The excellent engraving published by Mr. Park from a scarce print, represents her no longer young, with a long, thin, and muscular face, a mouth slightly turned up at the angles, a firm, thin, and well defined upper lip, a projecting chin, large prominent eyes, and the nose of an ancient hero. Her hair is turned back, and curled into innumerable small ringlets, behind which a circle of fur is so disposed as to resemble a halo of rays. She wears the large open laced ruff of her time, and an ermined mantle to denote her rank; the more completely to exhibit her character, her left hand displays an open book. She looks the very queen of learning, the president and patroness of literature.

We will now attend her ladyship to the region of Parnassus, and first exhibit her in competition with the divine Spenser, bewailing the untimely death of her noble brother. In that poet's "Astrophel," Lady Pembroke's elegy is introduced by the following stanza:

And first his sister, that Clarinda hight,

That gentlest shepherdess that lives this day;
And most resembling both in shape and spright
Her brother dear; began this doleful lay;
Which lest I mar the sweetness of the verse,
In sort as she it sung I will rehearse,

Aye me! to whom shall I my case complain,
That may compassion my impatient grief?
Or where shall I unfold my inward pain,

That my enriven heart may find relief?
Shall I unto the heavenly powers it show,
Or unto earthly men that dwell below?

To heavens? ah! they alas! the authors were
And workers of my unremedied woe;

For they foresee what to us happens here,

And they foresaw, yet suffered this be so.

From them comes good, from them comes also ill;
That which they made, who can them warn to spill?

To men? ah! they alas! like wretched be,
And subject to the heaven's ordinance,
Bound to abide whatever they decree;

Their best redress is their best sufferance. How then can they, like wretched, comfort me, The which no less need comforted to be?

Then to myself will I my sorrow mourn,
Since none alive like sorrowful remains,
And to myself my plaints shall back return,
And pay their usury with double pains:
The woods, the hills, the rivers shall resound
The mournful accents of my sorrow's ground.

Woods, hills and rivers, now are desolate,

Since he is gone the which did all them grace; And all the fields do wail their widowed state, Since death their fairest flower did late deface:

The fairest flower in field that ever grew

Was Astrophel! that was we all may rue.

What cruel hand of cursed foe unknown

Hath cropt the stalk that bore so fair a flower? Untimely cropt, before it well were grown, And clean defaced in untimely hour:

Great loss to all that ever him did see,

Great loss to all but greatest loss to me.

Break now your garlands, O ye shepherd lasses,

Since the fair flower that them adorned is gone; The flower that them adorned is gone to ashes;

Never again let lass put garland on :
Instead of garland, wear sad cypress now,
And bitter elder, broken from the bough.

Nor ever sing the love-lays which he made;
Who ever made such lays of love as he?
Nor ever read the riddles which he said

Unto yourselves to make you merry glee :
Your merry glee is now laid all abed,
Your merry maker now, alas! is dead.

Death, the devourer of all world's delight, .
Hath robbed you, and reft from me my joy;
Both you and me, and all the world, he quite
Hath robb'd of joyance, and left sad annoy.
Joy of the world, and shepherds pride, was, he;
Shepherds! hope never like again to see.

O death! that hast of us such riches reft

Tell us, at least, what hast thou with it done? What is become of him whose flower here left Is but the shadow of his likeness gone? Scarce like the shadow of that which he was, Nought like, but that he like a shade did pass.

But that immortal spirit, which was deck'd
With all the dowries of celestial grace;
By sovereign choice from the heavenly quires select,
And lineally deriv'd from angel's race,

O what is now of it become? aread!
Aye me! can so divine a thing be deal?

Ah! no, it is not dead, nor can it die,
But lives for aye in blissful paradise ;
Where like a new-born babe it soft doth lie
In bed of lillies, wrapped in tender wise,
And compass'd all about with roses sweet,
And dainty violets from head to feet.

There thousand birds, all of celestial brood,
To him do sweetly carol day and night,
And with strange notes of him well understood,
Lull him asleep in angel-like delight:
Whilst in sweet dreams to him presented be
Immortal beauties, which no eye may see,
But he them sees, and takes exceeding pleasure
Of their divine aspects, appearing plain,
And kindling love in him above all measure;
Sweet love, still joyous, never feeling pain :
For what so goodly forms he there doth see,
He may enjoy, from jealous rancour free.
There liveth he in everlasting bliss,

Sweet spirit! never fearing more to die,
Not dreading harm from any foe of his,

Nor fearing savage beasts' more cruelty,-
Whilst we here wretches wail his private lack,
And with vain vows do often call him back.
But live thou there still, happy, happy spirit!
And give us leave thee here thus to lament;
Not thee, that dost the heaven's joy inherit,

But our own selves, that here in dole are drent.
Thus do we weep and wail, and wear our eyes,
Mourning in others our own miseries.

The lady's paradise, peopled with houris, is perhaps rather in the Mahometan taste. It is, however,

no

slight honour to her, that Milton in the most perfect of all his works, his matchless "Ly cidas," had an eye upon her Elegy. Of this who can doubt, reading the following lines:

"Weep no more, woeful shepherds, weep no more,
For Lycidas your sorrow is not dead,

Sunk though he be beneath the watry floor.
So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed,
And yet anon repairs his drooping head,

And tricks his beams, and with new spangled ore
Flames in the forehead of the morning sky;

So Lycidas sunk low, but mounted high,

Through the dear might of him that walk'd the wayes;
Where other groves and other streams along,
With nectar pure his oozy locks he laves,
And hears th' unexpressive nuptial song
In the blest kingdoms meek of joy and love.
There entertain him all the saints above,
In solemn troops and sweet societies,
That sing, and singing in their glory move,
And wipe the tears for ever from his eyes.”

The bed of lillies compass'd about with roses and violets, in which the disembodied soul reposes, like a new-born babe, a sweet and truly feminine idea of the lady, is changed by the poet into fresh groves and streams, and nectar pure. The thousand birds who sweetly carol night and day, become solemn troops and sweet societies occupied in heavenly music. For the immortal beauties kindling love, unallayed by jealousy, we have the communion of saints. In both, the originating ideas are the same the figures only are various. The lady's are perhaps the most poetical, the poet's certainly the most orthodox.

In Davison's" Poetical Rhapsody," printed in 1602, is a Poem, entitled "A Pastoral Dialogue in praise of Astrea," the poetical appellation of Queen Elizabeth, said to have been "made by the excellent lady, the Lady Mary Countess of Pembroke, at the Queen's Majesties being at her house."

A Dialogue between Two Shepherds.

THENOT AND

PIERS.

Thenot, I sing divine Astrea's praise,
O Muses! help my wits to raise,
And heave my verses higher.