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 long absence.  It takes us up to March 1653, about the end of which time Dorothy went to London and met Temple again.  The engagement she mentions must have been one that her parents were forcing upon her, and it was not until the London visit, I fancy, that her friendship progressed beyond its original limits; but in this matter the reader of Dorothy’s letters will be as well able to judge as myself.

Letter I.—­Goring House, where Dorothy and Temple had last parted, was in 1646 appointed by the House of Commons for the reception of the French Ambassador.  In 1665 it was the town house of Mr. Secretary Bennet, afterwards Lord Arlington.  Its grounds stood much in the position of the present Arlington Street, and Evelyn speaks of it as an ill-built house, but capable of being made a pretty villa.