An Audience of One: Dorothy Osborne's Letters to Sir William Temple, 1652-1654 9781442670778

Table of contents :
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Dorothy Osborne's Letters
1. Dorothy Osborne's Courtship
2. An Audience of One: Dorothy Osborne as a Letter Writer
3. Shared Privacies: Reading in the Osborne-Temple Courtship
4. Imagining the Couple: Triangularity and Surveillance
5. 'Dearer to mee than the whole world besy'ds': Illness and Emotional Attachment in Osborne's Letters
Afterword: A 'Round and Populous' World
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

AN AUDIENCE OF ONE: DOROTHY OSBORNE'S LETTERS TO SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE, 1652-1654

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An Audience of One Dorothy Osborne's Letters to

Sir William Temple, 1652-1654

Carrie Hintz

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS Toronto Buffalo London

www.utppublishing.com © University of Toronto Press Incorporated 2005 Toronto Buffalo London Printed in Canada ISBN-13: 978-0-8020-8833-8 ISBN-10: 0-8020-8833-3

Printed on acid-free paper

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Osborne, Dorothy, 1627-1695. An audience of one : Dorothy Osborne's letters to Sir William Temple, 1652-54 / Carrie Hintz. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8020-8833-3 1. Osborne, Dorothy, 1627-1695 - Correspondence. 2. Temple, William, Sir, 1628-1699 - Correspondence. 3. Great Britain - Social life and customs 17th century - Sources. I. Temple, William, Sir, 1628-1699. II. Hintz, Carrie, 1970- III. Title. DA429.T2A2

2005

941.06'3'092

C2005-900396-0

University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial support for its publishing activities of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP).

Contents

Acknowledgments vii

Introduction: Dorothy Osborne's Letters 3 1 Dorothy Osborne's Courtship 19 2 An Audience of One: Dorothy Osborne as a Letter Writer 41 3 Shared Privacies: Reading in the Osborne-Temple Courtship 64 4 Imagining the Couple: Triangularity and Surveillance 87 5 'Dearer to mee than the whole world besy'ds': Illness and Emotional Attachment in Osborne's Letters 131 Afterword: A 'Round and Populous' World 155 Notes

159

Bibliography Index

197

179

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Acknowledgments

Brian Gorman encouraged this project from the beginning, and I really cannot thank him adequately. He was generous with his time and knowledge and offered terrific advice on many knotty issues. I remain grateful for his mentorship and advice. I would also like to thank Martine Watson Brownley for her careful attention to the first draft of this book, and her insights about future work on Osborne. Mary Nyquist helped at many key moments, and I would like to express my gratitude for her comments and suggestions. I thank Anna Battigelli for her remarkably astute, collegial, and helpful reading of a late draft, and for really challenging me to bring out the narrative of Osborne's life and writing. A thousand thanks to Suzanne Rancourt for her advice, support, and faith in the project, and to Barb Porter and Miriam Skey as well. My colleagues at Queens College/CUNY have been unfailingly wonderful, and in particular I would like to thank my chair Nancy Comley for her peerless support throughout the entire revision process. I would also like to thank Duncan Faherty, John Weir, Barbara Bowen, Nicole Cooley, Talia Schaffer, Amy Tucker, Janice Peritz, Alex Cvejic, John Carillo, Hugh English, Rich McCoy, David Richter, David Kazanjian, Steve Kruger, and Glenn Burger. Special thanks to Marjory Semelmaker. Freida Schulein was a meticulous and imaginative reader of the manuscript. Peter Hamilton is the best New Yorker that has ever walked the halls of the Met Museum. For his countless acts of kindness, many thanks. Elaine Ostry and Sarah Winters were delightful room-mates, and now eternal friends - thank you, Elaine and Sarah, for living with both me and Dorothy Osborne, who paid no rent but took up lots of space. Susan Lamb shared her knowledge (and her power cord) with me when I needed them the most. Thanks to Maggie Kilgour, who nurtured my early interest in seventeenth-century literature.

viii

Acknowledgments

Many individuals in England supported me in this work. I appreciate Kenneth Parker's advice through e-mail and his useful edition of the letters. His hospitality in the summer of 2000 is much appreciated. I am indebted to Frances Harris for bringing my attention to various materials at the British Library. I would also like to thank the island archivist of Guernsey, Hugh Lenfesty, for allowing me access to the original copies of Peter Osborne's correspondence, and for allowing me to search through the Greffe for additional materials. Major and Mrs Jean Wilkinson allowed me to spend a wonderful day at Chicksands Priory, which enabled me not only to see the place where Osborne's letters were written but to meet two very kindred spirits. The new commander at Chicksands, Brigadier Chris Holtom, has proved equally generous, and I thank him for his hospitality during my visit in the summer of 2000. Martine and Robert Frost of the Campana Finishing School gave me an extraordinary tour of Moor Park, and gave me access to their files about the history of the estate and building. Sir Richard Osborn and Sarah Sauders-Davies, Osborne's direct descendents, have been generous and supportive in every possible way, and I thank them. I am extremely grateful to the anonymous reviewers at the University of Toronto Press for their astute reports and constructive suggestions. Several agencies and libraries supported this work financially. I would like to thank the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for a doctoral fellowship from 1993-7, and the Alberta Heritage Trust Find for their two-year Sir James Lougheed Award of Distinction. The Theodora Bosanquet Travel Bursary for research in women's studies paid for accommodation in England for one month, and the Associates of the University of Toronto Travel Grant funded two weeks at the Houghton Library in the spring of 1997. Two short-term fellowships allowed me to get some California sun into the manuscript. I would like to thank the Huntington Library for a one-month fellowship to use their collection in January 2002.1 am grateful for the accomplished and kind librarians and staff. The William Andrews Clark Memorial Library gave me a home for two months in the summer of 2003, and I thank Bruce Whiteman, Suzanne Tatian, and Jennifer Schaffner for their savvy help with the collections and their fantastic spirit. I would like to warmly thank the Research Foundation of CUNY for three PSC-CUNY Research Awards, which provided much-needed travel and salary support for this project. My thanks to everyone who helped with the administration of these awards. An earlier draft of a portion of chapter 4 appeared as 'All People

Acknowledgments

ix

Seen and Known: Dorothy Osborne, Privacy, and Seventeeenth-Century Courtship,' Dalhousie Review 78.3 (autumn 1998): 365-83. This material is reprinted here with permission. Quotations from Osborne's letters are taken from Kenneth Parker's 2002 Ashgate edition, and are reproduced with Ashgate's permission. I owe my parents, Art and Carol Hintz, more than I could ever express for their support during the writing of this book, and long before.

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AN AUDIENCE OF ONE

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Introduction

Dorothy Osborne's Letters

Dorothy Osborne is known less for her brilliant letters than for condemning her prolific contemporary Margaret Cavendish for seeking print publication. In a scathing aside to William Temple, her future husband, Osborne remarked of Cavendish: 'Sure the poore woman is a litle distracted she could never bee soe rediculous else as to venture at writeing book's and in verse too, If I should not sleep this fortnight I should not come to that.'1 Osborne noted elsewhere that she was 'sattisfyed that there are many soberer People in Bedlam ... her friends are much to blame to let her goe abroade' (94). Cast within the study of seventeenthcentury women writers as the conservative counterpart to the daring polymath Cavendish, Osborne has been viewed by feminist scholars primarily as the voice of repression and of scorn. Her judgment of Cavendish has seemed at best shrewish and at worst evidence of Osborne's complicity with the strictures against women's public expression.2 Critics have dwelled on her unwillingness to seek print publication. Yet to know Osborne only for her wariness of print overlooks the richness of the seventy-seven letters still in existence and their revelation of the struggles of a couple who wished to marry against the wishes of their respective families. The letters capture a seventeenth-century woman's lively dialogue with her future husband, and her strategic response to the constraints of her family and her culture. As private documents, Osborne's letters reveal a great deal about courtship at a moment when the ideology of heterosexual companionate marriage (whatever the reality) was, in the words of Jeffrey Masten, being 'naturalized.'3 Osborne's family opposed her marriage to Temple, and controlled all aspects of her life, placing her under surveillance, trying to orchestrate a more financially advantageous marriage, and even subjecting her to

4 An Audience of One

uncomfortable cures for her various illnesses. Denied personal and marital autonomy, Osborne crafted her correspondence as a space where she and Temple could interact freely and in a variety of ways. Osborne used the correspondence to persuade Temple of the validity and urgency of her own hopes for their marital partnership and actively engaged him in discussion, debate, and speculation about their shared future. Many examinations of seventeenth-century women writers have concentrated on women working towards literary fame or the establishment of some kind of literary career, and the exploration of such published works has been of importance for feminist advancement. Ever since Virginia Woolf called for more attention to the female tradition, urging women writers to lay flowers at the grave of Aphra Behn,4 the rediscovery and analysis of early modern women writers who worked towards print publication has been crucial. Interest in women's private writing has also increased, including genres like spiritual diaries, advice books from mothers to their children, and love poetry in manuscript, some of it addressed to women. Boundaries between public and private expression have been continuously changed and redrawn. Critics such as Margaret Ezell have revealed that manuscript circulation was as important as print culture in disseminating text.6 The study of life writing, formerly limited to autobiography and other retrospectively crafted works, now includes letters as a genre.7 Dorothy Osborne's letters, however, have not received the comprehensive treatment warranted by her historical and literary position as a writer of significant talent writing private letters during a time of political and personal upheaval.8 In many ways, Osborne's comparative obscurity is surprising. Many other seventeenth-century women writers were virtually unknown but there has always been information available about Osborne's life, due to her marriage with William Temple, a prominent diplomat. This is not to say that Osborne has not played a role in the study of women writers in the seventeenth century. However, her reputation has been conditioned by a reception in the nineteenth century that sought to paint her in cloyingly idealized terms. Being the darling of Victorian and Edwardian critics and reviewers has not served Osborne well, trapping her in a dichotomy that opposes the brilliant and outre Cavendish and the decorous Osborne. Yet as James Fitzmaurice notes: 'Osborne is not so different from Cavendish in espousing spontaneity in composition on those occasions when it suited her purposes and in her willingness to characterize herself in different

Introduction: Dorothy Osborne's Letters 5

ways at different times.'9 Just because Osborne was involved primarily in the creation of private, intimate forms of communication does not mean that she was incapable of interacting with the wider culture and commenting on it. In fact, her private letters reveal her to be as outspoken as Cavendish. In Osborne we have a writer who would have been alarmed at the public dissemination of her letters, and whose missives were treasured as a family heirloom until they came to light in the nineteenth century.10 She sought to create private imaginative havens for herself and William Temple when - in the midst of a taxing courtship where it was nearly impossible to meet and talk - such havens were otherwise unavailable. She was adept at shaping and expressing her thoughts in the intimate medium of the letter, reflecting on everything from the state of the nation to the nature of an ideal marriage. The letters both shaped her relationship with Temple and responded to the vicissitudes of the courtship negotiations. The letters in existence cover a two-year span from 1652 to 1654, although the courtship as a whole lasted nine years. Temple's side of the correspondence has been lost. Both families opposed their marriage, although not for the political reasons that some writers have claimed. Each family included both royalists and parliamentarians, and Osborne was even allowed to entertain a suit from Henry Cromwell, son of Oliver Cromwell. The objections of the families were motivated entirely by financial concerns. The Osbornes and Temples were, as Kenneth Parker aptly points out, 'actively looking for a marriage that would help to solve their liquidity problems.'11 Sir John Temple required a dowry that was significantly higher than what the Osbornes were willing - and indeed able - to provide. Martha Giffard, Temple's sister, noted in a biographical sketch of her brother that the couple sought to marry 'against the consent of most of her friends, & dissatisfaction of some of his, it haveing occasion'd his refusall of a very great fortune when his Famely was most in want of it, as she had done of many considerable offers of great Estates & Famelies.'12 Though Osborne fiercely criticized marriage undertaken for purely mercenary reasons, she repeatedly expressed a desire not to act in a rash and impetuous manner or marry for passion without regard to social standing. Given the many constraints on an individual who wished to marry, Osborne was aware that marrying according to one's desires was nearly impossible: 'I can give noe reason why (Almost,) all are denyed the sattisfaction of disposeing themselves to theire owne desyr's,

6 An Audience of One

but that it is a happinesse too great for this world ...' (98). Osborne had to master a delicately calibrated set of social, economic, and emotional demands. She did not scorn the requirements of her social class as a member of the gentry yet it took a great deal of energy to balance those strictures with her wish to marry William Temple. Osborne summarized the constraints of her class in the following passage: 'I would not bee thought soe inconsiderat a person as not [to] remember that it is Expected from all people that have sence that they should act with reason [,] that to all persons some proportion of fortune is necessary according to theire severall qualitys' (213). Given her challenging situation, she noted that she would prefer that they should say I marryed where I had noe inclination, because my friends thought it fitt rather then that I had run willfully to my owne Ruine in a persuit of a fond passion of my owne. To marry for Love were noe reproachful thing if wee did not see that of ten thousand couples that doe it, hardly one can be brought for an Example that it may bee done & not repented afterwards. (174)

Since Osborne had to manoeuvre the obstacle course of social judgment and family obligation, she could not simply follow her volition. This book will explore the constraints Osborne faced - among them surveillance, the oppression of intense family bonds, and illness - and consider how she engaged Temple in a shared fight against the problems they faced while posing solutions of her own. The letters were Osborne's means of controlling the courtship, using the safe and informal space of the letter to experiment with ideas and stances. Dorothy Osborne's Victorian Suitors William Temple's sister, Martha Giffard, was aware of the vivacity and skill of Osborne's letters, and described them in her 1690 Life of William Temple as worthy of preservation in a 'Volum' of their own: though I cannot venter of it my selfe, I have often wish'd the [y] might bee printed, for to say nothing of his writeing, wch the world has since bin made judge off, I never saw any thing more extraordinary then hers.13

Martha Giffard, the only seventeenth-century reader other than Temple who appreciated the letters, thought of them as a book, one that mir-

Introduction: Dorothy Osborne's Letters 7

rored the achievement of Temple in his published correspondence. There are no other responses to the letters on record until the nineteenth century. Osborne's letters lay in a cabinet for two centuries before anyone outside the Osborne family circle read them. Osborne's letters were first brought into circulation when Thomas Peregrine Courtenay was researching his magisterial biography of William Temple - and thus Osborne was introduced to the world largely as a footnote to Temple's diplomatic and literary achievements. Amidst apologies for presenting what he described as documents of purely private significance, Courtenay published forty-two of Osborne's extant seventy-seven letters in the bulky appendices to his 1836 biography. The letters were heavily edited and printed in modern spelling.14 These excerpts became the catalyst for Thomas Babington Macaulay's laudatory remarks on Osborne,15 which caused the letters to be printed in full form in 1888, after which they achieved something akin to cult status. Macaulay's review bristled with fierce polemical authority and had a profound influence on the reception of both Osborne and Temple.16 There were other reviews of Courtenay's biography,17 but Macaulay's focus on Osborne's text was unique among early reviewers who tended to focus on the courtship but not on the letters. Courtenay had linked Temple's monarchism during the English Civil War to the Toryism of the Victorian period. Instead of refuting this vision, Macaulay focused on Temple's character, which he portrayed as opportunistic and cowardly: 'He avoided the great offices of State with a caution almost pusillanimous, and confined himself to quiet and secluded departments of public business, in which he could enjoy moderate but certain advantages without incurring envy.'18 Macaulay's Temple was a man devoted only to his own survival. Macaulay, however, paused in his critical appraisal of Temple's political career (and specifically his retreat from public life in the 1670s) to dwell on Temple's romance and correspondence with Dorothy Osborne. In contrast to William Temple (a man 'not to our taste'), the Osborne of the letters was 'charming ... modest, generous, affectionate, intelligent and sprightly.'19 The letters offered 'abundant proof that she possessed an ample share of the dexterity, the vivacity, and the tenderness of her sex.'20 Macaulay admitted that his positive reaction to Osborne's letters was derived partially from the experience of reading her prose side by side with the grinding political documents Courtenay included in the long biography of Temple. 'We would gladly purchase equally interesting billets with ten times their weight in state-papers taken at random,' he

8 An Audience of One

declared.21 In the midst of a hostile essay navigating through political and historical matters, Macaulay and the readers of the Edinburgh Review relaxed in Osborne's sympathetic presence. Though a 'royalist,' as 'was to be expected from her connexions,' she possessed none of that 'political asperity which is as unwomanly as a long beard.'22 She was neither a passionate political animal nor insightful about political matters. Evidence of Osborne's 'political asperity' was in fact readily available in Courtenay's biography, and Macaulay was aware of the story of Osborne and Temple's first encounter on the Isle of Wight reported in Martha Giffard's brief life of Temple. Charles I was imprisoned on the Isle of Wight under Colonel Hammond, and Osborne's brother protested this fact by inscribing an antiparliamentarian slogan on the windows of the house where they were staying. The entire company was arrested. Dorothy Osborne, 'trusting to the tenderness which, even in those troubled times, scarcely any gentleman of any party ever failed to show where a woman was concerned,'23 claimed that she had written the slogan herself, whereupon the party was set at liberty. If this event did take place, Osborne's act was undoubtedly a political one, demonstrating the quicksilver apprehension and will to self-preservation Macaulay had found so objectionable in Temple. In Macaulay's view, Temple wished to avoid blame or unpleasantness whereas Osborne was willing to accept even undeserved blame. For Macaulay, the attractive element about the lie was Osborne's womanly — almost quaint — expression of family feeling and her immunity to the law. However, despite different motivations for their political actions, both Temple's political manoeuvres in 1670s and Osborne's earlier fib about her culpability were attempts to survive and thrive in troubled political times. Macaulay valued Osborne's letters for their contribution to the history of the family and of courtship: '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.'24 Yet while defending the study of personal history (and, by extension, women's history), a note of condescension crept into Macaulay's writing. Although this defence of the history of private life expanded the scope of historical concern, it resonates oddly in an essay dedicated to chastising Temple for his weakness of character in political matters, his escapist impulses, and suspicious slickness in negotiating the murky world of Restoration politics. In making such a wide distinction between women's history and 'real' history while emphasizing Osborne's lack of 'asperity,' Macaulay deprived Osborne of much of her historical significance.

Introduction: Dorothy Osborne's Letters 9

Dorothy Osborne was in fact the recipient of the highest gallantry, expressed in the language of courtship. When he reprinted some of Osborne's letters, Courtenay had proclaimed himself her 'servant.' Macaulay took a deep, stately bow of his own: '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.'25 Absurdly, the scholarly struggle devolved into a mock-contest for the affections of a long-dead female author, couched in the rhetorical stance of chivalry. Some fifty years after Macaulay's 1836 essay, Edward Abbott Parry produced a full edition of the letters, having described himself in The English Illustrated Magazine as one of the 'brother servants of Dorothy.'26 For all of his fraternal association with male appreciators of Osborne (as a 'brother suitor'), Parry struggled to establish his superiority as a critic and objected to Macaulay's condescension: 'Macaulay ... is persuaded to speak of her too constantly from the position of a man of the world praising with patronizing emphasis the pretty qualities of a schoolgirl.'27 However, Parry himself remained within masculinist paradigms when he described Osborne as a 'beautiful woman, pure in dissolute days, passing quiet hours of domestic life amongst her own family.'28 Parry implied that his edition made reading akin to actual conversation: 'We may all visit her and hear her voice, even in the very tones in which she spoke to her lover.'29 Parry stagily described himself as 'a menial, drawing aside with difficulty, the heavy, dusty curtain of intervening ages which has veiled from human eyes the beautiful figure of Dorothy Osborne.' The contemplation of a seventeenth-century female author became an opportunity for nineteenth-century male voyeurism.31 All three male essayists and editors romanticized and metaphorically 'courted' Osborne. The two women who were clearly involved in Osborne's reception Sara Rose Longe and Charlotte Dempster - sometimes objected to her portrayal by male critics and editors but also supported the endeavours of figures like Macaulay and Parry. Sara Rose Longe, the daughter-in-law of one of Osborne's descendants, transcribed Osborne's letters. This transcription was the sole basis of Parry's 1888 edition since Mr Longe would not allow the manuscript letters out of the family's sight. Longe did not want Parry to edit Osborne's letters at first, since she was emotionally attached to them and had completed significant editorial work: 'When I had copied the letters I spared no trouble to learn all I could ... I never speak of them to the Longes, and even my husband has never entered

10 An Audience of One

into the intense pleasure they are to me.'32 However, Longe decided to hand over twenty years of her work when she read Parry's effusive portrait of Osborne in the English Illustrated Magazine. When the edition was published in 1888, Longe received no explicit credit although Parry acknowledged the 'patient, single-hearted toil' of 'my fellow-servant ... the unknown, whose modesty alone prevents me from changing the title of fellow-servant to that of fellow-editor.'33 Longe was not named until subsequent editions of the letters were published after her death.34 Another woman, the novelist Charlotte Dempster, was not as willing to accept Parry's editorial vision. In 1888 Dempster reviewed Parry's edition in The Edinburgh Review, the periodical where Macaulay's review of Courtenay had appeared,35 and blasted Parry for his fussy notes and 'gushing and self-conscious style.' Dempster was content with Macaulay's portrayal of Osborne: 'To all readers of Macaulay's matchless essays Miss Osborne has long been so well known that there was not much left to say about her.'36 Dempster objected to Parry's intervention in Osborne's text, and believed Parry had muddied the picture of Osborne, yet she approved wholeheartedly of Macaulay's remarks about Osborne, which were surely as heavy-handed as Parry's. Both female figures in Osborne's early reception were not really capable of making their own mark on her reception history, or of wresting control away from Osborne's male 'suitors.' Early periodical reviewers sought to describe Osborne as an exemplary woman and as quintessentially British. 'The soundness of the English nature was in her,' the reviewer for the Atlantic Monthly stated approvingly.37 One author assured his readers, 'No more delightful ideal of British girlhood ever existed than Dorothy Osborne.'38 Latenineteenth-century critics were able to accommodate Osborne in part because she was viewed as the embodiment of a unified England. She represented the continuation of British girlhood even in times of crisis; her life was quiet and untroubled enough that love could be her only concern. She took no part in the English Civil War. It is true that Osborne was not as committed politically as her royalist father Peter Osborne, who held Castle Cornet in Guernsey for the king at great personal cost. As a woman, she did not bear arms. However, there is ample evidence from the letters that Osborne was heavily affected by the war. The Victorian critics ignored Osborne's allusions to England's unhappy situation, the way in which England had been shattered:

Introduction: Dorothy Osborne's Letters 11 I have noe End's nor noe designes nor will my heart ever bee capable of any, but like a Country wasted by a Civill warr, where two opposeing Party's have disputed theire right soe long till they have made it worth neither of theire conquest's, tis Ruin'd and desolated by the long striffe within it to that degree as twill bee usefull to none. (160)

How could Osborne be a model of British girlhood if she described herself as a subject split by strife - both romantic and political? Nineteenthcentury critics discounted Osborne's haunted fretfulness and melancholy. Instead, she was transformed into an honorary Victorian lady modest, loyal and retiring - despite polite murmurs about her historical positioning. Osborne expressed emotions such as anger and despair when faced with the difficulties and obstacles of her courtship. Although her circumstances were frequently vexing, her letters were a means for Osborne to shape Temple's opinions and behaviour as she sought to marry him. Osborne was a demanding and self-aware participant in marriage negotiations, both with her own family and with Temple himself. She spelled out what she wanted in a husband by scornfully dismissing those who did not fit the bill; she cautiously ascertained that Temple had enough money to support her; she expected him to engage in a highly involved dialogue on the nature of love and friendship; she demanded material tokens of love; and she seemed in many ways to set the rules for the courtship. Osborne presented herself as virtuous and circumspect as she wrote Temple. However, she had a clear idea of what she expected for herself as well. It is tempting to scorn the views of the Victorian critics as purely patronizing, to see them as failing to understand what we ourselves can describe more correctly in the light of new historical information, or clearer theoretical lenses through which to view Osborne. It is worth pausing, however, to consider the virtues of the Victorian critics of Osborne, who were nothing if not appreciative. They did not shunt her to the side but eagerly flocked to read her writing. Although Parry's hyperbolic tone bordered on a disturbing obsession, and Macaulay's affection infantilized her, the enthusiasm of these critics is bound to be familiar to current critics who have been energized by the appearance or reappearance of early modern texts written by women.39 In the early twentieth century, Virginia Woolf mounted two responses to Osborne's letters that form a crucial part of their critical heritage. In

12 An Audience of One

her influential and now classic A Room of One's Own (1929), Woolf portrayed Osborne as a figure who should have had a place in literary history but was constrained by her gender. In an opposition that would govern perceptions of Osborne up to the present day, Woolf compared her to the flamboyant and publishing duchess of Newcastle: Dorothy, who was sensitive and melancholy, the very opposite of the Duchess in temper, wrote nothing. Letters did not count. A woman might write letters while she was sitting by her father's sick-bed. She could write them by the fire whilst the men talked without disturbing them.40

Woolf did not credit Osborne with achievement in her chosen form of the letter because the novel and poetry reigned as the supreme genres to which all women writers should aspire, despite Woolf s own achievements as a letter writer and diarist. As I will be arguing further, the epistolary form was not just a convenient genre, but the most flexible, supple and persuasive of the genres to which Dorothy Osborne had access. In A Room of One's Own, Osborne's 'sensitivity' rendered her almost mute. In the Second Common Reader, Woolf regarded Osborne's confined domestic position as more valuable: 'For the first time in English literature we hear men and women talking together over the fire.'41 Flickerings of conversation and imagination in Osborne's letters gave readers more access to 'everyday life' than more privileged genres of the early modern period (genres such as epic poetry). Even in the Second Common Reader, however, Woolf focused on Osborne's limitations: Had she been born in 1827, Dorothy Osborne would have written novels; had she been born in 1527, she would never have written at all. But she was born in 1627, and at that date though writing books was ridiculous for a woman there was nothing unseemly in writing a letter.42

As Margaret Ezell argues in her important essay 'The Myth of Judith Shakespeare,' the historical position of early modern women writers was a great deal more complex. Woolf's model of a tormented, persecuted Judith Shakespeare is fundamentally limited: 'She is a great novelist, an inspired analyst of the process of literary creation - but she is not a great historian, and it is unfair to demand that she act in such a role.'43 The polemical intent of A Room of One's Own in particular cannot be underestimated. It was an oral lecture written to make a point

Introduction: Dorothy Osborne's Letters

13

about the material and cultural needs of women writers and as such was not primarily concerned with doing justice to women writers before Aphra Behn.44 David Cecil dedicated half of his 1949 study Two Quiet Lives to Osborne, and the other half to Thomas Grey. Two Quiet Lives was in many ways the apt continuation of the cloying Victorian vision of Osborne. Cecil admitted that 'these studies are not a work of research' but an attempt to highlight two personalities: 'shy, anxious, pensive personalities, with a rich inner life and few but intense affections, who, inspired by an ineradicable distrust of the world, strove, with varying success, to retire from it to a life exclusively personal, private, contemplative.'45 Osborne was once again a quintessentially romantic figure: 'From her pale, well-bred countenance, framed by the dark ringlets and pearl eardrops of a Caroline lady, her heavy-lidded eyes looked out at the world - as they look out at us from her portrait still - with an expression of profound unostentatious sadness.'46 Cecil conflated her writing with her persona: 'The soft glow of poetry which trembles round her every movement exhales from her personality involuntarily, as the scent from a rose.' For Cecil, Osborne was best considered as a female counterpart to the cavalier poets: 'We hear Anthea's voice in ordinary conversation, we get a glimpse of Lucasta's real face.'48 In addition to portraying the letters as an extension of an idealized and gendered personality, critics have compared Osborne's letters to other genres, in part because critics felt the need to prove the 'literary' nature of the works. If Cecil saw Osborne as a female counterpart to the cavalier poets, G.C. Moore Smith reached for the metaphor of a drama to describe her writing: Two young lovers endowed with qualities which win our sympathy and admiration pass through times of separation, suspense, and dejection to be happily united in the last act: there are well-meaning friends who raise difficulties and make misery; and there is a crowd of minor figures in the background who give now touches of comedy, and now colour and atmosphere, to the scene of the play.49

To be sure, Moore Smith did not claim that the letters are a drama, but that they reminded him of a drama of courtship. Furthermore, he did speak about her work in a broader historical context in his introduction. But his extended metaphor divided the letters into acts and scenes rather than individual missives. In speaking of the 'suspense' of the

14 An Audience of One

letters, and the 'well-meaning friends who raise difficulty,' Moore Smith indicated that the narrative aspects of the letters were formal as well as thematic; they possessed elements such as complicating action, climax, and denouement. The cultural power connected to the invocation of established genres might explain Moore Smith's motivation for describing the letters as a play; he might have been trying to justify the cultural and literary importance of Osborne's writing as he produced another edition. In relating the letters to a courtship drama, he rendered the letters simultaneously more familiar and more significant to people with an interest in courtship narratives, and charmed those who derived pleasure from such narratives, potentially wooing both academic and popular audiences. The epistolary novel, especially Clarissa, is another genre to which the letters are sometimes compared. Sheila Ottway, for example, finds Osborne's situation similar to that of Richardson's heroine: Dorothy Osborne, like Clarissa Harlowe, is involved in a dangerous liaison: she secretly corresponds with a man of whom her family strongly disapproves. Like Clarissa, Dorothy leads an isolated existence at her family's country seat. Like Clarissa, Dorothy is torn between her sense of duty to her family and her feelings of amorous desire for her admirer. Just as Clarissa is provided by her family with a suitor, in the form of the odious Mr Solrnes, Dorothy is presented with a whole series of suitors, some carefully selected by her imperious brother ... like Clarissa, Dorothy makes a visit to London where a meeting with her lover turns out to be an emotionally disturbing experience. Dorothy is of course more fortunate than Clarissa; it is obvious from her letters that William Temple is a man of integrity, unlike the vicious and depraved Lovelace. But both Dorothy Osborne and Clarissa Harlowe earn our admiration, as readers, by the way in which they negotiate their amorous relationships, putting their trust in their respective lovers while retaining their female dignity.50

Ottway's comparison is forced: Osborne's letters diverge from Richardson's novel in more ways than she acknowledges. While there are similarities of theme and character, it does not follow that the letters are either protonovelistic or a variety of the epistolary novel, even though it may be tempting to read them this way, because they contain elements like a controlling family, an expressive speaker, financial pressures, and letters that are seized and read. Ottway is interested specifically here in the way that real-life letters 'tip over' from nonfiction into the novelistic

Introduction: Dorothy Osborne's Letters 15

form. While this certainly raises useful questions about the relationship between fiction and its 'real-world' counterparts, it is not particularly productive to read Osborne's letters as a novel, since they are not a retrospectively crafted form. More than half a century after Woolf's brief sketch of Osborne, feminist critics dwell on the way that Osborne fulfilled the role of a private woman. Her negative response to Margaret Cavendish ('saner people in Bedlam') is repeatedly quoted, almost as a kind of sound bite. It seems an injustice to Dorothy Osborne that her negative vision of Cavendish is the remark for which she is remembered, especially since she was comfortable with at least one other female author, Margaret of Valois. Osborne says of the 'Reyne Marguerite': 'I think she had a good deale of witt' (73). To be sure, Osborne's condemnation of Cavendish is disturbing to scholars and readers today who savour the profusion of Cavendish's thinking and her achievements as a poet, dramatist, essayist, letter writer, and writer of Utopian prose. It would certainly be a useful exploration, although beyond the scope of this book, to ascertain why Osborne was not in productive dialogue with Cavendish. Little is known about her rapport with Cavendish beyond her remarks in her letters. Osborne may have been responding to Cavendish's purposeful attempt to cultivate a singular personality, a singularity that Osborne simply did not share. Furthermore, it was difficult to envision women in community in the circumscribed and patriarchal society in which Osborne found herself. Kenneth Parker's moderately revised reissue of his 1987 Penguin text, now subtitled 'Observations on Love, Literature, Politics and Religion,' focuses on Osborne as an outspoken woman of the gentry class and offers some examination of her biographical, political, social, and literary contexts. Although his work is mainly introductory, Parker is particularly perceptive about Osborne's remarks on her obligations to her family and community. He also describes the way in which the elite social classes of the time worked through what we would consider private means to establish and maintain power: 'Social and kinship ties were focused upon locality: going from country house to country house; wining and dining with the Briers family, with Lady Grey de Ruthin, is as much about politics, economics and marriage as it is about entertainment, so that we have the conditions for the creation and retention of a coherent sense of community which could withstand new pressures as well as strange ideas.'51 The union of the private and public will surface frequently in my study as well, especially as I consider how Osborne's

16 An Audience of One

formulation of extreme privacy was informed by the exigencies and privileges of her class background. Although she ardently wanted to separate the couple from the pressures of the world, she also coped with a myriad of social pressures and distractions. There has never been a full investigation of how Osborne used her letters to shape the space in which the couple interacted. Various critics, from Woolf onwards, have argued that Osborne turned to the letter form as a talented person who was too decorous to find another authorial outlet.52 This book shifts the picture of Osborne as a figure who did not seek to challenge her society to one who used the letter form to exert control over her own life in the face of a wide variety of constraints and difficulties. The letter form itself was ideally suited to Osborne's rhetorical and personal purposes and was not merely a default mode she drew on. Osborne used her letters to speak to Temple in the most powerful way that she could, transforming their geographical separation into an opportunity for deeper communication. Her letters were not merely sprightly descriptions of the rural British elite or artless expressions of affection for Temple, although these elements are indeed present. Osborne was, in fact, trying to influence Temple's views and reactions, since her future depended on those reactions. The letters were her attempt to imaginatively envision the couple together, and the only practical link keeping the couple together during their geographical separation. Above all, Osborne's letters were an attempt to establish a shifting, flexible space of dialogue between the couple, one that might eventually result in her ability to speak freely throughout their marriage on matters that affected her destiny. The first chapter outlines Osborne's biographical context, focusing on her family history and the historical events that affected her courtship. Osborne's letters were formed in a crucible of social, political, and family pressures, including the social and financial strain of the Civil War and Interregnum period. The chapter ends with an exploration of Osborne's outspoken view of marriage. She actively tried to shape her destiny by making it clear to the man she hoped to marry what she expected from a marital partnership. At least temporarily denied control over her marriage choice by her family, she was clear on what she wanted in an ideal husband, and the sort of rapport she hoped to establish between the lovers. Chapter 2 discusses Osborne as a self-conscious letter writer, focusing on her supple use of rhetorical positioning to bring Temple into her

Introduction: Dorothy Osborne's Letters 17

daily life, and to tailor her letters for her unique 'audience of one.' A model of conversation allowed her to facilitate the active exchange of ideas with her future husband and to compel his interest and involvement, emphasizing a plain style that would lead to frank and open communication. Furthermore, Osborne described the exchange of letters as a reciprocal and mutually advantageous process. Osborne was not just an ardent and skilled writer. She was also an avid reader, and eagerly consumed long Continental romances by writers such as Calprenède, Scuédry, and Gomberville. She was not, however, contented with a solitary reading experience, and actively sought to engage Temple as a fellow reader. Chapter 3 demonstrates how Osborne converted literary materials into models that reflected on the courtship, that elicited helpful reactions from her reader, and that offered models for emulation. By discussing scenes from romances she facilitated dialogues about power relations in love. She also shared emotions of tenderness and bittersweet sympathy for the romantic sufferings of the characters. The French romances were particularly promising texts with which to explore romantic relationships. They were in themselves a participatory form, and were a good space for Osborne to set up a dialogue with Temple about the behaviour of the characters and the intricacies of their destinies. They offered extended 'conversations' about the finer points of love, and explicitly showed characters in dialogue about the protocol of romance. The romance was also a way for Osborne to share her Continentally inflected royalist values with Temple. The couple's discussions about literature produced a kind of 'shared privacy' where — despite their physical separation — they shared the exchange and experience of literary texts. Reading became another means for Osborne to imagine the couple as an independent unit, sharing the same romantic sensibility and experiences. Chapter 4 considers obstacles to the formation of the couple as a private unit, and Osborne's navigation of these obstacles. She had to cope with her brother's possibly incestuous feelings and the claims that other suitors exerted over her and Temple. While often drawn into the fascination of these other interests, Osborne rhetorically transformed them to underscore the importance of her bond with Temple. Another strong pressure, which this chapter also explores, was Osborne's lack of privacy. As a young woman on the marriage market, she was always watched. Her clandestine correspondence with Temple was, in fact, vulnerable to various intrusions, including the prying eyes of her brother. Osborne tried to uphold and affirm the privacy of her correspondence, and also devel-

18 An Audience of One

oped a vision of ultimate privacy where the couple might retreat to a pastoral setting, like Ovid's Baucis and Philemon. In offering a dream of pastoral retreat, Osborne invoked royalist models from the Civil War and Interregnum to imaginatively create a haven for a couple under siege. The final chapter is a case study of the role of melancholy and other illnesses in the courtship. Osborne was again vulnerable to the manipulations of her family as they imposed arduous and unpleasant cures upon her, and she was likewise affected by the isolating and uncomfortable aspects of melancholy and other illnesses. However, Osborne rhetorically transformed illness in her letters to Temple. Instead of accepting illness as an unpleasant experience beyond her control, she used it as a means to enhance her solidarity with Temple. She underscored their shared suffering, drew attention to the seductive powers of melancholy, and argued that the couple should mutually care for each other. The Afterword considers the ending of the letters, playing with Woolf's idea that, as the letters come to an end, a whole imaginative world disappears. While it is regrettable that the letters do not continue past the courtship years, the correspondence we do have is valuable for the glimpse we get of a woman who turned the lack of control she had in her own life to a shared vision of autonomy, privacy, and mutual respect.

Chapter One

Dorothy Osborne's Courtship

Not much is known of Dorothy Osborne's early life. She was born in 1627, and likely spent most of her early life at Chicksands, her family's estate in Bedfordshire. She also spent some of her youth on the island of Guernsey, and lived in St Malo, possibly from 1647 to 1649.1 She makes no reference to her education - an unfortunate omission given her later fascination with reading, her gifts as a writer, and her sensitivity to literary, political, and cultural debates of her era.2 Rosemary O'Day explains: 'In the country houses of the time young boys followed a similar curriculum and their sisters frequently benefited.'3 Dorothy Osborne may indeed have received her education through that of her brothers, although it would be inaccurate to describe Chicksands as one of the great country houses. When the English Civil War began in 1642, Osborne was only fifteen years old, and the financial consequences of the conflict shaped the destiny of her family in several ways. Historians have mounted a long debate about the causes of the civil war, and the precise mixture of religious, economic, and social factors that precipitated and continued to fuel it.4 There was increasing tension between Charles I and parliament in the 1640s, and the king began the war by raising his standard at Nottingham in August 1642. The first war lasted until 1646. The second war resulted in the trial and beheading of the king in January 1649. Oliver Cromwell, the leader of the parliamentarian forces, set up a Protectorate. One of the intriguing aspects of Osborne's letters is that they make explicit reference to Cromwell's growing power after his famous dissolution of parliament on 20 April 1653, wryly concluding that she should have considered the suit of Cromwell's son more seriously: 'for sure they will bee greater now than Ever' (90). One might hear some

20 An Audience of One

mixture of dread and fascination in this remark, especially since Cromwell's ascendancy could potentially mean an increasingly threatening situation for royalists like the Osbornes. It is generally believed that much of the country was involved in the war at one point or another. It is certainly true that the war had a profound effect on individuals and families. For example, Barbara Donagan contends that the war 'if not total, was nevertheless integrated into the lives of virtually all English men and women.'5 Osborne's father, Peter Osborne, was a very prominent royalist in the English Civil War as lieutenant governor of the Island of Guernsey, in the Channel Islands. Some royalist families sank a great deal of their own money into the conflict as we know, for example, from the example of the duke of Newcastle. In Margaret Cavendish's New Blazing World, her autobiographical protagonist comments of the war: 'my dear lord and husband ... has lost by it half his woods, besides many houses, land, and movable goods; so that all the loss out of his particular estate, did amount to above half a million of pounds.'6 Cavendish also wrote a poem about Bolsover Castle entitled 'A Dialogue between a Bountifull Knight, and a Castle ruin'd in War,' which begins with the Knight lamenting: Alas, poore Castle, how thou now art chang'd From thy first Form! to me thou dost seem strange. I left thee Comely, and in perfect health;

Now thou art wither'd, and decayed in Wealth.

