gett children, or thinke I gett some. If such a thinge should happen, Godde's law and manne's law will that both one and other may be provided for. Many other accidents of regarde might be alledged, but neither the forewritten, nor any that may be thought of to come, do I respect, but only to stay land to sell, to acquite me of the thraldome I now lyve in for my debts.

"But, good Sir, syns her Majestie will not be moved to rewarde me, nor removed from her opinion but that the two great and high offices, which I have so long and so often welded, may and ought to be a sufficient satisfaction for any my service doon in them or elswhere ;-geve me leave, paciently on your parte, though over tediously on myne, somewhat to write to you of those offices, and of my service in them, and though I play a littell too bouldly in person of myne owne herault, yet pardon me, it is my first fawlt of this kynde.

"Three tymes her Majestie hath sent me her Deputie into Ireland, and in everie of the three tymes I susteyned a great and a violent rebellion, everie one of which I subdued, and (with honorable peace) lefte the countrey in quiet. I retorned from each of those three Deputacions three thousand poundes worse than I went."

It is unfortunate that the writer of the memorial began with the foregoing peroration, penned it in a querulous temper, his main arguments being his indebted condition, and the opposition his government laboured under; since, had his circumstances been flourishing, he would doubtless have handled his pen with as much spirit as he wielded the Irish sword of state, and so proved himself a Cæsar in his commentary upon his memorable career of conquest and colonisation. The principal incidents of his active life and eminent services are published in the "Sydney Memorials and Letters of State." In the prefatory words of the editor of the Sydney Papers:

"Sir Henry Sydney enjoyed the most distinguished employments in Ireland in the reigns of Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth. And our historians agree, that he first civilised the Irish, by bringing them under obedience to the laws of England. The progress he made through the whole kingdom, at four several times, is very judiciously and exactly related in his letters to Queen Elizabeth, and the lords of the council; which show the lamentable and disorderly state that the natives then laboured under from their tenures, barbarous customs, want of commerce, &c., as well as the difficulties he surmounted in making any sort of reformation amongst them. They are the only accounts of the affairs of Ireland during that time which can be depended upon; and the prudence and vigour in government, the justness of observation, and the clear and manly sense which appear through the whole course of Sir Henry Sydney's dispatches, are sufficient reasons for not suffering them to lie concealed any longer in the dusty corner of a library."

Besides exercising the high and onerous office of governor of that distracted country, this extraordinary man also filled the responsible station of Lord President of Wales; and the contrast he draws between these two Celtic countries is not the least noticeable of his observations. The history of the former kingdom, during his eventful administration, is fully chronicled by contemporaries; and his own account of his vigorous pro

ceedings is to be read in his printed despatches. It is, however, let me say, remarkable and characteristic of the marvellous memory and energetic mind of this veteran statesman, that, although his despatches were written immediately after the occurrences they relate to, they yield, in descriptive power, pithy style, and valuable political comment, to the compendious Memoir he dictated at the close of his career.

Before hearing his own story, we require some account of his antecedents. He was head of a dignified Kentish family, whose ancient name was rendered more honourable by his merits, and illustrious by those of his incomparable son. The celebrated seat, Penshurst Place, was conferred on his father by King Edward VI. The family had been for centuries well estated in the adjoining shires; but the fine old hall, inseparably linked with the fame of Waller's "Saccharissa" and "the subject of all verse, Sydney's sister, Pembroke's mother," became their favourite residence. My remembrance of a joyous fortnight passed, long ago, among the delightful surrounds of this charming house, vividly recals its galleries of portraits, and its other historic reminiscences; especially the lines of tall trees, called "Sir Philip's Avenue," and the monument in the church to the author of this narrative. "No cultivated mind," writes Sir Egerton Brydges, in his "Imaginative Biography," "ever visits this place without deep interest. To those who have fancy and sensibility, the scene conveys a mingled delight of admiration and melancholy, and the array of images is almost overwhelming."

At the time of King Edward's accession (writes the editor of the family memoirs, quoting Holinshed) the future father of Sir Philip Sydney "was reputed for his virtues, fine composition of body, gallantry, and liveliness of spirit, the most complete young gentleman in the court.' Before he was of age he was selected as ambassador to France upon some important affairs, and performed his charge with extraordinary temper, wisdom, and dexterity. We find him, on his return, in the lists as principal challenger in a tilt, in which the young but accomplished knight won fame as a fearless tournayer; and, in the following year, he married, allying himself to a high and dominant house, in espousing Lady Mary Dudley, daughter of John Earl of Warwick, and sister of Lord Robert Dudley, afterwards the proud favourite Leicester. Henceforward he assumed the heraldic badge of his wife's family, "the Ragged Staff," and became a metaphorical supporter of that symbol of power. Let us, however, hear his tale in his own words:

