[3] Holt's country seat was Redgrave Hall, formerly the home of the Bacons. It was on his manor of Redgrave, that Sir Nicholas Bacon entertained Queen Elizabeth, when she remarked that her Lord Keeper's house was too small for him, and he answered--"Your Majesty has made me too great for my house."
"I would compare the multitude of women which are to be chosen for wives unto a bag full of snakes, having among them a single eel; now if a man should put his hand into this bag, he may chance to light on the eel; but it is an hundred to one he shall be stung by a snake."
These words were often heard from the lips of that honest judge, Sir John More, whose son Thomas stirred from brain to foot by the bright eyes, and snowy neck, and flowing locks of _cara Elizabetha_ (the _cara Elizabetha_ of a more recent Tom More was 'Bessie, my darling')--penned those warm and sweetly-flowing verses which delight scholars of the present generation, and of which the following lines are neither the least musical nor the least characteristic:--
"Jam subit illa dies quæ ludentem obtulit olim Inter virgineos te mibi prima choros. Lactea cum flavi decuerunt colla capilli, Cum gena par nivibus visa, labella rosis: Cum tua perstringunt oculos duo sydera nostros Perque oculos intrant in mea corda meos."
The goddess of love played the poet more than one droll trick. Having approached her with musical flattery, he fled from her with fear and abhorrence. For a time the highest and holiest of human affections was to his darkened mind no more than a carnal appetite; and he strove to conquer the emotions which he feared would rouse within him a riot of impious passions. With fasting and cruel discipline he would fain have killed the devil that agitated him, whenever he passed a pretty girl in the street. As a lay Carthusian he wore a hair-shirt next his skin, disciplined his bare back with scourges, slept on the cold ground or a hard bench, and by a score other strong measures sought to preserve his spiritual by ruining his bodily health. But nature was too powerful for unwholesome doctrine and usage, and before he rashly took a celibatic vow, he knelt to fair Jane Colt--and rising, kissed her on the lips.