The Works of Thomas Carlyle/Volume 6/Letter 86
Dutch Dorislaus, the learned Doctor, late Judge-Advocate, employed in many weighty things, and soon to be employed in the weightiest, wants now a very small accommodation which is in the gift of certain Cambridge people. A busy Lieutenant-General, while the world-whirlwind is piping loud, has to write for him this small Note withal:
TO THE RIGHT WORSHIPFUL THE MASTER AND FELLOWS OF TRINITY HALL IN CAMBRIDGE: THESE
Gentlemen,—I am given to understand that by the late decease of Dr. Duck, his Chamber hath become vacant in the Doctors Commons “here”;—to which Dr. Dorislaus now desireth to be your tenant: who hath done service unto the Parliament from the beginning of these Wars, and hath been constantly employed by the Parliament in many weighty affairs; and especially of late, beyond the seas, with the States General of the United Provinces.
If you please to prefer him before any other, paying rent and fine to your College, I shall take it as a courtesy at your hand; whereby you will oblige, your assured friend and servant,
Whether Dorislaus got Duck’s Chamber, we shall not ask; being, some three weeks hence, employed as Advocate in the King’s Trial, and shortly after assassinated at the Hague for that work,[2] it proved to be of no importance to Dorislaus. The loud world-whirlwind pipes as before.