court. They all instantly drew to this tumult, every sort of quarrels sorting well with their humour, but especially this; which Sir Philip perceiving, and rising with inward strength, by the prospect of a mighty faction against him, asked my Lord with a loud voice, that which he heard clearly enough before. Who like an echo (that still multiplies by reflections) repeated this epithet of puppy the second time. Sir Philip resolving, in one answer to conclude both the attentive hearers and passionate actor, gave my Lord the lye, impossible as he averred to be retorted, in respect, all the world knows, puppys are gotten by dogs, and children by men. Hereupon those glorious inequalities of fortune in his Lordship, were put to a kind of pause, by a precious inequality of nature in this gentleman. So that they both stood silent a while, like a dumb shew in a tragedy: till Sir Philip sensible of his own wrong, and the foreign and factious spirits that attended, and yet even in this question between him and his superior, tender of his country's honour; with some words of sharp accent he led the way abruptly out of the tennis court; as if so unexpected an accident were not fit to be decided further in that place. Whereof the great Lord, construing it in a wrong sense, continues his play, without any advantage of reputation; as by the standard of humours in those times it was conceived. "A day Sir Philip remains in suspense, when hearing nothing of, or from this Lord, he sends a gentleman of worth to awake him out of his trance: this stirred up a resolution in his Lordship to send Sir Philip a challenge. But these thoughts in the great Lord wandered so long between glory, anger, and inequality of state, as the Lords of her Majesty's Councel took notice of the differences, commanded peace, and laboured a reconciliation between them. Yet needlessly in one respect, and bootlessly in another. The great Lord being, as it should seem, either not hasty to adventúre many inequalities against one, or inwardly satisfied with the progress of his own acts. But Sir Philip was on the other side confident, that he neither had, nor would lose, or let fall any thing of his right; which her Majesty's council quickly perceiving, recommended this work to herself. "The Queen, who saw that by the loss or disgrace of either she would gain nothing, presently undertakes Sir Philip, and lays before him the difference in degree between earls and gentlemen; the respect inferiors owed to their superiors; and the necessity in princes to maintain their own creations, as degrees descending between the people's licentiousness and the anointed sovereignty of crowns; how the gentleman's neglect of the nobility taught the peasant to insult upon both. Where unto Sir Philip, with such reverence as became him, replied: first, that place was never intended for privilege to wrong, witness herself, who, how sovereign soever she were, by throne, birth, education, and nature; yet was she content to cast her own affections into the same mould her subjects did, and govern all her rights by the laws. Again he besought her Majesty to consider, That, although he were a great Lord by birth, alliance, and grace, yet he was no Lord over him; and therefore the difference of degrees between free men, could not challenge any other homage than precedency. And by her father's acts (to make a princely wisdom become the more familiar) he instanced the government of King Henry the Eighth, who gave the gentry free and safe appeal to his feet against the oppression of the grandees; and found it wisdom by the stronger corporation in number to keep down the greater in power: inferring else, that if they should unite, the overgrown might be tempted by still coveting more, to fall, as the angels did, by affecting equality with their Maker. These truths did not displease the Queen, though he did not obey her commands. 66 Whereupon the same year he retired from court, and in that summer, 1580, it is conceived he wrote the eloquent and entertaining romance called ARCADIA, whereof there have been printed fourteen editions; which he dedicated to his sister the Countess of Pembroke; and there is a room at Wilton, the lower pannels whereof are finely painted with representations of the stories mentioned therein." Notwithstanding this quarrel with Lord Oxford, he appears, either immediately afterwards, or about this time, to have been engaged on the same side with him in a public exhibition of heroism. For Sir Wm. Seagar records, that in 1580 a challenge to a Tournament having been brought before her Majesty by the Earl of Arundel and his assistant Sir Wm. Drury, against all Comers, the Defenders were the Earl of Oxford, the Lord Windsor, Sir Philip Sydney, and others; and the prize was given by her Majesty to the Earl of Oxford, * About this time Sir Philip represented the County of Kent in parliament, and took an active part in the business of the House. In 1581 he attended, with his uncle the Earl of Leicester and others, the Duke of Anjou to Antwerp on his depar Honor Military and Civil, p. 194. ture ture from England. And Jan. 13, 1583, was knighted as proxy to John, Prince Palatine of the Rhine, then invested with the Order of the Garter. In 1583 he married Frances only child of the famous statesman, Sir Francis Walsingham, who in her widowhood remarried, 1st, the celebrated Robert Devereux Earl of Essex, and afterwards Richard de Burgh, 4th Earl of Clanrickard, who in 1628 was created an English Peer by the title of Earl of St. Albans, and died in 1635. In 1585 he projected an expedition to America, in association with Sir Francis Drake; but the Queen having discovered his intentions would not suffer him to engage in a scheme so remote and hazardous. To alleviate this disappointment, his Sovereign instantly on his return to court, made him "Lord Governor of Flushing with the Rammekyns, &c. and General of the Horse under his uncle the Earl of Leicester." The patent of this appointment was dated Nov. 7, 1585.