John Dryden (1631-1700), one of England’s finest poets and her first poet laureate, left behind relatively few personal letters. These have now been collected and published in a scholarly edition by Stephen Bernard. I was reading a review of it in The New Criterion which quoted this passage from a letter Dryden sent to a young female cousin in 1700:
My Journey to London, was yet more unpleasant than my abode at Tichmarsh: for the Coach was Crowded up with an Old woman, fatter than any of my Hostesses on the Rode. I must confess she was for the most part Silent, unless it were, that sometimes her backside talkd; & that discourse was not over savoury to the Nose.
lol. Vintage fart humor. [I’ve had the same experience flying coach.—Ed.]
Stephen Bernard, with John McTague. (2022). The Correspondence of John Dryden. Manchester University Press.