PART II. - CHAPTER III.
OF LEARNED MEN THAT HAD PENSIONS GRANTED TO THEM BY THE EARLES OF PEMBROKE.
IN the former Chapter I endeavoured to adumbrate Wilton House as to its architecture. We are now to consider it within, where it will appeare to have been an academie as well as palace; and was, as it were, the apiarie to which men that were excellent in armes and arts did resort and were caress't, and many of them received honourable pensions.
The hospitality here was very great. I shall wave the grandeur of William the first Earle, who married [Anne] sister to Queen Katharine Parre, and was the great favourite of King Henry 8th, and conservator of his will, and come to our grandfather's memorie, in the times of his sonne Henry Earle of Pembroke, and his Countess Mary, daughter of Sir Henry Sydney, and sister to that renowned knight Sir Philip Sydney, whose fame will never die whilest poetrie lives. His Lordship was the patron to the men of armes, and to the antiquaries and heralds; he took a great delight in the study of herauldry, as appeares by that curious collection of heraldique manuscripts in the library here. It was this earle that did set up all the painted glasse scutchions about the house. Many a brave souldier, no doubt, was here obliged by his Lordship; but time has obliterated their names.
Mr. Robert Barret dedicated the "Theorick and Practick of Moderne Warres", in folio, London, 1598, to this noble Earle, and William Lord Herbert of Cardiff, his son, then a youth. It seemes to have been a very good discourse as any writt in that time, wherein he shews much learning, besides experience. He had spent most of his time in foreigne warres, as the French, Dutch, Italian, and Spanish; and here delivers his military observations.
John Jones, an eminent physician in his tyme, wrote a treatise of the bathes at Bath, printed in a black letter, Anno Domini 1572, which he dedicated to Henry, Earle of Pembroke. [These dedications were doubtless acknowledged by pecuniary gifts from the patron to the authors. - J. B.] ___________________________________
I shall now passe to the illustrious Lady Mary, Countesse of Pembroke, whom her brother hath eternized by his Arcadia; but many or most of the verses in the Arcadia were made by her Honour, and they seem to have been writt by a woman. 'Twas a great pity that Sir Philip had not lived to have put his last hand to it. He spent much, if not most part of his time here, and at Ivychurch, near Salisbury, which did then belong to this family, when he was in England; and I cannot imagine that Mr. Edmund Spenser could be a stranger here. [See, in a subsequent page, Chap. VIII. "The Downes". - J. B.]
Her Honour's genius lay as much towards chymistrie as poetrie. The learned Dr. Mouffet, that wrote of Insects and of Meates, had a pension hence. In a catalogue of English playes set forth by Gerard Langbain, is thus, viz.: "Lady Pembrock, Antonius, 4to." [This was an English translation of "The Tragedie of Antonie. Doone into English by the Countesse of Pembroke. Imprinted at London, for William Ponsonby, 1595." 12mo. The Countess of Pembroke also translated "A Discourse of Life and Death, written in French, by Phil. Mornay", 1600, 12mo.- J. B.]
"Underneath this sable herse
Lies the subject of all verse,
Sydney's sister, Pembroke's mother,
Death! ere thou kill'st such another,
Fair, and wise, and learned as SHE,
Time will throw a dart at thee."
These verses were made by Mr. (William*) Browne, who wrote the
"Pastoralls", and they are inserted there.
*(William, Governor afterwards to ye now E. of Oxford. - J. EVELYN.)
[In the Memoir of Aubrey, published by the Wiltshire Topographical Society in 1845, I drew attention to this passage, which shews that although the above famous epitaph on the Countess of Pembroke is almost always attributed to Ben Jonson, it was, in fact, written by William Browne. That such is really the case does not rest only on the authority of Aubrey and Evelyn; for we find this very epitaph in a volume of Poems written by Browne, and preserved amongst the Lansdowne MSS in the British Museum (No. 777), together with the following additional lines:
"Marble pyles let no man raise
To her name for after-dayes;
Some kind woman, borne as she,
Reading this, like Niobe,
Shall turne marble, and become
Both her mourner and her tombe."