"When I was but ten yeres of age, and a while had been henchman to King Henrie the Eighth, I was by that most famous king put to his sweete sonne, Prynce Edward, my most deere master, prynce, and sovereign, as the first boye that ever he had; my nere kynswoman being his only nurse; my father being his chamberlayn; my mother his governesse; my aunt, by my mother's syde, in such place as among meaner personages is called a drye nurse, for, from the time he left sucking, she contynually lay in bed with him, so long as he remained in woman's government. As that swete prynce grew in yeres and discretion, so grew I in favour and liking of him, in such sorte as by that tyme I was twentytwo yeres ould, he made me one of the foure principal gentlemen of his bedd chamber. While I was present with him, he would always be cherefull and plesant with me, and in my absence gave me such words of

praise as farr exceeded my desert. Sondry tymes he bountifully rewarded me; fynally, he always made too much of me; once he sent me into France, and once into Scotland. Lastly, not only to my owne still-felt grief, but also to the universall woe of England, he dyed in my armes. Within a while after whose death, and after I had spent some months in Spain, neither liking nor liked as I had been, I fancied to lyve in Ireland, and so serve as Treasurer, and had the leading both of horsemen and footmen, and served as ordinarily with them as any other private captain did there, under my brother-in-law, the Earl of Sussex; where I served during the reign of Queen Mary, and one yere after. In which tyme I had four sondry tymes, as by letters patent yet appeareth, the government of that country, by the name of Lord Justice; thrice by commission out of England, and once by choice of that country, such was the great favour of that country to me, and good liking of the people of me.

With honourable pride our memoir-writer could, indeed, recount proofs of his singular and deserved popularity in the kingdom he so long governed. At the outset of his career, he himself had felt so good a liking for the country as to have been content to settle there; or, at least, to colonise a district that would have required his frequent sojourn, namely, the fertile barony of Lecale, of which he was, in 1557, suitor to the crown for a grant in fief Had he succeeded in this suit, Dundrum, the fine feudal castle of the estate, might have become the seat of an Irish branch of his noble family. He proceeds:

"In the first jorney that the Earl of Sussex made, which was a longe, a great, and an honorable one, against James Mac Conell, a mightie captain of Scotts, whom the Earl, after a good feight made with him, defeyted and chased him, with a slaughter of a great number of his best men, I there fought and killed him with my owne hand, who thought to have overmatched me. Some more blood I drew, though I cannot bragg that I loste any.

"The second jorney the Earl of Sussex made into those quarters of Ulster, he sent me and others into the Island of Raghlyns, where before, Sir Ralph Bagenal, captain Cuffe, and others, sent by him, had landed, little to their advantage, for there were they hurt and taken, and the most of their men that landed either killed or taken. But we landed more polletiquely and saulfly, and encamped in the Isle until we had spoyled the same of all mankynd, corn, and cattell in it.”

Let me, antiquary fashion, offer some annotations on the foregoing. The " mightie "Goliath our writer slew in single combat, in the face of the Scottish Philistines, was one of the Macdonalds, lords of the Isles, then effecting the settlement in Antrim that subsequently gave his line the title of Marquis. The rugged island Sydney boasts of having despoiled was then occupied by those amphibious warriors, who were almost politically independent, and carried on that work and war of settlement on Harry Gow's principle of "fighting for their ain brand.”

To continue our extracts:

"Sondry tymes during my foresaid governments, I had sondry skyrmishes with the rebels; allways with the victorie; namely one, and that a great one, which was at the very tyme that Calleys was lost. the same tyme, being Christmas holiedays, upon the suddeyn invaded I,

Fyrcall, otherwise called O'Molloy's country, the receptacle of all the rebels, burned and wasted the same, and in my retorne homewards was fought withal by the rebels, viz. the O'Conors, O'Mores, and O'Molloy, and the people of Mackgochigan, albeit he in person was with me in that skyrmish. I receaved in a frize jerkin (though armed under it) four or fyve Irish arrows; some blood I drew with my owne hands; but my men hurt the rebels well, and truely went through their passes, straights, and woods lustily, and killed as many of them as saved not their lyves by ronning awaye, among whom, the chief captain, called Callogh O'Moloy, was one, and his head was brought me by an English gentleman and good soldier, called Robert Cowley."

