The Lady Venetia Digby, &c.] This celebrated lady, Venetia Anastasia Stanley, was the daughter of Sir Edward Stanley of Tong Castle, Shropshire. Her story, which is somewhat remarkable, is given at length by Aubrey and Antony Wood, from whom I have taken what follows: "She was a most beautiful, desirable creature; and being matura viro, was left by her father, to live with a tenant and servants at Enston Abbey; but as private as that place was, it seems her beauty could not lie hid: the young eagles had espied her, and she was sanguine and tractable, and of much suavity, (which to abuse was great pity.)

"In those days Richard, Earl of Dorset, lived in the greatest splendour of any nobleman of England. Among other pleasures that he enjoyed, Venus was not the least. This pretty

Of death and darkness; and deprive
Their names of being kept alive,
By Thee and Conscience, both who thrive
By the just trade

Of goodness still vouchsafe to take
This cradle, and for goodness sake,
A dedicated ensign make

Thereof to Time;

That all posterity, as we,
Who read what the Crepundia be,
May something by that twilight see
'Bove rattling rhyme.

creature's fame quickly came to his ears, who made no delay to catch at such an opportunity. I have forgot who first brought her to town:but the, Earl of Dorset aforesaid was her greatest gallant; he was extremely enamoured of her, and had one, if not more children by her. He settled on her an annuity of 500l. per annum. Among other young sparks of that time, Sir Kenelm Digby grew acquainted with her, and fell so much in love with her that he married her.

"She had a most lovely sweet-turned face, delicate dark-brown hair: she had a perfectly healthy constitution, good skin; well-proportioned; inclining to a bona-roba. (a) Her face a

(a) Poor Aubrey appears to think bona-roba synonymous with embonpoint.

short oval, dark browne eye-brow, about which much sweetness, as also in the opening of her eye-lids. The colour of her cheeks was just that of the damask rose, which is neither too hot nor too pale. See Ben Jonson's 2nd volume, where he hath made her live in poetry, in his drawing of her both body and mind."-Letters, &c., vol. ii. p. 332.

What truth there may be in these aspersions, I know not; that they had some foundation can scarcely be doubted. But whatever was the conduct of this "beautiful creature" before her marriage with Sir Kenelm, it was most exemplary afterwards; and she died universally beloved and lamented.

The amiable and virtuous Habington has a poem on her death addressed to Castara:

"Weep not, Castara," &c. This speaks volumes in her praise, for Habington would not have written, nor would his Castara have wept, for an ordinary character. Randolph and Feltham have each an Elegy upon her, as has Rutter, the author of the Shepherds Holiday. In Randolph's poem I was struck with four lines of peculiar elegance, which I give from recollection:

Bring all the spices that Arabia yields,
Distil the choicest flowers that paint the fields;
And when in one their best perfections meet,
Embalm her corse, that she may make them

sweet.

"

For mind and body the most excellent
That ever nature, or the later air,
Gave two such houses as Northumberland
And Stanley, to the which she was co-
heir.

Speak it, you bold Penates, you that stand At either stem, and know the veins of good

Run from your roots; tell, testify the grand Meeting of Graces, that so swelled the flood

Of Virtues in her, as, in short, she grew The wonder of her sex, and of your blood.

And tell thou, Alde-legh, none can tell

more true

Thy niece's line, than thou that gav'st thy name

Into the kindred, whence thy Adam drew
Meschines honour, with the Cestrian fame
Of the first Lupus, to the family
By Ranulph-

The rest of this song is lost.

III.

THE PICTURE OF THE BODY. Sitting, and ready to be drawn,

What make these velvets, silks, and lawn, Embroideries, feathers, fringes, lace, Where every limb takes like a face?

Lady Digby was found dead in her bed, with her cheek resting on her hand: to this Habington alludes"She past away

So sweetly from the world, as if her clay
Laid only down to slumber."

"Some (says Aubrey) suspected that she was poisoned. When her head was opened, there was found but little brain, which her husband imputed to her drinking of viper-wine; but spiteful women would say 'twas a viper-husband, who was jealous of her.' This fact of the little brain is thus alluded to by Owen Feltham :

"Yet there are those, striving to salve their own
Deep want of skill, have in a fury thrown
Scandal on her, and say she wanted brain.
Botchers of nature! your eternal stain
This judgment is," &c.

