MARY, countess of Pembroke, was sister of the famous Sir Philip Sidney, and wife of Henry earl of Pembroke. She was not only a lover of the muses, but a great encourager of polite literature; a character not very common among ladies. Her brother dedicated his incomparable romance Arcadia to her, from which circumstance it hath been called The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia. She translated a dramatic matic piece from the French, entitled Antonius, a tragedy; though it is said she was afflicted by her lord's chaplain, Dr Babington, afterwards bishop of Exeter. She also turned the Psalms of David into English metre; but it is doubtful whether these works were ever printed. She died in 1621; and an exalted character of her is to be found in Francis Osborne's memoirs of King James I.

Herbert, Edward, Lord Herbert of Cherbury in Shropshire, an eminent English writer, was born in 1581, and educated at Oxford; after which he travelled, and at his return was made knight of the Bath. James I sent him ambassador to Louis XIII. in behalf of the Protestants who were besieged in several cities of France; and continued in this station till he was recalled, on account of a dispute between him and the constable de Luynes. In 1625 he was advanced to the dignity of a baron in the kingdom of Ireland, by the title of Lord Herbert of Cattle Island; and in 1631 to that of Lord Herbert of Cherbury in Shropshire.

After the breaking out of the civil wars, he adhered to the parliament; and in 1644 obtained a pension, on account of his having been plundered by the king's forces. He wrote a History of the Life and Reign of Henry VIII., which was greatly admired; a treatise De veritate; and several other works. He died at London in 1648.

"Lord Herbert (says Mr Granger), stands in the first rank of the public ministers, historians, and philosophers of his age. It is hard to say whether his person, his understanding, or his courage, was the most extraordinary; as the fair, the learned, and the brave, held him in equal admiration. But the same man was wise and capricious; redressed wrongs, and quarrelled for punishes; hated bigotry in religion, and was himself a bigot to philosophy. He exposed himself to such dangers as other men of courage would have carefully declined: and called in question the fundamentals of a religion which none had the hardinesse to dispute besides himself.

Herbert, William, earl of Pembroke, was born at Wilton in Wiltshire, 1580; and admitted to Newcollege in Oxford in 1592, where he continued about two years. In 1601 he succeeded to his father's honours and estate; was made K.G. in 1604; and governor of Portsmouth five years after. In 1626 he was elected chancellor of the university of Oxford; and about the same time made lord steward of the king's household. He died suddenly at his house called Baynard's castle, in London, April 10, 1630; according to the calculation of his nativity, says Wood, made several years before by Mr Thomas Allen of Gloucesterhall. Clarendon relates concerning this calculation, that some considerable persons connected with Lord Pembroke being met at Maidenhead, one of them at supper drank a health to the lord steward; upon which another said, that he believed his lordship was at that time very merry; for he had now outlived the day, which it had been prognosticated upon his nativity he would not outlive; but he had outlived it now, for that was his birthday, which had completed his age to 50 years. The next morning, however, they received the news of his death. Whether the noble historian really believed this and other accounts relating to astrology, apparitions, providential interpositions, &c. which he has inserted in his history, we do not presume to say: he delivers them, however, as if he did not actually disbelieve them. Lord Pembroke was not only a great favourer of learned and ingenious men, but was himself learned, and ended with a considerable share of poetic genius. All that are extant of his productions in this way were published with this title: "Poems written by William earl of Pembroke, &c. many of which are answered by way of repartee by Sir Benjamin Rudyard, with other poems written by them occasionally and apart," 1660, 8vo.

Herbert, Sir Thomas, an eminent gentleman of the Pembroke family, was born at York, where his father was an alderman. William earl of Pembroke sent him to travel at his expense in 1626, and he spent four years in visiting Asia and Africa: his expectations of preferment ending with the death of the earl, he went abroad again, and travelled over several parts of Europe. In 1634, he published, in folio, A Relation of some Years Travel into Africa and the Great Asia, especially the Territories of the Persian monarchy, and some parts of the Oriental Indies and illes adjacent. On the breaking out of the civil war, he adhered to the parliament; and at Osenby, on the removal of the king's servants, by desire of the commissioners from the parliament, he and James Harrington were retained as grooms of his bed-chamber, and attended him even to the block. At the restoration he was created a baronet by Charles II. for his faithful services to his father during his two last years. In 1678 he wrote Threnodia Carolina, containing an account of the two last years of the life of Charles I. and he assisted Sir William Dugdale in compiling the third volume of his Monasticon Anglicanum. He died at York in 1682, leaving several MSS. to the public library at Oxford, and others to that of the cathedral at York.

HERBIVOROUS animals, those which feed only on vegetables.