;

The bearer of the proof of decapitation was the direct progenitor of the conqueror at Assaye, Talavera, and that great field which was more decisive than all the battles inscribed on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. The hot skirmish briefly noticed (taking place in January, 1558, the date of the loss of England's last foothold on the Continent) is also chronicled by native annalists, who describe the celebrated Border general, our narrator's master, as having invested Fircall Forest, and vigorously expelled a horde of plunderers who had long found shelter in its thickets and these historians notice that Treasurer Sydney soon afterwards led another expedition into the offending country, " to take vengeance upon its chieftain for his protection of the wood kerns and other insurgents." These loose sylvan depredators were a sort of clan soldiery, virtually outlaws, and compelled to live in woods in a barbarous manner, their hands against every man, and every man's hand against them. The same annalists also describe the valiant young Treasurer as ravaging all the country of that chief, who, like Vich Jan Vohr, dared extend his protection to cow and horse-stealers; and they chronicle how the woods were ruthlessly cut down, and that he gave "neither peace nor rest to O'Molloy, but chased him, banished him, and proclaimed him traitor," deprived him of his chieftaincy, and cut off his son's head. Our narrator continues: "I tarried and encamped in that country till I had cut downe and enlarged divers long and strait passes; wherby the country ever-syns hath been more obedient and corrigible;-somewhat more I did, and so I did as the country well spoke of it, and well judged of it; and I received from the then Queen comfortible and thankful letters, signed with her own hand, which I have yet to show; and when I was sent to her (as I was once or twice), most graciously she would accept me and my service, and honorablie speake of the same, yea, and rewarded me."

Resuming my archæologic comments, which might be extended but for fear of frightening the reader, let me observe that frieze-cloth derives its name from having been first manufactured in the fogs of Friesland; that our warrior wore it in the shape of a pea-jacket; and that the reason why he modestly calls the arrows that lodged in it "Irish,” is, that these missiles were less dangerous, because shorter and less swiftly launched than shafts sent from English and Scottish longer bows. Our worthy author, so stuck about, must have looked like Jack Cade, as described in "King Henry VI.-Part II."

Before our autobiographist had attained his thirtieth birthday, the highest office in the country of his employment, during the absence of the lord-deputy, that of lord-justice, or high justiciary, was entrusted to

him four times. After the accession of Queen Elizabeth, and when this main hope of the Protestant people was seated firmly on the throne, the lord-deputy, Sussex, returned to his post, and proceeded with his military operations against the Irishry, doing, says a contemporary chronicler, "great good service" upon them, and, particularly, in succeeding, by stratagem, in making a prisoner of O'Niall-more, or the great O'Neill, commonly called en sobriquet Shane Dymas, i. e. Shane an diomais, or John the Proud or Ambitious, who then ruled all the natives of the north as their absolute sovereign, and was, besides, the most energetic of the several heads of the Hibernian hydra of rebellion.

The lord-deputy, though a good general, and experienced in similar warfare, having often led his red-coats against the borderers and thieves of the Scottish dales, not proving successful against the wily thane in the open field, having, indeed, suffered reverses that caused her majesty much disquiet, was ignominiously recalled, leaving the country "in a verie broken state." But, in truth, the rebel clans were but sticks of a fagot that had no bond of union. Still, it was not an easy task to break and subdue the strongest of them; and they received frequent support, in men, money, and munitions, from the Continent. Politically considered, Ireland was, at the period in view, by far the most important part, because the most vulnerable, of the English dominions; consequently, her defence, and the civil war there, were extremely costly; and, therefore, afforded state questions of cogent and exceeding anxiety. Often, verily, as eye-witnesses assure us, the news of a defeat, sustained at the sword and pike of some "O" or "Mac," made Elizabeth swear awfully, and Lord Burghley shed tears, not because of the disaster, but of her ungracious majesty's consequent ill-humour.

After some debate as to an adequate successor to the discomfited deputy, "choise was made by the queen and council of Sir Henrie Sydney." The chronicler quoted from (Hooker) gives this then youthful viceroy the highest character for capacity to meet his governmental "difficulties," which were great at the time he assumed full authority, viz. anno 1565. "Great," says that laudatory, "was his knowledge, wisdom, and experience, both of the land, and of the nature, manners, and disposition of the people; wherein the more he excelled others, the more apt and fit he was to have the government." Such due qualifications for colonial administrators may be recommended to the attention of Queen Victoria's secretary for the colonies. When the new lord-deputy arrived in Dublin, he was not only "honorablie received" by the authorities, but the very "people, in great troops, came and saluted him, clapping and shouting with all the joie they could devise." This same writer then sets forth, in quaint, but graphic terms, the perilous and impoverished state of the kingdom. The district called the Pale because the towns it contained, inhabited by the Anglo-Irish, were defended by palings, or stockades, had been much wasted by incursions of bordering clans; and was frequently plundered by small bands of robbers that lurked in the surrounding fastnesses, "whereby," it is piteously observed, "the Anglo-Irish were in such penurie that they had not horses, armour, or weapons to defend themselves with." As for the soldiers in the service of the crown, they injured their friends more than their foes, for, as they received their pay but irregularly, and were maintained by the