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, it appears, to pay lavish attentions to the native ladies. Neglect
of this gallantry was construed almost as a national insult. Sir Kenelm,
faithful to his Venetia, excused himself on the plea of much business. But
he had little or no business; and he used his retirement to pen the amazing
account of his early life and his love story, where he appears as Theagenes
and his wife as Stelliana, as strange a mixture of rhodomontade and real
romance as exists among the autobiographies of the world. Of course it does
not represent Digby at his maturity. Among his MSS. the _Memoirs_ were