day or two after, but very favourably.”  These were the first peers that had been burned in the hand, and the democratic Earl of Leicester expresses at the event some satisfaction, and derives from the whole circumstances of the trial comfortable assurance of the power and stability of the Government.  The Earl, however, misleads us in one particular.  Lord Arundel was Henry Compton’s second.  He had married Cecily Compton, and naturally enough acted as his brother-in-law’s second.  It is also interesting to remember that Lord Chandos was known to the world as something other than a duelist.  He was an eminent loyalist, among the first of those nobles who left Westminster, and at Newbury fight had his three horses killed under him.  Lady Carey was Mary, natural daughter of Lord Scrope, who married Henry Carey, commonly called Lord Leppington.  Lady Leppington (or Carey) lost her husband in 1649, and her son died May 24, 1653.  This helps us to date the letter.  Of her “kindness to Compton,” of which Dorothy writes in her next letter, nothing is known, but she married Charles Paulet, Lord St. John, afterwards the Duke of Bolton, early in 1654.

The jealous Sir T——­ here mentioned may be Sir Thomas Osborne, who, we may suppose, was not well pleased at the refusal of his offer.

Sir Peter Lely did paint a portrait of Lady Diana Rich some months after this date.  It is somewhat curious that he should remain in England during the Civil Wars; but his business was to paint all men’s portraits.  He had painted Charles I.; now he was painting Cromwell.  It was to him Cromwell is said to have shouted:  “Paint the warts! paint the warts!” when the courtly Sir Peter would have made a presentable picture even of the Lord General himself.  Cromwell was a sound critic in this, and had detected the main fault of Sir Peter’s portraits, whose value to us is greatly lessened by the artist’s constant habit of flattery.

SIR,—­If it were the carrier’s fault that you stayed so long for your letters, you are revenged, for I have chid him most unreasonably.  But I must confess ’twas not for that, for I did not know it then, but going to meet him (as I usually do), when he gave me your letter I found the upper seal broken open, and underneath where it uses to be only closed with a little wax, there was a seal, which though it were an anchor and a heart, methought it did not look like yours, but less, and much worse cut.  This suspicion was so strong upon me, that I chid till the poor fellow was ready to cry, and swore to me that it had never been touched since he had it, and that he was careful of it, as he never put it with his other letters, but by itself, and that now it come amongst his money, which perhaps might break the seal; and lest I should think it was his curiosity, he told me very ingenuously he could not read, and so we parted for the present.  But since, he has been with a neighbour of mine whom he sometimes delivers my letters to, and begged her that