Here Macaulay indulges in an eloquent but lengthy philippic against that “vile phrase” the “dignity of history,” which we may omit,—­taking up the thread of his discourse where he recurs to the affairs of our two lovers.  “Thinking thus,”—­concerning the “dignity of history,”—­“we are glad to learn so much, and would willingly learn more about the loves of Sir William and his mistress.  In the seventeenth century, to be sure, Louis the Fourteenth was a much more important person than Temple’s sweetheart.  But death and time equalize all things.  Neither the great King nor the beauty of Bedfordshire, neither the gorgeous paradise of Marli nor Mistress Osborne’s favourite walk ’in the common that lay hard by the house, where a great many young wenches used to keep sheep and cows and sit in the shade singing of ballads,’ is anything to us.  Louis and Dorothy are alike dust.  A cotton-mill stands on the ruins of Marli; and the Osbornes have ceased to dwell under the ancient roof of Chicksands.  But of that information, for the sake of which alone it is worth while to study remote events, we find so much in the love letters which Mr. Courtenay has published, that we would gladly purchase equally interesting billets with ten times their weight in State papers taken at random.  To us surely it is as useful to know how the young ladies of England employed themselves a hundred and eighty years ago, how far their minds were cultivated, what were their favourite studies, what degree of liberty was allowed to them, what use they made of that liberty, what accomplishments they most valued in men, and what proofs of tenderness delicacy permitted them to give to favoured suitors, as to know all about the seizure of Franche-Comte and the Treaty of Nimeguen.  The mutual relations of the two sexes seem to us to be at least as important as the mutual relations of any two Governments in the world; and a series of letters written by a virtuous, amiable, and sensible girl, and intended for the eye of 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