hermit
who "wore a long mourning cloake, a high crowned hat, his beard unshorne
... as signes of sorrowe for his beloved wife"? There "he diverted himself
with chymistry and the professor's good conversation." He had "a fair and
large laboratory ... erected under the lodgings of the Divinity Reader."
Hans Hunneades the Hungarian was his operator.

But another influence was at work. For the first time his mind turned
seriously to religion. Romanist friends were persuading him to his father's
faith. His old tutor Laud and other Protestants were doing their best to
settle him on their side. Out of the struggle of choice he came, in 1636, a
fervent and convinced Catholic. He was to prove his devotion over and over
again; but I fear that Catholics of to-day would view with suspicion his
views on ecclesiastical authority. In his dedication of his _Treatise on
the Soul_ to his son Kenelm, there is a spirited defence of the right, of
the intelligent to private judgment in matters of doctrine. Nevertheless,
his Catholicism, though rationalist, was sincere, and he spent much energy
in propaganda among his friends--witness his rather dull little brochure,
the _Conference with a Lady about Choice of Religion_ (1638), and his
correspondence with his kinsman, Lord Digby, who did, indeed, later, come
over to the older faith. Ere long he earned the reputation of being "not
only an open but a busy Papist," though "an eager enemy to the Jesuits."

From this time dates his close friendship with the Queen, Henrietta Maria,
and her Catholic friends, Sir Tobie Matthew, Endymion Porter, and Walter
Montague. He and Montague were specially chosen by the Queen to appeal to
the English Catholics for aid towards Charles's campaign in Scotland. Digby
was certainly a hot inciter of the King to foolish activity; but in the
light of his after history, it would seem always with a view to the
complete freedom of the Catholic religion. A prominent King's man, nay, a
Queen's man, which was held to be something extremer, he played, however,
an individual part in the struggle. He was well fitted for the Cavalier
role by the magnificence of his person, by his splendid hospitality, his
contempt for sects, his aristocratic instincts, and his manner of the Great
World. But if he liked good cheer and a great way of living, he is never to
be imagined as clinking cans with a "Hey for Cavaliers! Ho for Cavaliers!"
He never fought for the King's cause--though he foug