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.

For though that rattles, timbrels, toys,
Take little infants with their noise,
As properest gifts to girls and boys,

Of light expense;
Their corals, whistles, and prime coats,
Their painted masks, their paper boats,
With sails of silk, as the first notes

Surprise their sense.

"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.

With respect to the insinuation noticed by Aubrey, it is probably a mere calumny. Sir 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 32. She left three sons.

VOL. IX.

F

Yet here are no such trifles brought,
No cobweb cawls, no surcoats wrought
With gold, or clasps, which might be bought
On every stall:

But here's a song of her descent;

And call to the high parliament

Of Heaven; where Seraphim take tent

Of ordering all:

This utter'd by an ancient bard,

Who claims, of reverence, to be heard,
As coming with his harp prepar'd

To chant her 'gree,

Is sung as als' her getting up,
By Jacob's ladder, to the top
Of that eternal port, kept ope

For such as she.

II.

THE SONG OF HER DESCENT.

I sing the just and uncontroll'd descent
Of dame VENETIA DIGBY, styled the fair:
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 swell'd 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?

Send these suspected helps to aid
Some form defective, or decay'd;
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 by my fancy, with his 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 design'd, draw next a spring,
With all that youth, or it can bring :
Four rivers branching forth like seas,
And Paradise confining these.

Last, draw the circles of this globe,
And let there be a starry robe
Of constellations 'bout her hurl'd;
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.

• 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, confin'd in these. WHAL.

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

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;"
But these are like a mind, not it.

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,

3

It moveth all; and makes a flight
As circular as infinite.

or soundless pit.] i. e. bottomless, that cannot be fathomed. WHAL.