whether the circumstance can be treated as amounting to more than
a curious coincidence.

The Master of Dulwich College has obligingly informed me,
that the picture of ALTHEA, as well as that of Lovelace himself,
bequeathed by Cartwright the actor to Dulwich College in 1687,
bears no clue to date of composition, or to the artist's name,
and that it does not assist in the identification of the lady.
This is the more vexatious, inasmuch as it seems probable that
ALTHEA, whoever she was, became the poet's wife, after LUCASTA'S
marriage to another. The CHLOES, &c. mentioned in the following
pages were merely more or less intimate acquaintances of Lovelace,
like the ELECTRA, PERILLA, CORINNA, &c. of Herrick. But at the
same time an obscurity has hitherto hung over some of the persons
mentioned under fictitious names in the poems of Lovelace,
which a little research and trouble would have easily removed.
For instance, no one who reads "Amarantha, a Pastoral,"
doubts that LUCASTA and AMARANTHA are one and the same person.
ALEXIS is Lovelace himself. ELLINDA is a female friend of
the poet, who occasionally stayed at her house, and on one
occasion (p. 79) had a serious illness there. ELLINDA marries
AMYNTOR, under which disguise, I suspect, lurks the well known
Maecenas of his time, Endymion Porter. If Porter be AMYNTOR, of
course ELLINDA must be the Lady Olivia Porter, his wife. ARIGO
(see the poem of AMYNTOR'S GROVE) signifies Porter's friend,
Henry Jermyn. It may be as well to add that the LETTICE mentioned
at p. 121, was the Lady Lettice Goring, wife of Lovelace's friend,
and third daughter of Richard Boyle, first Earl of Cork. This lady
died before her husband, to whom she brought no issue.