ANNE, COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE, ferent and neglectful husband. By squandering a vast fortune, he dragged himself and family into debt. His general conduct was such as to entirely alienate the affections of his wife, " a woman of extraordinary merit," who, although she bore all his slights and indignities with patience, yet felt them keenly; and at length they separated. The sole offspring of their marriage was a girl, -Anne Clifford,-who was born in January, 1589, at the castle of Skipton-in-Craven, Yorkshire. The education of Anne was personally superin- tended by her excellent mother, with the aid of the Countess of Warwick, the aunt of the little girl. For her mother, whom she calls " a blessed saint," Anne felt the most unboundedaffection andreverence. " My mother," she says, " did with singular care and tenderness of affection, educate me, as her most dear and only daughter, seasoning my youth with the grounds of true religion and moral virtue, and all other qualities befitting my birth." Her father would not permit her to acquire foreign languages, at that time esteemed an almost indispensable ad- dition to a young lady's accomplishments ; -but " in all other knowledge fit for my sex," she assures us, " none was bred up to greater perfection than myself." She was a daughter of whom any mother might have been justly proud. Her disposition was admirable ; she had, to use her own words, " a strong and copious memory, a sound judgment, a discerning spirit," and a vivid imagination. Of her 34
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=