country air clearing away the mist of
time and enabling one to see Dorothy at Chicksands quite clearly. It is
fashionable to deny Macaulay everything but memory; but he had the good
taste and discernment to admire this letter, and quote from it in his
Essay on Sir William Temple,--a quotation for which I shall always
remain very grateful to him.

Sir Thomas Peyton, "Brother Peyton," was born in 1619, being, I believe,
the second baronet of that name; his seat was at Knowlton, in the county
of Kent. Early in the reign of Charles I. we find him as Member of
Parliament for Sandwich, figuring in a Committee side by side with the
two Sir Harry Vanes; the Committee having been sent into Kent to prevent
the dispersal of rumours to the scandal of Parliament,--no light task,
one would think. In 1643 he is in prison, charged among other things
with being a malignant. An unjust charge, as he thinks; for he writes to
his brother, "If to wish on earth peace, goodwill towards men, be a
malignant, none is greater than your affectionate brother, Thomas
Peyton." But in spite of these peaceful thoughts in prison, in May 1648
he is heading a loyalist rising in Kent. The other counties not joining
in at the right moment, in accordance with the general procedure at
Royalist risings, it is defeated by Fairfax. Sir Thomas's house is
ransacked, he himself is taken prisoner near Bury St. Edmunds, brought
to the House of Commons, and committed to the Tower. A right worthy
son-in-law of good Sir Peter. We are glad to find him at large again in
1653, his head safe on his shoulders, and do not grudge him his grant of
duties on sea-coal, dated 1660; nor are we sorry that he should once
again grace the House of Commons with his presence as one of the members
for loyal Kent in the good days when the King enjoyed his own again.

SIR,--I have been reckoning up how many faults you lay to my charge in
your last letter, and I find I am severe, unjust, unmerciful, and
unkind. Oh me, how should one do to mend all these! 'Tis work for an
age, and 'tis to be feared I shall be so old before I am good, that
'twill not be considerable to anybody but myself whether I am so or not.
I say nothing of the pretty humour you fancied me in, in your dream,
because 'twas but a dream. Sure, if it had been anything else, I should
have remembered that my Lord L. loves to have his chamber and his bed to
himself. But seriously, now, I wonder at your patience. How could you