SOME ACCOUNT

OF THE

LIFE AND WRITINGS

OF

SIR PHILIP SIDNEY.*

THE life of Sir Philip Sidney is one of the most faultless and interesting of which English history can boast. His ancient lineage and varied acquirements, his gallant bearing in the field, and the melancholy close of his career while yet in the very blaze of his glory, have all contributed to endear his name, and to throw a halo around his memory. By his contempoporaries he appears to have been regarded as the glass of fashion and the mould of form," as the

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* The following memoir is chiefly abstracted from the Life prefixed to Gray's edition of Sir Philip Sidney's Miscellaneous Works, published at Oxford in 1829. more complete biography will be found in Zouch's Memoirs of Sidney; 4to. 1808.

Bayard of England, "sans peur et sans reproche," the mirror of knighthood, and the flower of chivalry. Whether he betook himself, accordingly, to the camp, the court, or the grove, he never failed to become "the cynosure of neighbouring eyes," the paragon whom the warrior sought to rival in the brilliancy of his exploits, and the fair to bind with loveknots to the triumphal car of beauty.

This accomplished person was born on the 29th of November, 1554, at Penshurst, in West Kent, a seat which had been granted to his ancestors by the munificence of Edward the Sixth. The mansion, and the beautiful and romantic scenery with which it is surrounded; "the broad beech, and the chesnut shade;" and

That taller tree, which of a nut was set

At his great birth, where all the muses met;

*

have each been rendered classic by Ben Jonson in the celebrated lines of his Forest, where he has taken occasion to introduce them. It has been supposed that the Sidney family were originally of French extraction, and that they came over into England about the reign of Henry the Second, to whom William de Sidney was chamberlain. At all events, the grandfather of Sir Philip held some offices of dignity and importance in the household of Henry the Eighth, and had the honor of being celebrated

*This "sacred mark of noble Sidney's birth," as Waller reverently denominates it, was cut down in 1768; but it will ever "live in description, and look green in song."

among the commanders who were present at the bloody fight of Flodden. He left an only son, Hen

ry, the father of our author, who received the honor of knighthood, and was subsequently appointed ambassador to France by his amiable sovereign, Edward the Sixth, with whom he was connected by the closest ties of early intimacy and regard. The characters of Sir Henry and his consort, who was eldest daughter to the ambitious and unfortunate John Dudley, duke of Northumberland, have been thus delineated by Fulke Greville, lord Brooke, who was the kinsman, companion, and biographer of their son. "Sir Henry Sidney," he says, "was a man of excellent natural wit, large heart, sweet conversation, and such a governor as sought not to make an end of the state in himself, but to plant his own ends in the prosperity of his country. On the other side, lady Mary Sidney, as she was a woman by descent of great nobility, so was she by nature of a large ingenious spirit. Whence, as it were even racked with native strengths, she chose rather to hide herself from the curious eyes of a delicate time, than come upon the stage of the world with any manner of disparagement, the mischance of sickness having cast such a veil over her excellent beauty, as the modesty of that sex doth many times upon their native and heroical spirits."

On the death of his royal master and patron, who breathed his last in his arms, Sir Henry Sidney withdrew from the court to his paternal residence at Penshurst, and thus escaped the complicated miseries

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in which his father-in-law was involved, by his fruitless attempt to place the lady Jane Grey upon the throne. It was during this retirement from public life that the subject of our memoir first saw the light; and he received the name of Philip out of compliment to the lately married husband of queen Mary, by whom Sir Henry was appointed her vice-treasurer, and advanced to other high preferments.

The early years of his son Philip were singularly indicative of his future eminence, and were illustrated by many traits of natural genius and industry. "Of his youth," observes lord Brooke, "I will report no other wonder but this, that though I lived with him, and knew him from a child, yet I never knew him other than a man: with such staidness of mind, lovely and familiar gravity, as carried grace and reverence above greater years. His talk ever of knowledge, and his very play tending to enrich his mind; so as even his teachers found something in him to observe, and learn, above that which they had usually read, or taught. Which eminence by nature, and industry, made his worthy father style Sir Philip, in my hearing (though I unseen), 'lumen familiæ suæ.""

After having remained some considerable time, and made unwonted progress in ancient learning, at the grammar school of Shrewsbury, young Sidney was removed to Oxford, of which his maternal uncle, the famous Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester, then held the office of chancellor; and he was entered at Christ Church, in 1569, under the tuition of Dr. Tho