gliding into a very pretty and endearing sort of preaching, yet not too
good to partake of such diversions as London afforded under the
melancholy rule of the Puritans, or to giggle a little at a ridiculous
sermon from a divine who was thought to be one of the great lights of
the Assembly at Westminster; with a little turn for coquetry, which was
yet perfectly compatible with warm and disinterested attachment, and a
little turn for satire, which yet seldom passed the bounds of good
nature. She loved reading; but her studies were not those of Queen
Elizabeth and Lady Jane Grey. She read the verses of Cowley and Lord
Broghill, French Memoirs recommended by her lover, and the Travels of
Fernando Mendez Pinto. But her favourite books were those ponderous
French romances which modern readers know chiefly from the pleasant
satire of Charlotte Lennox. She could not, however, help laughing at the
vile English into which they were translated. Her own style is very
agreeable; nor are her letters at all the worse for some passages in
which raillery and tenderness are mixed in a very engaging namby-pamby.

"When at last the constancy of the lovers had triumphed over all the
obstacles which kinsmen and rivals could oppose to their union, a yet
more serious calamity befell them. Poor Mistress Osborne fell ill of
the small-pox, and, though she escaped with life, lost all her beauty.
To this most severe trial the affection and honour of the lovers of that
age was not unfrequently subjected. Our readers probably remember what
Mrs. Hutchinson tells us of herself. The lofty Cornelia-like spirit of
the aged matron seems to melt into a long forgotten softness when she
relates how her beloved Colonel 'married her as soon as she was able to
quit the chamber, when the priest and all that saw her were affrighted
to look on her. But God,' she adds, with a not ungraceful vanity,
'recompensed his justice and constancy by restoring her as well as
before.' Temple showed on this occasion the same justice and constancy