The Lucasta Poems by Richard Lovelace
page 36 of 365 (09%)
page 36 of 365 (09%)
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<2.10> How different was the conduct, under similar circumstances,
of the lady whom Charles Gerbier commemorates in his ELOGIUM HEROINUM, 1651, p. 127. "Democion, the Athenian virgin," he tells us, "hearing that Leosthenes, to whom she was contracted, was slain in the wars, she killed herself; but before her death she thus reasoned with herself: 'Although my body is untoucht, yet should I fall into the imbraces of another, I should but deceive the second, since I am still married to the former in my heart.'" <2.11> Wood's story about LUCASTA having been a Lucy Sacheverell, "a lady of great beauty and fortune," may reasonably be doubted. Lucasta, whoever she was, seems to have belonged to Kent; the SACHEVERELLS were not a Kentish family. Besides, the corruption of Lucy Sacheverell into Lucasta is not very obvious, and rather violent; and the probability is that the author of the ATHENAE was misled by his informant on this occasion. The plate etched by Lely and engraved by Faithorne, which is found in the second part of LUCASTA, 1659, can scarcely be regarded as a portrait; it was, in all likelihood, a mere fancy sketch, and we are not perhaps far from the truth in our surmise that the artist was nearly, if not quite, as much in the dark as to who Lucasta was, as we are ourselves at the present day. <2.12> This is a mistake on the part of Wood, which (with many others) ought to be corrected in a new edition of the ATHENAE. Lawes did not set to music AMARANTHA, A PASTORAL, nor any portion of it; but he harmonized two stanzas of a little poem to be found at p. 29 of the present volume, and called "To Amarantha; that she would dishevel her Hair." |
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