as we found him. In my life I
never heard so ridiculous a discourse as he made us, and no old woman
who passes for a witch could have been more puzzled to seek what to say
to reasonable people than he was. He asked us more questions than we did
him, and caught at everything we said without discerning that we abused
him and said things purposely to confound him; which we did so perfectly
that we made him contradict himself the strangest that ever you saw.
Ever since this adventure, I have had so great a belief in all things of
this nature, that I could not forbear laying a peas-cod with nine peas
in't under my door yesterday, and was informed by it that my husband's
name should be Thomas. How do you like that? But what Thomas, I cannot
imagine, for all the servants I have got since I came hither I know none
of that name.

Here is a new song,--I do not send it to you but to your sister; the
tune is not worth the sending so far. If she pleases to put any to it, I
am sure it will be a better than it has here. Adieu.

_Letter 66._--"The Lost Lady" is a tragi-comedy by Sir William Berkely,
and is advertised to be sold at the shop of the Holy Lamb in the year
1639, which we may take as the probable date of its publication. Dorothy
would play Hermione, the heroine. We can imagine her speaking with
sympathetic accent lines such as these:

With what harsh fate does Heaven afflict me
That all the blessings which make others happy,
Must be my ruin?

The five Portugals to whom Dorothy refers as being hanged were the
Portuguese ambassador's brother, Don Pantaleon Sa, and four of his men.
The _Mercurius Politicus_ of November 1653 gives the following account
of the matters that led to the execution; and as it is illustrative of
the manners of the day, the account is here quoted at length:--

"NEW EXCHANGE IN THE STRAND. _November 21._--In the evening there
happened a quarrel between the Portugal ambassador's brother and two or
three others of that nation with one Mr. Gerard, an English gentleman,
whom they all fell upon; but he being rescued out of their hands by one
Mr. Anstruther, they retired home, and within an hour after returned
with about twelve more of their nation, armed with breastplates and
headpieces; but after two or three hours taken there, not finding
Anstruther, they went home again for that night.

"_November 22._--At night the ambassador's brother and the rest returned
again, a