water; he had none that was good then, but promised to get me some.

Pray put him in mind of it, and let him show it you before he sends it me, for I will not altogether trust to his honesty; you see I make no scruple of giving you little idle commissions, 'tis a freedom you allow me, and that I should be glad you would take.

The Frenchman that set my seals lives between Salisbury House and the Exchange, at a house that was not finished when I was there, and the master of the shop, his name is Walker, he made me pay 50s.

for three, but 'twas too dear.

You will meet with a story in these parts of _Cléopâtre_ that pleased me more than any that ever I read in my life; 'tis of one Délie, pray give me your opinion of her and her prince.

This letter is writ in great haste, as you may see; 'tis my brother's sick day, and I'm not willing to leave him long alone.

I

forgot to tell you in my last that he was come hither to try if he can lose an ague here that he got in Gloucestershire.

He asked me for you very kindly, and if he knew I writ to you I should have something to say from him besides what I should say for myself if I had room.

Yrs.

_Letter 14. _--This letter contains the most interesting political reference of the whole series.

Either Temple has written Dorothy an account of Cromwell's dissolving the Long Parliament, or perhaps some news-letter has found its way to Chicksands with the astounding news.

All England is filled with intense excitement over Cromwell's _coup d'état_; and it cannot be uninteresting to quote a short contemporary account of the business.

Algernon Sydney's father, the Earl of Leicester, whose journal has already been quoted, under date Wednesday, April 20th, 1653, writes as follows:--"My Lord General came into the House clad in plain black clothes with grey worsted stockings, and sat down, as he used to do, in an ordinary place."

Then he began to speak, and presently "he put on his hat, went out of his place, and walked up and down the stage or floor in the midst of the House, with his hat on his head, and chid them soundly."

After this had gone on for some time, Colonel Harrison was called in to remove the Speaker, which he did; "and it happened that Algernon Sydney sat next to the Speaker on the right hand.

The General said to Harrison, 'Put him out!'

"Harrison spake to Sydney to go out, but he said he would not go out and waited still.

"The General said again, 'Put him out!'

Then Harrison and Wortley [Worsley] put their hands upon Sydney's shoulders as if they would force him to go out.

Then he rose and went towards the door."

Such is the story which reaches Dorothy, and startles all England at this date.

SIR,--That you may be sure it was a dream that I writ that part of my letter in, I do not now remember what it was I writ, but seems it was very kind, and possibly you owe the discovery on't to my being asleep.

But I do not repent it, for I should not love you if I did not think you discreet enough to be trusted with the knowledge of all my kindness.

Therefore 'tis not that I desire to hide it from you, but that I do not love to tell it; and perhaps if you could read my heart, I should make less scruple of your seeing on't there than in my letters.

I can easily guess who the pretty young lady is, for there are but two in England of that fortune, and they are sisters, but I am to seek who the gallant should be.

If it be no secret, you may tell me.

However, I shall wish him all good success if he be your friend, as I suppose he is by his confidence in you.

If it be neither of the Spencers, I wish it were; I have not seen two young men that looked as if they deserved better fortunes so much as those brothers.

But, bless me, what will become of us all now?

Is not this a strange turn?

What does my Lord Lisle?

Sure this will at least defer your journey?

Tell me what I must think on't; whether it be better or worse, or whether you are at all concern'd in't?

For if you are not I am not, only if I had been so wise as to have taken hold of the offer was made me by Henry Cromwell, I might have been in a fair way of preferment, for, sure, they will be greater now than ever.

Is it true that Algernon Sydney was so unwilling to leave the House, that the General was fain to take the pains to turn him out himself?

Well, 'tis a pleasant world this.

If Mr. Pim were alive again, I wonder what he would think of these proceedings, and whether this would appear so great a breach of the Privilege of Parliament as the demanding the 5 members?

But I shall talk treason by and by if I do not look to myself.

'Tis safer talking of the orange-flower water you sent me.

The carrier has given me a great charge to tell you that it came safe, and that I must do him right.

As you say, 'tis not the best I have seen, nor the worst.

I shall expect your Diary next week, though this will be but a short letter: you may allow me to make excuses too sometimes; but, seriously, my father is now so continuously ill, that I have hardly time for anything.

'Tis but an ague that he has, but yet I am much afraid that is more than his age and weakness will be able to bear; he keeps his bed, and never rises but to have it made, and most times faints with that.

You ought in charity to write as much as you can, for, in earnest, my life here since my father's sickness is so sad that, to another humour than mine, it would be unsupportable; but I have been so used to misfortunes, that I cannot be much surprised with them, though perhaps I am as sensible of them as another.

I'll leave you, for I find these thoughts begin to put me in ill humour; farewell, may you be ever happy.

If I am so at all, it is in being Your _Letter 15. _--What Temple had written about Mr. Arbry's prophecy and "the falling down of the form," we cannot know.

