A king gave thee thy name; a kingly mind,That God thee gave,-who found it now too dear

For this base world, and hath resumed it

near

To sit in skies, and sort with powers divine.

What hath he lost that such great grace hath won?

Young years for endless years, and hepe

unsure

Of fortune's gifts for wealth that still shall dure:

O happy race, with so great praises run! England doth hold thy limbs, that bred the

same;

Flanders thy valour, where it last was tried;

The camp thy sorrow, where thy body died; Thy friends thy want; the world thy virtue's fame;

Nations thy wit; our minds lay up thy love; Letters thy learning; thy loss years long to come;

In worthy hearts sorrow hath made thy tomb;

Thy soul and spright enrich the heavens

above.

Thy liberal heart embalmed in grateful tears, Young sighs, sweet sighs, sage sighs, bewail

thy fall;

Envy her sting; and spite hath left her gall; Malice herself a mourning garment wears. That day their Hannibal died, our Scipio fell,— Scipio, Cicero, and Petrarch of our time; Whose virtues, wounded by my worthless rhyme,

Let angels speak, and heaven thy praises tell.

RALEIGH, SIR WALTER? 1586, An Epitaph upon the Right Honourable Sir Philip Sidney.

All haile, therefore, O worthie Phillip immortall!

The flowre of Sydneyes race, the honour of thy name!

Whose worthie praise to sing my Muses not aspire,

But sorrowful and sad these teares to let thee fall;

Yet wish their verses might so farre and wide thy fame

Extend, that envies rage, nor time, might end the same.

A sweet attractive kinde of grace,
A full assurance given by lookes,
Continuall comfort in a face,
The lineaments of Gospell bookes,

I trowe, that countenance cannot lie Whose thoughts are legible in the eie. -ROYDON, MATTHEW, 1593, An Elegie, or Friends Passion for his Astrophill, Spenser's Works, ed. Collier, vol. v, p. 99. Sidney, the Syren of this latter Age;

Sidney, the Blazing star of England's glory; Sidney, the Wonder of the wise and sage; Sidney, the Subject of true Virtue's story;

This Syren, Star, this Wonder, and this
Subject,

Is dumb, dim, gone, and marr'd by For-
tune's Object.

BARNFIELD, RICHARD, 1594, The Affectionate Shepherd.

Still living Sidney, Cæsar of our land, Whose never daunted valure, princely minde, Imbellished with art and conquests hand, Did expleiten his high aspiring kinde (An eagles hart in crowes we cannot finde) If thou couldst live and purchase Orpheus quill,

Our Monarches merits would exceed thy skill. -HARBERT, SIR WILLIAM, 1604, A Prophesie of Cadwallader, etc.

Immortall Sidney, glory of the field

And glory of the Muses, and their pen (Who equall bare the Caduce and the Shield). -DANIEL, SAMUEL, 1606, A Funerall Poeme upon the Earle of Devonshire, Works, ed. Grosart, vol. 1, p. 176.

O! but Gentry now degenerates! Nobilitie is now come to be nuda relatio, a meere bare relation and nothing else. How manie Players haue I seene vpon a stage, fit indeede to be Noblemen! how many that be Noblemen, fit onely to represent them. Why, this can Fortune do, who makes some companions of her Chariot, who for desert should be lackies to her Ladiship. Rise, Sidney, rise! thou England's eternall honour!

Reuiue and lead the reuolting spirits of thy countreymen, against the basest foe, Ignorance. But what talke I of thee? Heauen hath not left earth thy equall: neither do I thinke that ab orbe condito, since Nature first was, any man hath beene in whom Genus and Genius met so right. Thou Atlas to all vertues! Thou Hercules to the Muses! Thou patron to the poor! Thou deservst a Quire of ancient Bardi to sing thy praises, who with their musickes melody might expresse thy soules harmonie. Were the transmigration of soules certaine -I would thy soule had flitted into my bodie or wold thou wert aliue again, that we might lead an indiuidual life together! Thou wast not more admired at home then famous abroad; thy penne and thy sword being the Heraldes of thy Heroicke deedes. STAFFORD, ANTHONY, 1611, Niobe, p. 112. Th' admired mirrour, glory of our Isle, Thou far-far-more than mortall man, whose stile

Strucke more men dumbe to hearken to thy

song,

Then Orpheus Harpe, or Tuilies golden tongue. To him (as right) for wits deepe quintessence, For honour, valour, virtue, excellence,

Be all the Garlands, crowne his toombe with Ray,

Who spake as much as eer our tongue can

say.

-BROWNE, WILLIAM, 1613, Britannia's Pastorals, ed. Hazlitt, vol. 1, bk. ii, Song ii.

Of whose Youth I will report no other wonder, but thus: That though I lived with him, and knew him from a child, yet I never knew him other than a man with such staiedness of mind, lovely, and familiar gravity, as carried grace, and reverence above greater years. His talk ever of knowledge, and his very play tending to enrich his mind; So as even his teachers found something in him to observe, and learn, above that which they had usually read, or taught. Which eminence, by nature, and industry made his worthy Father stile Sir Philip in my hearing (though I unseen) Lumen familiæ suæ.GREVILLE, FULKE (Lord Brooke), 1628?-52, Life of Sir Philip Sidney, p. 7.

For his education, it was such as travell, and the University could afford, or his Tutours infuse; for after an incredible proficiency in all the species of Learning; he left the Academicall life, for that of the Court, whither he came by his

Uncles invitation, famed afore-hand by a noble report of his accomplishments, which together with the state of his person, framed by a naturall propension to Armes, he soon attracted the good opinion of all men, and was so highly prized in the good opinion of the Queen, that she thought the Court deficient without him: And whereas (through the fame of his deserts) he was in the election for the Kingdom of Pole, she refused to further his advancement, not out of emulation, but out of fear to lose the jewell of her times. NAUNTON, SIR ROBERT, 1630? Fragmenta Regalia, ed. Arber, p. 34.

Sir Philip Sydney, knight, was the most accomplished cavalier of his time.

He was not only of an excellent witt, but extremely beautifull; he much resembled his sister, but his haire was not red, but a little inclining, viz. a darke amber colour. If I were to find a fault in it, methinkes 'tis not masculine enough; yett he was a person of great courage. AUBREY, JOHN, 1669-96, Brief Lives, ed. Clark, vol. II, p. 247

No man seems to me so astonishing an object of temporary admiration as the celebrated friend of the lord Brooke, the famous Sir Philip Sidney. The learned of Europe dedicated their works to him; the republic of Poland thought him at least worthy to be in the nomination for their crown. All the muses of England wept his death. When we, at this distance of time, inquire what prodigious merits excited such admiration, what do we find? Great valour. But it was an age of heroes. In full of all other talents, we have a tedious, lamentable, pedantic, pastoral romance, which the patience of a young virgin in love cannot now wade through; and some absurd attempts to fetter English verse in Roman chains; a proof that this applauded author understood little of the genius of his own language. The few of his letters extant are poor matters; one to a steward of his

father, an instance of unwarrantable violence. By far the best presumption of his abilities (to us who can judge only by what we see) is a pamphlet published amongst the Sidney papers, being an answer to the famous libel called "Leicester's Commonwealth." It defends his uncle with great spirit. What had been said in derogation to their blood seems to have