or other his heart expand with unwonted love for and devotion to his fellow-men, as he read the story of Sidney and the soldier on the bloody field of Zutphen. This story cannot be better told than in the words of him who desired that his own epitaph should state simply that he was the friend of Sidney. Lord Brooke, in describing the progress of the sad procession which bore Sidney to his tent, continues: Passing along by the rear of the army, where his uncle (Leicester) the general was, and being thirsty with excess of bleeding, he called for some drink, which was presently brought him; but as he was putting the bottle to his mouth, he saw a poor soldier carried along, who had eaten his last at the same feast, ghastly casting up his eyes at the bottle, which Sir Philip perceiving took it from his head before he drank, and delivered it to the poor man with these words, Thy necessity is yet greater than mine." "

Never, probably, before or since, did any death cause more universal lamentation. Every one felt that a glory had suddenly passed away from the earth; yet at the same time every one felt as though he had lost a personal friend so honoured and so loved was Philip Sidney. A general mourning was observed, the first of the kind, it is believed, in this country. The body lay in state in St. Paul's for many days. A deputation from the United Provinces formed a portion of the mourners at the funeral.

Besides the works specially noticed in the foregoing pages, Sidney wrote a Masque (his first literary attempt), which was exhibited before Elizabeth, and he contributed occasional poems, &c. to various publications.

We have not hitherto dwelt, nor is it now our intention to dwell, on the opinions of Sidney's contemporaries on his poetry or character; they have been repeated so incessantly, that one is apt, before examination, to think that there must be something too much of all this praise -notwithstanding that the praisers include nearly all the most illustrious names in English letters. And if this danger be avoided, we are still liable to another, that of substituting for the real man-the real poet-the real

hero Sidney, such as he was-a kind of dreamy abstraction of him, formed simply of the opinions of his admirers. And certainly that is not the way to make our own admiration of any value. Referring, in conclusion, to the remarks we made in the commencement of this paper, we trust there will be found in these pages a sufficient answer to the question-What has Sir Philip Sidney done to deserve such pre-eminent fame?

"THIS Drake," says Camden, "(to relate no more than what I have heard from himself) was born of mean parentage in Devonshire, and had Francis Russell (afterwards Earl of Bedford) for his godfather, who, according to the custom, gave him his Christian name. Whilst he was yet a child his father, embracing the Protestant doctrine, was called in question by the law of the Six Articles made by Henry VIII. against the Protestants, fled his country, and withdrew himself into Kent."*

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Thus," says quaint old Fuller, "did God divide the honour betwixt two counties, that the one might have his birth and the other his education." The date of his birth is involved in great uncertainty, which has not been cleared up by his latest biographer, who quotes the inscriptions of two portraits, which disagree as to his

* Annals.