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THE period in which sir Philip Sidney flourished, considered, as it relates to manners, is reproached with a fondness for the fopperies of chivalry. But we must not confound the fugitive customs of the age, with that spirit which fashions the minds of men, and reaches beyond the date of those artificial customs that rather disguise than produce it. The pas sion of arms, gallantry, and devotion, in its minutia and excess, may make men fight more than they need, love more than they ought, and pray, perhaps, at unsuitable times; but valour, sensibility, and patient suffering, are the noble results.

The universal favourite of this age was sir Philip Sidney, the most accomplished character in our history, till lord Orford startled the world by paradoxes, which attacked the fame established by two centuries. Singularity of opinion, vivacity of ridicule, and polished epigrams in prose, were the means by which this nobleman sought distinction. But he had some thing in his composition more predominant than his wit; a cold, unfeeling disposition, which contemned literary men, at the moment that his heart secretly panted to share their fame; while his peculiar habits of

VOL. II.

society deadened every impression of grandeur in the human character.

Three volatile pages of petulance, however, have provoked the ponderous quarto before us. Biassed as we are in favour of Sidney, we find this a case of criticism somewhat nice to determine; for though we are wil ling to censure his lordship for being much too brisk, we do not see that, therefore, we are to excuse his antagonist, for being much too saturnine.

The materials of these memoirs present scarcely any thing new. They have already been used by Arthur Collins, in his account of the Sidney family, prefixed to the Sidney papers; and by Dr. Campbell, in the Biographia Britannica. The only novelty, is a long and uninteresting manuscript in the British Museum; a kind of biographical homily, containing an account of Sidney's death.

The life of Sidney, who died at little more than thirty, was chiefly passed in his travels; and had no claims on a volume of this size. Dr. Zouch has the merit, however, of giving a luminous disposition to his scanty materials. With these before us, we shall track him in his work, and ascertain whether his industry

K

has always been vigilant, and his judgment enlightened by taste.

Sir Philip Sidney derived every advantage from two noble and excellent parents. His father, sir Henry, was a sage, a statesman, and had even been a hero; but at this early period of life, the character of the mother is of some importance. She is thus described by Dr. Zouch.

"Nor was his mother less illustrious, or less amiable. Mary, the eldest daughter of the unfortunate duke of Northumberland, alienated from the follies and vanities of life, by those tragical events in her own family, of which she had been an eye-witness, she devoted herself, like Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi, to an employment equally pleasing, useful, and honourable-the instruction of her children. It was her delight to form their early habits; to instil into their tender minds the principles of religion and virtue; to direct their passions to proper objects, to superintend not only their seri. ous studies, but even their amusements."

P. 17.

We do not reproach this passage with a want of elegance, but of definitive ideas. We find in this work, too many of these lax and general descriptions, which delineate nothing that is individual. The above description of sir Philip Sidney's mother may be let out for the use of any other like those epitaphs on tombstones, which are used by the whole parish in turn. Biographers too often fail in the nice touches of the pencil, and Dr. Zouch has here dropt an affecting trait in the portrait of this mother, which sir Fulke Greville has feelingly copied from the life. Alluding to the tragical events in her own family. the companion and the biographer of Sidney adds:

"She was of a large, ingenuous spirit, racked with native strength. 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 kind of veile over her excellent beauty, as the modesty of that sex doth."-Again-" This clearHesse of his father's judgment, and ingeminus sensiblenesse of his mother's brought

forth so happy a temper in their offspring."

Here are distinctly indicated, the high spirit of ancestry, and the tender melancholy of the mother; features entirely lost in the portrait blurred over by Dr. Zouch. He should have inquired whether the maternal character did not considerably influence that of sir Philip himself. We have no doubt that it did. In his defence of his uncle, lord Leicester, he alludes, with this hightoned feeling to his descent: "I am a Dudley in blood, the duke's daughter's son-my chiefest honour is to be a Dudley."

