into a fixed annual payment of five marks. At this the nobles cried out that they were being robbed. Philip demonstrated that, according to their own showing, a very easy compromise had been offered them. On the head of economy, he was able to make it clear that his father's administration tended to save money to the State, allowing always for the outlay needed by an army in occupation of a turbulent and disaffected country. Such a government as that of Ireland could not be conducted cheaper. But some had urged that the Lord Deputy exceeded measure in the severity of his justice and the cruelty of his executive. Philip contended that a greater lenity than that which his father showed would have been worse than folly. What he wrote upon this point is worthy of careful perusal at the present day. It reminds us that the Irish difficulty has been permanent, and without appreciable alteration, through three centuries. "Little is lenity to prevail in minds so possessed with a natural inconstancy ever to go in a new fortune, with a revengeful hate to all English as to their only conquerors, and that which is most of all, with so ignorant obstinacy in Papistry that they do in their souls detest the present Government." And again : "Truly the general nature of all countries not fully conquered is against it (i.e. against gentle dealing and concessions). For until by time they find the sweetness of due subjection, it is impossible that any gentle means should put out the remembrance of their lost liberty. And that the Irishman is that way as obstinate as any nation, with whom no other passion can prevail but fear (besides their history, which plainly points it out), their manner of life, wherein they choose rather all filthiness than any law, and their own consciences, who best know their own natures, give sufficient proof of. For under the sun there is not a nation that live more tyrannously than they do one over the other." This defence seems to have satisfied Elizabeth and exculpated the Lord Deputy, without impairing its writer's credit at Court. It is the first of a series of semi-official documents, in which, more perhaps than in any other species of composition, Sidney showed his power as a master of language. Waterhouse wrote to Sir Henry that it was the most excellent discourse he had ever read, adding, “Let no man compare with Sir Philip's pen." During the dispute, and before the queen had expressed her satisfaction with the Lord Deputy's defence, Ormond addressed some remarks to Philip in the presence of the Court. The young man made no reply, marking his hostility by silence. It was expected that a duel would follow upon this affront to the great Irish earl. But Ormond, judging it expedient to treat Sidney as a virtuous gentleman who was bound to defend his father's cause, conceded him the indulgence of a superior. The storm which threatened Sir Henry Sidney blew over, in great measure owing to his son's skilful advocacy. Still Elizabeth retained her grudge against the Viceroy. He had not yet contrived to flatter that most sensitive member of the royal person-her pocket. Consequently, the year 1578 scarcely opened before new grievances arose. The queen talked of removing Sir Henry from his officewith, perchance, the cumbrous honour of a peerage. He, on the other hand, presented bills to the amount of three thousand and one pounds, for money disbursed from his private estate in the course of public business. She refused to sign a warrant for their payment, alleging, appar ently, that the Lord Deputy was creating debts of State in his own interest. Sir Henry retorted—and all the extant documents tend to the belief that his retort was true-that he had spent thus much of his own moneys upon trust for her Majesty; and that he needed the sum, barring one pound, for the payment of his daughter's marriage portion to the Earl of Pembroke. Perusal of the correspondence seems to me to prove that, however bad a diplomatist and stubborn a viceroy Sir Henry may have been, he was, at any rate, a thoroughly honest man. And this honest man's debts, contracted in her name and in her service, the queen chose to repudiate. It is not wonderful that, under these circumstances, the Lord Deputy thought of throwing up his appointment and retiring into private life in England. Philip's persuasions induced his father to abandon this design. He pointed out that the term of office would expire at Michaelmas, and that it would be more for the Deputy's credit to tender his resignation at that time without an open rupture. One of his letters shows how valuable in these domestic counsels was the Lady Mary Sidney. Philip writes that in the meantime-that is, between Ladyday and Michaelmas-Sir Henry's friends would do their best to heal the breach; "Among which friends, before God, there is none proceeds either so thoroughly or so wisely as your lady, my mother. For mine own part, I have had only light from her." These sentences afford a very pleasing insight into the relations between father, mother, and eldest son. But the tension of the situation for Philip at Court, playing his part as queen's favourite while his father was disgraced, shouldering the Irish braggarts whom she protected, and who had declared war against her viceroy, presenting a brave front before the world, with only an impoverished estate to back him,-the tension of this situation must have been too great for his sensitive nerves. We find that he indulged suspicions. Things transpired at Court which he believed had been committed only in most private correspondence to Sir Henry. He wrote to his father: "I must needs impute it to some men about you that there is little written from you or to you that is not perfectly known to your professed enemies." A few weeks after penning these words he thought that he had caught the culprit in Mr. Edmund Molineux, Sir Henry's secretary. This explains the following furious epistle, which no biographer of Sidney should omit in its proper place: “MR. MOLINEUX-Few words are best. My letters to my father have come to the ears of some: neither can I condemn any but you. If it be so, you have played the very knave with me; and so I will make you know, if I have good proof of it. But that for so much as is past. For that is to come, I assure you, before God, that if ever I know you to do so much as read any letter I write to my father without his commandment or my consent, I will thrust my dagger into you. And trust to it, for I speak in earnest. In the meantime, farewell.-From Court, this last of May 1578. By me, "PHILIP SIDNEY." Philip had made a great mistake—a mistake not unlike that which betrayed him into false judgment of his comrade Coningsby. Molineux was as true as steel to his father, as loyal as Abdiel to the house of Sidney. It was he who composed for Hollingshed the heartfelt panegyrics of Sir Henry, Sir Philip, and Lady Mary. On this occasion he met the young man's brutal insults with words which may have taught him courtesy. The letter deserves to be given in its integrity : "SIR-I have received a letter from you which as it is the first, so the same is the sharpest that I ever received from any; and therefore it amazeth me the more to receive such an one from you, since I have (the world can judge) deserved better somewhere, howsoever it pleased you to condemn me now. But since it is (I protest to God) without cause, or yet just ground of suspicion, you use me thus, I bear the injury more patiently for a time, and mine innocency I hope in the end shall try mine honesty, and then I trust you will confess that you have done me wrong. And since your pleasure so is expressed that I shall not henceforth read any of your letters (although I must confess I have heretofore taken both great delight and profit in reading some of them) yet upon so hard a condition as you seem to offer, I will not hereafter adventure so great peril, but obey you herein. Howbeit, if it had pleased you, you might have commanded me in a far greater matter with a less penalty.-Yours, when it shall please you better to conceive of me, humbly to command, "F. MOLINEUX." We doubt not that Philip made honourable amends for his unjust imputations, since good friendship afterwards subsisted between him and Molineux. The incident, on which I have thought fit to dwell, reveals something not altogether pleasing in our hero's character. But the real deduction to be drawn from it is that his position at this time was well-nigh intolerable. In the midst of these worrying cares he remained in attendance on the queen. It seems that he journeyed with the Court in all her progresses; and in May he formed part of the royal company which Leicester welcomed to his house at Wanstead. The entertainment provided for her Majesty was far simpler than that so famous one at Kenilworth in 1575. Yet it has for us a special interest, inasmuch as here Philip produced his first literary essay. This was a rural masque entitled, The Lady of the May. How it came to be written we know not; peradventure at two sittings, between the evening's dance and retirement to bed. The thing is slight and without salt. If it were not still quoted in the list of Sidney's works, we should not notice it; and why it ever was printed I am unable to conjecture, |