The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54 | Page 9

of his meeting with Dorothy, has been already set down for us
by Macaulay.
Anno Domini sixteen hundred and fifty-three;--let us look round
through historic mist for landmarks, so that we may know our
whereabouts. The narrow streets of Worcester had been but lately
stained by the blood of heaped corpses. Cromwell was meditating an
abolition of the Parliament, and a practical coronation of himself. The
world had ceased to wonder at English democracy giving laws to their
quondam rulers, and the democracy was beginning to be a little tired of
itself, to disbelieve in its own irksome discipline, and to sigh for the
flesh-pots of a modified Presbyterian monarchy. Cromwell, indeed,

was at the height of his glory, his honours lie thick upon him, and now,
if ever, he is the regal Cromwell that Victor Hugo has portrayed, the
uncrowned King of England, trampling under foot that sacred liberty,
the baseless ideal for which so many had fought and bled. He is soon to
be Lord Protector. He is second to none upon earth. England is again at
peace with herself, and takes her position as one of the great Powers of
Europe; Cromwell is England's king. So much for our rulers and
politics. Now let us remember our friends, those whom we love on
account of the work they have done for us and bequeathed to us,
through which we have learned to know them. One of the best beloved
and gentlest of these, who by the satire of heaven was born into
England in these troublous times, was now wandering by brook and
stream, scarcely annoyed by the uproar and confusion of the factions
around him. And what he knew of England in these days he has left in
perhaps the gentlest and most peaceful volume the world has ever read.
I speak of Master Izaak Walton, who in this year, 1653, published the
first edition of his Compleat Angler, and left a comrade for the idle
hours of all future ages. Other friends we have, then living, but none so
intimate or well beloved. Mr. Waller, whom Dorothy may have known,
Mr. Cowley, Sir Peter Lely,--who painted our heroine's portrait,--and
Dr. Jeremy Taylor; very courtly and superior persons are some of these,
and far removed from our world. Milton is too sublime to be called our
friend, but he was Cromwell's friend at this time. Evelyn, too, is already
making notes in his journal at Paris and elsewhere; but little prattling
Pepys has not yet begun diary-making. Other names will come to the
mind of every reader, but many of these are "people we know by
name," as the phrase runs, mere acquaintances,--not friends.
Nevertheless even these leave us some indirect description of their time,
from which we can look back through the mind's eye to this year of
grace 1653, in which Dorothy was living and writing. Yes, if we cannot
actually visualize the past, these letters will at least convince us that the
past did exist, a past not wholly unlike the present; and if we would
realize the significance of it, we have the word of one of our historians,
that there is no lamp by which to study the history of this period that
gives a brighter and more searching light than contemporary letters.
Thus he recommends their study, and we may apply his words to the
letters before us: "A man intent to force for himself some path through

that gloomy chaos called History of the Seventeenth Century, and to
look face to face upon the same, may perhaps try it by this method as
hopefully as by another. Here is an irregular row of beacon fires, once
all luminous as suns; and with a certain inextinguishable crubescence
still, in the abysses of the dead deep Night. Let us look here. In
shadowy outlines, in dimmer and dimmer crowding forms, the very
figure of the old dead Time itself may perhaps be faintly discernible
here."
* * * * *
With this, I feel that I may cast off some of the forms and solemnities
necessary to an editorial introduction, and, assuming a simpler and
more personal pronoun, ask the reader, who shall feel the full charm of
Dorothy's bright wit and tender womanly sympathy, to remember the
thanks due to my fellow-servant, whose patient, single-hearted toil has
placed these letters within our reach. And when the reader shall close
this volume, let it not be without a feeling of gratitude to the unknown,
whose modesty alone prevents me from changing the title of
fellow-servant to that of fellow-editor.
CHAPTER II
EARLY LETTERS. WINTER AND SPRING 1652-53
This first chapter begins with a long letter, dated from Chicksands
some time in the autumn of 1652, when Temple has returned to
England after a