lue than life itself.
Yet let me tell you soberly, that with all my vanity I could be very
well contented nobody should blame me or any action of mine, to quit all
my part of the praises and admiration of the world; and if I might be
allowed to choose, my happiest part of it should consist in concealment,
there should not be above two persons in the world know that there was
such a one in it as your faithful.

Stay! I have not done yet. Here's another good side, I find; here, then,
I'll tell you that I am not angry for all this. No, I allow it to your
ill-humour, and that to the crosses that have been common to us; but now
that is cleared up, I should expect you should say finer things to me.
Yet take heed of being like my neighbour's servant, he is so transported
to find no rubs in his way that he knows not whether he stands on his
head or his feet. 'Tis the most troublesome, busy talking little thing
that ever was born; his tongue goes like the clack of a mill, but to
much less purpose, though if it were all oracle, my head would ache to
hear that perpetual noise. I admire at her patience and her resolution
that can laugh at his fooleries and love his fortune. You would wonder
to see how tired she is with his impertinences, and yet how pleased to
think she shall have a great estate with him. But this is the world, and
she makes a part of it betimes. Two or three great glistening jewels
have bribed her to wink at all his faults, and she hears him as unmoved
and unconcerned as if another were to marry him.

What think you, have I not done fair for once, would you wish a longer
letter? See how kind I grow at parting; who would not go into Ireland to
have such another? In earnest now, go as soon as you can, 'twill be the
better, I think, who am your faithful friend.

_Letter 50._--Wrest, in Bedfordshire, where Dorothy met her importunate
lover, was the seat of Anthony Grey, Earl of Kent. There is said to be a
picture there of Sir William Temple,--a copy of Lely's picture. Wrest
Park is only a few miles from Chicksands.

SIR,--Who would be kind to one that reproaches one so cruelly? Do you
think, in earnest, I could be satisfied the world should think me a
dissembler, full of avarice or ambition? No, you are mistaken; but I'll
tell you what I could suffer, that they should say I married where I had
no inclination, because my friends thought it fit, rather than that I
had run wilfully to my own ruin in pursuit of a f