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Be pleased, sir, to accept the grateful presentment of my kindest respects, imparting the same to your good wife, and to all my dear relations.

A line from your hand would be welcome to, dearest sir, your sorrowful and truly affectionate nephew,

THE EARL OF ROCHESTER TO HIS WIFE.

MY MOST NEGLECTED WIFE, TILL you are a much respected widow, I find you will scarce be a contented woman; and to say no more than the plain truth, I do endeavour so fairly to do you that last good service, that none but the most impatient would refuse to rest satisfied.

What evil enemy to my repose does inspire my Lady Warr to visit you once a year, and leave you bewitched for eleven months after? I thank any God that I have the torment of the stone upon me (which are no small pains), rather than my unspeakable one of being an eyewitness to your uneasiness. Do but propose to me any reasonable thing upon earth I can do to set you at quiet; but it is like a mad woman to lie roaring out of pain, and never confess in what part it is. These three years have I heard you continually complaining, nor has it ever been in my

These letters are from the pen of that Earl of Rochester who is equally known for his wit and his licentiousness. They are not dated, but the last but one, which refers to the death of the duchess of Orleans, must have been written in 1670.

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THE EARL OF ROCHESTER TO HIS WIFE.

I AM very glad to heare news from you, and I think it very good when I hear you are well; pray be pleased to send me word what you are apt to be pleased with, that I may show you how good a husband I can bee; I would not have you so formall as to judge of the kindness of a letter by the length of it, but believe of every thing that it is as you would have it.

'Tis not an easy thing to bee entirely happy; but to be kind is very easy, and that is the greatest measure of happiness. I say not this to put you in mind of being kind to mee; you have practised that soe long, that I have a joyful confidence you will never forget itt; but to shew that I myself have a sense of what the methods of my life seemed so utterly to contradict, I must not be too wise about my own follyes, or else this letter had bin a book dedicated to you, and published to the world; it will be more pertinent to tell you, that very shortly the king goes to Newmarket, and then I shall wait on you at Adderbury; in the mean time, think of any thing you would have me doe, and I shall thank you for the occasion of pleasing you.

Mr. Morgan I have sent on this errant, because he playes the rogue here in towne so extremely, that he is not to be endured; pray if he behaves himself soe at Adderbury, send me word, and let him stay till I send for him; pray let Ned come up to town, I have a little business with him, and hee shall bee back in a weeke.

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so greatness or virtue, that spark of primitive grace, is in every one alive; and likewise meanness of vice, that seed of original sin, is in a measure also; for if either of them were totally absent, men and women must be imperfect angels, or absolute divills; now from the predominance of either of these qualities in us, we are termed good or bad; but yet as contrarietyes, though they both reside in one body, must they ever be opposite in place; thence I infer, that as heate in the feete makes cold in the head, soe may it bee with probability expected too, that greatness and meanness should be as oppositely seated, and then an heroick head is liker to be ballanced with an humble taile; besides reason, experience has furnished mee with many examples of this kind, my Lady Morton, Nell Villers, and twenty others, whose honour was ever so excessive in their heads, that they suffered a want of it in every other part; thus it comes about, madam, that I have no very 'great estime for a high-spirited lady,-therefore should be glad that none of my friends thought it convenient to adorne their other perfections with that most transcendent accomplishment; it is tolerable only in a waiting gentlewoman, who, to prove herselfe lawfully descended from Sir Humphrey, her great uncle, is allowed the affectation of a high spirit and a naturall inclination towards a gentile converse: that now is a letter; and to make it a kinde one, I must assure you of all the dotage in the world; and then to make it a civil one, down at the bottom, with a greater space

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