The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54 | Page 4

her lover alone, can scarcely
fail to throw some light on the relations of the sexes; whereas it is
perfectly possible, as all who have made any historical researches can
attest, to read bale after bale of despatches and protocols, without
catching one glimpse of light about the relations of Governments.
"Mr. Courtenay proclaims that he is one of Dorothy Osborne's devoted
servants, and expresses a hope that the publication of her letters will
add to the number. We must declare ourselves his rivals. She really
seems to have been a very charming young woman, modest, generous,
affectionate, intelligent, and sprightly; a Royalist, as was to be expected
from her connections, without any of that political asperity which is as
unwomanly as a long beard; religious, and occasionally gliding into a
very pretty and endearing sort of preaching, yet not too good to partake

of such diversions as London afforded under the melancholy rule of the
Puritans, or to giggle a little at a ridiculous sermon from a divine who
was thought to be one of the great lights of the Assembly at
Westminster; with a little turn for coquetry, which was yet perfectly
compatible with warm and disinterested attachment, and a little turn for
satire, which yet seldom passed the bounds of good nature. She loved
reading; but her studies were not those of Queen Elizabeth and Lady
Jane Grey. She read the verses of Cowley and Lord Broghill, French
Memoirs recommended by her lover, and the Travels of Fernando
Mendez Pinto. But her favourite books were those ponderous French
romances which modern readers know chiefly from the pleasant satire
of Charlotte Lennox. She could not, however, help laughing at the vile
English into which they were translated. Her own style is very
agreeable; nor are her letters at all the worse for some passages in
which raillery and tenderness are mixed in a very engaging
namby-pamby.
"When at last the constancy of the lovers had triumphed over all the
obstacles which kinsmen and rivals could oppose to their union, a yet
more serious calamity befell them. Poor Mistress Osborne fell ill of the
small-pox, and, though she escaped with life, lost all her beauty. To this
most severe trial the affection and honour of the lovers of that age was
not unfrequently subjected. Our readers probably remember what Mrs.
Hutchinson tells us of herself. The lofty Cornelia-like spirit of the aged
matron seems to melt into a long forgotten softness when she relates
how her beloved Colonel 'married her as soon as she was able to quit
the chamber, when the priest and all that saw her were affrighted to
look on her. But God,' she adds, with a not ungraceful vanity,
'recompensed his justice and constancy by restoring her as well as
before.' Temple showed on this occasion the same justice and
constancy which did so much honour to Colonel Hutchinson. The date
of the marriage is not exactly known, but Mr. Courtenay supposes it to
have taken place about the end of the year 1654. From this time we lose
sight of Dorothy, and are reduced to form our opinion of the terms on
which she and her husband were from very slight indications which
may easily mislead us."

When an editor is in the pleasant position of being able to retain an
historian of the eminence of Macaulay to write a large portion of his
introduction, it would ill become him to alter and correct his statements
wherever there was a petty inaccuracy; still it is necessary to say, once
for all, that there are occasional errors in the passage,--as where
Macaulay mentions that Chicksands is no longer the property of the
Osbornes,--though happily not one of these errors is in itself important.
To our thinking, too, in the character that he draws of our heroine,
Macaulay hardly appears to be sufficiently aware of the sympathetic
womanly nature of Dorothy, and the dignity of her disposition; so that
he is persuaded to speak of her too constantly from the position of a
man of the world praising with patronizing emphasis the pretty
qualities of a school-girl. But we must remember, that in forming our
estimate of her character, we have an extended series of letters before
us; and from these the reader can draw his own conclusions as to the
accuracy of Macaulay's description, and the importance of Dorothy's
character.
It was this passage from Macaulay that led the Editor to Courtenay's
Appendix, and it was the literary and human charm of the letters
themselves that suggested the idea of stringing them together into a
connected story or sketch of the love affairs of Dorothy Osborne. This
was published in April 1886 in the English Illustrated Magazine, and
happened, by good luck, to fall into the hands