To whom all shepherds dedicate their lays,
And on her altars offer up their bays.
"In her time Wilton house," says Aubrey, "was like a College; there were so many learned and ingeniose persons. She was the greatest patronesse of witt and learning of any lady in her time." And if Beaumont knew the mother, then, also, William Herbert, third Earl of Pembroke, the son, to whom his master, Jonson, dedicates in 1611, the tragedy of Catiline, prefaced, as we have already observed, by verses of Beaumont himself.
Whatever Rutland's objection may have been to his Countess's patronage of poets, we may be sure that that lady's attitude toward Beaumont and his literary friends was seconded by her husband's old friend the Earl of Southampton, with whom in earlier days Rutland used to pass away the time "in London merely in going to plaies every day." Southampton had remained a patron of Burbadge, Shakespeare, and the like. And when he died in 1624, we find not only Beaumont's acquaintance, Chapman, but Beaumont's brother, joining in the chorus of panegyric to his memory. "I keep that glory last which is the best," writes Sir John,
The love of learning which he oft express'd
In conversation, and respect to those
Who had a name in arts, in verse, in prose.
Since Southampton was "a dear lover and cherisher as well of the lovers of poets as of the poets themselves"[98] we may figure not only the two Beaumonts but their beloved Countess participating in such discussion of noble themes,—if not in London, then at Belvoir Castle or Titchfield House or Grace-Dieu Priory. If at Belvoir, Leland, the traveler, helps us to the scene. The castle, he says "standyth on the very knape of an highe hille, stepe up eche way, partely by nature, partely by working of mennes handes, as it may evidently be perceived. Of the late dayes [1540], the Erle of Rutland hath made it fairer than ever it was. It is straunge sighte to se be how many steppes of stone the way goith up from the village to the castel. In the castel be 2 faire gates, And its dungeon is a fair rounde tour now turnid to pleasure, as a place to walk yn, to se at the countery aboute, and raylid about the round [waull, and] a garden [plot] in the middle."[99] One sees Francis toiling up the "many steps," received by his Countess and the rest, and rejoicing with them in the view of the twenty odd family estates from the garden on the high tower.
Returning to Francis Beaumont's epistle to the Countess of Rutland, we observe that it concludes with a promise:
But, if your brave thoughts, which I must respect
Above your glorious titles, shall accept
These harsh disorder'd lines, I shall ere long
Dress up your virtues new, in a new song;
Yet far from all base praise and flattery,
Although I know what'er my verses be,
They will like the most servile flattery shew,
If I write truth, and make the subject you.
The opportunity for "the new song" came in a manner unexpected, and, alas, too soon. In August 1612, but a brief month or so after she had been freed by her husband's death from the misery of an unhappy marriage, she was herself suddenly carried off by some mysterious malady. According to a letter of Chamberlain to Sir R. Winwood, "Sir Walter Raleigh is slandered to have given her certaine Pills that despatch'd her." That, Sir Walter, even with the best intent in the world, could not have done in person, for he was in the Tower at the time. Perhaps the medicine referred to was one of those "excellent receipts" for which Raleigh and his half-brother, Adrian Gilbert, were famous. The chemist Gilbert was living in those days with the Countess of Rutland's aunt, at Wilton.
Three days after the death of the lady whom he so revered, Beaumont poured out his grief in verses justly praised as