Nothing delighted the brilliant women of the Elizabethan era so much as to have themselves surrounded by great writers, statesmen, and other celebrities. Stately magnificence was maintained at many of the great houses, and the presence of noted artists and celebrated authors gave to such homes an intellectual atmosphere. One of the centres of intellectual thought and literary life of her time was the home of Mary Sidney, after she had become the wife of Henry, Earl of Pembroke, and mistress of his establishment at Wilton. Around her hospitable board gathered poets, statesmen, and artists, drawn there not by the rank of the hostess or to satisfy her pride by their presence and fame, but because her cultivated intellect made her a fit companion for the greatest intellectual personages of the day. To have had the honor of entertaining, as guests, Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, besides the lesser poets of the time, and to have been recognized by such literati as worthy of their serious consideration because of her undoubted gifts, not only reflected high compliment upon the lady, but lasting credit upon her sex, and was one of the many significant things of the Elizabethan era which indicated how wide open stood the door of intellectual progress and equality of opportunity for the women of modern times. Spenser celebrated the Countess of Pembroke as: "The gentlest shepherdess that liv'd that day, And most resembling in shape and spirit Her brother dear." Udall, the Master of Eton, speaks enthusiastically of the great number of women in the noble ranks of society, "not only given to the study of human sciences and strange tongues, but also so thoroughly expert in the Holy Scriptures that they were able to compare with the best writers as well in enditeing and penning of Godly and fruitful treatises to the instruction and edifying of realmes in the knowledge of God, as also in translating good books out of Latin or Greek into English for the use and commodity of such as are rude and ignorant of the said tongues. It was now no news in England to see young damsels in noble houses and in the courts of princes, instead of cards and other instruments of idle trifling, to have continually in their hands either Psalms, homilies, and other devout meditations, or else Paul's Epistles, or some book of Holy Scripture matters, and as familiarly both to read and reason thereof in Greek, Latin, French, or Italian as in English. It was now a common thing to see young virgins so trained in the study of good letters that they willingly set all other vain pastimes at nought for learning's sake. It was now no news at all to see Queens and ladies of most high estate and progeny, instead of courtly dalliance, to embrace virtuous exercises of reading and writing, and with most earnest study both early and late to apply themselves to the acquiring of knowledge, as well in all other liberal artes and disciplines, as also most especially of God and His holy word."