"1658.
"My LORD,--I received yours, though not without great trouble, but am
not guilty of any thing you lay to my charge, nor will I ever alter from
the expressions I have formerly made, therefore I hope you will not be
so unjust as to beleive all that the world sayes of mee, but rather
credit my protestation of never having named you to my friends, being
allwayes carefull of that for my own sake as well as yours; and
therefore let it not be in the power of any, nor of your own
inclinations, to make mee less,
Your very humble Servant.
"If you will meet mee in the Old Exchange, about six a clock, I will
justify my selfe."--_Letters of Philip, second Earl of Chesterfield_,
1829, p. 95. This was the same Earl of Chesterfield to whom Dryden
dedicated the _Georgics_ thirty years later.
As Dryden's detractors have been nearly as anxious to blacken his wife's
character as his own, they have seized on this letter to confirm the
reckless and random assertions of contemporary libellers, that her
reputation was questionable. The matter may be left to readers to
decide,--I can see nothing in the phrases necessarily implying any
improper intimacy.
Perhaps it is not superfluous to observe that Scott has not shown his
accustomed judgment and knowledge of the seventeenth century in his
remark about the Howards and the tobacconists. The separation between
classes, as such, was indeed sharp; but it was probably rather more than
less usual then than now for scions of noble and gentle families to go
into retail trade.
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