The Romance of Biography Volume II Part 9

In those white cloisters live secure, From the rude blasts of wanton breath; Each hour more innocent and pure, Till ye shall wither into death.

Then that which living gave ye room, Your glorious sepulchre shall be; There needs no marble for a tomb,-- That breast hath marble been to me!

The epistle to Castara's mother, Lady Eleanor Powis, who appears to have looked kindly on their love, contains some very beautiful lines, in which he a.s.serts the disinterestedness of his affection for Castara, rich as she is in fortune, and derived from the blood of Charlemagne.

My love is envious! would Castara were The daughter of some mountain cottager, Who, with his toil worn out, could dying leave Her no more dower than what she did receive From bounteous Nature; her would I then lead To the temple, rich in her own wealth; her head Crowned with her hair's fair treasure; diamonds in Her brighter eyes; soft ermines in her skin, Each India in her cheek, &c.

This first part closes with "the description of Castara," which is extended to several stanzas, of unequal merit. The following compose in themselves a sweet picture:

Like the violet, which alone Prospers in some happy shade, My Castara lives unknown, To no looser eye betray'd.

For she's to herself untrue Who delights i' the public view.

Such her beauty, as no arts Have enrich'd with borrow'd grace Her high birth no pride imparts, For she blushes in her place.

Folly boasts a glorious blood-- She is n.o.blest, being good!

She her throne makes reason climb, While wild pa.s.sions captive lie; And each article of time Her pure thoughts to heaven fly.

All her vows religious be-- And her love she vows to me!

The second part of these poems, dedicated to Castara as "the WIFE," have not less variety and beauty, though there were, of course, fewer incidents to record. The first Sonnet, "to Castara, now possest of her in marriage," beginning "This day is ours," &c. has more fancy and poetry than tenderness. The lines to Lord Powis, the father of Castara, on the same occasion, are more beautiful and earnest, yet rich in fanciful imagery. Lord Powis, it must be remembered, had opposed their union, and had been, with difficulty, induced to give his consent. The following lines refer to this; and Habington a.s.serts the purity and unselfishness of his attachment.

Nor grieve, my Lord, 'tis perfected. Before Afflicted seas sought refuge on the sh.o.r.e, From the angry north wind; ere the astonish'd spring Heard in the air the feathered people sing; Ere time had motion, or the sun obtained His province o'er the day--this was ordained.

Nor think in her I courted wealth or blood, Or more uncertain hopes; for had I stood On the highest ground of fortune,--the world known, No greatness but what waited on my throne-- And she had only had that face and mind, I with myself, had th' earth to her resigned.

In virtue there's an empire!

Here I rest, As all things to my power subdued; to me There's nought beyond this, the whole world is SHE!

On the anniversary of their wedding-day, he thus addresses her:--

LOVE'S ANNIVERSARY.

Thou art returned (great light) to that blest hour In which I first by marriage, (sacred power!) Joined with Castara hearts; and as the same Thy l.u.s.tre is, as then,--so is our flame; Which had increased, but that by Love's decree, 'Twas such at first, it ne'er could greater be.

But tell me, (glorious lamp,) in thy survey Of things below thee, what did not decay By age to weakness? I since that have seen The rose bud forth and fade, the tree grow green, And wither wrinkled. Even thyself dost yield Something to time, and to thy grave fall nigher; But virtuous love is one sweet endless fire.

"To Castara, on the knowledge of love," is peculiarly elegant; it was, probably, suggested by some speculative topics of conversation, discussed in the literary circle he had drawn round him at Hindlip.[53]

Where sleeps the north wind when the south inspires Life in the Spring, and gathers into quires The scatter'd nightingales; whose subtle ears Heard first the harmonious language of the spheres; Whence hath the stone magnetic force t'allure Th'enamour'd iron; from a seed impure.

Or natural, did first the mandrake grow; What power in the ocean makes it flow; What strange materials is the azure sky Compacted of; of what its brightest eye The ever flaming sun; what people are In th' unknown world; what worlds in every star:-- Let curious fancies at these secrets rove; Castara, what we know we'll practise--love.

The "Lines on her fainting;" those on "The fear of death,"--

Why should we fear to melt away in death?

May we but die together! &c.

On her sigh,--

Were but that sigh a penitential breath That thou art mine, it would blow with it death, T' inclose me in my marble, where I 'd be Slave to the tyrant worms to set thee free!

His self-congratulation on his own happiness, in his epistle to his uncle, Lord Morley; are all in the same strain of gentle and elegant feeling. The following are among the last addressed to his wife.

Give me a heart, where no impure Disorder'd pa.s.sions rage; Which jealousie doth not obscure, Nor vanity t' expense engage; Not wooed to madness by quaint oathes, Or the fine rhetorick of cloathes; Which not the softness of the age To vice or folly doth decline; Give me that heart, Castara, for 'tis thine.

