rom the number of letters contained in
it and the contents of the letters themselves, is that entitled "Life at
Chicksands, 1653." The Editor regards this group as the very mainland of
the epistolary archipelago that we are exploring. For it is in this
chapter that a clear idea of the domestic social life of these troublous
times is obtainable, none the less valuable in that it does not tally
altogether with our preconceived and too romantic notions. Here, too, we
find what Macaulay longed for--those social domestic trivialities which
the historians have at length begun to value rightly. Here are, indeed,
many things of no value to Dryasdust and his friends, but of moment to
us, who look for and find true details of life and character in nearly
every line. And above all things, here is a living presentment of a
beautiful woman, pure in dissolute days, passing quiet hours of domestic
life amongst her own family, where we may all visit her and hear her
voice, even in the very tones in which she spoke to her lover.

And now the Editor feels he must augment Macaulay's sketch of Dorothy
Osborne with some account of the Osborne family, of whom it consisted,
what part it took in the struggle of the day, and what was the past
position of Dorothy's ancestors. All that can be promised is, that such
account shall be as concise as may be consistent with clearness and
accuracy, and that it shall contain nothing but ascertained facts.

There were Osbornes--before there were Osbornes of Chicksands--who,
coming out of the north, settled at Purleigh in Essex, where we find
them in the year 1442. From this date, passing lightly over a hundred
troubled years, we find Peter Osborne, Dorothy's great-grandfather, born
in 1521. He was Keeper of the Purse to Edward VI., and was twice
married, his second wife being Alice, sister of Sir John Cheke, a family
we read of in Dorothy's letters. One of his daughters, named
Catharine,--he had a well-balanced family of eleven sons and eleven
daughters,--afterwards married Sir Thomas Cheke. Peter Osborne died in
1592; and Sir John Osborne, Peter's son and Dorothy's grandfather, was
the first Osborne of Chicksands. It was he who settled at Chicksands, in
Bedfordshire, and purchased the neighbouring rectory at Hawnes, to
restore it to that Church of which he and his family were in truth
militant members; and having generously built and furnished a parsonage
house, he presented it in the first place to the