(1—4)

This dialogue enacts the melancholy loss of structures that were both homes and symbols. The fate of the Osborne family was likewise bound up in valuable and symbolic property. From 1643 until 1646 Peter Osborne was responsible for Castle Cornet, a royalist stronghold. The castle, standing (as it still does) on a promontory physically separated from the city, functioned as a target for the parliamentarian townspeople, as the city did in turn for the royalist soldiers within the castle. The local museum in St Peter's Port, Guernsey, bears the sign of a continued grudge against Sir Peter Osborne, stressing how he and his soldiers attacked the townspeople. Cannonballs from the siege are still unearthed occasionally. As lieutenant governor of Guernsey, Peter Osborne had to foot the bill for the whole endeavour. His rival Captain Carteret made this burden more pronounced by appropriating money and provisions intended for Castle Cornet during the siege and [] misrepresenting Peter Osborne to Charles I. G.C. Moore Smith

Dorothy Osborne's Courtship

21

notes that once Osborne's mother (Lady Osborne) had exhausted her money, 'she sold her plate; when that money was gone, she contracted a heavy debt with which she sent provisions for Castle Cornet. Carteret kept the supply for two months at Jersey while Sir Peter's men were starving, their bread ration being reduced to four biscuits a week.'8 There is a letter from Lady Osborne to Captain Carteret in the Bedford County Record Office, endorsed in Dorothy Osborne's hand, urging Carteret to pay the Osborne family for the expenses they have incurred.9 Life in the castle during this prolonged military struggle must have been exceedingly difficult. Displayed at the museum at Castle Cornet are tobacco pipes that Peter Osborne's men fashioned from animal bones during the deprivations of the siege. Sir Peter Osborne was relieved of his post in 1646. He did not return to England from Guernsey until 1649, compounding for his estate at Chicksands, which would otherwise have been sold. The siege of Castle Cornet was to last another five-and-a-half years. The financial strain of supporting the siege with private money, and the assault on their property by the parliamentary government, reduced the family fortune significantly, as Osborne noted: T have seen my fathers [estate] reduced [from] better then £4000 to not £400 a yeare.' Osborne added: T thank god I never felt the change in any thing that I thought necessary; I never wanted nor am confident I never shall ...' (213). Despite the resolve of this statement, the kind of resignation that Raymond Anselment links with the royalist ethos of the time,10 the material and psychological losses of the family took their toll. Shortly after the Osbornes returned to Chicksands in 1649, Osborne's mother died and was buried in Campton Church.11 Peter Osborne was seriously ill. Many of Osborne's early letters were written, as Virginia Woolf remarked, while attending him: '[Letter writing] was an art that a woman could practise without unsexing herself. It was an art that could be carried on at odd moments, by a father's sick-bed.'12 Osborne and Temple's meeting in 1648 on the Isle of Wight took place not only against a backdrop of financial suffering but at a crucial juncture in the war, when Charles I was imprisoned at Carisbrooke Castle on the Isle of Wight before his ultimate trial and execution.13 The Osbornes were on their way to St Malo to join Sir Peter there, and Temple was about to travel to France.14 When Martha Giffard (Temple's sister) described their meeting, she emphasized Osborne's bravery as she covered for her brother's apparent recklessness:

22 An Audience of One He chose to pass by the Isle of Wight, where his uncle Srjohn Dingley then Master of a good estate, & one of the auncients Famelyes of that Country liv'd, & where His Majesty was then prisoner in Carisbrooke Castle, and twas there he first met with Sr Peter Osbornes Daughter goeing with her Brother to their Father at Snt Maloes, who was Governour of Garnesey, & held it out for the King; He made that Journey with them, in wch her Brother had like to be stop'd by an accident... The spite he had to se the king imprison'd, and treated by the Governour Coll Hammond soe unlike what was due to him, provoked him to step back after all His company were gon before him out of the Inne and write theese words with a Diamond in the window, (And Hamman was hang'd upon the Gallows he had prepar'd for Mordecai. Twas easy to imagin what hast he made after his company when he had done; but had no sooner overtaken them then he was seis'd himselfe, & brought back to ye Governour, & only escap'd by his sister takeing it upon her selfe. In this Journey begun an amour between Sr W T and Mrs Osborne ...15

Giffard is the only source for this legend, although it is much cited, particularly by late nineteenth-century critics. If Osborne did take on the consequences of her brother's deed 'upon her selfe,' her quick-thinking sisterly act was certainly enough to catch Temple's attention. He lingered with Osborne and her family until he was pressured by his father to continue on to France. Temple, as Giffard explains, travelled widely in Continental Europe. While they were separated, he apparently dedicated several of his short romance stories to Dorothy Osborne, although she was not named outright: 'Having so good a title to my heart you may iustly lay claime to all that comes from it.'16 In 1652 Temple wrote Osborne to see if she was well and unmarried, and she wrote back demurely but tellingly: 'I am Extreamly glad (whoesoever gave you the Occasion) to heare from you, since (without complement) there are very few Person's in the world I am more concern'd in ... (57).' The lovers caught up on the last two years, and Osborne whimsically invoked an old promise that she would send him £10 when she married. Speaking of Temple in the third person, she straightfacedly explained: 'for the ten poundes hee claimes, it is not yett due' (57). Osborne was cautious to establish that she was still single, and to that end informed Temple of her unsuccessful courtship by the grave, elderly Justinian Isham, whose solemnity and scholarly pretension became a private joke. Isham, whom she ironically termed 'the Emperour,' was

Dorothy Osborne's Courtship 23

found to be an unsuitable consort: 'our Emperour, would have bin to mee rather a Jaylor then a husband, and tis as true that... I can not bee a good [wife] to any, but one' (111-12). Osborne, a famous beauty of the time, was assiduously courted, while her family sought to match her with various hapless men, but she seems to have preferred Temple from the time of their early meeting. Late marriage was typical in the seventeenth century, as Keith Wrightson notes: 'Marriage needed to be deferred well past the legal or physiological minimum age until the point at which a sufficient degree of -tfj independence could be secured.' Wrightson was not necessarily speaking of members of the gentry such as Osborne and Temple, who would certainly have been able to rely on a network of social support within their class, but Temple did have to establish a career for himself. Many of Osborne's later letters were written to Temple in Dublin, where he went to speak to his father about a possible career in Ireland. As Temple prepared for his trip, Osborne underscored the solidarity between the couple but betrayed the strain his journey caused: 'you shall never perswade mee I send you this Journy, noe, pray let it bee your father's comand's or a necessity your fortune putts upon you ... noe my Dear this is I hope our last misfortune lett's bear it nobly' (184). From 'his' fortune, the rhetoric shifted into their mutual misfortune, with the burden to resolve the courtship shared equally. Beyond her affection for Temple, Osborne had many motivations to marry. The life of an unmarried woman, even an upper-class woman, was difficult in many ways. A career was not available as an outlet for her intellectual abilities or to satisfy her material needs. After her father died, Osborne was compelled to move to the household of her brotherin-law Thomas Peyton, leaving Chicksands, where she had nursed her father before his death. Susan Dwyer Amussen remarks on the chilly reception a woman might meet from family members: 'Even an aristocrat like Dorothy Osborne was acutely aware that she was welcomed reluctantly by the family members she stayed with; lower in the social order, an unmarried woman usually lived out her life in the dependence of service.'18 Osborne came from the gentry, not the aristocracy, but Amussen is correct about Osborne's situation after her father's death. Osborne complained bitterly about many aspects of her life in the Peyton household, including lack of privacy. Marriage afforded a measure of independence. Osborne was certainly aware that marriage had its own risks and potential problems, but it was her best option, given her biographical and historical circumstances. This is not to say that her

24 An Audience of One

interest in marriage was purely one of expediency, but rather that material concerns by necessity informed her choice to marry Temple. Once Temple and Osborne obtained the consent of their respective families, courtship negotiations were able to proceed, although they were unstable until the last moment. Just before they were about to be married, Osborne suffered a devastating attack of smallpox, a very serious affliction in the period. Inoculation for the illness was not an option until the eighteenth century, and then it was another gifted letter writer, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who blazed the trail. As an acute viral infectious disease, smallpox was fatal for many, and for those who lived it was usual for the blisters to create scabs which, upon separation, left distinct visible scars.19 Giffard once again is the source of our knowledge about Dorothy Osborne's illness: The week before they were to be marryed she fell soe desperately ill there was little hopes of her life & nothing the Doctors said but its prooueing the small pox could have sav'd her. He was happy when he saw yl secure his kindness haveing greater tyes then that of her beauty though that Loss was too great to leave him wholy insensible. He saw her constantly while she was ill, & married her soon after.20 Like their dramatic meeting, Temple's decision to continue with the marriage is part of the legend of the courtship, and was invoked by the Victorian critics among others. This story amplifies the long history of adversity the couple experienced before their marriage, even though its accuracy cannot be judged. It is worthy of note that Osborne's contemporary Lucy Hutchinson, in her account of her husband's life (not published until 1806), spoke in a strikingly similar way about her own recovery from smallpox shortly before her marriage.21 Despite the setbacks that plagued the courtship from beginning to end, Osborne and Temple were married at St Giles Church in High Holborne in 1654. They spent their honeymoon at Moor Park in Hertfordshire, which Temple described in a later essay as possessing 'the perfectest figure of a garden I ever saw'22 (this estate is not to be confused with Moor Park, William Temple's future estate in Surrey). There is not much information about the next six years of the Temples's life. The couple spent time in Reading, Sir John Temple's house in Dublin, and on his estates in County Carlow. All of their children born in Ireland died in infancy, as Martha Giffard notes: 'in this time he had five children borne, wch he all buried there, & without that misfortune his

Dorothy Osborne's Courtship 25 friends use to doute whether any thing had prevail'd with him to leave the cares of his sheep and Garden.'23 The tranquil 'sheep and Garden' devolved into disappointment and anguish. The private pain of the couple was hidden by a brilliant public performance. Temple's diplomatic career flourished for the most part, and he emerged as one of the leading statesmen of his day. His major diplomatic achievement was the Triple Alliance (1668) between Sweden, Holland, and England, an attempt to hold France's dominance of Europe in check. Temple was appointed ambassador to the Netherlands in 1668, but he was soon recalled as Charles II adjusted his foreign policy to one more sympathetic to France. With the 1670 Treaty of Dover, Charles II arranged to receive large annual subsidies from Louis XIV and joined forces with France against Holland. England went to war with Holland in 1671, and Temple resigned from royal service and removed his family to Sheen, not far from London.24 With the end of the war in 1674, Temple was required for the peace negotiations, and he later helped bring about the marriage of William of Orange and Princess Mary. There is evidence that Osborne, by then Lady Temple, was involved in his diplomatic career and his public affairs. In 1667 she intervened to arrange payment for Temple's expenses while he was abroad. In a 1671 document she was described as 'Lady Ambassadress Temple.' Her attendance on the Prince of Orange was noted in another public record from 1675.25 Katie Hickman points out the unique position of diplomatic wives: Tn no other profession has a wife been so intimately involved with her husband's work ... it was a partnership which, in one form or another, had been taking shape from the very earliest days of diplomacy.'26 It is possible that Lady Temple saw herself in a partnering rather than subsidiary role in Temple's difficult and exacting negotiations. Perhaps her experience mediating the clashing personalities of the courtship (which will be discussed at greater length in chapter 4) helped prepare her for the personal challenges of diplomatic service.2 Increasingly estranged from the king and his advisers in the 1680s, the Temples retired to Moor Park, an estate near Farnham, in 1685. Here Temple dedicated himself to gardening, and wrote, among other essays, Of Heroick Virtue, Of Poetry, Of Health and Long Life, and An Essay Upon the Ancient and Modern Learning?9' Like his much-admired Continental counterpart Michel de Montaigne, he employed the conversational language of the informal essay, a concern for informal discourse which Dorothy Osborne shared (see chapter 2) .29

26 An Audience of One

As would befit a lover of Montaigne, Temple wrote essays that were miscellaneous in subject matter and ranged over topics like the cure of gout, the Chinese method of gardening in accordance with natural forms (which he termed sharawadgi), and the best grapes in Europe. He even weighed in on the superiority of ancient texts to modern ones, triggering scholarly attacks on both his ideas and his classical sources.30 A.C. Elias characterizes the essays as presenting a 'highly flattering public image of himself as the incorruptible statesman and compleat gentleman.'31 Indeed, Temple's essays - somewhat like Osborne's letters before them - were highly artificial performances that for all of their informality, were constructed to exude sprezzatura and wit. Temple is also known as the patron and formative literary influence of Jonathan Swift, who acted as his secretary and amanuensis from 1689 to 1699, although he was absent for some of that time. Swift brought out an edition of Temple's letters after his death.32 There has been much speculation about the Temple-Swift rapport, some of it fuelled by Swift's remarks in Journal to Stella: 'Don't you remember how I used to be in pain when Sir William Temple would look cold and out of humour for three or four days, and I used to suspect a hundred reasons? I have pluckt up my spirit since then, faith; he spoiled a fine gentleman.'33 Temple had at least a reasonably prominent role in Swift's development, whether it was negative, positive, or some combination of both. Having survived the deaths of several infants early in the marriage, Osborne and Temple saw only two children live past infancy. Both predeceased their parents. Their cherished daughter Diana died of smallpox at age fourteen in 1678. A single letter Diana wrote to her father is bound with the manuscript of Osborne's letters in the British Library. In this letter, she refers affectionately to her father and thanks him for gifts he had sent.34 Their oldest son, John Temple, committed suicide in 1689 by throwing himself into the Thames from a boat, leaving a note of explanation.35 He had recently been appointed Secretary of War for William III with a responsibility to advise on Irish Affairs, and was in disgrace because he had mismanaged a serious political task entrusted to him. In an advisory capacity, he argued for the freeing of General Richard Hamilton, a soldier on the Irish side, from the Tower, hoping that he would go back to Ireland and persuade Tyrconnel (Richard Talbot) to surrender. Richard Talbot was the Jacobite leader of the war that Irish Roman Catholics waged against the Protestant King William III, who had been created the Earl of Tyrconnel by James II (1689-91). Richard Hamilton 'got himself sent to Dublin in the hope that he might seduce

Dorothy Osborne's Courtship

27

Tyrconnel from his allegiance, which he had no intention of doing even if the Lord Deputy was willing to be seduced.'36 Instead of persuading Tyrconnel to surrender, Hamilton joined the rebel forces. John Temple was so ashamed of his bad judgment in this matter that he committed suicide at the age of thirty-four. His widow, Marie Duplessis Rambouillet, and two daughters survived him, continuing the Temple line despite the many children that Dorothy and William Temple lost. G.C. Moore Smith reproduces a document that he notes was in the possession of the Longe family (and lost during the Second World War). It was endorsed in Lady Temple's handwriting: 'child's paper he writ/ before he killed himself: Tis not out of any Dissatisfaction from my ffriends, from whom I have recd Infinitely more ffriendship and kindness then I deserve, I say it is not from any such reason that I do myself this violence, but having been long tired with the Burthen of this life, 'tis now become Insupportable ... From my ffather and mother I have had especially of late all the marks of tenderness in the world, and no less from my Dear Brother and Sisters, to whom I wish all my ffriends Health and Happiness and forgetfullness of me.37

An account by Martha Giffard touches on the mysterious nature of the suicide, and points to something of the effect on Temple himself: ye cruel blow yl happened in ye loss of his son wch was thought to proceed from an illness he had long complain'd of strikeing up to his head, nobody appearing happier in his famely, nor more sattisfied w his fortunes. Whatever it was with this deplorable accident ended all ye good fortunes so long taken note of in Sr W.T. famely & brought a cloud upon ye remainder of his life & a damp upon ye good humor so natural to him & so often observ'd yl nothing could ever recover.38

By Giffard's account, Temple 'return'd ... to Morepark with ye little remainder of his desolate famely having lost nine children himselfe & his son leaveing only two Daughters ...39 The image of a dwindled family stripped of its numbers creates a palpable sense of despair. The mention of nine dead children is somewhat puzzling. Giffard mentions five children in Ireland, and two more mature children, so it is hard to know how she arrived at the figure of nine. As a result of his diplomatic and literary activities, history has a great deal of information on Temple. Our information about Lady Temple is

28 An Audience of One

restricted to a few glimpses in public records and impressions from friends. Irvin Ehrenpreis nonetheless speculates about the shift in Dorothy Osborne's personality in the later years of her marriage: 'Lady Temple was no passionate, moody girl with an epistolary flair. Smallpox had long since spoiled her beauty; nine children born and buried had darkened her temperament.'40 It is impossible to know where Ehrenpreis marshalled his evidence about Lady Temple's character and 'darkened temperament,' but he quoted a letter where she spoke of her despair of 'the world' after her son's death. There is also a modicum of visual evidence for Lady Temple's 'darkened temperament': Lady Temple is shown in a gloomy aspect in her portrait by Caspar Netscher in the National Portrait Gallery (London).41 Jonathan Swift's 'Occasioned by Sir W T's Late Illness and Recovery December 1673,' focuses on the two important women in Temple's life, the 'weeping Dorinda' (Martha Giffard) and 'Mild Dorothea' (Dorothy Temple). The stanza describing Dorothy Temple reads as follows: Mild Dorothea, peaceful, wise, and great, Trembling beheld the doubtful hand of fate; Mild Dorothea, whom we both have long Not dar'd to injure with our lowly song; Sprung from a better world, and chosen then

The best companion for the best of men: As some fair pile, yet spar'd by zeal and rage, Lives pious witness of a better age; So men may see what once was womankind, In the fair shrine of Dorothea's mind.

(41-50)42

Virginia Woolf complained bitterly of this poem: 'We do not know that silent lady.'43 Yet the comparison of Lady Temple to a ruin that has escaped destruction mirrors the nostalgia that infuses her earlier letters, especially her invocation of a pacific age before the English Civil War, the halcyon days that are repeatedly invoked in royalist writing of the period. Swift's choice to portray Osborne as preserving and exemplifying an ideal of feminine virtue in a dissolute age must have been influenced by the desire to please his patron and patroness in language they would appreciate. Lady Temple died at Moor Park in 1695. She was buried in Westminster Abbey, along with her daughter Diana. William Temple and Martha

Dorothy Osborne's Courtship 29

Giffard were also buried there, in 1699 and 1729 respectively. Temple's heart was buried under a sundial at Moor Park.44 Although we do not have all of the information we would like about Osborne's later life, she witnessed - and sometimes participated in many major political events from the English Civil War to the Glorious Revolution. She met many statesmen and writers and travelled widely from Guernsey to Ireland to the Hague. Osborne could not have ignored politics. Her existing letters reflect her political interests, showing her comprehension of a world of intrigue. The letters written from 1653 to 1654 contain a lengthy description of Oliver Cromwell's dissolution of Parliament and the resistance of Algernon Sidney: onely if I had bin soe wise as to have taken hold of the offer was made mee of H.C., I might have bin in a faire way of prefferment for sure they will bee greater now than Ever. Is it true that Al: S. was soe unwilling to leave the house, that the G. was faine to take the Pain's to turne him out himself. Well tis a pleasant world this, if Mr Pirn were alive again I wonder what hee would think of these proceedings and whither this would apeare as great a breach of the Privilidge of Parliament as the demanding of the members. But I shall talk treason by and by if I doe not look to my self (90).

Osborne combines these political observations with a reminiscence of her suit by Henry Cromwell, son of Oliver Cromwell. At the end, she skirts politically dangerous materials. Such caution might explain her use of abbreviations such as 'H.C.,' 'the G.' and 'Al: S' for Henry Cromwell, the General, and Algernon Sidney.45 Once again, Osborne displayed her awareness of the political commentary she was advancing, enough to express anxiety about it. Writers and critics have lamented the lack of documentary evidence for the events of Osborne's later life. Woolf saw the cessation of the letters as the end of a world that had been quickened into vivid, imaginative life: 'We are deep in this world ... when, in the moment, the scene is blotted out.'46 Rosalind Wade, in an article entitled 'Lady Temple: The Missing Years,' offers a number of possible scenarios for Osborne's life after her marriage. She asserts, first of all, that the Temple marriage was fundamentally unhappy, and that Osborne spent much of her time after the marriage in a Pall Mall (London) townhouse far from Moor Park. She also claims that Lady Temple was a close friend of Queen Mary and was instrumental in the arrangement of the William-Mary marriage. She offers no concrete proof for these claims, as interesting as they are.4

30 An Audience of One

Wade, in fact, turned to the considerably less stringent form of fiction to speculate about Lady Temple's later years, producing a historical novel entitled The Golden Bowl (1971),48 in which the wistfully melancholic Lady Temple appears as a literary character. Sadly aware of her husband's extramarital affairs, Dorothy Temple contents herself with behind-the-scenes diplomacy and her determination to counter French aggression. A bodice ripper in many ways, the novel melodramatically revives old rumours that Temple fathered the illegitimate Esther Johnson - Swift's 'Stella' - through an affair with the printer's daughter Bridget Mose (later Bridget Johnson).49 The novel is remarkable more for its ample quotation of Osborne's letters than for the quality of its writing or its capacity to illuminate her later life. Woolf mourned the abrupt ending of the letters, and the silence of Osborne's voice. To construct an adequate biography of Osborne (unlike Wade, who retreated into fiction) a scholar would be forced to tell the story of the social circle around Osborne, with a quite limited body of historical records to draw on for the later years (although more might be eventually found). Some scholars working on early modern women have turned quite self-consciously to extrapolation and reconstruction, while remaining in the realm of nonfiction. In The Secret Life of Aphra Behn, Janet Todd had to deal with a dearth of biographical information about her subject, due in part to Behn's involvement in espionage. To complete the work, she needed to speculate about various biographical possibilities, draw on Behn's published literary works, and extrapolate from the lives of other early modern women. Rather than lament this necessity, Todd celebrated biography as partially a creation of the researcher: 'Behn deserves ... several biographies - as long as authors and readers share her sense of identity as masquerade and of fact as partly fictive, and accept her memoirist's humility before the ingenious subject. There is certainly room for more research into Osborne's biography, and in particular the years she spent on the Continent. Yet for the moment it is probably less important to worry over what we do not know than to turn to the existing letters themselves. What they lack in scope they make up in intensity. They invite a sustained study of a two-year time span, and allow the reader to see Osborne's powerful shaping of a decisive period in her life when she was very vulnerable to the familial, political, economic, and emotional forces that beset her. In the next section, I will consider a topic of key importance in Osborne's writing: her consideration of marriage. In pronouncing on what she expected in a ,,.

.

„

, .

, Kf)

Dorothy Osborne's Courtship 31 husband and analysing the positive and negative models around her, Osborne was trying to shape the relationship she would ultimately have with Temple. Osborne on Marriage: Theory and Practice Of the many topics about which Osborne was outspoken during her courtship, marriage was one of the most central. Osborne's explicit remarks on marriage were an important means for her to shape and even manipulate Temple's attitudes while they were still engaged. When Temple asked her what qualities she wanted in a marriage partner Osborne halfjokingly ruled out the sorts of men she could not marry. She explained the 'ingredients' of a satisfactory husband: First, as my Cousin Fr: say's our humors must agree, and to doe that hee must have that kinde of breeding that I have had and used that kinde of company, that is hee must not bee soe much a Country Gentleman as to understand Nothing but hawks and dog's and bee fonder of Either then of his wife, nor of the next sort of them whose aime reaches noe further then to bee Justice of peace and once in his life high Sheriff who read noe book but Statut's and study's nothing but how to bake a speech interlarded with Latin that may amaze his disagreeing poore Neighbours and fright them rather then perswade them into quietnesse. Hee must not bee a thing that began the world in a free scoole was sent from thence to the University and is at his farthest when hee reaches the Inn's of Court has noe acquaintance but those of his form in these places speaks the french hee has pickt out of Old Law's, and admires nothing but the Storry's hee has heard of the Revells that were kept there before his time. Hee must not bee a Towne Gallant neither that lives in a Tavern and an Ordinary, that cannot imagin how an hower should bee spent without company unlesse it bee in sleeping that makes court to all the Women hee sees thinks they beleeve him and Laughs and is Laught at Equaly; Nor a Traveld Monsieur whose head is all feather inside and outside, that can talk of nothing but dances and Duells, and has Courage Enough to were slashes when every body else dy's with cold to see him. Hee must not bee a foole of noe sort, nor peevish nor ill Natur'd nor proude nor Coveteous, and to all this must bee added that he must Love mee and I him as much as wee are capable of Loveing. (148) The passage was written with a light touch51 but articulated serious hopes, offering abundant satire of unacceptable personality types and

32 An Audience of One

caprices. The description of these risible men evokes characters based on humours from Renaissance drama that is filled with stock figures. However, Osborne's descriptions were by no means arbitrary. She crafted the list to include despicable qualities Temple did not possess. After Temple commented on this lengthy, fussy list, Osborne admitted: 'You are not the first that has told mee I knew better what quality I would not have in a husband, then what I would' (151). She went on to mock-protest: 'it was more pardonable in them, I thought you had understood better what kinde of person I liked then any body else could posibly have don, and therfor did not think it necessary to make you that discription too' (151). As we shall see again in the correspondence, Osborne drew Temple into a state of consensus, in this case one that belittled other men and exalted his own virtues. Osborne was not the only female writer of the period to contemplate the nature of an ideal husband or lover. In her commonplace book, compiled from 1630 to 1650, Constance Aston Fowler copied an anonymous poem entitled 'The Perfect Lover,' which includes the lines, 'Hee hath no will but hers, and understands / All things as she conceaves them or commands' (11. 19-20).52 Another anonymous commonplace book includes a poem about the good husband's compliance with his wife, and his willingness to live 'in this firm government' (1. 5).53 Osborne herself never claimed that she should 'govern,' but her specific remarks about a desirable husband betrayed a tendency to influence and manipulate Temple through an expression of her preferences and dislikes. As important as Osborne's abstract speculations about men are her observations of the real-life romantic partnerships she witnessed. She could be read as a woman who envisioned equality between men and women. She argued to Temple that they should command - and obey each other. It is, however, more accurate to view her letters as displaying the contest between ideologies in action, as she both condemned women's inequality and affirmed its necessity. As will be discussed in the next chapter, Osborne's letters allowed her to explore ideas in formation and to present different visions at different times. This conversational model was a way for her to exert her influence on Temple, since it opened a productive - and even experimental - space of mutual exchange. She was able to forcefully express her beliefs about marital relationships while continuing to shape her ideas. Her view of power imbalances in marital relationships, for example,

Dorothy Osborne's Courtship 33

shifted and evolved. At one point in her letters, she rejected the role of the all-powerful Petrarchan mistress: You shall not perswade mee to bee your Mistresse if you would, I am too much your friend to act that part well. I knew a Lady that rather then she would want an occasion to bee Cruell, made it a fault in her Servant that hee Loved her too much, and another, that hee was not Jealous of her. Sure they forsee their Raign's are to bee but short and that makes them such Tyrants. (129)

This could be read as a lamentation on women's inability to hold power in interpersonal relationships - any power women might exercise was, ultimately, illusory. To become accustomed to power was to invite disappointment. In rejecting power for herself, Osborne may have been trying to steer Temple toward a marital relationship where the husband's authority was more lenient by setting an example of mellowness. Indeed, Elaine Hobby draws attention to a moment when Osborne asked Temple how he would govern a complete subordinate: 'It is no idle enquiry, either, when she asks him how he would treat someone over whom he had absolute power: this was to be his future relationship to her.'54 A small but significant exchange between Osborne and Temple within the letters sheds light on the way in which Osborne engaged Temple on questions of power between individuals in marriage. At one point, Temple ordered Osborne to write her letters on larger paper - a compliment to her talented pen and an expression of his desire to read longer missives. Osborne complied with the demand, but offered the following sally: They say you gave order for this Vaste paper, how doe you think I should ever fill it or with what. I am not always's in the humor to wrangle and dispute, for Example now. I had rather agree to what you say then tell you that Dr Taylor (whose devote you must know I am) say's there is a great advantage to bee gained in resigning up on's will to the comande of another, because the same Action which in it selfe is wholly indifferent if done upon our owne Choice, becom's an Act of Duty and Religion if don in Obedience to the comande of any Person whome Nature the Law's or our selv's have given a power over us. Soe that though in an Action already don wee can only bee our owne Judges because wee only know with what intentions

34 An Audience of One it was don, yet in any wee intende tis safest sure to take the advice of Another. Let mee practise this towards you as well as preach it to you, and i'le lay a wager you'le aprove on't. (184)

Osborne's use of the plural 'they' in her comment 'they say you gave order for this Vaste paper' is mysterious here, given that their correspondence was largely clandestine. In making reference to things of indifference, she referred to a passage from Jeremy Taylor's Holy Living. There is very great peace and immunity from sin in resigning our wils up to the command of others: for provided that our duty to God be secured, their commands are warrants to us in all things else; and the case of conscience is determined, if the command be evident and pressing: and it is certain, the action that is but indifferent, and without reward, if done onely upon our own choice, is an act of duty and of religion, and rewardable by the grace and favour of God, if done in obedience to the command of our Superiours.55

Osborne's allusion to Taylor's segment is striking for its light irony, her joke that Temple will almost certainly approve of her call to obedience. In the sense that Temple's call for her to write on larger paper was a small, unimportant thing, it was a thing of 'indifference.' But in referring to the idea of indifference, was she deliberately treading lightly around a moment where he had commanded her? The judicial language in her comment indicates that she was to at least some degree wrangling with ethical issues and moral responsibility. In conceding that she would 'practise' obedience rather than merely 'preach' it, Osborne referenced Taylor as her authority. Yet she also wielded authority herself by using Taylor's text so adeptly and wittily. Using Taylor in the light way that she did, Osborne might even have hinted that if Temple was going to rule, he needed to do so in a benevolent and forgiving manner. Osborne was critical of the dominance of both male and female partners within a romantic relationship. Sometimes a wife was more powerful than her husband, as in the case of Mrs Sunderlande ('Sacharissa'), who haughtily received her husband Mr Smith 'like a Gracious Princes' (74), A previously sensible man was transformed after his marriage 'into the dirrect shape of a great Boy newly come from scoole' (122). Another husband displayed embarrassing public affection: 'he could not forbeare kissing his wife before company ... as ill a sight as one would wish to see' (116).

Dorothy Osborne's Courtship 35

Osborne also offered examples of women who suffered from the bad behaviour of their husbands, as we see in the sad case of her 'kinswoman' who had a husband whoe was not alway's him self and when hee was otherwise, his humor was to rise in the night, and with two bedstaves labour upon the table an houre together, shee took care every night to lay a great Cushen upon the table for him to strike on that noebody might heer him and soe discover his madnesse. But tis a sad thing when all on's happinesse is only that the world dos not know you are miserable. (145)

Osborne's horror at the woman's experience was matched by her sense that the onus was on the wife to prevent her misery being generally known. To complicate matters further, Osborne prefaced this story with remarks about women's culpability when marriages fail: I begin to bee of the opinion of him that (when the Roman Church first propounded whither it were not convenient for Priest [s] not to marry) sayed that it might bee convenient enough but sure it was not our Saviours intention for hee commanded that all should take up theire Crosse and follow him, and for his part hee was Confident there was noe such Crosse as a wife ... to my friends I cannot but confesse that I am affrayde much of the fault lyes in us, for I have observed that Generaly in great famely's the Men sildom disagree, but that the women are always's scolding, and tis most certain that lett the husband bee what hee will if the wife have but patience (which sure becoms her best) the disorder cannot bee great enough to make a noise. His anger alone when it meet's with nothing that resists it cannot bee loude enough to disturbe the Neighbours. (145)

If you look at this sequence as a whole, it could read as a powerful critique of women's submission. Osborne began with a theoretical vision of women's proper behaviour but vividly outlined the woman's psychological torment. Her motives for relating this negative example are open to interpretation. Was she trying to signal her impatience with a model of wifely submission, her approval of it, or her anger with it? Was she showing that she could play the game of wifely submission while signalling that she was too intelligent to fully acquiesce in it? Since Osborne was so vigorously engaged with Temple, surely she expected him to respond in some way to both her positive and negative examples. She might even

36 An Audience of One

have been seeking to work out an alternative vision of their life together, or guiding him to a marital partnership she found more acceptable. Osborne herself occasionally speculated about whether unions based on genuine love were possible: 'there are such Multitudes that Abuse the names of Love and friendship, and soe very few, that either understand or practice it in reality, that it may raise great doubt's whither there is any such thing in the world or not' (141). After describing madness and caprice in the sphere of relationships, Osborne advanced her claim that those who desire to marry should live in the same house together: 'I think it were very convenient that all such as intend to marrrye should live together in the same house some year's of probation and if in all that time they never disagreed they should then bee permitted to marry if they pleasd' (145). Osborne was not recommending 'living in sin.' She meant that a prospective married couple should live under the same roof in a large estate like Chicksands, complete with servants and extended family members, in order to learn about each other. If her idea that men and women should get to know each other in a domestic setting seems radical, it could also be read as an admission that a woman's hope for a successful marriage was located only in her husband's good character and the compatibility of the couple rather than in any ability to extricate herself from the situation legally. In The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce (1643), John Milton also wrestled with the possibility that a marital choice could go wrong, albeit from a masculine (and masculinist) point of view: for all the warinesse can be us'd, it may yet befall a discreet man to be mistak'n in his choice: and we have plenty of examples, the soberest and best govern'd men are lest practiz'd in these affairs; and who knows not that the bashfull mutenes of a virgin may oft-times hide all the unlivelines & naturall sloth which is really unfit for conversation; nor is there that freedom of accesse granted or presum'd, as may suffice to a perfect discerning till too late ...56

Osborne's solution of placing the couple within a domestic situation might have solved Milton's dilemma. On the other hand, according to Osborne, such perfect discernment could prove discouraging: 'If in all that time they never disagreed they should then bee permitted to marry if they pleasd, but how few would doe it then' (145). Once again we see playful irony, yet if knowledge about one's romantic partner always reveals the difficulty of concord, it bodes badly for everyone.

Dorothy Osborne's Courtship 37 There is no doubt that Osborne was surrounded by misogynistic visions of marriage. Her uncle wrote one of the most virulent attacks on both women and marriage in his conduct book Advice to a Son (1653). In his section on marriage, Francis Osborne snarled: Marriage, like a Trap set for flies, may possibly be ointed at the Entrance, with a little Voluptuousnesse, under which is contained a draught of deadly wine, more pricking and tedious than the Passions it pretends to cure, leaving the Patient in little quieter condition in the morning, than him that hath over-night kill'd a man to gratify his revenge.5 As Jane Bingham and Grayce Scholt remark, 'the misogyny evidenced in the author's chapter on love and marriage angered so many readers that subsequent editions bore an apology to the reader, especially to women.'58 To female readers who found their way to his book, Francis Osborne had the following to say: Thus, like the Angels sent to the rescue of Lot, Women do not only run the hazard of their own Contamination by Marriage, to draw men out of the sins no lesse then punishments impending the barren and unnaturall delights of solitude, but alter their shapes, and embase their celestiall Beauties, when by discharging their Husbands of the venome of Love, they swell themselves into the bulke and dangers of Childbearing: losing their owne Name and their Families; to pepetuate that of a meere Stranger.59 The threat of marriage is viscerally sexual and economic, usurping a woman's body and stripping her of her family affiliations. Could Osborne have been directly exposed to this view? She certainly acknowledged that she expected difficulties in love and marriage. Osborne interrupted her speculations about the continued existence of love after marriage to admit she might not be able to speak authoritatively about the issue: it is very possible I may talke ignorantly of Marriage. When I come to make sad Experiments on't in my owne Person, I shall know more, and say lesse, for feare of disheartening other's (since tis noe advantage to forknow a misfortune that cannot bee avoyded) and for feare of being Pittyed, which of all things I hate. (66) Her repeated implication that she lacked encouragement from positive

38 An Audience of One models - people were so often proud and haughty - invests this apparently whimsical statement with seriousness. In an unexpected adjectival connection, she described the 'experiments' of marriage (with their connotation of empirical observation) as 'sad.' Given her interest in models of behaviour, her statement that she would not necessarily publicly share her experiences was a poignant admission of closed circles of communication in a patriarchal society where it was difficult for women to find help for their difficulties outside their families. The idea that women might suffer in their marriages - or at least find them burdensome - is found elsewhere in women's writing in the period. Despite her generally positive vision of her own husband and family, Katherine Philips decried domestic enclosure in her poem 'To One Persuading a Lady to Marriage,' where a prospective groom was discouraged from pursuing her close female friend: She is a public deity; And were't not very odd She should dispose herself to be A petty household God?60

(11. 4-8)

Only confinement awaits the married woman. Marriage is no happy prize, but a claustrophobic state to be avoided. Lucy Hutchinson also wrote glowingly of her husband in Memoirs of the Life of Colonel Hutchinson: 'A naked undrest narrative, speaking the simple truth of him, will deck him with more substantial glorie than all the Panegyricks the best pens could ever consecrate to the vertues of the best men.'61 Yet Hutchinson lamented the 'shackles' of marriage in her Genesis epic, Order and Disorder: Eve sinned in fruit forbid, and God requires Her penance in the fruit of her desires. The best condition of the wedded state, Giving all wives sense of the curse's weight, Which makes them ease and liberty refuse, And with strong passion their own shackles choose.62 (Canto 5,11. 129-30; 136-9) Hutchinson may have aimed her remarks about marriage at the extremely fraught consequences of Adam and Eve's original sin. However,

Dorothy Osborne's Courtship 39

a more universal suffering for 'all wives' can also be found in these remarks. Osborne herself frequently used humour to downplay the potentially painful aspects of marriage, striking a tone that was both light-hearted and stoic: If People proceeded with this caution the world would End sooner then is Expected I beleeve, and because with all my Warinesse tis not imposible but I may bee caught, nor likely, that I should bee wiser then Every body Else, twere best I think that I sayed noe more in this point. (145)

Osborne's resignation to being 'caught' was couched in terms of the biological imperative of reproduction. Expressing distress and confusion over negative examples of disharmony, she nonetheless portrayed this destructive human behaviour as typical and irrevocable. What was Osborne's ultimate attitude toward the married state as expressed in her letters to her future husband? As I shall discuss in chapter 2, Osborne used her letters to 'think on paper' and to bring Temple into that thinking process. Our access to her ideas is both enhanced and mediated by this fact. For example, her remark that there were 'Multitudes that Abuse the names of Love and friendship' was not her last word on the subject of romantic partnerships. She was sometimes immensely optimistic about her marriage with Temple, and their ability to do better than the miserable and capricious people she witnessed: 'can there bee a more Romance Story then ours would make if the conclusion should prove happy?' (167). Her hope for a better marital partnership than the ones she observed seems to have rested in the narrative she and Temple were constructing together, her ability to convince him of the importance of her preferences and hopes, and her facilitation of a free and shifting dialogue between the lovers. When she presented her thinking on the marital situations of others, it was with a deep awareness of material conditions the misery of the woman with the table-pounding husband - but with a sensitivity to ideals: think of the breathless portrayal of the couple who love each other as much as they are 'capable of loving.' If Osborne had explored merely the darkest possibilities, she would have been giving way to gloom, and if she had shown only the happiest, she would have been a Pollyanna. Her idealism is part of the rigour that led her to comment so powerfully on the unions around her, and to expect Temple to respond to her remarks.

40 An Audience of One

Osborne's letters reveal the limitations of women's power in the period, and illuminate some of her own strategies to escape these limitations. In writing her persuasive, outspoken, and thoughtful letters, Osborne established a space where both members of the couple were inspired to 'command and obey.' Osborne's letters opened up a new vein of communication between the couple, where there was room for negotiation, care, and responsiveness. Osborne was able to express her anger, fears, and hopes. Equally important, she could elicit, respond to, and even shape Temple's opinions and stances. The letters offered alternatives to the unhappy cultural models Osborne witnessed, and challenged the couple to aspire to her most cherished hopes for her own partnership.

Chapter Two

An Audience of One: Dorothy Osborne as a Letter Writer

When she wrote her letters to Sir William Temple, Dorothy Osborne was not aiming at print publication, unlike her considerably more ambitious counterpart Margaret Cavendish, who sought perpetual literary fame and described her writings as 'paper bodies' as dear to her as living, corporeal beings.1 When it seemed as though the unique handwritten copies of twenty of her plays might have been lost in a shipwreck en route to publication, Cavendish noted, 'I should have Died Twenty Deaths.'2 Some of Osborne's female contemporaries also wrote letters whose purpose extended beyond the concerns of the moment. Mary Evelyn, for example, copied out her letters in what Frances Harris terms a 'booklike format,' perhaps indicating a desire to 'preserve and transmit these private documents into the future, even if not for general public view.' In contrast to these more enduring visions of literary production, Osborne almost certainly did not think her letters had a claim on the future. Rather than shield her letters from the vagaries of shipwreck and fire, Osborne expected Temple to destroy them, ensuring that they did not reach the prying eyes of family and other voyeuristic individuals, although he obviously did not do so. Osborne's practical purpose in writing the letters has caused critics such as Genie Lerch-Davis to question their artistic merit: 'The most cogent evidence that Osborne had no literary pretensions and no special love of writing literary familiar letters is the utilitarian, colloquial, unartistic epistolary prose that she wrote immediately after the marriage.'4 The less lively post-marital letters, however, do not prove that Osborne did not have artistic intentions at any time in her life. Nor does the fact that she eschewed print publication demonstrate a lack of aesthetic self-consciousness. Osborne might have found the dissemination of the letters in print

42 An Audience of One

strange at best and unwelcome at worst. They were meant for one reader. Virginia Woolf s attempt to place her in the tradition of women's writing would likely have been foreign to her, and there is no evidence (as there is for Cavendish) that she ever thought her writing would be subject to critical analysis. But Osborne thought seriously about her purpose in writing, and was obviously aware of what Lerch-Davis terms the 'epistolary decorums' of early modern letter writing. Her letters were meant to produce strong emotive and intellectual effects in the moment they were read.5 Osborne spoke of good letters as possessing the attributes of a conversation. She was not the first person to do so. Renaissance humanists like Erasmus certainly took advantage of the letter form to create intellectual conversations between equals: 'The epistolary maintenance of friendship between equals (usually exchanges between learned men) was Erasmus's chief model.'6 However, James Daybell argues for the 'emergence of more personal epistolary forms, and the increasing range of private, introspective and flexible uses for which letters were employed' in the seventeenth century. Indeed, multiplicity of purpose is a central attribute of Osborne's letters. No single rhetorical mode fully dominates, and the letters include elements such as satire, reflection, humorous sketches, complaints, proverbs, pastoral fantasy, literary judgments, political commentary, and ephemeral gossip. Perhaps the most striking aspect of the letters is a rhetorical flexibility that allowed Osborne to tailor each letter to her short- and long-term concerns. Osborne was aware of the power of letters in building a rapport between two people and their capacity to act as a persuasive and interactive form. Each letter, as Lerch-Davis notes, involved her reader Temple in 'more than passive listening - by the questions it directs to him as an individual, by the accounts of events and persons that it relates to him because of his special interest in them, by the writer's singular attitude toward him'8 More recently, Susan M. Fitzmaurice begins by arguing that Osborne offered an almost one-sided 'sketching of Temple and her exploration of her relationship with him' but ultimately concludes that Osborne had the 'real expectation of relevant response' through her use of 'direct questions as well as indirect appeals.'9 This chapter considers some of Osborne's goals as a letter writer and the formal features of her writing that involved her reader in 'more than passive listening.' From an evaluation of the way that letters figuratively bridged the distance between the lovers, I shall progress to Osborne's explicit rejection of the academic rhetorical model in favour

Dorothy Osborne as a Letter Writer 43

of a conversational model of letter writing. This conversational model empowered her to use the epistolary form as a space where she could speak freely and on her own terms. Osborne used several skilful techniques as she crafted her letters for her 'audience of one,' including the occasional use of a suspenseful present tense and the frequent invocation of quotidian details that engaged Temple in her daily experience. While Osborne constructed her letters to involve her beloved in active reading, they were also a masterful act of self-styling. They can be illuminated by comparisons to contemporaries like Arbella Stuart and Katherine Thimelby, and in the context of recent theories of performativity. However, Osborne's correspondence with Temple was not just an act of individual performance, but a shared exploration that provided ample space for experimentation and thinking on paper. Osborne used her letters to compel Temple's involvement and his help, especially at moments of extreme crisis in the courtship. In this manner, the correspondence aided Osborne in her attempt to cope with the hostile pressures that beset her. This chapter considers her epistolary philosophies and the formal features of her letters that made them such a successful means of engaging Temple in a lively dialogue. 'An Intire Diamond of the Bignesse': The Letter as a Gift

Letters are more than vehicles for communication. A letter also functions as a gift, as Cynthia Lowenthal implies when she describes it as 'an object the recipient can touch, carry in a pocket, take out and read again.'10 The letters bound the lovers together in a discourse of generosity and exchange, deepening their loyalty to each other. It is clear that Osborne and Temple exchanged several objects as tokens of romantic devotion.11 Temple sent Osborne letter seals that pleased her, and she requested (among other things) that he send her orangeflower water: 'You see I make no scruple of giveing you little idle comissions, tis a freedom you allow mee, and that I should bee glad you would take' (82). This kind of exchange symbolized the mutually beneficial nature of the courtship, as did the letters themselves. Osborne compared one of Temple's letters to a precious treasure: 'I know not whither an intire diamond of the bignesse on't would have pleased mee half soe well' (81). One of Osborne's rhetorical techniques throughout the courtship was to establish a language of mutual obligation as we see, for example, in her remark that both members of the couple should 'command and

44 An Audience of One

obey.' Similar language of reciprocity was at work in Osborne's treatment of the obligations of the letter exchange: Would to god you would leave that trick of makeing Excuses, can you think it necessary to mee, or beleeve that your Letters can bee soe long as to make them unpleasing to mee, are mine soe to you, if they are not, yours, never will be soe to mee. You see I say any thing to you, out of a beleife, that though my letter's were more impertinent then they are, you would not bee without them nor wish them shorter, why should you bee lesse kinde. (82)

Here she dismissed any falsely modest protestations that his letters were unwelcome, and asserted her confidence that her own letters had value and were worth reading. The reciprocal nature of Osborne's letters can be illuminated by Mikhail Bahktin's well-known description of the way in which all literary production is based on the relationship between speaker and audience: Each person's inner world and thought has its stabilized social audience that comprises the environment in which reasons, motives, values, and so on are fashioned ... specific class and specific era are limits that the ideal of addressee cannot go beyond ... In point of fact a word is a two-sided act. It is determined equally by whose word it is and for whom it is meant. As word, it is precisely the product of the reciprocal relationship between speaker and listener, addresser and addressee. Each and every word expresses the 'one' in relation to the 'other.' I give myself verbal shape from another's point of view, ultimately, from the point of view of the community to which I belong.12

A writer's historical moment and audience is imagined and experienced in the moment of literary creation. Perhaps this awareness of audience, this shaping of words and selves, is even more pronounced in letter writing. Janet Altman affirms this: 'In no other genre do readers figure so prominently [sic] within the world of the narrative and in the generation of the text ... The letter writer simultaneously seeks to affect his reader and is affected by him.'13 While letters have on occasion been negatively compared to diary entries because they ostensibly lack the frankness of private solitary writing, Rosemary O'Day argues that letters 'reveal more (in a three-dimensional way) about active and continuing relationships.'14 In Osborne's letters we can indeed see something of the dynamic

Dorothy Osborne as a Letter Writer 45

between Osborne and Temple, and we can see that Temple's expectations and responses shaped Osborne's letters. He received them with alacrity, spurring her production of more writing. When he asked for longer missives, Osborne complied, although mildly complaining. Osborne answered Temple's questions and posed her own; she structured her descriptions and commentary for his eyes. Even though the relationship the couple was creating was of immense value to them, and they were both committed to the reciprocal letter exchange, keeping up the correspondence was arduous in many ways. Osborne commiserated with Temple about the challenge of handing over his weekly letter to the carrier before dawn: 'I am soe great a lover of my bed my self, that I can easily aprehende the trouble of ryseing at fower a clock, these cold mornings. In Earnest I am troubled that you should bee putt to it, and have chid the Carrier for comeing out soe soone' (68). One can almost feel the loss of sleep in one's bones, and envision the key role letter delivery played in the lovers' weekly routine. Many of the letters went missing before they reached their destination. When letters were lost before the recipient had a chance to read them for the first time, it was a source of anxiety and even mourning. At the most tense moments in the courtship, there was extreme worry over letters which 'miscarry,' since this 'miscarriage' connected to a fear that her brother might read them: T am extreamly sorry that your letter miscaryed but I am confident my B: has it not' (159). When Osborne successfully received a letter, she expressed relief and pleasure: 'Your Last cam safe' (119). Even at an early stage of the correspondence, Osborne hailed the arrival of one of Temple's missives as a respite: 'Your last letter came like a pardon to one upon the block. I had given over hopes on't, haveing received my letters by the other Carrier, whoe uses always's to bee last' (75). Osborne was often wracked with impatience when awaiting a letter, or roused to expressions of temper at anyone who prevented her receipt of it. The following passage displays her indignation when a stable groom was slow in handing over one of Temple's letters: I am glad you scaped a beating but in Earnest would it had lighted upon my Brothers Groome, I think I should have beaten him my self if I had bin able. I have Expected your letter all this day with the Greatest impatience that was posible, and at Last resolved to goe out and meet the fellow, and when I came downe to the stables, I found him come, had sett up his horse, and was sweeping the Stable in great Order. I could not imagin him soe very a beast as to think his horses were to bee served before mee, and

46 An Audience of One therefor was presently struck with an aprehension hee had noe letter for mee, it went Colde to my heart as Ice, and hardly left mee courage enough to aske him the question, but when hee had drawled out that hee thought there was a letter for mee in his bag I quickly made him leave his broome. 'Twas well 'tis a dull fellow hee could not but have discern'd else that I was strangly overjoyed with it, and Earnest to have it, for though the poor fellow made what hast hee coulde to unty his bag, I did nothing but chide him for being soe slow. (81)

In this passage Osborne's emotional reactions are structured around Temple and the letter exchange. Dramatic irony draws the couple together in a kind of shared complicity. Only they know of the importance of the letter and the cause of her impatience. Indeed, Osborne frequently described the puzzlement of others at the passions that animated her, with the clear implication that Temple had privileged access to her thoughts. Despite her free admission that Temple's letters were a source of joy, Osborne was aware that the letters could not fully bridge the distance between the couple. Temple wrote from Dublin or London; Osborne wrote from Chicksands in Bedfordshire or the distant home of her brother Peyton. In one missive, she pinpointed the limitations of her letters: At the same time that my Letters tell you I am well and still your friend, they tell you too that I am where you cannot see mee and where I vainly wish you, and when they are kindest and most welcom to you, they only show that 'tis impossible I should desyr your happinesse more, or have lesse power to make it. (129)

Osborne's remarks, while suffused with a powerful longing, mediate curiously between power and powerlessness. Her letters testified to her emotions for Temple, but in themselves could not bring the courtship to a close. Osborne's wry sense of the impossibility of bridging the distance between the lovers, as well as her keen desire to link them, may well be one of the signal attributes of letter writing. Osborne often remarked to Temple that she wished he were near: 'If to know I wish you with mee, pleases you, tis a satisfaction you may always's have, for I doe it perpetualy' (105). The letters became a tangible demonstration that the lovers were mindful of each other. Like her female contemporaries, Osborne

Dorothy Osborne as a Letter Writer 47

was aware of the power of letters to reassure the absent beloved of one's devotion. The mere existence of the letters was as important as their actual content during the courtship; the lovers influenced and shaped each other's writing. The letters were an active link between the couple that endured even in a pressured situation, keeping alive the hope that the courtship might be happily resolved. 'Free and Easy as ones discourse': Conversational Models for Letter Writing

Osborne expressed curiosity about the letters of at least one aristocratic woman: T should bee pleased too to see somthing of my Lady Carlisles writeing because she is soe Extreordinary a Person' (148). Lucy Countess of Carlisle was a friend of Henrietta Maria's, and a spy at court for the parliamentarian John Pym, informing him when Charles I intended to arrest five members of parliament. Later in the war, she hosted a cabal of aristocratic Presbyterians, and was arrested and put in the Tower of London from 15 March 1649 until March 1651.15 In a letter to Osborne, Temple had obviously commented on the superiority of Osborne's letters to those of Carlisle. Osborne took the opportunity to conspicuously display her modesty: But are you not affrayde of giveing me a strang Vanity with telling mee that I write better then the most Extreordinary person in the Kingdom [?] if I had not the sense to understand that the reason why you like my letters better is only because they are kinder then hers, such a word might have undon mee. (144)

