86 AUBREY'S NATURAL HISTORY OP WILTSHIRE. 



THE LIBRARIE. Here was a noble librarie of bookes, choicely collected in the time of Mary 

 Countesse of Pembroke. I remember there were a great many Italian bookes ; all their poets ; and 

 bookes of politic and historie. Here was Dame Julian Barnes of Hunting, Hawking, and Heraldry, in 

 English verses, printed temp. Edward the Fourth. (Philip, third earle, gave Dame Julian Barnes 

 to Capt. Edw. Saintlo of Dorsetshire.) A translation of the whole book of Psalmes, in English verse, 

 by Sir Philip Sydney, writt curiously, and bound in crimson velvet and gilt ; it is now lost. Here 

 was a Latin poeme, a manuscript, writt in Julius Cassar's time. [See ante, p. 60.] Henry Earle 

 of Pembroke was a great lover of heraldrie, and collected curious manuscripts of it, that I have seen 

 and perused ; e. g. the coates of armes and short histories of the English nobility, and bookes of 

 genealogies ; all well painted and writt. 'Twas Henry that did sett up all the glasse scutchions about 

 the house : quasre if he did not build it ? Now all these bookes are sold and dispersed as the pictures. 



THE ARMORIE. The armory is a very long roome, which I guesse to have been a dorture here- 

 tofore. Before the civill warres, I remember, it was very full. The collection was not onely great, 

 but the manner of obtaining it was much greater ; which was by a victory at the battle of St. 

 Quintin's, where William the first Earle of Pembroke was generall, Sir George Penrucldock, of 

 Compton Chamberlain, was Major Generall, and William Aubrey, LL.D. my great-grandfather, was 

 Judge Advocat. There were armes, sc. the spoil e, for sixteen thousand men, horse and foot. (From 

 the Right Honourable Thomas Earle of Pembroke.) 



Desire my brother William Aubrey to gett a copy of the inventory of it. Before the late civill 

 warres here were musketts and pikes for . . . hundred men ; lances for tilting ; complete armour 

 for horsemen ; for pikemen, &c. The rich gilt and engraved armour of Henry VIII. The like 

 rich armour of King Edward VI. In the late warres much of the armes was imbecill'd. 



WILTON GARDEN : by Solomon de Caus. [See also in a subsequent page, Chap. IV. OF GARDENS.] 

 " This garden, within the inclosure of the new wall, is a thousand foot long, and about four hundred in 

 breadth ; divided in its length into three long squares or parallellograms, the first of which divisions, 

 next the building, hath four platts embroydered ; in the midst of which are four fountaines, with statues 

 of marble in their middle ; and on the sides of those platts are the platts of flowers ; and beyond them 

 is a little terrass raised, for the more advantage of beholding those platts. In the second division are 

 two groves or woods, cutt with divers walkes, and through those groves passeth the river Nader, having 

 of breadth in this place 44 foote, upon which is built the bridge, of the breadth of the great walke : and 

 in the middest of the aforesayd groves are two great statues of white marble of eight foot high, the 

 one of Bacchus, and the other of Flora ; and on the sides ranging with the platts of flowers are two 

 covered arbours of three hundred foot long, and divers allies. At the beginning of the third and last 

 division are, on either side of the great walke, two ponds with fountains, and two columnes in the 

 middle, casting water all their height ; which causeth the moving and turning of two crowns at the 

 top of the same; and beyond is a compartment of green, with divers walkes planted with cherrie 

 trees ; and in the middle is the great ovall, with the Gladiator of brasse, the most famous statue of 

 all that antiquity hath left On the sides of this compartment, and answering the platts of flowers 

 and long arbours, are three arbours of either side, with turning galleries, communicating themselves 

 one into another. At the end of the great walke is a portico of stone, cutt and adorned with pyllasters 

 and nyckes, within which are figures of white marble, of five foot high. On either side of the said 

 portico is an ascent leading up to the terrasse, upon the steps whereof, instead of ballasters, are sea- 