Mr. Arbry was probably William Erbury, vicar of St. Mary's, Cardiff, a noted schismatic.

He is said to have been a "holy, harmless man," but incurred both the hate and ridicule of his opponents.

Many of his tracts are still extant, and they contain extravagant prophecies couched in the peculiar phraseology of the day.

The celebrated Sir Samuel Luke was a near neighbour of the Osbornes, and Mr. Luke was one of his numerous family.

Sir Samuel was Lord of the Manor of Hawnes, and in the Hawnes parish register there are notices of the christenings of his sons and daughters.

Sir Samuel was not only a colonel in the Parliament Army, but Scout-Master-General in the counties of Bedford and Surrey.

Samuel Butler, the author of _Hudibras_, lived with Sir Samuel Luke as his secretary, at some date prior to the Restoration; and Dr. Grey, his learned editor, believes that he wrote _Hudibras_ about that time, "because he had then the opportunity to converse with those living characters of rebellion, nonsense, and hypocrisy which he so lively and pathetically exposes throughout the whole work."

Sir Samuel is said himself to be the original "Hudibras;"

and if Dr. Grey's conjecture on this matter is a right one, we have already in our minds a very complete portrait of Dorothy's neighbour.

The old ballad that Dorothy encloses to her lover has not been preserved with her letter.

If it is older than the ballad of "The Lord of Lorne," it must have been composed before Henry VIII.'

s reign; for Edward Guilpin, in his _Skialethia_ [1598], speaks of Th' olde ballad of the Lord of Lorne, Whose last line in King Harrie's day was borne.

"The Lord of Learne" (this was the old spelling) may be found in Bishop Percy's well-known collection of Ballads and Romances.

SIR,--You must pardon me, I could not burn your other letter for my life; I was so pleased to see I had so much to read, and so sorry I had done so soon, that I resolved to begin them again, and had like to have lost my dinner by it.

I know not what humour you were in when you writ it; but Mr. Arbry's prophecy and the falling down of the form did a little discompose my gravity.

But I quickly recovered myself with thinking that you deserved to be chid for going where you knew you must of necessity lose your time.

In earnest, I had a little scruple when I went with you thither, and but that I was assured it was too late to go any whither else, and believed it better to hear an ill sermon than none, I think I should have missed his _Belles remarques_.

You had repented you, I hope, of that and all other your faults before you thought of dying.

What a satisfaction you had found out to make me for the injuries you say you have done me!

And yet I cannot tell neither (though 'tis not the remedy I should choose) whether that were not a certain one for all my misfortunes; for, sure, I should have nothing then to persuade me to stay longer where they grow, and I should quickly take a resolution of leaving them and the world at once.

I agree with you, too, that I do not see any great likelihood of the change of our fortunes, and that we have much more to wish than to hope for; but 'tis so common a calamity that I dare not murmur at it; better people have endured it, and I can give no reason why (almost) all are denied the satisfaction of disposing themselves to their own desires, but that it is a happiness too great for this world, and might endanger one's forgetting the next; whereas if we are crossed in that which only can make the world pleasing to us, we are quickly tired with the length of our journey and the disquiet of our inns, and long to be at home.

One would think it were I who had heard the three sermons and were trying to make a fourth; these are truths that might become a pulpit better than Mr. Arbry's predictions.

But lest you should think I have as many worms in my head as he, I'll give over in time, and tell you how far Mr. Luke and I are acquainted.

He lives within three or four miles of me, and one day that I had been to visit a lady that is nearer him than me, as I came back I met a coach with some company in't that I knew, and thought myself obliged to salute.

We all lighted and met, and I found more than I looked for by two damsels and their squires.

I was afterwards told they were of the Lukes, and possibly this man might be there, or else I never saw him; for since these times we have had no commerce with that family, but have kept at great distance, as having on several occasions been disobliged by them.

But of late, I know not how, Sir Sam has grown so kind as to send to me for some things he desired out of this garden, and withal made the offer of what was in his, which I had reason to take for a high favour, for he is a nice florist; and since this we are insensibly come to as good degrees of civility for one another as can be expected from people that never meet.

Who those demoiselles should be that were at Heamses I cannot imagine, and I know so few that are concerned in me or my name that I admire you should meet with so many that seem to be acquainted with it.

Sure, if you had liked them you would not have been so sullen, and a less occasion would have served to make you entertain their discourse if they had been handsome.

And yet I know no reason I have to believe that beauty is any argument to make you like people; unless I had more on't myself.

But be it what it will that displeased you, I am glad they did not fright you away before you had the orange-flower water, for it is very good, and I am so sweet with it a days that I despise roses.

When I have given you humble thanks for it, I mean to look over your other letter and take the heads, and to treat of them in order as my time and your patience shall give me leave.