Despite Osborne's emphasis on the romantic and clandestine nature of their correspondence, Temple figuratively placed her letters within the public arena when he compared her written production with that of Carlisle's. The countess's letters must have been widely disseminated for Temple to be able to make this comparison and for Osborne to want to pursue her reading of Carlisle. Demonstrating her easy comprehension of Carlisle's writing and politics, Osborne made a straightforward evaluation: Pray tell mee ... what fault you finde in my Lady Car: letter, my thinks the hand and the Stile both show her a great person, and tis writt in the way that's now affected by all that pretend to witt and to good breeding, only I

48 An Audience of One am a litle scandalised I confesse that she uses that word faithfull, she that never knew how to bee soe in her life. (151) Osborne would have found Carlisle's infamy distasteful, but her notoriety made her writing worth reading. However, the most important aspect of this exchange is that Osborne held up well in comparison with Carlisle, and that Temple told her so. Letter writing in seventeenth-century England was supported and shaped by a variety of theoretical and political discourses. Various letterwriting guides were published and reprinted throughout the early modern period in England. The first examples were the ars dicta-minis, written primarily for students of the art of rhetoric and following classical models. In England, writers in the ars dictaminis model included Angel Day and William Fulwood; these writers were largely associated with students of rhetoric in the schools and universities. Beyond the manuals designed to instruct in rhetoric, there was another variety of letter manuals, the secretaries (secretaires) which, in the words of Jean Robertson, were 'intent on providing the middle classes with suitable letters for all their lawful occasions.'16 Examples include such works as Thomas Gainsford's The Secretaries Studie (1616), I.W.'s A SpeediePoste with Certain New Letters (1629), and John Massinger's translation of Jean Puget de la Serre's Le Secretaire a la Mode, entitled The Secretary in Fashion: Or, A Compendious and Refined Way of Expression in all Manner of Letters (1640). These secretaries provided sample letters and offered instruction in their prefaces about the nature of good letter writing. A Speedie Poste, for example, announced its intention 'to instruct the youth in the true 1 *7 methode of inditing and composing letters. The secretaries served almost as miniature conduct books, displaying a 'range of interactions that might occur within polite society,' and initiating their readers into a series of social behaviours.18 Osborne never mentioned secretaries or letter-writing manuals to Temple in her existing correspondence. This is, naturally, hardly proof that she did not draw on them. However, Osborne's letters diverged from those of the secretaries in their use of informal locutions that are not really present in the secretaries. More significantly, she did not stick to one role in any given letter, whereas the letters in the secretaries were each devoted to one rhetorical mode only. Thomas Gainsford's The Secretaries Studie, for example, divided its letters into categories such as 'Amorous,' 'Morall,' 'Oeconomicall,' Toliticall,' and so on.19 All of these modes surfaced in Osborne's letters, but not programmatically

Dorothy Osborne as a Letter Writer 49

as they did in Gainsford or the other secretaries. In fact, much of Osborne's artistry, clothed in apparent naturalness, was based on rapid switches between these rhetorical strategies and modes of speaking; she changed rhetorical modes quickly depending on her specific purpose at the time. Osborne explicitly articulated a theory of letter writing that moved epistolary composition away from the strict epistolary decorum of the academic letter books and secretaries: All Letters mee thinks should bee free and Easy as ones discourse, not studdyed, as an Oration, nor made up of hard words like a Charrne. Tis an admirable thing to see how some People will labour to finde out term's that may Obscure a plaine sense, like a gentleman I knew, whoe would never say the weather grew cold, but that Winter began to salute us. (139)

Writing a letter like 'ones discourse' has the added benefit of being easier to compose, since it is not 'studdyed' or 'made up of hard words.' Virginia Woolf noted that letters were a congenial genre for an early modern woman like Osborne because letters were 'essays in disguise.' By this she meant that Osborne was able to use a less prescriptive, nonlinear form to speculate on and probe topics of importance to her rather like a relaxed but important conversation.20 Anne Finnell confirms that letters as a genre are 'regarded as the kind of written record that comes closest to conversation.' Finnell notes that 'as far as DO is concerned, she breaks with the norms advised in a number of letter writing manuals of that time in a very striking way. As a result, we find a number of informal expressions in DO's letters which are both attitudinal and interactional.'21 Osborne enacted the conversational model in her writing by smoothing over transitions, some of which could be jarring, with comforting signposts to guide Temple in his reading. Her more abrupt self-interruptions and topic switches could also be read as attempts to capture a conversational voice. Osborne's model of letters as a conversation may have licensed her to move deftly between topics and concerns, wandering and lingering in a rich and sinuous conversation. The fact that Osborne's letters were written over several days also helps to explain the shifts in mood and diction within any given letter, and the reason why each letter might include several rhetorical purposes. As an example of the movement between topics and styles typical of Osborne's letters, we might consider Letter 24 (Thursday 2-Saturday 4 June 1653). It begins with her mock rebuke

50 An Audience of One

of Temple for the many 'faults you lay to my Charge in your last letter.' He has dreamed that she acted strangely and imperiously (103). After this bracing beginning, she moves into a lyrical, even languid, account of 'how I passe my time heer' that includes her famous description of the shepherdesses near her home who do not match the beauty of those described by ancient poems: 'I walke out into a Common that lyes hard by the house where a great many young wenches keep Sheep and Cow's and sitt in the shade singing of Ballads' (103-4). The letter abruptly shifts from an image of Osborne lingering by the river ('where I sitt downe and wish you with mee') to a prosaic observation: 'Since I writt this my company is in creased by two' (104). Her brother-in-law Harry and her niece have just walked into the room. Osborne describes them and adds wryly that the latter is 'soe much a woman, that I am almost ashamed to say I am her Aunte' (104). She offers some gossip about her family and their mutual friends, and updates Temple on her father's physical condition. After more light gossip, she addresses his ostensible doubts about her 'kindenesse,' remarking in a prickly voice: 'That were an injury to all the assurances I have given you' (104). Her closing moves to a softer tone: 'sure this is more then I need to say, you are Enough in my heart to know all my thoughts, and if soe, you know better then I can tell you how much I am/ Yours' (104). Here Osborne transforms a usually utilitarian closing ('Yours') into an expression of her romantic commitment. A great deal of ground has been covered here. She has moved from privacy (when she is in the garden) to company (when her brother-inlaw and niece enter). Even more importantly, she has combined remarks about their relationship with observations on unrelated events. It is almost as if she bridges all of her concerns in order to give Temple the widest possible picture. As we can see from the varied themes and concerns of Letter 24, the epistolary form allowed Osborne to shape her written expression as she saw fit. She staked out letter writing as a territory where she felt empowered, even in contrast to powerful academics of the time: In my Opinion these great Schollers are not the best writer's, (of Letters I mean, of books perhaps they are) I never had I think but one letter from Sir Jus: but twas worth twenty of any body's else to make mee sport, it was the most sublime nonsence that In my life I ever read and yet I beleeve hee decended as low as hee could to come neer my weak understanding. (138)

Dorothy Osborne as a Letter Writer 51

In attacking the letter-writing abilities of the scholars (kindly bequeathing them the realm of academic books), Osborne again disassociated letter writing from the rhetorical modes of the academy, which Cynthia Lowenthal calls 'the strict rhetorical patterns long established for excellence in formal and informal discourse.'22 The oxymoronic 'sublime nonsence' is particularly crushing, as is her confident return of Isham's own condescending tone. Strategically, Osborne used this satirical moment to reassure Temple of his superiority, and to work in a graceful homage: 'Twill bee noe Complement after this to say I like your letters in themselv's, not as they come from one that is not indifferent to me. But seriously I doe' (1389). Osborne mingled personal and aesthetic concerns in keeping with a philosophy of letter writing that stresses conversation. For example, in her remarks about the letters of Temple's father, she linked the individual with his writing style: 'soe Naturall and soe Easy that one may see tis perfectly his disposition and has nothing of disguise int' (142). Osborne scorned pretentious diction and style, as we see from her criticisms of the writing style of her brother-in-law Thomas Peyton: 'My Brother P. indeed do's somtim's send mee letters that may be Excelent for ought I know, and the more likely because I doe not understand them, but ... I doe not like them and have wonderd that my sister ... never perswaded him to Alter his Stile and make it a litle more Intelligeble' (138). Osborne often described writing as subject to correction and improvement by others. She located the responsibility for the modification of her brother-in-law's style with her sister, placing the responsibility for good epistolary practice in the hands of a romantic partner, perhaps even in women's hands primarily. In Osborne's view, a writer should use the simplest language possible: I... cannot blame an old Uncle of mine that threw the Standish at his mans head because he writt a letter for him where instead of sayeing (as his Master bid him) that hee would have writ himself but that hee had the Goute in his hand; hee sayed that the Goute in his hand would not permitt him to put pen to paper. The ffellow thought hee had mended it Mightily and that putting pen to paper was much better then plaine writeing. (139)

Osborne could be nasty to servants who put on lofty airs, but her target here is pretension specifically, and overuse of elaborate locutions. Writ-

52 An Audience of One

ing should be a natural process.23 It is particularly interesting that she offered examples of both good and overblown phrasing, showing that she had a mastery over both. Osborne's self-conscious comments about letter writing show her awareness of competing epistolary decorums; she was a keen judge of epistolary style and extended her prescriptions for letter writing to make them a universal necessity. Scholars might write complex and longwinded books, but letters require a directness and lack of circumlocution. In commenting abstractly on the requirements of good letters, Osborne subtly drew attention to her achievement and affirmed the letter form as suited to her own uses. She did not allow herself to be intimidated by pedantic scholars like Justinian Isham. 'To correct the imperfections you find under my hand': Teaching, Learning, and Self-Development hi the Osborne-Temple Correspondence

Osborne also devoted parts of her letters to the process of instruction. We shall see in the next chapter that Osborne directed Temple in his reading, at times spelling out directly what his reaction should be. In chapter 5, we shall see her dispensing medical advice to Temple as well.24 Osborne's contemporaries would certainly have recognized the idea that letters could be used as a means of instruction, not only in their academic form but also within circles of family and friends. In the 1650s Brilliana Harley gave her son Edward moral, spiritual, and pragmatic instruction in letters. She reminded him to 'Let your stokens be always of the same culler of your cloths,' to 'be carefull to doo exersis' and to 'remember your Creator in the days of your youth.'25 Josephine Eales notes that Harley 'used her letters to pass on her own religious precepts to her children' but also to transfer family power: 'She was preparing him to be a gentleman and a local governor.'26 One of Harley's greatest epistolary roles was as teacher and sage. For her part Osborne also asked for advice and instruction of various kinds from Temple. As a general rule, she was not as concerned about religious instruction as her contemporaries, and instead tended to ask Temple for explanations of new words and spellings: I cannot Excuse you that proffesse to bee my friend, and yet are content to let mee live in such ignorance, write to mee Every week and yet never send mee any of the newe phrases of the Towne. I could tell you without aban-

Dorothy Osborne as a Letter Writer 53 doning the truth, that is part of your devoyre to correct the imperfections you finde under my hand Pray what is meant by wellness and unwellnes, and why is, to some Extream, better then to some Extreamity [?] I beleeve I shall live heer till there is quite a new Language spoke where you are, and shall come out like one of the Seven Sleepers, a Creature of another Age, but tis noe matter, soe you understande mee, though nobody else doe. (122)

Osborne wished to increase her intellectual and linguistic range, and to achieve currency. As she had done before in the letters, she made reference to her provincial setting as an impediment to her development. Although she emphasized her solitary communication with Temple, she clearly wanted to acquire skill, sophistication, and precision. Daybell makes reference to the way in which early modern women cultivated their letter writing skills: Pride and self-esteem appear to have encouraged women to acquire and improve literacy skills for purposes of correspondence. Further, the desire to acquit oneself well on paper could account for the numerous holograph presentation letters, which were painstakingly penned by women for show in neat italic scripts, and which often bear flourishing signatures.27

This argument is in many ways condescending, since it roots a concern for improvement in a desire for a good appearance, and a hope to please others that may or may not be empowering for a female writer. That being said, Daybell's notion of 'pride and self-esteem' that leads to a better written product is in evidence not only in Osborne's usually neat and legible handwriting but also in her eager desire to learn new words and their usages. Osborne's contemporary Lucy Hutchinson forms an interesting counterpart to the emphasis on teaching and learning in Osborne's letters. As David Norbrook points out, Hutchinson 'vigorously defended one of the most abstract, impersonal and punitive theologies ever devised'28 yet was nonetheless capable of describing reciprocity between men and women in the sphere of ideas: Equal delight it is to learn and teach, To be held up to that we cannot reach, And others from the abject earth to raise

54 An Audience of One To merit, and to give deserved praise. Love raiseth us, itself to heaven doth rise By virtue's varied mutual exercise, Sweet love, the life of life, which cannot shine But lies like gold concealed in the mine, Till it through much exchange a brightness take and conversation doth it current make.29 (Canto 3,11. 371-4, 382-7)

Despite a political stance that differed sharply from that of Osborne (she was an ardent parliamentarian), Hutchinson saw teaching and learning in a relationship as the mutual creation of value, and hence her metaphor of a coin in circulation. Hutchinson's own story - as she recounted it in The Life of Colonel Hutchinson - reflects a concern for a partner who was actively learning. As Hutchinson narrated it, her future husband visited her household before they had met, noticing a 'few Latine bookes' that belonged to her: the other gentleweomen who had bene her companions used to talke much to him of her, telling how reserv'd and studious she was, and other things which they esteem'd no advantage. But it so much enflam'd Mr. Hutchinson's desire of seeing her that he began to wonder at himselfe that his heart, which had ever had such an indifferency for the most excellent of weomenkind, should have so strong impulses towards a stranger he never saw30

The fact that Lucy Hutchinson's achievements were portrayed as exceptional shows that not all couples of the period emphasized intellectual liveliness. But Osborne herself clearly believed that she might learn from Temple, and that she had things to teach him too. Osborne wrote her letters as a young person who was still developing, and her future husband was also in the process of defining his intellectual and personal commitments. Both Osborne and Temple were speculating about new ideas and thinking on paper. Temple described his own experiments in imagination in an essay written in 1652 (the year the extant Osborne-Temple correspondence begins): this I speake of is a crowde of restlesse capering antique fancyes, bounding heere and there, fixing noe where, building in one halfe houre castles in

Dorothy Osborne as a Letter Writer 55 Ireland, monasteryes in France, palaces in Virginia, dancing at a wedding, weeping at a buriall, inthron'd like a King, inragg'd like a beggar, a lover, a friend, an indifferent person and sometimes thinges of as little relation one to another as the greate Turk and a redd herring, to say the truth tis at least a painlesse posture of mind if not something more, and why not?31

A vital imagination permeated this catalogue, down to the dizzy, confident exclamation 'and why not?' The imagination could play at being almost anything in a boundless realm of speculation. While slightly less rambunctious than Temple's 'greate Turk' and 'redd herring,' Osborne's writing also energetically explored roles, opinions, and alternatives, this time in dialogue with Temple himself. Talking By the Fire: Suspense, Immediacy, and Daily Events in Dorothy Osborne's Letters

Letters, unlike autobiography, do not allow an author to retrospectively shape the events of lived experience. An author can shape a single letter, but cannot shape the sequence as a whole. Each letter is composed at a discrete moment in time, and will by necessity respond to and shape situations still in process. However, Osborne wistfully posited the happy resolution of the courtship when she noted: 'can there bee a more Romance Story then ours would make if the conclusion should prove happy[?]' (167). The comment carried a certain irony; she was referring to the dilatio of the long romances produced in the seventeenth century, where the union of the lovers was subject to so many complications that the stories stretched on for thousands of pages.32 In positing a romance where 'the conclusion should prove happy,' Osborne indicated that she would like to shut down suspense and be free from uncertainty. However, her letters remained in the 'groping present' until the couple's marriage, and were energized by the suspense of not knowing what would happen next. Even at the end of the existing correspondence, Osborne could not be sure whether Temple's father would ever fully consent to and support their marriage: 'You must bee contented not to stay heer above two or three howers I shall tell you my reason when you come & pray informe your self of all that your f:[ather] will doe in this occasion that you may tell it mee only therfore let it bee plainly and sincerely what hee intends and all' (216). This statement involved Temple by asking him to provide more information and by enticing him with information she

56 An Audience of One

would provide herself: 'I shall tell you my reason when you come.' Suspense was presented as a phenomenon experienced by both lovers equally, just as they both uneasily, ardently waited for letters to arrive each week. Osborne repeatedly brought Temple into the moment of composition, or painted a scene for him to view. When Virginia Woolf noted, 'For the first time in English literature we hear men and women together talking over the fire,'33 she referred directly to Osborne's description of a family scene: You could not but have Laught if you had seen mee last night. My Br: and Mr Gibson were talking by the fyre and I salt by, but as noe part of the company. Amongst other things (which I did not at all minde) they fell into a discourse of fflyeing and both agreed that it was very posible to finde out a way that people might fly like Birds and dispatch theire Journy's soe I that had not sayd a word all night started up at that and desyr'd they would say a litle more in it, for I had not marked the begining, but instead of that they both fell into soe Violent a Laughing that I should apeare soe much concern'd in such an Art; but they litle knew of what use it might have bin to mee. (150)

The scene communicated a desire that was otherwise inexpressible. Osborne granted Temple closeness by permitting him a 'bird's eye' view of a scene, providing insight denied others: 'they litle knew of what use it might have bin to mee.' Osborne's communication with Temple included both interior and exterior aspects, and she made sure that he had access to several modes of experience. The scene was public, and yet as it was written became extremely intimate: part of their secret lover's world. The fact that Osborne's subject matter could be humble (a routine night with the family) as well as lofty (a daring cross-country flight) aided in the creation of intimacy between the couple. Claudio Guillen notes that in the Renaissance, a letter was meant to 'admit daily living, the singularity and interest of the simplest acts, the relicta circunstantia scorned by nobler genres.' Osborne frequently incorporated descriptions of everyday acts like drinking, eating, walking, or sitting around with family members. Some of these descriptions of everyday acts and situations were recounted in the continuing present. Attending at her father's sickbed, for example, Osborne pauses for a fortifying drink:

Dorothy Osborne as a Letter Writer 57 My fellow watchers have bin a sleep too till just now, they begin to stretch and yawne, they are goeing to try if eating and drinking can keep them awake and I am kindly invited to bee of theire company. My fathers man has gott one of the mayd's to talk nonsense to to night and they have gott between them a botle of Ale, I shall loose my share if I doe not take them at theire first offer, your patience till I have drunk and then I am for you againe. And now in the strength of this Ale I beleeve I shall bee able to fill up this Paper that's left with something or other. (89)

Osborne wearily displays the arduous nature of her daily life to Temple. In seeking a break, she skilfully conveys the taxing nature of her sickbed ritual. The fact that the conversation can be interrupted at all shows that it is based on an ideal of presence. Osborne shows Temple both an event of the day and the process of writing it down, placing him by her side in the moment. Osborne's incorporation of daily acts was an astute rhetorical strategy in keeping with the idea of letters as conversational. Lyn L. Irvine speaks of the 'little real things' in the letters: The letters ... are full of little real things such as escape all but the most delicate and natural minds, those fragments which recreate something so much larger than themselves, tiny mirrors that reflect great rooms, fourinch windows that look out on half a county. She caught and preserved as only rare and original writers can the interstitial acts and emotions of life.35

The idea of 'interstitial acts' is of great value, referring as it does to marginal crevices: nooks and crannies of experience that Irvine values as 'so much larger than themselves.' These 'little real things' add up to more than the sum of their parts. Osborne built a wider picture out of what might seem ephemeral details. She intended these details to make Temple part of her life when they were physically separated, compelling his interest, his affection, and his help. A Window to the Heart

A popular - and stereotypical - vision of letters is that they reveal the heart of the writer. Christina Marsden Gillis cites Jean Rousset's dictum that the letter writer 'does not have a style, he is the style.'36 Rosemary

58 An Audience of One

O'Day makes a division between the guileless and the artificial as an opportunity to ascertain how social conventions shape individual expression and thought: The writer of a letter was, in many cases, taking up a position and, in so doing, was constructing and presenting a case and/ or an image or version of him or herself for the benefit of the recipient ... On occasion this was perhaps a very self-conscious activity; at other times the composer of the letter perhaps wrote haphazardly and with little if any deliberate guile ... these features actually enhance their value ... with due care, we can determine what contemporaries understood of the conventions of relationships, of their manipulation, of their content.37

While O'Day's sense that a letter can be read within and against the conventions of the time is productive, the notion that one can discern the difference between manipulation and sincerity is likely too confident. Such a model of inwardness relies on the idea of an authenticity that can be isolated from the mediations and constructions of language. One could turn to a performative model, for example, to call the idea of an 'authentic' set of expressions into question. Scholars have produced various works on performativity, and the cumulative effect is to challenge the idea of a 'natural' identity and instead focus on the selves we bring into being through performance. In the 1960s F.L. Austin described how the meaning of an utterance was dependent on not only its content but also the fact and conditions of its utterance.38 In the 1990s Judith Butler extended this model to think of gender itself as a set of performative acts. Rather than a natural expression of identity, gender is created through the repetition of gendered acts and codes.39 Osborne's performance of gender in all its dimensions is beyond the scope of this manuscript, but I will consider her performance of an epistolary self: her written 'visible, gestural, mannered behavior.'40 Julia A. Walker ponders the dominance of the metaphor of performance in theoretical considerations of literature and culture: The current critical interest in the metaphor of performance - with its emphasis upon actors acting upon the world - reveals not only a perceived loss of individual agency, but a desire to imaginatively recuperate a sense of agency that would allow for the possibility of resisting the otherwise deterministic structure of social and political relations.41

Dorothy Osborne as a Letter Writer

59

Walker's insight applies to Osborne in a variety of ways. Osborne was doing more than simply recording the social pressures and forces she experienced. Osborne's agency as a letter writer was complex and multifaceted. For one thing, the letters were clandestine acts of defiance against the strictures of Osborne's family. They were also gifts and reminders of the absent beloved. As a kind of substitution for presence, they performed engaged, lively, face-to-face speech. They were also a means of producing a desirable persona of a future wife, one who was outspoken and yet receptive to Temple's needs. Finally, the letters were a means of asserting Osborne's vision of an ideal marriage. The fluid exchange of the letters, where several topics and concerns were broached and explored, embodied for Osborne an ideal interaction where conversation was free and unrestricted between partners. Many critics have anatomized the fictive dimensions of letters, despite their seeming transparency. Guillen describes why so many would-be novel writers might be drawn to the epistolary form, since a novelist 'needs only to extend and multiply' the fictionality already present in letters.42 With the rise of life-writing theory, there has been sustained attention to the fictionality of forms like diaries and letters. Critics have focused on the way in which these forms are as fictive as any retrospectively sculpted piece of autobiography. Metaphors of theatrical performance have also been applied to epistolary composition. Stimpson uses the metaphor of a 'theater' built on the 'needs and nature of an audience' to describe Virginia Woolf s letters, since she changed her persona so radically with each new recipient.43 The dramatic metaphor of a 'mask' works well for Osborne, although Osborne was shaping her letters for only one reader. Writing itself led Osborne, despite her hopes for unmediated contact, into artifice. With an eye to the writings of Jacques Derrida, Guillen notes that letter writing 'begins to involve the writer in a silent, creative process of self-distancing and self-modeling, leading perhaps, as in autobiography, to fresh knowledge or even to fiction.'44 In the act of retelling events like conversations with her brother, the conduct of her day, her family finances, and even her reading and thinking, Osborne put her imprimatur on all that she recounted and generated new ideas for both herself and Temple as she wrote. An intriguing comparison can be made between Osborne and Lady Arbella Stuart (1575-1615), a prolific aristocratic letter writer who actually did use fictions in her correspondence. As the niece of Mary Queen of Scots, Stuart was watched carefully by Elizabeth I and James I; her

60 An Audience of One

marriage choice might have affected her position in reference to the British throne (although it was not clear she had any aspirations to rule). Stuart presented herself in writing very carefully. Many of her letters curried favour with royal relatives or navigated the financial and social exigencies of the court of King James I.45 In her twenties, while living with her dominant grandmother (Elizabeth Talbot, countess of Shrewsbury), Stuart tried unsuccessfully to contract a marriage in the face of family opposition. Later she married William Seymour against the wishes of James I. After her first abortive attempt to marry, Stuart was confined to her home and under great scrutiny, especially from her grandmother. In her letters to her family, she wrote glowingly and passionately about a fictional lover 'to force court attention to her plight.'46 Stuart used explicit fictions in order to shock her audience into sympathy and action. More importantly, drawing on such fictions surely allowed her to reimagine her life in a way she preferred. These letters could be termed performative in the sense that they work on the world in ways that exceeded the content of the words on the page: the mere existence of her letters about her fictive lover was significant. Sara Jayne Steen indicates how delicately Stuart presented herself in the letters she wrote at the court of James I, invoking Stephen Greenblatt's theories of self-fashioning: Through examining Stuart's revisions, we can see when she decided to flatter someone or tone down her anger or alter her entire rhetorical strategy. We can see the process by which she resolved contradictions in her thinking and rhetorically defined herself for formal presentation. Extending to women Stephen Greenblatt's thesis about male power to fashion a self, we can watch an intelligent and well-educated Renaissance woman fashion a self in prose.47 Steen goes on to speak of Stuart's wish for 'freedom for her grandmother's domination, the right to live where she chose, and the opportunity to marry.' Stuart, like Osborne, sought control over her marital choice and used letters to assert that control.48 Unlike Osborne, however, Stuart negotiated directly with family members and political figures who could help her. Her letters offered a selfportrayal of an individual exceedingly worthy of their kind intervention. We see Stuart's cautious positioning from the opening of her letter to Elizabeth I written in mid-January 1603, after her first abortive attempt

Dorothy Osborne as a Letter Writer 61 to marry: 'I yeld your Majesty most humble and dutifull thanckes for your Highnesse most gratious interpretation of this accident most humbly craving the continuance of your Majesties good opinion which ever hath binne my greatest comfort.'49 Stuart greets Elizabeth I with a high degree of formality and a consummate humility, one that should move the reader to pity and forgiveness. We do not have access to Osborne's writing directed to the members of her family - such as her all-powerful father and brother - who stood in the way of her marriage choice. In her letters to Temple, Osborne did not need to employ the specific types of persuasion to which Stuart resorted. Yet the fact that Osborne did not employ obvious fictions does not imply in any way that she was not forming a persona, nor does it imply that her aims were not persuasive. At several points, as we see from her remarks about their final marriage negotiations, Osborne had to convince Temple of something. Osborne did have to portray herself carefully to Temple, since the contract between the two could easily have been broken. Throughout the correspondence, Osborne clearly hoped to appear appealing, congenial, and desirable in Temple's eyes. Her contemporary Katherine Thimelby expressed a similar concern, and in fact remarked to her future husband that there might be a difference between her appealing appearance and the reality of her character: 'May I be what you think I am, or may you ever mistake me as you doe: for to see me as I am, must nedes cause my fall from your favor.'50 In the existing correspondence, Osborne never expressed any doubt that Temple might find her lacking when they met in person but it is useful to remember that she presented herself mainly though writing and that the couple rarely met during the courtship. The most obvious instance of the creation of a persona in the letters is found in the middle of the existing correspondence, where there is, as Parker notes, a 'clearly discernible change of mood.'51 In this series of letters, Osborne argued that the couple should dissolve their union because there were too many barriers for them to overcome: familial consent and financial stability were proving all too elusive. These letters are not the only performative moments in the correspondence, but they display extreme shifts between formality and intimacy, and a kind of persuasive - even manipulative - power. In these letters, Osborne had to argue that the couple should give up their love entirely, while making it clear that she did not actually want that to happen, and making it even more clear that Temple should increase his efforts to gain the consent of his father.

62 An Audience of One Here is Osborne's first formulation of the need for the couple to dissolve their relationship: I have seriously considerd all our misfortunes, and can see noe End of them but by submitting to that which wee cannot avoyde and by yeelding to It, break the force of a blowe which if resisted brings a certain Ruine wee have lived hitherto upon hopes soe Airye that I have often wonderd how they could support the weight of our misfortunes. But passion gives a strength above Nature, wee see it in mad People, (and not to fflatter our selves) ours is but a refined degree of madnesse. What can it bee else, to be lost to all things in, the world but that single Object that takes up on's ffancy to loose all the quiet and repose of on's life in hunting after it, when there is soe litle likelyhood of ever gaineing it, and soe many, more probable, accidents, that will infallibly make us misse of it. And (which is more then all) tis being Masterd by that, which Reason & Religion teaches us to governe, and in that onely gives us a preheminence above Beasts. (155-6) These passages do depart markedly from Osborne's usual style and concerns. They use conventional imagery of religious piety, and read much more like set meditations on abstract ideas than the rest of the correspondence. The obvious move away from the 'free and easy' style of the other letters was carefully crafted. By changing her tone so radically, Osborne attempted to compel Temple's utmost attention. She assumed the startling role of the devout and contrite sinner who seeks to make restitution through romantic renunciation. Thomas Peregrine Courtenay noted that these letters of renunciation were 'curiously framed to ensure their own failure.'52 Genie Lerch-Davis also notes 'the shift in decorum from the emphatic persuasiveness of the body of the letter back to Osborne's norm of genuineness and intimacy in the postscript.'53 In the body of the letters, Osborne offered a cold and pessimistic appraisal of their chance for a union. In her postscript, she drew Temple again into the warm circle of their relationship by expressing concern for his continued well-being: 'Did you not intende to write to mee when you writt to Jane [?] that bit of paper did mee great service, without it I should have had strange aprehensions, all my sad dreams and the severall frights I have waked in would have run soe in my head that I should have concluded something of very ill from your silence' (156-7). These letters of crisis (six in all) did indeed have a strong effect. Tern-

Dorothy Osborne as a Letter Writer 63

pie took Osborne's idea that the couple was at an impasse seriously and successfully redoubled his efforts to get his father to approve their match. Her performance of romantic renunciation underscored the seriousness of the situation, but her equally powerful performance of continued romantic engagement and tenderness provided a sense of hope, since it undermined the stoically pious persona of the body of the letters of crisis. Osborne not only displayed a range of tones and literary effects; she manipulated that tonal flexibility and suppleness for her own goals, and in the process was able to manipulate Temple himself. Many elements played into Osborne's choice of letters as a means of expressing herself, beyond the expediencies of the courtship. The genre itself afforded intimacy and privacy, and allowed the exchange of material tokens of love. The letters allowed for self-revelation and for thought, but in an arena that enabled Osborne to speak freely. They made it possible for her to dramatize her situation and create an appealing persona for her reader Temple. In letters, Osborne found ample space for the portrayal of daily routine as well as unusual events. While care was expended on each letter, there was none of the pressure associated with print publication in the period. No one letter was the final word, and each letter invited some kind of response. Above all, the letters could perform rhetorical work on Temple that helped Osborne advance the courtship to the successful end she desired.

Chapter Three

Shared Privacies: Reading in the Osborne-Temple Courtship

Dorothy Osborne's letters to William Temple are peppered with references to her reading, along with eager questions and comments about the characters, situations, and ideas she encountered in literary and theological texts. She consumed French romances, Jeremy Taylor's Holy Living, memoirs (La Reine Marguerite), and the latest literary offerings of Margaret Cavendish, the duchess of Newcastle.1 In chapter 2, I considered some of the powerful effects of Osborne's capacity to bring William Temple into a scene. The richness of the literary culture to which Osborne was exposed helps account for the quality and power of her written expression. Like most writers, she drew upon her extensive reading, finding models for literary structure and, above all, style. Reading seems to have filled a large part of Osborne's day, and her literary consumption shaped her use of writing as an imaginative and communicative form. I have been arguing that Osborne's letters envisioned and to some extent created a private haven, allowing Osborne to exert some imaginative, emotional, and rhetorical control over her reader at a time when she could not control many aspects of her life. The couple's exchange of books added the shared experience of reading to Osborne's vision of the couple. Osborne's solicitation of Temple's opinions about the texts she recommended - particularly French romance - engaged him in an exploration of romantic sensibility and comportment. Since the couple could not be together, Osborne hoped that they could share a text in their separate - yet connected - privacies. Romances were another venue for Osborne to exert control over Temple's opinions, but also to inculcate him into the process of openly discussing relationships and comportment with her. The process of sharing a text could enhance the

Reading in the Osborne-Temple Courtship 65

relationship between Osborne and Temple by establishing a space of mutual responsibility and open exchange. Recent critics have stressed the low literacy levels of women in the early modern period. Kate Aughterson writes: 'Literacy levels remained much lower for women than for men during this period, as they were far lower for those of lower social status. Female illiteracy has been estimated at 90 per cent in the 1640s, with male rates at 70 per cent; dropping to 70 per cent and 55 per cent, respectively, in the early eighteenth century, although the measures used have been much debated: women who could not sign their name, for example, may well have been able to read, or to understand accounts.'2 David Cressy estimates that 90 per cent of women at the time of the English Civil War were illiterate - down from 95 per cent in 1550 - although this is largely based on the ability to write a signature. The ability to read may have been more widespread.3 Since we do not know how Osborne received her education, we do not know what made her such a voracious reader. However, it is certainly possible to see the effects of such reading on the courtship itself, because she was so clearly engaged with sharing her reading. In her use of literary examples, Osborne possessed a certain kinship with a writer known for both her reading of romance and her accomplishments in the epistolary form: Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. In the words of Cynthia Lowenthal, Montagu took 'recourse to literary heroines as substitutes for self-presentation and as models for the particular kind of subjectivity she fashions.'4 Janet Todd notes that Charlotte Lennox's character Arabella in The Female Quixote has a belief in the romances that is 'bizarre' for the mid-eighteenth century, but 'her reaction to heroic romance is pretty close to Dorothy Osborne's a century before, concerned that her lover have precisely the right attitude to the heroines' dilemmas.'5 Long before Montagu or the fictional Arabella, Osborne urged her favourite texts on Temple, ventured her opinions of them, and received his ideas in return. Romances literally enacted judgments on the stories of courtships and love affairs. We know such a structure, for example, from a familiar text like Marguerite de Navarre's Heptameron, where a story concerning affairs of the heart is always followed by a vigorous discussion between the characters who comprise the frame tale.6 Cecile M. Jagodzinski confirms that readers in the seventeenth century often conceived of their reading as something in which they were to participate intellectually, and that literary works required active discernment from their readers: 'Authors dissect characters for readers, making them

66 An Audience of One

objects of scrutiny, revealing their secrets and silently analyzing their motives.'7 Within Madeleine de Scudery's romances, the characters often explicitly commented on the behaviour and predicaments of other characters, especially in the interlaced tales. They made moral and aesthetic judgments about the characters they encountered. Osborne literally enacted such a judgment at one point in her correspondence, modifying the original conclusions of the romance characters. Osborne read or encountered a remarkable number of voluminous French romances given that the letters were written over a mere two years (although she had read one, Polexandre, seven years before). Osborne mentioned Roger Boyle's 1652 Parthenissa, Scudery's Artamene, ou, Le Grand Cyrus, (written from 1647 to 1657), Calprenede's Cleopdtre (printed in ten volumes in 1647-57), and Marin Le Roy de Gomberville's 1647 Polexandre. She read these romances in the original French, a language she perfected during her stay in St Malo where she lived from 1647 to 1649. In her letters she complained about the inferiority of English translations of French romances: I have noe Patience neither for these Translatours of Romances. I mett with Polexandre and L'lllustre Bassa, both soe disguised that I who am theire old acquaintance hardly knew them, besydes that they were still soe much french in words and Phrases that twas imposible for one that understood not french to make any thing of them. (139)

Here we see both her airy confidence in her linguistic ability, and her keen awareness of the proper style of these romances, which makes it more likely that she felt capable of using them as a springboard for her ideas and opinions. How did individuals in Osborne's circle use literary works to reflect on their lives? The ongoing discussion between Osborne and Temple about romances mirrored an exchange Osborne had with her brother Henry. Literary examples became a means to discuss how love unions should be navigated; the siblings used literary examples as ammunition in a verbal contest about the nature of love and passion. Osborne's brother used some verses of Roger Boyle, Lord Broghill (later Earl of Orrery) to argue that marriage extinguishes passion: My B. urged [Lord Broghill's verses] against mee one day in a dispute where hee would needs make mee confesse that noe Passion could bee long lived and that such as were most in love forgott that ever they had bin

Reading in the Osborne-Temple Courtship 67 soe within a twelve month after they were Marryed, and in Earnest the want of Examples to bring for the Contreary puzled mee a litle, soe that I was faine to bring out these Pittifull Verses of my Lord Biron to his wife, which was soe poore as Agument that I was e'en ashamed on't my self and hee quickly Laught mee out of Countenance with sayeing they were Just as a marryed mans flame would produce, and a wife inspire. (140)

The specific verses Henry Osborne used, and those of Lord Biron employed by Osborne, did not survive with this letter. Verses were literally used as arguments and valued for reasons that extended beyond their style. The credibility of Osborne's position in the debate about love after marriage rested on her ability to find literary examples to prove her point. After Osborne told Temple about this exchange, he felt obliged to provide her with an argument to counter her brother should he 'ever enter upon the dispute againe' (141). Unfortunately, Osborne did not explain what sort of counterargument Temple provided her with. We can, however, assume that a literary example of some kind was held at the ready. It is curious that Osborne did not use examples from the French romances in this literary contest with her brother. The romances would have given Osborne the idea that marital unions required love. French romances, in the words of Joan De Jean, were concerned with the 'political and social implication of affective choices.'8 French romances were one of many possible sources reflecting on romantic love available in Osborne's culture (including sources which depicted same-sex desire). The romances reflected a culture in which women figured prominently as cultural arbiters. Not only were many of the authors of the French romances women, like Madeleine de Scudery, but there were significant ties between the French romances and the courtly culture of the woman-dominated salon. Romantic love was discussed at length in the romances. Scudery's romances were renowned for such 'conversations,' which went on for several pages and were loquacious, abstract, and extremely highminded. The 'conversations' were sometimes in dialogue form, as I have mentioned, and sometimes in the voice of a single character. Presumably the romances highlighted issues of central importance to Osborne during her courtship with William Temple. Like a fairy tale or a Jane Austen novel (and unlike the marriage comedies of the 1690s that probed what happens after marriage),1 the action of the romances ceased once the beloved was attained. However, French romances

68 An Audience of One repeatedly affirmed that women should choose their marriage partners rather than allowing their families to direct their lives. The romances also affirmed that every individual should love only one person in his or her lifetime. In Artamene, for example, the sprightly and outspoken character Doralize declared that she would not accept the heart of anyone who had ever been in love with another woman: 'I should never love him that ever loved any besides my self.'11 While the romances did offer contrasting views of romantic love, they repeatedly invited their readers to contemplate love in the abstract. Doralize's approach to romance was explicitly based in theory, not practice, since she had never met any eligible men. What led Osborne to read French romances in the first place? When Osborne urged Temple to start working through the romance texts she passed along to him, she pointed him to a genre that he already knew. While women have traditionally been associated with the readership of the romance, men have been active both as producers and consumers of the form, as Helen Hackett's recent work on the romance in England makes plain. According to Hackett, some male readers may have enjoyed the voyeuristic process of reading fiction oriented towards women, especially if it included content of an erotic nature, allowing the male spectator 'to spy upon the imagined woman reader's private communion with her erotic book and to penetrate the private space of a woman's bedchamber or closet where she is supposed to indulge in such reading.'12 One could also readily imagine male readers whose desire was not sexual pleasure with women but other forms of readerly identification with the male or female romance characters, and an interest in the anatomizing of human relationships so central to romance fiction. The romances, then, were feminocentric but hardly a strictly female preserve. Temple wrote, or more specifically paraphrased, a number of short romances from 1648 to 1650, shortly after he had met Osborne on the Isle of Wight in 1648. His romances were taken from Francois de Rosset's 1613 Les histoires tragiques de nostre temps, ou sont contenues les marts funestes et lamentables de plusieurs personnes arrivees pars leurs ambitions, amours dereglees, sortileges, vols, rapines, et par autres accidents divers et memorabies. With his recasting of de Rosset, Temple might have been working within a genre already cherished by Osborne, they may have discovered them together, or he might have sparked her later interest. Temple's romances were a great deal shorter (by thousands of pages) than the ones Osborne offered him during the writing of the courtship letters. As

Reading in the Osborne-Temple Courtship 69

well, Temple's romances were not disseminated in their day. A friend had urged him to publish them under the combined title The disastrous chances of Love and Fortune, but this did not come to pass.13 Yet as Osborne did during the courtship letters, Temple positioned his romances specifically in terms of their relationship to 'reality,' and drew a rough equivalence between fiction and true events: 'for as those Romances are best wch are likest true storys, so are those true storys wch are likest Romances.' He cynically added, 'it commonly falls out in this as in coines that the false has the better glosse' but the impulse towards versimilitude was there. Like the French romances which provided a key (or 'clef') to the persons involved, 'the names of persons are disguised and some times of places when the persons and actions were too notorious.'14 Temple's romances are more than slightly sensational. In 'The Constant Desperado,' Alidor falls in love with the married Callirea. After she dies of a fever, he is taken prisoner with his manservant to Algiers; his grief over his beloved causes his premature death. In 'The Force of Custom,' a tale reminiscent of The Return of Martin Guerre,15 a tailor with a wife and child is taken prisoner for stealing on a ship, and is gone so long that he is believed dead. After his return, he finds that his wife has remarried while he has been away, but he manages to get her back again. His habit of stealing, however, is so entrenched that he again steals and is publicly hanged. In 'The Generous Lovers,' Valeran angrily slays his rival Aronce, and his beloved Amyryllis chooses to die with him rather than help him avoid punishment. In 'The Maids Revenge,' Fleuria avenges the murder of her lover Lucidamor by violently slaying his killer Chlorizander, afterwards killing herself in order to join her beloved in the afterlife. In 'The Disloyall Wife,' Flaminia's parents have wed her to Altomont instead of the man she loves, Cleanthes. Cleanthes and Flaminia have an adulterous relationship while Altomont is away, only to be exposed by a maidservant. Lulling her husband into complacency, they murder him. Cleanthe dies, and Flaminia takes another lover, Adonio, but she is stabbed by her outraged nephew Timante. Why all the blood and gore? What was Temple's attraction to these illicit, doomed passions? Temple gave some hint in his preface when he dedicated these literary productions 'To My Lady.'16 Although it is impossible to prove that the lady in question was Dorothy Osborne, Temple, as the writer of the preface, professed to suffer from an unfulfilled love, and claimed to find in the authorship of these sad tales a kind of relief:

70 An Audience of One I found it to no purpose to fly from my thoughts and that the best way was to deceive them with the likeness of obiects and by representing others misfortunes to them instead of my owne. those books became pleasant to mee wch would have been painfull to a better humor, and whilst I pittyed others I sometimes forgott how much I deservd it myself.17

Temple claimed that the romances allowed him to explore vicarious and often unpleasant emotions, in a way that was at least partially mediated by the structures of fiction. Moore Smith, who edited Temple's romances for Clarendon Press, connects Temple's biographical and literary concerns, noting that in his discussions of love, 'the pendulum sways always at the side of passion.'18 When Osborne came to broach questions of love and desire to Temple, her great interest in issues of passion, and tragic, ill-fated desire may have been in concert with Temple's own consideration of these matters in his romance, and she may have found it easy to compel his interest. Though we cannot know whether Osborne read Temple's romances, it seems likely that she was aware of his interest in the form. In reading the romances, the couple could not have been unaware of their participation in wider cultural norms. First of all, their readerly community was at least a community of three. The exchange of romance books linked Osborne as much to her female friend Diana Rich as to Temple, since the three of them sent books back and forth. Osborne commented: let mee aske you if you did not send my letter & Cleopatra where I dirrected you for my Lady, I received one from her to day full of the kindest reproaches that shee has not heard from mee this three week's ... she seem's not to have received that which I sent to you nor the book's ... (88)

Besides their innate worth, the texts needed to be cherished as Diana's property: 'You doe not tell mee whither you received the Book's I sent you, but I will hope you did, because you say nothing to the contrary. They are deare Lady Diana's and therfore I am much concern'd that they should bee safe' (77-8). Temple was kept busy transporting the texts back and forth and writing to Lady Diana: 'I have sent you the rest of Cleopatra pray keep them all in your hands, and the next week I will send you a letter and dirrections where you shall deliver that & the books for my Lady' (82). Osborne offered a gentle discipline of sending and receiving, con-

Reading in the Osborne-Temple Courtship 71

necting the reading process to her devotion to her friend, and the service Temple owed both her and her friend. But if Osborne was cajoling Temple to share a certain sensibility or to weigh in on the predicaments of the characters they mutually encountered in romances, there was the significant problem of their length. Bantering with Temple about these lengthy tomes, she joked that he would only be willing to read such material because of the boredom of visiting her: Have you read Cleopatra, I have six Tomes on't heer that I can lend you, if you have not, there are some Storry's in't you will like I beleeve. But what an asse I am to think you can bee idle enough at London to reade Romances. Noe i'le keep them till you come hither, heer they may bee welcome to you for want of better Company. (74)

Osborne's reference to the 'better company' of the romances was certainly fishing for a compliment. There were deep cultural connections between idleness and romance, and they were associated with timefilling mechanisms. Later on, waxing romantic, Temple sent Osborne metaphysical speculations about the moon, and she archly replied, 'since you are at Leasure to consider the moone you may bee enough to reade Cleopatra' (76). As she tried to get Temple to read the romances, Osborne verged on badgering. Once Temple began to read Artamene, she piled on the volumes: 'I have a third Tome heer against you have done the second, and to Encourage you let mee assure you that the more you read of them you will like them still better' (110). Noting that she was 'hugely pleased' with one story, she made a bargain familiar to bibliophiles wheedling reluctant friends: 'At least read one Story that ile marke you downe, if you have time for noe more' (182). If she could not have Temple's wholehearted cooperation, she was willing to settle for a partial reading. The romances instructed their readers in the interpersonal realm of emotion, and sparked a discussion about the progress of romance. In Madeleine Scudery's famous romance Clelie, an illustration - the carte de tendre — depicted the territory of the pays de tendre. In a vaguely Bunyanesque progression, lovers moved through 'Tendresse,' 'Petits soins,' 'Sensibilite,' 'Assiduite,' and so on, but cautiously avoided 'Negligence,' 'Legerete,' 'Oubli,' and the dreaded depths of the 'Lac DTndifference.'19 These were not actions so much as sensibilities and attitudes. As the courtship progressed the sentiments deepened to love - but only if the lovers did not take the wrong steps or find themselves improperly

72 An Audience of One

diverted. Scudery's map fused the courtly and the pedagogical. Literary models in their turn expressed competing visions of devotion, culpability, strength, and power. Osborne knew that the romances were not frippery. They could be used to strike at the heart of matters that would affect her destiny. To turn what she was learning from the romances into a dialogue was to advance the courtship, especially since Temple would comprehend the topoi and style of the romances. Remarkably, when Osborne mentioned Artamene, ou, Le Grand Cyrus, she focused not on Cyrus and Mandane, the besieged but ultimately triumphant lovers, but on characters who conducted love affairs badly. At one point, Osborne invoked one set of intertwined stories where four lovers explore different manifestations of romantic pain. Thimocrates is loved by his mistress Telesile, but she is absent from him; Philocles is rejected outright by the fair Philista; Artibies's mistress Leontina dies; the jealous Leontides is in a frenzy over the possibility that his mistress Alcidiane gave her picture to another. The lovers have many faults, ranging from excessive zeal to extreme indifference. None of them find the right balance of passion and reason, a balance of prime importance to Osborne. Even more darkly, these misguided companionate unions can easily fail when individuals make the wrong choices while fully convinced that they are the right ones. The four lovers' stories create an opportunity for the other characters to pronounce on the narrative presented. Cyrus asks one of the listeners, Martisie, to judge which of the four lovers has suffered the most. She does not hesitate to pronounce her opinion: IE DECLARE done hardiment, que Thimocrate tout absent qu 'il est, puis qu 'il est aime, est le mains malheureux des quatre: que Philocles quay que non-aime, n 'est pourtant pas le plus infortune de tons; puis qu 'apres tout, ce quit fait son mal, pourra peut-estre causer vnjour sa guerison. Et pour Leontidas, ie soustiens qu 'il est le moins a pleindre, bien que ie sois persuadee qu 'il souffre plus que tous les autres ensemble: Et ie declare enjin, que le Prince Artibie en pleurant sa Maistresse morte, est le plus digne de companion; & celuy de tous pour qui i 'ay le plus de pitie, quay que ie sente aufii les malheurs des autres: a la reserue du ialoux Leontidas, pour qui i'ay beaucoup d'estime, & point du tout de companion?0 I declare then with audacity, that Thimocrates, though absent, yet since he is loved, is the least unfortunate of the four: That Philocles, though not loved, yet is he not the most unfortunate of all, since that which causeth his Misery, may perhaps, hereafter, cause his Cure. And as for Leontides, I affirm

Reading in the Osborne-Temple Courtship

73

that he is the least to be pitied, though I am perswaded he has endured more misery then all the rest. And to conclude, I declare, that the prince Artibies, in lamenting his dead Mistress, is most worthy of compassion, and him whom I most pity, though I am sensible of the miseries of all the rest, except the jealous Leontides, for whom, I reserve much esteem, but little pity.21

Osborne reenacted this small literary scene of judgment in her epistolary dialogue with Temple, and asked him to send his appraisal of the lovers. She noted that Temple might not agree with the character's remarks (136). In fact, her own judgment differed from that of Martesie: L'Amant Absent has (in my opinion) a Mistresse, soe much beyonde any of the rest that to bee in danger of loosing her, is more then to have lost the others. L'Amant non Aime was an Asse under favour ... his Mistresse had Caprices that would have suited better with our Amant Jaloux then with any body else. And the Prince Artibie was much too blame that hee outlived his belle Leontine. (136)

Osborne moved away from the textual authority of Martisie's judgment - a further testament to her freedom to see characters and scenarios according to her own lights, and to advance her own interpretation. In contrast, Osborne's instructions to Temple about his reactions were detailed and specific. Speaking of the 'fower Pritty Story's' interlaced throughout Artamene, she asked Temple to tell her which he had most 'compassion' for, but was cautious to specify: 'let mee desyre you not to Pitty the Jelous one, for I remember I could doe nothing but Laugh at him, as one that sought his owne vexation' (132). Before he had even read them, he sent her a judgment she completely agreed with, 'The judgment you have made of the fower Lovers I recommended to you do's soe perfectly agree with what I think of them, that I hope it will not Alter when you have read their Story's' (136). It is of interest that Temple weighed in before he had actually read the texts, and it is also worth noting that such a judgment did not fully satisfy Osborne. She directed Temple to actually read the stories. It was not enough to have agreement about content. The process of reading and judging was equally important to Osborne's construction of the romances as a shared experience: the shared privacy of reading and speaking about texts.

