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"firft; for accompaning his uncle the Earl "of Leicester, fent by Queen Elizabeth Ge"neral of the English Forces into the Low "Countries, he was there unfortunately flain. "He was the great English Mecœnas of Ver"tue, Learning and Ingenuity, though in his. "own writings chiefly if not wholly poetical; "his Arcadia, being a poem in design, though "for the most part in folute oration; and his "Aftrophil and Stella, with other things in "verse, having, if I mistake not, a greater

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spirit of poetry than to be altogether dif "esteemed."

The luftre of SIR PHILIP SYDNEY'S character is fuch, that it would be ufelefs to fay much of him here. He was born. at Penshurst in Kent, 29 Nov. 1554; educated at ChriftChurch, Oxford; and in June 1572, in his eighteenth year, fet out on his travels abroad. On 24 Aug. he was at Paris, when the maffacre took place, and fled for protection to the houfe of Sir Francis Walfingham, the English Ambaffador. Thence he went through Lorrain, and by Strafburgh and Heydelburgh to Frankfort. He spent the months from May till September 1573 at Vienna, and thence went into Hungary. He paffed the following winter, and moft of the next fummer in Italy, and thence returning through Germany, came back

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back from Antwerp to England in May 1575. In 1576 he was fent by Q. Elizabeth to condole with the Emperor Rodolph, on the death of Maximilian. In 1579 he diftinguished himfelf by his oppofition to the Queen's match with the Duke of Anjou, which is conjectured to have given fuch umbrage as to occafion his retirement from Court the next fummer (1580) during which he wrote his celebrated Arcadia. In 1581 the match was renewed, and Sidney and his friend Fulk Grevill were two of the tilters at the entertainment of the French Embaffador, and at the departure of the Duke of Anjou from England in February the fame year, he attended him to Antwerp. On 13

Jan. 1583, he was Knighted at Windfor. In 1585 he projected an expedition with Sir Francis Drake to America; but the Queen unwilling to hazard a perfon of his worth, prohibited the enterprize; but to make amends for the disappointment, he named him Lord Governor of Flushing. His fame and deserts were now fo well known that he was in election for the Crown of Poland; but Elizabeth refufed to further his advancement, not out of emulation but out of fear to lose the jewel of her times. In 1586, a ftand was to be made before Zutphen, to stop the iffuing out of the Spanish "Yefterday morning" (22 Sept. 1586).

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fays Lord Leicester, "fome intelligence was brought that the enemy was bringing a convoye of victuall guarded with 3000 Horse. There was fent out to impeach it 200 horfe and 300 footemen, and a Nombre more both horfe and foote to fecond them. Among other young men, my nephew Sir Philip Sydney, was; and the rather, for that the Coronell Norrice himfelfe went with the ftande of footmen to fecond the reft; but the Vanguard of the Prince was marched, and came with this convoye, and being and being a miftie morninge, our Men fell into the Ambuscade of footmen, who were 3000, the moste musketts, the reft pykes. -Our Horsemen being formofte, by their haft indeede, woulde not turne, but paffed throughe, and charged the horsemen that flede at the backe of their footemen fo valientlie; albeit they were 1100 horfe, and of the verie chiefe of all his Troupes, they brouke them, being not 200. Many of our horses were hurt and killed, among which was my Nephewes owne. He wente and charged to another, and woulde needes to the charge again, and onfte paste those musketters; where he receyved a fore Wounde upon his thighe, three fingers above his knee, the bone broken quite in peeces; but for chance, God did fende fuch a daye, as I thinke was never many yeres seene,

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fo few againfte fo many. Of this wound Sir Philip died, behaving till the moment of his diffolution, which happened on the 16th of October, in the most heroic manner. He left an only daughter by his wife, who was daughter of Sir Francis Walfingham.-His widow remarried the celebrated Earl of Effex; and after his death, the Earl of Clanrickard. His daughter, born in 1585, married Roger Manners, Earl of Rutland, but died without iffue, 1 Sept. 10th of James I.

Of the numerous biographers of Sir Philip, whom I have confulted, no one mentions the date of the first publication of the Arcadia.+ I have the third edition, London, printed for William Ponsonby in 1598. The Arcadia is a Romance, once highly popular, but now from the faftidiousnefs of the age, negle&ed for being prolix and tedious. A variety of poems are intermixed, and the excellent Defence of Poetry, which fhews the extent of his mind, and the vigor of his language; with the poem of Aftrophel and Stella, firft published at London, 1591, and faid to be written for the fake

*Collins's Sydn. Pap. I. p. 104, 105.

+ Wood's Ath. I. p. 226-Tann. Bib. p. 670—Collins's Sydn. Pap. p. 112-Cibber's Lives of the Poets, I. p. 83. (in which is a grofs miftake) Blount's Cenfura Authorum, p. 583-Biogr. Britann. VI. p. 3885-Naunton's Fragm. Regal. 1641, p. 21-Walpole's Roy. and Nob. Auth.-Biogr. Dram, I. p. 440.

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of Lady Rich, to whom he was attached, are fubjoined.

Lord Orford, in his Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors,* feems to do Sir Philip great injustice in reprefenting him as an "aftonishing object of temporary admiration." For when we recollect the career of his glory, the excellences both of his head and heart, and the variety of his almost opposite attainments-and then confider that he died before he had compleated his thirty-fecond year, his fame does not appear to have been greater than his merit: nor is it poffible that that fame could have lafted fo long without fome very extraordinary foundation, Sir Philip has been very ably defended from this cenfure of Lord Orford by an anonymous writer in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1767, p. 57. This critic in fearching the Arcadia for illuftrations of Shakespeare, says, that " as it often happens, while we are engaged in an earnest fearch for one thing, we ftumble upon others that we had no thoughts of finding, I foon met with fentiments and obfervations that made me ample amends for the fearch I had undertaken; and I think as strong painting and as lively defcriptions as have ap peared perhaps in any (at leaft modern) lan

* Under Sir Fulke revile, Lord Brooke, vol. I. p. 183, 184.

guage.

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