Arundel Howard was Henry, second son of the Earl of Arundel.  His father died July 12, 1652.  Dorothy would call him Arundel Howard, to distinguish him from the Earl of Berkshire’s family.

SIR,—­You have made me so rich as I am able to help my neighbours.  There is a little head cut in an onyx that I take to be a very good one, and the dolphin is (as you say) the better for being cut less; the oddness of the figures makes the beauty of these things.  If you saw one that my brother sent my Lady Diana last week, you would believe it were meant to fright people withal; ’twas brought out of the Indies, and cut there for an idol’s head:  they took the devil himself for their pattern that did it, for in my life I never saw so ugly a thing, and yet she is as fond on’t as if it were as lovely as she herself is.  Her eyes have not the flames they have had, nor is she like (I am afraid) to recover them here; but were they irrecoverably lost, the beauty of her mind were enough to make her outshine everybody else, and she would still be courted by all that knew how to value her, like la belle aveugle that was Philip the 2nd of France his mistress.  I am wholly ignorant of the story you mention, and am confident you are not well inform’d, for ’tis impossible she should ever have done anything that were unhandsome.  If I knew who the person were that is concern’d in’t, she allows me so much freedom with her, that I could easily put her upon the discourse, and I do not think she would use much of disguise in it towards me.  I should have guessed it Algernon Sydney, but that I cannot see in him that likelihood of a fortune which you seem to imply by saying ’tis not present.  But if you should mean by that, that ’tis possible his wit and good parts may raise him to one, you must pardon if I am not of your opinion, for I do not think these are times for anybody to expect preferment in that deserves it, and in the best ’twas ever too uncertain for a wise body to trust to.  But I am altogether of your mind, that my Lady Sunderland is not to be followed in her marrying fashion, and that Mr. Smith never appear’d less her servant than in desiring it; to speak truth, it was convenient for neither of them, and in meaner people had been plain undoing one another, which I cannot understand to be kindness of either side.  She has lost by it much of the repute she had gained by keeping herself a widow; it was then believed that wit and discretion were to be reconciled in her person that have so seldom been persuaded to meet in anybody else.  But we are all mortal.

I did not mean that Howard.  ’Twas Arundel Howard.  And the seals were some remainders that showed his father’s love to antiquities, and therefore cost him dear enough if that would make them good.  I am sorry I cannot follow your counsel in keeping fair with Fortune.  I am not apt to suspect without just cause, but in earnest if I once find anybody faulty towards me, they lose me for ever;