strains.* For the sake of the English reader, two extracts from the Cambridge collection (as quoted by Dr. Zouch) are subjoined with translations: “Interea horribili mactatum strage Philippum, Heu iterumque iterumque, etiamque etiamque dolendum, To slaughter'd Sidney eulogy we bring: F. W. "Tu felix, Sidneie, tui dum regia virtus, F. W. * The respective titles of these publications were; 1. Academiæ Cantabrigiensis Lacrymæ, tumulo nobilissimi He left a daughter, Elizabeth, born the year before his death, who married Roger Manners, fifth Earl of Rutland. This young nobleman, from his attachment to his relation the Earl of Essex having joined him in his fatal insurrection, was committed to the Tower, where he remained a prisoner till the accession of James I. He died without issue in 1612; and was followed to the grave by his countess in about three years. The widow of Sidney, destinated (according to Sir Robert Naunton) to the bed of honour,' subsequently married her royal mistress' favourite,* Essex, who offended the Queen by this measure, as concluded without her privity. He perishing on the scaffold in 1600, she took for her third husband Richard de Burgh, Earl of Clanrickarde, a person equally elegant and accomplished with her two former consorts, but happily for herself far less ambitious and enterprising. In the interval between her second and her third marriage she lost her father, the support and ornament of Protestantism, and became a Papist.† His works, beside the Arcadia,' first published in 1590, the Defence of Poesy,' 1595, and an English Equitis D. Philippi Sidneii sacrata per Alexandrum Nevillum,' Lond. 1587. 2. Peplus illustrissimi Viri D. Sidnæi supremis honoribus dicatus,' Oxon. 1587, and 3. Exequiæ illustrissimi Equitis D. Philippi Sidnæi gratissimæ memoriæ ac nomini impensæ,' Oxon. 1589. * Voltaire with his usual inaccuracy observes, that' of Queen Elizabeth's favourites Robert Devereux was the first, and the Earl of Essex the second!' Could he really be ignorant, that they were the same person? Sir Henry Wotton, in his Parallel of Essex and Villiers Duke of Buckingham,' observes that "they were both married 6 Version of the Psalms, remaining in MS., were • Astrophel and Stella,' 1591: and 'Sonets,' several of which appeared in Constable's Diana,' 1594, but were subsequently with Astrophel and Stella' annexed to the Arcadia;' as likewise are, generally, the Remedie for Love,' and the Lady of May,' a Masque. 6 He co-operated, also, in the Instructions for Travellers,' 1633, with the Earl of Essex and Secretary Davison; wrote Valour anatomised in a Fancie,' 1581;* furnished some poetical contributions to 'England's Helicon,' and England's Parnassus (both published in 1600) and Davison's Poems,' 1611; and translated the first part of his friend Philip of Mornay's'+ French Treatise on the 'Treunesse of the Christian Religion, &c.' which, at his request, was finished by the voluminous Arthur Golding. This last work alone, the labour of his few hours of leisure during the closing years of his short life, abundantly proves, that he "delighted (as Dr. Zouch has observed) to contemplate the truths of Revelation; the existence of a Supreme Being, his creation and government of the world, the immortality of the soul, to very virtuous ladies, sole heirs, and left issue of their sex, and both their wives were converted to contrary religions." (Reliq. Wotton.) In Lyttelton's' Dialogues of the Dead,' Lady Clanrickarde is introduced as defending her third marriage by remarking, that her two first husbands were too much engaged in the pursuit of glory to regard the duties of domestic life. * Printed at the end of Cottoni Posthuma,' 1672. Of this writer "the most learned among the noble, and the most noble among the learned," the various compositions (particularly the Mystery of Iniquity,') have the honour of being admitted among the heretical volumes prohibited by the Roman Index. the prospect of future blessedness, and the redemption effected by the Messiah for the whole race of mankind." EXTRACTS From the Defence of Poesy. -And first, truly, to all them that professing learning inveigh against Poetry may justly be objected, That they go very near to ungratefulness; to seek to deface that, which in the noblest nations and languages that are known hath been the first light-giver to ignorance, and first nurse, whose milk by little and little enabled them to feed afterward of tougher knowledges. And will you play the hedge-hog, that being received into the den, drove out his host; or rather the vipers, that with their birth kill their parents? 'Let learned Greece, in any of her manifest sciences, be able to show me one book before Musæus, Homer, and Hesiod; all three nothing else but Poets. Nay, let any history be brought, that can say any writers were there before them, if they were not men of the same skill; as Orpheus, Linus, and some others are named, who having been the first of that country that made pens deliverers of their knowledge to posterity, may justly challenge to be called their • Fathers in learning.' For not only in time they had this priority (although, in itself, antiquity be venerable) but went before them as causes to draw, with their charming sweetness, the wild untamed wits to an admiration of knowledge: so as Amphion was said to move stones with his poetry to build Thebes, and Orpheus to be listened to by beasts, indeed stony and beastly people. So, among the Romans, were Livius Andronicus and Ennius: so, in the Italian language, the first that made it to aspire to be a treasure-house of science were the Poets Dante, Boccace, and Petrarch: so, in our English, were Gower and and Chaucer; after whom, encouraged and delighted with their excellent foregoing, others have followed to beautify our mother-tongue, as well in the same kind as other arts. "This did so notably show itself, that the philosophers of Greece durst not a long time appear to the world, but under the mask of Poets. So Thales, Empedocles, and Parmenides sang their natural philosophy in verses; so did Pythagoras and Phocylides their moral counsels; so did Tyrtæus in war-matters, and Solon in matters of policy. Or, rather, they being Poets did exercise their delightful vein in those points of highest knowledge, which before them lay hidden to the world: for that wise Solon was directly a Poet it is manifest, having written in verse the noble fable of the Atlantic Island, which was continued by Plato. And truly even Plato, whosoever well considereth shall find, that in the body of his work, though the inside and strength were philosophy, the skin as it were and beauty depended most of Poetry. For all stands upon dialogues; wherein he feigns many honest burgesses of Athens speaking of such matters, that if they had been set on the rack, they would never have confessed them: besides, his poetical describing the circumstances of their meetings, as the well-ordering of a banquet, the delicacy of a walk, and interlacing mere tales, as Gyges' ring and |