210

THE EARL OF PEMBROKE.

'O that you were yourself! But, love, you are
No longer yours than you yourself here live.
Against this coming end you should prepare,
And your sweet semblance to another give.'

If so, such expectations were shattered by his sudden and intestate
death. The year before he had purchased the famous Baroccio
library of 250 Greek MSS. brought from Venice by a London
stationer, and by the Perswasion of Archbishop Laud' presented it to
the University. It was thought to be the most valuable Collection
that ever came into England.' He gave it remembering the obliga-
tion he had to his Mother the University, first for breeding him, after
for the honour they did in making him their Chancellor.'
He was
elected January 29, 1617. Following Laud's direction,' says Prof.
Margoliouth, Pembroke was both a benefactor and reformer of the
University. His escutcheon is over the south gateway of the Schools.

There is a brass statue of this earl, designed by Rubens and carried out by Lesœur, in the Bodleian Gallery, once at Wilton, and a fulllength painting by Vandyck-in a black dress with George and Garter, holding his white wand of office. In this and in the fine portraits at Wilton by Vandyck and Mytens he is seen not in 'the lovely April of his prime,' or in that first melancholy beauty of 'a woman's face with Nature's own hand painted,' the 'seemly raiment' of the poet's heart

'The flowers I noted, yet I none could see

But sweet or colour it had stolen from thee '

but he appears in the early autumn of noble manhood a little before his untimely death, not yet 'crush'd and o'erworn' by decay's 'injurious hand,' or dimmed by 'age's steepy night,' and 'wreckful siege of battering days.'

'Time, carve not with thy hours my love's fair brow,
Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen.'

William Herbert lies with his mother, with Sidney, and others of his house, in Salisbury Cathedral, in front of the present high altar; but no marble herse' marks the spot.

'Your monument shall be my gentle verse,

Which eyes yet not created shall o'er read;
And tongues to be your being shall rehearse,
When all the breathers of this world are dead.'

'O Muse, it lies in thee

To make him much outlive a gilded tomb,
And to be praised of ages yet to be.'

PEMBROKE; ARCHBISHOP ABBOT.

211

It is related that, when his body was opened for embalming, he lifted his hand, affording a presumption that he died of apoplexy.' 'A singular lover of learning and of the professours thereof,' says Wood. 'Himself learned, and endowed to admiration with a poetical genie, as by those amorous and not inelegant Aires and Poems of his composition doth evidently appear; some of which had musical Notes set to them, by Hen. Lawes and Nich. Laneare.' Pembroke's poems, mingled with verses by Raleigh, Dyer, Carew, and others, were edited in 1660 by Donne, and reprinted in 1817. They are graceful but not sinewy. Clarendon, in a fine study of his character, of which he does not conceal some darker features, styles this nobleman 'the most universally loved and esteemed of any man of that age.'

There is an older Foundation of the same name at Cambridgewhich claimed in Wood's time to be the oldest in the land-Ridley's ' own dear College,' called from the number of its prelate sons 'collegium episcopale,' and by Elizabeth apostrophized as 'domus antiqua et religiosa.' Spenser, Gray, and Pitt were there. Pembroke Hall, which has dropped that honourable style for the commonplace 'College,' was founded in the fourteenth century by Mary, widow of Aylmer de Valencia, Earl of Pembroke, and was long called 'the Hall or House of Valence Mary.' These earls of Pembroke were unconnected with the later family which bore and bears that title.

Tesdale's noble bequest had been suggested by DR. GEORGE ABBOT (1562-1633), then Bishop of London-' ad hanc munificentiam,' wrote Clayton to him on the morrow of the inauguration of Pembroke College, 'per Te edoctus, animatus Tisdallus.' 'Patronus noster colendissimus,' he styles him. Abbot had been Fellow of Balliol (1583) and Master of University (1597). The deanery of Winchester, which Elizabeth gave him in 1599, had connected him with New College. As principal trustee under Tesdale's will he could have secured the £5,000 for one of these societies. His promotion of the Pembroke project may have been actuated by the wish to please the King. The statement in the Dictionary of National Biography that the archbishop ' contributed largely to the new foundation of Pembroke' must not be understood of pecuniary benefaction 1, nor was he in sufficient favour

1 Abbot gave £100 to the Balliol Library, £100 to University, and £150 to the Schools building. He founded the hospital for decayed tradesmen at Guildford (where his father had been a clothworker), and built a conduit at Canterbury. Heylin however asserts that 'marks of his benefactions we find none in places of his breeding and preferment.' Onslow says, 'he was eminent for piety and a care for the poor, and his hospitality fully answered the injunction King James laid on him, which was to carry his house nobly, and live like an archbishop.'

