Letter 50.—­Wrest, in Bedfordshire, where Dorothy met her importunate lover, was the seat of Anthony Grey, Earl of Kent.  There is said to be a picture there of Sir William Temple,—­a copy of Lely’s picture.  Wrest Park is only a few miles from Chicksands.

SIR,—­Who would be kind to one that reproaches one so cruelly?  Do you think, in earnest, I could be satisfied the world should think me a dissembler, full of avarice or ambition?  No, you are mistaken; but I’ll tell you what I could suffer, that they should say I married where I had no inclination, because my friends thought it fit, rather than that I had run wilfully to my own ruin in pursuit of a fond passion of my own.  To marry for love were no reproachful thing if we did not see that of the thousand couples that do it, hardly one can be brought for an example that it may be done and not repented afterwards.  Is there anything thought so indiscreet, or that makes one more contemptible?  ’Tis true that I do firmly believe we should be, as you say, toujours les mesmes; but if (as you confess) ’tis that which hardly happens once in two ages, we are not to expect the world should discern we were not like the rest.  I’ll tell you stories another time, you return them so handsomely upon me.  Well, the next servant I tell you of shall not be called a whelp, if ’twere not to give you a stick to beat myself with.  I would confess that I looked upon the impudence of this fellow as a punishment upon me for my over care in avoiding the talk of the world; yet the case is very different, and no woman shall ever be blamed that an inconsolable person pretends to her when she gives no allowance to it, whereas none shall ’scape that owns a passion, though in return of a person much above her.  The little tailor that loved Queen Elizabeth was suffered to talk out, and none of her Council thought it necessary to stop his mouth; but the Queen of Sweden’s kind letter to the King of Scots was intercepted by her own ambassador, because he thought it was not for his mistress’s honour (at least that was his pretended reason), and thought justifiable enough.  But to come to my Beagle again.  I have heard no more of him, though I have seen him since; we met at Wrest again.  I do not doubt but I shall be better able to resist his importunity than his tutor was; but what do you think it is that gives him his encouragement?  He was told I had thought of marrying a gentleman that had not above two hundred pound a year, only out of my liking to his person.  And upon that score his vanity allows him to think he may pretend as far as another.  Thus you see ’tis not altogether without reason that I apprehend the noise of the world, since ’tis so much to my disadvantage.