Take thou a heart, where no new look Provokes new appet.i.te; With no fresh charm of beauty took, Or wanton stratagem of wit; Not idly wandering here and there, Led by an am'rous eye or ear; Aiming each beauteous mark to hit; Which virtue doth to one confine: Take thou that heart, Castara, for 'tis mine.

It was owing to his affection for his wife, as well as his own retired and studious habits, that Habington lived through the civil wars without taking any active part on either side. It should seem that, at such a period, no man of a lofty and generous spirit could have avoided joining the party or principles, either of Falkland and Grandison, or of Hampden and Hutchinson. But Habington's family had already suffered, in fortune and in fame, by their interference with State matters; and without, in any degree, implicating himself with either party, he pa.s.sed through those stormy and eventful times,

As one who dreams Of idleness, in groves Elysian;

and died in the first year of the Protectorate, 1654. I cannot discover the date of Castara's death; but she died some years before her husband, leaving only one son.

There is one among the poems of the second part of Castara, which I cannot pa.s.s without remark; it is the Elegy which Habington addressed to his wife, on the death of her friend, Venetia Digby, the consort of the famous Sir Kenelm Digby. She was the most beautiful woman of her time: even Lord Clarendon steps aside from the gravity of history, to mention "her extraordinary beauty, and as extraordinary fame." Her picture at Windsor is, indeed, more like a vision of ideal loveliness, than any form that ever trod the earth.[54] She was descended from the Percies and the Stanleys, and was first cousin to Habington's Castara, their mothers being sisters. The magnificent spirit of her enamoured husband, surrounded her with the most gorgeous adornments that ever were invented by vanity or luxury: and thus she was, one day, found dead on her couch, her hand supporting her head, in the att.i.tude of one asleep. Habington's description exactly agrees with the picture at Althorpe, painted after her death by Vand.y.k.e.

What's honour but a hatchment? what is here Of Percy left, or Stanley, names most dear To virtue?

Or what avails her that she once was led A glorious bride to valiant Digby's bed?

She, when whatever rare The either Indies boast, lay richly spread For her to wear, lay on her pillow _dead_!

There is no piercing the mystery which hangs round the story of this beautiful creature: that a stigma rested on her character, and that she was exculpated from it, whatever it might be, seems proved, by the doves and serpents introduced into several portraits of her; the first, emblematical of her innocence, and the latter, of her triumph over slander: and not less, by these lines of Habington. If Venetia Digby had been, as Aubrey and others insinuate, abandoned to profligacy, and a victim to her husband's jealousy, Habington would scarce have considered her n.o.ble descent and relationship to his Castara as a matter of pride; or her death as a subject of tender condolence; or the awful manner of it a peculiar blessing of heaven, and the reward of her virtues.

Come likewise, my Castara, and behold What blessings ancient prophecy foretold, Bestow'd on her in death; she past away So sweetly from the world as if her clay Lay only down to slumber. Then forbear To let on her blest ashes fall a tear; Or if thou'rt too much woman, softly weep, Lest grief disturb the silence of her sleep!

The author of the introduction to the curious Memoirs of Sir Kenelm Digby, has proved the absolute falsehood of some of Aubrey's a.s.sertions, and infers the improbability of others. But these beautiful lines by Habington, seem to have escaped his notice; and they are not slight evidence in Venetia's favour. On the whole, the mystery remains unexplained; a cloud has settled for ever on the true story of this extraordinary creature. Neither the pen nor the sword of her husband could entirely clear her fame in her own age: he could only terrify slander into silence, and it died away into an indistinct murmur, of which the echo alone has reached our time.--But this is enough:--the echo of an _echo_ could whisper into naught a woman's fair name. The idea of a creature so formed in the prodigality of nature; so completely and faultlessly beautiful; so n.o.bly born and allied; so capable (as she showed herself on various occasions,) of high generous feeling,[55] of delicacy,[56] of fort.i.tude,[57] of tenderness;[58] depraved by her own vices, or "done to death by slanderous tongues," is equally painful and heart-sickening. The image of the asp trailing its slime and its venom over the bosom of Cleopatra, is not more abhorrent.

FOOTNOTES:

[52] It was the mother of William Habington who addressed to her brother, Lord Mounteagle, that extraordinary letter which led to the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot.

_Nash's History of Worcestershire._

[53] The family seat of the Habingtons, in Worcestershire.

[54] There are also four pictures of her at Strawberry Hill, and one of her mother, Lady Lucy Percy, exquisitely beautiful. At Gothurst, there is a picture of her, and a bust, which, after her death, her husband placed in his chamber, with this tender and beautiful inscription

Uxorem amare vivam, voluptas: defunctam, religio.

[55] Memoirs of Sir Kenelm Digby, pp. 211, 224. Introduction, p. 27.

[56] Memoirs, pp. 205, 213. Introduction, p. 28.

[57] Memoirs, p. 254.

[58] Memoirs, p. 305.