Sir

Aubrey, it is probably a mere calumny. With respect to the insinuation noticed by Kenelm was distractedly fond of his lady, and, as he was a great dabbler in chemistry, is said to have attempted to exalt and perpetuate her beauty by various extracts, cosmetics, &c., to some of which, Pennant suggests, she might probably fall a victim. The better opinion, however, was that she died in a fit. Her death took place in 1633, when she was just turned of thirty-two. She left three sons.

Send these suspected helps to aid
Some form defective, or decayed;
This beauty, without falsehood fair,
Needs nought to clothe it but the air.
Yet something to the painter's view,
Were fitly interposed; so new:
He shall, if he can understand,
Work with my fancy his own hand.

Draw first a cloud, all save her neck,
And out of that, make day to break ;
Till like her face it do appear,

And men may think all light rose there.

Then let the beams of that disperse
The cloud, and shew the universe;
But at such distance, as the eye
May rather yet adore than spy.
The heaven designed, draw next a spring,
With all that youth or it can bring:
Four rivers branching forth like seas,
And Paradise confining these.1

Last, draw the circles of this globe,
And let there be a starry robe
Of constellations 'bout her hurled;
And thou hast painted Beauty's world.
But, painter, see thou do not sell
A copy of this piece; nor tell
Whose 'tis but if it favour find,
Next sitting we will draw her mind

IV.

THE PICTURE OF THE MIND.

Painter, you're come, but may be gone,
Now I have better thought thereon,
This work I can perform alone;
And give you reasons more than one.
Not that your art I do refuse;

But here I may no colours use.
Beside, your hand will never hit,
To draw a thing that cannot sit.
You could make shift to paint an eye,
An eagle towering in the sky,
The sun, a sea, or soundless pit;2
But these are like a mind, not it.

1 Four rivers branching forth, like seas, And Paradise confining these.] That could never be the case: the land may be confined by the rivers, though not these by the land. And this the sacred historian tells us was the situation of Paradise; for confining, therefore, we must read, confined in these. WHAL.

Whalley has prayed his pible ill, and the poet is a better scriptural geographer than the priest.

No, to express this mind to sense,
Would ask a heaven's intelligence;
Since nothing can report that flame,
But what's of kin to whence it came.
Sweet Mind, then speak yourself, and say,
As you go on, by what brave way
Our sense you do with knowledge fill,
And yet remain our wonder still.

I call you, Muse, now make it true:
Henceforth may every line be you;
That all may say, that see the frame,
This is no picture, but the same.

A mind so pure, so perfect fine,
As 'tis not radiant, but divine;
And so disdaining any trier,
'Tis got where it can try the fire.
There, high exalted in the sphere,

As it another nature were,

It moveth all; and makes a flight
As circular as infinite.
Whose notions when it will express

In speech; it is with that excess
Of grace, and music to the ear,
As what it spoke it planted there.
The voice so sweet, the words so fair,
As some soft chime had stroked the
air;

And though the sound were parted thence,

Still left an echo in the sense.

But that a mind so rapt, so high,

So swift, so pure, should yet apply
Itself to us, and come so nigh
Earth's grossness; there's the how and
why.

Is it because it sees us dull,

And sunk in clay here, it would pull
Us forth, by some celestial sleight,
Up to her own sublimed height?

Or hath she here, upon the ground,
Some Paradise or palace found,
In all the bounds of Beauty, fit
For her t' inhabit? There is it.

The river that watered Paradise branched into four heads immediately upon quitting it. Paradise, therefore, was not inclosed by the four rivers; it merely touched them. Could my predecessor be ignorant that the primitive sense of confine was to border upon?

cannot be fathomed.-WHAL 2 Or soundless pit.] i.e., bottomless, that

Thrice happy house, that hast receipt
For this so lofty form, so streight,
So polished, perfect, round and even,
As it slid moulded off from heaven.
Not swelling like the ocean proud,
But stooping gently as a cloud,
As smooth as oil poured forth, and calm
As showers, and sweet as drops of balm.
Smooth, soft, and sweet, in all a flood,
Where it may run to any good;
And where it stays, it there becomes
A nest of odorous spice and gums.
In action, winged as the wind;

In rest, like spirits left behind
Upon a bank, or field of flowers,
Begotten by that wind and showers.
In thee, fair mansion, let it rest,

Yet know, with what thou art possest,
Thou, entertaining in thy breast
But such a mind, mak'st God thy guest.1

[A whole quaternion in the midst of this poem is lost, containing entirely the

HER SO.

