Books printed for, and sold by R. Wellington.

Familiar Letters:

Vol. I.

Written by the Right Honourable
John, late Earl of Rochester.
To the
Honble Henry Savile, Esq;
And other Letters, by
Persons of Honour and Quality.

With
Letters

Written by the most Ingenious
Mr. Thomas Otway,
and
Mrs. K. Phillips.

Publish’d from their Original Copies.

With Modern Letters, by Tho.
Cheek
, Esq; Mr. Dennis
And Mr. Brown.

The Fourth Edition, with Additions.

London: Printed for Rich. Wellington, at
the Dolphin and Crown, at the West-
End of St. Paul’s Church-Yard. 17051705.

excerpt136 pages K5r 137

Letters,

By the late Celebrated
Mrs. Katherine Phillips.

The Fam’d Orinda, to the Honourable
Berenice.

Your Ladiship’s last Favour from
Col. P—’s was truly obliging,
and carried so much of the same great
Soul of Yours, which loves to diffuse
it self in Expressions of Friendship to
me, that it merits a great deal more
Acknowledgment than I am able to pay
at my best Condition, and am less now
when my Head-akes, and will give me no
leave to enlarge, tho’ I have so much
Subject and Reason; but really if my
Heart ak’d too, I could be sensible of a
very great Kindness and Condescention in K5v 138
in thinking me worthy of Your Concern,
tho’ I visibly perceive most of my Letters
have lost their way to Your Ladiship. I
beseech You, be pleas’d first to believe I
have written every Post; but, secondly,
since I came, and then to enquire for
them, that they may be commended into
Your Hands, where alone they can hope
for a favourable residence: I am very
much a Sharer by Sympathy, in Your
Ladiship’s Satisfaction in the Converse
You had in the Country, and find that to
that ingenious Company Fortune had
been just, there being no Person fitter to
receive all the Admiration of Persons best
capable to pay them, than the great Berenice:
I hope your Ladiship will speak me
a real Servant of Dr. Wilkins; and all that
converse with You, have enrich’d all this
Summer with Yours. I humbly thank
Your Ladiship for Your Promise of Mr.
Boyle
’s Book, which indeed merits a publick,
not View only, but Universal Applause,
if my Vote be considerable in
things so much above me. If it be possible,
oblige me with the Sight of one of
them, which (if Your Ladiship command
it) shall be very faithfully return’d
You. And now (Madam) why was that K6r 139
that a cruel Question, When will You
come to Wales? ’Tis cruel to me, I confess
that it is yet in question; but I humbly
beg Your Ladiship to unriddle that
part of your Letter, for I cannot understand
why You, Madam, who have no
Persons alive, to whom Your Birth hath
submitted You, and have already by Your
Life secur’d to Your self the best Opinion
the World can give You, should create
an Awe upon Your own Actions, from
imaginary Inconveniencies: Happiness,
I confess, is twofac’d, and one is Opinion;
but that Opinion is certainly our own;
for it were equally ridiculous and impossible
to shape our Actions by others Opinions.
I have had so much (and some
sad) Reason to discuss this Principle, that
I can speak with some Confidence, That
none will ever be happy, who make their Happiness
to consist in, or be govern’d by the
Votes of other Persons.
I deny not but
the Approbation of wise and good Persons
is a very necessary Satisfaction; but
to forbear innocent Contentments, only
because it’s possible some Fancies may be
so capricious as to dispute, whether I
should have taken them, is, in my Belief,
neither better nor worse, than to fast always,ways, K6v 140
because there are some so superstitious
in the World, that will abstain from
Meat, upon some Score or other, upon
every Day in the Year, that is, some upon
some Days, and others upon others,
and some upon all. You know, Madam,
there is nothing so various as Vulgar Opinion,
nothing so untrue to it self: Who
shall then please, since none can fix it?
’Tis a Heresy (this of submitting to every
blast of popular Extravagancy) which I
have combated in Persons very dear to
me: Dear Madam, let them not have
Your Authority for a Relapse, when I had
almost committed them; but consider it
without a Byass, and give Sentence as
You see cause, and in that Interim put me
not off, Dear Madam, with those Chymera’s,
but tell me plainly what Inconvenience
is it to come? If it be one in earnest
I will submit, but otherwise I am so much
my own Friend, and my Friend’s Friend,
as not to be satisfied with Your Ladiship’s
taking measure of Your Actions by others
Opinion, when I know too that the severest
could find nothing in this Journey
that they could condemn, but your excess
of Charity to me, and that Censure
You have already supported with Parience,tience, K7r 141
and (notwithstanding my own
conciousness of no ways deserving your
sufferance upon that score) I cannot beg
You to recover the Reputation of your
Judgment in that particular, since it must
be my Ruine. I should now say very
much for your most obliging Commands
to me to write, and should beg frequent
Letters from your Ladiship with all possible
importunity, and should by command
from my Lucasia excuse her last
Rudeness (as she calls it) in giving You
account of her Honour for You under her
own Hand, but I must beg Your Pardon
now, and out-believing all, I can say upon
every one of these accounts, for really,
Madam, You cannot tell how to imagine
any Person more to any one than I am,

