"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.