Jane Countess of Westmoreland, whose father was the famous Fox the martyrologist, was said to be able to bear comparison with the greatest scholars of the age. The three daughters of Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, were much distinguished for their Latin distichs, and it was said of them that if Orpheus could have heard them he would have become their scholar. Mary Sidney, afterwards Countess of Pembroke, sister of the famous Sir Philip Sidney, was one of the most intellectual women of her age. In the retirement of the fine old family mansion at Penshurst Place, Kent, she passed a studious, happy girlhood. The companionship of her gifted brother, and association with such men as the poet Spenser, no doubt fostered her innate love of learning. By the great poet she has been celebrated as-- “The gentlest shepherdess that liv’d that day, And most resembling in shape and spirit Her brother dear.” Together with her brother she wrote a version of the Psalms, and on her own account a poem in celebration of Queen Elizabeth. As a centre of intellectual thought and literary life, Mary Sidney, when, in 1576, she became the wife of Henry Earl of Pembroke, and mistress of his establishment at Wilton, may be compared with Lady Holland or Lady Blessington. Poets and statesmen gathered at her hospitable board, for at Wilton Place a stately magnificence was maintained. Had the Countess of Pembroke been merely a lady of rank, she would not have left her mark on an age when there were so many illustrious names. But her cultivation of mind made her the fit companion of the greatest intellects of the day. It is no small thing to have entertained Shakespeare, to have had Ben Jonson as a familiar guest, besides lesser poets such as Massinger and Daniel, a poet laureate of Elizabethan days, who was a great admirer of her talents. Sir Philip Sidney was much attached to his distinguished sister, to whom he dedicated his “Arcadia.” It was a grief to both that in after-life they were so much separated. Dr. Donne, another poet, but more eminent as a divine, was a friend whom Mary Sidney much esteemed. It was less for what she did than for what she was that Mary Sidney is celebrated. Her great nobility of character made her pre-eminent, and her influence on her contemporaries was very marked. There was no affectation of ignorance among the learned women of the sixteenth century. Learning among women was held in esteem. It was not thought unfeminine to speak good Latin, write correct Greek, or translate from Hebrew. Unusual and extraordinary it was undoubtedly deemed for women to show fine scholarship, but it was an unusual and extraordinary merit. The absurd notion that the acquisition of knowledge, or intellectual ability, are things to be ashamed of, was one of the base products of eighteenth-century sentimentalism.