The fame of friendship which so long had told
Of three or four illustrious names of old,
’Till hoarse and weary with the tale she grew,
Rejoices now t’have got a new,
A new, and more surprizing story,
Of fair Leucasia’s and Orinda’s glory. 
As when a prudent man does once perceive
That in some foreign country he must live,
The language and the manners he does strive
To understand and practise here,
That he may come no stranger there;
So well Orinda did her self prepare,
In this much different clime for her remove,
To the glad world of poetry and love.

Footnote: 
1.  Ballard’s Memoirs.

* * * * *

Margaret, Duchess of Newcastle,

The second wife of William Cavendish, duke of Newcastle, was born at St. John’s near Colchester in Essex, about the latter end of the reign of King James I. and was the youngest daughter of Sir Charles Lucas, a gentleman of great spirit and fortune, who died when she was very young.  The duchess herself in a book intitled Nature’s Pictures, drawn by Fancy’s pencil to the life, has celebrated both the exquisite beauty of her person, and the rare endowments of her mind.  This lady’s mother was remarkably assiduous in the education of her children, and bestowed upon this, all the instructions necessary for forming the minds of young ladies, and introducing them into life with advantage.  She found her trouble in cultivating this daughter’s mind not in vain, for she discovered early an inclination to learning, and spent so much of her time in study and writing, that some of her Biographers have lamented her not being acquainted with the learned languages, which would have extended her knowledge, corrected the exuberances of genius, and have been of infinite service to her, in her numerous compositions.

In the year 1643 she obtained leave of her mother to go to Oxford, where the court then resided, and was made one of the Maids of Honour to Henrietta Maria, the Royal Consort of King Charles I. and when the Queen was forced to leave the arms of her Husband, and fly into France, by the violence of the prevailing power, this lady attended her there.  At Paris she met with the marquis of Newcastle, whose loyalty had likewise produced his exile; who, admiring her person and genius, married her in the year 1645.  The marquis had before heard of this lady, for he was a patron and friend of her gallant brother, lord Lucas, who commanded under him in the civil wars.  He took occasion one day to ask his lordship what he could do for him, as he had his interest much at heart? to which he answered, that he was not sollicitous about his own affairs, for he knew the worst could be but suffering either death, or exile in the Royal cause, but his chief sollicitude was for his sister, on whom he could bestow no fortune, and whose beauty exposed her to danger:  he represented her amiable qualities, and raised the marquis’s curiosity