out of my power to satisfy thee; for my life and fortune shall be thine, and every thought of my heart in which the trust I am in may not be revealed; but my honour is my own, which I cannot preserve if I communicate the prince's affairs; and pray thee with this answer rest satisfied.' So great was his reason and goodness, that, upon consideration, it made my folly appear to me so vile, that from that day until the day of his death I never thought fit to ask him any business but what he communicated freely to me in order to his estate or family. Lucy Hutchinson, born in 1620 in the Tower of London, was the daughter of its lieutenant, Sir Allan Apsley; in 1638 she married Colonel John Hutchinson (1615–64), governor afterwards of Nottingham Castle, and one of the judges of Charles I. During 1664-71 Mrs Hutchinson wrote Memoirs of her husband's life for her children's instruction, which were not designed for publication, and were first published by a collateral descendant, the Rev. Julius Hutchinson, in 1806. This peculiarly interesting and valuable narrative, besides adding to our knowledge of the Civil War in Nottinghamshire, sheds much light on the domestic life of the time, the position of women in society, and the state of education and manners. The unsought graces of the style and its obvious sincerity and truthfulness heighten the effect of a charming picture of a Puritan gentleman and a Puritan home; and the wifely affection conspicuous throughout (even the very exaggeration of her husband's merits and importance) stirs us to warm sympathy with both the author and the subject of the memoir, which is an undesigned rebutter of hundreds of royalist taunts and sneers levelled against Puritans as naturally all narrow-minded, bitter, and uncultured. Though he signed the sentence which condemned Charles I. to the scaffold, Colonel Hutchinson testified against Cromwell's usurpation, and lived in retirement till the Restoration. He was included then in the Act of Amnesty, but in 1663 was arrested on a groundless suspicion of treasonable conspiracy, and died after eleven months' imprisonment in Sandown Castle, Kent, 11th September 1664. Mrs Hutchinson was an exceptionally learned lady-knew French and Latin thoroughly, had some knowledge of Greek and Hebrew, and was well read in theology. She translated Lucretius into English verse, and part of the Eneid (both yet in MS.), and wrote two theological essays, published in 1817. In an autobiographical fragment prefixed to the Memoirs, Mrs Hutchinson describes her youthful precocity and early training thus : For my father and mother fancying me then beautiful, and more than ordinarily apprehensive, applied all their cares, and spared no cost to improve me in my education, which procured me the admiration of those that flattered my parents. By that time I was four years old I read English perfectly, and having a great memory, I was carried to sermons, and while I was very young could remember and repeat them exactly, and being caressed, the love of praise tickled me, and made me attend more heedfully. When I was about seven years of age, I remember I had at one time eight tutors in several qualities, languages, music, dancing, writing, and needlework; but my genius was quite averse from all but my book, and that I was so eager of, that my mother thinking it prejudiced my health, would moderate me in it; yet this rather animated me than kept me back, and every moment I could steal from my play I would employ in any book I could find, when my own were locked up from me. After dinner and supper I still had an hour allowed me to play, and then I would steal into some hole or other to read. My father would have me learn Latin, and I was so apt that I outstript my brothers who were at school, although my father's chaplain that was my tutor was a pitiful dull fellow. My brothers, who had a great deal of wit, had some emulation at the progress I made in my learning, which very well pleased my father, though my mother would have been contented I had not so wholly addicted myself to that as to neglect my other qualities: as for music and dancing, I profited very little in them, and would never practise my lute or harpsichords but when my masters were with me; and for my needle I absolutely hated it; play among other children I despised, and when I was forced to entertain such as came to visit me, I tired them with more grave instructions than their mothers, and pluckt all their babies to pieces, and kept the children in such awe that they were glad when I entertained myself with elder company; to whom I was very acceptable, and living in the house with many persons that had a great deal of wit; and very profitable serious discourses being frequent at my father's table and in my mother's drawing-room, I was