The Broad Stone of Honour vol. 3 Morus

KENELM HENRY DIGBY, author of this work, was born at Geashill, Kings County, Ireland, A.D. 1800. He was the youngest son of the Very Rev. William Digby, Protestant Dean of Clonfert. He came of a family that had enjoyed considerable ecclesiastical preferment: one of his ancestors was Protestant Bishop of Elphin, and another was Protestant Bishop of Dromore. He was sent at a very early age to Trinity College, Cambridge, to complete his studies, and graduated as Bachelor of Arts in 1823. He was a diligent, but discursive reader, as is evident from his varied and vast, attainments. His works exhibit a variety and amount of erudition truly amazing. His acquaintance with Mediaeval customs and lit- erature was altogether unequaled. His knowledge of Greek and Roman literature was, perhaps, no less extensive and profound. With all this accumulation of ancient and Mediaeval lore he combined an ac- quaintance with the modern literature of Europe, which, alone, would seem to require a lifetime to obtain. But these vast stores of knowledge, and the happy art of using them appropriately and felicitously, did not constitute his sole claim to the world's attention. He united a high poetic with a profound philosophic faculty. This rare union fitted him for the examination and discussion of the most elevated subjects. His early studies in scholastic theology enabled him to see the errors of Protestantism, and soon after his graduation at Cambridge, he became a Catholic. A short time before this, when he was yet but twenty-two years old, he published the first edition of The Broad Stone of Honor. The famous book, on the "origin, spirit, and institutions of Christian chiv- alry," extorted the praise, even of critics who had but little sympathy with Mediaeval institutions, and was heartily welcomed and extolled by the historian Arnold, and the poet Wordsworth. The subject of Wordsworth's beautiful poem — The Armenian Lady's Love — is taken from the fourth book of The Broad Stone of Honor. Wordsworth dedicated the poem to Digby, "as an acknowledgment, however unworthy, of pleasure and instruction derived from his numerous and valuable writings illustrative of the olden time." -taken from Mores Catholici, 1888, P. O'Shea, Publisher