e is said to have been
handsome; and there remains abundant proof that she possessed an ample
share of the dexterity, the vivacity, and the tenderness of her sex.
Temple soon became, in the phrase of that time, her servant, and she
returned his regard. But difficulties, as great as ever expanded a novel
to the fifth volume, opposed their wishes. When the courtship commenced,
the father of the hero was sitting in the Long Parliament; the father of
the heroine was commanding in Guernsey for King Charles. Even when the
war ended, and Sir Peter Osborne returned to his seat at Chicksands, the
prospects of the lovers were scarcely less gloomy. Sir John Temple had a
more advantageous alliance in view for his son. Dorothy Osborne was in
the meantime besieged by as many suitors as were drawn to Belmont by the
fame of Portia. The most distinguished on the list was Henry Cromwell.
Destitute of the capacity, the energy, the magnanimity of his
illustrious father, destitute also of the meek and placid virtues of his
elder brother, this young man was perhaps a more formidable rival in
love than either of them would have been. Mrs. Hutchinson, speaking the
sentiments of the grave and aged, describes him as an 'insolent foole,'
and a 'debauched ungodly cavalier.' These expressions probably mean that
he was one who, among young and dissipated people, would pass for a fine
gentleman. Dorothy was fond of dogs, of larger and more formidable breed
than those which lie on modern hearthrugs; and Henry Cromwell promised
that the highest functionaries at Dublin should be set to work to
procure her a fine Irish greyhound. She seems to have felt his
attentions as very flattering, though his father was then only Lord
General, and not yet Protector. Love, however, triumphed over ambition,
and the young lady appears never to have regretted her decision; though,
in a letter written just at the time when all England was ringing with
the news of the violent dissolution of the Long Parliament, she could
not refrain from reminding Temple with pardonable vanity, 'how great she
might have been, if she had been so wise as to have taken hold of the
offer of H.C.'

"Nor was it only the influence of rivals that Temple had to dread. The
relations of his mistress regarded him with personal dislike, and spoke
of him as an unprincipled adventurer, without honour or religion, ready
to render service to any party for the sake of preferment. This is,
indeed, a very di