ABSTRACT

During her lifetime the Countess of Pembroke’s reputation for patronage exceeded even her reputation as a poet or author of any kind. The two letters transcribed below from the Thynne Papers at Longleat House illustrate this major component of her reputation as they augment the collection of twenty letters included in the recently published Clarendon Press edition of The Collected Works of Mary Sidney Herbert, Countess of Pembroke. 1