OSBORNE, Dorothy (1627-1695). Letter-writer and wife of Sir William Temple.
Dorothy Osborne's copy of Ovid's Metamorphoses, signed by her ('D Osborne') on the frontispiece. Oxford, 1632. A highly important association copy, being the only book known to have belonged to Dorothy Osborne, and one to which she alludes in a letter to Sir William Temple by reference to a passage in Ovid (page 279 in this edition).

Ovid's Metamorphis Englished, Mythologiz'd and represented in figures by G[eorge] S[andys], Oxford, J Lichfield, 1632, folio, 20th century full panelled calf with spine gilt, frontispiece (signed by Dorothy Osborne and by two later owners) very soiled and strengthened, title page signed by one later owner, further illustrated frontispiece and fifteen further plates in good condition, the text generally in good to fine condition with some occasional damp-staining. STC 18966.

In her celebrated letters to Sir William Temple , whom she married in 1655, Dorothy Osborne alludes to Ovid (British Library, Additional Manuscripts, 33975, letter 54, ca January 1654):

'... Do you remember Arme [the island of Herm] and the little house there? Shall we go thither? that's next to being out of the world. There we might live like Baucis and Philemon, grow old together in our little cottage, and for our charity to some ship-wrecked strangers obtain the blessing of dying both at the same time. How idly I talk; 'tis because the story pleases me - none in Ovid so much. I remember I cried when I read it. Methought they were the perfectest characters of a contented marriage, where piety and love were all their wealth, and in their poverty feasted the gods when rich men shut them out. I am called away - farewell!'

The passage in question, on page 279 in this copy, is not marked in any way:

'A small thatch't Cottage: where, a pious wife
Old Baucis, and Philemon, led their life.
Both equall-ag'd. In this, their youth they spent;
In this, grew old: rich only in content.
Who povertie, by bearing it, declind:
And made it easie with a chearfull mind.
None Master, nor none servant, could you call;
They who command, obay; for two were all. ...'

[No: 20333]