The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened by Sir Kenelm Digby (popular books of all time TXT) 📕

the grand tour, the object of which, we learn from his Memoirs , was "to banish admiration, which for the most part accompanieth home-bred minds, and is daughter of ignorance." Kenelm proved better than the ideal set before him; and the more he travelled the more he admired.

Into this tale of love and adventure I must break with the disturbing intelligence that the handsome and romantic and spirited youth was in all probability already procuring material for the compilation on Physick and Chirurgery , which Hartman, his steward, published after his death. It was not as a middle-aged bon viveur , nor as an elderly hypochondriac, that he began his medical studies, but in the heyday of youth, and quite seriously, too. The explanation brings with it light on some other of his interests as well. When he set out on the grand tour, his head full of love and the prospects of adventure, he found the spare energy to write from London to a good friend of his, the Rev. Mr. Sandy, Parson of Great Lindford. In this letter-the original is in the Ashmolean-Kenelm asks for the good parson's prayers, and sends him "a manuscript of elections of divers good authors." Mr. Longueville, who gives the letter, has strangely failed to identify Sandy with the famous Richard Napier, parson, physician, and astrologer, of the well-known family of Napier of Merchistoun. His father, Alexander Napier, was often known as "Sandy"; and the son held the alternative names also. Great Lindford is two and a half miles from Gothurst; and it is possible that Protestant friends, perhaps Laud himself, urged on the good parson the duty of looking after the young Catholic gentleman. Sandy (Napier) was also probably his mother's medical adviser: he certainly acted as such to some members of her family. A man of fervent piety-his "knees were horny with frequent praying," says Aubrey-he was, besides, a zealous student of alchemy and astrology, a friend of Dee, of Lilly, and of Booker. Very likely Kenelm had been entrusted to Allen's care at Oxford on the recommendation of Sandy; for Allen, one of his intimates, was a serious occultist, who, according to his servant's account, "used to meet the spirits on the stairs like swarms of bees." With these occupations Napier combined a large medical practice in the Midlands, the proceeds of which he gave to the poor, living ascetically himself. His favourite nephew, Richard Napier the younger, his pupil in all these arts and sciences, was about the same age as Kenelm, and spent his holidays at Great Lindford. The correspondence went on. Digby continued his medical observations abroad; and after his return we find him writing to Sandy, communicating "some receipts," and asking for pills that had been ordered. Thus we have arrived at the early influences which drew the young Catholic squire towards the art of healing and the occult sciences. The latter he dabbled in all his life. In the former his interest was serious and steadfast.

He remained out of England three years. From Paris the plague drove him to Angers, where the appearance of the handsome English youth caused such commotion in the heart of the Queen Mother, Marie de Médicis, that she evidently lost her head. His narrative of her behaviour had to be expurgated when his Memoirs were published in 1827. He fled these royal attentions; spread a report of his death, and made his way to Italy. His two years in Florence were not all spent about the Grand-ducal Court. His mind, keen and of infinite curiosity, was hungering after the universal knowledge he aspired to; and Galileo, then writing his Dialogues in his retirement at Bellosguardo, could not have been left unvisited by the eager young student. In after years, Digby used to say that it was in Florence he met the Carmelite friar who brought from the East the secret of the Powder of Sympathy, which cured wounds without contact. The friar who had refused to divulge the secret to the Grand Duke confided it to him-of which more hereafter.

From Florence he passed to Spain; and his arrival was happily timed-probably by his ever anxious kinsman; for a few days later Prince Charles and Buckingham landed, on the Spanish Marriage business; and so agreeable was young Digby that, in spite of Buckingham's dislike of his name, he became part of the Prince's household, and returned with the party in October, 1623. Court favours seemed now to open out a career for him. King James knighted him, in what might have proved a fatal ceremony; for so tremblingly nervous of the naked steel was the royal hand, that Buckingham had to turn the sword aside from doing damage instead of honour. He was also made Gentleman of the Bedchamber to Prince Charles. But no other signal favours followed these. For all his agreeableness he was not of the stuff courtiers are made of-though James had a kindness for him, and was entertained by his eagerness and ingenuity. Bacon, too, just before his death, had come across this zealous young student of the experimental methods, and had meant, Digby said, to include an account of the Powder of Sympathy in an appendix to his Natural History .

