have many other letters to write, so must take till Thursday also for that. I am, dear Prue, Ever yours, RICH. STEELE. I shall return to London the beginning of next week; and I know the Parliament will separate for some days after they meet, which time I would take to come with a coach and six horses for you, accompanied by Mrs. Pugh. If you like this, I think it would close your negotiations with a good air, and drown all impertinencies about us. 413. TO LADY STEELE. EITON, IN SCOTLAND, DEAR PRUE, NOV. 11, 1717. YOURS of October 31, came to my hand just now between six and seven the second morningI should say Monday the third morning, going into the coach on my return to London. I hope, God willing, to be at London Saturday come se'nnight. I will pay off the news when I come to town, and forbid it. I'desire you would answer as to my proposal of coming down for you in a coach and six – with Mrs. Clark; which, I think, will pin up your affairs with a good grace, and shew your power over Your most obedient husband, 414. TO LADY STEELE. DEAR PRUE, PEARCE BRIDGE, IN THE COUNTY OF DURHAM, FRIDAY, NOV. 15, 1717. I AM now at my inn, in perfect good health, with my limbs much better than usual, after seven days journey from Edinburgh towards London. You cannot imagine the civilities and honours I had done me there; and never lay better, ate or drank better, or conversed with men of better sense than there. I grow very fond of waiting upon you, and bringing you from Wales, when the House is ad- ‹ journed for a few days; and, since you hear travelling agrees with me, I hope to receive your permission to attend you. It will be a ridiculous thing for me to go down thither without you, and, when you are there, never come near the place; and I am firmly resolved to see your territories the first deisure days from Parliament. Therefore you must consider whether you will let me bring you, or come alone, and go backward and forward with me again this winter: for, as for seasons and bad roads, I despise those considerations, when I have a view for the good of my Family or Country. Yours ever, RICH. STEELE. We shall, God willing, be at York on Friday, and London the Saturday following. 415. TO 415. TO LADY STEELE, DEAR PRUE, arrival. but, lest WEDNESDAY NIGHT, DEC. 4, 1717. YOURS of Sunday was very late notice of your Wilmot went to meet you that very day; you should escape him, I send Mr. Evans to meet you on the day you hope to come. I write this after being in the House of Commons from one at noon to twelve at night, where King George -begins to have true and real honest power. You come in smiles; and I will sacrifice all to your good-humour. Obediently yours, RICH. STEELE. I am glad to find journeying agrees with you as well as me. I hope we shall never part more. THURSDAY MORN. I went to bed last night after taking only a little broth; and all the day before a little tea and breadand-butter, with two glasses of mum and a piece of bread at the House of Commons. Temperance and your company, as agreeable as you can make it, will make life tolerable, if not easy, even with the gout. God give us an happy meeting! 416. FROM MRS. MANLEY *. [1717.] WHEN men cast their eyes upon epistles of this kind, from the name of the person who makes * Daughter of Sir Robert Manley, a zealous Royalist. Early in life she was cheated into marriage with a near relation, of her own name, who had at the same time a former wife living. Deserted by her husband, she was patronised by the Duchess of Cleveland, who growing tired of Mrs. Manley in six months, discharged her, on pretence that she intrigued with her son. Retiring into solitude, she wrote her first Tragedy, "The Royal Mischief." This play being acted in 1696 with great success, she received such unbounded incense from admirers, that her apartment was crowded with men of wit and gaiety, which, in the end, proved fatal to her virtue. In the same year she also published "The lost Lover, or, jealous Husband," a Comedy. -In her retired hours she wrote "The Atalantis;" for which, she having made free in it with several characters, her printer was apprehended, by a warrant from the Secretary's office. Mrs. Manley, unwilling an innocent person should suffer, presented herself before the Court of King's-Bench as the author. Lord Sunderland, then Secretary of State, being curious to know from whom she got information of several particulars which were supposed above her own intelligence, she replied with great humility," that she had no design in writing, further than her own amusement and diversion in the country, without intending particular reflections and characters; and did assure them, that nobody was concerned with her." When this was not be lieved, and the contrary urged against her by several circumstances, she said, "then it must be by inspiration; because, knowing her own innocence, she could account for it no other way." Whether those in power were ashamed to bring a woman to trial for a few amorous trifles, or whether (her characters being under feigned names) the laws did not actually reach her, she was the address, and of him who receives it, they, usually have reason to expect applauses improper either to be given or accepted by the parties con was discharged after several public examinations. On the change of the Ministry, she lived in reputation and gaiety, and amused herself in writing Poems and Letters, and conversing with the Wits. A second edition of a volume of her Letters was published in 1713. "Lucius," a well-received Tragedy, was written by her, and acted in 1717. It was dedicated, as above, to Sir Richard Steele, who was then on such friendly terms with her, that he wrote the prologue to this Play, as Mr. Prior did the epilogue. She died July 11, 1724.-The welfare of society being not at all affected by the misdeeds of those who have acquired any degree of eminence being known; on the contrary, when it is seen that, in spite of considerable talents, poverty and contempt (as in the present instance) generally accompany any deviations from the rule of right, it will tend to promote the practice of virtue, and be attended with consequences beneficial to the community; the following well-authenticated anecdote of Mrs. Manley is here preserved. In 1705 she was concerned with one Mrs. Mary Thompson, a young woman who had been kept by a gentleman of the name of Pheasant, of Upwood, in Huntingdonshire, and then deceased, in prosecuting a suit in Doctors Commons, on the part of Mrs. Thompson, as the widow of Mr. Pheasant; the object of the suit being to establish her right of dower out of Mr. Pheasant's estates, which were about 1500%. a year. It appears, on the evidence, which is recorded in Doctors Commons, that Mrs. Manley and Mrs. Thompson were jointly concerned in the prosecution, and that she was to have had 100l. per annum for life, if it had succeeded. They had procured one Edmund Smith, a very infamous fellow, and then a prisoner in the Fleet, to forge a marriage entry in the register at a church in Aldersgate Street, which was supported by Smith's swearing himself to have procured the parson who performed the ceremony; and that he and a Mr. Abson were present at the wedding. The parson fixed on was one Dr. Cleaver, who appears, from the evidence, to have been a low and scandalous priest, and, it is believed, the man who married at the Fleet. Cleaver |