Lucasta (_Lux casta_, "pure light"), to whom his verses were dedicated, was Lady Sacheverell, whom he devotedly loved, but who married another after having been deceived by the false report that Lovelace had been killed. He was liberated from prison under Cromwell, but lived a wretched life thereafter. Leigh Hunt, the most genial of essayists, was imprisoned for two years, when he was visited by Lamb, Byron, and Moore. His offence was a libel on the Prince Regent, afterwards George the Fourth. Madame Guyon wrote the most of her beautiful poems--so greatly admired by Cowper--while a captive for four years in the Bastile. The great public library of Paris contains forty octavo volumes of her writings. Why does not some popular author give us a book upon this theme, and entitle it "Behind the Prison Bars"? The suggestion is freely offered, and is perhaps worth considering. Disraeli tells us: "The gate of the prison has sometimes been the porch of fame." The reference to Lovelace reminds us that sometimes the female favorites of poets are selected from rather questionable positions, and certainly with very questionable taste. Prior poured out his admiration in verses addressed to Chloe, a fat barmaid; and Bousard addressed poems to Cassandra, who followed the same refining occupation. Colletet, a French bard, addressed his lines to his servant-girl, whom he afterwards married. No doubt that oftenest the poet's mistress has no actual existence, but, like the sculptor's ideal, is the combined result drawn from several choice models. Gilbert Wakefield, the erudite scholar, theologian, and author, suffered two years' imprisonment for publishing his "Enquiry into the Expediency of Public and Social Worship." "The sentence passed upon him was most infamous," says Rogers, who, in company with his sister, visited the prisoner in Dorchester jail. While incarcerated here, Wakefield wrote his "Noctes Carcerariæ" ("Prison Nights"). Matthew Prior, the poet, diplomatist, courtier, and versatile author, was the son of a joiner, though it is not known exactly where he was born. Chancing to interest the Earl of Dorset, he was educated at the cost of that liberal nobleman. He[105] was one of those, as Dr. Johnson said, "that have burst out from an obscure original to great eminence." Thackeray says of him, "He loved, he drank, he sang; and he was certainly deemed one of the brightest lights of Queen Anne's reign." His contempt for pedigree was very natural, and was wittily expressed in the epitaph which he wrote for himself:-- "Nobles and heralds, by your leave, Here lies what once was Matthew Prior; The son of Adam and of Eve: Can Bourbon or Nassau claim higher?"