To the epitaph is subjoined an "Elegie" on the Countess, of considerable length. When or by whom the epitaph was first ascribed to Jonson it is not easy to ascertain; but certainly no literary error has been more frequently repeated. Aubrey is wrong in stating that the lines were printed in Browne's Pastorals.- J. B.] ___________________________________
Mr. Adrian Gilbert, uterine brother to Sir Walter Raleigh, was a great chymist, and a man of excellent parts, but very sarcastick, and the greatest buffoon in the nation. He was housekeeper at Wilton, and made that delicate orchard where the stately garden now is. ……….. He had a pension, and died about the beginning of the reign of King Charles the First. Elias Ashmole, Esq. finds, by Dr. John Dee's papers, that there was a great friendship and correspondency between him and Adrian Gilbert, and he often mentions him in his manuscripts. Now there can be no doubt made but that his half-brother Sir Walter Raleigh, which was "tam Marti quam Mercurio", had a great acquaintance with the Earle Henry and his ingenious Countesse.
There lived in Wilton, in those dayes, one Mr. Boston, a Salisbury man (his father was a brewer there), who was a great chymist, and did great cures by his art. The Lady Mary, Countesse of Pembroke, did much esteeme him for his skill, and would have had him to have been her operator, and live with her, but he would not accept of her Ladyship's kind offer. But after long search after the philosopher's stone, he died at Wilton, having spent his estate. After his death they found in his laboratory two or three baskets of egge shelles, which I remember Geber saieth is a principall ingredient of that stone.
J. Donne, Deane of St. Paule's, was well known both to Sir Philip Sydney and his sister Mary, as appeares by those excellent verses in his poems, "Upon the Translation of the Psalmes by Sir Philip Sydney and the Countesse of Pembroke his sister." ___________________________________
Earl William [the second of that name] was a good scholar, and delighted in poetrie; and did sometimes, for his diversion, write some sonnets and epigrammes, which deserve commendation. Some of them are in print in a little book in 8vo. intituled "Poems writt by William Earle of Pembroke, and Sir Benjamin Ruddyer, Knight, 1660." [See ante, page 77. A new edition of these poems was published by Sir Egerton Brydges in 1817.] He was of an heroique and publick spirit, bountifull to his friends and servants, and a great encourager of learned men.
Philip Earle of Pembroke [the first of that name], his brother, did not delight in books or poetry; but exceedingly loved painting and building, in which he had singular judgment, and had the best collection of any peer in England. He had a wonderful sagacity in the understanding of men, and could discover whether an ambassadour's message was reall or feigned; and his Majesty King James made great use of this talent of his. Mr. Touars, an ingenious gentleman, who understood painting well, and did travell beyond sea to buy rare pieces for his lordship, had a pension of lOOli. per annum. Mr. Richard Gibson, the dwarfe, whose marriage Mr. Edm. Waller hath celebrated in his poëms, sc. the Marriage of the Dwarfs, a great master in miniture, hath a pension of an hundred pounds per annum. Mr. Philip Massinger, author of severall good playes, was a servant to his lordship, and had a pension of twenty or thirty pounds per annum, which was payed to his wife after his decease. She lived at Cardiffe, in Glamorganshire. There were others also had pensions, that I have forgot.
[Arthur Massinger, the father of the poet, was attached to the establishment of the Earl of Pembroke; and Gifford, in his Life of Massinger, seems inclined to think that Philip was born at Wilton. He was baptized in St. Thomas's Church, Salisbury, 24 Nov. 1583. His biographers have all been ignorant of the fact above recorded by Aubrey. A brief memoir of the life of Massinger will be found in Hatcher's History of Salisbury, p. 619.- J. B.]
William (third) and Philip (third) earles were gallant, noble persons, and handsome; they espoused not learning, but were addicted to field sports and hospitality. But Thomas Earle of Pembroke has the vertues and good parts of his ancestors concentred in him; which his lordship hath not been wanting to cultivate and improve by study and travell; which make his titles shine more bright. He is an honour to the peerage, and a glory and a blessing to his country: but his reall worth best speakes him, and it praises him in the gates.