HERBERT, Mary, Countess of Pembroke, was sister of Sir Philip Sidney, and wife of Henry, earl of Pembroke. She was not only a lover of the muses, but a great encourager of polite literature; a character which is not very common amongst titled ladies. Her brother dedicated to her his Arcadia. She translated a dramatic piece from the French, entitled Antonius, a tragedy, though it is said that in this she was assisted by her chaplain, Dr Babington, afterwards Bishop of Exeter. She also translated the Psalms of David into English metre; but it is doubtful whether these works were ever printed. This lady died in 1621; and an exalted character of her may be found in Osborne’s Memoirs of James I. Herbert, Edward, Lord Herbert of Cherburyin Shropshire, an eminent English writer, was born in 1581, and educated at Oxford, after which he travelled, and at his return was made a knight of the bath. James I. sent him as ambassador to Louis XIII. in behalf of the Protestants who were besieged in several cities of France; and he continued in thi&situation until he was recalled, on account of [7:11:262]a dispute between him and the constable de Luines. In 1625 he was advanced to the dignity of baron of the kingdom of Ireland, by the title of Lord Herbert of Castle Island; and in 1631 to that of Lord Herbert of Cherbury in Shropshire. After the breaking out of the civil wars, he adhered to the parliament; and in 1644 obtained a pension, on account of his having been plundered by the king’s forces. He wrote a History of the Life and Reign of Henry V1H., a treatise De Veritate, of considerable celebrity, and several other works. Lord Herbert died at London in 1648. This nobleman, according to Granger, “stands in the first rank of the public ministers, historians, and philosophers of his age. It is hard to say whether his person, his understanding, or his courage, was the most extraordinary; as the fair, the learned, and the brave held him in equal admiration. But the same man was wise and capricious; redressed wrongs, and quarrelled for punctilios; hated bigotry in religion, and was himself a bigot to philosophy. He exposed himself to such dangers as other men of courage would have carefully declined; and called in question the fundamentals of a religion which none had the hardiness to dispute besides himself.”

Herbert, William, Earl of Pembroke, was born at Wilton, in Wiltshire, 1580, and admitted to New College, Oxford, in 1592, where he continued about two years. In 1601 he succeeded to his father’s honoursand estate, and was made a knight of the garter in 1604, and governor of Portsmouth six years afterwards. In 1626 he was elected chancellor of the university of Oxford, and about the same time made lord steward of the king’s household. He died suddenly at his house in London on the 10th of April 1630, if we may credit Wood, according to the calculation of his nativity made several years before by Mr Thomas Allen of Gloucester Hall. Concerning this calculation, Clarendon relates, that some considerable persons connected with Lord Pembroke having met at Maidenhead, one of them at supper drank a health to the lord steward; upon which another said, that he believed his lordship was at that time very merry, for he had now outlived the day which it had been prognosticated from his nativity that he would not survive. The next morning, however, they received the news of his death. Whether the noble historian really believed this and other accounts relating to astrology, apparitions, providential interpositions, and other marvels not dreamt of in philosophy, which he has inserted in his history, we do not presume to say; he narrates them, however, as if he did not actually disbelieve them. Lord Pembroke was not only a great favourer of learned men, but was himself learned, and endowed with a considerable share of poetical genius. All that are extant of his productions in this way were published under the title of Poems written by William Earl of Pembroke. Herbert, Sir Thomas, a gentleman of the Pembroke family, was born at York, where his father was an aiderman. William, earl of Pembroke, sent him abroad in 1626; and he spent four years in travelling through Asia and Africa. In 1634 he published, in folio, a Relation of some Years’ Travel into Africa and the Great Asia, especially the Territories of the Persian Monarchy, and some parts of the Oriental Indies and Isles adjacent. On the breaking out of the civil war, he adhered to the parliament; and at Oldenby, on the removal of the king’s servants, by the desire of the parliamentary commissioners, he and James Harrington were retained as grooms of the bedchamber, and attended the king even to the block. At the Restoration he was created a baronet by Charles II. for his faithful services to his father during the last two years of his life. In 1678 he wrote Threnodia Carolina, containing an account of the last two years of the life of Charles I.; and he assisted Sir William Dugdale in compiling the third volume of his Monastico Anglicanum. He died at York in 1782, leaving several manuscripts to the public library at Oxford, and others to that of the cathedral at York.