Unable to return to England without making concessions and submissions which his proud and lofty spirit could not brook, Algernon Sidney remained now for many years on the Continent, visiting in turn various German cities, and residing for a considerable time at Rome, where he seems to have suffered greatly from a sense of his father's displeasure, from the mismanagement of his estates in England, and from the consequent insufficiency of his own means of support. Availing himself at last of the kind offers of an Italian prince, he found an agreeable retreat at his villa of Belvidere, in the neighborhood of Frascati. And here again he betook himself more seriously than ever to study.

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"Here," writes he, are walks and fountains in the greatest perfection, and though my delight in solitude is very much increased this last year, I cannot desire to be more alone than I am, and hope to continue. My conversation is with birds, trees and books; in these last months that I have no business at all, I have applied myself to study a little more than I have done formerly; and though one who begins at my age (he was now quite forty) cannot hope to make any considerable progress that way, I find so much satisfaction in it, that for the future I shall very unwillingly, though I had the opportunity, put myself into any way of living that shall deprive me of that entertainment."

And again he says, "I am with some eagerness fallen to reading, and find so much satisfaction in it, that though I every morning see the sun rise, I never go abroad until six or seven of the clock at night; yet I cannot be so sure of my temper, as to know certainly how long this manner of life will please me. I cannot but rejoice a little to find, that when I wander as a vagabond through the world, forsaken of my friends, and known only to be a broken limb of a shipwrecked faction, I yet find humanity and civility from those who are in the height of fortune and reputation. But I do also well know I am in a strange land, I know how far these civilities do extend, and that they are quite too airy to feed or clothe a man.' A political discourse in the Italian language, in his own handwriting, and which is supposed to have been actually composed by himself, is among the fruits of his industry during this retirement.

But he soon felt the necessity of a more active life. He accordingly left Italy and proceeded through Switzerland to Brussels. But danger and persecution from the vindictive royalists now dogged his footsteps. Not merely the Regicides themselves, but others, like our own Sir Henry Vane,* who had taken no part in the King's death and were only obnoxious for their steady adherence to the parliamentary cause, were sought out and brought to the block. Sidney himself narrowly escaped assassination at Augsburgh, whither messengers had been sent by royal authority, as it is said, to waylay him and put him to death. To avoid these dangers and to give himself occupation, he now offered himself as a volunteer for Hungary, but, through the interference of the British Court, his offer was rejected by the Emperor, and his plans of life were again thwarted. If any thing could have consoled him under these repeated injuries, it was the explanation of a friend, who told him that the reason he was distinguished from others who had been suffered to return home and remain undisturbed, was "because it was known that he could never be corrupted."

It is not to be wondered at, that, under the sting of such provocations and persecutions, Sidney should have been moved to attempt the overthrow of a corrupt and tyrannical government at home, through the aid and agency of foreign powers. The example of Franklin, seeking succor for his revolutionary countrymen from the Courts of Europe (to say nothing of more modern instances), will readily suggest to all who hear me the best vindication of Sidney's conduct in this respect. He proceeded to the Hague, and afterwards to Paris, soliciting moral and material aid for his great design of establishing a free Commonwealth in England. But he would embark in no Quixotic schemes, nor attempt to accomplish his object without adequate means. plans involved great preparations and great expense. DeWitt was too prudent, and Louis was too parsimonious, for his purposes. The latter offered, indeed, to contribute twenty thousand crowns towards his object, but Sidney considered a hundred thousand as necessary to begin with, and would proceed with nothing less. He was not of a complexion to be moved from

*Governor of Massachusetts in 1636.

His

his purposes by French monarchs, any more than by English ones. A story which is told of him about this time, is singularly characteristic of the proud and independent bearing which he manifested towards the Grand Monarque, even while he was indebted to him for an asylum from danger. One day he was hunting in the same party with the King, and the King, taking a fancy to his horse, requested him to let him have it, and to name his own price. He respectfully declined the proposal; and soon after, the King, being resolved to have his own way, gave directions that the value should be tendered and the horse seized. When this proceeding took place, Sidney instantly drew a pistol from his pocket, and shot the horse dead on the spot, saying, "that his horse was born a free creature, and had served a free man, and should not be mastered by a King of slaves."

An eminent historian is disposed to consider this conduct as unworthy of Sidney's character and station, and as quite likely to be a false story.* I am by no means sure that it will strike other people in the same way, or be regarded as any thing more than a natural outbreak of that jealous and indignant spirit of independence, by which Sidney more than almost any other mortal man seems to have been possessed, and of which, more than almost any other mortal man, he may be taken as the very type and personification.

