Northumberland, so that he was a nephew of the Earl of Leicester, the favourite of Queen Elizabeth. After passing through Shrewsbury school and the University of Oxford, in each of which he highly distinguished himself by his goodness and learning, he proceeded to enrich his mind and enlarge his experience by travel. His first visit, which was to Paris, nearly proved disastrous; for during his short stay the massacre of St. Bartholomew took place, and he was obliged to hide in the house of Sir Francis Walsingham, the English ambassador. He so warmly espoused the Protestant cause that a few years afterwards, when but twenty-five years of age, the Prince of Orange desired Lord Brooke to tell Queen Elizabeth, 'that her Majesty had in Mr. Philip Sidney one of the ripest and greatest statesmen that he knew in all Europe.'

He subsequently became a courtier, and rose high in the esteem of his somewhat irritable sovereign. He became an accomplished author, and has left several well-known works in poetry and prose.

When the war broke out between the tyrant Philip of Spain and the Hollanders, he was appointed by the queen governor of Flushing. It was in an encounter near Zutphen, in Guelderland, that the incident occurred which is related at the beginning of this lesson. He was as brave in death as in life; his last words were to his younger brother -'Love my memory, cherish my friends; their faith to me may assure you they are honest. But above all, govern your will and affections by the will and word of your Creator, in me beholding the end of the world with all her vanities.'

His body was brought to England, honoured with a public funeral, and buried in Old St. Paul's

Cathedral. A general mourning was observed throughout the country-the first of its kind in England, it is supposed. A writer of the last century says: 'Sir Philip Sidney was a gentleman finished and complete, in whom mildness was associated with courage, erudition softened by refinement, and courtliness dignified by truth. He is a specimen of what the English character was capable of producing, when foreign admixtures had not destroyed its simplicity or politeness debased its honour. Of such a stamp was Sir Philip Sidney, and as such every Englishman has reason to be proud of him.'

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever;

As loveliness increases, it will never
Pass into nothingness, but still will keep
A lower quiet for us, and a sleep

Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.

Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,

Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth

Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,

Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils,
With the green world they live in ; and clear rills,
That for themselves a cooling covert make
'Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And such is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
All lovely tales that we have heard or read:
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring into us from the heaven's brink.

Nor do we merely feel these essences
For one short hour; no, even as the trees
That whisper round a temple become soon
Dear as the temple's self, so does the moon,
The passion poesy, glories infinite,
Haunt us till they become a cheering light
Unto our souls, and bound to us so fast,
That, whether there to shine, or gloom o'ercast,
They always must be with us, or we die.

KEATS.

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods;
There is a rapture on the lonely shore;
There is society where none intrudes
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the universe, and feel
What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal,
Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean-roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain ;
Man marks the earth with ruin-his control
Stops with the shore; upon the watery plain
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain
A shadow of man's ravage, save his own,
When, for a moment, like a drop of rain,
He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,
Without a grave, unknell'd, uncoffin'd, and unknown.

His steps are not upon thy path,-thy fields
Are not a spoil for him,-thou dost arise
And shake him from thee; the vile strength he
wields

For earth's destruction, thou dost all despise,
Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies,

And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray, And howling, to his gods, where haply lies His petty hope in some near port or bay, And dashest him again to earth: there let him lay, The armaments which thunder-strike the walls Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake, And monarchs tremble in their capitals; The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make Their clay creator the vain title take Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war,

These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake, They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar Alike the Armada's pride, or spoils of Trafalgar.

Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee. Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they? Thy waters wasted them while they were free, And many a tyrant since; their shores obey The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay Has dried up realms to deserts :—not so thou, Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' playTime writes no wrinkle on thy azure brow— Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now!

Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form Glasses itself in tempests; in all time,

Calm or convulsed-in breeze, or gale, or storm, Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime

Dark-heaving; boundless, endless, and sublime-The image of Eternity-the throne

Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime
The monsters of the deep are made. Each zone
Obeys thee! Thou goest forth, dread, fathomless,
alone!

And I have loved thee, ocean! and my joy
Oi youthful sports was on thy breast to be