ism. While by no means devoid of humour—surely not of satire, when occasion required—Habington was pre-eminently a man of high seriousness. And his poems are essentially a part of himself. They reveal a nature too proud to stoop to any littleness, yet too gentle for bigotry or censoriousness; a character wherein learning had been tempered and vitalised by the power of love, and the graces of life flourished but as blossoms of some Paradisal fruit. George Talbot was nowise blinded by friendship when he wrote that affectionate little preface to Castara:
. . . Beyond your state
May be a prouder, not a happier Fate.
I write not this in hope t'incroach on fame,
Or adde a greater lustre to your name,
Bright in itselfe enough . . .
. . . . . But I who know
Thy soule religious to her ends, where grow
No sinnes by art or custome, boldly can
Stile thee more than good Poet, a good man.
For we to-day can reach no truer estimate.
