IN judging of the characters of eminent men it is an excellent practical rule to put aside the opinions that others have expressed of them, and endeavour to form independent ones of our own, by obtaining a plain answer to a plain question-What have they done? Thus only can we guard ourselves from the danger of being misled by the mists that men's predilections or dislikes may have raised, and through which, according as the point of sight we choose makes us look upwards or downwards, are the figures we gaze upon apt to appear unduly mag nified or diminished. But this rule cannot be always acted upon alone. Peculiar circumstances, such as the sudden and unlooked for termination of an important career, may render it only an act of justice to consider whither that career tended. The light that still casts such a trail of glory behind, extended equally far before -until eclipsed by the impenetrable shadow."

It is thus then we must study the life and character

of Sir Philip Sidney. We ought not to take them upon trust from contemporary opinion, or from the opinion, scarcely less unanimous and enthusiastic, of posterity. To borrow a phrase from his gracious mistress, Sidney would have been the first to express his "foul scorn" of such treatment; but undoubtedly it is necessary, after weighing carefully all that he did, to judge what he would have done had the ordinary term of man's life been granted. But alas! as he says, it too often happens that the

"noble gold down to the bottom goes, When worthless cork, aloft, doth floating lie.". Sidney died in his thirty-third year. A brief life; yet let us see what he accomplished in it: the facts are among the most instructive lessons ever bequeathed to the world.

Sidney himself in the 'Arcadia,' and Ben Jonson in one of his poems, have given us delightful pictures of an old and noticeable manor-house. The former says the house 66 was built of fair and strong stone, not affecting so much any extraordinary kind of fineness as an honorable representing of a firm stateliness. The lights, doors, and windows, rather directed to the use of the guest than to the eye of the artificer, and yet as the one [was] chiefly heeded, so [was] the other not neglected; each place, handsome without curiosity, and homely without loathsomeness; not so dainty as not to be trod upon, nor yet slubbered up with good fellowship; all more lasting than beautiful, but that the consideration of the exceeding lastingness made the eye believe it was exceedingly beautiful." There can be no doubt that this is the same place as the one described by Jonson; which was not

"built to envious show

Of touch or marble,”,

but an ancient and revered pile, whose beauty consisted in its surrounding soil, air, wood, and water, which had its walks for health as well as sport, and the mount where the Dryads resorted, and

"Where Pan and Bacchus their high feasts have made, # Beneath the broad beech and the chesnut shade."

The attractive character of the scenery without was but a type of the hospitality within. In that mansion they "knew," says Sidney, "that provision is the foundation of hospitality, and thrift the fuel of magnificence;" hence the extent of the buildings, and the grand scale of all the arrangements; hence the admirable system of management, that knew no waste. And here every guest might feel himself at home-might eat and drink and enjoy himself, without fear. Here too old customs were preserved in all their simplicity and kindliness. Here, for instance, the tenants, according to Jonson, would come in, the farmer and the clown,

"And no one empty handed, to salute

The lord and lady, though they have no suit.
Some bring a capon, some a rural cake,

Some nuts, some apples; some that think they make
The better cheeses bring 'em ;-or else send

By their ripe daughters, whom they would commend
This way to husbands, and whose baskets bear
An emblem of themselves, in plum or pear."

In that mansion too all its numerous residents were bound together, high and low, by the faith and practice of a common creed. Thus the poet says of the children of its lord,

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They are and have been taught religion; thence
Their gentler spirits have suck'd innocence :
Each morn and even they are taught to pray
With the whole household."

And that was the mansion in which Philip Sidney was born, on the 29th of November, 1554; that was the household and the kind of life amid which his earlier years were passed, and by which, to a certain extent, his character was moulded. It is Penshurst of which Jonson and himself both speak.

To be born in the midst of such genial influences was an advantage of no ordinary character: but it was much more to have such a father as the then lord of Penshurst,

Sir Henry Sidney, a man of "excellent natural wit, large heart, and sweet conversation:" and whose ability as a statesman was put to the severest possible test by Elizabeth when she conferred upon him the government of Ireland, and he passed honourably through the ordeal ; Edmund Spenser was but one among the many who bore testimony to the wisdom of his rule. Add, to the qualifications here evidenced, the deepest love for and pride in his son, and we may judge how unwearied must have been the care and how potential the guidance that Sir Henry Sidney exercised over the future poet-hero of England. A letter of his still exists that was written to Philip in 1566, whilst he was at school at Shrewsbury, which is admirable for the spirit and the sterling character of its advice. And if ever father had his reward, he had

it.

The seed fell upon no barren soil. Already the boy of twelve years old was distinguished for his intelligence and for a gravity beyond his years; and from this time we shall find him constantly addressing himself, step by step, to the great business of self-culture, and of worldly duty and occupation; seduced by no temptations, deterred by no difficulties, enduring with cheerful patience the utmost severities of intellectual or physical toil. Of course, the first step is to master what other men have already mastered, and can usefully teach. He goes to the University in 1569; he becomes a member of Christ Church, Oxford, and begins immediately to "cultivate the whole circle of arts and sciences; his capacious and comprehensive mind aspiring to pre-eminence in every part of knowledge attainable by human industry or genius.' And the gigantic character of the attempt was triumphantly justified by the result. An interesting glimpse of Sidney at the University has been given us by Carew, the historian of Cornwall, who says, "being a scholar at Oxford, of fourteen years of age, and three years' standing, upon a wrong conceived opinion touching my sufficiency, I was then called to dispute extempore with the matchless Sir Philip Sidney, in presence of the Earls of Leicester and Warwick, and divers other great personages," The Earl of Leicester, who

was the High Chancellor of the University, was Philip's uncle. Three years soon passed, and Philip Sidney had then nothing more to learn that colleges could teach him.

What next? The continental tour, of course. He must see personally the countries and the people with whom he may in after life have so much to do, whether in peace or in war. He would see, too, the great men of whom he had heard as the chief continental or naments of letters. Above all, he would learn whatever there may be to learn, by moving among persons of different religious, political, and social views and cus toms; and so modify, at least, by the larger experience of the man of the world, the narrow and self-sufficient ideas that are apt to occupy the mind and guide the conduct of "home-keeping youth." Sidney set out for the Continent at a critical and dangerous time. Whilst he was at Paris the great massacre of St. Bartholomew took place; and he was compelled, as a Protestant, to seek the shelter of the house of the English ambassador, Sir Francis Walsingham, a gentleman to whom he had been introduced by the Earl of Leicester, and whose daughter he subsequently married. As yet, however, that connection was undreamt of. Another, and more absorb ing and eventful one, was to be first formed and broken, and the poet's peace of mind well-nigh shipwrecked in the severance. From France he proceeded to Belgium, Germany, Hungary, and Italy, making friends everywhere he went, among whom may be named Hubert Languet, who addressed a volume of letters to him; the brother of Sir Edward Wotton; and above all, if some writers whose authority is not very highly estimated are to be believed, Tasso.

During this tour he prepared himself for the development of another phase of his many-sided character. Whilst at Vienna he studied and practised all those personal exercises that were requisite for success in the tilt-yard or in the battle-field. We learn from the commencement of his Defence of Poesy,' that he met with an enthusiast in these matters at the emperor's court, one Gio. Pietro Pugliano, an equerry of the