very attentive to all, and gathered up things that I would utter again to great admiration of many that took my memory and imitation for wit. It pleased God that through the good instructions of my mother, and the sermons she carried me to, I was convinced that the knowledge of God was the most excellent study, and accordingly applied myself to it, and to practise as I was taught: I used to exhort my mother's maids much, and to turn their idle discourses to good subjects; but I thought, when I had done this on the Lord's day, and every day performed my due tasks of reading and praying, that then I was free to anything that was not sin, for I was not at that time convinced of the vanity of conversation which was not scandalously wicked, I thought it no sin to learn or hear witty songs and amorous sonnets or poems, and twenty things of that kind, wherein I was so apt that I became the confidante in all the loves that were managed among my mother's young women, and there was none of them but had many lovers and some particular friends beloved above the rest. Even more classical is the picture of the sweet domesticities that rather furthered than hindered her (unpublished) translation of Lucretius: I turned it into English in a room where my children practised the several qualities they were taught with their tutors, and I numbered the syllables of my translation by the threads of the canvas I wrought in, and set them down with a pen and ink that stood by me. Thus she records in the Memoirs how her husband defended himself (generally rather than explicitly) before the Convention Parliament of 1660: Colonel Hutchinson on his Defence. When it came to Inglesby's turn, he, with many tears, professt his repentance for that murther, and told a false tale, how Cromwell held his hand, and forced him to subscribe the sentence, and made a most whining recantation; after which he retired, and another had almost ended, when Colonel Hutchinson, who was not there at the beginning, came in, and was told what they were about, and that it would be expected he should say something. He was surprized with a thing he expected not, yet neither then nor in any the like occasion did he ever fail himself, but told them, that for his actings in those days, if he had erred, it was the inexperience of his age and the defect of his judgment, and not the malice of his heart, which had ever prompted him to pursue the general advantage of his country more than his own; and if the sacrifice of him might conduce to the publick peace and settlement, he should freely submit his life and fortunes to their dispose; that the vain expense of his age, and the great debts his public employments had run him into, as they were testimonies that neither avarice nor any other interest had carried him on, so they yielded him just cause to repent that he ever forsook his own blessed quiet to embark in such a troubled sea, where he had made shipwrack of all things but a good conscience. And as to that particular action of the king, he desired them to believe he had that sense of it that befitted an Englishman, a Christian, and a gentleman. What he expressed was to this effect, but so handsomely delivered that it generally tooke the whole house only one gentleman stood up and said he had expressed himself as one that was much more sorry for the events and consequences than for the actions; but another replied that when a man's words might admit of two interpretations, it befitted gentlemen always to receive that which might be most favourable. As soon as the colonel had spoken, he retired into a room where Inglesby was, with his eyes yet red, who had called up a little spirit to succeed his whinings, and embracing Colonel Hutchinson: 'O colonel,' said he, 'did I ever imagine we could be brought to this! Could I have suspected it when I brought them Lambert in the other day, this sword should have redeemed us from being dealt with as criminals, by that people for whom we had so gloriously exposed ourselves.' The colonel told him he had foreseen, ever since those usurpers thrust out the lawful authority of the land to enthrone themselves, it could end in nothing else; but the integrity of his heart in all he had done made him as cheerfully ready to suffer as to triumph in a good cause. The result of the House that day was to suspend Colonel Hutchinson and the rest from sitting in the House. Monk, after all his great professions, now sate still, and had not one word to interpose for any person, but was as forward to set vengeance on foot as any man. The Life of Colonel Hutchinson has been repeatedly reprinted; the best edition is that by Mr C. H. Firth (1885). Margaret, Duchess of Newcastle (c.162474), was distinguished even more for her indefatigable pursuit of literature than for her faithful