212

ARCHBISHOP ABBOT.

at Court in 1624 to do much for its fortunes. Yet he stood in a very fatherly relation to the new College. 'Paucis habeto gratitudinem Tuorum Pembrochiensium,' writes the Master, 'rationem redditam actorum in natalibus Collegii hujus nuperi, in honorem & solatium Tuum, qui benefacta Tui Tisdalli non male locata laetabere.' The Primate is humbly prayed to number the members of the College, bereaved of their Founder, his friend, among his sons. As Tesdale's beneficiaries they were committed to his guardianship. While ViceChancellor, Abbot had endeavoured to check the rising Laudian movement, and Clarendon remarks that he was 'totally ignorant of the true constitution of the Church of England'. But he did not impress any puritan character on the newly founded College. Wood says that the archbishop was a learned man and had his erudition all of the old stamp.' 'King James,' remarks Speaker Onslow, 'had too much affectation that way to prefer any one to such a station who had not borne the reputation of a scholar. His parts seem to have been strong and masterly, his preaching grave and eloquent, and his style equal to any of that time.' Clarendon ambiguously observes, 'He had been master of one of the poorest colleges in Oxford, and had learning sufficient for that province.' Abbot's best known work is his Exposition of Jonah, delivered between 1594 and 1599 in St. Mary's early on Thursday mornings, sometimes before daybreak.' But his chief glory must be his part in the sacred and deathless English of the Four Gospels. He seems to have been an honest but tactless ruler, who had the art of making enemies and shooting at the wrong quarry. According to his desire his body was buried in the Chappel of our Lady within Trinity Church in Guildford. Over his grave was soon after built a sumptuous Altar, or Table-monument, with his proportion in his Pontificalia lying thereon, supported by six pillars of the Dorick order, of black Marble, standing on six pedestals of piled books with a large inscription.'

6

'He considered the Christian religion no otherwise than as it abhorred or reviled popery.' Clarendon speaks of his morose manners and sour aspect. Wood, who however praises his piety and gravity, remarks that he, having never been Rector or Vicar of a parish, and so consequently was in a manner ignorant of the trouble that attended the ministers of God's word, was the cause (as some think) why he was harsh to them, and why he shew'd more respect to a Cloak than a Cassock' (Athenae, i. 499). His services however in restoring apostolic discipline in Scotland, while in attendance on the Earl of Dunbar, had caused James to nominate him to the see of Lichfield and Coventry. He strongly disapproved his brother Robert's second marriage just after his consecration as bishop.

CHAPTER XVII.

MASTERSHIPS OF CLAYTON AND LANGLEY.

THE last Principal of Broadgates and first Master of Pembroke was a man of considerable mark, DR. THOMAS CLAYTON, Regius Professor of Medicine. The previous century had been one of much advance in physical studies. In 1524 Thomas Lynacre had endowed two lectures in that science, hitherto in monkish hands. Edward VI consolidated the two lectureships in one, and a royal endowment was added to the chair by James I, who in 1617 annexed to it the Mastership of Ewelme Hospital. Dr. Clayton, who had been made King's Professor of Physick March 9, 1611, was the first to hold the Ewelme preferment, when it fell vacant in 1628. In 1623, shortly after Harvey's great discovery of the circulation of the blood, Mr. Richard Tomlyns, of Westminster, endowed a praelectorship in Anatomy, and the first reader nominated by him was Dr. Clayton, who delivered his inaugural lecture March 12, 1624. Clayton was also Musick Professor in Gresham College, 1607-11. He had originally been a member of Balliol (matr. Oct. 15, 1591, aged sixteen; B.A. Oct. 17, 1594), but took M.A. from Gloucester Hall (where he had pupils) March 31, 1599. In 1605 he disputed in Natural Philosophy before the King. He was licensed to practise medicine in 1610; M.B. and M.D. from Balliol June 20, 1611. June 14, 1620, in his capacity of Professor of Medicine, he was nominated by the Earl of Pembroke to succeed Budden as Principal of Broadgates. What part Clayton took in bringing about the transformation from Hall to College we can only surmise. It has

