XIX
For the two Excellent Sisters
Though I conceive you (ladies) so much at leisure that you may read anything, yet since the stories of the town are merely amorous, and sound nothing but love, I cannot, without betraying my own judgment, make them news for Wales. Nor can it be less improper to transport them to you, than for the king to send my Lord of C over ambassador this winter into Greenland.
It would want faith in so cold a country as Anglesey, to say that your cousin Duchess, for the quenching of some foolish flames about her, has endured quietly the loss of much of the king's favour, of many of her houses, and of most of her friends.
Whether the disfigurement that travel or sickness has bestowed upon B. W. be thought so great by the Lady of the Isle as 'tis by others, and whether the alteration of his face has bred a change in her mind, it never troubles you, ladies. What old loves are decay'd, or what new ones are sprung up in their room; whether this lady be too discreet, or that cavalier not secret enough, are things that concern the inhabitants of Anglesey not at all. A fair day is better welcome and more news than all that can be said in this kind; and for all that I know now, the devil's chimney is on fire, or his pot seething over, and all North Wales not able to stay the fury of it. Perchance while I write this, a great black cloud is sailing from Mistress Thomas's bleak mountains over to Baron-Hill, there to disgorge itself with what the sea or worse places fed it with before.
It may be, the honest banks about you turn bankrupt too, and break; and the sea, like an angry creditor, seizes upon all, and hath no pity, because he has been put off so long from time to time. For variety (and it is not impossible), some boisterous wind flings up the hangings; and thinking to do as much to your clothes, finds a resistance, and so departs, but first breaks all the windows about the house for it in revenge.
These things, now, we that live in London cannot help, and they are as great news to men that sit in boxes at Black-Friars, as the affairs of love to flannel-weavers.
For my own part, I think I have made a great compliment when I have wished myself with you, and more than I dare make good in winter; and yet there is none would venture farther for such a happiness than