Sidney resembled "the melancholy Gray;" like him, too, he seems never to have been a boy. The language of sir Fulke Greville is that of truth and of the heart. "I lived with him, and knew him from a child, yet I never knew him other than a man, with such staiednesse of mind, lovely and familiar gravity, as carried grace and reverence above greater and his very play tending to enrich years. His talk ever of knowledge, 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 emihis worthy father style sir Philip in nence by nature and industry, made my hearing (though I unseen) Lumen familiæ suæ, the light of his family."

His father" designed him for foreign travel and the business of a court very early." He drew up a compendium of instruction, which Dr. Zouch has judiciously preserved; and ingenious commentary from two and accompanied it by a continued similar compositions of sir Walter Rawleigh, and sir Mathew Hale. The English wisdom of these three venerable fathers we love infinitely more, than we admire the polite cynicism of Rochefoucault and Chesterfield. This old fashioned, massy sense will, in every age, be valued by its weight.

The academical education of Sidney was completed at both the universities, and such was his subsequent celebrity, that his learned tutor chose to commemorate on his tomb, that "He was the tutor of sir Philip Sidney." The same remarkable testimony to this extraordinary character, was given by his friend, sir Fulke Greville, lord Brooke, on whose tomb was inscribed, as the most lasting of his honours, "Fulke Greville, servant to queen Elizabeth, counsel lor to king James, and friend to sir Philip Sidney!" When afterwards we find, that there was a long publick mourning observed for his death, and that the eulogiums bestowed on him by the most eminent of his contemporaries, at home and abroad, are positive and definitive, it seems but an idle labour to refute the malicious ingenuity of Walpole-that light work of spangles and fillagree, truth shivers at a single stroke into glittering atoms!

At this momentous period of life, when youth steps into manhood, was Sidney a most diligent student, a lover and a patron of all the arts; but his ruling passion was military fame. This he inherited from his father, who had distinguished himself on many occasions, and particularly, in single combat with a Scottish chieftain, whom he overthrew and stripped of his arms.

He left the university to commence his travels. Dr. Zouch informs us of a wise precaution of our ancestors on this head.

"In those days, when travelling was considered as one of the principal causes of corrupt morals, a wise and sound policy dictated the expediency of observing the most rigid circumspection in permitting the English nobility and gentry to visit distant countries; and in general, no persons were permitted to go abroad, except merchants, and those who were intended for a military life."

The royal license was granted by the queen on the 25th of May, 1572, and runs in this manner. "For her trusty and well beloved Philip Sidney,

esquire, to go out of England into parts beyond the seas, with three servants and four horses; to remain during the space of two years, for his attaining the knowledge of foreign lan. guages."

The earl of Leicester recommended him to sir Francis Walsingham, our ambassadour in France, whose daughter Sidney afterwards married. Charles IX. received him with unusual kindness, and made him a gentleman of his chamber. This must have been one of the artifices to trepan the protestants; for Sidney had scarcely taken the oaths to his perfidious master, ere he became a spectator of the massacre of St. Bartholomew.

Dr. Zouch has, with much curiosity and judgment, collected the numerous catholick testimonies, many of them written by eminent scholars, approving and applauding this sanguinary scene. Let the lesson perpetually instruct. He accounts for the seeming apathy of the court on the occasion, by the political wisdom of Elizabeth: but the emphatick language which her ministers employed, expresses their abhorrence of the crime. We regret that we cannot transcribe the fine picture of the silent resentment of the English court when the French ambassadour passed through the circle, as described by himself.

At Paris, Sidney was seen and admired by Henry IV. the young king of Navarre. "He used him," says Fulke Greville "like an equal in nature, and fit for friendship with a king."

At Frankfort, he lodged at the house of Andrew Wechel, one of the learned printers of the sixteenth century. Here he found Hubert Languet, and here he formed his memorable friendship with that bright ornament of literature, who was then resident minister from the elector of Saxony. It was usual at this time for scholars to lodge in the houses of eminent printers. Robert Stephens had fre