Selfe." And as evidence that, with all her rare discretion, Lucy Herbert was still a very woman, Habington has left some beautiful verses "To Castara, Inquiring why I loved her." "Why," he retorts,
Why doth the stubborne iron prove
So gentle to th' magnetique stone?
How know you that the orbs do move;
With musicke too? Since heard of none?
And I will answer why I love.
But not unnaturally, the young poet was keenly sensitive to the opposition of Castara's family. In lines addressed to her "right honourable" mother, he impetuously wishes that his high-born mistress were
The daughter of some mountain cottager,
Who, with his toils worne out, could dying leave
Her no more dowre, than what she did receive
From bounteous Nature.
A few pages further on we find him boldly asserting that
Parents' lawes must bear no weight
When they happinesse prevent.
But the lady was too dutiful to heed such questionable doctrine, and was finally induced to leave town for Seymors, on the Thames. Habington—after the manner of disconsolate lovers—composed a number of poems lamenting her absence, immortalising "a trembling kisse" stolen at the moment of departure, and be-rating his friends for their philosophical advice. Then, very sensibly, he followed her. Subsequent titles—"To Castara, being debarr'd her presence," and "To the Dew, In hope to see
