r faculty nor relish for those tedious tenders of
service and affection; I believe little in them from others, and I should
not forgive myself should I say to others more than I myself believe.
'Tis, doubtless, very remote from the present practice; for there never
was so abject and servile prostitution of offers: life, soul, devotion,
adoration, vassal, slave, and I cannot tell what, as now; all which
expressions are so commonly and so indifferently posted to and fro by
every one and to every one, that when they would profess a greater and
more respectful inclination upon more just occasions, they have not
wherewithal to express it. I mortally hate all air of flattery, which is
the cause that I naturally fall into a shy, rough, and crude way of
speaking, that, to such as do not know me, may seem a little to relish of
disdain. I honour those most to whom I show the least honour, and where
my soul moves with the greatest cheerfulness, I easily forget the
ceremonies of look and gesture, and offer myself faintly and bluntly to
them to whom I am the most devoted: methinks they should read it in my
heart, and that the expression of my words does but injure the love I
have conceived within. To welcome, take leave, give thanks, accost,
offer my service, and such verbal formalities as the ceremonious laws of
our modern civility enjoin, I know no man so stupidly unprovided of
language as myself; and I have never been employed in writing letters of
favour and recommendation, that he, in whose behalf it was written, did
not think my mediation cold and imperfect. The Italians are great
printers of letters; I do believe I have at least an hundred several
volumes of them; of all which those of Annibale Caro seem to me to be the
best. If all the paper I have scribbled to the ladies at the time when
my hand was really prompted by my passion, were now in being, there
might, peradventure, be found a page worthy to be communicated to our
young inamoratos, that are besotted with that fury. I always write my
letters post-haste--so precipitately, that though I write intolerably
ill, I rather choose to do it myself, than to employ another; for I can
find none able to follow me: and I never transcribe any. I have
accustomed the great ones who know me to endure my blots and dashes, and
upon paper without fold or margin. Those that cost me the most pains,
are the worst; when I once begin to draw it in by head and shoulders,
'tis a sign tha