him show it you before he sends it me, for I will not altogether trust
to his honesty; you see I make no scruple of giving you little idle
commissions, 'tis a freedom you allow me, and that I should be glad you
would take. The Frenchman that set my seals lives between Salisbury
House and the Exchange, at a house that was not finished when I was
there, and the master of the shop, his name is Walker, he made me pay
50s. for three, but 'twas too dear. You will meet with a story in these
parts of _Cléopâtre_ that pleased me more than any that ever I read in
my life; 'tis of one Délie, pray give me your opinion of her and her
prince. This letter is writ in great haste, as you may see; 'tis my
brother's sick day, and I'm not willing to leave him long alone. I
forgot to tell you in my last that he was come hither to try if he can
lose an ague here that he got in Gloucestershire. He asked me for you
very kindly, and if he knew I writ to you I should have something to say
from him besides what I should say for myself if I had room.

Yrs.


_Letter 14._--This letter contains the most interesting political
reference of the whole series. Either Temple has written Dorothy an
account of Cromwell's dissolving the Long Parliament, or perhaps some
news-letter has found its way to Chicksands with the astounding news.
All England is filled with intense excitement over Cromwell's _coup
d'état_; and it cannot be uninteresting to quote a short contemporary
account of the business. Algernon Sydney's father, the Earl of
Leicester, whose journal has already been quoted, under date Wednesday,
April 20th, 1653, writes as follows:--"My Lord General came into the
House clad in plain black clothes with grey worsted stockings, and sat
down, as he used to do, in an ordinary place." Then he began to speak,