arrival here, and cannot
imagine how you came to miss of my letters. Is your father returned yet,
and do you think of coming over immediately? How welcome you will be.
But, alas! I cannot talk on't at the rate that you do. I am sensible
that such an absence is misfortune enough, but I dare not promise myself
that it will conclude ours; and 'tis more my belief that you yourself
speak it rather to encourage me, and to your wishes than your hopes.

My humour is so ill at present, that I dare say no more lest you chide
me again. I find myself fit for nothing but to converse with a lady
below, that is fallen out with all the world because her husband and she
cannot agree. 'Tis the pleasantest thing that can be to hear us
discourse. She takes great pains to dissuade me from ever marrying, and
says I am the veriest fool that ever lived if I do not take her counsel.
Now we do not absolutely agree in that point, but I promise her never to
marry unless I can find such a husband as I describe to her, and she
believes is never to be found; so that, upon the matter, we differ very
little. Whensoever she is accused of maintaining opinions very
destructive of society, and absolutely prejudicial to all the young
people of both sexes that live in the house, she calls out me to be her
second, and by it has lost me the favour of all our young gallants, who
have got a custom of expressing anything that is nowhere but in fiction
by the name of "Mrs. O----'s husband." For my life I cannot beat into
their heads a passion that must be subject to no decay, an even perfect
kindness that must last perpetually, without the least intermission.
They laugh to hear me say that one unkind word would destroy all the
satisfaction of my life, and that I should expect our kindness should
increase every day, if it were possible, but never lessen. All this is
perfect nonsense in their opinion; but I should not doubt the convincing
them if I could hope to be so happy as to be

Yours.

_Letter 65._--Of William Lilly, a noted and extraordinary character of
that day, the following account is taken from his own _Life and Times_,
a lively book, full of amusing lies and astrological gossip, in which
the author describes himself as a student of the Black Art. He was born
in 1602 at Diseworth, an obscure town in the north of Leicestershire.
His family appear to have been yeomen in this town for many generations.
Passing over the measles of his infancy, and other