Madam,
Your Ladiships most faithful Servant,
and passionate Friend,

Orinda.

Lucasia K7v 142

Lucasia is most faithfully Your Servant:
I am very glad of Mr. Cowley’s
success, and will concern my self so much
as to thank your Ladiship for your endeavour
in it.

To K8r 143

To the
Honourable Berenice.

Dear Madam,

Ihave been so long silent, that I profess
I am now asham’d almost to beg
your Pardon, and were not Confidence in
your Ladiship’s Goodness a greater Respect
than the best Address in the World,
I should scarce believe my self capable of
remission; but when your Ladiship shall
know more fully than Papers can express,
how much and how many ways I have
suffered, you will rather wonder that I
write at all, than that I have not written
in a Week; when You shall hear that my
Dear Lucasia, by a strange unfortunate
Sickness of her Mother’s, has been kept
from me, for three Weeks longer than I
expected, and is not yet come: I have
had some difficulty to live, and truly,
Madam, so I have, and more difficulty to
be silent to You, but that in earnest my
disorder was too great to write: Dear
Madam
, pardon and pity me, and, to expresspress K8v 144
that You do both, be pleas’d to
hasten hither, where I shall pour all my
Trouble into your Bosom, and receive
thence all that consolation which I never
in my Life more needed than I now do.
You see, Madam, my presumption, or
rather Distraction to leap from Confessions
into Petitions, and those for advantages
so much above my merit: But what
is that, that the dear great Berenice can
deny her faithful Orinda? And what is it
that Orinda would not do or suffer, to obtain
that sweet and desired Converse, she
now begs of You? I am confident my
Lucasia will suddenly be here, to thank
You for Your Charity, which You will,
by coming, express to me, and the Obligation
You will put upon her by it; both
which shall be equally and constantly acknowledg’d
(if You will please to hasten
it) by

Your faithfully affectionate Friend,
and humble Servant,

Orinda.

To L1r 145

To the
Honourable Berenice.

