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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 September 2015
Though Kenelm Henry Digby, a romantic convert, is a minor figure within the story of the development of nineteenth-century English Catholicism, his name is recalled in passing in many of the text books; and so, perhaps, some seventy years after Bernard Holland’s sketchy biography of him, there is room for a reassessment of his place within Victorian Catholicism, in which milieu his name was well-known, his books widely read, and his person much-loved. In W. G. Roe’s estimate, his writings ‘made a considerable contribution, if not to the thought, at least to the atmosphere of the Catholic revival.’ He was interesting as the first man to use the widespread fascination with the Middle Ages for the purpose of Catholic apologetic. When so distinguished a figure as Lord Acton noted his influence, and a contributor to the Dublin Review suggested in 1843 that Digby’s writings had helped to reduce anti-Catholic prejudice, it is of interest to reconstruct his views on, and his contribution to, English Catholicism. The task is difficult, for he was and remains an elusive figure, somewhat isolated, uncontroversial, obsessively restless and given to writing numerous volumes of poor prose and terrible meditative poetry, which, despite their autobiographical nature, are frustratingly unrevealing.
1 There were two useful reviews of Holland: Moore Smith, G. C. Modern Language Review XIV (Oct. 1919), pp. 429–34 Google Scholar, William Barry, Canon Dublin Review CLXVI (Jan.-June 1920), pp. 31–50.Google Scholar
2 Roe, Lamennais and England (Oxford, 1966), p. 120.Google Scholar
3 The Correspondence of Lord Acton and Richard Simpson ed. Joseph L. Altholz, et al., 3 vols. (Cambridge, 1975) III, p. 22, letter of 1 Oct. 1862.
4 William Russell, Charles Dublin Review XIV (Feb. 1843), p. 99.Google Scholar
5 In 1942 Edwin Norbert Rowley completed a Ph.D. thesis, ‘Kenelm Henry Digby and the English Catholic Literary Revival’, for St. John’s University, Brooklyn; in 1922 George N. Shuster wrote a general account of the Catholicity of Digby’s writings in The Catholic Spirit in Modern English Literature (New York) Ch. 2.
6 ‘The date of his birth is uncertain because the parish register at Geashill, Ireland, is incomplete. Various dates are given for his birth, but both J. A. Venn’s Alumni Cantabrigiensis and Rouse Ball’s Trinity College Admissions state he was 18 when admitted to Trinity on 22 Oct. 1814.
7 Lord Teignmouth Reminiscences of Many Years 2 vols. Edinburgh, 1878) I, pp. 66–7.
8 The Poetical Remains of William Sidney Walker ed. J. Moultrie (1852) letter to Rev. Derwent Coleridge, p. lxxxvii.
9 Digby, The Temple of Memory (new ed., London, 1975) pp. 377–84, 386.Google Scholar
10 Ibidem pp. 125, 386–90.
11 Purcell, Edmund S. Life and Letters of Ambrose Phillipps de Lisle 2 vols. (London, 1900) I, p. 15 Google Scholar, letters of 1827.
12 Ibidem, II, p. 201.
13 On Digby and Young England see Morris, Kevin The Image of the Middle Ages in Romantic and Victorian Literature (London, 1984) ch. 4Google Scholar and Kegel, Charles H. ‘Lord John Manners and the Young England Movement: Romanticism in Polities’ Western Political Quarterly XIV (1961) pp. 691–7.Google Scholar
14 ‘The Prologue’ The Broad Stone of Honour 2nd. ed. (London, 1823), especially pp. lxiii–lxiv.
15 The 4 vols, had separate titles: Morus (1826), Tancredus (1828), Godefridus (1829), Orlandus (1829). There were further eds. 1844–8, 1876–7, 1883, with an anthology from the Broad Stone called Maxims of Christian Chivalry pub. 1924, 1926 (twice).
16 For modern assessments of Digby’s idea of the gentleman see A. G. Hill ‘A Medieval Victorian’ TLS 5 Sept. 1958, p. 504, and Girouard, Mark The Return to Camelot (London, 1981)Google Scholar, ch. 5.
17 London, 1842, p. 161.
18 For evidence of this friendship see Edward Bowden, John The Life and Letters of Frederick William Faber, D.D. (London, 1869), pp. 456–7.Google Scholar
19 See Dublin Review VIII (May 1840), pp. 289–316, XXV (Dec. 1848), pp. 463–78, CL (June 1856), pp. 417–23, CLVIII (Aug. 1860), pp. 526–33.
20 Mores Catholici was also pub. in America (1840, 1888–94, 1905), and translated into French (1841, 1842) and German )1867, 1887–9).
