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Lady Mary Sidney Herbert
Countess of Pembroke
(1561-1621)

Mary Sidney Herbert rose to literary fame after her beloved brother, Philip Sidney, died at the Battle of Zutphen in 1585. Herbert collected and completed his literary remains, including a translation of the Psalms.

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Mary Sidney Herbert, Countess of Pembroke (1561–1621)
William Thomas, Principle Rules of the Italian Grammer. London: Thomas Berthelet, 1562.

Into the margin of this Italian-English dictionary Pembroke has copied two lines from Psalm 88, partially lost to an early seventeenth-century trimming when the book was rebound in new calfskin wrappers: “My durance douth [persuade of freedom such despair] / By Souch as I haue heald full dear, haue sett my frendshippe light.”.

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Pembroke's dictionary contains a variety of annotations in the margins in different hands, some of which are shown in the image on the left.

STC 24021. Source and date of acquisition unknown.

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