Imust confess my self extreamly troubled,
to miss a Letter from your Ladiship
in a whole fortnight, but I must
beg You to believe your Silence did not
occasion mine; for my Ambition to converse
with You, and advantage in being
allow’d it, is too great for me to decline
any opportunity which I can improve
to obtain so much happiness: But
really the Box of Gloves and Ribbons
miss’d a conveniency of going, and a
Letter that attended them partak’d in
the same misfortune; and by this time,
and some days before it, I hope they have
reach’d You, for they were sent away above
a Week ago; and if so, all that I can
tell You of my Desire to see Your Ladiship
will be repetition, for I had with as
much earnestness as I was capable of,
begg’d it then, and yet have so much of
the Beggar in me, that I must redouble
that importunity now, and tell you, That
I gasp for You with an impatience that L is L1v 146
is not to be imagin’d by any Soul wound
up to a less concern in Friendship than
Yours is, and therefore I cannot hope to
make others sensible of my vast desires to
enjoy You, but I can safely appeal to Your
own illustrious Heart, where I am sure of
a Court of Equity to relieve me in all the
complaints and supplications my Friendship
can put up: Madam, I am assured
You love me, and that being once granted,
’tis out of dispute, that your Love must
have nobler circumstances than mine, but
because the greatness and reality of it
must be always disputed with You, by
me there must of necessity remain the obligingness
of your Love to weigh down
the Ballance, and give You that advantage
over me in Friendship, which You
unquestionably have in all things else,
and if this reasoning be true, (as sure
there are all Sciences in Friendship, and
then Logick cannot be excluded) I have
argued my self into a handsom necessity of
being eternally on the receiving hand,
but let me qualifie that seeming meanness,
by assuring You, that even that is
the greatest testimony of my esteem for
Your Ladiship, that ever I can give; for
I have a natural Pride (that I cannot much L2r 147
much repent of) which makes me very
unwilling to be oblig’d, and more curious
from whom I receive kindnesses
than where I confer them; so that being
contented to be perpetually in Your debt,
is the greatest Confession I can make of
the Empire You have over me, and really
that Priviledge is the last which I can
submit to part withal, to be just done in
Acts of Friendship, and that I do not only
yield You in all my Life past, but can
beg to have it continued by Your doing
me the greatest favour that ever I receiv’d
from You, by restoring me my dear and
honoured Berenice: This, Madam, is
but one Action, but like the Summ of
an Account, it contains the Value of all
the rest, and will so oblige and refresh
me, that I cannot express the satisfaction
I shall receive in it; I humbly thank
Your Ladiship for the assurance you have
given me, that You suddenly intend it,
and that You were pleas’d to be accountable
to me for Your stay till 1658-12-25Christmas,
which being now at hand, I hope You
will have neither Reason, Importunity,
nor Inclinations to retard the Happiness
you intend me: Really, Madam, I shall
and must expect it in these Holidays, and L2 a L2v 148
a disappointment to me is the greatest
of Miseries; and then, Madam, I trust
you will be convinc’d of this necessity
there is of your Life and Health, since
Heaven it self appears so much concern’d
in it, as to restore it by a Miracle: And,
truly had you been still in danger, I
should have look’d upon that as more
ominous than the Blazing-Star, so much
discours’d of; but you are one of those
extraordinary Blessings which are the
Publick Concernments, and are, I trust,
reserv’d to be yet many Years an Example
of Honour and Ornament to Religion.

Oh, Madam, I have abundance to
tell you and ask you, and if you will
not hasten to hear it, you will be almost
as cruel as Arsaces; but you will come,
and, if you find any thing in this Letter
that seems to question it, impute it to
the continual distrust of my own merit,
which will not permit me easily to believe
my self favoured: Dear Madam,
if you think me too timerous, confute
me by the welcome Experiment of your
Company, which, really, I perpetually
long for, and again beg, as you love
me, and claim as you would have me be- L3r 149
believe it; I am glad your Ladiship has
pitch’d on a place so near me, you shall
be sufficiently persecuted with Orinda.
I know you will pardon me, for not acquainting
you with the News you heard
from other hands, when I tell you, there
is nothing of it true, and the Town is
now full of very different Discourse; but
I shall tell you more particularly, when I
have the honour to see you; and, till
then, cannot with conveniency do it. I
easily believe Deus factious; but in those
Disputes, I think he discovers more
Wit than Wisdom, and your Ladiship
knows they are inseparable; I shall lose
the Post, if I do not now hasten to subscribe,
what I am always ready to make
good, that I am more than any one
living,

Your Ladiships most faithful,
and most passionate
Friend and Servant,

Orinda.

L3 To L3v 150

To the
Honourable Berenice.

