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To just what extent Castara's worth was "above rubies" Habington has not left us ignorant. A second prose portrait, this time of "A Wife," is inserted among the poems; and, reading it, one scarcely marvels that he calls her "the sweetest part in the harmony of our being." "She is," he writes, "so true a friend, her Husband may to her communicate even his ambitions, and if successe crowne not expectation, remains neverthelesse uncontemned. She is colleague with him in the Empire of prosperity; and a safe retyring place when adversity exiles him from the World. . . . She is inquisitive only of new wayes to please him, and her wit sayles by no other compasse than that of his direction. She looks upon him as Conjurors upon the Circle, beyond which there is nothing but Death and Hell; and in him she believes Paradise circumscrib'd. His virtues are her wonder and imitation; and his errors her credulite thinkes no more frailtie than makes him descend to the title of Man." So, if Habington did not cease to be a lover when he became a husband, the credit was possibly not all his own.

During those early years of his married life the poet seems to have felt an almost excessive shrinking from public activity. Political struggles had brought his family very near to shipwreck in the old days, and he had slight wish to venture upon the stormy main. For although there was no active persecution under King Charles, Catholics knew full well that they were merely tolerated in England, and their wisdom lay in much quietness. It is doubtful, too, if Habington chafed greatly under this restraint. The peaceful tenderness of his life with Castara is reflected in poem