In Spain, Kenelm had flirted with some Spanish ladies, notably with the beautiful Donna Anna Maria Manrique, urged thereto by gibes at his coldness; but Venetia was still the lady of his heart. Her amorous adventures, in the meanwhile, had been more serious and much more notorious. His letters had miscarried, and had been kept back by his mother. Venetia pleaded her belief in his death. Aubrey's account of her is a mass of picturesque scandal. "She was a most beautiful desirable creature.... The young eagles had espied her, and she was sanguine and tractable, and of much suavity (which to abuse was great pittie)." Making all allowance for gossip, the truth seems to be that in Kenelm's absence she had been at least the mistress of Sir Edward Sackville, afterwards the fourth Earl of Dorset; that Dorset tired of her; and on Digby's return she was more than willing to return to her old love. But, alas! Sackville had her picture, which seemed to her compromising. Digby, therefore, having accepted her apologies and extenuations, challenged Sackville to a duel; whereupon the faithless one proved at least magnanimous; refused to fight, gave up the picture, and swore that Venetia was blameless as she was fair. A private marriage followed; and it was only on the birth of his second son John that Sir Kenelm acknowledged it to the world. To read nearly all his
Memoirs is to receive the impression that he looked on his wife as a wronged innocent. To read the whole is to feel he knew the truth and took the risk, which was not very great after all; for the lady of the many suitors and several adventures settled down to the mildest domesticity. They say he was jealous; but no one has said she gave him cause. The tale runs that Dorset visited them once a year, and "only kissed her hand, Sir Kenelm being by."

But Digby was a good lover. All the absurd rhodomontade of his strange
Memoirs notwithstanding, there are gleams of rare beauty in the story of his passion, which raise him to the level of the great lovers. His
Memoirs were designed to tell "the beginning, progress, and consummation of that excellent love, which only makes me believe that our pilgrimage in this world is not indifferently laid upon all persons for a curse." And here is a very memorable thing. "Understanding and love are the natural operation of a reasonable creature; and this last, which is a gift that of his own nature must always be bestowed, being the only thing that is really in his power to bestow , it is the worthiest and noblest that can be given."

But, as he naïvely says, "the relations that follow marriage are ... a clog to an active mind"; and his kinsman Bristol was ever urging him to show his worth "by some generous action." The result of this urging was Scanderoon. His object, plainly stated, was to ruin Venetian trade in the Levant, to the advantage of English commerce. The aid and rescue of Algerian slaves were afterthoughts. King James promised him a commission; but Buckingham's secretary, on behalf of his master absent in the Ile de Ré, thought his privileges were being infringed, and the King drew back. Digby acted throughout as if he had a "publike charge," but he was really little other than a pirate. He sailed from Deal in December, 1627, his ships the "Eagle" and the "George and Elizabeth." It was six months before the decisive fight took place; but on the way he had captured some French and Spanish ships near Gibraltar; and what with skirmishes and sickness, his voyage did not want for risk and episode at any time. Digby the landsman maintained discipline, reconciled quarrels, doctored his men, ducked them for disorderliness, and directed the naval and military operations like any old veteran. At Scanderoon [now Alexandretta in the Levant] the French and Venetians, annoyed by his presence, fired on his ships. He answered with such pluck and decision that, after a three hours' fight, the enemy was completely at his mercy, and the Venetians "quitted to him the signiority of the roade." In his Journal of the Voyage you may read a sober account, considering who was the teller of the tale, of a brilliant exploit. He does not disguise the fact that he was acting in defiance of his own countrymen in the Levant. The Vice-Consul at Scanderoon kept telling him that "our nation" at Aleppo "fared much the worse for his abode there." He was setting the merchants in the Levant by the ears, and when he turned his face homewards, the English were the most relieved of all. His exploit "in that drowsy and inactive time ... was looked upon with general estimation," says Clarendon. The King gave him a good welcome, but could not follow it up with any special favour; for there were many complaints over the business, and Scanderoon had to be repudiated.

But Digby could not be merely privateer, and in the Scanderoon expedition we are privileged to look on the Pirate as a Man of Taste. His stay in Florence had given him an interest in the fine arts; and at Milo and Delphos he contrived to make some healthy exercise for his men serve the avidity of the collector. Modern excavators will read with horror of his methods. "I went with most of my shippes to Delphos, a desert island, where staying till the rest were readie, because idlenesse should not fixe their mindes upon any untoward fansies (as is usuall among seamen), and together to avayle myselfe of the convenience of carrying away some antiquities there, I busied them in rolling of stones doune to the see side, which they did with such eagernesse as though it had been the earnestest business that they had come out for, and they mastered prodigious massie weightes; but one stone, the greatest and fairest of all, containing four statues, they gave over after they had been, 300 men, a whole day about it.... But the next day I contrived a way with mastes of shippes and another shippe to ride over against it, that brought it doune with much ease and speede"! What became of this treasure so heroically acquired?

So much for art. Literature was to have its turn with the versatile pirate ere he reached his native shores. During a time of forced inaction at Milo, he began to write his Memoirs . A great commander was expected during a truce,