attachment to her lord in his long exile during the time of the Commonwealth. She was the youngest of the eight children of Sir Charles Lucas, of St John's, near Colchester, and in 1643 became a maid of honour to Henrietta Maria. Having accompanied the queen to France, she met with William Cavendish, Marquis (afterwards Duke) of Newcastle (1592–1676), and was married to him at Paris in 1645. The Marquis took up his residence at Antwerp till the troubles were over, and there Margaret wrote Philosophical Fancies and Poems and Fancies, both published in 1653. Her husband assisted her in her compositions, a circumstance which Horace Walpole ridiculed in his Royal and Noble Authors; and so industrious were the noble pair that they filled more than a dozen mighty volumes, folio, with plays, poems, orations, observations on experimental philosophy, &c., whilst the Duke by himself produced, besides plays and poems, two works upon horsemanship. His share in his wife's literary enterprises is sometimes expressly indicated, but was usually unimportant. It pleased God,' the Duchess Margaret said, 'to command his servant Nature to indue me with a poetical and philosophical genius even from my very birth.' In her dresses the Duchess was as peculiar as in her books. 'I took great delight,' she confesses, 'in attiring myself in fine dressing and fashions, especially such fashions as I did invent myself.' Of these we learn something from Secretary Pepys: 'Met my Lady Newcastle going with her coaches and footmen all in velvet ; herself with her velvet cap, her hair about her ears, many black patches about her mouth, without anything about her neck, and a black vest fitted to the body.' Pepys afterwards saw her in her coach, with a hundred boys and girls running after her. The Duchess wrote an autobiography (1656), and a Life of her husband the Duke (1667), a work which Charles Lamb considered a jewel for which no casket was rich enough. There is a singular charm in the complete devotion of the writer to her husband (whom she ranks above Julius Cæsar), as well as in the picture presented of antiquated gallantry, chivalrous loyalty, and pure affection. After the Restoration they lived in this country, the Duke being mainly occupied in managing what was recoverable of his once vast estates. Loving and flattering one another, the Duke and Duchess lived on in their eccentric-and, in spite of their heavy losses, magnificent-way for many years; and when both were gone, a stately monument in Westminster Abbey bore record that there lay the loyal Duke of Newcastle and his Duchess,' adding, in language written by the Duchess, which Addison admired, 'Her name was Margaret Lucas, youngest sister to the Lord Lucas of Colchester ; a noble family, for all the brothers were valiant, and all the sisters virtuous.' The philosophising of the Female Oracle,' mostly worthless, is, even when sound, wonderfully tedious, though sometimes enlightened by weighty and pithy sayings. Her plays are almost unreadable. Her most popular poem was The Pastime and Recreation of the Queen of Fairies in Fairy Land. It often echoes Shakespeare, but has some fine lines of the Duchess's own, such as those descriptive of the elf queen: She on a dewy leaf doth bathe, And as she sits, the leaf doth wave; There like a new-fallen flake of snow, Doth her white limbs in beauty shew. Her garments fair her maids put on, Made of the pure light from the sun. Mirth and Melancholy deals with allegorical personifications. The former woos the poetess to dwell with her, promising sport and pleasure, and drawing a gloomy but forcible sketch of her rival Melancholy: Her voice is low, and gives a hollow sound; These are fragments from the Lives: The White-Coats. Amongst the rest of his army, my lord had chosen for his own regiment of foot 3000 of such valiant, stout, and faithful men (whereof many were bred in the moorish grounds of the northern parts) that they were ready to die at my lord's feet, and never gave over, whensoever they were engaged in action, until they had either conquer'd the enemy or lost their lives. They were called White-Coats for this following reason: My lord being resolved to give them new liveries, and there being not red cloth enough to be had, took up so much of white as would serve to cloath them, desiring withal their patience until he had got it dyed; but they impatient of stay, requested my lord that he would be pleased to let them have it un-dyed as it was, promising they themselves would die it in the enemies blood: which request my lord granted them, and from that time they were called White-Coats. The Duke's Diet. In his diet he is so sparing and temperate, that he never eats nor drinks beyond his set proportion, so as to satisfie onely his natural appetite: he makes but