Never had an army of brilliant and requiring children a more excellent mother. “_Severa parens_,” her gentle George called her in his scholarly verses; and such she was, with the mingled sagacity and joyousness which made up her character. If we are to believe their own testimony, the leading members of her young family were of excessively peppery Cymric temperaments, and worthy to call out that “manlier part” of her which Dr. Donne, who had every opportunity of observing it in play, was so quick to praise. There is a passage in a letter of Sir Thomas Lacy, addressed to Edward Herbert, touching upon “the knowledge I had how ill you can digest the least indignity.” “Holy George Herbert” himself, in 1618, commended to his dear brother Henry the gospel of self-honoring: “It is the part of a poor spirit to undervalue himself and blush.” And physical courage went hand in hand with this blameless haughtiness of the Herberts, a pretty collateral proof of which may be adduced from a message of Sir Henry Jones to his brother-in-law, the other Henry just mentioned, concerning a gift for his little nephew. “If my cozen, William Herbert your sonne . . . be ready for the rideing of a horse, I will provide him with a Welch nagg that shall be as mettlesome as himself.” There is no doubt that all this racial fire was fostered by one woman. “Thou my root, and my most firm rock, O my mother!” George cried, long after in the _Parentalia_, aware that he owed to her his high ideals, and the strength of character which is born of self-discipline.