In 1677, Algernon Sidney had been an exile from his country for nearly eighteen years. During this period his mother had. died, and his father, having reached the advanced age of eightytwo years, was now about to die also. The old Earl was anxious to be reconciled to his son, or at least to see him once more, before his eyes should be closed for ever. Accordingly, by the intervention of the Earl of Sunderland, his nephew, and of the Court of France, an assurance of personal safety was obtained for him, a passport procured, and Sidney once more set his foot on English soil. Here he was detained long after his father's death, and long beyond any intentions of his own, by a vexatious chancery suit, growing out of the settlement of his father's estate, and, being here, he soon became involved in public affairs. He was particularly zealous in attempting to prevent a * Mr. Hallam, in his admirable work, the Constitutional History of England.

declaration of war against France, believing that such a war would be only a pretence for enabling the King to raise and support an army which would afterwards be employed in supporting tyranny at home. And it was at this time, and for this purpose, that he entered into those secret communications with Barillon, the French Ambassador (a different sort of person from him who tore the motto out of the album at Copenhagen), which have given occasion to the only serious imputations which have ever been made upon Sidney's motives, integrity, and moral character.

The charge is nothing less than that Sidney was at this time a pensioned agent of France; and it rests upon the assertion in Barillon's letters, as published by Sir John Dalrymple, that Sidney received five hundred guineas on two several occasions from Barillon himself.

Now, even admitting the truth of this charge to its fullest extent, and in its worst aspect, it is well suggested by Mr. Hallam (no apologist for corruption and no panegyrist of Sidney), that it was hardly a sin of the deepest dye. "If, indeed," says he, “we were to read that Algernon Sidney had been bought over by Louis XIV. or Charles II. to assist in setting up an absolute monarchy in England, we might fairly oppose our knowledge of his inflexible and haughty character, of his zeal, in life and death, for republican liberty. But there is," says he, "I presume, some moral distinction between the acceptance of a bribe to desert or betray our principles, and that of a trifling present for acting in conformity to them. The one is, of course, to be styled corruption; the other is repugnant to a generous and delicate mind, but too much sanctioned by the practice of an age far less scrupulous than our own, to have carried with it any great self-reproach or sense of degradation." *

But, agreeable to us as such an extenuation may be, there are some of us who will go farther. When we reflect that this charge never appeared until after his death, and after all opportunity of explaining his negotiations with Barillon was at an end, and when we find evidence, also, that some of Barillon's agents, if not

* Mr. Hallam, I am bound to say, employs this argument to do away the improbability of the charge against Sidney, in which he is inclined to believe.

he himself, were convicted of having forged items of a similar character in their accounts, in order to cover drafts upon the French Government which were in fact appropriated to their own personal extravagances, we shall be readily inclined to agree with Lord John Russell in his life of his illustrious relative, William Lord Russell, when he says of Sidney, "No one, I imagine, of common sense, can believe that he took the money for himself. His character is one of heroic pride and generosity. His declining to sit in judgment on the King, his extolling the sentence when Charles II. was restored, his shooting a horse for which Louis XIV. offered him a large sum, that he might not submit to the will of a despot, are all traits of a spirit as noble as it is uncommon. With a soul above meanness, a station above poverty, and a temper of philosophy above covetousness, what man will be envious enough to think that he was a pensioner of France?"

There are those who have regretted that such a charge as this has ever been admitted to a place in history, in connection with the name of Algernon Sidney. And we may all lament that the facts existed upon which that charge is founded, if they really give color for the idea of corruption. But none of us can regret, -none of us, certainly, ought to regret, that investigation has discovered, and that history has recorded, whatever is true. I need not say that the truth of history is more important than the theoretic perfection of any man's character. God forbid that the day should ever come, when history shall be prostituted to the purpose of covering up, or of glossing over, the faults or the vices of any one with whom it deals! Let it investigate facts faithfully. Let it utter the truth honestly. Let it spread out the record fully and fearlessly. And let no man, however powerful or however popular, be encouraged to imagine that he can secure an impunity with posterity for the indirections or corruptions of which he is really guilty. Let no man dream that any amount. of greatness, or any eminence of position, or any length or brilliancy of service, or any depth or cruelty of martyrdom, can obliterate the record of private vices or of public frauds. "It is only for the recording angel (to borrow the exquisite thought of Sterne) it is only for the recording angel, as he writes down the frailties or the follies of the great and good, to drop a tear