The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened | Page 3

unlikely that some of Allen's books were among his collection at Paris
sold after his death by the King of France.
But Kenelm was restlessly longing to taste life outside academic circles,
and already he was hotly in love with his old playmate, now grown into
great beauty, Venetia Anastasia Stanley, daughter of Edward Stanley of
Tonge, in Shropshire, and granddaughter of the Earl of Northumberland.
If I could connect the beautiful Venetia with this cookery book, I
should willingly linger over the tale of her striking and brief career. But
though the elder Lady Digby contributed something to The Closet
Opened, there is no suggestion that it owes a single receipt to the
younger. Above Kenelm in station as she was, he could hardly have
aspired to her save for her curiously forlorn situation. Mother-less, and
her father a recluse, she was left to bring herself up, and to bestow her
affections where she might. To Kenelm's ardour she responded readily;
and he philandered about her for a year or two. But his mother would
hear nothing of the match; and at seventeen he was sent out on the
grand tour, the object of which, we learn from his Memoirs, was "to
banish admiration, which for the most part accompanieth home-bred
minds, and is daughter of ignorance." Kenelm proved better than the
ideal set before him; and the more he travelled the more he admired.
Into this tale of love and adventure I must break with the disturbing
intelligence that the handsome and romantic and spirited youth was in
all probability already procuring material for the compilation on
Physick and Chirurgery, which Hartman, his steward, published after

his death. It was not as a middle-aged bon viveur, nor as an elderly
hypochondriac, that he began his medical studies, but in the heyday of
youth, and quite seriously, too. The explanation brings with it light on
some other of his interests as well. When he set out on the grand tour,
his head full of love and the prospects of adventure, he found the spare
energy to write from London to a good friend of his, the Rev. Mr.
Sandy, Parson of Great Lindford. In this letter--the original is in the
Ashmolean--Kenelm asks for the good parson's prayers, and sends him
"a manuscript of elections of divers good authors." Mr. Longueville,
who gives the letter, has strangely failed to identify Sandy with the
famous Richard Napier, parson, physician, and astrologer, of the
well-known family of Napier of Merchistoun. His father, Alexander
Napier, was often known as "Sandy"; and the son held the alternative
names also. Great Lindford is two and a half miles from Gothurst; and
it is possible that Protestant friends, perhaps Laud himself, urged on the
good parson the duty of looking after the young Catholic gentleman.
Sandy (Napier) was also probably his mother's medical adviser: he
certainly acted as such to some members of her family. A man of
fervent piety--his "knees were horny with frequent praying," says
Aubrey--he was, besides, a zealous student of alchemy and astrology, a
friend of Dee, of Lilly, and of Booker. Very likely Kenelm had been
entrusted to Allen's care at Oxford on the recommendation of Sandy;
for Allen, one of his intimates, was a serious occultist, who, according
to his servant's account, "used to meet the spirits on the stairs like
swarms of bees." With these occupations Napier combined a large
medical practice in the Midlands, the proceeds of which he gave to the
poor, living ascetically himself. His favourite nephew, Richard Napier
the younger, his pupil in all these arts and sciences, was about the same
age as Kenelm, and spent his holidays at Great Lindford. The
correspondence went on. Digby continued his medical observations
abroad; and after his return we find him writing to Sandy,
communicating "some receipts," and asking for pills that had been
ordered. Thus we have arrived at the early influences which drew the
young Catholic squire towards the art of healing and the occult sciences.
The latter he dabbled in all his life. In the former his interest was
serious and steadfast.

He remained out of England three years. From Paris the plague drove
him to Angers, where the appearance of the handsome English youth
caused such commotion in the heart of the Queen Mother, Marie de
Médicis, that she evidently lost her head. His narrative of her behaviour
had to be expurgated when his Memoirs were published in 1827. He
fled these royal attentions; spread a report of his death, and made his
way to Italy. His two years in Florence were not all spent about the
Grand-ducal Court. His mind, keen and of infinite curiosity, was
hungering after the universal knowledge he aspired to; and Galileo,
then writing his Dialogues in his retirement at