"Stamp'd with arms, Newcastle shines complete."
In her Poems and Fancies, 1653, the copy now in the British Museum, on the margin of one page is the following note in the Duchess' own handwriting:—"Reader, let me intreat you to consider only the fancyes in this my book of poems, and not the language of the numbers, nor rimes, nor fals printing, for if you doe, you will be my condeming judg, which will grive me much." Of this book she says:—
"When I did write this book I took great paines,
For I did walk, and thinke, and break my braines;
My thoughts run out of breath, then down would lye,
And panting with short wind like those that dye;
When time had given ease, and lent them strength,
Then up would get and run another length;
Sometimes I kept my thought with strict dyet,
And made them fast with ease, rest, and quiet,
That they might run with swifter speed,
And by this course new fancies they could breed;
But I doe feare they are no so good to please,
But now they're out my braine is more at ease."
At page 228 occurs this strange fancy:—
"Life scums the cream of beauty with Time's spoon,
And draws the claret wine of blushes soon."
Again, she tells us that—
"The brain is like an oven, hot and dry,
Which bakes all sorts of fancies, low and high;
The thoughts are wood, which motion sets on fire;
The tongue a peele, which draws forth the desire;
But thinking much, the brain too hot will grow,
And burns it up; if cold, the thoughts are dough."
To a volume of the Duchess' plays is prefixed a portrait of her Grace, and this couplet under it:—
"Her beauty's found beyond the skill
Of the best paynter to embrace."