21 Mores Catholici I (London, 1831), p. 2.
22 Lover’s Seat 2 vols. (London, 1856), I, p. 83.
23 Ibidem I, p. 94.
24 DG 8, letter of 21 July 1828.
25 Letter to Fr. Scott, Apr. 1829, Farm Street Jesuit archives; and see DG 10 and DG 13.
26 Letter to de Lisle, 16 Jan. 1830, WAA.
27 Hare, A. J. C. Memorials of a Quiet Life 3 vols. (1876), III, p. 223 Google Scholar, letter of 29 Nov. 1831 to Thomas Worsley.
28 Mores Catholici II, pp. 61–2.
29 Letter to de Lisle, 30 Nov. 1832, WAA. In later years he was also acquainted with Cardinal Manning.
30 Letter to Richard Monckton Milnes, 30 Sept. 1833, Trinity College Library, Cambridge, Houghton (2) 4896.
31 Letter to Milnes, 30 Sept. 1834, loc.cit., Houghton (2) 4906.
32 DG 39, letter of 2 Sept. 1836.
33 Letter to de Lisle, 10 Aug. 1834, WAA.
34 Eg. see DG 41, and Walsh to Wiseman 1 Mar. 1837, no. 46, English College Archives, Rome.
35 DG 42, letter of 3 Mar. 1837.
36 DG 8, letter of 21 July 1828.
37 See Morris, Kevin ‘The Cambridge Converts and the Oxford Movement’ Recusant History XVII (Oct. 1985), pp. 386–98.Google Scholar
38 Letter of summer 1841 (?), WAA.
39 DG 106, letter of 7 Dec. 1845.
40 For Digby’s possible influence on Pugin see Phoebe B. Stanton ‘The Sources of Pugin’s Contrasts’ in Concerning Architecture ed. John Summerson (1968), pp. 136–8: Stanton refers to an entry of 1837 in Pugin’s diary which indicates acquaintance with Digby. For the Pugin/Digby connection see also a letter of 3 March 1840, WAA, and a letter from John Rouse Bloxam to de Lisle, Magdalen College Library, MSS. 459 (MS. Letters, Ambrose Lisle Phillipps), 2nd Sunday in Lent 1842.
41 Letter to de Lisle from Bath 1840, 1841 ?, WAA.
42 Montalembert The Monks of the West (1861) I, pp. 65 n. 1, 198.
43 Digby to de Lisle 3 Jan. 1833, WAA, to de Lisle St. John’s Day (27 Dec.) 1832, WAA, to Whewell 1 Dec. 1839, Trinity College Library Ad. Ms. a. 2035, DG 27, DG 60.
44 Pollen, Anne Mother Mabel Digby (London, 1914), pp. 9, 10.Google Scholar
45 Butler, Dom Cuthbert The Life and Times of Bishop Ullathorne 1806–1889 2 vols. (London, 1926), I, p. 86.Google Scholar
46 Holland, p. 249.
47 Ryder, Cyril Life of Thomas Edward Bridgett (London, 1906), p. 14 Google Scholar; and see Bridgett’s letter of thanks to Digby, Holland, pp. 236–8.
48 Hunter Blair, David John Patrick Third Marquess of Bute, K.T. (London, 1921)Google Scholar.
49 Holland, p. 246.
50 See Reilly, Mary Aubrey de Vere (London, 1956), p. 132 Google Scholar, de Vere, A. Recollections of Aubrey de Vere (1897), p. 263 Google Scholar, Wemyss Reid, Thomas The Life, Letters, and Friendsips of Richard Monckton Milnes 2 vols. (London, 1890) I, pp. 116–117.Google Scholar
51 Morris, Kevin ‘Chesterton and Kenelm Henry Digby’ Chesterton Review XX No. 3 (Aug. 1985), pp. 332–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
52 The Letters of William and Dorothy Wordsworth ed. Alan G. Hill V (Oxford, 1978), pp. 47–8; and see Quillinan, Dorothy Letters of Dora Wordsworth ed. Howard P. Vincent (Chicago, 1944), p. 78 Google Scholar, letter of 27 Nov. 1830.
53 Bloxam to de Lisle 3 April 1841, Magdalen Reunion, Ambrose Lisle Phillipps item 151, Magdalen College Library, Oxford.
54 Mackail, J. W. The Life of William Morris (London, 1922), p. 39 Google Scholar; Burne-Jones, Georgiana Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones (London, 1904), II, p. 56.Google Scholar
55 The Library Edition, The Complete Works of John Ruskin ed. E. T. Cook & Alexander Wedderburn (London, 1903–12), VII, p. 361 and 361 n. 2; also see ibidem, XXVII, p. 545.
56 Whewell to Hare 17 Feb. 1832, Trinity College Library, Cambridge, Add.Ms.A.25127.
57 Tablet 27 March 1880, N.S. XXIII (Jan.–June 1880), pp. 403–4.
58 Academy XVII (Jan.–June 1880), p. 252.
59 Gillow A Literary and Biographical History, or Bibliographical Dictionary of the English Catholics, II, pp. 81–2.
60 Holland, p. 20.