It is a great and a generall fault that in all
galleries of pictures the names are not writt underneath, or at least
their coates of armes. Here was also the picture of Thomas Lyte, of
Lytes Cary; and a stately picture of King Henry the eighth.
The genius of Philip (first) Earle of Pembroke lay much to painting
and building, and he had the best collection of paintings of the best
masters of any peer of his time in England; and, besides those
pictures before mentioned, collected by his ancestors, he adorned the
roomes above staires with a great many pieces of Georgeon [Giorgione],
and some of Titian, his scholar. His lordship was the great patron of
Sir Anthony Van Dyck, and had the most of his paintings of any one in
the world; some whereof, of his family, are fixt now in the great
pannells of the wainscot in the great dining roome, or roome of state;
which is a magnificent, stately roome; and his Majesty King Charles
the Second was wont to say, 'twas the best proportioned roome that
ever he saw.* In the cieling piece of this great roome is a great
peece, the Marriage of Perseus, drawn by the hand of Mr. Emanuel De
Cretz; and all about this roome, the pannells below the windows, is
painted by him, the whole story of Sir Philip Sydney's Arcadia,†
Quaere, Dr. Caldicot and Mr. Uniades, what was the story or picture in
the cieling when the house was burnt. At the upper end of this noble
roome is a great piece of Philip (first) Earle of Pembroke and both
his Countesses, and all his children, and the Earle of Carnarvon, as
big as the life, with landskip beyond them; by the hand of that famous
master in painting Sir Anthony Van Dyk, which is held one of his best
pictures that ever he drew, and which was apprized at 1,000 li.
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