An Everard Digby, who died in 1592, wrote curious books; his son, Sir Everard, knighted by James I., was hanged, drawn, and quartered for giving fifteen hundred pounds towards expenses of the Gunpowder Plot. The eldest son of that Sir Everard was Sir Kenelm Digby, born in 1603, and educated at Oxford. He travelled in Spain, discovered, as he supposed, a sympathetic powder for cure of wounds, was knighted in 1623, was sent with a fleet into the Mediterranean in 1628, and returned to the faith of his fathers as a Roman Catholic in 1636. In the civil wars he helped the king among the Roman Catholics, and was then exile in France until Cromwell’s supremacy gave him liberty to revisit England; but he returned to France. He published, in 1644, a mystical interpretation of “The 22d Stanza in the 9th Canto of the 2d Book of Spenser’s Faery Queen;” in 1645, “Two Treatises on the Nature of Bodies and of Man’s Soul;” took lively interest in Palingenesis; wrote “Observations upon Sir T. Browne’s Religio Medici,” and was ingenious in the pursuit of forms of learning which have proved to be more curious than true. He died in 1665.
| He doth excel | |
| In honour, courtesy, and all the parts | |
| Court can call hers, or man could call his arts. | |
| He’s prudent, valiant, just and temperate: | |
| In him all virtue is beheld in state; | |
| And he is built like some imperial room | |
| For that to dwell in, and be still at home. | |
| His breast is a brave palace, a broad street, | |
| Where all heroic ample thoughts do meet: | |
| Where nature such a large survey hath ta’en, | |
| As other souls, to his, dwelt in a lane. |
He was a great traveller, and understood 10 or 12 languages. He was not only master of a good and gracefull judicious stile, but he also wrote a delicate hand, both fast-hand and Roman…. He was such a goodly handsome person, gigantique and great voice, and had so gracefull elocution and noble addresse, etc., that had he been drop’t out of the clowdes in any part of the world, he would have made himselfe respected. But the Jesuites spake spitefully, and sayd ’twas true, but then he must not stay there above six weekes. He was envoyé from Henrietta Maria (then Queen-mother) to Pope (Innocent X) where at first sight he was mightily admired; but after some time he grew high, and hectored with his holinesse, and gave him the lye. The pope sayd he was mad. He was well versed in all kinds of learning. And he had also this vertue, that no man knew better how to abound, and to be abused, and either was indifferent to him. No man became grandeur better; sometimes again he would live only with a lackey, and horse with a foote-cloath…. He was a person of very extraordinary strength … he was of an undaunted courage, yet not apt in the least to give offence. His conversation was both ingeniose and innocent.
His knowledge, though various and extensive, appeared to be greater than it really was; as he had all the powers of elocution and address to recommend it. He knew how to shine in a circle of ladies, or philosophers; and was as much attended to when he spoke on the most trivial subjects, as when he spoke on the most important. He was remarkably robust, and of a very uncommon size, but moved with peculiar grace and dignity. Though he applied himself to experiment, he was sometimes hypothetical in his philosophy; and there are instances of his being very bold and paradoxical in his conjectures: hence he was called the “Pliny of his age for lying.”
One of the most attractive figures visible on that imaginary line where the eve of chivalry and the dawn of science unite to form a mysterious yet beautiful twilight, is that of Sir Kenelm Digby. To our imagination he represents the knight of old before the characteristics of that romantic style of manhood were diffused in the complexed developments of modern society, and the philosopher of the epoch when fancy and superstition held sway over the domain of the exact sciences. Bravery, devotion to the sex, and a thirst for glory, nobleness of disposition and grace of manner, traditional qualities of the genuine cavalier, signalized Sir Kenelm, not less than an ardent love of knowledge, a habitude of speculation, and literary accomplishment; but his courage and his gallantry partook of the poetic enthusiasm of the days of Bayard, and his opinions and researches were something akin to those of the alchemists. High birth and a handsome person gave emphasis to these traits; and we have complete and authentic memorials whereby he is distinctly reproduced to our minds.
The fact seems to be that, with striking superficial qualities and an imposing air of ability, Sir Kenelm Digby was a man distinguished more by a certain restless liveliness of nature than by any higher attributes of head or heart.
Amongst the many strange personalities of the 17th century, there are few whose character it is more difficult to gauge than that of Kenelm Digby. He played his part as courtier, man of fashion, romancer, critic, soldier, virtuoso, and philosopher; and although he was distinguished in each, there was no sphere in which some suspicion of charlatanism did not attach to him. It is indeed difficult to avoid the conclusion that an element of madness entered into his composition, or at least that his versatility was united to an abnormal eccentricity, which, if it partly relieves him of the worst charges, yet explains how small his influence was in any single sphere of activity. His vanity was prodigious, and is naturally most conspicuous where his writings (as is frequently the case) relate to his own actions.
General
Deserves a word among the half-mystic, half-scientific men of his time. He was a strange compound of dashing soldier, accomplished courtier, successful lover, and occult philosopher.
He has not the boldness or the mastery of language which invents new expressions or clothes new thoughts in words. But he writes with the polished ease and grace which in his carriage and his manner so vividly impressed all his contemporaries, even when they were compelled to admit his total want of veracity. He has the confidence, and, at the same time, the breadth of view, acquired by converse with every phase of life. His prose has not the quaint turns, and the sympathetic subtlety of Browne’s…. He can rise occasionally to very lofty heights of dignity and eloquence. With all this, however, there is a pervading impression of artificiality, as of one whose character was above all things theatrical; and of superficial confidence, as of one to whom philosophical lucubrations were only a phase of eccentric and ill-balanced restlessness.
His friendship with Descartes, Hobbes and other leaders of the new philosophy invested his erratic speculations with an importance that they little deserved. Though he was in close intercourse with the chief men of science of the time, his writings are a singular medley of Aristotelian Philosophy, Astrology, Alchemy, and absurd superstitions. His romantic courtship of Venetia Stanley—the history of which is recorded in his “Private Memoirs,” published in 1827—his successful privateering expedition in 1627, and the various confidential missions in which he was engaged on behalf of the Queen, and subsequently in the service of the Protector, all serve to perpetuate the memory of one of the most picturesque and eccentric characters of the period.