Herculaneum is the name of an ancient city of Campania in Italy, which was destroyed by an eruption of Vesuvius in the first year of the emperor Titus, or the 79th of the Christian era, and lately rendered famous on account of the curious monuments of antiquity discovered in its ruins; an account of which has been published by order of the king of Naples, in a work of six volumes folio.—The epocha of the foundation of Herculaneum is unknown. Dionysius Halicarnassensis conjectures that it may be referred to 60 years before the war of Troy, or about 1342 years before Christ; and therefore that it lasted about 1400 years.

The thickness of the heap of lava and ashes by which the city was overwhelmed, has been much increased by fiery streams vomited since that catastrophe; and now forms a mass 24 feet deep, of dark gray stone, which is easily broken to pieces. By its non-adhesion to foreign bodies, marbles and bronzes are preserved in it as in a case made to fit them; and exact moulds of the faces and limbs of statues are frequently found in this substance. The precise situation of this subterraneous city was not known till the year 1713, when, it was accidentally discovered by some labourers, who, in digging a well, struck upon a statue on the benches of the theatre. Many others were afterwards dug out and sent to France by the prince of Elbeuf. But little progress was made in the excavations till Charles infant of Spain ascended the Neapolitan throne; by whose unwearied efforts and liberality a very considerable part of Herculaneum has been explored, and such treasures of antiquity drawn out as form the most curious museum in the world. It being too arduous a task to attempt removing the covering, the king contented himself with cutting galleries to the principal buildings, and causing the extent of one or two of them to be cleared. Of these the theatre is the most considerable. On a ballustrade which divided the orchestra from the stage was found a row of statues; and, on each side of the pulpitum, the equestrian figure of a person of the Nonia family. They are now placed under porticoes of the palace; and from the great rarity of equestrian statues in marble would be very valuable objects, were their workmanship even less excellent than it is: one of them in particular is a very fine piece of sculpture. Since the king of Spain left Naples, the digging has been continued, but with less spirit and expenditure: indeed the collection of curiosities brought out of Herculaneum and Pompeii is already so considerable, that a relaxation of zeal and activity becomes excusable. They are now arranged in a wing of the palace; and consist not only of statues, busts, altars, inscriptions, and other ornamental appendages of opulence and luxury; but also comprehend an entire assortment of the domestic, musical, and chirurgical instruments used by the ancients; tripods of elegant form and exquisite execution, lamps in endless variety, vases and basins of noble dimensions, chandeliers of the most beautiful shapes, patens and other appurtenances of sacrifice, looking-glasses of polished metal, coloured glass, so hard, clear, and well stained, as to appear emeralds, sapphires, and other precious stones; a kitchen completely fitted up with copper-pans lined with silver, kettles, cisterns for heating water, and every utensil necessary for culinary purposes; specimens of various sorts of combustibles, retaining their form though burnt to a cinder; corn, bread, fish, oil, wine, and flour; a lady's toilet, fully furnished with combs, thimbles, rings, paint, earrings, &c. Among the statues, which are numerous, connoisseurs allow the greatest share of merit to Mercury and a fleering faun: the busts fill several rooms; but very few of the originals whom they were meant to imitate are known. The floors are paved with ancient mosaic. Few rare medals have been found in these ruins; the most curious is a gold medallion of Augustus struck in Sicily in the 15th year of his reign.

The fresco paintings, which, for the sake of preservation, have been torn off the walls and framed and glazed, are to be seen in another part of the palace. "The elegance of the attitudes, and the infinite variety of the subjects (Mr Swinburne observes), stamp them as performances worthy of the attention of artists and antiquarians; but no pictures yet found are matterly enough to prove that the Greeks carried the art of painting to as great a height of perfection as they did that of statuary. Yet can we suppose those authors incapable of appreciating the merits of an Apelles or a Zeuxis, who with so much critical discernment have pointed out the beauties of the works of a Phidias or a Praxiteles, beauties that we have still an opportunity of contemplating? Would they have bestowed equal praises upon both kinds of performances if either of them had been much inferior to the other? I think it is not probable; and we must presume, that the capital productions of the ancient painters, being of more perishable materials than busts and statues, have been destroyed in the fatal disasters that have so often afflicted both Greece and Italy. Herculaneum and Pompeii were but towns of the second order, and not likely to possess the masterpieces of the great artists, which were usually destined to adorn the more celebrated temples, or the palaces of kings and emperors." A more valuable acquisition than bronzes and pictures was thought to be made, when a large parcel of manuscripts was found among the ruins. Hopes were entertained that many works of the classics, which time has deprived us of, were now going to be restored to light, and that a new mine of science was on the point of being opened. But the difficulty of unrolling the burnt parchment, of pasting the fragments on a flat surface, and of deciphering the obscure letters, have proved such obstacles, that very little progress has been made in the work. A priest invented the method of proceeding; but it would require the joint labours of many learned men to carry on so nice and tedious an operation with any success. The plan is dropped; and the manuscripts now lie in dusty heaps, as useless to the learned world as they had been for the preceding seventeen centuries.