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.