AN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY LOVE LETTER.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 24, Issue 19, 11 March 1913, Page 2

AN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY LOVE LETTER.

This is how love-letters were written, at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Steele published it as an authentic document in the “Spectator” •“To her I very much respect, Mrs. Margaret Clarke. ‘"Lovely, and Oh that I could write loving Mrs. Margaret Clarke, I pray you let affection excuse Presumption. Having been so happy as to en.'oy the sight of your secret Countenance and comely Body, sometimes when I had occasion to buy Treacle or Liquorish Powder at the Apothecary’s shop, I am so enamoured with you, that I can no more keep close my flaming Desire to become your Servant.

“And I am the more bold now to write to your sweet self, because I am now my own Man, and may match where I please ; for my Father is taken away, and now I am come to my Living, which is Ten Yard Land, and a House • and there 1s never a Yard of Land in our Field but it is as well worth ten Pound a year as a Thief is worth a Halter; and all my Brothers and Sisters are provided for.

“Besides I have good Householdstuff, though I say it, both Brass and Pewter, Linntns and Woollensand tho igh my house may be thatched, yet, if you and I match, it shall go hard, but I will have one-half of it slated. If you think well of this Motion, I will wait upon you as soqu as my, new Cloaths isfcnade a nd Hay Harvest is in. . . .”

The pity of it is that the lady rejected this offer of Gabriel Bullock, and married Mr. Cole, the lawyer, of Northampton.—' ‘Liverpool Post.”