handlings of the subject will be based, and his deep indebtedness to which every subsequent biographer of Sid ney must recognise. Mr. Lloyd's Life of Sir Philip Sidney appearing in the same year as Mr. Fox Bourne's, is slighter in substance. It has its own value as a critical and conscientious study of Sidney under several aspects; and in one or two particulars it supplements or corrects the more considerable work of Mr. Bourne. For Sidney's writings Professor Arber's reprint of the Defence of Poesy, and Dr. Grosart's edition of the poems in two volumes (The Fuller Worthies' Library, 1873), will be found indispensable. In composing this sketch I have freely availed myself of all that has been published about Sidney. It has been my object to present the ascertained facts of his brief life, and my own opinions regarding his character and literary works, in as succinct a form as I found possibie. BADENWEILER, May 11, 1886. SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. CHAPTER I. LINEAGE, BIRTH, AND BOYHOOD. SHELLEY, in his memorial poem on the death of Keats, named Sir Philip Sidney among "the inheritors of unful filled renown." If this praise be applicable to Chatterton and Keats, it is certainly, though in a less degree perhaps, true also of Sidney. His best friend and interpreter put on record that "the youth, life, and fortune of this gentleman were, indeed, but sparks of extraordinary greatness in him, which, for want of clear vent, lay concealed, and, in a manner, smothered up." The real difficulty of painting an adequate portrait of Sidney at the present time is that his renown transcends his actual achievement. Neither his . poetry nor his prose, nor what is known about his action, quite explains the singular celebrity which he enjoyed in his own life, and the fame which has attended his memory with almost undimmed lustre through three centuries. In an age remarkable for the great deeds of its heroes, no less than for the splendour of its literature, he won and retained a homage which was paid to none of his contemporaries. All classes concurred in worshipping that marvellous youth, He who displayed the choicest gifts of chivalry and scholarship, of bravery and prudence, of creative and deliberative genius, in the consummate harmony of a noble character. The English nation seemed instinctively to recognise in him the impersonation of its manifold ideals. He was beautiful, and of illustrious ancestry,—an accomplished courtier, complete in all the exercises of a cavalier. was a student, possessed of the new learning which Italy had recently bequeathed to Europe. He was a poet and the "warbler of poetic prose," at a moment when the greater luminaries of the Elizabethan period had scarcely risen above the horizon. Yet his beauty did not betray him into levity or wantonness; his noble blood bred in him neither pride nor presumption. Courtly habits failed to corrupt his rectitude of conduct, or to impair the candour of his utterance. The erudition of the Renaissance left his Protestant simplicity and Christian faith untouched. Literary success made him neither jealous nor conceited; and as the patron and friend of poets, he was even more eminent than as a writer. These varied qualities were so finely blent in his amiable nature that, when Wotton called him "the very essence of congruity," he hit upon the happiest phrase for describing Sidney's charm. The man, in fact, was greater than his words and actions. His whole life was 66 a true poem, a composition, and pattern of the best and honourablest things ;" and the fascination which he exerted over all who came in contact with him- a fascination which extended to those who only knew him by report-must now, in part at least, be taken upon trust. We cannot hope to present such a picture of him as shall wholly justify his fame. Personalities so unique as Sidney's exhale a perfume which evanesces when the lamp of life burns out. This the English nation felt |