must not be so much a country
gentleman as to understand nothing but hawks and dogs, and be fonder of
either than his wife; nor of the next sort of them whose aim reaches no
further than to be Justice of the Peace, and once in his life High
Sheriff, who reads no book but statutes, and studies nothing but how to
make a speech interlarded with Latin that may amaze his disagreeing poor
neighbours, and fright them rather than persuade them into quietness. He
must not be a thing that began the world in a free school, was sent from
thence to the university, and is at his furthest when he reaches the
Inns of Court, has no acquaintance but those of his form in these
places, speaks the French he has picked out of old laws, and admires
nothing but the stories he has heard of the revels that were kept there
before his time. He must not be a town gallant neither, that lives in a
tavern and an ordinary, that cannot imagine how an hour should be spent
without company unless it be in sleeping, that makes court to all the
women he sees, thinks they believe him, and laughs and is laughed at
equally. Nor a travelled Monsieur whose head is all feather inside and
outside, that can talk of nothing but dances and duets, and has courage
enough to wear slashes when every one else dies with cold to see him. He
must not be a fool of no sort, nor peevish, nor ill-natured, nor proud,
nor covetous; and to all this must be added, that he must love me and I
him as much as we are capable of loving. Without all this, his fortune,
though never so great, would not satisfy me; and with it, a very
moderate one would keep me from ever repenting my disposal.

I have been as large and as particular in my descriptions as my cousin
Molle is in his of Moor Park,--but that you know the place so well I
would send it you,--nothing can come near his patience in writing it,
but my reading on't. Would you had sent me your father's letter, it
would not have been less welcome to me than to you; and you may safely
believe that I am equally concerned with you in anything. I should be
pleased to see something of my Lady Carlisle's writing, because she is
so extraordinary a person. I have been thinking of sending you my
picture till I could come myself; but a picture is but dull company, and
that you need not; besides, I cannot tell whether it be very like me or
not, though 'tis the best I ever had drawn for me, and Mr. Lilly [Lely]
will have it that he never took more pains