n of being in town on Saturday next; but I am uncertain where I
shall be, and therefore it will be best that I send you word when I am
there. I should be glad to see you sooner, but that I do not know myself
what company I may have with me. I meant this letter longer when I begun
it, but an extreme cold that I have taken lies so in my head, and makes
it ache so violently, that I hardly see what I do. I'll e'en to bed as
soon as I have told you that I am very much

Your faithful friend

and servant,

D. OSBORNE.

CHAPTER III

LIFE AT CHICKSANDS. 1653

_Letter 9._--Temple's sister here mentioned was his only sister Martha,
who married Sir Thomas Giffard in 1662, and was left a widow within two
months of her marriage. She afterwards lived with Temple and his wife,
was a great favourite with them, and their confidential friend. Lady
Giffard has left a manuscript life of her brother from which the
historian Courtenay deigned to extract some information, whereby we in
turn have benefited. She outlived both her brother and his wife, to
carry on a warlike encounter with her brother's amanuensis, Mr. Jonathan
Swift, over Temple's literary remains. Esther Johnson, the unfortunate
Stella, was Lady Giffard's maid.

_Cleopatre_ and _Le Grand Cyrus_ appear to have been Dorothy's literary
companions at this date. She would read these in the original French;
and, as she tells us somewhere, had a scorn of translations. Both these
romances were much admired, even by people of taste; a thing difficult
to understand, until we remember that Fielding, the first and greatest
English novelist, was yet unborn, and novels, as we know them,
non-existing. Both the romances found translators; _Cyrus_, in one
mysterious F.G. _Gent_--the translation was published in this year;
_Cleopatre_, in Richard Loveday, an elegant letter-writer of this time.

_Artamenes_, or _Le Grand Cyrus_, the masterpiece of Mademoiselle
Madeleine de Scuderi, is contained in no less than ten volumes, each of
which in its turn has many books; it is, in fact, more a collection of
romances than a single romance. _La Cleopatre_, a similar work, was
originally published in twenty-three volumes of twelve parts, each part
containing three or four books. It is but a collection of short stories.
Its author rejoiced in the romantic title of Gauthier de Costes
Chevalier Seigneur de la Calprenede; he published _Cleopatre_ in 1642;
he was the author of other romances, a