mas Thornton*, an elegant and accomplished scholar. Here again, as formerly, his assiduity and acuteness more than justified the exalted estimate of his talents which his juvenile precocity had excited. "He cultivated," we are informed, "not one art, or one science, but the whole circle of arts and sciences; his capacious and comprehensive mind aspiring to preeminence in every part of knowledge attainable by human genius or industry." And, not satisfied with the liberal opportunities of adding to his acquirements which his present alma mater afforded, he appears at a later period to have transferred his residence to the sister seminary of Cambridge, where he continued to prosecute his studies with unabated ardor and success. "Such," says Fuller, 66 was his appetite for learning, that he could never be fed fast enough therewith, and so quick and strong his diges tion, that he soon turned it into wholesome nourishment, and thrived healthfully thereon." In the month of May, 1572, Mr. Sidney obtained a license from the queen to travel beyond the seas in order that he might perfect his knowledge of the continental tongues. The period of his absence was limited to two years; and he set out on his journey, with several others of distinguished rank, in the *This amiable divine had it recorded upon his tomb, that he was "the tutor of Sir Philip Sidney." Lord Brooke, also, had the following inscription placed over his grave: "Fulke Greville, servant to queen Elizabeth, counsellor to king James, and friend to Sir Philip Sidney." train of the earl of Lincoln, then lord admiral of Eng land, and ambassador extraordinary to the court of France. Whilst he sojourned at Paris his deportment attracted the marked attention and approval of the reigning monarch, Charles the Ninth, who honored him with the appointment of gentleman in ordinary of his chamber: but whatever regard our trayeller might have entertained for this inhuman and perfidious sovereign was, we presume, sufficiently extinguished, after a very short duration, by having witnessed, and nearly suffered in, that most savage act of religious bigotry, the fiend-like massacre of St. Bartholomew. At the same time a far more grateful and flattering acquisition was made by him in the frindship and sincere respect of the gallant Henry of Navarre, which he was then so fortunate as to secure by his winning manners and address. The disturbed and infuriated condition of the French empire at this epoch, and more particularly the danger to which all of Hugonot principles were exposed by attempting to remain within its territories, induced Mr. Sidney to hurry onwards into less perilous lands; and he therefore now passed successively through Germany, Hungary, Italy, and Belgium. He appears, from the accounts of his biographers, to have uniformly acquired the affection and permanent esteem of the many virtuous and learned persons whom he happened to encounter in the course of his journeyings; and, from among the number of these literati, he entered into the strictest bonds of amity, at Frankfort, with the celebrated Hubert Languet, minister of the elector of Saxony, and the admired companion of Melancthon, who chanced to lodge under the same roof where he had taken up his temporary abode. From this invaluable associate Sidney derived much important information relative to the government, the usages, and the laws of different nations; not to mention the various other branches of erudition in which that universal scholar was so exactly versed, a circumstance to which our author has very feelingly alluded in one of the poems to be found in the Arcadia. We have it, moreover, on the authority of lord Brooke, that Languet actually quitted his several functions, without prospect of hire or reward, for the purpose of becoming, as he quaintly expresses it, "a nurse of knowledge to this hopeful young gentleman," and the attached companion of the greater portion of his travels. A regular correspondence was kept up by the friends after their unavoidable separation; and the Latin epistles of the sage, which were first published at Frankfort and subsequently at Edinburgh, have received the highest encomiums for their classic purity and elegance. Sir Philip neglected no opportunity that was offered to him on his route of increasing his stock of accomplishments, which was already so extraordinary. At Vienna he received lessons in horsemanship, and the several martial exercises of the age; at Venice he held intercourse with all the brightest spirits of the proud republic, then in the zenith of its magnifience; and at Padua he again applied himself, with all his early assiduity, to the acquisition of geometry, astronomy, and the other branches of study usually prosecuted in that yet flourishing university. Sidney was prevented from visiting Rome by the earnest dissuasions of his Mentor, Languet, who seems to have been sadly alarmed lest the religious principles of his young correspondent should suffer any serious injury from a near intercourse with the scarlet lady, her abominations, and her active emissaries; and our author, accordingly, returned to his native country in 1575, after a separation from his relatives of exactly three years' duration. Soon after his arrival he made his debut in fashionable life, and straightway became the delight of every circle that was favored with his acquaintance and familiar intercourse. Indeed, "he was so essential," if we may believe Fuller, "to the English court, that it seemed maimed without his company, being a complete master both of matter and language." Queen Elizabeth herself received him with the most flattering civilities; "and called him,” says Zouch, "her Philip, in opposition, it is alleged, to Philip of Spain, her sister's husband." Perhaps our author was in no small degree indebted for this last mark of condescension and endearment to his close relationship, and confidential union, with the haughty favorite Leicester. But, be that as it may, Sir Philip was nominated ambassador to Vienna in 1576, to condole with the emperor Rodolph on the demise of his father Maximilian the Second; and we are farther informed, that this distinguished appointment proceeded directly from the discernment and personal suggestion of his royal mistress. In the discharge of his diplomatic duties, which likewise embraced the formation of an alliance be tween all the Protestant states of Europe against the increase of Romish power and the cruel tyranny of the Spaniards, Mr. Sidney acquitted himself with adroitness, and to the entire satisfaction of his employers; and he returned once more to England in 1577, crowned with additional laurels, and furnished with a deeper knowledge of mankind. Among the number of his new admirers, and warm congratulators on his success, he had the pleasure of enumerating lord Burleigh, the political enemy of his family, and the experienced Sir Francis Walsingham, to whom he had been previously known in private life, and with whom friendship was ultimately cemented by the still dearer ties of kindred. * Though in the commencement of 1576, Sir Philip's connexion and influence had been materially increased by the marriage of his sole surviving sister with Henry, earl of Pembroke; yet, for several years subsequent to his return from his German embassy, he appears neither to have made any advance in his public career, nor to have held any office of trust or honor in the state, except the trifling and merely *This accomplished lady evinced no inconsiderable poetic capacity, and is well known as the subject of Ben Jonson's famous epitaph; beginning, "Underneath this sable hearse |