74 An Audience of One

There was perennial cultural concern about the sway romances had on inexperienced readers. Condemnations of the romance extended far beyond the Civil War and Restoration periods, extending through the nineteenth century. A vestige of this concern continues in our day with contemporary anxiety over such forms as romance novels and mass media depictions of violence and sexuality.22 The association of the romance with danger in pre-twentieth-century culture can still be seen in Lawrence Stone's assertion that 'the romantic novel of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries has much to answer for in the way of disastrous love affairs and of imprudent and unhappy marriages.' Stone also cites a 1792 article from Bon Ton Magazine which warned young women that they were likely to confuse rapacious male seducers with the appealingly rakish heros in novels.23 Female commentators of Osborne's period, and slightly later, expressed their concern about the romances, which they portrayed as taking time away from more useful endeavours. Mary Astell urged women to cultivate their minds and leave off the frippery of 'idle Novels and Romances.'^4 Mary, Lady Chudleigh, Astell's friend and an avid reader of the classics, condemned the romances because they detracted from more useful studies and filled the mind 'with extravagant Fancies, with false Notions of Love and Honour.'25 Romances drained energy that should be expended on the acquisition of more solid knowledge. The insubstantial, frivolous nature of the form was a distraction from women's attempts to fortify their talents. Reading of this nature prepared a woman for romantic experience, but it did not enable her to bring strengthened abilities to her partnerships or to the world at large. There were also concerns that readers might confuse text with reality. Osborne's culture certainly allowed for an equation between life and text, and romance conventions encouraged readers to draw a parallel between the fiction they were reading and real-life situations. For example, the preface to Artamene, ou, Le Grand Cyrus (likely written by Georges de Scudery) foregrounded the tension between fictionality and historical referentiality, as Scudery claimed that Cyrus 'n'est pas vn de ces Heros imaginaires.' Cyrus was real, even in his incarnation in the romances. More to the point, he functioned as an example in the political and social sphere: 'C'est vn Prince que 1'on a propose pour Exemple a tous les Princes.'26 Parallels between fictional and historical personages were strengthened by the fact that the characters of Scudery's romances were based on real figures during the Fronde. Cyrus was based on the Grand Conde, a challenger to the French throne; Man-

Reading in the Osborne-Temple Courtship 75 dane, Madame de Longueville; Sapho (the fiery heroine of the final tome), Scudery herself; and so on. Slippage between the fictional and the real was enacted in the culture. As one critic explains, 'Persons thus designated often continued in real life to be called by their romance appellations.'2 The Persian hero Cyrus's exploits were recounted in a different manner in the histories of Herodotus (which Osborne may have read) ,28 but she did not seem particularly troubled by conflicting accounts. In fact, she treated romances and history with equal seriousness, referring to them only insofar as they bore on the kinds of discussions about love, fidelity, and character she had with Temple. Osborne seemed well aware of the differences between fiction and real life, but was determined to treat all writing, regardless of generic and factual difference, as strategically useful in soliciting judgments from Temple or offering her own. Any tensions that reading created arose from conflicting messages about love, not conflicting historical representations. In contrast, the reformation of Arabella in Charlotte Lennox's 1752 The Female Quixote hinges on her realization that the romances have no historical verisimilitude.29 If the facts are inconsistent, it is not possible for the eighteenthcentury reader to put any stock in the events of the romances. To be sure, Osborne differed from Arabella in the extent of her belief in the romances. Arabella is a fictional character who comes into being once the novel has risen and congealed as a form. Although much in the romances compelled Osborne's interest, she never embraced them uncritically. Protocols of reading bore on the romances — works of literature themselves deeply concerned with social normatives and codes of conduct. Romances were meant to offer some models for conduct of life, not facilitate a ridiculous gullibility. Osborne had a practical streak that made her resist a complete immersion in the romances. An accomplished romance reader, Osborne had strong opinions about appropriate responses to books.30 She expressed overt scepticism about the wisdom of patterning one's behaviour too slavishly on the French romances and offered a satiric portrait of a local sheriff whose ardour for the romances reminded her of Don Quixote-?1 What has kept him from marryeng all this while, or how the humor corn's soe furiously upon him now, I know not, but if hee may bee believ'd, hee is resolved to bee a most Romance Squire and goe in quest of some inchanted Damzell, whome if hee likes, as to her person, (for fortune is a

76 An Audience of One thing below him & wee do not reade in History that any knight, or squire, was ever soe discourtious as to inquire what portions theire Lady's had) ... I doe not see whoe is able to resist him, all that is to bee hoped for, is, that since he may reduce whomsoever hee pleases to his Obedience, hee will bee very Curious in his choise, and then I am secure. (96)

Osborne claimed to have evaded her ardent suitor due to his own eccentricity rather than any flat refusal to marry him. However, the sheriffs literalist approach to romances clearly rendered him an unacceptable match. For Osborne, it was crucial to be receptive to the romances, and heed their message, but it was equally important to comprehend their limitations. The objections of Chudleigh and Astell are an intriguing foil for Osborne's opinion of the romances, yet it is important not to underestimate Osborne's purposeful use of these texts. The romances themselves were more than a means of killing time. Osborne craved them for what they could tell her about herself and her world. The stimulation of the imagination so unacceptable to the critics of romance was precisely the source of their appeal for Osborne. Even if, as JJ. Jusserand claims of Parthenissa, 'ancient history is put to the torture,'32 some historical information could be extracted from these sources, just as Arabella in Lennox's The Female Quixote impressed her lover with facts she had gleaned from the romances.33 Osborne's interest in the foreign extended to the travel writing of Fernao Mendez Pinto (1509P-83), a Portuguese traveller in Asia and Africa who described twenty years of exciting but harrowing adventures in his 1614 Peregrinafao?4 Osborne once again encouraged Temple to engage with a written text by sharing her reaction to it: have you read the Story of China written by a Portuguese, Fernando Mendez Pinto I think his name is, if you have not, take it with you, tis as diverting a book of the kinde as ever I read, and is handsomly written. You must allow him the Priviledge of a Travellour & hee does not abuse it, his lyes are as pleasant harmlesse on's as lyes can bee, and in noe great number considering the scope hee has for them. (185)

The entertainment value of the book, the fact that it is found within the more forgiving travel genre, and the relatively limited nature of Pinto's lies made him less culpable. Osborne simply made space for Pinto's 'lyes.' Kenneth Parker, citing Parry, notes: 'The change in her reading

Reading in the Osborne-Temple Courtship 77

material might indicate that she had tired of reading romances, but there is no reason to assume that she did not read both.'35 The episodic, capacious nature of Pinto might demonstrate the extension of Osborne's romance mentality to travel writing, despite the fact that Rebecca D. Catz proves his work to be more fully associated with satire.36 In addition to the entertainment value of the romances, their ability to kill time, and their connection to the exotic, they were certainly a genre associated with royalist ideals, which would have appealed to Osborne. Like Osborne's fantasy of pastoral retreat, which I shall discuss in chapter 4, the romances looked back to a time before the civil war, and tacitly commented on the current situation of royalists. Their Continental origins were also relevant; the Continent was a place where many royalists lived in exile, following the example of Prince Charles, who waited until 1660 to claim his throne back in England.37 Annabel Patterson describes the occasionally cryptic but unmistakable political nature of French romances: 'Certainly not regarded as escapist literature, they became a medium of cultural reinforcement, an expression of esprit de corps for their preselected audience, selected both by their royalist sympathies and their literary alertness, their knowledge of what the French connection meant. The generic comments on romance in these works are themselves keys to a kind of thinking ,..'38 Osborne and Temple literally met on the way to the Continent, and would definitely have shared a sense of 'what the French connection meant.' Once again we see that Osborne's purely personal considerations entwined with her political ideals. She would likely have seen no reason to separate political, personal, and aesthetic concerns. Her communication with Temple (her development of the 'shared privacy' of literary works) used politically charged texts to signal engagement with both politics and romance. Romances connected Osborne to a prewar culture she missed. She described the pre-war royalist elite as models of good (as well as normal) behaviour. During the Commonwealth, good behaviour has suffered: Tis strange to see the folly that possesses the young People of this Age, and the libertys they take to themselv's; I have the Charrity to beleeve they apear very much worse then they are, and that the want of a Court to govern themselv's by is in great part the cause of theire Ruine. Though that was noe perfect scoole of Vertue yet Vice there wore her maske, and apeard soe unlike her self that she gave noe scandall; Such as were realy as discreet as they seem'd to bee; gave good Example, and the Eminency of theire

78 An Audience of One condition made others strive to imitate them, or at least they durst not owne a contreary Course. (181)

Despite some duplicity, the courtiers maintained cultural leadership, and the general populace followed meekly, impressed by class status and outwardly virtuous behaviour. The flaws Osborne discerned in the court were eclipsed by the regulatory function she wished the court would fulfil. In some ways, this emphasis on a vice that 'wore her maske' and a populace that 'durst not owne a contreary Course' is reminiscent of Osborne's remarks about a wife coping with a brutish husband. As long as the truth is not widely known, a positive status quo can be maintained. Michael McKeon has described status inconsistency - the tension between virtue and high status - as one of the precursors of the novel.39 Osborne's remarks were the products of such a tension despite her nostalgia for a courtly ideal. Yet she was frequently determined to register a sense of stability even when she suspected its illusory nature. Romance characters were often displaced members of the nobility, including women who displayed their true station despite reduced circumstances. Resigned to her family's financial embarrassment, and aware of the many obstacles to her marriage, Osborne would have found the romance heroes' elegant stoicism and triumph over daunting circumstances inspiring. For example, Cyrus, prince of Persia, spends most of Scudery's romance disguised as the humble Artamene, but that does not compromise his innate heroism one jot. One indication that Osborne was thinking of her courtship in terms of literary forms is her explicit comparison between the couple's courtship and a 'Romance' that could be wonderful if it ended happily.40 Osborne may have self-consciously established parallels between herself and various characters. For example, she had keen sympathy for Amestris, a beautiful damsel from Artamene, partly because of her sufferings in romance but also because of her origin in the provinces. Osborne, who sometimes made reference to Temple's greater urbanity, might have appreciated the contrast between Amestris's charms and her relative unsophistication. Another instance of possible self-identification was found in Osborne's praise of the virtuous Delie from La Calprenede's Cleopdtre. Delie repeatedly expressed unwillingness to cause conflict between her beloved Philadelph and his father, and Osborne sometimes expressed a similar hope that William Temple would not aggrieve his kindly father by wooing her. Perhaps Osborne modelled her remarks to Temple on Delie's protesta-

Reading in the Osborne-Temple Courtship 79

tions to her lover. She may have drawn parallels between herself and appealing women like Amestris and Delie in order to focus Temple's attention to the traits she held in common with these women. In her quest to influence Temple, Osborne had access to several potent literary genres, topics, and conventions. Osborne also tended to use the romances as a means of performing emotional sensitivity, seizing the opportunity to coax Temple to display similar sensibilities. An aching sense of absence is present both in the romances Osborne mentioned during the correspondence and the early romances written by Temple. In Temple's romance 'The Constant Desperado,' for instance, Callirea was inaccessible to her lover Alidor, first of all through her marriage to another man, but ultimately through her death. In Osborne's reading, there were a number of couples who pined artfully for each other, particularly the dominant couple Cyrus and Mandana in Scudery, who stood - as the lovers on a Greek vase between desire and its consummation for many, many volumes. The couple's interest in separated lovers, then, was not only vicarious suffering but also an attempt to signal their mutual suffering to each other. They found solidarity within their shared experience as readers and their mutual reactions to characters. In his romances, Temple had claimed that the suffering of others distracted him from his own terribly unfulfilled love. Osborne may well have been taking her cue from Temple as she focused on an explicitly tragic subplot from Artamene, one that showed misunderstanding between lovers and - ultimately - separation between them (113). In Scudery's romance, Amestris is about to be married to her lover Aglatides when his rivals Arbates and Megabises provoke a duel. The ruler blames Aglatides for the conflict and exiles him. As Aglatides goes to say farewell to Amestris in a beautiful garden, he sees her in conversation with his rival Megabises. Unaware that Megabises has forced Amestris to speak with him, he becomes fiercely jealous. Aglatides tries to punish Amestris by paying elaborate homage to another woman. Aglatides's confidante tells Amestris that he acted out of jealousy due to her apparent connection to Megabises, and not out of passion for the new woman. Piqued by his doubts about her constancy, Amestris marries a man she despises, Otanus. She chooses a man for whom she has no regard to make it obvious that she does not act out of love or desire. Later on, Amestris and Aglatides reconcile, but too late. By then, she is married to Otanus. Aglatides, in recounting his story, expresses his shock at his original heartbreak, and offers a dim view of love: 'Grief

80 An Audience of One

and Melancholly were inseparable Concomitants of Love ... a Lover never gets a Conquest without pain.'41 Aglatides describes the pain of love as a universal and inevitable fact; this makes his remarks a possible source for readers like Osborne and Temple to reflect on love in general, and not just on his situation. Happiness hinges on variable tempers, and is subject to storms of human indifference and self-absorption. Presumably the appeal of the romances for readers like Osborne was rooted in the unnecessary emotional suffering of the lovers. Osborne wrote eloquently about the sorrows of Almanzor at the hands of the beautiful but unattainable Alcidiana. Although she did not name her source, assuming that Temple was familiar with it, she was referring to Marin de Gomberville's 1647 Polexandre, a heroic romance set in Mexico. Polexandre chronicles the titular character's struggle to pursue Alcidiana to the Inaccessible Isle, although she has forbidden such pursuit.42 He arrives on the island, defends her against Spanish invaders, and overcomes her resistance to his love. Almanzor, who has fallen in love with Alcidiana after seeing her portrait, encounters his rival Polexander early in the romance, to his distress. They duel. Almanzor, emotionally battered by the existence of his rival, and disconsolate at the inaccessibility of his mistress, rapidly constructs a magnificent tomb and prepares to die. As his friend Almandarin recounts, Almanzor seeks death with eagerness: He thought of nothing but to dye, and to dye lingring and slowly, that by his more suffering, he might the more satisfie his passion ... He caused to be built that brave Monument which thou seest in the Island of Fer, if ever the remembrance of that Prince hath made thee bestow any teares on his ashes.43

Almanzor's hyperbolic desire brings about his doom. He must die for his love! Without Alcidiana's love, his life is worthless, and he leaves his tortured life 'without sorrow.'44 Osborne described her experience of reading about Almanzor's sad story as a vicarious visit to his self-constructed tomb: I doe not use to forget my old acquaintances, Almanzor is as fresh in my memory, as if I had visetted his Tombe but Yesterday, though it bee at least seven yeer agon since. You will beleeve I had not bin used to great afflictions, when I made his Story such a one to mee, as I cryed an hower

Reading in the Osborne-Temple Courtship 81 together for him, and was soe angry with Alcidiana that for my life I could never love her after it. (77)

It is clear that the cultural work of Polexandre is connected to the facilitation of grief or some kind of readerly catharsis. Although it had been years, Osborne claimed that her affiliation with Almanzor was fresh and intense ('as if I had visetted his Tombe but Yesterday'). Why would Osborne claim to empathize with, even seek out, a character whose intense and thwarted desire led to death? Osborne might have claimed the beautiful heroine Alcidiana, since she was herself so imperious with suitors, but Almanzor's anguish captured her attention more compellingly. And why, confronted with a romance where Polexander won his forbidden beloved (precisely as William Temple was later to do) did Osborne fix on the 'only significant character who does not attain his prize ... the only hero who dies ignominiously?'45 While the characters in Polexandre are, in the words of Edward Baron Turk, 'so completely unidimensional as to be, at bottom, inscrutable'46 Osborne could have used such flatness as an invitation to indulge her emotions. I would suggest that the psychologically undeveloped - even pseudoallegorical - quality of the characters made it more rather than less possible for Osborne to import the emotional anguish of a character like Almanzor onto her own situation, and to perform her pain for Temple. Though Osborne often liked to read because the romance stories reminded her of her own life, she was also capable of responding to a general feeling of loss rather than to specific events. She was also clearly manipulating Temple by showing how deeply thwarted love affected her, and to show that they could share romantic suffering if they chose. Osborne indulged in a modicum of weepy self-pity in her imaginary visits to Almanzor's tomb, as might befit a woman whose courtship was beset by obstacles. The sadness of those characters might have been comforting insofar as they reflected the suffering of others, and allowed for a vicarious companionship of misery. However, her concern for defeat was out of step with the ethos of the romances, the way that the heroes of these works 'defy earth and heaven.'47 Osborne invested her emotions in a character who chose to die of injured sentiment rather than combat obstacles. Despite the romance's affirmation of affective marriage, most of the situations to which Osborne referred involved lovers who suffered from unfulfilled desire or the outright cruelty of a lover. Jealousy and rivalry

82 An Audience of One

hindered lovers who were truly meant to be together; love was articulated only after lover or beloved died; and accusations of unfaithfulness were levelled at an innocent woman by a bitter, jealous man. Individuals, often of great worth, were denied what they desired, through either the cruelty of others or purely circumstantial conflict. Part of this deterioration could be traced to a natural tendency for love relationships to falter. Some of this deterioration was specifically related to the problems attendant on marriage. Was Osborne using French romances to raise the spectre of failed desire, or the dangers of romantic partnerships? Was she opening up not just a generalized grief but one that actually created a consensus about proper romantic comportment? Her remarks about the ill-fated Amestris show her use of the romances to engage Temple on questions of romantic suffering and wronged lovers: I know you will pitty Poore Amestris strangly when you have read her Storry[.] i'le swear I cryed for her when I read it first though shee were an imaginary person, and sure if any thing of that kinde can deserve it her misfortunes may. (133)

Amestris was only an 'imaginary person,' but Osborne described herself as shaken by her story. The structure of Osborne's remarks to Temple about Amestris moved from an assumption of what his reaction would be to a description of her own emotional reaction. Clearly, the two should be identical. Again, Osborne performed a kind of emotionality here, but she also, when considering these examples of love relationships, pointed to the misuse and abuse of love relationships. Creating consensus could be a helpful (albeit somewhat manipulative) way of combating the problems of desire, and pointing Temple in the right emotional direction. The romances, in fact, did not necessarily act to advocate marital union, although this was the overwhelming message of a story where a hero and heroine managed to surmount almost unbeatable odds to achieve union. These romances provided means to support the model of companionate marriage but also examples of female desire unconstrained by marriage. In the final volume of Artamene, for example, Sapho rejected marriage and asked her beloved to retire with her to the land of Sauromantes (according to Herodotus, the home of the Amazons) . Their union, while strong, did not take place within the confines

Reading in the Osborne-Temple Courtship 83

of marriage, and it was made better by the fact that the Amazons were a female community where women were free and empowered. Sapho, in fact, affirmed that marriage is a 'long slavery' for women: 'In order to love each other forever with no loss of ardor, it is necessary never to marry.'48 It is particularly interesting that Osborne and Temple indulged together in the fairly racy reading material of The History of Queene Margaret ofValoys (1628). The memoir described Marguerite de Valois's troubled relationship with Henry IV, whom she married in 1572 against her will (she was a Catholic and he was a Protestant). Henry IV was egregiously and repeatedly unfaithful to her, and in her History Marguerite frankly described her own liason with Bussy d'Amboise. Of this compedium of adultery, manipulation, family dirty laundry, and religious strife, Osborne had the following comment: I have read your Reyne Margerite and will retourne it you when you please. If you will have my opinion of her, I think she has a good deale of witt, and a greater deale of Patience for a woman of soe high a Spiritt, she speakes with too much indifference of her husbands severall Amour's, and comends Busy as if she were a little concern'd in him. I think her a better Sister then a wife, and beleeve she might have made a better wife to a better husbande. (73-4)

The affair to which Osborne referred is described as follows: 'the King my Husband having removed his eyes, removed also his affection, and began to imbark himself with Fosseusa who indeed was then a delicate girle, being very young and very beautifull.'49 Later this delicate girl became pregnant with Henry's child. Marguerite's account is notable for its salacious detail and its matter-of-fact tone. Osborne's literary example once again demonstrates the entwined nature of family relationships and politics in the period and perhaps for Osborne herself. More importantly, it shows that Osborne and Temple could enjoy a mutual exposure to an urbane text, and have a civil epistolary discussion about it, even if it included shocking content. As she had before (most notably in her remarks about fallen women) Osborne expressed her horror at immoderate and scandalous behaviour, but she also had some good things to say here about Marguerite's wit and spirit. Perhaps Osborne and Temple were beginning to have epistolary 'conversations' about people who were worthy but flawed: a different literary

84 An Audience of One

territory than the rigorously theoretical comments on love spouted by characters such as Doralize. The shared privacy of their reading admitted more than one kind of text, and allowed openness to various scenarios. While trying to direct Temple very closely in his reactions to the text, Osborne also would have wanted to encourage a flexible and frank dialogue between the lovers. In the memoirs of the 'Reyne Margerite,' Osborne read about the doomed Mademoiselle de Tournon, a historical figure, noting that the story was 'soe sad that when I had read it I was able to goe noe further, and was faine to take up somthing else to divert my self withall' (74). Mademoiselle de Tournon, whose story, Moore Smith remarks, 'recalls that of Ophelia,'50 died of grief at the indifference of a lover, the Marquis de Varanbon. Like many of the romance stories prized by Osborne, this story is a digression in a wider narrative written by Valois. Valois remarks on the sad fate of her servant, a virgin indowed with many virtues, whom I intirely loved, took so strange a sicknesse, that on a suddain she burst forth into strong and loud shrieks by reason of the violence of the grief she felt, which did so oppresse her heart that the Physitians could provide no remedy, but within a few daies she was ravished by Death.51

Varanbon, the man who initially pursues Tournon, has long been destined for the church and a life of celibacy but, intrigued by Tournon, courts her. His younger brother Balanson dissuades him, with the intent of pursuing her himself. Rejecting her, 'the Marques of Varambon during our aboad at Namure, made semblance as if till then he had never seen her, at which she put on the apparence of content, constraining her selfe to seem regardlesse of it.'52 Varanbon later finds that his feelings are restored to their original intensity. He comes back to Mademoiselle de Tournon to declare his love, only to find her dead. As Marguerite notes: Some few dayes after my departure from Namur, repenting of his crueltie, and his ancient flame (O wonderfull) being kindled in her absence, which could not be awakened by her presence, he resolved to come and demand her of her Mother, trusting peradventure in the good fortune which did attend him, to be beloved of all whomsoever he desired.'53

Tragically, he comes too late 'as the body, as unhappy in her death, as

Reading in the Osborne-Temple Courtship 85

glorious and innocent in her Virginitie, was in the middle of the street.' Told that the body belongs to Tournon, he 'swounded away, and fell from his horse, they carried him away as dead into his lodging.' Although later rejuvenated, he must live with the knowledge of his fickle perversity and with the absence of his beloved.54 The traditional tragic structure of the story might well have been the source of Osborne's anxiety about it. Tournon's situation demonstrated the vagaries of desire and the fragility of communication between lovers. Once again, the story was concerned with the capricious nature of desire, its disturbing ebbs and flows. Several things were at work here, as in the romances: indulgence and exploration of emotion, reflections on the sadness of love, and potentially profound agreement on romantic comportment. In using the romances and other reading, Osborne helped establish a shared space between herself and Temple. The clandestine nature of the letters made them private. The solitary and time-consuming act of reading allowed readers (perhaps paradoxically) to engage even more closely with each other. There has been much scholarly consideration of coterie poets like John Donne, who aimed their writing at a select few intimates, who could really understand it.55 Osborne might be said to encourage in the couple a kind of 'coterie reading.' Texts were shared among equals and intimates, who benefited not only from encountering similar works of literature, but also from the understanding that they would react to literary works in similar ways. Jagodzinski has argued that 'the emergence of the concept of privacy as a personal right, as the very core of individuality, is connected in a complex fashion with the history of reading' and that 'readers in seventeenth-century England, because they read, began to develop a sense of the private self.'Jagodzinski considers women to be models of such privacy,56 but Osborne wanted Temple to join her in her readerly privacy as she explored both emotional reactions and comportment. Readerly privacy, then, was something that they created together. While it did allow for the presence of another person (such as Osborne's friend Diana), the kinds of dilemmas, questions, and hopes to which the romances spoke were something the couple experienced as part of their relationship. In the next chapter, I shall go on to consider the way in which Osborne rhetorically described the formation of a couple separate from other influences and concerns. Reading played a part in the formation of the couple, because Osborne wished to establish a kind of consensus

86 An Audience of One

between herself and her singular audience, where they both agreed about what they had read. Osborne felt the pleasures of interpreting and discussing literary texts with another person, both sharing her reactions and assertively shaping those of her reader. Since the couple could not be together, Osborne might have hoped that they could share literary texts in their separate - yet connected - privacies.

Chapter Four

Imagining the Couple: Triangularity and Surveillance

Osborne seemed to yearn to block out the myriad voices that surrounded her and listen to Temple's voice alone. Although she was constantly under surveillance, she wished for a space where she could be alone with Temple, free of the wishes and interventions of others. In her letters to Temple, she established a haven of private communication, and used the letters to dignify and intensify the bond between them. However, Osborne's letters also included the busy, teeming hum of social life and a number of possible love plots that distracted from the primary relationship between Osborne and Temple. The main plot of Dorothy Osborne's courtship was often supplanted by other possible relationships. One such triangle involved Jane Wright, Osborne's waiting woman. Jane was the daughter of Thomas Wright, a Guernseyman,1 and was primarily engaged to keep Osborne company. The other was an unwelcome intrusion from her brother Henry Osborne, who sent her letters she assumed were for a mistress. Osborne's attempt to disentangle herself from the complicating desires of others was by no means unequivocal. Although other people challenged her exclusive claim on Temple, or otherwise imposed their desires on her, she considered other relational possibilities: perspectives, attitudes, and subjectivities that threatened the closed system of exchange with Temple for which she was otherwise striving. For example, she was wary of her waiting woman Jane's interest in Temple but liked to speak of Temple with her. Nonplussed by her brother's inordinate protectiveness and overwrought attachment, she was drawn into animated dialogue with him. It was not a simple matter of expunging the distracting influence of other people; it sometimes seems as though the Osborne-Temple relationship could not satisfy an imagination which thrived on ever-deepen-

88 An Audience of One

ing and complex connections to other people. Much of Osborne's life was out of her control, but she used her letters to try and mediate between conflicting desires, to choose which influences she wished to keep at bay, and to shape Temple's attitudes on these matters. The second part of this chapter considers the ways in which Osborne coped with challenges to her personal privacy. Osborne's correspondence with Temple, although clandestine, was vulnerable to various intrusions, including the scrutiny of her brother. Osborne tried to affirm and uphold the privacy of the correspondence, and failing that imagined a retreat where the couple might move into a pastoral setting, like Ovid's Baucis and Philemon. As she articulated such a bucolic dream, Osborne echoed much of the pastoralist thinking of royalists in the English Civil War, showing that once again (as in the case of the romances) she was able to draw on her political and cultural context to imaginatively revision her own life. 'The Importunity of My Brother, Sweet Juell Jane': Love Triangles hi the Osborne-Temple Courtship

Rene Girard suggests that triangularity is a catalyst for love plots, and, furthermore, that desire cannot exist without a rival: Tn the birth of desire, the third person is always present.'2 While it is likely an overstatement to argue that the Osborne-Temple courtship was literally predicated on the existence of rivalry or triangular desire, the OsborneTemple romance was enlivened by various erotic and emotional permutations. Eve Sedgwick remarks that erotic triangles are 'a sensitive register precisely for delineating relationships of power and meaning, and for making graphically intelligible the play of desire and identification by which individuals negotiate with their societies for empowerment.'3 Sedgwick's focus on empowerment is relevant when thinking about Osborne's letters, as are her remarks about the interplay of 'desire and identification.' As Osborne skilfully explored love triangles, the dyadic nature of the couple was underscored. The 'importunities' of others made her articulate her desire for autonomy even more clearly. In mentioning her own competing marriage possibilities and those of Temple's, however playfully, she managed to highlight that things could have been otherwise while - through her joking tone - making it clear that these other possibilities could not be taken entirely seriously. Osborne was courted by several suitors, including Sir Justinian Isham,

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James Beverley, and Henry Cromwell. Henry Osborne, her brother, was also a surprising and unwelcome source of attention. Osborne described letters from her brother whose amorous valences she found at least mildly disconcerting: Seriously I many times receive letters from him that were they seen without an addresse to mee, or his Name, noe body would believe they were from a brother, & I cannot but tell him somtimes that sure hee mistakes and sends letters that were meant to his Mistresse, till hee swear's to mee that hee has none. (99-100)

Osborne left out many salient details of these scenes, such as the contents of Henry Osborne's letters and the full details of the conversations. More fundamentally, Henry Osborne's motivation for sending such letters was left unexplained and it is not certain whether Dorothy Osborne understood it herself. Nor do we know what Osborne was trying to achieve through a confrontation. Did she expect her brother to confess to his unorthodox emotions, or be cowed into more appropriate behaviour? If Osborne's depiction of this conversation is accurate, it is particularly difficult to picture what the pair must have said to each other immediately after Henry Osborne 'swore' he had no mistress.4 In saying he had no mistress, Henry was almost certainly admitting that his desire focused on his sister, or at least it seems that way from Osborne's account. Osborne's concern to pin down the meaning of the letters from her brother was a very legalistic marshalling of evidence; she established that the signature was Henry Osborne's, arid that she was undeniably the addressee. The Henry-Dorothy correspondence (now lost) forms a darkly parodic contrast to the Osborne-Temple letters. Dorothy Osborne explicitly compared Temple's letters with her brother's: 'Would you saw what Letters my Brother writes mee, you are not halfe soe kinde, well hee is alway's in the Extream's' (185). Literally speaking, her brother's missives were more passionate than those of her lover, though Osborne's comparison here could also be partially ironic. Henry Osborne's missives crossed the boundaries of acceptability. They were not sought by the recipient; rather than seducing, they estranged. Osborne's assertion that Henry Osborne was, by nature, extreme seems like a denial of whatever specific sexual desire was present in these letters. The question of whether Henry Osborne's desires were incestuous is difficult to ascertain given the limited information avail-

90 An Audience of One

able from Osborne's letters, and, for that matter, a paucity of documentary information about brother-sister incest in the period, although incest is a persistent theme in the plays of John Ford and John Webster.5 Writing in the 1930s, F.L. Lucas sensed an inordinate, romanticized attachment in Henry Osborne's letters as described by his sister. Weighing the conflicting reasons for Henry Osborne's dislike of Temple, he explained that the Osborne family ostensibly despised Temple for 'being an adventurer and an atheist' but concluded that her brother's motive was, in fact, a 'passionate jealousy.' Lucas commented that if Osborne was indeed familiar with The Duchess of Malfi, 'she must have found the relations of the Duchess of Malfi with her brother, Duke Ferdinand, painfully like her own.'6 Webster's play and Osborne's letters both display a brother's inordinate concern with the sexuality of his sister. While Henry's zeal was undoubtedly unorthodox, and likely sexual in nature, the limited portions of his diary published in Notes and Queries make it clear that he was at least trying to match his sister outside of the family. One need go no further than Henry Osborne's diary entry (written in cipher) for 28 July 1652: T vowed a vow to God to say a prayer euerie day for my sister and when shee was married to giue God thanks that day every yeere so long as I liued.' He certainly did not feel it was possible for Dorothy to remain unmarried or uninvolved with other men. On the other hand, Henry expected to live with his sister in her marital home: 'my B will never bee at quiet till hee see mee disposed of but hee do's not mean to loose mee by it' (99). His eagerness to settle Osborne's affairs derived from his wish to ensure his own future in his sister's household: hee knows that if I were marryed at this present, I should not bee perswaded to leave my father, as long as hee lives, and when this house break's up, hee is resolved to follow mee if hee can, which hee thinks hee might better doe to a house where I had some power, then where I am but upon Courtesy my self besydes that hee thinks it would bee to my advantage to bee well bestow'd, and by that hee understands Richly. Hee is much of your Sisters humor, and many times wishes mee a husband that loved mee as well as hee do's, (though hee seem's to doubt the possibility ont). (99)

The mercenary concern her brother had previously expressed was operative here. To be 'well' bestowed meant to be 'Richly' bestowed. However, Henry Osborne's unwillingness to 'loose' Osborne extended

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beyond mere financial concern, or the imperative to find a marital home where she could use her influence to allow for her brother's presence. As Osborne put it, her brother had 'doubts' that she could find an affective relationship outside of the family unit comparable to her relationship with him, or which replicated the benefits she received from him. Part of Henry Osborne's rejection of Temple was directed towards his ostensible inferiority to the Osborne family. Along with his sexualized possessiveness of his sister was a sense that no other family was good enough for her. Lois E. Bueler remarks that, in Renaissance drama, incest is often portrayed as the result of 'a perverse sort of family pride or solidarity,' as characters affirm the exclusive attractiveness and worth of their own families.8 She notes the example of the Duchess of Malfi's Ferdinand, whose 'incestuous inclination toward his sister is a social posture, of hysterical compensation - a desperate expression of the desire to avoid degrading association with inferiors.'9 At a time when the status of his family was so threatened, Henry may have clung to his sister in a kind of 'hysterical compensation' of class affiliation. Lois E. Bueler has remarked on the link between incest and tragedy, since (in the terms of Levi-Strauss) the necessary societal and marital exchange does not take place, or takes place only in part. Tragedy can be avoided by opening up constricted social circles: 'The moment when, unwitting incest having been revealed, the affected characters turn their attentions outward to establish bonds beyond themselves is the culturally stabilizing moment.'10 Dorothy Osborne's description of Henry Osborne's letter may have been a calculated signal to Temple that she needed his help to open up cycles of exchange, cycles which might otherwise be too constricted. Osborne might have described her spirited repartee with her brother in order to demonstrate her ability to confront a potentially disturbing situation (even a taboo one) with frankness. She may have wished to highlight her ability to cope with this manner of pressure. Perhaps Osborne hoped to embolden William Temple in his courtship by portraying Henry, his opponent and unlikely rival, as a buffoon. Henry Osborne was unable to control his emotions (they burst out in embarrassing missives) or to direct his desires to an object choice outside the family. More darkly, Osborne may have employed Temple as a witness to her uncomfortable situation, so that he could intervene on her behalf if necessary. Although she claimed that she was not concerned about her

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brother's letters, if Osborne did not want Temple to react with suspicion, she was ill-advised to offer him such an incriminating description of the letters. Osborne and Temple did mount a small debate about whether one of Henry Osborne's missives expressed unorthodox desire or not. Temple was worried, but Osborne retorted: 'You think him kinde from a letter that you mett with of his, Sure there was very litle of any thing in that, or else I should not have imployed it to wrap a Book up' (99). 'Kindness' in the early modern period had in some of its definitions the connotation of romantic interest. The OED (in its fifth definition) defines it as 'kind feeling; a feeling of tenderness or fondness; affection, love.'11 Osborne pivoted on the definition when she exclaimed: T cannot agree with you that my Brothers kindenesse to mee has any thing of trouble int' (102). The word 'trouble' weighs heavily in this phrase. In using her brother's letter to 'wrap a Book up,' she treated it as a trivial object, relegating it to a purely practical use. Though less dramatic than Samuel Pepys's burning of the plaintive letter of his longsuffering wife Elizabeth,12 Osborne's treatment of the letter was also an attempt to forestall potentially destructive feelings. On the other hand, why would Osborne use this letter to wrap something up for Temple? It is very possible that she was offering Temple another signal that he should pay close attention to her situation, and perhaps intervene. Certainly Osborne's brother was an ongoing obstacle in her desire to achieve a marriage with Temple, both through his emotional investments in her and his family pride. After Peter Osborne died, Henry Osborne was essentially a surrogate father, and Osborne's position was that of a powerless sister. Negotiations about Dorothy Osborne's fate took place between men; she was not involved in many of the negotiations. As Eve Sedgwick comments, Tn any male-dominated society, there is a special relationship between male homosocial (including homosexual) desire and the structures for maintaining and transmitting patriarchal power: a relationship founded on an inherent and potentially active structural congruence.' This structure is established because women, in the words of Levi-Strauss, are figured 'only as one of the objects in the exchange, not as one of the partners.'14 Her brother did indeed participate in exchanges between men that were closed off to Osborne, and she made tart, ironic remarks about her brother's esteem for her suitor Sir Justinian Isham: 'one above all the rest I think hee is in love with himself and may marry him too, if hee pleases, I shall not hinder him' (105). Henry's desire for Dorothy was either connected to or reflected in his interest in her male suitors: if not

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a literally sexual interest15 then a desire for close association with admiration at its root. Henry Osborne's closeness to these prospective suitors threw a wrench into the machinery of the Osborne-Temple courtship. It created a set of desirous relationships that Osborne did not choose and with which she did not wish to engage. The existence of such heavily mediated relationships is at least a partial explanation for the difficulties that Osborne and Temple had in pressing forward their courtship. Along with the active opposition Osborne's family mounted to the courtship, the fact that Henry Osborne and William Temple rarely spoke to each other made it difficult for them to establish a dynamic of any kind, much less one that could allow for a marriage contract. When Osborne characterized her brother as 'my freind, that is not your's' (78) she emphasized the distance between Temple and Henry. With no friendship between Henry Osborne and William Temple, there could be no union between Temple and Dorothy Osborne. Unable to control her marriage destiny directly, Osborne had to try to develop a cordial relationship between Temple and her brother. Naturally it is difficult to imagine how Osborne would have been able to encourage good relations between her brother and Temple since she portrayed her brother so negatively, and this may be why she softened towards her brother later in the correspondence and was careful not to condemn him directly for his inappropriate passions. Some of Dorothy Osborne's cultural and literary influences might have led her to expect very different brotherly behaviour. In Abraham Cowley's Davideis, a poem which Osborne read in manuscript, Jonathan is an essential figure in the marriage negotiations of his friend David and his sister Michol, and an extremely helpful force in every way. Because Michol is prevented by her modesty from acting on her inclinations and pursuing David, her brother Jonathan must negotiate on her behalf: Rut Jonathan, to whom both hearts were known With a concernment equal to their own, Joyful that Heav'en with his sworn love comply'd To draw that knot more fast which he had ty'd, With well-tim'ed zeal, and with an artful care, Restor'ed, and better'd soon the nice affaire. With ease a Brothers lawful power orecame The formal decencies of virgin-shame

(3. 835-42)

94 An Audience of One The comparison between Michol and Dorothy Osborne has definite limits. For one, Osborne was fully capable of expressing her attachment to Temple. Osborne spoke to Temple directly, and one of the most striking aspects of the letters was Osborne's confident claim on Temple's attention. However, she did require help from her brother in all legal and financial aspects of her marriage settlement, and certainly would have wished him to clear away impediments to union, especially ridiculous or petty concerns. In Cowley's poem, Jonathan is favourably compared to his gloomy, selfish father Saul because he is able to recognize other people's concerns and desires. Jonathan has an interest in the well-being of the lovers, and his stake or 'concernment' in the outcome of the plot is literally 'equal' to their own. In one sense, such 'concernment' is an echo of the kind of passion Osborne and Temple ascribed to Henry Osborne, but Jonathan's emotions matched Michol and David's passions and were therefore useful to the couple rather than an unwelcome complication. The example of Jonathan might well have shown Osborne that it was possible for an individual to be engaged with the affairs of one's family without lapsing into inappropriate behaviour. Jonathan helps Michol and David attain their union, and the triangular structure of his involvement is explicitly temporary. Henry Osborne presented his involvement in Osborne's life as an ongoing process, one that should not be supplanted by her marriage. As Osborne notes, he 'never desyr's that I should love that husband with any Passion, and plainly tells [her] soe' (99). Henry Osborne did end up bringing his wishes in line with those of Osborne and Temple, in large part because Osborne wore down his resistance. As I have noted, Osborne visibly softened towards her brother in the later letters. However, before they could reach a compromise, Osborne had to resist a final appeal, as Henry Osborne tried to browbeat his sister into conforming with his wishes for her marriage: 'hee renounced mee againe and I defyed him' (178). Her brother asserted that Temple lacked 'Religion or honnour' and 'would take any Engagement, serve in any employment or doe any thing to advance yourself (178). The siblings exhausted themselves with their spirited argument, yet the scene of reconciliation vividly incorporates Henry Osborne's words: there hee sate halfe an hower and sayde not one word nor I to him, at Last in a pittifull Tone, Sister say's hee, I have heard you say that when any thing

Triangularity and Surveillance 95 troubles you, of all things you aprehend goeing to bed, because there it increases upon you and you lye at the mercy of all your sad thoughts which the silence and darknesse of the night adds a horror to; I am at that passe now, I vow to God I would not indure another night like the last to gaine a Crowne; I whoe resolvd to take noe notice what ayled him, sayd twas a knoledge I had raised from my Spleen only; and soe fell into a discourse of Melancholy and the Causes, and from all that (I know not how) into Religion, and wee talked soe long of it and soe devoutely that it layed all our anger, wee grew to a calme and peace with all the world; two hermitts conversing in a Cell they Equaly inhabitt, never Expressed more humble Gharri table Kindenesse one towards another then wee. (178)

The recognition of an underlying sympathy of temperament facilitated their agreement that Henry would not speak to Osborne about her marriage. After the marriage 'hee shall leave mee hee say's not out of want of Kindenesse to mee, but because hee cannot see the Ruine of a Person that hee lov's soe passionatly and in whose happiness hee had layed up all his' (178). While Osborne found herself released from the burdens of her brother's passion, he expressed his desire to leave his sister to her own devices in the seemingly paradoxical terms of passionate attachment. Henry Osborne's sprawling, unseemly emotion for Osborne was surprising given his earlier claim that 'all passions, have more of trouble then sattisfaction in them and therfore they are happiest that have least of them' (Osborne, 99). Ironically enough, Henry's passionate and solicitous nature became the catalyst for the release of his sister from his claustrophobic control, because he claimed to be unable to bear her marriage to Temple. If there was indeed a real rivalry between Temple and her brother, Osborne laid it to rest explicitly: 'though hee should break his promise hee should never make mee break mine; noe let mee assure you, this Rivall nor any other shall Ever Alter mee Therfor spare your Jelousy or turne it all into Kindenesse' (178). Some of this softened tone was likely motivated by her need to utilize her brother in the marriage negotiations. Kenneth Parker explains that her brother-in-law Thomas Peyton was the sole official representative of the Osborne family in the negotiations but that he 'would not agree to any details in the marriage contract from which Henry Osborne was excluded as participant, even though he was not one of the negotiators.'18 Henry Osborne's signature appears on the agreement between Sir John Temple and the Osborne

