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 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.[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 attitude of one asleep. Habington's description exactly agrees with the picture at Althorpe, painted after her death by Vandyke. 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 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, 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!