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Poor as he was, he was able to give them material encouragement. "He was a very munificent spirit," Aubrey wrote of him, "and liberal to all lovers of learning, and to those that pretended any acquaintance with Parnassus." All the hardworking and scantily recompensed book-writers of the daywriters on theology and politics, history and geogra phy, what then passed for science and the arts then necessary to a gentleman's career, as well as poets and romancers-looked to Sidney for help and encouragement. Among these were his friends. Camden and Hakluyt. It was under his patronage that Nicholas Litchfield, in 1581, issued his translation of a treatise, "De Re Militari," on the plea that no one was more forward to further or favour military knowledge than he, being of all men ever the most ready and adventurous in every exercise of war and chivalry. But his most illustrious debtor was Edmund Spenser, who, dedicating "The Ruins of Time" to the Countess of Pembroke in 1591, lamented that "God had disdained the world. of that most noble spirit which was the hope of all learned men and the patron of my young muses."

1583]

ARLY in March, 1582, Sidney returned to London from his short visit to the Netherlands, and for the next two-and-forty months he remained in England, chiefly at Court, but with an ever-growing desire to be employed in more useful work than he could obtain. Work gradually came, but during these three and a half years it was not such as he was satisfied with, and even in the offices to which he was appointed he appears to have been hindered by courtly thraldom from making full and proper use of his opportunities. He was too great a favourite with the Queen to be often or for long allowed out of her presence, either for his own enjoyment or in the service of his country.

For this reason, if for no other, nothing came of a project for his going to Ireland. His own and his

1582]

An Irish Project.

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father's friend, Lord Grey of Wilton, who had been made Lord Deputy in 1580, and who appears to have been really anxious to carry out Sir Henry's views as to the government of the turbulent country, was not equal to the task; and he was recalled in August, 1582. "Sir Henry Sidney is the only man that is wished for here by the country people," Sir Nicholas Malby, the Governor of Connaught, had written in the previous May to the Earl of Leicester; and that wish was repeatedly expressed and communicated to the Queen's Council by others. There was some thought of complying with it, and overtures were made to Sir Henry with a view to his resuming the post he had already thrice filled.

Sir Henry's answer to the suggestion is interesting. As a prime condition of his undertaking the irksome but serviceable business, he stipulated that his son. Philip should share it with him. "The principal and chief cause that moveth him to fancy or have any liking to take the charge of the government of Ireland, if the same be offered to him," we read, "is the respect he beareth him "-that is, Philip. "So that, if he" -Philip—“ will assuredly promise to go with him thither, and withal will put on a determinate mind to remain and continue there after him, and succeed him in the government, if it may so like her Majesty to allow him, he will then yield his consent to go. Otherwise he will not leave his quiet and contented life at home, considering his years, and the defects of nature that accompany age, to enter into so toilsome a place, both of body and mind." Sir Henry made three other stipulations. In the first place, the

Queen must publicly acknowledge that, during his three previous terms of office in Ireland, he had done. as good service as any other rulers before or since; in other words, he required from her an apology for her unreasonable misconstruing of his motives and disparaging of his achievements. In the second place, he asked for a peerage, with a grant of land or a fee-farm sufficient to maintain it with dignity; "so that it may be known and better apparent to the world that her Majesty hath had gracious consideration of his service past." In the third place, he considered that, if he returned to Ireland, it should be with the more impressive title of Lord Lieutenant, instead of Lord Deputy.

Either Queen Elizabeth was of opinion that Sir Henry asked too much for himself, or she objected to part with Philip, or Philip could not "put on a determinate mind " to become assistant Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, or some other obstacle arose. Neither father nor son crossed over to Dublin to repair the blunders of Lord Grey of Wilton's administration.

Yet Philip was absent from Court during parts of the summer and autumn of 1582. He was in Wales in July, busy about his father's affairs; and in November and December he was at Wilton, seeking in his sister's company relief from some unexplained troubles of his own. From Wilton, on the 16th of December, he wrote to the Earl of Leicester, who, though not now so influential as he had been before the discovery of his marriage with Stella's mother, again stood high in the Queen's favour. "I am bold