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family that Dorothy Temple would be paid £500 should she survive William Temple, or that the money would be held in trust for her children. This bond is dated 1655.19 As James Fitzmaurice and Martine Rey comment, 'It is no small irony that Osborne had to rely on her once-reviled brother to make the formal arrangements.'20 Osborne herself appraised the need for her brother to 'treat' for her in the marriage negotiations: Tf I did say it once that my B should have nothing to doe int twas when his Carriage towards mee gave mee such an occasion as I could justifie the keeping that distance with him, but now it would Look Extreamely unhandsome in mee' (214). She was justifiably worried about the reaction of the wider community should she spurn her brother, and what Temple's sister Martha might think of her opposition to her brother: T am affrayde shee will not think mee a fitt Person to choose for a friend that cannot agree with my owne Brother' (192). Since women were judged in terms of their participation in the family unit, Osborne was right to be concerned, and this concern fits in well with her sensitive concern for reputation which is discussed later in this chapter. Osborne's insistence on Henry's participation in her marriage negotiations was largely pragmatic. She was also well aware of the fragile state of the negotiations, and the need to avoid antagonizing either side. She noted perceptively, 'if your father out of humor shall refuse to treate with such friends as I have let them bee what they will it must End hear' (213—14). Despite the irony of her proviso 'let them bee what they will,' Osborne was firm not only with Temple but with his father. Osborne's pleas for Temple's patience and flexibility reveal her as a kind of seventeenth-century 'peace weaver.' Her ability to smooth over disputes made the union of two families possible. She used her letters to manage the delicate diplomacy of the negotiations and came to an understanding with a brother who positioned himself as something of a spurned suitor. Osborne was very adept at dramatizing these exacting negotiations in her letters to her future husband, displaying her considerable interpersonal skills and appealing to him to help manage the negotiations. Although the demands of mediating the triangular relationship between her brother and future husband provoked a painfully divided loyalty, Osborne expressed confidence in her ability to cope with competing claims even in the most troubled stages of the courtship: 'I may bee Just to you and [my brother] both, and to bee a kinde sister, will take nothing from my being a Perfect ffriende' (102). Instead of a

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pseudo-love triangle where her brother placed emotional demands on her, or a young couple's rebellion against the rigid demands of a surrogate father, Osborne envisioned a harmonious trio where she acted as a contented mediator. As a mediator, she was sometimes forced to deny the potentially explosive components of the interaction within the group, among other things denying that there was 'trouble' in her brother's letters. Osborne's strong tendency to bridge seemingly incompatible desires brings to mind feminist theory (particularly cultural and psychoanalytical feminism), which claims that women tend to seek self-definition in relation to others, a vision that writers such as Sidonie Smith and more recently Morgan E. Forbes have challenged as largely culturally determined.21 Osborne drew Temple's attention to her ability to heal the rifts between people, and yet there is a palpable sense that she felt that such emotional labour was imposed rather than chosen. She spoke of the difficulty of maintaining her sense of autonomy when manipulation was cloaked in kindness and civility: I feare nobody's Anger, I am proofe against all Violence, but when People haunte mee with reasonings and Entreaty's when they looke sadly and prettende kindenesse, when they begg upon that score tis a strange paine to mee to deny. When hee raunt's and renounces mee I can dispise him, but when hee askes my pardon with tear's pleades to mee the long and constant friendship between us and call's heaven to wittnesse that nothing upon Earth is dear to him in comparison of mee, then, I confesse I feel a strange unquietnesse within mee, and I would doe any thing to avoyde his importunity. (172)

Osborne explicitly portrayed herself as susceptible to emotional appeal: 'I can resist with Ease any sort of People but beggers. If this be a fault in mee, tis at least a well natured one, and therefore I hope you will forgive it mee' (172). This may be merely a performance of a gentle, charitable sensibility in keeping with the expectations of her class. As regards her family situation, however, the best Osborne could hope for was to have Temple's help when dealing with Henry Osborne, and to hold her brother's energetic intervention at bay. She hoped to control the unfolding of her own marital plot as much as possible, even when others were busily plotting in another direction. Control over the desires of others as they bore on her courtship conditioned Osborne's relationship to her companion Jane Wright, often

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mentioned as Temple's 'fellow servant.' Jane Wright's presence as she mediated between the lovers was both a blessing and a curse to Osborne, as it was becoming an active shaping force in the courtship. Jane had a vexing tendency, for example, to report on each lover's state of mind to the other, as seen early in the courtship when Jane reported Osborne's melancholy to Temple. Confronted by a concerned Temple, Osborne exclaimed with exasperation: 'Your fellow servant is a sweet Juell to tell tales of mee' (85). However, Jane also fulfilled useful functions in the courtship. In a poignant moment of female solidarity, Jane supported Osborne when the volatile and persistent James Beverley pressed his suit: 'I to prevent his makeing discourses to mee made Mrs Gouldsmith and Jane sitt by all the while' (182). Jane was not the only woman to act as a buffer between Osborne and unwelcome suitors, but her presence was certainly of value. As well, Osborne could talk about Temple to Jane: 'I cannot say but I have wanted Jane, but it has bin rather to have sombody to talk with of you, then that I needed any body to put mee in minde of you and with all her dilligence I should have often prevented her in that discourse' (120). Here, however, Osborne's attitude towards Jane was defensive, especially in the subsequent description of their conversation to Temple. Osborne rushed to speak of Temple before Jane did, and she ensured that Temple knew that she was 'in mind' of him first. It seems as though Osborne would have been happier with Jane as a purely passive partner in the conversation, a receptacle for Osborne's rhapsodic musings. She staked her claim on Temple against the figure of Jane. Jane sometimes helped Osborne send her letters to Temple, but Osborne was at least somewhat alarmed when it appeared that Jane was communicating with Temple directly: Jane received separate letters from Temple (80, 159). Temple and Jane may have even met on their own. When Jane was away from Chicksands, Osborne noted that she had not seen Jane since her departure, but Temple might have: 'If your fellow servant had bin with you, she has tolde you that I part with her but for her advantage' (82). Osborne was mildly irritated at their separate communication: 'I had a letter from her the other day, she desyred mee to present her humble Service to her Master, she did mean you sure, for she named Every body Else that she ow's any Service to, and bid mee say that she would keep her worde with him, god knows what you have agreed together' (113). Osborne dutifully passed on Jane's message, but the telling vagueness of Jane's description of her unnamed 'Master' bothered her. Her snap-

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pish exclamation 'god knows what you have agreed together' implied that Temple should frankly reveal his agreement with Jane. In many ways, the reference to a fellow 'servant' was pure convention. It could change, however, into an appellation loaded with romantic significance, as it did in the Osborne-Temple courtship. The OED definitions of 'servant' includes both 'a professed lover' (definition 4) and one of the 'customary modes of subscribing a letter' (definition 4d).22 Osborne found it particularly vexing when Jane sent Temple a present, later revealed to be 'Marmelade of Quince' (142). Since presents were such an important part of the Osborne-Temple courtship, Jane was bold to send one to Temple. Osborne certainly questioned Temple's receptivity to Jane's confident overture: Jane presents her humble service to you and has sent you somthing in a boxe, tis hard to imagin what shee can finde heer to present you withall, and I am in doubt whither you will not pay to dear for it if you discharge the Carriage, tis a pritty freedom she takes but you may thank your selfe, shee thinks because you call her ffellow Servant she may use you accordingly, I bred her better, but you have spoyled her. (134)

Osborne's wish to subdue the socially inferior Jane was an expression of her class snobbery but she was also trying to pull Temple's attention away from Jane and back to her. She made her own involvement in the present clear: she was the one who gathered the moss in which the present was packed (146). Jane was in no way allowed to take sole credit for the gift. Osborne later broke into an admission of jealousy at the rapport between her waiting woman and Temple: Jane kisses your hands and say's she will bee redy in all places to doe you service; but i'le prevent her [,] now you have put mee into a Jealous humor i'le keep her in chains before she shall quit scores with mee' (199-200). With her melodramatic images of chains and her mock-villainous Jealous humor,' Osborne was making a joke, but one with an edge of vengeful seriousness. If Osborne saw Jane as useful for the execution of her own desires, it was something of a shock when Osborne found herself a conduit for Jane's own wishes. Osborne's letters register the sudden and unexpected role reversals that love triangles brought about. Such triangularity displaced Osborne from the vision of an independent and private couple she was actively forming with Temple. The very different interventions of her brother

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and Jane challenged Osborne's desired scenario of an unimpeded progress towards union. Yet love triangles also fueled the courtship to some degree, investing it with energy, and inspiring Osborne and Temple to increase their efforts in the courtship. Osborne's brother unwittingly facilitated the Osborne-Temple relationship when Temple became determined to contest his claims on Osborne. Osborne used her description of her brother's unwanted and inordinate emotion to affirm her exclusive devotion to Temple, and her willingness to step out of the destructive brother-sister-suitor triangle. Likewise, Jane provided a spark of interest in the courtship, and a rival for Osborne to vanquish. Although complicated and confusing, Osborne's rhetorical presentation of complicated rivalries may have been a way of manipulating Temple to affirm their importance to each other. Jane and Henry Osborne were not the only distracting triangulations Osborne considered in her letters. Osborne and Temple had other serious marital alternatives, including the wealthy Mrs. Cl- favoured by Temple's family and Henry Cromwell, who ardently courted Osborne. While resenting some of the marital choices that were presented to her and Temple, Osborne also frequently speculated about what other romantic unions would have been like if they had come to pass. Such mental experimentation muddied the dyad of two lovers as much as the triads that were imposed on her by the caprice of others, but in these cases Osborne was not recording an imposition but toying with other possibilities. Her arch remark about intending Temple to marry one of her stepdaughters should she have been forced to marry Sir Justinian Isham was a humorous reminder that it was possible to form liaisons outside of her relationship, as was Osborne's lightly ironic remark that Temple should hasten to marry an aging widow: Tf you mean to make love to her olde woman this is the best time you can take for shee is dyeing' (74). Osborne was likewise fascinated by kinship relationships she missed because she had refused other suitors. For example, she noted that she might have been powerful if she had married Henry Cromwell: Tf I had bin soe wise as to have taken hold of the offer was made mee of H.C., I might have bin in a faire way of prefferment ...' (90). When she reminded Temple that she gave up Henry Cromwell, with some touch of irony, she both affirmed that she had chosen Temple and acknowledged alternatives to their relationship. Some of this speculation could be attributed to her general fascination with contingency, fortune, and fate, and yet Osborne might have welcomed the opportunity to paint a

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more complicated picture of their bond, as long as she had control over the other relationships that were being posited, and as long as she could return to a vision where her courtship with Temple was absolutely central. Osborne also portrayed her female contemporaries as romantic, and erotic, objects in her letters.23 Osborne spoke, for example, of her esteem for her beloved Lady Diana Rich: I would try if ten thousand pound a yeer with a husband that doated on her, as I should doe, could not keep her from being unhappy. Well in Earnest if I were a Prince that lady should bee my Mistresse but I can give noe rule to any body Else, and perhaps those that are in noe danger of looseing theire hearts to her, may bee infinitely taken with one I should not vallew at all. (97)

Osborne displayed her affection for Lady Diana to Temple, declaring that she would marry her if she were a man. She imaginatively assumed a male identity, although her declarations were couched in a hypothetical tone ('if I were my Cousin H: Davers ... if I were a Prince') and the focus remained a possible union between Diana and H. Davers. Osborne's description of Lady Grey de Ruthin was even more physically explicit. Osborne began by describing an area near Chicksands where people went walking ('Tis our Hide Parke') and the attractive woman who habitually strolled there: every fine Evening any that wanted a Mistresse might bee sure to finde one over there, I have wanderd often to meet my faire Lady Ruthin there alone, mee thinks it should bee dangerous for an heire, I could finde in my heart to steale her away my self, but it should bee rather for her person then her fortune. (105)

Her direct admission that Lady Ruthin's 'person' interested her locates Osborne's regard in the realm of the physical rather than that of Neoplatonic abstraction, since 'person' can be read as 'the living body of a human being' specifying either 'the actual body as distinct from clothing ... or from the mind or soul' or 'the body with its clothes or adornment as presented to the sight of others; bodily frame c >24 or figure. Given that Osborne was trying to strengthen the exclusivity of her bond with William Temple, why did she show him how fascinated she

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was by other people? Was she attempting to be appealing and provocative in showing a side of her sexual desire that did not belong to him? To be sure, Osborne's enjoyment of Ruthin was ludic and tongue-in-cheek. Yet she was willing to be the active agent of desire: the pursuer, the initiatory woman, even the abductor. Osborne may not have been in full control of the triangular structures she recorded in her letters, or even of her own desires as she articulated them to Temple. However, despite her unhappiness about the threat other people's interventions posed to the courtship (her possessive brother, other women favoured by the Temple family, her bold waiting woman), she could use some of these alternative romantic possibilities to compel Temple's interest and involvement. A formerly disempowering situation could be turned to her advantage. The dyad that was created by the courtship and imagined within Osborne's letters took shape against the competing claims of other people. Instead of articulating desire for Temple alone, Osborne constantly weighed, evaluated, and controlled desires in conflict. It was difficult for Osborne to find the right balance between enough intervention in the courtship and inadequate interaction from outside. If emotional isolation with Temple did not give her adequate scope for her imagination, erotic possibilities that complicated this relationship challenged her repose. Such a triangular structure certainly threatened the integrity of the relationship between Osborne and Temple while paradoxically underpinning its formation. It was not completely possible for Osborne to construct her own relationship free of the interventions of others. However, her letters were a strong means for her to engage Temple and to insist that their union was worthy of his undivided attention. The defining factor for Osborne was her ability to envision and determine the courtship as she wished. Rhetorically Osborne portrayed these triangulations not as obstacles in the courtship but as another force through which the couple could be brought - imaginatively and literally together. 'all people are seen and knowne': Surveillance in the Letters It is thus that we should live, - as if we lived in plain sight of all men; and it is thus that we should think, - as if there were someone who could look into our inmost souls ... Seneca, Ad Lucilium epistulae morales

Triangularity and Surveillance 103 It is a very great safeguard to learn by heart instead of writing. It is impossible for what is written not to be disclosed. Plato, Letters

Osborne's courtship was in several ways impossible to carry out. Osborne needed, for example, to manage the often confusing triangulations of the courtship, using both her mediation skills and powerful rhetoric aimed at Temple. This section considers the strategies that Osborne had to employ when coping with another sharp challenge to the couple's autonomy: Osborne's lack of personal privacy. Sheila Ottway characterizes the Osborne-Temple correspondence as 'clandestine,'25 underscoring that the correspondence took place against a more general backdrop of surveillance. In order to form a couple, they needed to achieve privacy. The couple also experienced surveillance and scrutiny of their actions, including interception of their letters. As with the love triangles that beset the couple, Osborne desired the couple to become isolated - 'away from the world' - yet acknowledged that they were enmeshed in it. When the unwanted desires, constant surveillance, and scrutiny of others was too great, Osborne resorted to escapism, drawing on literary and cultural models of retreat to create a safe - albeit imaginary - haven for the couple in her letters. Any public links to Temple while her family opposed the union rendered Osborne vulnerable to calumny. As a consequence, she sometimes painted her central dilemma in her courtship as a choice between maintenance of a spotless reputation (one she valued highly) and her devotion to Temple. Virginia Woolf dramatically portrayed Osborne's fear about the opinions of others: 'She dreaded with a shrinking that was scarcely sane the ridicule of the world ... a word of gossip about her own behaviour would set her in a quiver.'26 The private, inward quality of the letters was constructed against a background of intrusion into privacy, and this may have conditioned the kind of text produced. The threat of being watched compromised the lovers' confidence to act as they wished, especially since Osborne worried about what people would think of her actions. Osborne's letters were written at a time when the meaning of privacy for individuals and romantic couples was shifting, and it is of great historical interest that Osborne assumed that she and Temple had to develop their romantic bond in isolation from the world. The lack of privacy for the couple was another aspect of Osborne's life that eluded

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her control, and her letters engaged imaginatively with the problem by offering a pastoral fantasia of retreat a deux to a small, picturesque island near the island of Guernsey, the island of Herm. She was hardly alone in this wish. In The Canonization,' published in 1633, John Donne articulated a vision of 'pretty rooms' in which two lovers might sequester themselves.27 In 'A retir'd Friendship: To Ardelia'28 Katherine Philips invited her friend to a 'Bow'r' free from 'quarelling for Crowns' and 'trembling at the great ones Frowns' (11. 5, 7).29 Human bonds (and particularly love relationships) were portrayed as successful only in a natural world removed from urban cares. Osborne in her turn did everything she could rhetorically to isolate the lovers in an imaginary space, and an epistolary one. Many critics have discussed women's anxiety about public visibility in the period as a function of their feminine gender, and considered women's need for modesty, especially given the normative of the 'chaste, silent and obedient' wife of the conduct books.30 Dorothy Osborne's letters help us examine pressures that bore on women specifically, but they also register an almost universal culture of social control. Osborne's environment, which she termed 'the world,' appeared to her rife with rumour, insinuation, and judgment: if one could bee invisible I should choose that, but since all people are seen and knowne, and shall bee talked of in spight of theire Teeth's, whoe is it that do's not desyre at least that nothing of ill may bee sayed of them whither Justly, or Otherwise, I never knew any soe sattisfied with theire owne innocence as to bee content the worlde should think them Guilty; some out of pride have seem'd to contemme ill reports when they have founde they could not avoyde them; but none out of strength of reason though many have prettended to it. (177)

Osborne established a marked contrast between the invisibility she wished for and the scrutiny she actually expected to experience: 'if I might bee allowed to choose my happinesse, part of it should consist in concealment there should not above two persons in the worlde know that there were such a one in it as/ Your faithfull' (172) .31 No escape from examination was truly accessible, since everyone was 'seen and known.' According to Osborne, any self-respecting individual had to invest significant energy in the public presentation of good character. Earlier in the letter sequence, as she contemplated the nature of her

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public persona, Osborne both combated and accepted the pressures brought to bear on her: I confesse I doe naturaly hate the noise and talk of the worlde, and should bee best pleased never to have to bee knowne int upon any occasion whatsoever, yet since it can never bee wholy avoyded one must sattisfye on's selfe by doeing nothing that one need care whoe know's. (109)

There was no capacity to contain or control the world's judgments, since any scandal present in the general society would be 'magnified': If an Action take a litle in the worlde it shall bee magnified and brought into Comparison with what the Hero's, or Senatours of Rome perform'd, but on the Contreary if it bee once condemned nothing can bee founde ill enough to compare it with, and People are in Paine till they finde out some Extravagant Expression to represent the ffolly on't. Only there is this difference that as all are more forcibly inclined to ill then good, they are much apter to Exceede in detraction then in praises. (175)

Everyone in the community was involved in censorious behaviour and Osborne saw the tendency to magnify indiscretion as a basic human trait. The negative impact of judgment could not be mitigated by 'praise,' since it was not as powerful as denigration. Scandal had its own momentum. Osborne professed to hate all kinds of public display, even the prospect of a public wedding ceremony: T could not indure to bee Mrs Bride in a Publick wedding to bee made the happiest person on Earth. Doe not take it ill for I would indure it if I could rather then faile but in Earnest I doe not think it were possible for mee' (202). There was once again manipulation here, and we can see a contrast between Osborne's assertion that she can endure the challenge - and her assertion that she absolutely cannot. Osborne praised the wedding ceremony of a couple who had 'noebody to please int but themselves' and who thus avoided scrutiny: he came downe into the Country where she was upon a Visett and one morning marryed her, as soone as they cam out of the Church they took coach and cam for the Towne, dined at an inne by the way and at night cam into Lodgings that were provided for them where nobody knew

106 An Audience of One them and where they passed for marryed People of seven years standing. (202)

Osborne did not, in fact, have to undergo a public wedding (the couple was married in seclusion at St Giles' Church in Holborn). However, Osborne did struggle with her hatred of unwelcome attention when the courtship came into public view during the negotiations. One way of understanding Osborne's attitude towards the 'noise and talk of the world' is to compare her with other writers of her period who addressed the question of privacy either directly or through veiled allusions. Questions of privacy were widely present in the culture, in both secular and religious circles. Religious writers repeatedly affirmed the impossibility of being alone in the presence of an all-seeing God.32 Surveillance was a ubiquitous part of daily religious life, especially in the dissenting tradition. Church congregations required believers to conduct their life in view of others, under the rubric of church discipline. Close examination was an essential component of Calvinist doctrine, as members of a community attempted to ascertain who was a member of the Elect. Calvin remarked: 'The elect cannot be recognized by us with assurance of faith, yet Scripture describes certain sure marks to us, as has previously been said, by which we may distinguish the elect and the children of God from the reprobate and the alien, insofar as He wills us so to recognize them.' 3 Even an Independent like John Milton emphasized the value of church discipline in improving the individual.34 Congregational discipline was a means of enforcing certain behaviours and using the life experience of others for self-patterning. Scrutiny was likewise a part of the Anglican tradition within which Osborne had grown up, filtered through the lens of Jeremy Taylor's Holy Living. Not unlike Calvin, Taylor stressed questions of hygiene or habit readily examinable by outward observers. For Taylor, Christian belief was manifested in outward forms of righteous behaviour. On the other hand, Taylor was also clear that it is wrong to be overly concerned with the opinions of others: 'It is likely our hearts are pure, and our intentions spotlesse, when we are not solicitous of the opinion and censures of men; but onely that we do our duty, and be accepted of God.'35 In her remarks that all people will be 'seen and known,' Osborne responded to an element of scrutiny abundantly present in the secular and the religious cultures that surrounded her. However, general cultural influences can only account for so much. The unique biographical contingencies of Osborne's situation are possibly more important.

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Osborne was not only aware of a societal trend towards scrutiny: she was also closely watched in her daily life. Her family monitored her because she was on the marriage market. They scrutinized her more intensely when she became involved with Temple because this association represented a marked threat to their wishes and authority, and she was not supposed to be in communication with him. At times, the scrutiny of Osborne took on the qualities of a trial or religious examination: Would you had heard how I have bin Chatechised for you, and seen how soberly I sitt and answer to interogatory's. Would you think, that upon Examination it is founde that you are not an indifferent person to mee, but the mischeif is, that what my intentions or resolutions are, is not to bee discoverd, though much pain's has bin taken to collect all scattering Circumstances, and all the probable conjectur's that can bee raised from thence has bin urged, to see if any thing would bee confessed. And all this done with soe much Ceremony and complement, soe many pardon's asked for undertakeing to councell, or inquire, and soe great kindenesse and Passion for all my Interest's professed, that I cannot but take it well, though I am very weary on't. (78)

They questioned Osborne for the information she would reveal, and to ascertain whether she would conform to their demands. The language here is both judicial and religious, with references to catechism and confession mingled with the language of evidence ('all scattering Circumstances'). In its mixture of religious and judicial discipline, there was even a hint of an inquisition-like mentality, where interlocutors con flate religious and social control. Osborne's family was trying to piece together her projected actions, and gain privileged access to her inner self. She was willing to reveal her feelings partially when she admitted that Temple was not 'indifferent' to her. However, she did not intend to betray her 'intentions and resolutions,' or expose what she would do next. Despite her resolution to reserve some portion of her soul unexamined, she did not rebel outright at being questioned. In fact, she took it as a sign of her family's care and interest. Though this attention was negative, it was nonetheless attention, a manifestation of concern. The experience of being watched functioned as both violation and protection. Discipline was mixed with scrutiny, expressed and experienced as care. Osborne's internalization of the imperative to act as if one's actions were under constant surveillance is reminiscent of Foucault's suggestive

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idea of the panopticon, where the modern individual is under constant surveillance. Foucault's model stresses complete construction of the individual rather than repression: Our society is one not of spectacle, but of surveillance; under the surface of images, one invests bodies in depth ... it is not that the beautiful totality of the individual is amputated, repressed, altered by our social order, it is rather that the individual is carefully fabricated in it, according to a whole technique offerees and bodies.36

Foucault's description of the 'forces and bodies' which fabricate an individual rings true for Osborne. She seems to have been resigned to the possibility that she might be judged, and vowed at least in theory to behave without reproach. As she explained to Temple, no individual should perform any action 'that one need care whoe know's' (109). She described her reaction as almost instinctual. Members of her society were watching her and so she must conform to the dictates of their expectations. This acquiescence with the pressures of her social class and family made her attempt to control her destiny through her letters all the more complex. At no point did she assume complete freedom in her actions. On the other hand, she possessed enough resistance to the scrutiny of the 'world' to realize that the keen scrutiny of others curtailed her actions, and to complain about this fact to Temple. She was capable of tracing the imperative to avoid scandal to an external source, the 'noise and talk of the world,' which demonstrates that she saw the possibility, even the desirability, of being free from such pressures. Osborne may have acquiesced with social norms, but she sometimes circumvented them even when defending them. One reason why Osborne might have desired to resist surveillance was that she was aware of being perceived as a sexual object by unwelcome suitors, with the encouragement of her brother. Osborne's experience of vulnerability to male attention resonates with that of her female contemporaries, for whom public visibility was a risk. Margaret Blagge literally hid her charms to make herself less prone to the dangers of male attention. John Evelyn described Blagge's lack of comfort with the impact she had on her social circle: her Beauty & her Wit was so extraordinarily Improvd; as there had been nothing ben scene more surprizing, & full of Charmes: Every body was in Love with, & some almost dying for her: whilst (with all the Modesty, & Cir-

Triangularity and Surveillance 109 cumspection imaginable) she strove to Eclipse the Luster which it gave, and would often checq the Vivacity which was Naturall (innocent, & perfectly became her) for feare of giving Occasion to those who Lay in waite to Deceive.37

Whether generated by Evelyn or Blagge, there was danger in Blagge's beauty. While Blagge was conspicuously pious, and concerned to appear so, more than mere prudery was at work here. Osborne was worried about the impression she created, and at one point asked Temple whether she was too 'stately': let mee aske you one question seriously, and pray resolve mee truely, do I looke soe Stately as People aprehende. I vowe to you I made nothing on't when Sir Emperour sayed soe, because I had noe great opinion of his Judgment, but Mr Freeman makes mee mistruste my self Extreamly (not that I am sorry I did apeare soe to him since it kept mee from the displeasure of refuseing an offer, which I doe not perhaps deserve), but that is a scurvy quality in its self and I am affrayed I have it in great measure if I showed any of it to him, for whome I have soe much of respect and Esteem. If it bee soe you must need's know it, for though my kindnesse will not let me look soe upon you, you can see what I doe to other People, and besydes there was a time when wee our selves were indifferent to one another, did I doe soe then or have I lean't it since for god sake tell mee that I may try to mend it. (110)

While she admitted that she was relieved to be free from unwelcome attention, she was nonetheless aware of her strong effect on others (literally 'what I doe to other People') and wondered if she should change her demeanour. In particular, she wished to find out whether Temple objected to anything in her public presentation. If he had no objection to her stateliness, she claimed that it would not trouble her. Again, we can see Osborne's appeal to her audience. She showed Temple that she was willing to change in order to suit his desires and tastes, but also signalled that she would have preferred to be subject to his scrutiny alone. Osborne ultimately aspired to a situation where the couple could enjoy a pleasing mutual regard in complete privacy, and employed her letters to argue in vivid detail for such a situation. Concealment would have been an appealing possibility for Osborne even if her family did not oppose the romance. Margaret Blagge described her participation in worldly and courtly existence as an impediment to the achievement

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of a good marital relationship, and perhaps Osborne also saw the opinions, involvement, and scrutiny of others as a hindrance to her marital happiness and her own autonomy.38 Lawrence Stone, among others, has commented on the way that extreme scrutiny worked in opposition to the development of intimate bonds in early seventeenth-century communities: 'Domestic life in the village was conducted in a blaze of publicity.' Stone argues that an increase in personal privacy was a contributing factor to the rise of the companionate marriage.39 Due to their class status, Osborne and Temple were immune to many pressures of village existence. Temple was travelling for part of the courtship; Osborne found herself in the relative seclusion of Chicksands. However, her privacy depended on the willingness of relatives to restrain their curiosity, and her family's ability to keep away prying strangers. Lawrence Klein aptly describes the fluidity of the public/private distinction in eighteenth-century literature: 'Even if ... women spent more time at home, they were not necessarily spending more time in private.'40 Osborne herself was very sensitive to fluctuation in her level of privacy, and did not take it for granted when she was allowed some measure of privacy at the rural estate Chicksands: I am heer much more out of Peoples way then in Towne, where my Aunte and such as prettend an interest in mee and a power over mee, doe soe persecute mee with theire good motions, and take it soe ill that they are not accepted, as I would live in a hollow tree to avoyde them. Heer I have no body but my Brother to Torment mee, whome I can take the liberty to dispute with, and whome I have prevailed with hitherto, to bring none of his prettenders to this place, because of the noyse all such People make in a Country & the tittle tattle it breed's amongst neighbours that have nothing to doe but to inquire whoe marry's and who makes love. (96)

Osborne's avoidance of scrutiny was partial, momentary, and contingent. Later comments reveal that her relationship with Temple did indeed provoke ample comment. In the remarks quoted above, she was bolstered by her ability to control her brother more than she controlled her aunt. On the other hand, compelling her brother to protect her privacy took significant effort, and she had to 'prevail' with him. Osborne displayed considerable resentment over the power others might have to scrutinize and control her. Depending on her physical situation, Osborne found herself either catapulted onto the public stage,

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or hovering uncomfortably nearby. Later, Osborne grumbled about her brother Peyton's house where she lived as a dependent relation: 'never trust mee if I write more then you that live in a desolated Country where you might ffinish a Romance of ten Tomes before any body interupted you; I that live in a house the most filled of any since the Arke and where I can assure [you?] one has hardly time for the most necessary occasion's' (205). The crowding made her 'weary as a dog' (204). It detracted from her ability to perform basic, necessary tasks, also making contemplation and the all-important letter writing impossible. Physical crowding distressed Osborne, and she worried about what others might say about her. But what did she believe that people would object to? Osborne was apprehensive about the censure which would ensue if she married Temple without a proper financial settlement. Significantly (though not surprisingly) she linked rational behaviour with the assurance of a material standard of living; in her judgment 'to all persons some proportion of fortune is necessary according to theire severall qualitys' (213). The courtship revolved around a nexus of familial and societal needs Osborne and Temple had to meet before they could marry. Osborne was concerned that, in failing to strike the proper balance between her personal desires and societal demands, she would be widely exposed and scorned. At times her desire for privacy was so great that Osborne expressed her wish that Temple refrain from seeing her altogether: 'I have still some sence of my reputation left in mee. I finde that to my last I shall attempt to preserve it as Cleer as I can' (161). Osborne could not bear the scandal sparked by visits from a man to whom she would never be married. During their courtship, the couple found it necessary to maintain a high level of discretion so that they did not lose the freedom to conduct the courtship. Osborne and Temple were cautious not to reveal their attachment too openly. Osborne danced around these delicate issues: I doe not think it (a propos) to tell any body that you and I are very good friends, and it were better sure, if nobody knew it but wee our selves, but if in spight of all our Caution it bee discovered, tis no Treason, nor any thing else that's ill, and if any body should tell mee that I had a greater kindenesse and Esteem for you, then for any one besydes, I doe not think I should deny it. (109)

Mixing frankness and duplicity, Osborne claimed that she would neither conceal nor publicize her attachment to Temple. With an odd

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combination of grace and awkwardness, Osborne thanked Temple for concealing their engagement because it left her the 'Liberty' to withdraw from the compact, 'though I am never likely to make use on't' (109). When their acquaintance Tom Cheke found out about the partnership, Osborne was mildly disturbed and puzzled as to how he got his 'intelligence': 'The best on't is the matter is not great, for though I confesse I had rather nobody knew it, yet tis that I shall never bee ashamed to owne' (142). Osborne was not content until people in her community concluded that she had behaved properly. Even when familial objections and financial barriers were removed, Osborne insisted that Temple publicize the fact that he had adequate money to support her: Tis not that I Expect by all your Fathers offers to bring my friends to aprove it, I don't deceive my self thus farr, but I would not give them occasion to say that I hid my self from them in the doeing it, nor of makeing my action apear more indiscreet then it is, it will concerne mee that all the worlde should know what fortune you have and upon what term's I marry you that both may not bee made to appeare ten times worse then they are. (175)

While Osborne capitulated to many of the pressures of gossip and calumny, she sought to combat them insofar as she was able. Despite her advocacy of complete frankness, she conducted the courtship in private and did her best to deepen her bond with Temple outside of the purview of others. But she did not rail against the constraints of her society. Ironically, her clandestine correspondence bent rules to which she did not necessarily object. These rules did, however, hinder her ability to pursue a marriage with Temple and since she wanted that marriage she had no real choice but to finesse them. Osborne was vexed when her letters, the tangible symbol and vehicle of the courtship, were opened. As in the eighteenth-century novel, exposed letters became a means to reveal intimate secrets, to Osborne's dismay. Witness Osborne's horror when she realized that a letter from Temple had been opened, possibly by a letter-carrier: when hee gave mee your letter I found the uper scale broake open, and underneath, where it uses to bee only Closed with a litle waxe there was a scale, which though it were an Anchor & a heart, mee thoughts it did not looke like yours, but lesse, and much worse cutt. This suspition was soe stronge upon mee, that I chid till the Poore fellow was redy to Crye, and

Triangularity and Surveillance 113 Swore to mee that it had never bin Touched since hee had it, and that hee was soe carefull of it, as hee never putt it with his other letters, but by it self and that how it cam amongst his mony, which perhaps might break the scale, and least I should think it was his Curiousity, hee tolde mee very ingenuously hee could not reade and soe wee parted for the present. (101)

Two mysteries remain unsolved. Who broke the seal of the letters? Who owned the unfamiliar seal whose imprint the letter now bears? While the letter-carrier did not possess the sophistication to carry out the act of which they accuse him ('hee could not reade') it was not to his credit. As Osborne constructed the scene, he refrained from spying not from lack of guile but lack of capacity. Osborne inferred that the letter-carrier did indeed commit the crime and only her displeasure would deter him from further spying: 'in grace of god this shall bee a warning to him as long as hee lives' (101). Osborne's firm, even grim, tone shows that her anger at this violation translated into concrete action. However, her resolution to discipline the letter-carrier with her displeasure seems a stopgap measure. The letter-carrier, a mere servant, was humbled, yet he was one of many possible culpable agents. As Osborne had insisted, escaping scrutiny was impossible. Even lowly letter-carriers were treacherous. The sharp discipline she visited on someone not her social equal shows that Osborne had to resist interference even from her inferiors, which could only reflect badly on her ability to fend off unwelcome prying from social equals or superiors. In another incident Osborne reported, her brother badgered a lettercarrier to see if he had been carrying love letters from Osborne to Temple: My B. comeing from London, mett him goeing up & cald to him, & asked what letters hee had of mine, the fellow sayed none, I did not use to send by him. My B. sayed I tolde him hee had and bid him call for them, hee sayed there was some mistake int for hee had none, and soe they Parted for a while. But my B. not sattisfied with this rides after him, and in some anger threatned the Poore fellow, whoe would not bee frighted out of his letter, but looked very simply and sayed now hee rememberd himselfe hee, had carried a letter for mee aboute a fortnight or three weeks agon, to my Lady D. R. but hee was sure hee had none now. My B. smiled at his innocence and left him, and I was hugely pleased to heare, how hee had bin defeated. (117)

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If Osborne's account is accurate, Henry Osborne did not attempt to hide his strong-arm tactics from Osborne, virtually declaring to her that he intended to read her letters to Temple. Osborne's narrative has the quality of eyewitness reportage, allowing the reader to follow the events as they occurred. In a scene worthy of a novel, Osborne's brother allowed the letter-carrier to leave, then impetuously pursued him. This time, the naivety of the letter-carrier protected Osborne; he 'simply' said that he did indeed carry letters, but only to friends. There are two distinct moments of deceit in the letters. The brother tells the lettercarrier a lie and is told a lie himself. Osborne had several motivations to relate scenes like this one to Temple. First of all, she used them to illustrate the extreme nature of the scrutiny brought to bear on her, whether it was the anonymous breaking of a seal, or the heavy-handed outbursts of Henry Osborne. Furthermore, she wished to engage Temple in the fight for privacy as a means to move the courtship forward and strengthen their bond. Although there was little chance that the letters would remain private, Osborne was nonetheless solicitous of their safety. As clandestine correspondents, Osborne and Temple tried various techniques to assure that their letters did not fall into the wrong hands. For example, Osborne advised Temple to redirect and disguise his letters: 'lett yours bee made up in some other forme then usuall, and directed to Mr Gibson at Ch: in some od hande, and bee at the Charge pray of buyeng a twopeny scale a propos for the letters' (117). The concealment involved three elements: manipulating the address, disguising the handwriting, and increasing the strength of the seal. This was the second time Osborne had advocated increasing the security of the letters, having previously commanded Temple to 'scale your letters soe as the difficulty of opening them may dishearten any body from attempting it' (101). In Osborne's articulation of their situation, the couple was forced to take action against the relentless scrutiny of the outside world, relying on mere sealing wax to hold firm against persistent curiosity. When Osborne tried to circumvent the disclosure of her writing, she was hoping that her letters would not be taken out of their original context, a decontextualization that is always a possibility in the reception of letters. Yet Temple was the only acceptable reader of Osborne's letters and at the extreme end of unacceptable readers lay Osborne's brother. Henry Osborne could not understand or respect her words, but only regard them with hostility because they went against his purposes. Osborne's ability to control the interpretation of her writing relied on her ability to aim them at her singular reader Temple.41

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Scrutiny was blatantly imposed on Osborne, but she also had a tendency to reveal herself inadvertently to others, blushing when she received a letter from Temple. One incident reads as if it were a scene from a novel where a torrid romance is being concealed: if you could have seen how woddenly I entertain'd the widdow whoe came hither the day before, and surprised mee very much. Not being able to say any thing, I gott her to Card's, and there with a great deal of Patience lost my Mony to her, or rather I gave it as my Ransome. In the middest of our Play in comes my blessed Boy with your letter, and in Earnest I was not able to disguise the Joy it gave mee, though one was by that is not much your friend, and took notice of a blush that for my life I could not keep back. I putt up the letter in my Pockett, and made what hast I could to loose the mony I had left, that I might take occasion to goe fetch some more, but I did not make such hast back againe I can assure you, I took time enough to have Coyned my self some mony if I had had the Art on't. (75)

Osborne isolates herself so that she can enjoy Temple's letter without displaying her feelings. The scene employs irony for comic effect, but the communication of the need for privacy, and the pleasure of privacy, seems more serious. In another letter, Osborne confesses the habitual nature of her inability to control her blushes: what would I give I could avoyde it when People speak of you, in Earnest I doe prepare my self all that is possible to heare it spoken of and yet for my life I cannot hear your name without discovering that I am more then ordinarily concerned int. A blush is the foolishest thing that can bee and betray's one more then a red nose dos a drunkerd, and yet I would not soe wholy have lost them as some women that I know has, as much injury as they doe mee. (197)

Unwelcome blushes were another sign that there was no purely private space in which to experience desire. Intense emotion spilled out. Osborne could not control her entrance onto the public stage, although she craved to do so. Although Osborne happily unfolded her mind to Temple (without fear of vulnerability) her unwitting revelation to others rankled her. On the other hand, Osborne's eagerness to speak of her blushes could have been a self-conscious attempt to draw Temple's attention to a fetching combination of modesty and immodesty. Even if she used blushes to draw attention to her personal qualities, they show that she urgently valued privacy.