one meal a day, at which he drinks two good glasses of smallbeer, one about the beginning, the other at the end thereof, and a little glass of sack in the middle of his dinner; which glass of sack he also uses in the morning for his breakfast, with a morsel of bread. His supper consists of an egg and a draught of small-beer. And by this temperance he finds himself very healthful, and may yet live many years, he being now of the age of seventy three, which I pray God from my soul to grant him. His Recreation and Exercise. His prime pastime and recreation hath always been the exercise of mannage and weapons; which heroick arts he used to practise every day; but I observing that when he had over-heated himself, he would be apt to take cold, prevail'd so far that at last he left the frequent use of the mannage, using nevertheless still the exercise of weapons; and though he doth not ride himself so frequently as he hath done, yet he takes delight in seeing his horses of mannage rid by his escuyers, whom he instructs in that art for his own pleasure. But in the art of weapons (in which he has a method beyond all that ever were famous in it, found out by his own ingenuity and practice) he never taught any body but the now Duke of Buckingham, whose guardian he hath been, and his own two sons. The rest of his time he spends in musick, poetry, architecture and the like. The Lives were edited in 1872 by Mr Lower, and in 1886 by Mr C. H. Firth. The Life of the Duchess and a selection from her poems and other works were edited by Mr Jenkins in 1872. Richard, Richard Crashaw, the most mystical of the English poets, was the only child of William Crashaw (1572-1626), a Puritan incumbent of Whitechapel, himself a writer of religious poems as well as a strenuous controversialist. probably born in 1612, was educated at Charterhouse and Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, and was elected to a fellowship at Peterhouse in 1637. He spent much of the following years in religious offices and in writing devotional poetry, and, as the preface to his works tells us, 'like a primitive saint, offering more prayers by night than others usually offer in the day.' His intimacy with Nicholas Ferrar and his own Catholic tendencies led him and five other Fellows to refuse the Solemn League and Covenant, whereupon, in 1643, he was ejected by the Parliamentary Commissioners, found his way to Paris, endured great privation, and became a convert to the Roman Catholic faith. Through the friendship of Cowley, Crashaw obtained the notice of Henrietta Maria, then (1646) at Paris, and was recommended by her about 1648 to the dignitaries of the Church in Italy. At first attached to the service of Cardinal Palotta in Rome, he then became a sub-canon of the church of Loretto; and there he died in August 1649. memory in one of the language (see page 644). Cowley honoured his finest elegies in the While at Cambridge, Crashaw published, in 1634, a volume of Latin poems and epigrams, in one of which—not otherwise noteworthy-occurs the famous line on the miracle at Cana : Nympha pudica Deum vidit et erubuit. The conceit is found already in a hymn of St Ambrose. Crashaw's not very perfect pentameter has been very variously Englished and quoted. The rendering by Pope's friend, Aaron Hill, is : The bashful stream hath seen its God and blush'd; and Dryden has it in this form:" The conscious water saw its God and blush'd. Mr Grosart quotes a French version of it by Victor Hugo. In 1646, on the eve of his departure for France, appeared Crashaw's English poems, Steps to the Temple: Sacred Poems, with other Delights of the Muses. The greater part of the volume consists of religious poetry, in which the poet addresses the Saviour, the Virgin Mary, and Mary Magdalene, with all the passionate earnestness and fervour of a lover. He had a warm admiration for the ecstatic writings of St Teresa, to whom two of his best poems or hymns are addressed. Of the hymns Coleridge says: These verses were ever present to my mind whilst writing the second part of Christabel; if indeed . . . they did not suggest the first thought of the whole poem.' In these flights into the third heavens, with all his garlands and singing robes about him,' Crashaw, whom Dr George Macdonald calls 'the loveliest of our angel-birds,' as hardly having a foothold on this world, but floating in the upper air of it, expatiates amidst ... An hundred thousand loves and graces, Of the dear Spouse of Spirits with them will bring ; That dull mortality must not know a name. Such seem to have been his daily contemplations, the heavenly manna on which his young spirit fed with delight. This mystical mode of thought and fancy naturally led to exaggeration and to conceits. Conceits pervaded all the poetry of the time, and Crashaw