ANNE, COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE, was always enabled to respond to every fresh demand upon her bounty. Her mode of life was of the simplest kind. Even in her youth she had never fallen into the extravagance of the Court in point of attire ; and according as she advanced in years, she retrenched in this particular, until she finally appeared in a close habit of black serge, thus in her external seeming being with difficulty distinguished from her own servants-a circumstance which often occasioned ludicrous contretemps when she encoun- tered strangers. As in dress so in living she did not allow herself the slightest indulgence, being so abstemious that she used pleasantly to boast that she had scarcely ever tasted wine or medicine during her whole life. Agreeable and entertaining in her conversation as she was prudent and charitable in her conduct, she " knew well," says Dr. Donne, "how to discourse of all things, from Predestination to slea-silk," and was equally at her ease with " virtuosos, travellers, scholars, merchants, divines, statesmen, and with good housewives." With English literature she was intimately acquainted, and stored her treasured library at great expense with all the best works of the first writers; from which she was fond of quoting. Her walls, her bed, her hangings and furniture were adorned with choice sentences from her favourite authors, which were written at her desire by her servants, on slips of paper, and pinned up by her maids. While dressing, or on any other , 42
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