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Worse than blushing was acting illicitly and failing to blush. Osborne explicitly contrasted herself with women whose calculating or passionate nature was matched by an unblushing brazenness. One of these women was Isabella Thynne, mentioned in John Aubrey's Lives as a social presence at Balliol College: she 'would make her entry with Theorbo or Lute played before her ... she was most beautifull, most humble, charitable, etc., but she could not subdue one thing.'42 Osborne remarked on Isabella Thynne's loveless and mercenary marriage to a cruel man, Sir James Thynne, adding derisively: 'she had better have marryed a begger, then that beast with all his Estate' (144). Osborne expressed doubt that Thynne could maintain her dignity when her motivations were clearly those of greed. Osborne's revulsion was even more complex because she found this charismatic woman physically beautiful. Musing on Thynne, Osborne made a distinction between inner and outer selfhood: O tis ten thousand pitty's. I remember she was the first woman that ever I took notice of for Extreamly handsom, and in Earnest shee was then the Lovlyest thing that could bee lookt on I think, but what should she doe with beauty now. Were I as shee I would hide my self from all the world, I should think all people that Looked on mee read it in my face and dispised mee in theire hearts, and at the same time they made mee a leg or spoke Civily to mee I should beleeve they did not think I deserved theire respect. (144)

Thynne was no longer worthy of being looked upon because of her avarice. She drew chastisement from Osborne as severe as if she had committed some outrageous sexual sin. Again, truth about the inner person emerged even when it was desirable to keep it under wraps. The attempts of Thynne's acquaintances to conceal disrespect were as fruitless as her initial attempts to control her baseness. Osborne also discussed the case of Lady Anne Blount, remarking on 'the noise my Lady Anne Blunt has made with her marryeng' (156). Blount was on view because she petitioned Cromwell, claiming that she was forced to marry Sir William Blount (no relation).43 Osborne alleged that Anne Blount was, contrary to her claim, carried away with passion for her suitor and dishonest about her true feelings. In essence, Blount drew unnecessary attention to herself and, as we have seen in Evelyn's fears for Margaret Blagge, public visibility was attached to deep danger. Osborne believed that Blount was particularly culpable since she dis-

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played romantic emotion in public: 'What has [passion] not brought my Poore Lady Anne Blunt to, she is the talk of all the footmen and Boy's in the street, and will bee company for them shortly, who yet is soe blinded by her passion as not at all to perceave the missery shee has brought her self to' (159). Did Osborne have any sympathy for fallen women? Osborne's lament that one could find no immunity from the gaze of others took an interesting form with these women. She seemed to believe at least partially that they deserved whatever negative judgment they attracted. G.C. Moore Smith notes that Osborne 'grieves over women who yield to passion and forfeit all title to respect.'44 However, much of Osborne's disdain or disapproval of these notorious women stemmed from pure conservatism, or smug satisfaction about her own circumspection. Nowhere is this more apparent than in her remarks about the flamboyant and publicly visible Margaret Cavendish. Cavendish's self-portraya was eccentric, to put it mildly, to the extent that Samuel Pepys made a special effort to gawk at her when she visited London. Cavendish's copious publication drew a great deal of attention from a society shocked by her foray into print. Osborne particularly objected to Cavendish's publication of her Poems and Fancies. As I noted at the beginning of this book, she famously remarked: 'You need not send mee my lady Newcastles at all for I have seen it, and am sattisfyed that there are many soberer People in Bedlam, I'le swear her friends are much to blame to let her goe abroade' (94). Osborne argued that she could never reach Cavendish's level of self-display, and she confidently noted of Cavendish's publication of her poetry: 'If I should not sleep this fortnight I should not come to that' (89). One of Osborne's tasks in navigating her fragile courtship was to avoid the fate of women she despised or pitied because of their transgressions. To avoid Isabella Thynne's fate of base behaviour, Osborne repeatedly remarked that she was not willing to marry for wealth alone. The case of Anne Blount may have hit closer to home for Osborne, since her condemnation of Blount came in the midst of the letters of crisis, where she admitted that she and Temple had been swept by an inordinate passion that they needed to curb. Osborne's condemnation of these women, or even of Cavendish herself, may have stemmed from her desire to assuage her own conscience, since she knew that she was not herself above reproach. There is significant evidence that Osborne was in fact the victim of wagging tongues, and so she might have felt more like Isabella Thynne, Anne Blount, and

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Margaret Cavendish than she admitted. Many strangers kept track of her courtship, leading her to confide miserably to Temple: 'I hear from all people that I know part of my unhappy Story and from some that I doe not know. A Lady whose face I never saw sent it mee as news she had out of Ireland' (163). The fact that the news actually came from a distant place, and from a stranger, exacerbated the pain of revelation. To reach the negotiating stage, Osborne violated her own ideals of perfect frankness at least somewhat. In theory, Osborne wished to avoid outright duplicity as she pursued union with Temple. Even the mild equivocation necessary to advance the courtship offended the finicky sensibilities she expressed, and this contradiction may have been the source of her vehemence against exposure. She registered a regrettable contrast between the paragon she would have liked to be and the creature of contingencies she actually was. While undeniably fond of making lofty statements about her own honesty, she thought even harder about public perception. When her brother was absent, Temple asked her if he should visit, and Osborne concluded that he should not: 'your comeing in his absence should bee thought a concealement' (107). She protested that she lacked guile: T am not for disguises it looks like Guilt, and I would not doe a thing I durst not owne' (107). Temple also had an honest nature: T do not lay it as a fault to your charge, that you were not good at disguise. If it bee one, I am too guilty on't my self to accuse another' (121). Osborne repeatedly claimed that she did not connect her hope of avoiding surveillance to a desire to dissemble because she had a great deal of 'franchise' in her character. If she had been to court, she might have learned to 'disguise handsomely' but she associated herself not with the veiled daggers of the sophisticated court but with the fresh-faced charms of rustic culture. To Osborne, anyone virtuous shared the same frankness, as we have seen when Osborne praised Temple's father for a style of writing that 'has nothing of disguise int' (142). Osborne's remarks anticipated the Restoration period's cultural preoccupation with disguises and masks, although she lacked that period's fascination with the ability of disguise to reveal the true self. At least theoretically, the difference between the mask and the self was an unhealthy state of affairs. Yet for all of her earnest desire to uphold frankness, Osborne employed a falsehood in her courtship at least once, allowing her brother to believe that she and Temple had broken their engagement. Osborne revealed herself as an accomplished plotter, able to answer her brother's machinations with efforts of her own, though not without regret:

Triangularity and Surveillance 119 Well god forgive mee and you too, you made mee tell a great lye, I was faine to say you came only to take your leave before you went abroade and all this nott only to keep quiett but to keep him from playeing the mad man, for when hee has the least suspition hee carry's it soe strangly that all the worlde takes notice on't, and often Guesse at the reason or else hee tel's it. (167) Osborne soothed her conscience, assuring herself that the couple did not lie outright. Much of the deception resided in Temple's demeanour: 'a sadnesse that hee discoverd at your goeing away inclined him to beleeve you were ill sattisfyed, and made him Creditt what I sayed' (167). Her lie was one of expediency: an attempt to exert control over a potentially dangerous situation. If she did not stem her blabbing brother's revelations, the outcome would be disastrous. Osborne tried to rationalize her own behaviour by arguing that the situation was desperate, urgently requiring decisive action. The relationship between truth and virtuous appearance was strong in the letters. Osborne desired freedom from guilt, a secular variation of the absolution sought by religious writers. Osborne's struggle to present an unspotted reputation fits in well with the enormous body of early modern writing concerned with self-vindication. Religious and secular writers alike attempted to clear their reputation in print. Dissenters sought to justify their faith in public, translating the private experience of religious revelation into a form that was acceptable for the entire congregation.45 Margaret Cavendish, a royalist, sought to explain her actions and the actions of her husband during the war as a means of boli • • 4fi stering their reputations in posterity. One intriguing product of the English Civil War and Restoration concern with impunity was The Narrative of the Persecutions of Agnes Beaumont (in 1674). Agnes Beaumont was a member of John Bunyan's church. She was forced to defend herself against a charge of patricide when her elderly father died shortly after an impassioned quarrel. Beaumont's narrative was both an attempt to clear her name and an illustration of how the process of self-vindication functioned in practice. She described the inquisitive crowds that gathered in the court room where she was tried: So the room where we was, was very full of people, and it seems great observation was made of my countenance, as I heard afterwards. Some gentlemen that were on the jury said, they should never forget me, to see with

120 An Audience of One what a cheerful countenance I stood before them all. They said I did not look like one that was guilty. I know not how I looked, but I know my heart was full of peace and comfort.47 Unlike Isabella Thynne, whose outer beauty disguised avarice, Agnes Beaumont's inner serenity matched her outer calm. Not everyone under the pressure of scrutiny shared Beaumont's assurance. Other cultural evidence shows that individuals were often confused or troubled by the boundary between their private thoughts and their public personae. One frequently encounters the sentiment (across gender and class lines) that individuals believed their inner and outer selves to be in conflict. In Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, for example, John Bunyan drew a strong contrast between his serenity as he preached to his congregation, and his inward torment: I can truly say, and that without dissembling, that when I have been to preach, I have gone full of guilt and terrour even to the Pulpit-Door, and there it hath been taken off, and I have been at liberty in my mind until I have done my work, and then immediately, even before I could get down the Pulpit-Stairs, have been as bad as I was before.48 Even a figure like Margaret Cavendish, who seemed to thrive on flamboyant self-display, felt a certain tension about issues of private conscience and public stability, and in many ways her Utopian New Blazing World concerns itself with the negative political repercussions when private beliefs are expressed on the public stage.49 In later political theory, much of this tension was slowly resolved as John Locke and other thinkers asserted the value of private conscience as long as it did not interfere with the workings of public life, but in Osborne's time these distinctions were still quite nebulous.50 Osborne herself was not primarily grappling with issues of religious or personal conscience in a religious or political sense, despite the real political content in her letters and the permeability of the private and public spheres. For Osborne, the conflict between public and private resided most strongly in the freedom to pursue a marital relationship. If she could not attain privacy with Temple, either in person or through letters, she would have extreme difficulty conducting the courtship. However, she was not entirely willing to completely discount the pressures that bore on her. To some degree, she saw them as culturally necessary. Osborne's attempt to control her own life lay almost entirely in

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her ability to enlist Temple in the fight for privacy through her deft portrayal of the surveillance she was under and - as I shall discuss at greate length below - her portrayal of a more desirable shared privacy. Current interest in early modern women writers has centred on those women who sought to gain a public voice for women, especially those writers who might be termed 'protofeminist.' To focus on Osborne's perception of scrutiny, and an accompanying desire for retreat, might seem yet another relegation of a timid female writer to the private sphere, replicating the ideological structures that kept women from public view in the first place.51 Domna Stanton, for example, powerfully dismisses the preconception that the female writer 'could not transcend, but only record, the concerns of the private self.'52 I would argue, however, that a focus on Osborne's desires for privacy and retreat reflects the urgency of these concerns in the letters, her own writerly choices, and a manifestation of her royalist and gentry political stances. Surveillance was a practical challenge to the courtship, a literal impediment to communication, and a force that shook Osborne's confidence in her ability to pursue the courtship. Dorothy Osborne's fight for privacy was a fight for the widest possible personal development of the self and the free development of a bond between her and Temple. At times the dark forces of familial pressure and surveillance led Osborne towards retreat. However, Osborne was not simply giving in to the pressures of scrutiny. She was not completely free in her choices and actions, but that does not mean she was not free at all. In the next section, I shall consider Osborne's pastoral Utopian vision as another imaginative strategy that Osborne used to deal with the complicating triangulations of the courtship and the constant surveillance under which she found herself. 'Out of the Worlde': Osborne and the Dream of Retreat Tout notre mal vient de ne pouvoir etre seuls - La Bruyere

Seventeenth-century literature has an ample share of heroines who, disappointed by love, want nothing more than to escape the pressures of the world and to seek a well-deserved repos. The Princess de Cleves, for example, chooses retreat rather than the company of her beloved Nemours, indicating more than anything a kind of emotional exhaustion and yearning for solitary calm. Such an ethic of retreat is undeni-

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ably present in Osborne's letters. When she was faced by potential romantic disappointment, she wrote on Saturday, 24 December 1653 that she would renounce the world, since it could hold no further charm for her: 'nothing can ever perswade mee to enter the wordle againe, I shall in a short time have disingaged my self of all my little affaires in it.' (162). Yet such a model of solitary retreat was not sustained in Osborne's letters. In keeping with her emphasis on the union of the couple, Osborne rhetorically modified the retreat tradition, making it the source of a whole new romantic pact. She wooed Temple to a vision of a shared existence, with the ability to shape their world in accordance with their mutual desires. Drawing on literary and cultural influences such as the beatus vir tradition and pastoralism, Osborne managed to transform them into a means to show Temple the kind of life she wanted, as well as to imaginatively affirm that desirable alternatives were available to the couple. As well, the kind of rustic simplicity Osborne described so extensively provided imaginative hope for the couple during the difficulties of their courtship. It is telling that Osborne's remarks about the couple's need to sequester themselves from the world came after particularly bitter moments of disillusionment. Hearing of the coldly mercenary marriage of Lady Grey de Ruthin, Osborne expressed the desire to retreat from her unsavoury social surroundings: this is the worlde would you and I were out on't, for sure wee were not made to live in it. Doe you remember Arme and the little house there [?] shall wee goe thither[?] that's next to being out of the worlde[.] there wee might live like Baucis and Philemon, grow old together in our little Cottage and for our Charrity to some shipwrakt stranger obtaine the blessing of dyeing both at the same time. (168)

The wicked world functioned as a contrast to a place where she and Temple might stand apart from corruption. Like many a Utopian thinker in the pastoral mode, Osborne expressed her estrangement from the dominant culture, characterizing herself and Temple as out of place in the social whir of gossip and intrigue that surrounded her. Such a stance was once again self-dramatization, since her letters themselves contain a great deal of gossip, but immunity from the world of backbiting and calumny certainly formed a part of Osborne's imaginative fantasy. Osborne referred to Ovid's Metamorphoses in her hopeful vision of her

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future with Temple.53 In Ovid's tale the humble cottagers Baucis and Philemon are visited by Jove and Hermes in disguise. Unlike their affluent neighbours in the village, who turn the deities away, Baucis and Philemon offer warm hospitality. Pleased with the generosity of the cottagers, the gods bless them with miracles. Cups and bowls magically fill when they are emptied and their humble dwelling is transformed into a temple, with the couple as its votaries. Finally, the gods grant Baucis and Philemon their most treasured wish: to die at the same time. At the end of the story, Hermes and Jove transform the couple into trees which, in fact, never do die. The trees can still be found, entangled together: I saw their boughs with garlands hung: And hanging fresher, said; Who Gods before Receiu'd, be such: adorers, we adore.54

Baucis and Philemon's story explores a domestic, humble piety that rarely appears in the Metamorphoses. The power-driven relationships, violations, and erotic nastiness that fill Ovid's collection give way to a world of singular generosity and self-sacrifice, making Osborne's interest in the story even more notable. Perhaps even more importantly, Baucis and Philemon are poor. In drawing on this story, she may have been implying a wish to be free of the strictures of her class and marry for love. The story of Baucis and Philemon reveals Osborne's desire for a fully achieved domesticity in the midst of an uncertain courtship. The Ovidian lovers are no longer tormented by the uncertainties of their youth. They become literally eternal when they are transformed into trees. Their cottage is notable for its humble happiness. Osborne explicitly comments on Baucis and Philemon's scorn for worldly goods. Baucis and Philemon 'were the perfectest Characters of a con [ten] ted marriage where Piety and Love were all there wealth and in theire poverty feasted the Gods where rich men shutt them out' (168). In Osborne's fantasy the couple could commune with each other unimpeded - an ongoing concern given the level of scrutiny they experienced. The poverty of the couple was likewise an important component of the development of the enclosed family unit. Since the couple was contented with their basic needs, they were not engaged in the vexing process of trying to gain and maintain wealth. Their energy went into the 'rich content' of their domestic life, in a way reminiscent of Jiirgen Habermas's remarks that 'privatized individuals viewed themselves as independent

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even from the private sphere of their economic activity - as persons capable of entering into "purely human" relations with one another.'55 Osborne's appreciation of Baucis and Philemon also included appreciation of their egalitarian love: 'Wee must both comande & both obay alike' (111). In engaging with the story of Baucis and Philemon, Osborne was imagining not only geographical isolation but an ethic of marital conduct that suited her and that she wanted Temple to share. Osborne set her imaginative reenactment of the tender, understated story of Baucis and Philemon on the obscure island of Herm ('Arme'), a tiny and - in the seventeenth century - barely inhabited, island.56 The modest, even naive, goals Osborne expressed may not seem to represent complex thinking about an ideal way of life. However, as in any dream of retreat, several influences lurked behind apparent simplicity. Literary and cultural conventions of retreat, including the otherworldliness of religious tradition and royalist commonplaces of rural contentment, played a strong role. Furthermore, the ideals Osborne crafted in her letters were substantial enough to become part of the enduring legacy of the couple. We could view Temple's retreat to Moor Park (in Surrey) and the construction of his famous gardens as a response to the ideals Osborne first broached in her letters. Macaulay based his castigation of Temple on his tendency towards retreat, but it was a self-conscious goal of both members of the couple. Osborne was explicit about her desire for rural retreat in her letters, and she espoused ideals worthy of Baucis and Philemon: 'a faithfull friend, a Moderate fortune and a retired life' (134). In many ways, Osborne was quite far away from her goals, since marrying for love alone without regard for social standing and living in humble piety like Baucis and Philemon was so elusive. Since she enjoyed a pastoral setting, many of her needs were already in her possession. Temple fully fit her every remaining expectation should they be allowed to marry: What is contenment must bee left to every perticular person to Judge for themselv's, since they only know what is soe to them, which differs in all according to there several! humors; only you and I agree tis to bee found by us in a True friend, a moderat fortune, and a retired life. The last I thank god I have in perfection, my cell is almost finishd and when you come back you'le finde mee in it and bring mee both the rest, I hope. (184)

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Osborne's home, Chicksands, did indeed have many features that made it an ideal pastoral milieu, an environment she could draw on in her letters to Temple. As noted in the previous section, Osborne's level of privacy fluctuated throughout the courtship, and yet Chicksands sometimes figured in her letters as the epitome of pastoral isolation. Part of this isolation stemmed from Chicksand's history as a Gilbertine priory. Gilbert of Sempringham, who founded the Gilbertine order, advocated the sequestration of individuals from the temptation and pain of the outside world.57 Although Chicksands became secular (like the Nun Appleton of Marvell's poem) after the dissolution of the monasteries, the architecture itself retained a religious tone. Even today, despite modifications made in the eighteenth century, the low ceilings and wide rooms seem to provide a space as much for isolated reflection as for social interaction.58 As they are in many pastoral realms, class imperatives were a large part of the idyllic space of Chicksands. The estate was a symbol of the prestige of the Osborne family although it was sequestrated during the English Civil War.59 Kenneth Parker describes the country-house culture in which Osborne circulated as one that resisted the political flux of the Commonwealth years. The country house possessed a 'cohesive sense of community which could withstand new pressures as well as strange ideas.'60 Even in a period of turmoil, the country house preserved established values and hierarchies and was the functional opposite of the revolutionary fervour showed by political radicals like the Digger Gerrard Winstanley, who insisted that social justice resided in the collective cultivation of the land, as opposed to private ownership. Country estates were microcosms for the state: harmonious, peaceful, and organized hierarchically.61 Despite its conformity to class structures, the country house could oppose the dominant culture as the modest ethic of personal cultivation within the country estate formed a contrast to the expansionist world of politics or commerce. Stability could, almost paradoxically, take on a subversive quality. Osborne's enthusiastic espousal of the country house ethos is not surprising. Women of her class were strong figures in both the adornment and management of the country house.62 Recent critics have credited Aemilia Lanyer with the first country-house poem, The Description of Cooke-ham,' with its portrayal of the locus amoenus who pays tribute to the mistress of the estate, the countess of Cumberland. Likewise, Katherine Austen wrote an important country-house poem that chal-

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lenges the conventions of the male-dominated form.63 Given that Osborne was so deeply immersed in the expectations of country-house culture, it is not surprising diat her thoughts on retreat took the form of a fantasy built around elite familial bonds. These bonds are typical of the culture from which Osborne emerged: domestic enclosure was considered highly desirable. On the other hand, Osborne departed from the model of the noble family seat, modifying the country-house ideal into a homely domesticity. The story of Baucis and Philemon was notable for emphasizing the couple's powerless but virtuous poverty, but Osborne added the imperatives and privileges of upper class status in her use of the story. The island of Herm, the setting for her ostensibly artless fantasy, was 'a private pleasure ground and game reserve for those wealthy, well connected Governors who took to sailing over to the island for hunting, shooting and fishing.' Osborne's fantasy of living like Baucis and Philemon functioned simultaneously as the exclamation of a young woman who yearned to be alone with her lover and an engagement with a sophisticated culture of privilege. Another major force in the search for retreat was Osborne's intense relationship with the natural world, which she presented as an almost intuitive, precognitive rapport.65 Osborne contrasted the pleasure of nature with the ritualized constraints of the interior of her estate,66 describing the unstructured pleasures of her perambulations: about sixe or seven a Clock, I walke out into a Common that lyes hard by the house where a great many wenches keep Sheep and Cow's and sitt in the shade singing of Ballads; I goe to them and compare theire voyces and Beauty's to some Ancient Sheperdesses that I have read of and finde a vaste difference there, but trust mee I think these are as innocent as those could bee. I talke to them and finde they want nothing to make them the happiest People in the world, but the knoledge that they are soe. (103)

The disjuncture between the voices of the real shepherdesses and their fictional counterparts is the source of the humour here.6 While their singing voices do not pass muster, the shepherdesses have a pleasing innocence well in keeping with the role of the pastoral.68 Osborne was aware of the Virgillian pastoral tradition as she wrote this passage, and she was almost certainly echoing Virgil's ' Ofortunatos nimium, sua si bona norint Agricolas' (Georgicsii. 458) when she remarked that the shepherdesses lack 'nothing to make them the happiest People in the world, but

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the knoledge that they are soe' (103) .69 Raymond Anselment describes the use of the Virgilian text by royalist writers. It appeared, for example, in Clarendon's history in reference to the happy and prosperous reign of Charles I as 'the Virgilian lament that climaxes Clarendon's autobiographical description of the peaceful years preceding the war.' Courtship and politics come together in Osborne's seemingly artless description. Osborne and the shepherdesses differed sharply: Most Comonly when wee are in the middest of our discourse one looks aboute her and spyes her Cow's goeing into the Corne and then away they all run, as if they had wing's at theire heels. I that am not soe nimble stay behinde, & when I see them driveing home theire Cattle I think tis time for mee to retyre too. (103-4)

Osborne could not really share the shepherdesses' labour as they ran after their wayward cows. Yet she once again idealized her setting. The distressing chase of the cow was charming play rather than arduous endeavour. Scrambling after the cow interrupted their discussion, causing a rupture in the dreamy mood Osborne had established. She was a solitary figure, viewing the pastoral scene but unable to participate fully. Besides mingling with the shepherds and shepherdesses near her house, Osborne described her rambles in the garden after dinner: I goe into the Garden and soe to the syde of a small River that runs by it where I sitt downe and wish you with mee ... in Earnest tis a pleasant place and would bee much more soe to mee if I had your company. I sitt there somtimes till I am lost with diinking and were it not for some cruell thoughts of the Crossenesse of our fortun's that will not lett mee sleep there, I should forgott there were such a thing to bee don as going to bed. (104)

As she had done in the past, Osborne used a couple to figure blissful retreat. The solitary garden (much vaunted by Marvell) was less desirable than a shared space. The Renaissance garden was a place where lovers met, as Ronald Huebert demonstrates when he remarks on the exceptional privacy of Marvell's garden. Osborne's wish that Temple would join her in the garden was coyly seductive, since she did not want to sleep there alone. Rebuffing an earlier accusation of coldness, she archly commented: 'You had best say this is not kinde neither' (104).

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The garden became a site where Osborne could express her 'kindness' while portraying herself as isolated and in need of Temple's company. She was halfway to the ideal of Baucis and Philemon in that she had achieved an immersion in a beautiful setting. But Temple's presence was necessary to achieve this ideal. Perhaps the seductive vision of pastoral bliss that Osborne was offering him was intended as a means of showing the sensual and simple delights that awaited them should they be free to marry. Osborne's ideal of a couple who retreat together differed significantly from other Utopian fantasies from the period, many of which portrayed a community of virginal women as the best way of retreating from the world.72 Osborne would have been aware of fictional or historical communities where women sequestered themselves away from maledominated culture through, for example, both Herodotus and Scudery. There were significant advantages to remaining unmarried, especially if one wished to be removed from the social pressures Osborne found so oppressive. Sara Heller Mendelson placed this impulse in a general cultural context: 'The female threat not to marry recurs in a variety of contexts in seventeenth-century struggles between daughters and their families. Like female fantasies of suicide as a species of revenge, the refusal to marry was a form of feminine passivity made active. Sometimes it served as a private consolatory fantasy, as in Dorothy Osborne's darkest moods.'73 When offered a repulsive husband, Osborne noted that she would prefer 'a handsome Chaine to Leade my Apes in': a single life with a comfortable financial settlement (137). For the most part, however, Osborne assumed that she would marry someone, although she claimed that she would only want to marry Temple. There were significant differences between Osborne and women writers who espoused virginal retreat, since she did not want to use retreat as a means of selfdevelopment for its own sake, but as a rhetorical tool to bring the couple closer together and as a means of exerting cultural control over her difficult circumstances. The solitary beauty in which Osborne found herself needed to be transformed into a shared garden, and the letters allowed the space for that imaginative transformation. Osborne's exclamation that she would like to escape from the world and live on an island with her beloved might seem unrealistic, or purely fanciful. However, she wrote about the fantasy of retreat with extreme seriousness, not least because she was able to use the idea of the couple's isolation as an imaginative escape from a stressful courtship and as a means of upholding aspects of her class affiliation with Temple.

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Although the pastoral dream in its strictest form would always prove elusive, the couple did achieve privacy and independence. The letters ended with the possibility of achieving contentment on their own, although not the Ovidian picturesque enjoyment of a Baucis and Philemon. More importantly, as discussed in chapter 1, Dorothy (Osborne) and William Temple were associated with the topos of retreat, especially after Temple's retirement to Moor Park. In Temple's essay about gardening Osborne's earlier specifications for an ideal life can be heard. Temple also echoed Osborne's earlier citation of Virgil's 'O fortunatos nimium' when he undertook a translation of Virgil's poem at her request: 4 O Happy swains, if their own good they knew! Whom far from jarring Arms the just and due Returns of well fraught fields, with easie fare Supply, and chearfull Heavens with healthy air.75

Osborne likely influenced her future husband to use Virgil's poetry as a powerful literary source, and to turn to the pastoral as a means of espousing a dignified and autonomous cultural ideal. Jiirgen Habermas has commented on the primacy of emotional ties as the nuclear family emerged. In the nuclear family, the private life of the home was theorized as a contrast to the harsher realities of work and politics. Although Habermas claims that the emergence of these structures was an eighteenth-century phenomenon, Osborne's musings about leaving the world with Temple established an opposition between a harsh, corrupt society, teeming with both petty and grand evil, and the virtuously enclosed couple. Osborne favoured a life where the home represented an escape from a harsh environment, and a world where the only relationships were the 'purely human' ones where charity was the normal mode of economic exchange. As well, Osborne seemed to be insisting that the serenity of the couple depended on their ability to separate themselves from the clamour of social interaction. The fantasy was not all that it seems to be, since Herm surely continued to be connected to the realm of power politics. But Osborne's idealized vision of a world outside the framework of interpersonal struggle is poignant. When she remarked on the vexing intrusions of the public sphere into her own private life, Osborne underscored how difficult the establishment of true privacy would be for the couple. The prying eyes of others created obvious tensions for Osborne, and she answered them

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with a fantasy of retreat and pastoral romance that was laden not only with political implications but with an insistent message of the kind of quiet and egalitarian life she envisioned for the couple. The havens she envisioned for the couple were akin to the havens represented by the letters themselves - a space apart from the noise and talk of the world. All the same, the business of the world, its hustle and talk, did appear in Osborne's writing, forming a lively counterpart to the repos she envisioned. There was room for both of these alternatives in the letters, and for Osborne the dividing line between what was acceptable or not lay in which she could control. The Baucis and Philemon story, and the entire retreat tradition, saw her taking imaginative control over her destiny. Surveillance and other pressures challenged the couple but also brought the couple into focus, helping Osborne construct the couple rhetorically in her letters and argue even more persuasively to Temple that they must do all that they could to escape the 'noise and talk of the world.'

Chapter Five 'Dearer to mee than the whole world

besy'ds': Illness and Emotional Attachment in Osborne's Letters

Si vous souhaitez mon repos vous aurez soin de votre sante - Eighteenth-century posy ring inscription In the country of pain we are each alone. - May Sarton, 'The Country of Pain' If I love you Your life instantly becomes More fragile than my own, Your body more frail Each cough or minor pain A symptom of some dread Disease or other - Catherine Lucy Czerkawska, 'Thread'

In a courtship where many obstacles and pressures challenged Osborne's autonomy, illness was yet another experience that undermined her sense of control over her own life. First, illness created significant bodily discomfort. Illness, particularly melancholy, often stemmed from mysterious causes, and some of its peculiar power lay in its indefinite nature. Osborne's family seized on her illnesses as an opportunity to impose their will on her mind and body, through difficult and claustrophobic cures. Illness certainly had a strong impact on the lovers' view of themselves and their partnership, and Osborne herself alternated between profound worry that illness might separate the lovers and a more optimistic

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stance. In response to the bodily strain she experienced and the coercion of her family, Osborne rhetorically manipulated illness so that it was no longer threatening to the courtship but a means of drawing the couple together. First of all, she framed her melancholy outside of the discourses of solitary suffering, using it as a seductive ploy where melancholy added to the erotic and emotional appeal of the sufferer. Osborne also transformed her melancholy into an opportunity for empathy with Temple, a fellow sufferer, and implied that it allowed her to probe his inmost feelings and thoughts more effectively. Finally, she made a practical call for mutual care, where the lovers were to seek the maintenance of health not apart but together. Lucinda Beier affirms that Osborne's letters are 'too short, too intermittent, or too much devoted to other matters to yield much medical evidence.'1 If the letters do not yield much medical evidence, they nonetheless demonstrate Osborne's rhetorical presentation of her bodily experience. Even though Osborne's physical experience can only be 'hazily conceptualized,' her portrayals of the social and psychological impact of illness more than compensate for a comparative lack of clinical detail. This chapter engages with Osborne's rhetorical use of melancholy and illness as a way to get close to Temple and try to gain authority through shared experience. Osborne suffered from a combination of infectious diseases - largely confined in a short space of time — and the ongoing and troubling experience of melancholia. Early in the letters, Osborne complained that an 'extreame cold ... lyes soe In my head, and makes it Ake so violently, that I hardly see what I doe' (71). She later noted, 'I have gotten an Ague that with two fitts has made mee soe very weak that I doubted Extreamly yesterday whether I should bee able to sitt up to day to write to you' (92). In theory, Osborne did not find agues particularly disturbing. When her father was ill, she characterized his suffering as 'but an Ague,' that would prove dangerous due only to his already weakened state (90). However, when she experienced fevers and trembling herself, she took her ague seriously, emphasizing that she was unable to sit upright. In speaking of 'ague,' Osborne might have been referring to influenza, or any number of infectious diseases, but her representation of the Tits' was more likely an indication of the disease we now know as malaria, a malady present in the United Kingdom all through the early modern period.2 The successive fits or paroxysms of malaria consist of a cold, hot, and sweating stage. If Osborne suffered from malaria, it might have been caused by the mosquitoes that congregated over the River Flit near the Chicksands estate, and that are in ample evidence

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even today. Malarial attacks are classified according to the frequency of their fits, i.e., whether they are quartan or tertian.3 Osborne's attack of malaria lasted about two weeks, and on 14 May she noted with relief that it had come to an end: 'I have misst 4 fitts, and had but 5' (96). Though her encounter with malaria had shaken her sense of physical well-being, it was nonetheless an experience contained within a specific time span. Melancholy, however, was a more persistent - and arguably more significant - problem for Osborne. She invoked this illness as early as her third letter: 'a Scurvy Spleen that I have ever bin subject to' (61). Osborne described her melancholy in several ways, which might well indicate her own uncertainty about her experience. At one point, she self-diagnosed her condition using the term 'spleen.' Spleen was an increasingly fashionable term for a melancholic condition, linking it with an earlier subdivision of melancholy known as hypochondriacal. In the original medical theory of the four humours, the spleen and other hypochondrial organs were 'supposed to absorb all superfluous black bile from the liver and blood.'4 By Osborne's time, such a humoral model was no longer taken literally, but Osborne was clearly indebted to it to some degree when she described her condition as 'spleen.'5 Osborne sought a cure for her spleen by 'drinking the waters' at spas like Epsom, Tunbridge, and Barnet. Her letters provide an early glimpse into the social life surrounding the British spa, and some of the discomfort of the spa as well. Epsom was first visited by Henrietta Maria in 1630. The queen's presence was to transform the wells into a major social and cultural site for royalist partisans.6 By the time of Shadwell's comedy Epsom Wells (1673), the wells were a mixing ground for all manner of riffraff, which was certainly their appeal for a robust dramatist like Shadwell. During the Interregnum, a more refined aristocratic culture of going to Epsom was in full force. The spa was another site where Osborne could affirm her royalist vision and emphasize the culture that she and Temple held in common. Osborne asked Temple whether he took his waters directly from the well: I remember I was forbid it, and mee thought with a great deal of reason, for (Especialy at this time of the yeare) the well is soe low, and there is such a multitude to bee serv'd out on't, that you can hardly gett any but what is thick, and troubled. And I have marked that when it had stood all night (for that was my dirrection) the bottom of the Vessell it stood in, would bee coverd an inch thick, with a white clay, which sure has noe great vertue in't, and is not very pleasant to drink. (121)

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The couple was navigating through an experience that could be disturbing, to say the least, and it was no wonder that Osborne seized on the opportunity to commiserate with Temple about it, and to broach her own unease. Osborne's letters reveal the loss of control brought about by the sudden experience of melancholia. For Osborne the approach of melancholy was often terrifying, and she could never predict when she would be besieged by dark apprehensions. 'Somthing that I cannot discribe draw's a cloude over all the light my fancy discovers somtimes, and leav's mee soe in the darke with all my fear's about mee that I tremble to think on't' (167), she remarked to Temple. The vagueness of Osborne's remarks about 'something' she 'cannot discribe' and the equally vague temporal indication 'somtimes' underscored the indeterminacy of her experience. Osborne might have been echoing common images of melancholy like Timothy Bright's 1586 description of melancholia as a encroachment of darkness, where 'cloudes of melancholic vapours rising from the pudle of the spleen obscure the clearenes, which our spirites are endued with.' Osborne was indeed often left without words when she tried to describe her experience to Temple, and found herself mired in an inexpressible darkness that may be the signal attribute of melancholy itself.8 For Freud, writing in the twentieth century, melancholy's defining feature was its lack of definite cause. He made a distinction between the 'grief motivated by a specific loss (such as death or disappointment) and 'melancholy,' which presented itself as an unmoored sadness without reference to any particular event or set of circumstances.9 Applying Freud's provocative distinction to Osborne's situation, it would be possible to distinguish moments of unhappiness traceable to certain circumstances and those that were not triggered by any external event. Osborne experienced both a sudden, capricious sadness (as when darkness clouded the light of her fancy) and a sadness motivated by specific events (like separation from Temple). Osborne herself did not seem to distinguish between melancholy caused by specific forces and that which simply descended, describing both a grief whose source she could identify and a generalized sadness. Although melancholy is associated with a set of emotional effects (antisocial behaviour, pessimism, fearfulness), its symptoms vary widely within these general parameters. In Osborne's letters, melancholy took on various guises, appearing curable at times and chronic at others. Although melancholy has been described from antiquity, it is notori-

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ously difficult to define.10 As a source of speculation and study for thousands of years, melancholy's one determining feature may be its elusiveness: the inability of sufferers and diagnosticians to pin down the experience. Osborne's uncertainty about melancholy is not surprising given the multiple causes of the disease offered by Robert Burton in The Anatomy of Melancholy, the classic seventeenth-century text on the malady.11 Burton offered dozens of causes and dozens of cures, making it seem ultimately that everyone was susceptible to the disease - each in his or her own way. Whatever the precise nature of her ailment, melancholia clearly involved a loss of dignity for Osborne. She made bitter remarks about the discomfort of a cure that her family imposed on her, and that required her to soak steel in white wine and drink the infusion: I drink your health every morning in a drench that would Poyson a horse I beleeve, and 'tis the only way I have to perswade my self to take it, 'tis the infusion of steell, and makes mee soe horridly sick that every day at ten a clock I am makeing my will, and takeing leave of all my freind's, you will beleeve you are not forgot then. They tell mee I must take this ugly drink a fortnight, and then begin another as Bad, but unlesse you say soe too I do not thinke I shall, 'tis worse then dyeing, by the halfe. (75)

She avoided the more dangerous dry powder of steel: 'I am confident that I had take it the safest way, for I doe not take the powder, as many doe, but onely lay a peece of steel in white wine over night, and drink the infusion next morning' (77). Nevertheless, the infusion had formidable effects: "tis not to bee imagin'd how sick it makes mee for an hower or two' (77). Even more disconcertingly, her family forced her to exercise while undergoing this disorientating cure. Jane, her waiting woman, was enlisted to play shuttlecock with her, to their mutual consternation: 'she is the veryest bungler at it that ever you saw, then am I ready to beate her with the batledore and grow soe peevish as I grow sick, that i'le undertake she wishes there were noe steele in England' (77). The cure is likely to seem both foreign and disturbing to modern readers, but Osborne's family was by no means unusual in imposing it on her. The steel cure, as foreign and disturbing as it may seem, was a standard remedy for many diseases. Osborne's contemporary Margaret Cavendish underwent a similar treatment.12 In his Essayes (first published in 1597) Francis Bacon mentioned 'steele' as a remedy to 'open

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the spleene.'13 There is some tradition of the use of steel in the Bedfordshire area.14 Osborne's ingestion of steel and her visits to the mineral waters were actually conceived of as similar remedies, since Barnet and Tunbridge waters both had chalybeate springs.15 Lord North, commonly held to have discovered Tunbridge, found iron and other medicinal ingredients in the waters.16 Seventeenth-century physician Dr Madan believed that Epsom waters were effective for 'hypochondrical' and 'hysterick' fits.1 John Finch wrote his sister Anne Conway that the steel cure might cure the splitting headaches that persistently dogged her: 'Ottho Tackenius writes me now he hath a medicine made up of volatile salt of vipers and extract of [steel] which hath cured hundreds of headaches thought incurable.'18 The steel cure was also considered helpful in combating the anaemia or listlessness that might manifest itself in melancholy symptoms. Dr Thomas Sydenham (1624—89) prescribed steel pills or powder for female anaemia (green sickness or amenorrheia).19Elizabeth Grey, countess of Kent, prescribed 'filing of steel or iron' (one ounce and a quarter) mixed with cloves for a similar purpose in 1651. Her treatise went through nineteen editions over thirty-four years, so it was obviously of some interest and use to people.20 In his Journal to Stella, Swift described the steel cure as effective for splenetic melancholy: The Doctor tells me I must go into a Course of Steel, tho I have not the Spleen; for that they can never give me tho I have as much Provocation to it as any man alive.'21 Besides the inherent interest in viewing Swift's scorn towards the medical profession, and the delightful melodrama of his 'provocations' to spleen, it is intriguing to see the persistence of the steel cure through to the next generation of splenetic sufferers. The steel cure would not have been considered unusually unpleasant by seventeenth-century standards, where pain and discomfort were frequently associated with efficacy: 'The more suffering illness caused, the stronger were the measures needed to combat it.'22 Osborne shared this mentality to some degree as she braced herself for the necessary treatment. Yet she ultimately considered the cure unsatisfactory, as Temple had before her: 'I am partly of your opinion, that 'tis an ill kinde of Phisick' (77). She was angry at her family's control of her actions, following a pattern we have previously witnessed in her reaction to Henry Osborne's officious surveillance. Her family's care became a constraint, usurping her right to autonomous control, and even the mechanisms of her basic survival were resigned to their judgment. 'I am neither to eate drink nor sleep without their leave,' she sarcastically noted (92). The

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137

steel cure is another example of something that Osborne's family imposed on her, like their financial objections to her union with Temple and her brother's spying on her letters. The experience of the steel cure was such a traumatic loss of control that it spiralled into reflections on the nature of life and death. Although her remarks about making a will and being on the verge of death were to some degree proverbial, her metaphors were not entirely accidental. Figuratively speaking, Osborne was trapped in the liminal space between death and life. Taking this infusion, in fact, was 'worse then dyeing' (75) since it was neither living nor dying. The composition of a will is usually conceived as a single action, or an occasional one, but Osborne rhetorically framed this ultimate act as a quotidian one ('every day at ten a clock'). Her return to life was by necessity short-lived, and would always be followed by the experience of a deathlike discomfort. Osborne's remarks about the daily cycle of suffering echoed other portrayals of illness in the period. Richard Baxter used similar words to describe the vulnerability of his body: 'As waves follow waves in the tempestuous seas, so one pain and danger followeth another in this sinful, miserable flesh. I die daily, and yet remain alive.'23 Baxter expressed surprise that he continued to live, since he was weary of such repetitive pseudodeaths. Osborne and Baxter described death as an augmentation of existing miseries rather than a completely novel state, though the permeability of the boundaries between life and death was inevitably disconcerting. Baxter's exclamation invoked I Corinthians 15:31, where St Paul writes: T protest by your rejoicing which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily.' Statements of this nature, though conventional, were doubtless intended as a brave assertion of power over death. Bishop Duppa, for example, wrote in a letter to Sir Justinian Isham (at one time Osborne's suitor): 'there is no such charm against the fear of death as to be able to say in earnest Quotidie morion'24 While death was a challenge to one's ability to live freely, it also needed to be embraced in order to fully and confidently live. Osborne's conceptions of illness did not match Christian paradigms, with their emphasis on the spiritual rewards of dwelling close to death, as seen, for example, in John Donne's Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions. While Donne on his sickbed reflected on the nature of his faith and his hope of salvation, Osborne's meditations were exclusively focused on Temple. She found herself drinking Temple's health with her dreadful steel cure. Osborne and Donne did, however, share the mechanism by

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which physical symptoms were transmuted into spiritual or mental reflection. Osborne's metaphors of living or dying were as poignant as any Christian thinking on the topic, yet her thinking did not lead her to the divine, but to the romantic. Osborne's focus on the romantic was her manner of exerting mental and emotional control over the disconcerting effects of the experience of the steel cure and the other discomforts of illness, and demonstrating that control to Temple. Despite the fact that she sought to cure her melancholy, Osborne cherished the possibility that melancholy could bring the couple together in the erotic thrill of sadness. If empathy could be sustained, despite all threats of division, and if the couple could fight together for health, the illness would be worth any suffering they might experience. Despite the fact that many of her letters tend to cast melancholy in a negative light, Osborne allowed for the possibility that melancholy might turn around to become a positive force in the courtship - not virulent but positive, and with the potential to bind the lovers in a pleasing sadness. From the medieval period onwards, several commentators made a firm distinction between love sickness and melancholy itself. Some thinkers, like Robert Burton or Jacques Ferrand, thought of love sickness as a form of melancholy.25 Others considered lovesickness much less damaging than melancholy itself, and a great deal more transitory. The complexity of love melancholy underscores the fluidity of emotions in Renaissance culture, the mixture of pain and pleasure that love engendered.26 To Temple, Osborne displayed her melancholy as a function of her desire, and she exploited her low spirits not only for sympathy but to heighten her romantic appeal. For all of the frightening aspects of melancholy, there was a certain thrill in the experience, perhaps connected to the proverbial association of melancholy with states of heightened intensity. Sadness has long been associated with erotic power, the romantic sway of sadness. When Temple argued that Osborne's eyes were an antidote to melancholy, she protested (to the contrary) that her eyes were sad: Would you could make your words good, that my Ey's can dispell all mellancholy Clouded humors, I would looke in the glasse all day longe but I would cleare up my owne. Allasse, they are soe farr from that, they would teach one to bee sad, that knew nothing on't, for in other peoples opinions as well as my owne they have the most of it in them that Ey's can have. My Mother (I remember) used to say I needed noe tear's to perswade my trou-

Illness and Emotional Attachment in Osborne's Letters 139 ble, and that I had lookes soe farr beyond them, that were all the friends I had in the world, dead, more could not be Expected then such a sadnesse in my Ey's, this indeed I think is naturall to them, or at least long custome had made it soe. (117)

Melancholy was no longer cast as an affliction, but a conduit to a heightened emotion, which Osborne strategically displayed as she rejected Temple's original compliment that her eyes were merry. She hoped to elicit a more powerful form of admiration. In the process Osborne revealed the limitations of Temple's vision of melancholy. He failed to recognize the melancholy in her eyes as the seductive force it could be. In displaying her sadness as communicable, Osborne exploited the medical and literary traditions of melancholy self-consciously. Osborne's assertion that her wistful eyes would teach Temple to be sad echoed traditional discourses of love melancholy, which was said to enter through the eyes of the sufferer, as Burton knew when he cited Ficinus: 'Mortall men are then especially bewitched, when as by often gazing one on the other, they direct sight to sight, joine eye to eye, and so drinke and sucke in Love betweene them, for the beginning of this disease is the Eye.'2 Osborne's sad eyes lent her romantic credibility. She was capable of great emotional depth, and her charismatic sadness lead others to feel the same way. Tears were too vulgar to express her sadness, nor did she need to cry since the sadness of her eyes was already so eloquent. She displayed a plenitude of character, imagination, and complexity. Her 'long custome' of melancholy revealed her fortitude. The habitual melancholy to which she drew attention was not only a call for sympathy but for admiration as well. Osborne was certainly trying to use melancholy in one of its more seductive veins, but even this careful rhetorical positioning did not remove the threatening aspects of melancholia entirely. The appearance of the disease remained fundamentally unwelcome, and the lovers clearly blamed each other at times for the distress they experienced through melancholia. The search for the cause of melancholy was often laden with negative emotions. 'Why are you soe sullen, and why am I the cause [?]' Osborne queried urgently (147). The implication here, in fact, was that, although Osborne might have been the cause of Temple's melancholy, he was ungracious to sustain negative emotion. On the other hand, Osborne did not hesitate to argue that her misery stemmed from the stresses of the courtship:

140 An Audience of One I may owne my ill humor to you that cause it, tis the discontents my Crosses in this buisnes has given mee, makes mee thus Peevish, though I say't my self before I knew you I was thought as well an humord Younge Person as most in England[,] Nothing displeased nothing troubled mee. When I cam out of France nobody knew mee againe, I was soe alterd, from a Cheerful humor that was alway's alike, never over merry but always pleased, I was growne heavy, and sullen, froward and discomposed. (175)

Osborne did not claim, of course, that Temple himself provoked melancholy, but that his absencewas insupportable. Yet his actions, or potential actions, could be a catalyst for her unhappiness. When Temple planned to take an extended trip to Sweden, Osborne remarked that if the voyage took as long as his previous journey (a separation of several years), she would experience a 'strong spleenatick fancy that I shall never see you more in this world,' and a spleen that 'all the water's in England will not cure' (69). The couple's association could and did cause the mental harm of melancholy, as seen in Osborne's characterization of herself as 'sullen, froward and discomposed.' Osborne experienced significant emotional strain during the rigours of her courtship. It was not uncommon for young people to seek out medical treatment while dealing with the physical and mental stress of finding a mate and seeking closure for complicated courtship negotiations. Seventeenth-century physician Richard Napier treated both men and women for emotional distress during courtship.28 Before coming to terms with the ambiguous and troubling nature of melancholy, the lovers had to resolve an even more fundamental point. Were either or both of the lovers really melancholic? The lovers - at least Osborne - were usually not shy about admitting that they suffered from spleen, even if they found it a disconcerting experience. Yet Osborne sometimes vehemently denied that she was melancholic. For example, she dismissed Jane Wright's depiction of her as mired in sorrow: 'She thinks noebody in good humor unlesse they Laugh perpetualy as Nan and she do's' (85). Osborne might have been trying to reassure Temple that he need not worry about her, giving him as much assurance as possible. Alternatively, Osborne might not have pictured her suffering as a continuous process. She might have considered herself free from melancholy when she was not engaging with any of its nebulous but disturbing symptoms. Temple also denied that he was melancholic, although he presented his symptoms in great detail. His moments of denial were perhaps moti-

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vated by a desire to portray himself in the best light and assure Osborne that he was in good spirits. She was given the strange task of determining whether Temple was melancholic before she could appraise Temple as a husband or find some way to rhetorically position melancholy as a unifying rather than dividing force. At first, Temple's melancholy was comprehensible because it was similar to hers: 'Whilest I read the description on't I could not believe but that I had writt it my self it was soe much my owne' (92). Temple began with frankness about his symptoms. Later, however, he downplayed his illness, and Osborne demanded, 'did ever any body forget themselv's to that degree that was not melancholy in Extreamity. Good God how are you Alterd and what is it that has don it' (147). To Osborne's mind, Temple's self-neglect might well have been sufficient evidence of the root cause of melancholy. Wrangling over Temple's melancholy was rendered more complicated by the involvement of Osborne's waiting woman Jane Wright. We have already seen Jane Wright's complicating role in the OsborneTemple courtship. Her representation of the couple's illnesses to each other added another confusing layer of interpretative complexity, since in their absence from each other the lovers could not appraise each other directly. Jane insisted that Temple was seriously mired in melancholia (146) and she urgently exhorted Osborne to visit Temple and help him: if you saw how she baites mee Every day to goe to London, all that I can say will not sattisfye her. When I urge (as tis true) that there is a necessity of my stay heer, she grow's furious, cry's you will dye with melancholy and confounds mee soe with Storry's of your ill humor that i'le swere I think I should goe meerly to bee at quiett, if it were posible, though there were noe other reason for it. But I hope tis not soe ill as she would have mee beleive it though I know your humor is strangly Altered from what it was, and I am sorry to see it. (146)

Jane's histrionics, as opposed to Temple's condition, became the main focus here, but the possibility that Temple was concealing his melancholy alarmed Osborne, and she demanded, 'You say I abuse you, and Jane say's you abuse mee when you say you are not melancholy, which is to bee beleev'd' (150). Her reference to 'abuse' ushered in the language of deception and untruth. In asking Temple 'which is to bee beleev'd' Osborne (none too subtly) implied that she did not believe

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him: 'I hope you deal truely with mee too in sayeing that you are not melancholy (though she dos notbeleeve it)' (150). Using her own experience, as she often did, Osborne concluded that Temple could have been experiencing an inward state different from melancholia. She noted that she too was often accused of being melancholic: How often doe I sitt in company a whole day and when they are gon am not able to give an account of sixe words that was sayd, and many times could bee soe much better pleased with the Entertainment my owne thoughts give mee, that tis all I can doe to bee soe civill as not to let them see they trouble mee, this may bee your disease. (150)

This sends us back to the moment when she was woolgathering over the fire, sharing her satisfying inward world with Temple. Despite this rationalization, Osborne ultimately decided that Temple was indeed ill, though not as ill as Jane claimed, and that he should take the utmost care of himself. The lovers' sporadic attempts to conceal their melancholy from each other might have been a show of bravado, an attempt to prove that the experience of illness did not daunt them. Although Osborne was buffeted about by painful cures and beset by uncertainty, she hinted that illness could be fought and transcended. Osborne gave the example of Lady Talmach29 who avoided smallpox by virtue of sheer will: tis not unpleasant mee thinks to hear her talke how at such a Time she was sick and the Phisitians tolde her she would have the small Poxe and shewed her where they were comeing out upon her but she bethought her self that it was not at all convenient for her to have them at that time; some buisnesse she had that required her goeing abroade, and soe shee resolved shee would not bee sick; nor was not. (201)

The offhand tone here is part of the charm of the story, reflecting Lady Talmach's lack of fear about smallpox, which was not dangerous, but merely inconvenient for her 'buisnesse.' Osborne's warm interest in the indomitable Talmach's narrative ('tis not unpleasant'), might show a measure of optimism about the ability of individuals, including the lovers themselves, to control their illness. In the case of Lady Talmach, there was physical proof that illness was immanent. A resolution to be well, however, was more than enough to counteract discouraging bodily

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signs. On the other hand, the fact that Osborne made special note of this case may mean she viewed it as a unique instance, and her use of the locution 'tis not unpleasant' shows that she may have been amused by the narrative more than edified. Osborne laced her receptivity to Talmach with scepticism: 'twenty such storry's as these she tell's and then fall's into discourses of the streng[t]h of reason, and the power of Philosophy till she confound's her self and all that hear her' (201). Osborne often commented on the valetudinarianism of the sufferers around her, a theme that later appeared in Moliere's Le Malade Imaginaire and in Aphra Behn's Sir Patient Fancy. Osborne's cousin Molle retained his ague because it granted him leisure: 'it gives him a lawfull occasion of being nice and cautious about himself (94). If the mind could dictate to the body, surely illness was not an inescapable pressure, but one that could be manipulated or even avoided by potential sufferers? Osborne portrayed herself as someone who sought to help Temple understand and mitigate his illness. When Temple planned to go to Epsom, where Osborne visited the previous year, she commented with familiarity on the spa waters (119). Osborne presented the cure, and it seemed as if Temple might emulate Osborne's experience and thereby experience greater closeness to her. Osborne ruefully admitted that Temple might not share her reaction to the mineral water cure: If you are come back from Epsum, I may aske you how you like drinking water. I have wished it might agree as well with you as it did with mee and if it were as certaine that the same things would doe us good, as tis that the same things would please us I should not need to doubt it, Otherwise my Wishes doe not signifye much. (119-20)

While trying to rhetorically construct a space of similarity, Osborne was questioning whether the lovers were indeed similar. She made reference to events and phenomena that 'would please' both of them, but it is impossible to know whether these extended beyond literary and cultural tastes to include issues of temperament, Osborne established a clear division between internal experiences and external practices in this remark, voicing a concern that the internal might be ineffable. This theme appeared later in the courtship letters as well. The lovers frequently articulated their dissimilar experiences of melancholy rather than pinpointing symptoms and experiences they had in common. In fact, Osborne exacerbated such differences, making stagy

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remarks about the way in which her longstanding melancholy rendered her less susceptible to the ravages of the disease than Temple: 'Melancholy must needs doe you more hurt then to another to whome it may bee Naturall, as I think it is to mee' (146). Temple claimed sharper suffering due to the experience of melancholy, but Osborne had a fundamentally greater ability to suffer. Perhaps this allowed her greater authority or clout when pronouncing on melancholy, or in manipulating the meaning of melancholy for Temple or for the couple. Gender had a clear role to play in differentiating the experience of the lovers. Although Osborne was willing, even eager, to believe that Temple suffered from the spleen, she thought that he might not be able to admit to it: T forsaw you would not bee willing to owne a disease, that the severe part of the worlde holde to bee meerly imaginary and affected, and therfore proper only to women' (121). Even when melancholy was acknowledged as a real phenomenon, as Osborne notes, it was frequently associated with women. John Lyly's 1597 The Woman in the Moone portrayed women as extremely susceptible to planetary influence, including the Saturnine influence, which causes melancholy. Michael MacDonald drew on the clinical records kept by seventeenth-century physician Richard Napier to conclude that early modern women were the primary sufferers of melancholy due to the domestic pressures that beset them.30 Burton noted that there was a 'peculiar Species of Melancholy' that had 'one onely cause proper to women alone.'31 The ostensible message of Osborne's remark was that spleen was neither imaginary, nor an exclusively female complaint. She argued that Temple should take advantage of the healing waters at the spa: T cannot but wish you had stay'd longer at Epsum, and drink [sic] the waters with more order, though in a lesse proportion' (121). However, while the opinions of 'the severe part of the worlde' were refuted, such a refutation did not reverse the estranging power of Osborne's initial articulation of the differences between them. Osborne staked her claim on the territory of melancholy since, as a man, Temple should not surrender to the disease. This articulation of difference, along with interpretive wrangling over who was melancholic, had a sad or hostile edge to it. The lovers were separate in their humours, and unable to communicate with each other. On the other hand, a deeper experience of melancholy may have been a means for Osborne to assert her ability to set the discourse between the lovers, and interpret melancholy on behalf of both of them.

