Page:Poems of Anne Countess of Winchilsea 1903.djvu/39

 INTRODUCTION xxxv ���which Heneage and Anne Finch came after the wreck of their fortunes in 1688. �That Anne was speedily at home with her husband's kin is apparent from various bits of playful verse commemorating domestic happenings, the best of these being the charmingly light and deft Lines on a Punch Bowl, addressed to her brother Lashley. But her meed of serious verse was natu- rally reserved for Charles. He was the earl; he was her generous and hospitable host; he was young, gay, hand- some; she approved of his management of Eastwell; he approved of her poetry. The ties were certainly strong. Fortunately Charles was not only knowing in all the rules of poetry, and at his pleasure capable of putting them in prac- tice, but he was also indulgent to the gentle craft of poesy when practiced by others. It was, indeed, his lordship's commendation of some lines of hers that led Ardelia to her final joyous renunciation of the vows so often and so straitly made to forego the unfeminine seductions of the pen. In the Prologue to Aristomenes we have a very pleasant picture of the shy Ardelia and the poetically inclined young earl by the good winter's fire in the drawing- room at Eastwell, while she, with outward dash and fun, but with hardly concealed inward trepidation, presents to this much-dreaded critic who had the rules of Horace at his tongue's end her "wholly tragicall" play. �The social joys of Eastwell were not, however, limited to the family. Ardelia, who says of herself, �Lad I who to my heart just bounds had sett, �Winchilsea's And in my friendship scorn'd to be coquette �Friendships Qr seem indulgent to each new Adresse, �really did, in spite of this reserve, walk in the footsteps of the Matchless Orinda in her capacity for devoted attach- ments, and were it not for the disguise of fanciful names; we should be introduced through her poems to a wide circle. ��� �