2

On

The Regius Professor of Physick was always to be the Reader. The salary of £25 was enlarged in 1638. The chief office of the Reader is every Springtime, immediately after the Assizes are ended, to procure an intire and Sound body of one of the Malefactors then condemn'd or hang'd; or, if that cannot be done, to get an intire and sound Body of some other Person; which being thus procur'd he is oblig'd to have it prepar'd and cut up by some Skillful Surgeon' (Hearne, ii. 379). He was to lecture four times on the corpse and have it decently buried, 'for which he is to allow fourty shillings.' Every term he must read publickly upon the Bones' thrice.

* Gutch in a note (p. 617) says he was first at Gloucester Hall. Clayton had his schooling at Newcastle-on-Tyne.

already been mentioned that he built the upper end of the refectory. He saw a large part of the quadrangle erected. The limits of the College being too small,' he acquired, in 1626, for £350 Cambey's for a Master's residence; in 1629 the lease of Summaster's (Minote Hall) was conveyed to the College by Richard Evans, barber and innholder; that of the All Souls tenement1 by Thomas Ray of New Woodstock; that of Wylde's Entry and that of Dunstan Hall by John Glover of New Woodstock; and finally (for £120) the lease of Beef Hall by Evans, Ray, and Glover. The dismantled Library over Docklinton's aisle was 'for some years before the Grand Rebellion broke out partly employed for chambers'; in Clayton's Mastership this desecration was put an end to, and the room was 'furnished and repaired by several Benefactors.' He himself gave £20 'for the setting up of four pews or repositories, besides several books as well printed as written.' 'William Gardiner of Linton, sometime of the University, gave most of, if not all, his Study of books. Sir Robert Hanson of London, knight, and Dr. John Wall, sometime Rector of St. Aldate's church, did give divers others.' Francis Rous 'did intend to give his whole Study, but being dissuaded to the contrary gave only his own works and some few others.'

2

Clayton was one of Laud's Delegates for reforming the University in 1633. In 1647, just before his death, he was placed on the Delegacy for resisting the parliamentary Visitation and the imposition of the Covenant. He died July 10, 1647, and was buried on the morrow in St. Aldate's, where two of his daughters and a son-in-law also lie. By his wife, daughter of his predecessor in the Chair of Medicine, Dr. Bartholomew Warner (1558-1619), he had three sons, Sir Thomas, William, and James (of whom the first two were at the

1 So Gutch's Wood, Colleges and Halls, p. 623. But rather on Oct. 28, 1634. Lord Mayor 1672-3; born 1608. His great-grand-daughter, Elizabeth Wayte, of Dauntsey, was married to Mr. HARRY WHITWICK' (fellow of Pembroke, rector of Ashley, near Malmesbury), at Broad Somerford, Wilts, Dec. 9, 1715. Their mourning rings are in the possession of a descendant, Miss Theresa Pitt, of Malmesbury. The portraits of Sir Thomas and Lady Hanson, dated 1638, belong to Mrs. Sarah Wightwick, of Codford St. Peter, Wilts. A son, BERKELEY, entered Pembroke Aug. 6, 1662; buried in the Temple church, Nov. 9, 1679.

3 1617. Canon of Christ Church 1632; of Sarum 1644; vicar of Chalgrove 1637. He was also chaplain to Philip Lord Stanhope. His sermons, Alae Seraphicae, were partly preached in St. Aldate's. He gave £2,040 to Oxford City for charitable uses. (See Athenae, ii. 259.) He was 'a quaint Preacher.' Archbishop Williams said he was the best read in the Fathers of any he ever knew.'

One of his sisters-in-law was married to John Speed, M.D., son of the Chronologer'; another to William Taylor, M.D.; a third to Anthony Clopton, S.T.P., rector of Stanford Dingley, Wood's godfather.