And first for my Sheriff, let me desire you to believe he has more courage than to die upon a denial.

No (thanks be to God!

), none of my servants are given to that; I hear of many every day that do marry, but of none that do worse.

My brother sent me word this week that my fighting servant is married too, and with the news this ballad, which was to be sung in the grave that you dreamt of, I think; but because you tell me I shall not want company then, you may dispose of this piece of poetry as you please when you have sufficiently admired with me where he found it out, for 'tis much older than that of my "Lord of Lorne."

You are altogether in the right that my brother will never be at quiet till he sees me disposed of, but he does not mean to lose me by it; he knows that if I were married at this present, I should not be persuaded to leave my father as long as he lives; and when this house breaks up, he is resolved to follow me if he can, which he thinks he might better do to a house where I had some power than where I am but upon courtesy myself.

Besides that, he thinks it would be to my advantage to be well bestowed, and by that he understands richly.

He is much of your sister's humour, and many times wishes me a husband that loved me as well as he does (though he seems to doubt the possibility on't), but never desires that I should love that husband with any passion, and plainly tells me so.

He says it would not be so well for him, nor perhaps for me, that I should; for he is of opinion that all passions have more of trouble than satisfaction in them, and therefore they are happiest that have least of them.

You think him kind from a letter that you met with of his; sure, there was very little of anything in that, or else I should not have employed it to wrap a book up.

But, seriously, I many times receive letters from him, that were they seen without an address to me or his name, nobody would believe they were from a brother; and I cannot but tell him sometimes that, sure, he mistakes and sends me letters that were meant to his mistress, till he swears to me that he has none.

Next week my persecution begins again; he comes down, and my cousin Molle is already cured of his imaginary dropsy, and means to meet here.

I shall be baited most sweetly, but sure they will not easily make me consent to make my life unhappy to satisfy their importunity.

I was born to be very happy or very miserable, I know not which, but I am very certain that you will never read half this letter 'tis so scribbled; but 'tis no matter, 'tis not much worth it.

Your most faithful friend and servant.

_Letter 16. _--The trial of Lord Chandos for killing Mr. Compton in a duel was, just at this moment, exciting the fickle attention of the town, which had probably said its say on the subject of Cromwell's _coup d'état_, and was only too ready for another subject of conversation.

The trial is not reported among the State Trials, but our observant friend the Earl of Leicester has again taken note of the matter in his journal, and can give us at least his own ideas of the trial and its political and social importance.

Under date May 1653, he writes:--"Towards the end of Easter Term, the Lord Chandos, for killing in duel Mr. Compton the year before," that is to say, in March; the new year begins on March 25th, "and the Lord Arundel of Wardour, one of his seconds, were brought to their trial for their lives at the Upper Bench in Westminster Hall, when it was found manslaughter only, as by a jury at Kingston-upon-Thames it had been found formerly.

The Lords might have had the privilege of peerage (Justice Rolles being Lord Chief Justice), but they declined it by the advice of Mr. Maynard and the rest of their counsel, least by that means the matter might have been brought about again, therefore they went upon the former verdict of manslaughter, and so were acquitted; yet to be burned in the hand, which was done to them both a day or two after, but very favourably."

These were the first peers that had been burned in the hand, and the democratic Earl of Leicester expresses at the event some satisfaction, and derives from the whole circumstances of the trial comfortable assurance of the power and stability of the Government.

The Earl, however, misleads us in one particular.

Lord Arundel was Henry Compton's second.

He had married Cecily Compton, and naturally enough acted as his brother-in-law's second.

It is also interesting to remember that Lord Chandos was known to the world as something other than a duelist.

He was an eminent loyalist, among the first of those nobles who left Westminster, and at Newbury fight had his three horses killed under him.

Lady Carey was Mary, natural daughter of Lord Scrope, who married Henry Carey, commonly called Lord Leppington.

Lady Leppington (or Carey) lost her husband in 1649, and her son died May 24, 1653. This helps us to date the letter.

Of her "kindness to Compton," of which Dorothy writes in her next letter, nothing is known, but she married Charles Paulet, Lord St. John, afterwards the Duke of Bolton, early in 1654. The jealous Sir T---- here mentioned may be Sir Thomas Osborne, who, we may suppose, was not well pleased at the refusal of his offer.

Sir Peter Lely did paint a portrait of Lady Diana Rich some months after this date.

It is somewhat curious that he should remain in England during the Civil Wars; but his business was to paint all men's portraits.

He had painted Charles I. ; now he was painting Cromwell.

It was to him Cromwell is said to have shouted: "Paint the warts!

paint the warts!"

when the courtly Sir Peter would have made a presentable picture even of the Lord General himself.

Cromwell was a sound critic in this, and had detected the main fault of Sir Peter's portraits, whose value to us is greatly lessened by the artist's constant habit of flattery.