her reason for it. But I
hope 'tis not so ill as she would have me believe it, though I know your
humour is strangely altered from what it was, and am sorry to see it.
Melancholy must needs do you more hurt than to another to whom it may be
natural, as I think it is to me; therefore if you loved me you would
take heed on't. Can you believe that you are dearer to me than the whole
world beside, and yet neglect yourself? If you do not, you wrong a
perfect friendship; and if you do, you must consider my interest in you,
and preserve yourself to make me happy. Promise me this, or I shall
haunt you worse than she does me. Scribble how you please, so you make
your letter long enough; you see I give you good example; besides, I can
assure you we do perfectly agree if you receive not satisfaction but
from my letters, I have none but what yours give me.

_Letter 39._--Dorothy has been in London since her last letter, but
unfortunately she has either not met with Temple, or he has left town
suddenly whilst she was there, on some unexplained errand. This would
therefore seem a natural place to begin a new chapter; but as we have
very shortly to come to a series of unhappy letters, quite distinct in
their character from these, I have thought fit to place in this long
chapter yet a few more letters after Dorothy's autumn visit to London.

Stephen Marshall was, like Hugh Peters, one of those preachers who was
able to exchange the obscurity of a country parish for the public fame
of a London pulpit, by reason of a certain gift of rhetorical power,
the value of which it is impossible to estimate to-day. Such of his
sermons as are still extant are prosy, long-winded, dogmatic
absurdities, overloaded with periphrastic illustrations in scriptural
language. They are meaningless to a degree, which would make one wonder
at the docility and patience of a seventeenth century congregation, if
one had not witnessed a similar spirit in congregations of to-day.

There is no honest biography of Stephen Marshall. In the news-books and
tracts of the day we find references to sermons preached by him, by
command, before the Army of the Parliament, and we have reprints of some
of these. I have searched in vain to find the sermon which Dorothy
heard, but it was probably not a sermon given on any great occasion, and
we may believe it was never printed. There is an amusing scandalous
tract, called the _Life and Death of Stephen Marshall_, which is so fu