Illness and Emotional Attachment in Osborne's Letters 145

G.C. Moore Smith draws a telling contrast between Osborne and Temple: [Temple's] philosophical training forbade him to rail against Fortune. He too had his fits of melancholy, but he had his London friends and his tennis and could keep his mind sane and generally hopeful ... [Temple] had never had to apply his philosophy to any great trouble of his own, while Dorothy's was no theoretical system but one based on her long experience of life's crosses. It had taught her self-discipline but perhaps also had inclined her to see the future unlit by hope.32

Moore Smith has actually identified something of a gender difference, as well as a difference in life experience. As a woman, Osborne did not have access to 'tennis' or 'London friends' to dispel her mood. The claustrophobia of her situation and the various domestic pressures at Chicksands and at her brother Peyton's only increased her disorder. While she might have welcomed the ability to pronounce on melancholy and guide Temple in it, gendered reactions to melancholia would certainly have stood in the way of Osborne's wider and more urgent purpose: to produce deep identification between the lovers. Various critics have linked illness and emotional attachment, most notably Lawrence Stone, who contests that the comparative unwillingness of individuals to invest in affective partnerships was due to the threat of early truncation of such unions: 'It is impossible to stress too heavily the impermanence of the Early Modern family, whether from the point of view of husbands and wives, or parents and children. None could reasonably expect to remain together for very long, a fact which fundamentally affected all human relationships.'33 Stone's remarks about attachment have been widely challenged, and there is certainly a great deal of evidence that many unions in the early modern period were ones of deep attachment. Ralph Houlbrooke, for example, comments that 'much evidence of love, affection and the bitterness of loss dating from the first half of Stone's period has simply been ignored.'34 This is not to say, however, that Stone's connection between the threat of loss and emotional attachment is not worth investigating. The experience of illness in the seventeenth century allowed for at least some measure of social interaction: Tn an age where illness and death took place at home, suffering cemented relationships between people ... Visitors, confronted with the truth of their own mortality, were both comforted by the assurance that they also would have social sup-

146 An Audience of One

port during their own crises and taught behaviour which they might themselves employ.'35 Osborne herself was deeply imbricated in the social fabric that surrounded illness in the period.36 She nursed her father diligently, for example, until his death, and refused to leave the house when he was confined there. 'Many reasons' obliged her to stay at Chicksands: 'that which I most owne, is my fathers ill health, which though it bee not in that Extreamity it has bin, yet keeps him still a Prisoner to his Chamber and for the most part to his bed' (96). Even though her father was recovering, she was not free from her obligations. Similarly, when her beloved Diana Rich was in convalescence for her sore eyes, Osborne was unwilling to leave her side (64). In her involvement with the health of family and friends, Osborne was responding to the expectations of her culture. Women bore a large role in the care of others in seventeenth-century culture. Osborne repeatedly affirmed her receptivity to Temple's suffering and when he contracted a cold she sympathized: 'I am the more sencible of your trouble, by my owne' (61). She was speaking both literally and figuratively, claiming that her discomfort made her think of his 'trouble' more often, and that her experience could illuminate his. He had a corresponding responsibility to be receptive to her suffering. Their mutual responsibility lay in the realm of the physical body and in emotional well-being. When she was ill during a trip to London, Osborne hoped to be the object of such attention from Temple: T sent to your lodging to tell you that visetting the sicke was part of the worke of the day' (71). Osborne transformed herself into an object of solicitude, partly in play and partly as an emotional demand. She expected her physical ailments to bring them closer together, and she demanded the requisite attention to her suffering that she gave Temple. Despite Osborne's claim to feel Temple's suffering (to be 'sencible' of it) and the expectations of her culture, the realm of illness could in some ways be considered the least promising venue in which to form social bonds and to exercise empathy. The mere presence of others is not enough to alleviate suffering. Furthermore, people cannot literally live within the suffering of another person. Whether it takes the form of pain or disconcerting symptoms (or some combination), illness is solitary. Beier, for one, pinpoints how even imaginative engagement has its limitations: 'Although one can sympathise, or even empathise, with a sufferer's complaints, much of illness is a lonely business.' Osborne's letters display a palpable anxiety that, despite the vast social resources expended on suffering individuals in her circle, it might not

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be possible to ease their pain and solitude. Susan Sontag's distinction between the kingdom of the 'ill' and the 'well' is a contemporary articulation of this phenomenon: to fall ill is to enter an entirely different realm of experience. Sontag describes how, in our century, illness has proved an isolating experience due to the use of metaphors that tend to stigmatize the ill (she has discussed the metaphors used to describe cancer and HIV infection) ,38 Osborne, several hundred years earlier, struggled for metaphors for illness that could unify rather than isolate. Mournful meditations on the solitude of illness are present in the letters, as are more sanguine affirmations of the social fabric surrounding illness. Part of her fear of mournful isolation derived from the fact that melancholia had both medical and cultural associations with solitude: the brooding malcontent all dressed in black, or Democritus Junior's declaration of solitude: "Tis my desire to be alone,/ Ne're well but when my thoughts and I,/ Doe domineir in privacie' (11. 28-30) .39 In accordance with stereotypes of melancholic solitude, including the Renaissance 'malcontent,' Osborne indulged in small outbursts of antisocial behaviour. She characterized her demeanour at a dinner with Henry Osborne and Lady Gargrave as 'ill humord' and explained that the assembled party sensed her dejection: 'they all agreed to say that I spoyled theire Jollity by wearing the most unseasonable look's that could bee put on for such an occasion' (201). Osborne and her hosts shared a striking frankness when she told them, 'my looks were suitable to my fortune though not to a feast' (201). Using a medical metaphor, she added that there was no 'rememdy' to the situation but 'leaving mee behinde next time' (201). Osborne became an unwelcome guest, one whose infectious sadness cast a shadow over the pleasure of others. Her melancholy extended further than the occasional fit of ill-temper and produced a general lack of satisfaction: I am gott into my complaining humor that tyres my self as well as every body else and which (as you observe) help's not at all[.] would it would leave mee and that I could believe I shall not always's have occasion for it, but thats in nobody's power, and my Lady Talmach that say's she can doe whatsoever she will cannot beleive whatsoever she pleases [.] (201)

Containment of her unease was one of Osborne's goals, so it did not impinge on others, or sway them towards sad emotion. 'Perhaps I am too unhappy my self ever to make any body else happy,' she speculated

148 An Audience of One

fretfully, but added 'yet sure I shall take heed that my misfortun's may not prove infectious to my freinds' (92). While melancholy was a fruitful space for the couple to explore their emotions for each other, it was potentially risky. In Osborne's culture, there was always the possibility that melancholy might break apart human bonds. For example, according to John Evelyn, Margaret Blagge noted that their friendship was unshakeable unless she became 'Old, and forgettfull, and Melancholy or stupid; and in that Case, will no more answer for myselfe than for a stranger.'40 Blagge portrayed herself as vulnerable to a wide variety of stresses, yet melancholy alone would be enough to destroy her connection to Evelyn. Robert Burton described a fretful willingness to sabotage one's treasures as one of the symptoms of melancholy, offering the poignant example of Cotys, king of Thrace, who 'brake a company of fine glasses presented to him, with his owne hands, lest he should be overmuch moved when they were broken by chance.'41 Any threat of loss was particularly keen to the sufferer of melancholia, and could result in a wilful or uncontrolled destructiveness of formerly meaningful bonds. At one point, Osborne warned Temple of her propensity towards melancholy: 'tis fitt you should know all my faults, least you should repent your bargen when twill not bee in your power to release yourself (175). Intriguingly, a remark like this is reminiscent of Osborne's concern that a married couple should know each other fully (discussed earlier in chapter 1). Judging from this remark, Temple was as vulnerable to flaws in her character as she was to his. Her remark was nothing less than an admission that she did not expect to change her temperament, or knew that she could not. This attitude conflicts with other moments when Osborne actively enlisted Temple's help against melancholy. Melancholy not only destroyed unions through solipsistic brooding, but posed a challenge to rationality itself. The disease was associated, in both medicine and literature, with delusional visions and the breakdown of rational subjectivity. Melancholy, as opposed to insanity, was noted for its distortions of perception: 'delusions, which are today regarded as the token of the worst kinds of insanity, were considered to be symptoms of melancholy rather than madness.'42 One example (among many) of the association between melancholy and impaired perception is Samuel Butler's portrayal of the melancholy man: 'The Fumes and Vapours that rise from his Spleen and Hypocondries have so smutched and sullied his Brain (like a Room that smoaks) that his Understanding is blear-ey'd, and has no right Perception of any Thing.'43 Gill Speak has written engagingly of early modern people

Illness and Emotional Attachment; in Osborne's Letters 149

whose melancholy progressed to the point where they were positive that they had been vitrified, or turned into glass.44 Timothy Bright spoke ominously of melancholy's capacity to 'breake that bande of fellowship' by which body and mind are linked together,45 and it is clear that Osborne's family feared such mental disintegration: they doe soe fright mee with strange story's of what the Spleen will bring mee to in time, that I am kept in awe with them like a Childe. They tell mee 'twill not leave mee common sence, that I shall hardly bee fitt company for my owne dog's, and that it will ende, either in a stupidnesse that will have mee uncapable of any thing, or fill my head with such whim's as will make mee, rediculous. To prevent this, whoe would not take steel or any thing (77).

These are hardly minor apprehensions, threatening removal from the realm of humanity, loss of rational capacity, and exposure to scorn. The threat of being 'rediculous' was a particularly powerful negative sanction for Osborne given her wish to maintain a public persona beyond reproach, impeccably controlled. As she admitted, the twin threats of dullness and uncontrolled whimsy were more than ample motivations to adopt the hated steel cure, at least at first. Osborne's goal, as it emerged from her letters, was to retain her selfhood and bind that selfhood to Temple. After a rough trip to London, where she was ill most of the time, Osborne pushed herself through weariness to write Temple: 'I am soe perfectly dosed with my Cold and m[y] Journey together that all I can say is, that I am heer and that I have only soe much sence left as to wish you were soe too. When that Leaves mee you may conclude mee past all' (72). Osborne's link to Temple, she claimed, was her minimum standard of engagement and interaction with the world. Similarly, she exclaimed that 'nothing but death or a dead Palsey in my hands' would prevent her from writing him (127). It was certainly possible that illness would take away all sense of union from the lovers - that the dead palsy in her hands would actually prevent her from writing - but on the other hand union with Temple was the foundation of wellness itself. Osborne, who earnestly sought union in sickness, translated these concerns into matters of practical care. In many ways, a wish to fight illness, whether ague, colds, or melancholy, was a strike against the hopelessness that melancholy engendered. Foucault has linked conjugal union with medical and social discourses that emphasize the care of the

150 An Audience of One

self.46 Osborne might be said to advocate a similar shift towards mutual regulation and care, moving away from the meddlesome control of her family into a more congenial sharing of responsibilities. Sometimes Osborne's hopes for the mutual wellness of the couple soared with exalted, stirring rhetoric. Just as often Osborne resorted to sound scoldings and vigorous naggings, chiding Temple for 'being soe idle as to run out of your bed to catch such a Colde' (215) and declaring that she 'will noe longer be a freind to one that's none to himself nor aprehend the losse of what you hazard every day at Tennis' (66). As she tried to change Temple's negative habits, she stressed that his well-being was of prime importance to her own: 'Can you beleeve that you are dearer to mee then the whole world besyd's and yet necglect yourself (146). She was willing to resort to emotional blackmail in order to improve Temple's health: 'if you loved mee you would not give your self over to that which will infallibly kill you if it continue' (123). She presented his suffering - or potential suffering - as having a direct (even unmediated) impact on her. This relates back to Osborne's attempt to describe their bodily experience as identical, despite the fact that she was not always successful in doing so. Her blackmail could be extensive. She went so far as to threaten the withdrawal of her affections and esteem. When she was chiding Temple for his self-abuse, Osborne drew on a story from Herodotus, comparing herself with Amasis, king of Egypt, who broke off his friendship with Polycrates when it seemed inevitable that Polycrates' enemies would vanquish him. Amasis could not bear to see his bosom friend meet an ignominious doom.47 Osborne argued that she would be compelled to practise a similar detachment if Temple refused to take care of himself: Well seriously either resolve to have more care of your self or I renounce my freindship, and as a Certain King ... who seeing one of his Confederate in soe happy a condition, as it was not likely to last, sent his Ambassador presently to breake of the League betwixt them least hee should bee obliged to mourne the Change of his fortune if hee continued his freind. Soe I, with a great deale more reason do I declare that I will noe longer be a freind to one that's none to himself. (66)

This passage is yet another example of the intertwined nature of physical fragility and emotional investment, although Osborne positioned the protestation of emotional engagement as a means of bolstering Temple's overall health. Osborne tried rhetorically to display the link-

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age between emotional attachment and the physical well-being of the beloved, with the implication that it is difficult to sustain emotional involvement if the beloved is not well. Yet Osborne also positioned her protestations of involvement as a means of bolstering health. In showing such concern, Osborne may have been responding to cultural pressures on married women to minister to their husbands physically and spiritually. For example, Milton's divorce tracts emphasized psychological compatibility as well as physical pleasure, but the achievement of this compatibility was a burden intended largely for women.48 Early in the correspondence, Osborne sent Temple a remedy for his cold: 'I will send you that which uses to cure mee, 'tis like the rest of my medicens, if it doe noe good, 'twill bee sure to doe noe harme, and 'twill bee noe great trouble to you to eate a litle on't now and then, for the taste as it is not Exelent, soe 'tis not very ill' (61). By proposing and sending various remedies for Temple's illnesses, she tended to the needs of his body as befitted an early modern wife. As she expressed her interest in his melancholic state, she demonstrated the range of her wifely solicitude. Temple may have been particularly responsive to this kind of care. If we believe Macaulay's claim that Temple possessed a 'habit of coddling himself,'49 Osborne's impulse to minister to his physical and emotional needs would presumably have been necessary qualities in his prospective wife. Even if Macaulay was utterly off-base, it would have been a savvy pre-marital strategy to try and be as attentive to Temple's needs as possible. Yet Osborne also articulated concern for health as a shared task. Interdependence was necessary because society was indifferent to the couple's well-being: 'if wee doe not take care of our selv's I find nobody else will' (154). Osborne rhetorically presented her wishes not as mere ideals but as issues that cut to the heart of survival, with the lovers poised as a unit against an indifferent or even hostile world. In a remarkable discussion of the perils of overeating, Osborne enjoined Temple to 'lay your commands on mee to forebeare fruite' for 'heer is Enough to kill a 1000 such as I am, and soe Exelently good, that nothing but your power can secure mee, therfor forbid it mee that I may live to bee/ Your' (110). Such guidance, Osborne claimed, was not merely desirable but a necessary precondition for health. At first, it seems as though Osborne relinquished control over what she took into her body, an alarming abdication of her independence that reminds us of contemporary feminist work about eating disorders.50 One could read the closing of this letter to Temple as a rather ominous call to pre-

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serve someone in whom he had a proprietary interest. However, Osborne explicitly chose the type of control to which she would be subjected, asking Temple to focus on fruit. When Temple scolded her too vigorously, she reacted with anger, stating that she did not need such chastisement: 'Yet what reason have I to furnish you with a stick to beat my selfe withall or desyre you should commande, that doe it soe severely. I must Eate fruite noe longer then I could bee content you should bee in a feavour; is not that an absolute forbiding in mee[?]' (111). In matters pertaining to health, Osborne argues, as I have previously noted,'wee must both comande & both obay alike' (111). Osborne's model of commanding and obeying possesses intriguing implications for feminist appraisals of Osborne (at least those that focus on equality and conjugal power relations). This discourse of commanding and obeying is the sine qua non of the emotional and physical symbiosis espoused by the scriptural vision of marriage. William Gouge's Of Domestical Duties (1622), described by Kate Aughterson as 'one of the most comprehensive of Renaissance marriage guides,' approvingly cited 1 Corinthians 7:4: 'so as neither the man is without the woman, nor the woman without the man: yea as the wife hath not power of her own body but the husband, so the husband hath not power of his own body but the wife.'51 The passage from Corinthians, like Osborne's letters, inscribed the flow of commanding and obeying at the level of the body, so Osborne's thinking on this matter was at least somewhat conventional. On the other hand, Osborne's concern was too charged with specific reference to the bodies of the lovers to be entirely conventional. Osborne claimed to have intervened in Temple's health because she shed her own self-destructive tendencies under his influence. Early in the courtship, she affirmed that she preserved herself because of Temple: The truth is I cannot deny but that I have bin very carelesse of my self but alas whoe would have bin other, I never thought my life a thing worth my care whilest nobody was concern'd in't but my self now I shall looke upon't as something that you would not loose, and therfore shall indeavour to keep it for you. (85)

She made a similar claim later in the correspondence: I know nothing in the world that gives mee the least desyr of preserving my self but the opinion I have you would not bee willing to loose mee, and yet if you saw with what Caution I live, (at least to what I did befor) you would reproach it to your self sometim's, and might grant perhaps that you

Illness and Emotional Attachment in Osborne's Letters 153 have not gott the advantage of mee in friendship soe much as you imagin. (127-8)

She had been conscientious and cautious. Temple was the source of her new resolution. Osborne energetically established the cycle of mutual preservation she wished the lovers to undertake. Her remarks contained a negative component; her indifference towards her previous well-being was undeniably disturbing. However, these protestations were likely somewhat disingenuous, amplifying both her previous indifference and her current commitment. There was an edge of competitiveness when the lovers wrangled over the 'advantage' of friendship they each wished to claim: an attempt to develop both a mutual ethic of care and an affirmation of superior commitment. Osborne went so far as to link her life with that of Temple: I am soe farre from thinking you ill natured for wisheing I might not outlive you, that I should not have thought you at all kinde, if you had done otherwise. Noe, in Earnest, I was never soe in love with my life, but that I could have parted with it upon a much lesse occasion then your Death, and 'twill bee noe complement to you, to say it would bee very uneasy to meet [sic] then, since 'tis not very pleasant to mee now. (77)

Osborne's argument that she did not live for herself alone and could not live without her beloved has a long cultural history. The idea that initial indifference to preservation must give way to the external observances of self-maintenance is found in classical sources and in Christian thought. Socrates, for example, explained in Plato's Phaedo that one must not give into the temptation of suicide because human beings are obliged to remain alive for the sake of the gods.52 In Roman times, Seneca affirmed, as Marcus Aurelius was to do later, that a moral individual had a duty to attend to the health of the body only insofar as it was necessary, and otherwise to concentrate on the spirit.53 This mixture of indifference to the body, combined with a sense of responsibility to care for the physical self, was attractive to seventeenth-century thinkers, including the Cambridge Platonists. For example, Henry More remarked to Anne Conway that he was 'obstinately and sullenly' resolved to disregard his health, and that he was not concerned with his bodily existence in 'this present world,' yet softly added: T do not neglect to do something in reference to it.'54 When Osborne sought the health of her body, struggling against what she described as her indifference to it, she differed from classical para-

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digms, and from More's formulation of the question. She was not committed to an abstract moral or Christian duty but to a specific individual. By articulating a love relationship as the highest good for which to preserve the self, Osborne made the relationship itself more powerful than sacred forces, for love kept the couple alive. Osborne's remark that she would be willing to part with her own life should Temple die can be read rhetorically as yet another way of constructing the couple as one being. The secular nature of Osborne's emphasis on mutual health was typical for her. Osborne did not hold up Christian faith as the cure for melancholy, as many thinkers of the time did. An Collins, for example, praised Christ as a force to revitalize the sufferer of melancholy in 'A Song expressing their happiness who have communion with Christ.'55 Patricia Vicari has persuasively argued that Robert Burton's purpose in his exposition of melancholy was to show that 'human ingenuity alone is insufficient for a complete cure'56 and that human agency must yield to divine intervention: Melancholy was first felt as a natural disease, and assumed to be susceptible to mundane remedies - change of air, diet, exercise, or drugs - the remedies that Burton himself probably tried first... For a perfect cure his readers would have to look beyond Robertus expertus; he advised them to turn to God - while at the same time doing all they could for themselves with worldly remedies.'57

Osborne resisted such a God-driven cure for melancholy, because she had no real interest in any cure but marriage with Temple. If a cure was to be found through transcendence, it was transcendent romantic love, not religious awakening.58 As Osborne described them, melancholy and other illnesses could certainly be seen as disturbing experiences, to say the least. However, she sought to bring these disconcerting symptoms under control by making them into something shared, and by exercising her writing talent to set a mutual health regimen. Such transformation is at the core of Osborne's epistolary achievement, and is ultimately the lasting legacy of the letters. In the letters we see a seventeenth-century woman transform pressures and strictures into opportunities for herself and her lover. In the case of illness, Osborne articulated what illness meant to her and Temple, and rhetorically established a world where two people were in fact one.

Afterword

A 'Round and Populous' World

In An Audience of One, I have considered Dorothy Osborne's production of ephemeral literary documents that were not read publicly until long after her death. While such writing requires a different type of analysis from works given a public airing, Osborne's letters are particularly valuable because they were written by an early modern woman who in many ways lacked control over her own life and used letters to her future husband to articulate a vision of a better shared future. The letters themselves were written under surveillance, with the threat of exposure giving them tremendous energy and concentration; the fragile status of the letters made them particularly valuable to the couple as they sent and received them. Osborne was a particularly skilful and self-aware manipulator of both language and the letter form; she took care to unfold her ideas to her future husband, and to attempt to draw him into a dialogue with her on a number of subjects. Not every reader has felt that Osborne's small corpus is an asset, lending it particular concentration and intensity. Some readers might wish that there was more text to be explored beyond the courtship letters. Genie Lerch-Davis notes that the letters 'reflect, without contrivance, the vicissitudes in her relationship with her correspondent - in fact, the series ends when the wedding date is set.'1 Virginia Woolf, in her essay about Osborne, lamented the end of the courtship sequence: Married to Temple, she wrote to him no longer. The letters almost immediately cease. The whole world that Dorothy had brought into existence is extinguished. It is then we realize how round and populous and stirring that world has become ... we are deep in this world, seizing its hints and suggestions when in the moment the scene is blotted out.

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Woolf s mildly apocalyptic imagery underscored her sense of loss: the abrupt ending of the letters gave her an opportunity to reflect on what the letters meant to her. That Woolf described the letters as a world in which the reader was immersed is a tribute to the power of Osborne's focus on Temple, her 'audience of one.' Also of interest here is Woolf's portrayal of the letters as a separate and created world, brought into being by Osborne, rather than a mere transcription of events. In Woolf's vision, the reader is fully immersed in a 'round and populous' separate reality. Woolf was right to point to the abrupt end of the letters, since the courtship sequence ends - not surprizingly - after the successful conclusion of the marriage negotiations, when the lovers were no longer physically separated. The few letters that survive from after the marriage underscore the difference between the courtship letters and the kind of letters Osborne (Lady Temple) wrote after her marriage. Once she was married, the letters she produced seem almost as if they were written by another person. They lack the kind of concentration of the letters from 1652-4; she clearly no longer needed to explore the personalities of the lovers, express and solicit opinions, or strategize with regard to marriage negotiations. While the postmarital letters often express fondness, they tend to be flatly practical rather than witty, and concentrate on household details. As Rosalind Wade notes, The apt phrase and incisive judgement have given way to a mundane recitation of domestic cares.'3 Osborne (Lady Temple) seems to have been aware of the shift, given that her husband at one point chastised her for her change in tone and content. Here is her reply in response to his displeasure: Tis mighty well too that I have satt upon thornes these two howers for this sweet scrip full of reproaches. Pray what did you Expect I should have writt, tell mee that I may know how to please you next time. But now I remember mee you would have such letters as I used to write before we were marryed, there are a great many such in your cabinet that I can send you if you please but none in my head I can assure you. Tis not the great aboundance of diversion I finde heer though, nor want of any kindnesse (I think) that hinders mee from being Just what I was then, but a dullnesse that I can give no accounte of and that I am not displeased with but for your sake and because it is many times an occasion of the making good one of my brothers prophesy's who used to tell mee often I had more kindnesse for you then became mee, and that I might assure my selfe if I ever came to bee your wife you would reproach mee with it. (301-2)

Afterword

157

In this passage, Osborne is genuinely complacent about his objections to her 'dullnesse' and less inspired epistolary style. It is particularly fascinating to watch her offer her husband not current production, but the letters written earlier in the courtship, as if to imply that anything worth reading was produced during her unmarried state. In making such an extreme offer, she might well have been defiantly taking his objections to their logical conclusion. Assuming that Temple told her that he missed the earlier courtship lettters, her early persona as an epistolary wit was to some degree used against her, and it was made clear to her that she did not retain the level of intensity that drew Temple to her in the first place. This segment ends, somewhat peevishly, with her argument that her early kindness to him was the source of his reproach. Osborne was at least somewhat aware of an economy of desire, and how distance and separation helped sustain the courtship and the letters that are its product, at one point wistfully commenting: 'Tis most true that our friendship has bin brought up hardly enough, and possibly it thrives the better for't, tis observed that surfeits kill more then fasting do's, but ours is in noe danger of that' (117). Peter Brooks described a situation where readers both yearned for and dreaded the ending of a novelistic work, using psychoanalytical ideas to link this ambiguity to ambivalence over the death drive. Readers both yearn for an ending of a text and dread it.4 Regardless of what one thinks of such psychoanalytical analysis, it is undoubtedly true that the pining separation of lovers in a multivolume French romance kept readers like Osborne turning page after page (and there were a number of pages to turn). Unfulfilled desire kept the text in motion. Feminist critics have seen in nonlinear narrative a chance to subvert the traditional closure of the courtship plot as a narrative. Rachel Blau Du Plessis does this in Writing beyond the Ending,5 and Carolyn Heilbrun, in Writing a Woman's Life, inveighed against such a sense of an ending: 'Safety and closure, which have always been held out to women as the ideals of female destiny, are not places of adventure, or experience, or life.' Heilbrun had strong opinions on this matter: 'For women, the only sane way to live through romance is to live through it without closure.'6 We cannot know whether Osborne experienced a widening of horizons after her marriage or a narrowing of possibilities although we know that she did travel a great deal after her marriage, and may have enjoyed a number of both private and public dramas that have escaped the written record. Just because an experience does not find its expression into writing does not mean it was not a movementous or adventurous experi-

158 An Audience of One

ence. Furthermore, the fact that the letters were kept separately in a cabinet, and that Osborne humorously offered them to her husband as a separate set of writings, may have shown her relative comfort with the change in her letter writing. There may be many more letters that survive, although that is rather unlikely given the amount of scholarly effort that has gone into tracking Osborne's production since her work was first published. Even if a large amount of new material were found, the courtship letters would still have a unique status due to the particular energy that went into Osborne's description of herself, her setting, and her vision of the couple. Many people are not aware of the powerful medium of electronic mail as a means of keeping a link between people that is powerful and immediate. Woolf s description of the way in which Osborne wrote for 'an audience of one' is a particularly powerful linkage of epistolary form with literary achievement - like any author, she wished to communicate to a public. In Osborne's case she whittled her audience down to the only person who overwhelmingly meant the most to her, and she spoke to him with all of the flair, talent, and conviction she could muster. Although beset by a number of personal and social obstacles, Osborne's letters envisioned an alternative - and shared - future; they were her way of exerting control over her own life.

Notes

Introduction 1 Osborne, Dorothy Osborne: Letters to Sir William Temple, ed. Parker, 89; hereafter cited parenthetically in text. 2 Some of the many discussions of Osborne or Cavendish that include Osborne's negative remarks are Lewis, 'The Legacy of Margaret Cavendish'; Hobby, The Virtue of Necessity, 221, n. 8; Ferguson, 'Margaret Lucas Cavendish,' 312; Todd, The Sign ofAngellica, 56; and White, 'The Tenth Muse,' 375. 3 Masten, Textual Intercourse, 3. 4 Woolf, A Room of One's Own, 63. 5 For an example of an early modern woman's diary, see Hoby, The Private Life of an Elizabethan Lady. For more information about women's spiritual writing, see Pollack, With Faith and Physic. For other examples of private writings by women, see Graham et al., Her Own Life. 6 Ezell, Social Authorship and the Advent of Print. 7 For a consideration of the expansion of life writing, and other examples of literary criticism that engage with letters and diaries as well as more traditional forms of autobiographical writing, see Stan ton, The Female Autograph. For some recent examples of life writing scholarship in the early modern period, see Dragstra, Ottway, and Wilcox, Betraying Our Selves; and Cholakian, Women and the Politics of Self-Representation in Seventeenth-Century France. 8 A recent collection of essays devoted exclusively to the letter writing of early modern women does not mention Osborne even once. See Daybell, Early Modern Women's Letter Writing, 1450-1700. 9 Fitzmaurice, 'Fancy and the Family,' 201. 10 For the first partial appearance of the letters, see Courtenay, Memoirs of the Life, Works, and Correspondence of Sir William Temple, Bart., 2:273-337. For a

160 Notes to pages 3-9 response to this first printing, see Macaulay, 'Life and Writings of Sir William Temple.' 11 Osborne, Dorothy Osborne: Letters to Sir William Temple, ed. Parker, 285, 6-7. 12 Giffard, 'Lady Giffard's "Life and Character of Sir William Temple,"' 7. 13 Ibid., 6. 14 Courtenay, Memoirs of the Life, Works, and Correspondence of Sir William Temple, Bart., 2:273-337. 15 Macaulay, 'Life and Writings of Sir William Temple.' 16 In general, the periodical reviewer was able, as John Woolford notes, to function within the 'collectivity of wider consensus' where the 'virulence' of critical language stems from the 'enormous and overbearing authority' derived from critical 'centrality.' See 'Periodicals and the Practise of Literary Criticism, 1855-64,' 115. See also Wolff, 'Victorian Reviewers and Cultural Responsibility.' 17 See 'Courtenay's Life of William Temple, Bart.'; 'William Temple'; and 'Life and Writings of Sir William Temple.' By 1930 Courtenay's biography was thought to lack currency, although Clyde L. Grose remarked that he was particularly grateful to Courtenay for printing the Osborne letters. See 'Thirty Years' Study of a Formerly Neglected Century of British History, 1660-1760.' See also Violet Barbour's later appraisal of Courtenay, 'honest and accurate within its limits but obtuse and unsympathetic in its treatment' in her review of Sir William Temple: The Man and His Work. 18 Macaulay, 'Life and Writings of Sir William Temple,' 274. See Violet Barbour's sympathetic appraisal of Macaulay's castigation of Temple as a 'mugwump, that worse than Tory thing,' in her review of Sir William Temple: The Man and His Work. 19 Macaulay, 'Life and Writings of Sir William Temple,' 291. 20 Ibid., 285. 21 Ibid., 291. 22 Ibid. 23 Ibid., 285. 24 Ibid., 291. 25 Ibid. 26 Osborne, Letters from Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, ed. Parry (1888). See also Parry, 'Dorothy Osborne,' 475. 27 Parry, introduction to Osborne, Letters from Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 19. 28 Ibid., 21. 29 Ibid. 30 Parry, 'Dorothy Osborne,' 478.

Notes to pages 9-13

161

31 Continuing in this line, the reviewer in the Spectator claims that readers of the letters will enjoy an 'intimate acquaintance' with Osborne. See 'Dorothy Osborne's Love Letters.' The amount of closeness we can achieve with an author will always be an open question; some critics argue that respectful consideration of a text will always involve the preservation of awareness about their alterity. Glenn Burger, for example, draws attention to gaps in our knowledge about contemporary life to throw doubt on our ability to comprehend the premodern: 'What we do not know about the present should be applied to what we cannot know about the past.' See Chaucer's Queer Nation, 42. 32 Quoted in Parry, My Own Way: An Autobiography, 129-30. 33 Parry, introduction to Osborne, Letters from Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 31. 34 As Kenneth Parker correctly notes, 'While Parry scrupulously records Mrs Longe's central importance to the whole enterprise, it is nevertheless important to emphasize how the operation of patriarchy in particular, and of latenineteenth-century "gentility" in general, deprived Sarah Rose Longe of the opportunity to become the first editor of the letters.' See Osborne, Dorothy Osborne: Letters to Sir William Temple, ed. Parker, 42. 35 Dempster, 'Dorothy Osborne.' 36 Ibid., 519. 37 'Letters from Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple.' 38 'The Light Reading of Our Ancestors,' 467. 39 There is a passage in Parry's autobiography where he speaks of identifying the individuals in Osborne's letters - without the help of the DNB: 'There was no "Dictionary of National Biography" in those days, and it was a much harder task to discover who, in the seventeenth century, was who, than it is to-day.' See My Own Way, 134. 40 Woolf, A Room of One's Own, 60. 41 Woolf, Second Common Reader, 51. 42 Ibid. 43 Ezell, Writing Women's Literary History, 49. 44 Juliet Dusinberre considers Woolf's ambivalence about the role of the professional writer, despite her excitement about the pioneering professional women writers in A Room of One's Own: 'When Virginia Woolf immersed herself in Elizabethan writing she perceived the fluid boundaries between the amateur and the professional.' See Virginia Woolf's Renaissance, 9. 45 Cecil, Two Quiet Lives, 8.

46 Ibid., 24. 47 Ibid., 25.

162 48 49 50 51 52

Notes to pages 13-23

Ibid., 13-14. Osborne, The Letters of Dorothy Osborne, ed. Moore Smith, xxxv. Ottway, 'Dorothy Osborne's Love Letters,' 152-3. Kenneth Parker, Dorothy Osborne, 28. For some preliminary investigations of Osborne's use of the letter form, see Lerch-Davis, 'Rebellion against Public Prose.' See also Wright, 'Private Language Made Public.'

Chapter 1 1 Moore Smith, Introduction, in Osborne, The Letters of Dorothy Osborne, ed. Moore Smith, xv. 2 There was a clear political difference in the way that families in the midseventeenth century educated their daughters. Puritans tended to keep their girls at home, while cavaliers often sent their girls to boarding school. Perhaps Osborne left home to attend a boarding school, but we have no evidence either way. See Gardiner, English Girlhood at School, 234—6. 3 O'Day, Tudor and Stuart Women,' 128. 4 See, among many others, Ashley, The Battle ofNaseby and the Fall of King Charles I; Richardson, The Debate about the English Revolution Revisited; Nigel Smith, Literature and Revolution in England, 1640-1660; and Norbrook, Writing the English Republic. 5 Donagan, 'Family and Misfortune in the English Civil War,' 225. 6 Margaret Cavendish, New Blazing World and Other Writings, 193. 7 Margaret Cavendish, 'A Dialogue between a Bountifull Knight, and a Castle ruin'd in War,' Poems andFancies, 89-90. 8 Osborne, The Letters of Dorothy Osborne, ed. Moore Smith, xiv. For a definitive account of the siege, see Tupper, The Chronicles of Castle Cornet. 9 See Bedford County Record Office, 'Osborn of Chicksands: A Catalogue of the Family and Estate Papers of the Osborn Family of Chicksands' (unpublished catalogue, 1994), O/185/4. 10 Anselment, Loyalist Resolve. 11 For more on the village of Campion, see Cadman, Campion. 12 Woolf, Second Common Reader, 52. 13 HMSO, Carisbrooke Castle (London, 1972). 14 Osborne, The Letters of Dorothy Osborne, ed. Moore Smith, xvii. 15 Giffard, 'Lady Giffard's "Life and Character of Sir William Temple,"' 5-6. 16 Temple, Early Essays and Romances, 36. The manuscripts for these romances are held at the Beinecke Library at Yale University. 17 Wrightson, English Society, 1580-1680, 69.

Notes to pages 23-6 18 19 20 21

22 23 24 25

26

27 28

29 30 31 32 33 34

35

163

Amussen, Review of For Better, for Worse. Razzell, The Conquest of Smallpox. Giffard, 'Lady Giffard's "Life and Character of Sir William Temple,"' 7. Hutchinson writes: 'That day that the friends on both sides met to conclude the marriage, she fell sick of the small pox, which was many wayes a greate triall upon him; first her life was allmost in desperate hazard, and then the disease, for the present, made her the most deformed person that could be scene for a greate while after she recover'd. Yett he was nothing troubled at it, but married her assoone as she was able to quitt the chamber, when the priest and all that saw her were affrighted to looke on her.' See Memoirs of the Life of Colonel Hutchinson, 33. Temple, 'Upon the Gardens of Epicurus; or, Of Gardening, in the Year 1685,' Five Miscellaneous Essays, 27. See also Coburn, Moor Park Rickmansworth. Giffard, 'Lady Giffard's "Life and Character of Sir William Temple,"' 8. For more on Temple's diplomatic career, see Haley, An English Diplomat in the Low Countries. See Dorothy, Lady Temple to Williamson, PRO, 17 October 1667, State Papers Domestic, vol. 7, 530; News-letter to Robert Stanton, at Bury St Edmund's, PRO, 12 August 1671, State Papers Domestic, vol. 11, 426; and Silas Taylor to Williamson, PRO, March 1675, State Papers Domestic, vol. 17, 49-50. Katie Hickman discusses the partnership between Ann and Richard Fanshawe during his diplomatic posting in Spain after the Restoration, and their political work together during the English Civil War. See Daughters of Britannia, 53, 56-62. I am grateful to Ed Rugemer for this observation. For a representative sample of Temple's writing, see Five Miscellaneous Essays. Much has been written about Temple's political career, personal life, and contributions to literature and gardening. A good early study that considers Temple both as an essayist and political figure is Marburg, Sir William Temple: A Seventeenth Century 'Libertin.' Temple, Five Miscellaneous Essays, 27. For a view of the ancient/ modern controversy, see Faber, The Brave Courtier. For Jonathan Swift's famous portrayal of this skirmish, see The Tale of a Tub. Eliasjr, Swift at Moor Park, 14. Temple, Letters Written by Sir W. Temple, ed. Swift. Swift, Journal to Stella, 1:231. Diana Temple's letter is bound in with her mother's letters in the British Library. See Dorothy Osborne, Correspondence with W. Temple 1652-1654. British Library, Add. MS 33975. For an account, see Jesse, Memoirs of the City of London and its Celebrities, 1:113-14.

164 Notes to pages 27-39 36 Petrie, The Great Tyrconnel, 158. 37 Temple, Early Essays and Romances, 194, n. 60. About the destruction of many of the Longe papers, see Osborne, Letters to Sir William Temple, ed. Parker, 46. 38 Giffard, 'Lady Giffard's "Life and Character of Sir William Temple,"' xii, quoted in Temple, Early Essays and Romances, introduction by Moore Smith. 39 Ibid. 40 Ehrenpreis, Swift: The Man, His Works, and the Age, 104. 41 Caspar Netscher, portrait of Dorothy, Lady Temple. National Portrait Gallery, London, NPG 3813. http://www.npg.org/uk/live/cp3812.asp. 42 Swift, The Poems of Jonathan Swift, 1:52. 43 Woolf, Second Common Reader, 57. 44 The sundial was recently stolen from the Moor Park grounds. 45 In a contemporary printed collection of letters, an anonymous letter writer complains of such self-censorship: 'The saying, It's dangerous to write news, keeps us here in darknesse.' See Mathews, A Collection of Letters, 194—5. 46 Woolf, Second Common Reader, 56. 47 Wade, 'Dorothy Osborne (Lady Temple) 1626-1695: The Missing Years.' 48 Wade, The Golden Bowl. 49 A.C. Elias remarks on the 'troublesome materials,' and specifically the 'documentation unearthed by Denis Johnston (1959) in the course of his attempts to demonstrate that Temple might have been Stella's father and that Swift might have been born too late to be the son of Jonathan Swift senior.' See Swift at Moor Park, 277, n. 15. 50 Todd, The Secret Life ofAphra Behn, 8. 51 This passage has sometimes been anthologized, probably because it is an example of adept and original writing. For example, see Washington, Love Letters, 136-7. 52 Fowler, Commonplace Book, 24-5. 53 Commonplace Book, Huntington Manuscript 116 L10-F3, p. 56. 54 Hobby, Virtue of Necessity, 4. 55 Taylor, Holy Living, 146. 56 Milton, Complete Prose Works of John Milton, 2:249. 57 Francis Osborne, Advice to a Son, 51. 58 Bingham and Scholt, Fifteen Centuries of Children's Literature, 73. 59 Francis Osborne, Advice to a Son, 76. 60 Philips, 'To One Persuading a Lady to Marriage,' 471. 61 Hutchinson, Memoirs of the Life of Colonel Hutchinson, 1. 62 Hutchinson, Order and Disorder, 69.