With the greatest Joy and Confusion
in the World, I receiv’d, Dear
Madam
, your Ladiships most obliging
Letter from Kew, and thus far I am reconciled
to my own Omissions, that they have
produc’d a Shame, which serves me now
to allay a Transport, which had otherwise
been excessive at the knowledge that I
am to receive, that notwithstanding all
my Failings, you can look upon me with
so generous a Concern: I could make
many Apologies for my self, and with
truth tell you, That I have ventur’d Papers
to kiss your Ladiship’s Hand, since
I received one from it; but really, Madam,
I had rather owe my Restitution
wholly to your Bounty, than seem to
have any pretence to it my self, and I
will therefore allow my self utterly unworthy
of having any room in your
Thoughts, in that I have not perpetually
begg’d it of you, with that Assiduity as is
suitable to so great and so valued a Blesing;ing; L4r 151
and I know that tho’ a Sea has divided
our Persons, and many other Accidents
made your Ladiships Residence uncertain
to me, yet I ought to have been
restless in my Enquiries how to make my
Approaches to you; and all the Varieties,
and Wandrings, and Troubles that I have
undergone since I had the honour to see
your Ladiship, ought not to have distracted
me one moment from the payment of
that Devotion to you, which, if you please
I will swear never to have been one jot
lessen’d in my Heart, as ill and as seldom
as I have express’d it; but now, that my
good Fortune has brought me once more
so near your Ladiship, I hope to redeem
my Time, by so constant and fervent
Addresses to you, as shall both witness
how unalterably I have ever lov’d and honour’d
you, and how extreamly glad I
am still to be preserv’d in so noble and so
priz’d a Heart as yours; and, that I may
the sooner be secur’d of that, and restor’d
to your Converse, I must beg your Ladiship
to find some occasion that may bring
you to London, where I may cast my self
at your Feet, both in repentance of my
own Faults, and acknowledgment of your
Goodness, and assure you that neither Lucasia,L4 casia, L4v 152
nor any other Person, ever had the
Will, the Power, or the Confidence to
hinder the Justice of my most affectionate
Service to your Ladiship, and tho’ you
fright me with telling me how much you
have considered me of late, yet I will
venture upon all the Severity that Reflection
can produce; and if it be as great
as I may reasonably fear, yet I will submit
to it for the Expiation of my Failings,
and think my self sufficiently happy
if after any Penance, you will once more
receive me into your Friendship, and allow
me to be that same Orinda, whom
with so much goodness you were once
pleased to own as most faithfully yours,
and who have ever been, and ever will be
so: And, Dear, Dear Madam,

Your Ladiship’s most affectionate
humble Servant and Friend,

K. Phillips.

This was wrote but a Month before Orinda
died.

To L5r 153

To Mr. Herbert.

Ireceived your two Letters against
Hyprocrisie and Love, but I must tell
you, they have made me no Convert
from Women, and their Favourite; for
who, like Simonides, wou’d give nine
scandalous Origins to Womankind, for
one good one, meerly because the Follies
and Vices of that Sex deserve it, and yet
hope ever to make your Account of
them? Or who, with Petronius Arbiter
would tell the Lawyers,

Quid faciunt Leges ubi sola pecunia regnat?

Aut ubi paupertas vincere nulla potest,

Ipsi qui Cynica traducunt tempora cena,

Nonnunquam nummis vendere verba solent,

Ergo judicium, nihil est nisi publica Merces

Atq; eques in cause qui sedet empta probat.

Thus English’d by Mr. Barnaby.

Laws bear the Name, but Money has the
Power;

The cause is bad when e’er the Cllent’s Poor;

Those L5v 154

Those strict-liv’d Men that seem above our
World,

Are oft too modest to resist our Gold;

So Judgment, like our other Wares, is sold;

And the Grave Knight that nods upon the
Laws,

Wak’d by a Fee, Hems, and approves the
Cause.

That the Bar is but a Market for the Sale
of Right, and that the Judge sits there
only to confirm what the Bribe had secur’d
before, and yet hope ever to escape
when you come into their Hands? Or
what Man that has his Interest before his
Eyes, would tell this dangerous Truth,
That Priests of all Religions are the same?

No, no, Plain-dealing must be left to
Manly, and confin’d to the Theatre, and
permit Hypocrisie and Nonsence to prevail
with those pretty Amusements, Women,
that like their own Pleasure too well, to be
fond of Sincerity. You declaim against
Love on the usual Topicks, and have
scarce any thing new to be answer’d by
me, their profess’d Advocate, if by Repentance
you mean the Pain that accompanies
Love; all other Pleasures are mixt with 155
with that, as well as Love, as Cicero observes
in his second Book de Oratore, “Omnibus
rebus, voluptatibus maximis fastidium
finitimum est”
: “In all things where the greatest
Pleasures are found, there borders a satiety
and uneasie pain.”
And Catullus, “Non est
dea nescia nostri, quæ dulcem euris miscet
amaritiem”
: “Nor am I unknown to that
bright Goddess, who with my Cares mingles a
sweet pleasing Bitter.”
But I take this Pain
in Love to proceed from the imperfection
of our Union with the Object belov’d,
for the Mind forms a thousand entrancing
Idea’s, but the Body is not capable
of coming up to that satisfaction the Mind
proposes; but this Pain is in all other
Pleasures that we have, none of which
afford that fulness of Pleasure, as Love,
which bears some proportion to the vehemence
of our Desires: Speak therefore
no more against Love, as you hope to die
in the Arms of Sylvia, or not perish
wretchedly in the Death of a Pumpkin.
I am

Your Friend, &c.
excerpt79 pages