Gents Mag 1840 part 2 p.277
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list, 2nd qtr 19th century | ||
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Gentleman's Magazine 1840 part 2 p.277
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Lady Anne Pembroke sermon |
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Funeral Sermon for Lady Anne
Pembroke
book review A Sermon preached at the Funeral, April 14, 1676, of Anne Countess of Pembroke, Dorset and Montgomery, by Edward Rainbow, D.D. Lord Bishop of Carlisle. Reprinted from the edition of 1677; with Memoirs of the Countess and of Bp. Rainbow. By S. Jefferson, Carlisle. THE lady here commemorated is probably as well known as any female character of former times, that is not absolutely mixed up with political history. This was the lady of whom Dr. Donne said in her youth (as is related in the Sermon before us) "That she knew well how to discourse of all things, from predestination to slea-silk." Her biography has been ably written by two modern authors, Dr. Whitaker and Mr. Lodge: by the former she is termed "one of the most illustrious women of her own or any age;" and by the latter her character is delineated as worthy of the highest praise and admiration. Respecting such a personage, even a Funeral Sermon becomes interesting. Though it is true that the pulpit compositions of the period were tedious and conceited, yet they abound in personal allusions and even anecdotes, and hence their historical value. The few extracts we shall now make will fully show that neither Dr. Whitaker nor Mr. Lodge have exhausted the interest of the composition before us. "She was not ignorant of knowledge in any kind, which might make her conversation not only useful and gracious, but also pleasant and delightful; which that she might better do, she would frequently bring out of the rich storehouse of her memory things old and new, sentences or sayings of remark, which she had read or learned out of authors, and with these her walls, her bed, her hangings, and furniture must be adorned; causing her servants to write them on papers, and her maids to pin them up, that she, or they, in the time of their dressing, or as occasion served, might remember and make their discants on them. So that, though she had not many books in her chamber, yet it was dressed up with the flowers of a library." (p.40.) "She had six houses; in each of which she used, at her prefixed times, to keep her residence. None can call this an unsettledness, or humour of mutability; it was not onely that she might the better hold up and keep in repair those houses which commonly in the owner's absence |
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