Few women shone in the giddy revels of the Court with a purer lustre than the Countess of Bedford; her virtues and accomplishments may have been exaggerated by grateful poets and dependants, but they were such as to confer a certain dignity on all whom she countenanced. Hence we must admire the discrimination of Lake in obtaining for the youthful Villiers the friendship of one whom society estimated so highly. The sister of Sir John Harrington, the Countess of Bedford, resembled her brother in his love of letters, and fortune favoured the full indulgence of her inclinations. By the death of that accomplished brother, she succeeded to two-thirds of his possessions. She had then been married six months to Edward, Earl of Bedford; and, at his decease, which happened in 1627, she was left in the uncontrolled possession of all that nobleman’s estates. This proof of her husband’s confidence and attachment was not misapplied. The widowed Countess, resembling somewhat the Mrs. Montagu of later times, aimed to be the patroness of poets. Of course her motives have been satirised, and her mode of dispensing her patronage impugned, for there seems to be, in most biographers, a love of decrying lettered women of rank. Grainger, for instance, declares that the Countess of Bedford bought the praise of poets by money, and that they, in return, were lavish of incense.[52] Her taste for gardening has, however, met with more indulgence. Sir William Temple, in his “Gardens of Epicurus,” praises her “most perfect picture of a garden” at Moor Park, in Surrey, for she was, in truth, the first improver of the English flower-garden—an honourable distinction. Her education was in conformity with the practice of the day; she was well read in classics, and had a knowledge of ancient medals. Such was the lady-patroness of Villiers. To her Ben Jonson inscribed three of his epigrams:[53] to her Dr. Donne addressed several poems, whilst Daniel celebrated her in verse. Footnote 52: Grainger’s Biography. Footnote 53: He addresses her in one of these in the following terms:— “Lucy, you brightness of our sphere, who are Life of the Muses’ day, their Morning Star; If works [not authors] their own grace should look, Whose poems would not wish to be your books?”