----But shee[XXVII.] needed neither borrowed shades, nor reflexive lights, to set her off, being personally great in all naturall endowments and accomplishments of soul and body, wisdome, beautie, favour, and virtue;
great by her tongue, for never woman used one better, speaking so gracefully, promptly, discreetly, pertinently, holily, that I have often admired the edifying words that proceeded from her mouth;
great by her pen, as you may (_ex pede Herculem_) discover by that little[XXVIII.] tast of it the world hath been happy in, the hasty fruit of one or two interrupted houres after supper, which she professed to me, with a little regret, when she was surprised with it's sliding into the world without her knowledge, or allowance, and wholly beside her expectation;
[XXVIII.] Her ladyship's _Pious Meditations_.
great by being the greatest mistresse and promotress, not to say the foundress and inventress, of a new science--the art of obliging; in which she attain'd that sovereign perfection, that she reigned over all their hearts with whom she did converse;
great in her nobleness of living and hospitality;
great in the unparallelld sincerity of constant, faithfull, condescending friendship, and for that law of kindness which dwelt in her lips and heart;
great in her quick apprehension of the difficulties of her affaires, and where the stress and pinch lay, to untie the knot, and loose and ease them;
great in a thousand things beside, which the world admires as such: but she despised them all, and counted them but loss and dung in comparison of the feare of God, and the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus.'
[AV] Aubrey gives in trick the coat:--'per bend crenellée argent and gules [Boyle]; impaling, ..., a cross vert between 4 fleur de lys ... [Fenton],' surmounted by an earl's coronet.
A leaf containing an earlier draft of this life (as shown by the coat tricked in the inner margin) has been cut out between fol. 14 and fol. 15 of MS. Aubr. 6. The excision was made by Aubrey himself, a line being drawn by him across the excision from fol. 14ᵛ to fol. 15, to mark the transposition of a passage. The reason for the cutting out of this leaf is suggested in a letter of Aubrey to Anthony Wood (MS. Wood F. 39, fol. 360, July 14, 1681), where he says his 'Lives' contain 'severe touches on the earl of Corke, Dr. Wallis, etc.' In the margin of the excised leaf a note, given on the authority of 'Mr. A. E.' i.e. Anthony Ettrick, seems to speak of amours and bastards of the earl.