admit no company but good, And when you want those friends, or neare in blood, Or your allies, you make your bookes your friends, And studie them unto the noblest ends, Searching for knowledge, and to keepe your mind The same it was inspired, rich, and refin'd. Among other admirers of the Countess of Rutland was Sir Thomas Overbury, who, according to Ben Jonson, was "in love with her." Beaumont would have known the brilliant and ill-starred Overbury, of Compton Scorpion, who was not only an intimate of Jonson's, but a devoted admirer of their mutual friend, Sir Henry Nevill of Billingbear. And if Beaumont was on terms of affectionate familiarity with Sidney's daughter, he could not but have known Sidney's sister, the Countess of Pembroke, as well, the idol of William Browne's epitaph, and of his old friend Drayton's eulogy, on the "Fair Shepherdess," To whom all shepherds dedicate their lays, And on her altars offer up their bays. "In her time Wilton house," says Aubrey, "was like a College; there were so many learned and ingeniose persons. She was the greatest patronesse of witt and learning of any lady in her time." And if Beaumont knew the mother, then, also, William Herbert, third Earl of Pembroke, the son, to whom his master, Jonson, dedicates in 1611, the tragedy of _Catiline_, prefaced, as we have already observed, by verses of Beaumont himself. Whatever Rutland's objection may have been to his Countess's patronage of poets, we may be sure that that lady's attitude toward Beaumont and his literary friends was seconded by her husband's old friend the Earl of Southampton, with whom in earlier days Rutland used to pass away the time "in London merely in going to plaies every day." Southampton had remained a patron of Burbadge, Shakespeare, and the like. And when he died in 1624, we find not only Beaumont's acquaintance, Chapman, but Beaumont's brother, joining in the chorus of panegyric to his memory. "I keep that glory last which is the best," writes Sir John, The love of learning which he oft express'd In conversation, and respect to those Who had a name in arts, in verse, in prose.