BEING HER ΑΠΟΘΕΩΣΙΣ, OR, RELATION TO THE SAINTS.

Sera quidem tanto struitur medicina dolore.

"Twere time that I died too, now she is dead,

Who was my Muse, and life of all I did; The spirit that I wrote with, and conceived:

All that was good or great with me, she weaved,

And set it forth; the rest were cobwebs fine,

Spun out in name of some of the old Nine, To hang a window, or make dark the

On Nature for her; who did let her lie, And saw that portion of herself to die. Sleepy or stupid Nature, couldst thou part With such a rarity, and not rouse Art, With all her aids, to save her from the seize

Of vulture Death, and those relentless cleis ?!

Thou wouldst have lost the Phoenix, had the kind

Been trusted to thee; not to itself assigned. Look on thy sloth, and give thyself undone, (For so thou art with me) now she is gone: My wounded mind cannot sustain this stroke.

It rages, runs, flies, stands, and would provoke

The world to ruin with it; in her fall,
I sum up mine own breaking, and wish all.
Thou hast no more blows, Fate, to drive
at one;

What's left a poet, when his Muse is gone?
Sure I am dead, and know it not! I feel
Nothing I do; but like a heavy wheel,
Am turned with another's powers: my
passion

Whirls me about, and, to blaspheme in fashion,

I murmur against God, for having ta'en
Her blessed soul hence, forth this valley vain
Of tears, and dungeon of calamity!
I envy it the angels' amity,

The joy of saints, the crown for which it lives,

The glory and gain of rest, which the place gives!

Dare I profane so irreligious be, To greet or grieve her soft euthanasy! So sweetly taken to the court of bliss, As spirits had stolen her spirit in a kiss, From off her pillow and deluded bed; And left her lovely body unthought dead ! Indeed she is not dead! but laid to sleep In earth, till the last trump awake the sheep

And goats together, whither they must

come

To hear their judge, and his eternal doom;
To have that final retribution,
Expected with the flesh's restitution.
For, as there are three natures, schoolmen
call

One corporal only, th' other spiritual,

1 To save her from the seize

Of vulture Death, and those relentless cleis.] The last word is uncommon: is it a different pronunciation of the word claws, adopted by the poet for the sake of rhyme? or is it a

Like single; so there is a third commixt, Of body and spirit together, placed betwixt

Those other two; which must be judged or crowned:

This, as it guilty is, or guiltless found, Must come to take a sentence, by the

sense

Of that great evidence, the Conscience, Who will be there, against that day prepared,

T' accuse or quit all parties to be heard!
O day of joy and surety to the just,
Who in that feast of resurrection trust!
That great eternal holiday of rest
To body and soul, where love is all the
guest!

And the whole banquet is full sight of God,
Of joy the circle and sole period!
All other gladness with the thought is
barred;

Hope hath her end, and Faith hath her reward!

This being thus, why should my tongue

or pen

Presume to interpel that fulness, when
Nothing can more adorn it than the seat
That she is in, or make it more complete?
Better be dumb than superstitious:
Who violates the Godhead, is most vicious
Against the nature he would worship. He
Will honoured be in all simplicity,
Have all his actions wondered at, and
viewed

With silence and amazement; not with rude,

Dull and profane, weak and imperfect eyes,
Have busy search made in his mysteries!
He knows what work he hath done, to call \
this guest

Out of her noble body to this feast:
And give her place according to her blood
Amongst her peers, those princes of all
good!

Saints, Martyrs, Prophets, with those
Hierarchies,

Angels, Arch-angels, Principalities,
The Dominations, Virtues, and the Powers,
The Thrones, the Cherube, and Seraphic
bowers,

That, planted round, there sing before the
Lamb

A new song to his praise, and great I AM:

real corruption of some other word?-WHAL.

Cleis is common enough in our old poets: it is a genuine term, and though now confounded with claws, was probably restricted at first to some specific class of animals.