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 pass 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.* 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 enamored 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 attitude of one asleep. Habington's description exactly agrees with the picture at Althorpe, painted after her death by Vandyke. *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. What's honor but a hatchment? what is here Or what avails her that she once was led 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 noble 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, ar d the reward of her virtues. Come likewise, my Castara, and behold The author of the introduction to the curious Memoirs of Sir Kenelm Digby, has proved the absolute falsehood of some of Aubrey's assertions, 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 favor. On the whole, the mystery remains unexplained; a cloud has settled forever 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 nobly born and allied; so capable (as she showed herself on various occasions) of high generous feeling,* of delicacy,† of fortitude, of tenderness; § depraved by her own vices, or "done to death by slanderous tongues," is equally painful and heart-sickening. The image of the aspic trailing its slime and its venom over the bosom of Cleopatra, is not more abhorrent. : * Memoirs of Sir Kenelm Digby, pp. 211, 224. Introduction. p. 27. ↑ Memoirs, pp. 205, 213. Introduction, p. 28. Memoirs, p. 254. § Memoirs, p. 305. CHAPTER XXVIII. CONJUGAL POETRY, CONTINUED. THE TWO ZAPPI. WE find among the minor poets of Italy, a charming, and I believe a singular instance of a husband and a wife, both highly gifted, devoting their talents to celebrate each other. These were Giambattista Zappi,* the famous Roman advocate, and his wife Faustina, the daughter of Carlo Maratti, the painter. . Zappi, after completing his legal studies at Bologna, came to reside at Rome, where he distinguished himself in his profession, and was one of the founders of the academy of the Arcadii. Faustina Maratti was many years younger than her husband, and extremely beautiful: she was her father's favorite model for his Madonnas, Muses, and Vestal Virgins. From a description of her, in an Epithalamium † on her marriage, it appears that her eyes and hair were jet black, her features regular, and her complexion pale and delicate; a style of beauty which, in its perfection, is almost peculiar to Italy. To the mutual tenderness of * Born at Imola, 1668; died at Rome, 1719. ↑ See the Epithalamium on her marriage with Zappi, prefixed o their works. these married lovers, we owe some of the most elegant among the lighter Italian lyrics. Zappi, in a Sonnet addressed to his wife some time after their union, reminds her, with a tender exultation, of the moment they first met; when she swept by him in all the pride of beauty, careless or unconscious of his admiration, and he bowed low before her, scarcely daring to lift his eyes on the charms that were destined to bless him; "Who," he says, "would then have whispered me, the day will come when. you will smile to remember her disdain, for all this blaze of beauty was created for you alone!" or would have said to her, "Know you who is destined to touch that virgin heart? Even he, whom you now pass by without even a look! Such are the miracles of love!" La prima volta ch' io m' avenni in quella La fronte inchinò in umil atto, ed ella Chi detto avesse a me, 66 costci ti sprezza, Chi detto avesse ad ella: "Il tuo bel core |