Notes to pages 41-52

165

Chapter 2 1 2 3 4 5 6

Cavendish, Paper Bodies. Ibid., 11. Harris, 'Mary Evelyn's Letterbooks,' 207. Lerch-Davis, 'Rebellion against Public Prose,' 405. Ibid., 387. Ostovich and Sauer, Reading Early Modern Women, 187. For Erasmus's rejection of the ars dictiminis, see Susan M. Fitzmaurice, The Familiar Letter, 16. 7 Daybell, Early Modern Women's Letter Writing, 2. 8 Lerch-Davis, 'Rebellion against Public Prose,' 396. 9 Susan M. Fitzmaurice, The Familiar Letter, 192. 10 Lowenthal, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, 15. 11 Gifts do seem to figure in courtships in the period. For example, Margaret Lucas and William Cavendish exchanged tokens of love. See William Cavendish, ThePhanseys of William Cavendish, 106. 12 Volosinov [Mikhail Bahktin], Marxism and the Philosophy of Language, 86. 13 Altman, Epistolarity,88. 14 O'Day, 'Tudor and Stuart Women,' 141. 15 Dorothy Osborne, The Letters of Dorothy Osborne, ed. Moore Smith, 259, n. 5. 16 Robertson, The Art of Letter Writing, 7. 17 I.W., A speedie poste, A3, recto and verso. 18 Some critics have seen the secretaries as precursors to the epistolary novel, and there is some validity to this idea. One need only think of a text like Richardson's Pamela - a text that is known to have stemmed from the exemplary letters Richardson was writing at the time, letters that took flight into novelistic fancy. As Margaret Anne Doody remarks, 'Familiar Letters had to wait until the novel was finished.' See A Natural Passion, 30. Nicholas Breton's letter book is the exception to the tradition of secretaries: it is written primarily as a fictional set of missives. See A Poste with a Madde Packet of Letters. 19 Gainsford, The Secretaries Studie, frontispiece. 20 For more on Woolf's vision of early modern letters as 'essays in disguise,' see Dusinberre, Virginia Woolf's Renaissance, 95. 21 Finell, 'The Repertoire of Topic Changers in Personal, Intimate Letters,' 720. Finell does show that there are more topic changers in Woolf, but attributes this to change in the language. 22 Lowenthal, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, 29. 23 Ian Gordon argues that Osborne, like John Bunyan, possessed 'unconscious artistry.' See The Movement of English Prose, 120-1. Lerch-Davis disagrees: 'Because it was commonly believed that the ability to use language artistically

166 Notes to pages 52-62 was a sign of the writer's social status, even gentlewomen read and wrote with a consciousness of artistry.' See 'Rebellion against Public Prose,' 392. 24 For more on medical advice in seventeenth-century letters, see Susan M. Fitzmaurice, The Familiar Letter, 87-127. 25 Harley, Letters of the Lady Brilliana Harley, 50, 51, 65. 26 Eales, 'Patriarchy, Puritanism and Politics,' 146, 148. 27 Daybell, 'Female Literacy and the Social Conventions of Women's LetterWriting in England, 1540-1603,' Early Modern Women's Letter Writing, 61. 28 Hutchinson, Order and Disorder, ed. Norbrook, xiii. 29 Ibid., 44. 30 Hutchinson, Memoirs of the Life of Colonel Hutchinson, 28. 31 William Temple, 'Essays by Sr W. T.,' Early Essays and Romances, 150. 32 One of the most effective discussions of dilatio is Patricia Parker's consideration of the trope, with attention to the gendered nature of dilated narrative. See Literary Fat Ladies, 8-35. The deferral of desire in romance has fascinating implications for Osborne's situation, as should be evident from my discussion of the complication of the courtship in the first chapter. 33 Woolf, Second Common Reader, 51. 34 Guillen, 'Notes toward the Study of the Renaissance Letter,' 99. 35 Irvine, Ten Letter Writers, 106. 36 Gillis, The Paradox of Privacy, 5. 37 O'Day, Tudor and Stuart Women,' 129. 38 Austin, How to Do Things with Words. 39 Judith Butler, Gender Trouble. 40 Lowenthal, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, 10. 41 Walker, 'Why Performance? Why Now?' 149. 42 Guillen, 'Notes toward the Study of the Renaissance Letter,' 85. 43 Stimpson, 'The Female Sociograph,' 194. 44 Guillen, 'Notes toward the Study of the Renaissance Letter,' 78. 45 Steen, The Letters of Lady Arbella Stuart. 46 Ibid., 33. 47 Ibid., 10. See also Greenblatt, Renaissance Self-Fashioning. 48 Steen, The Letters of Lady Arbella Stuart, 30.

49 Ibid., 124. 50 Clifford, Tixall Letters, 1:144. 51 Osborne, Dorothy Osborne: Letters to Sir William Temple, 1653-54, ed. Parker, 22. 52 Courtenay, Memoirs of the Life, Works, and Correspondence of Sir William Temple, Ban. 1:17. 53 Lerch-Davis, 'Rebellion against Public Prose,' 404. James Fitzmaurice and Marline Rey comment that Osborne is quite influenced by her reading of

Notes to pages 62-74 167 French romance during these epistolary performances of crisis, commenting: 'As the tension in the love story between Osborne and Temple grows, so does the French influence.' See 'Letters by Women in England, the French Romance, and Dorothy Osborne,' 152. Chapter 3 1 Taylor, The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living; Valois, The History of Margaret of Valoys; and Cavendish, Poems, and Fancies. 2 Aughterson, Renaissance Women, 167. 3 Cited in Hackett, Women and Romance Fiction, 6. 4 Lowenthal, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, 11. 5 Todd, The Sign of Angellica, 153. 6 Navarre, Heptameron. For more on the frame tale in Margaret Cavendish's work as an exploration of many points of view, see Battigelli, Margaret Cavendish and the Exiles of the Mind, 73-80. 7 Jagodzinski, Privacy and Print, 5. 8 Dejean, Tender Geographies, 11. 9 For more on Scudery, see Aronson, Mademoiselle de Scudery; Joanne Davis, Mademoiselle de Scudery and the Looking-Glass Self; and Godenne, Les Romans de Mademoiselle de Scudery. 10 See, for example, Vanbrugh, TheProvok'd Wife. 11 Scudery, Artamenes, or, The Grand Cyrus, 18. 12 Hackett, Women and Romance Fiction, 11. 13 Temple notes, 'A friend found them by chance among some other scribled papers from whom all my importunity could never since recover them.' See Early Essays and Romances, 37. 14 Ibid., 35. 15 Natalie Zemon Davis, The Return of Martin Guerre. 16 Temple, Early Essays and Romances, xvii. 17 Ibid., 36. 18 Ibid., xix. 19 For more information on the Carte de Tendresee Jusserand, The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare, 361. James S. Munro has written an intriguing monograph exploring the composition and meaning of the Carte. See Mademoiselle de Scudery and the Carte de Tendre. 20 Scudery, Artamene, ou, Le Grand Cyrus, Part 3, book 1, 328-9. 21 Scudery, Artamenes, or, The Grand Cyrus, Part 3, book 1, volume 2, 83. 22 Some of the many consideration of the impact of romance reading on contemporary women include McCracken, Pulp; Mitchell, 'Ever After'; Cawelti,

168 Notes to pages 74-8 Adventure, Mystery and Romance; Hazen, Endless Rapture; Krentz, Dangerous Men and Adventurous Women; Modleski, Loving With a Vengeance, and Radford, The Progress of Romance. 23 See Stone, The Family, Sex and Marriage, 286. 24 Astell, A Serious Proposal to the Ladies, 24. 25 Chudleigh, The Poems and Prose of Mary Lee Chudleigh, 259. 26 See Georges de Scudery, 'Au Lecteur' in Madeleine de Scudery, Artamene, ou, Le Grand Cyrus, Bl. 27 Jusserand, The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare, 357. 28 Osborne likely read Herodotus because she refers to the story of Amasis and Polycrates recounted by this author. See The Letters of Dorothy Osborne, ed. Moore Smith, 214, n. 7. See Herodotus, The Histories of Herodotus ofHalicarnassus. 29 Arabella is brought to her senses in Book IX, chapter 11. See Lennox, The Female Quixote or The Adventures of Arabella, 368-82. 30 Janice Radway shows how the midwestern women she interviewed about popular romance fiction were extremely self-conscious about what they wanted in a romance novel. See Reading the Romance. 31 There is no evidence that Osborne read Don Quixotebut, as Irvin Ehrenpreis points out, Temple praises it in his essay 'Of Poetry.' See Swift: The Man, His Works, and the Age, 110. See William Temple, 'Of Poetry,' Five Miscellaneous Essays, 197. 32 Jusserand, The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare, 384. 33 Arabella impresses her lover with her knowledge of the Olympic Games in Book IX, chapter 7 of Lennox's The Female Quixote, 79-83. 34 Pinto, The Travels ofMendez Pinto. 35 Osborne, Dorothy Osborne: Letters to Sir William Temple, ed. Parker, 285, n. 11. 36 Catz, 'Iconoclasm as Literary Technique.' 37 As De Jean has pointed out, French and English prenovelistic traditions are not necessarily comparable, and certainly with reference to the involvement of women: 'We can speak of a veritable tradition of French women's writing as early as the 1660s, when across the Channel, there is far less evidence of literary community.' See Tender Geographies, 1. 38 Patterson, Censorship and Interpretation, 190. 39 See McKeon, The Origins of the English Novel, 131-75. 40 James Fitzmaurice and Martine Rey point to Osborne's skilful appropriation of romance commonplaces, arguing that she drew on the rhetoric of romance for her courtship. Her diction oscillated between the high-flying drama of the romance heroine and a down-to-earth pragmatism. I have argued that within the letters a variety of rhetorical modes is possible, and

Notes to pages 78-90 169

41 42

43 44 45

the use of romance language and diction is certainly one of these modes. See Fitzmaurice and Rey, 'Letters by Women in England,' 149-60. Scudery, Artamenes, or, The Grand Cyrus, Part 1, book 3, 265. Gomberville, The History of Polexander. For more on this identification, see Hintz, 'A Second Reference to Marin Le Roy de Gomberville's Polexandre'm Dorothy Osborne's Letters.' Gomberville, The History of Polexander, 22. Ibid. Turk, Baroque Fiction-Making, 121.

46 Ibid., 123. 47 Jusserand, The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare, 353. 48 Cited in De Jean, Tender Geographies, 49. For more on Sapho as a literary figure, see Dejean, 'Female Desire and the Foundation of the Novelistic Order (1612-1694).' 49 Valois, History of Queene Margaret of Valoys, 203. 50 Osborne, The Letters of Dorothy Osborne, ed. Moore Smith, 219, n. 8. 51 Valois, Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, 132. 52 Ibid., 137-8. 53 Ibid., 139. 54 Ibid., 139-40. 55 Marotti, John Donne, Coterie Poet. 56 Jagodzinski, Privacy and Print, 1, 2. Chapter 4 1 A letter from Thomas Wright to Peter Osborne is printed in Tupper, The Chronicles of Castle Cornet, 124-5. Tupper describes 'Tom Wright' as a 'very illiterate man' and adds, 'We cannot discover what post he occupied under Sir Peter Osborne' (125). 2 Girard, Deceit, Desire, and the Novel, 21. 3 Sedgwick, Between Men, 27. Lois E. Bueler echoes Sedgwick's remark, explaining that incest has a 'structural usefulness in complicating and unraveling plots ... for probing the moral relationship between individual passions and social well-being' (116). See 'The Structured Uses of Incest in English Renaissance Drama.' 4 Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., s.v. 'mistress.' 5 See, for example, Hopkins, 'A Source for John Ford's 'TisPity She's a Whore.' See also Whigham, 'Sexual and Social Mobility in The Duchess ofMalfi.' 6 Lucas, Studies French and English, 158, 159. 7 See Moore Smith, 'Henry Osborne's Diary,' 305.

170 Notes to pages 91-7 8 Bueler, 'The Structured Uses of Incest in Renaissance Drama,' 130. 9 Whigham, 'Sexual and Social Mobility in The Duchess ofMalfi,' 169. 10 Bueler, 'The Structured Uses of Incest in Renaissance Drama,' 126. 11 Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., s.v. 'kindness.' 12 Samuel Pepys writes, T would not read' a written complaint of Elizabeth's but 'burned' it. When she presents him with another copy on 9 January 1663, and he finds another bundle of papers, he writes, T pulled them out one by one and tore them all before her face, though it went against my heart to do it, she crying and desiring me not to do it.' See The Diary of Samuel Pepys, 4:9. 13 Sedgwick, Between Men, 25. 14 Cited in ibid., 26. For a discussion of the way that sixteenth- and seventeenthcentury drama highlighted the problems caused by women being used as objects of exchange between men, see Belsey, The Subject of Tragedy, 202-6. 15 There are other brother/sister relationships in the period that are characterized by extremely powerful feelings that may or may not be sexual. Constance Aston Fowler exclaims to her brother about her friend Catherine (or Katherine) Thimelby that she has 'bin most deadly in love with her as ever lover was' (109). As she tries to match Thimelby with her brother, she describes herself 'her admirer and your lover' (121). She concludes: 'Never creture lov'd two with more aquel afection then I dote on you both, none knows ether of you soe well as I doe, and I dare sware ther was never two creatures soe like, soe perfectly alike as you two are in dispossissions and natures.' See Clifford, Tixall Letters, 123. 16 Cowley's verses were published in 1656. Therefore, as G.C. Moore Smith explains, 'the verses [Osborne] sends Temple must have been in MS.' See Osborne, The Letters of Dorothy Osborne, ed. Moore Smith, 286, n. 15. All quotations from the poem are taken from Cowley, A Critical Edition of Abraham Cowley 's Davideis. 17 Cowley, Davideis, 349-50. 18 Parker, Dorothy Osborne: Letters to Sir William Temple, ed. Parker, 297. 19 See Osborn of Chicksands, A Catalogue of the Family and Estate Papers of the Osborn Family of Chicksands. 20 Fitzmaurice and Rey, 'Letters by Women in England, the French Romance, and Dorothy Osborne,' 159. 21 Freudian revisionist Nancy Chodorow argues that young girls negotiate the Oedipal complex differently than their male counterparts, resulting in less distinct ego boundaries and a relational subjectivity. See The Reproduction of Mothering. Carol Gilligan discussed women's moral choices as more intersubjective and based on social configurations rather than discourses of rights

Notes to pages 97-104

22 23

24 25 26 27 28 29

30

171

and freedoms. See In A Different Voice. Sidonie Smith challenges the potential essentialism of such views: 'Is female preoccupation with the other an essential dynamic of female psychobiography or a culturally conditioned manifestation of the ideology of gender that associates female difference with attentiveness to the other?' See A Poetics of Women's Autobiography, 18. Morgan E. Forbes challenges many of Chodorow's basic assumptions in 'Questioning Feminine Connection.' Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., s.v. 'servant.' Osborne in her turn seems to have been an appealing figure in the eyes of her female contemporaries. Julia Longe reproduces an admiring letter from Katherine Philips, with the following comment: 'Lady Temple was one of those women, less rare than novelists would have us believe, who are equally attractive to men and women.' See Longe, Martha, Lady Giffard, 37.1 have read Philips's letter in manuscript at the Harvard Theatre Collection (it is uncatalogued). There is continued debate about whether Philips's poetry aimed at women is specifically erotic. See, for example, Stiebel, 'Not Since Sappho.' Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., s.v. 'person.' Ottway, 'Dorothy Osborne's Love Letters,' 150. Woolf, Second Common Reader, 54. Donne, 'The Canonization.' See Philips, 'A Retir'd Friendship: To Ardelia.' Mary Lady Chudleigh offered a similar statement of retreat in 'To Clorissa,' where the speaker situates herself 'all alone in some belov'd Retreat,/ Remote from Noise, from Bus'ness, and from Strife' (11. 20-1). See Chudleigh, The Poems and Prose of Mary, Lady Chudleigh, 68. Ruth Perry describes the association between rural felicity and happiness in the poems of the Platonists and in Herrick, Denham, and Waller. She also notes that Abraham Cowley 'did the most to popularise these themes, and he gave them their purest expression.' Perry adds a fascinating materialist twist to the interest of the female poets in the retreat tradition. During the English Civil War, married women were required to hold together the rural estate in the absence of their men; they tended to seek seclusion on their estates. The poems of Abraham Cowley were resonant for these reasons, and writers like Mary Astell drew on them for their own writing and study: 'Cowley was a great favorite with women of Astell's generation, possibly because these themes adapted so readily to a woman's lot.' See Perry, The Celebrated Mary Astell, 126. For a study of the conduct books aimed at producing modest female behaviour, see Hull, Chaste, Silent and Obedient.

172

Notes to pages 104-20

31 Osborne has something in common with Clarissa Harlowe, who is described by her friend Anna Howe as being 'desirous, as you always said, of sliding through life to the end of it unnoted.' Cited in Brownstein, Becoming a Heroine, 44. 32 For example, Browne, Religio Medici, 169-70. 33 See Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 61. There is also more than a sprinkling of surveillance writ large: 'God judges not according to appearance, nor highly esteems outward splendor, but gazes upon the secrets of the heart [I Sam. 16:7;Jer. 17:10]' (16). 34 Milton was to grow increasingly resistant to all forms of church discipline throughout his career, but in 1642 he noted that church government was salient for the individual, although he was opposed to the form it took in prelacy. See 'The Reason of Church Government Urged Against Prelacy,' in Complete Poems and Major Prose, 683. For a detailed consideration of Milton's relationship to nonconformity, see Arthur Barker, Milton and the Puritan Dilemma 1641-1660. 35 Taylor, Holy Living, 1:32. 36 Foucault, Discipline and Punish, 217. 37 Evelyn, The Life of Mrs. Godolphin, 29. 38 Ibid., 56. 39 See Stone, The Family, Sex and Marriage in England 1500-1800, 144, 253-6. 40 See Klein, 'Gender and the Public/Private Distinction in the Eighteenth Century,' 105. 41 I am grateful to Peter Hamilton for this observation. 42 See Aubrey, Aubrey's Brief Lives, 186. G.C. Moore Smith provides information about Thynne's situation in his edition of Osborne, The Letters of Dorothy Osborne, 258. 43 G.C. Moore Smith discusses the case of Lady Anne Blount and finds documents from the State Papers Domestic related to her. See his edition of Osborne, The Letters of Dorothy Osborne, 264—5, n. 8. 44 G.C. Moore Smith, Introduction, Osborne, The Letters of Dorothy Osborne, ed. Moore Smith, xxxix. 45 Patricia Caldwell's book focuses on American conversion narratives, although some attention is paid to British narrative. She considers the issues raised when a narrative of personal faith is offered for public scrutiny. See The Puritan Conversion Narrative. 46 See Margaret Cavendish, 'A True Relation of My Birth, Breeding and Life,' in Her Own Life, ed. Graham et al., 87-101. 47 Beaumont, The Narrative of 'the Persecutions of 'Agnes Beaumont, 81. 48 See Bunyan, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, 88.

Notes to pages 120-5

173

49 I have discussed Cavendish's struggle between indulgence of private whims and public exigencies in '"But One Opinion."' 50 Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration. 51 Sidonie Smith comments on the false association of women with private experience: 'Men write of private experiences; women, of their public activities.' See A Poetics of Women's Autobiography, 17. 52 Stan ton, 'Autogynography: Is the Subject Different?' The Female Autograph, 8-9. 53 G.C. Moore Smith agrees with Edward Abbott Parry that Osborne must have used George Sandys's translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses, offering as further proof the information that his friend SJ. Crawford had purchased a copy of Sandys's translation bearing Osborne's signature and a dedication from the author. See Osborne, The Letters of Dorothy Osborne, ed. Moore Smith, 269-70, n. 16. For a modern facsimile, see Sandys, Ovid's Metamorphosis Englished, ed. Hulley and Vandersal. All quotations from the Metamorphoses are from that edition. 54 Sandys, Ovid's Metamorphosis Englished, 279. 55 Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, 48. 56 The tiny island, only .5 kilometres by 1.5 kilometres, is still a place of retreat. Radios and cars are banned on the island; planes do not fly overhead. S.K. Kellett Smith indicates that only pheasants and a gameskeeper lived on the island in the seventeenth century in 'Notes on Herm and Jethou Islands' (unpublished typescript, 1977?). Jenny Wood, whose family has owned the island for forty years, seems to have lived a twentieth-century version of Osborne's fantasy. Wood describes her experiences in Herm: Our Island Home, and cites Osborne (whom she terms 'Lady Dorothy Osbourne') as one of the many people who have loved the island over the centuries. I am grateful to the staff of the Priaulx library, St Peter's Port, Guernsey, for allowing me to see their extensive files of press clippings and miscellaneous typescripts regarding Herm. 57 For the remarkable history of the Gilbertine order, see Golding, Gilbert of Sempringham and the Gilbertine Order. 58 There has been a great deal of work done by local historians on Chicksands Priory. The most comprehensive is Grayson, Chicksands: A Millenium of History. For striking pictures of Chicksands, Bedfordshire, see I.D. Parry's Select Illustrations, Historical and Topographical, of Bedfordshire. See also Humphrey, Lajoie, and Trottman, Chicksands Priory. William Cartwright Massey addresses the early history of Chicksands in Chicksands Priory: Its Monastic and Later Possessors. 59 There are papers concerning the sequestration of the Osborne estate in the

174 Notes to pages 125-7 Bedford County Record Office. See Osborn of Chicksands: A Catalogue of the Family and Estate Papers of the Osborn Family of Chicksands. 60 Parker, Dorothy Osborne, 28. 61 For information about the ideology and social function of the country house, see Kenny, The Country-House Ethos in English Literature. For more information on English country houses as they figure in English literature, see Kelsall, The Great Good Place. 62 Nicole Pohl traces women's participation and appropriation of the country house tradition through to the eighteenth-century novel. See '"Sweet place, where virtue then did rest."' 63 Lanyer, 'The Description of Cooke-ham,' The Poems of Aemilia Lanyer, 130-8. See also Hammons, 'Katherine Austen's Country-House Innovations.' 64 Kalamis, Hidden Treasures ofHerm Island, 17. 65 Osborne's portrayal of her relationship to nature shares a great deal with Simone de Beauvoir's description of a young girl's contentment in nature prior to her full sexual development. See The Second Sex, 360-4. De Beauvoir's association of women and nature could be accused of essentialism. Carolyn Merchant associates women with a preindustrial natural world in The Death of Nature. Laurie Finke (for one) has strong reservations about such an association and criticizes Merchant on this point. See 'Aphra Behn and the Ideological Construction of Restoration Literary Theory.' 66 In fact, it may have been quite common for a country house to be reasonably formal in character. Christine Marsden Gillis remarks that Mark Girouard's book on the country house draws attention to the 'ritualistic character' of life in the country house. See The Paradox of Privacy, 63. 67 Susan Stewart describes idealization in reference to Pope's A Discourse on Pastoral Poetry: 'The pastoral figures of Pope and his predecessors are more like wind-up toys than the shepherds of romantic pastorals, who sweat and become lonely.' See On Longing, 65. By Osborne's time, the pastoral was in crisis. Jonathan Crewe, for example, describes the way in which the 'neoclassical pastoral tradition' was in crisis due to a variety of political uprootings, most notably 'the vexed political economy of land enclosure.' See 'The Garden State,' 271. 68 Douglas Chambers notes the gentle humour and earthy realism of Osborne's response to the shepherdesses. He points out that a more unadulterated 'Watteau-pastoralism' had 'nothing to do with the Virgilian original, where only one of the Eclogues was set in Arcadia, and all of them resonate with the life of a fallen world.' See The Reinvention of the World, 82. 69 See Osborne, The Letters of Dorothy Osborne, ed. Moore Smith, 235. 70 See Anselment, Loyalist Resolve, 23.

Notes to pages 127-33 175 71 Huebert, 'Privacy: The Early Social History of a Word,' 24-5. 72 John Rogers has described virginity as the life course that 'provided the image for privacy par excellence' during the English Civil War. See 'The Enclosure of Virginity,' 238. Even thinkers who did not share the Catholic tradition sometimes idealized virginity, as did Jeremy Taylor when he praised the unmarried state in hyperbolic terms:' Virginity is ... the most extasied order of holy and unpolluted Spirits.' This elevated ideal would be of little interest to Osborne, but Taylor - a writer whom Osborne of course clearly read - saw the virginal life as particularly worthy of commendation. See Taylor, Holy Living, 1:74. See also Barker, 'A Virgin Life,' The Galesia Trilogy, 139-40. 73 Mendelson, The Mental World of Stuart Women, 94. 74 Osborne asked Temple to translate some verses out of Virgil, as well as other pastoral poetry with pastoral inspiration. One poem appears in a unique volume of Temple's self-published poems held in the British Library. This poem is titled: 'Virgil's/ O Fortunati, &c./ Translated,/ or Rather,/ Imitated, upon the Desire/ of/ My Lady Temple.' See Poems by Sir W.T. [i.e., Sir William Temple] [1670?] 75 See William Temple, Poems by Sir W.T., 9-10,11. 1-4. Chapter 5 1 Beier, Sufferers and Healers, 150—1. 2 For a general history of malaria in England, see Bruce-Chwatt and Zulueta, 'Malaria in the United Kingdom,' in The Rise and Fall of Malaria in Europe, 131-46. See also Anne Lawrence's brief remarks about malaria in Women in England, 97. Mary Dobson describes the way that malaria was concentrated predominantly in Kent and Essex in 'Marsh Fever.' Lawrence Stone notes that 'recurrent malarial fevers were common and debilitating diseases,' The Family, Sex and Marriage, 79. 3 Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., s. v. 'Ague,' 'Quartan,' and 'Tertian.' 4 Babb, The Elizabethan Malady, 27. 5 For a consideration of the changes in humoral theory by the mid-seventeenth century, see Jackson, 'Melancholia and the Waning of the Humoral Theory.' 6 For more on spas see Phillis Hembry's general history, The English Spa: 15601815. In his edition, Kenneth Parker provides little-known information about Barnet spa. See Appendix E: 'The Physick Well at Barnet,' in Dorothy Osborne: Letters to Sir William Temple, 323-5. For a seventeenth-century appraisal of the curative power of spas, see Allen, The Natural History of the Chalybeat and Purging Waters of England.

176 Notes to pages 134-8 7 Bright, A Treatise of Melancholie, 82. 8 John Owen King draws a distinction between Puritan definitions of melancholy, and perceptions of the romantic period: 'For nineteenth-century romantic poets, melancholy fell from a weeping cloud. For seventeenth-century physicians and divines, however, melancholy sat in the bowels or perhaps in the spleen.' See The Iron of Melancholy, 24. Osborne seems to partake of both discourses. 9 Freud, 'Mourning and Melancholia.' 10 Stanley Jackson remarks: 'In the terms melancholia and depression and their cognates, we have well over two millennia of the Western world's way of referring to a goodly number of different dejected states. At any particular time during these many centuries the term that was in common use might have denoted a disease, a troublesome condition of sufficient severity to be conceived of as a clinical entity; or it might have referred to one of a cluster of symptoms that was thought to constitute a disease.' See Melancholia and Depression, 3. 11 For remarks about the literary nature of the Anatomy, see Lyons, 'Burton and English Literature,' in Voices of Melancholy, 113-21. 12 For information on Margaret Cavendish's treatment with the steel cure, see Whitaker, Mad Madge, 111. Inorganic materials were associated with Paracelsus, who used inorganic compounds to combat imbalances in body chemistry. The dissolution in white wine may seem particularly striking, but Michael MacDonald describes Richard Napier's dissolution of various substances in white wine. See Mystical Bedlam, 190. For another curative use of an inorganic substance, see Nardo, '"Here's to Thy Health."' 13 Bacon, Essayes, 84. 14 See Marsom, 'County Cures.' 15 See Osborne, The Letters of Dorothy Osborne, ed. Moore Smith, 247. 16 Alderson, The Inland Resorts and Spas of Britain, 24. 17 Addison, English Spas, 2. 18 See Conway, The Conway Letters, 89. 19 Cited in Otten, English Women's Voices, 176. 20 Ibid., 176-84. 21 Swift, Journal to Stella, 2:558. 22 Beier, Sufferers and Healers, 95. 23 Baxter, The Autobiography of Richard Baxter, 252. 24 Isham, The Correspondence of Bishop Brian Duppa and SirJustinian Isham, 40. 25 See Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, and Ferrand, A Treatise on Lovesickness. For a consideration of the physical basis (or lack thereof) of love melancholy, see Beecher, 'The Lover's Body.'

Notes to pages 138-52

177

26 For a fascinating article on the connection between pain and pleasure in Renaissance love lyric, see Sagaser, 'Shakespeare's Sweet Leaves.' 27 Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, 3:88. 28 MacDonald, Mystical Bedlam, 88-98. 29 LadyTalmach (or Tollemache') was Elizabeth Murray (ca. 1628-98), the countess of Dysart, who married Sir Lionel Tollemache in 1647 and lived at Ham House, Petersham. She was clearly a spirited, strong-willed, intelligent woman. For more on Lady Tollemache, see Roundell, Ham House, Its History and Art Treasures. 30 MacDonald, Mystical Bedlam, 33-40. 31 Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, 1:414; cited in MacDonald, Mystical Bedlam, 33. 32 Osborne, The Letters of Dorothy Osborne, ed. Moore Smith, xli. 33 Stone, The Family, Sex and Marriage, 81. 34 Houlbrooke, The English Family, 1450-1700, 15. 35 Stannard, The Puritan Way of Death, 194-5. 36 For more on the interpersonal dynamics of illness, see Beier, Sufferers and Healers, 248. Charlotte Otten includes remarks about the role of women in medicine, providing other primary sources in her collection, English Women's Voices 1540-1700,173-217. 37 Beier, Sufferers and Healers, 242. 38 Sontag, Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphors. 39 Burton, 'The Author's Abstract of Melancholy,' l:lxx. 40 Evelyn, The Life of Mrs. Godolphin, 25. 41 Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, 2:203. 42 MacDonald, Mystical Bedlam, 170. 43 Samuel Butler, Characters, 97. 44 Speak, 'An Odd Kind of Melancholy.' 45 Bright, A Treatise of Melancholy, 38. 46 Foucault, The Care of the Self. 47 I am grateful to G.C. Moore Smith for this identification. 48 Mary Nyquist does not see Milton's tract as advocating an egalitarian companionate marriage; the divorce tracts stress the psychological needs of the male partner in marriage. See 'The Genesis of Gendered Subjectivity in the Divorce Tracts and in Paradise Lost,' 117-19. 49 Macaulay, Literary Essays Contributed to the Edinburgh Review, 424. 50 See, for example, Bordo, Unbearable Weight. A hard-hitting recent consideration of the topic of women and eating in the early modern period is Guiterrez, 'Double Standard in the Flesh.' 51 Cited in Aughterson, Renaissance Women, 89. This passage, however, is not

178 Notes to pages 152-7

52

53 54 55 56 57 58

typical of William Gouge's attitude towards the male-female relationship. For the most part, Gouge reenforces the hierarchical model where man is troped as the head, and woman as the irrational body. See also Hinds, God's Englishwomen, 26. Plato recounts that Socrates, facing death, describes human beings as in a 'guard post, from which one must not release oneself or run away ... the gods are our keepers, and we men are one of their possessions ... I suppose it is not unreasonable to say that we must not put an end to ourselves until God sends some compulsion like the one which we are facing now' (62c). See Plato, The Collected Dialogues of Plato, 45. Seneca, Letters from a Stoic, 60-1. Conway, The Conway Letters, 100. Quoted in Graham et al., Her Own Life, 62-6. Vicari, The View from Minerva's Tower, 5. Ibid., 6-7. Beier speaks of the differences between secular and religious approaches to illness. See Sufferers and Healers, 154.

Afterword 1 2 3 4 5 6

Lerch-Davis, 'Rebellion against Public Prose,' 405. Woolf, Second Common Reader, 56. Wade, 'Dorothy Osborne (Lady Temple) 1626-1695,' 101. Brooks, Reading for the Plot. Du Plessis, Writing beyond the Ending. Heilbrun, Writing a Woman's Life, 87.

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Index

ague, 132 Allen, Benjamin, I75n6 Altman, Janet, 44 Amussen, Susan Dwyer, 23 The Anatomy of Melancholy, 135 Anselment, Raymond, 21, 127 Aronson, Nicole, 167n6 ars dictaminis, 48 Artamene, ou, Le Grand Cyrus, 66, 68, 71, 73-4, 78, 79 Ashley, Maurice, 162n4 Astell, Mary, 74, 76 Aubrey, John, 116 Aughterson, Kate, 65, 152 Aurelius, Marcus, 153 Austen, Jane, 67 Austen, Katherine, 125 Austin, J.L., 58 Babb, Lawrence, I75n4 Bacon, Francis, 135 Bahktin, Mikhail, 44 Barbour, Violet, 160nl7 Barker, Arthur, 172n34 Barker, Jane, I75n72 Barnetspa, 133, 136

Battigelli, Anna, 167n6 Baucis and Philemon, 126, 130 Baxter, Richard, 137 beatus vir, 122 Beaumont, Agnes, 119 de Beauvoir, Simone, I74n64 Bedfordshire, 19 Beecher, DA, I76n25 Behn, Aphra, 4, 13, 30, 143 Beier, Lucinda, 132, 146, I77n36, I78n58 Belsey, Catherine, I70nl4 Bingham, Jane, 37 Blagge, Margaret, 108-9, 116, 148 Blount, Anne, 116-17 Blount, William, 116 Bordo, Susan, I77n50 Boyle, Roger, 66 Breton, Nicholas, 165nl8 Bright, Timothy, 134, 149 Brooks, Peter, 157 Browne, Thomas, I72n32 Brownstein, Rachel, I72n31 Bruce-Chwatt, Leonard Jan, I75n2 Bueler, Lois E., 91, 169n3 Bunyanjohn, 119-20

198 Index Burger, Glenn, 161n31 Burton, Robert, 135, 138-9, 144, 148, 154, 176n25 Butler, Judith, 58 Butler, Samuel, 148 Cadman, D.J., 162nll Caldwell, Patricia, I72n45 Calprenede, Gaultier de Coste, 17, 66 Calvin, John, I72n33 Campton Church, 21 Carisbrooke Castle, 21-2 Carlisle, Lucy Countess of, 47 carte de tendre, 71 Carteret, Captain, 20-1 Castle Cornet, 20-1 Catz, Rebecca D., 77 Cavendish, Margaret, 3,12, 15, 20, 41, 64, 117-19, 120, 135, 165nll Cawelti, John G., 167n22 Cecil, David, 13 Chambers, Douglas, I74n68 Charles I, 8, 19, 21 Charles II, 25, 77 Chicksands, 23, 101, 110, 125, 145 Chodorow, Nancy, I70n21 Chudleigh, Mary, 74, 76, I7ln29 Cleopatre, 66, 70-1, 78 Clifford, Arthur, I70nl5 Coburn, Alvin Langdon, 163n22 Collins, An, 154 conduct books, 104 continental influence, 19 Conway, Anne, 136, 153 coterie production, 85 country house, 125-6 country house poem, 125 Clarissa, 14 County Carlow, 24

Courtenay, Thomas Peregrine, 7-9, 62, 159nlO Cowley, Abraham, 93-4, I7ln29 Cressy, David, 65 Crewe, Jonathan, 174n67 Cromwell, Henry, 5, 29, 89, 100 Cromwell, Oliver, 19, 29, 116 Davideis, 93-4 Davis, Joanne, 167n6 Davis, Natalie Zemon, 167nl5 Day, Angel, 48 Daybell, James, 42, 159n8 De Jean, Joan, 67, 168n37 Dempster, Charlotte, 9-10 Derrida, Jacques, 59 Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, 137 dilatio, 55 Dobson, Mary, I75n2 Donagan, Barbara, 20 Donne, John, 85, 104, 137 Don Quixote, 75-6 Doody, Margaret Anne, 165nl8 Dragstra, Hank, 159n7 Dublin, 23 Du Plessis, Rachel Blau, 157 Dusinberre, Juliet, 161n44 Eales, Josephine, 52 egalitarianism, 32, 40, 130 Ehrenpreis, Irvin, 28, 168n31 Elias,A.C., 26, 164n49 Elizabeth I, 59, 60-1 English Civil War, 10-11, 16, 18-19, 20-1, 28-9, 88,125 Epsom, 133, 143 Erasmus, 42, 165n6 Evelyn, John, 109, 148 Evelyn, Mary, 41 Ezell, Margaret, 12

Index Faber, Richard, 163n30 female friends, 101 Ferguson, Moira, 159n2 Ferrand, Jacques, 138, I76n25 Finch, John, 136 Finell, Anne, 49 Finke, Laurie, I74n65 Fitzmaurice, James, 4, 96, 166n53, 168n40 Fitzmaurice, Susan M., 42, 165nn6, 9, 166n24 Forbes, Morgan E., 97 Ford, John, 90 Foucault, Michel, 107-8, 149 Fowler, Constance Aston, 32, I70nl5 french romance 64; and critique, 74, 85; and comportment, 72, 84; feminocentric nature, 67-8; and idleness, 71, 74; and male readers, 68; and real events, 69, 74-5; and royalism, 77; and same-sex desire, 67 Freud, Sigmund, 134 Fulwood, William, 48 Gainsford, Thomas, 48 gardens, 127 Gardiner, Dorothy, 162n2 Giffard, Martha, 5-6, 21-2, 24, 27-8, 96 Gilbert of Sempringham, 125 Gilbertine order, 125 Gilligan, Carol, I70n21 Gillis, Christina Marsden, 57, I74n66 Girard, Rene, 88 Girouard, Mark, I74n66 Godenne, Rene, 167n9 Golding, Brian, I73n52 Gomberville, Marin Le Roy de, 17, 66, 80 Gordon, Ian, 165n23

199

Gouge, William, 152 Graham, Elspeth, 159n5 Grayson, William C, I73n58 Greenblatt, Stephen, 60 Grey, Elizabeth, 136 Grose, Clyde L., 160nl7 Guernsey, 19-20, 22, 104 Guillen, Claudio, 56, 59 Guitierrez, Nancy, I77n50 Habermasjurgen, 123, 129 Hackett, Helen, 68 Hamilton, Richard, 26-7 Hammond, Colonel, 8, 21 Hammons, Pamela, I74n63 Harley, Brilliana, 52 Harris, Frances, 41 Hazen, Helen, 168n22 Heilbrun, Carolyn, 157 Hembry, Phyllis, I75n6 Henrietta Maria, 47, 133 Herm, 104, 122, 124, 126, 129 Herodotus, 75, 128, 150 Hickman, Katie, 25, 163n26 Hinds, Hilary, 159n5 Hobby, Elaine, 159n2 Hoby, Margaret, 159n5 Hopkins, Lisa, 169n5 Houlbrooke, Ralph, 145 Huebert, Ronald, 127 Humphrey, Richard, I73n58 Hutchinson, Lucy, 24, 38, 53-4, 163n21 illness, 131; and empathy, 145, 146-7, 150; and gender, 146, 151; psychological impact, 132; and reciprocity, 146, 153; social impact, 132, 150 incest, 89-90, 91-6 Irvine, Lyri L., 57

200 Index Isham, Justinian, 22, 50-2, 88, 92, 137 Isle of Wight, 21-2 Jackson, Stanley W., I75n5, I76nl0 Jagodzinski, Cecile M., 65, 85 Jersey, 21 Jesse, John Heneage, 163n35 Johnston, Denis, 164n49 JusserandJJ., 76, 167nl9, 168n27 Kalaniis, Catherine, I74n64 Kelsall, M.M., I74n61 Kenny, Virginia C., I74n61 King, John Owen, I76n8 Klein, Lawrence, 110 Krentzjayne Ann, 168n22 Lajoie, Paul, I73n58 Lanyer, Aemilia, 125 Lawrence, Anne, I75n2 Lennox, Charlotte, 65, 75-6 Lerch-Davis, Genie, 41, 62, 155, 162n52, 165n23 letters: and awareness of audience, 44, 49; compared to a drama, 13; compared to a novel, 14; as conversation, 17, 42-3, 49, 50, 55, 59; and daily life, 55-7; as debate, 4, 10, 16, 72-3; and endings, 18, 157-8; as essays in disguise, 49; as experimental space, 39, 43, 54; and exposure, 5, 113-14; as haven, 4, 87, 103-4, 130; and learning, 53-4; as performance, 43, 58, 61; and persuasion, 16, 31-3, 35, 40, 43, 64, 73,122; and rhetorical variety, 42, 49-50; and women, 51 Levi-Strauss, Claude, 91-2 Lewis, Eric, 159n2 life writing, 4

Locke, John, 120 Longe, Sara Rose, 9-10 love sickness, 138. See also melancholy Lowenthal, Cynthia, 43, 51, 65 Lucas, F.L., 90 Lyly,John, 144 Lyons, Bridget Gellert, I76nll McCracken, Scott, 167n22 Macauley, Thomas Babington, 6,8-11, 124, 151, 160nnlO, 15 MacDonald, Michael, 144, I76nl2 McKeon, Michael, 78 Malade Imaginaire, La, 143

malaria, 132 Marburg, Clara, 163n28 marriage: Osborne's opinions on, 31-2, 35-9, 82; and power relations, 32-3, 35; seventeenth-century, 23-4 Marvell, Andrew, 125, 127 Massey, William Cartwright, I73n58 Massinger, John, 48 Masten, Jeffrey, 3 Mathews, Tobie, 164n45 melancholy, 131, 133; definition of, 131-5; and gender, 144-5, 150; impact on Osborne-Temple courtship, 131-54; as indicator of character, 132; and love sickness, 138; as manipulation, 132; and mutual care, 132; and rationality, 148-9; and seduction, 132, 138-9; and solitude, 142; and the steel cure, 135-7; and uncertainty, 131, 134, 139, 141 Mendelson, Sara Heller, 128 Merchant, Carolyn, 174n65 Milton, John, 36, 106, 151 Mitchell, Karen S., 167n22 Modleski, Tania, 168n22

Index Moliere, 143 Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley, 24, 65 Montaigne, Michel de, 25-6 Moor Park (Hertfordshire), 24 Moor Park (Surrey), 25, 27, 124, 129 More, Henry, 153-4 Munro, James S., 167nl9 Napier, Richard, 140, 144, I76nl2 Nardo,AnnaK,l76nl2 Navarre, Marguerite de, 65 Netscher, Caspar, 28 Norbrook, David, 53, 162n4 Nyquist, Mary, 177n48 O'Day, Rosemary, 19, 44, 57-8 Osborne, Dorothy: childhood, 19; as a conservative voice, 3; education, 19; and family finances, 5, 21; and illness, 24, 131-54; letter writing techniques, 41-63; and melancholy, 131-54; and obligations, 4-6,15, 24, 95, 137, 146; opinions about marriage, 31-2, 35-9, 82; and politics, 15, 20-2, 25, 29,127; and privacy, 3, 5, 50,64, 73,103-6,110-12,114-15, 118, 121, 129; publication of the letters, 4, 6-11; as reader, 17, 64-86; and reputation, 104, 109, 111-12, 118-19; and social class, 6, 15-16, 23, 108, 111-12, 125-6; and Victorian reception, 4, 6-11, 24 Osborne, Francis, 37 Osborne, Henry, 66-7, 87, 147; and family pride, 91; and incest, 89-90, 91-6; role in the negotiations, 90, 92, 94-6 Osborne, Lady, 21 Osborne, Peter, 20-3, 56, 92 Ostovich, Helen, 165n6

201

Otten, Charlotte, I77n36 Ottway, Sheila, 14, 103, 159n7 Ovid, 18, 88,122,123-4,126,128-9 Pamela, 165nl8 panopticon, 108 Parker, Kenneth, 5, 15, 61, 76-7, 95, 125, I75n6 Parker, Patricia, 166n32 Parry, Edward Abbott, 9-11 Parry, I.D., 173n58 Parthenissa, 66, 76 pastoral, 88,121-2,124,126,127-30 Patterson, Annabel, 77 Paul, Saint, 137 Pepys, Samuel, 92, 117, I70nl2 Perry, Ruth, I7ln29 Petrarch, 33 Peyton, Thomas, 23, 46, 51, 95, 111 Philips, Katherine, 38, 104, I7ln23 Pinto, Fernao Mendez, 76-7 Plato, 153, 178n52 Poems and Fancies, 117 Pohl, Nicole, 174n62 Pokxandre, 66, 80-1 Pollack, Linda A., 159n5 Princess de Cleves, 121 print publication, 41, 43 privacy, 3, 5, 50, 64, 73,103-6,110-12, 114-15, 118, 121, 129 public weddings, 105. See also privacy Pym,John, 47 Radfordjean, 168n22 Radway, Janice, 168n30 Rey, Marline, 96, 166n53, 168n40 Rich, Diana, 70, 101,146 Richardson, R.C., 162n4 Richardson, Samuel, 14, 165nl8; rivals, 102; Henry Cromwell, 89;

202

Index

James Beverley, 89, 98; Jane Wright, 98-100; Justinian Isham, 88, 92; Mrs. Cl—, 100; Rogers, John, I75n72 Rosset, Francois de, 68 Roundell, Julia Anne Elizabeth Tollemache, 177n26 Rousset, Jean, 57 royalism, 8, 20, 77, 119, 124 Ruthin, Lady Grey de, 15, 101, 122 Sagaser, Elizabeth Harris, I77n26 St Giles Church, 24 St Malo, 19, 21 Sauer, Elizabeth, 165n6 Scholt, Grayce, 37 Scudery, Georges de, 74 Scudery, Madeleine de, 17, 66, 68, 71-2, 74, 79-80, 82,128 secretaries, 48 Sedgwick, Eve, 88, 92 Seneca, 153 sensibility, 17, 78-82, 85 Serre, Jean Puget de la, 48 Seymour, William, 60 Shadwell, Thomas, 133 Sheen, 25 Sidney, Algernon, 29 Sir Patient Fancy, 143 smallpox, 24, 142 Smith, G.C. Moore, 13,14, 27, 70, 84, 117, 145 Smith, Nigel, 162n4 Smith, S.K. Kellett, I73n56 Smith, Sidonie, 97, 172n51 Sontag, Susan, 147 spas, 133 Speak, Gill, 148 Spectator, 161n31 spleen, 133, 144. See also melancholy

Stan ton, Domna, 121, 159n7 steel cure, 135, 137 Steen, Sara Jayne, 60 Stewart, Susan, I74n67 Stimpson, Catherine, 59 Stone, Lawrence, 74, 110, 145, I75n2 Stuart, Arbella, 43, 59-61 surveillance, 17, 106, 113, 121; and Anglicanism, 106; and Calvinist doctrine, 106; Michel Foucault on, 108; and Osborne family, 106; and religion, 106 Swift, Jonathan, 26, 28, 30, 136 Sydenham, Thomas, 136 Tackenius, Ottho, 136 Talbot, Elizabeth, 60 Talbot, Richard, 26-7 Taylor, Jeremy, 33, 34, 64, 106, I75n72 Temple, Diana, 26, 28 Temple, Sir John (father), 5, 24, 95 Temple,John (son), 26-7 Temple, William: as essayist, 25-6, 54-5; and gardens, 25; meeting with Osborne, 8, 22; and melancholy, 141; political career, 7, 25; as reader, 114; and romances, 22, 68-70, 79 Thimelby, Katherine, 43, 61, 170nl5 Thynne, Isabella, 116-17, 120 Thynne, James, 116 Todd, Janet, 30, 65, 159n2 triangularity, 17, 87-102 Trottman, August, I73n58 Tunbridge, 133, 136 Tupper, F.B., 162n8, 169nl Turk, Edward Baron, 81 utopianism, 122, 128

Index 203 Valois, Margaret of, 15, 83-4 Vanbr ugh, John, 167nlO Vicari, Patricia, 154 Victorian reception, 4, 6-11, 24 Virgil, 126, 129 virginity, 128 Wade, Rosalind, 29-30, 156 Walker, Julia A., 58-9 Washington, Peter, 164n51 Webster, John, 90 Westminster Abbey, 28 Whigham, Frank, 169n5 Whitaker, Katie, I76nl2 White, Elizabeth Wade, 159n2

Wilcox, Helen, 159n5 William of Orange, 25-6, 29 Wolff, Michael, 160nl6 women's literacy, 65 women's literary history, 4, 12 Wood, Jenny, 173n56 Woolf, Virginia, 4, 11-12, 16, 18, 28, 42, 49, 56, 59, 103, 155-6 Woolfordjohn, 160nl6 Wright, Jane, 87, 97-100, 135, 140-2 Wright, Susan, 162n52 Wrightson, Keith, 23 Zulueta, Julian de, I75n2