could hardly escape the infection, even if there had not been in his case special predisposing causes. But amidst all his abstractions, metaphors, and apostrophes, Crashaw is seldom tedious. His imagination was only too copious, and what Coleridge called his 'power and opulence of invention,' at times wonderfully suggestive, was unbridled. Coleridge says he gave in his poems the full ebullience of his imagination, unshapen into form; and Swinburne notes the 'dazzling intricacy and affluence in refinement, the supple and cunning implication, the choiceness and subtlety,' of the poet. Though his ardour is genuine, at times his fantastic imagery and incongruous conceits tend to make solemn things all but ludicrous. But his versification is sometimes highly musical; and except Milton no poet of his day (not Cowley, whom his age preferred) is so rich in the genuine ore of poetry. He had much in common with George Herbert, but, if more melodious and less crabbed, is less simple and direct. Unhappily his life was short, and even in it he did not realise his own dream (page 680): A happy soul, that all the way To heaven hath a summer's day. The poet was an accomplished scholar, and his translations from the Latin and Italian possess both force and beauty. He translated part of the Sospetto d'Herode from the Italian of Giambattista Marino (or Marini), from whom the overloading of poetry with conceits was called stilo Marinesco or Marinism; but Crashaw outdid Marino in Marinism, and to the Italian's conceits added many ornaments of his own. Crashaw's motives in joining the Church of Rome were naturally suspected by unfriends in his own day, and, rather on theological than æsthetical grounds, Puritans like Prynne denounced him as a 'fickle shuttlecock' and 'pitiful wire-drawer.' In the reign of 'good taste and common sense' his poetry had few admirers: even during the romantic revival Hazlitt grouped him (oddly enough) with Donne and Davies, as having mistaken learning for poetry, and spoke unsympathetically of 'his seething brain' and of his 'pouring out his devout raptures and zealous enthusiasm in a torrent of poetical hyperboles.' Coleridge, as we have seen, proclaimed his direct influence on Christabel; parallels have been found in Shelley; and many poets and critics in the later half of the nineteenth century have acknowledged Crashaw's fascination. Crashaw thus describes the abode of Satan : Below the bottome of the great Abysse, There, where one center reconciles all things, The World's profound heart pants; there placed is Mischiefe's old master; close about him clings A curl'd knot of embracing snakes, that kisse His correspondent cheekes: these loathsome strings Hold the perverse prince in eternal ties Fast bound, since first he forfeited the skies. Struck with these great concurrences of things, He shooke himselfe, and spread his spatious wings, The judge of torments and the king of teares, His eyes, the sullen dens of Death and Night, He markt how the poore shepheards ran to pay Was the great businesse both of Heav'n and earth. He cannot comprehend That He Whom the sun serves should faintly peepe That Glories Self should serve our griefs and feares, Yet he sees that his power is seriously threatened, Hail, sister springs! Parents of sylver-footed rills! Heavens thy fair eyes be; Heavens of ever-falling starres. 'Tis seed-time still with thee; And starres thou sow'st, whose harvest dares Promise the Earth to counter-shine Whatever makes heavn's forehead fine. The Flaming Heart (upon the book and picture of the Seraphical Saint Teresa, as she is usually expressed with a seraphim biside her ') ends thus : O thou undanted daughter of desires! And by thy thirsts of love more large then they; That seiz'd thy' parting soul, and seal'd thee His; By all the Heav'n thou hast in Him (Fair sister of the seraphim!); By all of Him we have in thee, The first of the following elaborate similes or little allegories reminds us of a passage in Jeremy Taylor's Holy Dying, and the second of one of Shakespeare's best-known sonnets: I've seen indeed the hopefull bud His tender toppe not fully spread ; And with the rush of one rude blast All his leaves so fresh and sweet, To blot the newly blossomed light. But would be courteous, would be kind. Amidst his visions of angels ascending and descending, Crashaw had little time to devote to earthly love. But the second part of the Steps is mainly secular, and contains elegies, epitaphs, and even verses in praise of women. We quote entire his version of Musick's Duell, based, like the paraphrase in Ford's Lover's Melancholy (see page 481), on the Latin of the Roman Jesuit professor Strada. It is a version, not a translation, and much of the substance is Crashaw's own Now westward Sol had spent the richest beams |