This pleasing portrait of Pembroke, one of the great patrons of literature of James's reign, follows immediately after the unfriendly portrait of Arundel, the art collector. Clarendon knew the value of contrast in the arrangement of his gallery.
Pembroke is sometimes supposed to have been the patron of Shakespeare. It cannot, however, be proved that there were any personal relations, though the First Folio was dedicated to him and his brother, the Earl of Montgomery, afterwards fourth Earl of Pembroke. See note, p. 4, l. 30. He was the patron of Ben Jonson, who dedicated to him his Catiline, his favourite play, and his Epigrams, 'the ripest of my studies'; also of Samuel Daniel, Chapman, and William Browne. See Shakespeare's England, vol. ii, pp. 202-3.
Clarendon has also given a character of the fourth Earl, 'the poor
Earl of Pembroke', History, ed. Macray, vol. ii, pp. 539-41.
8.
Timber: or, Discoveries; Made Vpon Men and Matter. By Ben: Iohnson.
London, Printed M.DC.XLI. (pp. 101-2.)
This character is a remarkable testimony to the impression which Bacon's restrained eloquence made on his contemporaries. Yet it is little more than an exercise in free translation. Jonson has pieced together two passages in the Controversies of Marcus Seneca, and placed the name of 'Dominus Verulanus' in the margin. The two passages are these:
'Non est unus, quamvis præcipuus sit, imitandus: quia nunquam par fit imitator auctori. Hæc natura est rei. Semper citra veritatem est similitudo.' Lib. I, Præfatio (ed. Paris, 1607, p. 58).
'Oratio eius erat valens cultu, ingentibus plena sententiis. Nemo minus passus est aliquid in actione sua otiosi esse. Nulla pars erat, quæ non sua virtute staret. Nihil, in quo auditor sine damno aliud ageret. Omnia intenta aliquo, petentia. Nemo magis in sua potestate habuit audientium affectus. Verum est quod de illo dicit Gallio noster. Cum diceret, rerum potiebatur, adeo omnes imperata faciebant. Cum ille voluerat, irascebantur. Nemo non illo dicente timebat, ne desineret.' Epit. Declamat. Lib. III (p. 231).
From the continuation of the first passage Jonson took the words 'insolent Greece' ('insolenti Græciæ') in his verses 'To the memory of Shakespeare'.
Jonson has left a more vivid picture of Bacon as a speaker in a short sentence of his Conversations with Drummond of Hawthornden: 'My Lord Chancelor of England wringeth his speeches from the strings of his band.'