She was very salacious, and she had a contrivance that in the spring of the yeare[1165] ... the stallions ... were to be brought before such a part of the house, where she had a vidette to look on them.... One of her great gallants was crooke-back't Cecill, earl of Salisbury.
In her time Wilton house 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. She was a great chymist and spent yearly a great deale in that study. She kept for her laborator[1166] in the house Adrian Gilbert (vulgarly called Dr. Gilbert), halfe brother to Sir Walter Ralegh, who was a great chymist in those dayes. 'Twas he that made the curious wall about Rowlington-parke, which is the parke that adjoyns to the house at Wilton. Mr. Henry Sanford was the earle's secretary, a good scholar and poet, and who did penne part of the Arcadia dedicated to her (as appeares by the preface). He haz a preface before it with the two letters of his name. 'Tis he that haz verses before Bond's Horace. She also gave an honourable yearly pension to Dr. <Thomas> Mouffett,[1167]who hath writt a booke De insectis. Also one ... Boston, a good chymist, a Salisbury man borne, who[1168] did undoe himselfe by studying the philosopher's stone, and she would have kept him but he would have all the gold to him selfe and so dyed I thinke in a goale.
At Wilton is a good library which Mr. Christopher Wase can give you the best account of of any one; which was collected in this learned ladie's time. There is a manuscript very elegantly written, viz. all the Psalmes of David translated by Sir Philip Sydney, curiously bound in crimson velvet. There is a MS. writt by Dame Marian[1169] of hunting and hawking, in English verse, written in King Henry the 8th's time (quaere Mr. Christopher Wase farther). There is the legier book of Wilton, one page Saxon and the other Latin, which Mr. Dugdale perused.
This curious seate of Wilton and the adjacent countrey is an Arcadian place and a paradise. Sir Philip Sydney was much here, and there was[1170] ... great love between him and his faire sister ... I have heard old gentlemen (old Sir Walter Long of Dracot and old Mr. Tyndale) say ... The first Philip, earle of Pembroke, ... inherited not the witt of either the brother or sister.
This countesse, after her lord's death, maried[LXXXIV.] to Sir Matthew Lister[LXXXV.], knight, one of the Colledge of Physitians, London. He was (they say) a learned and a handsome gentleman. She built then a curious house in Bedfordshire called Houghton Lodge neer Ampthill. The architects were sent for from Italie. It is built according to the description of Basilius's house in the first booke of the Arcadia (which is dedicated to her). It is most pleasantly situated and hath fower visto's, each prospect 25 or 30 miles. This was sold to the earle of Elgin for ... li. The house did cost 10,000 li. the building.
[LXXXIV.] Jack Markham saies they were not <married>.
[LXXXV.] He dyed 1644 or 1645.
I thinke she was buryed in the vault in the choire at Salisbury, by Henry, earl of Pembroke, her first husband: but there is no memoriall of her, nor of any of the rest, except some penons and scutcheons.
[1171]An epitaph on the lady Mary, countesse of Pembroke (in print somewhere), by William Browne, who wrote the Pastoralls, whom William, earle of Pembroke, preferr'd to be tutor to the first earle of Carnarvon (<Robert> Dormer), which was worth to him 5 or 6000 li., i.e. he bought 300 li. per annum land—from old Jack Markham—
Underneath this sable hearse
Lies the subject of all verse:
Sydney's sister, Pembroke's mother.
Death! er'st thou shalt kill[1172] such another
Fair and good and learn'd as shee,
Time will throw a[1173] dart at thee.