* On the 18th of the same month Sir Philip arrived at Flushing. In July of the following year he shewed great skill in contriving the surprize of Axel. About the same time. he lost his father, who died at the Bishop's Palace at Worcester, May 5, and was buried at Penshurst June 25 following, having been twenty-six years Lord President of Wales. His mother did not survive her husband more than three months. On the 26th of September of the same year (1586) in stopping a convoy of the enemy, under the guard of 300 cavalry, which was making its way to Zutphen, a desperate engagement took place, in which this illustrious hero was so wounded, as after a short period of excruciating pain, which he bore with inimitable fortitude, to occasion his death. The following anecdote, though perhaps better known than any other in the biography of England, must not be omitted. + "As he was returning from the field of battle, pale, languid, and thirsty with excess of bleeding, On this occasion the family of Temple, since so opulent, and powerful, first rose into distinction. Mr. Wm. Temple, their ancestor, was appointed by Sir Philip his Private Secretary. It is recorded by his friend Lord Brooke. 6 he asked for water to quench his thirst. The water was brought; and had no sooner approached his lips, than he instantly resigned it to a dying soldier; whose ghastly countenance attracted his notice with these ever memorable words Thy necessity is yet greater than mine.'* He lingered till the 17th day of October, when he expired in the arms of Mr. Wm. Temple, not having completed his thirty-second year, to the regret of all Europe. His death caused a general mourning in England, supposed to be the first instance of the kind in the case of a private person. "No gentleman for many months appearing in a gay or gaudy dress, either in the court or city." Three volumes of verses on his death in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and Italian, were published by the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford. I cite the following Epigram on him from Holland's O me infelicem! quia tu, Divine Philippe, Scripta probant doctum te; tua facta, probum." Justus Lipsius in Epistol. præfix. Dialog. de Rect. Pronunciatione Lat. Lingua, speaks of him in the following terms of high panegyric. "Corporis tui bona intueor? ad robur pariter factus es, et ad decorem. Animi? cultissimus ille; et uberrimæ in te ingenii judiciique dotes. Externa? stirpe nobilissimus es, opibus splendidissimus Nec quidquam facile tibi deest, quod Naturæ aut Fortune adest. Macte his dotibus! eo magis, quod non ad ambitionem, ut pleraque ista nobilitas, aut ad pompam abuteris: sed confers eas, qua potes ad tuam et publicam salutem: Idque domi et foris, togâ et sago: cum vegeta illa animi vis ad omnia sufficiat : et Marti ita lites, ut Sacrum nunquam deseras Sophie et Musarum. Sed libo hoc laudum tuarum limen, non penetro. Quia ut sacratum silentio potius, quam plausu spec This has been made the subject of a celebrated picture by West. tamus: tamus: sic tuas ego virtutes quas veneror, non exsequor, adoro pæne dixerim, non adorno. Tu tantum, O Britanniæ tuæ clarum sidus, (cui certatim lucem affundunt Virtus, Musa, Gratia, Fortuna) tenuem obscurumque hunc laborem a me libens accipe, et paulisper instar doni pendere patere in Fame templo." Hubert Languet in Epist. 72,* has these words. "Natura te maximis animi et corporis dotibus ornavit: Fortuna vero nobilitate et opibus ac splendidis necessitudinibus : Tu autem a primâ pueritiâ animum magno studio excoluisti iis artibus, quæ contendentibus ad virtutem magno adjumento esse solent." "I feel the death of Sydney deeply," says his friend Du Plessis, to Sir Francis Walsingham, both on your ac→ count and my own; I bewail his loss and regret him, not for England only, but for all Christendom," &c. "The learned of Europe," says Lord Orford, "dedicated their works to him; the Republic of Poland thought him at least worthy to be in nomination for their crown!" And yet this noble critic cannot find out what prodigious merits excited such admiration! Could all the nations of Europe then, who beheld him living, and witnessed the splendid assemblage of his virtues, concur in yielding to a delusion? Could after-ages promote the mistake by continuing to ratify his praises? To give a colour for the remark, which must rather have been prompted by a love of singularity than the unbiassed conviction of his mind, Lord O. speaks as if Sir Philip's writings alone were considered as the basis of his fame. Does he wish us to forget him as a man of romantic gallantry, a general, a statesman, a courtier, a man of manners exquisitely refined, of a heart of the purest virtue and the nicest sensiblity, and actuated by the most sublime principles of religion? Does he wish us to forget that Sir Philip attracted the notice and won the favour of all the greatest princes of his time; and the friendship of most of those eminent for their genius or learning, to many of whom he became a patron as munificent as he was a companion beloved? The Letters of Hubert Languet to Sir P. Sydney were originally printed at Frankfort in 1632. They were re-edited at Edinburgh, 1776, by Lord Hailes. Much use has been made of them by Dr. Zouch. It |