continually once in four or five days to read them over. "And for a final leave-taking for this time, see that you show yourself as a loving, obedient scholar to your good master, to govern you yet many years; and that my lord and I may hear that you profit so in your learning, as thereby you may increase our loving care of you, and deserve at his hands the continuance of his great joy, to have him often witness with his own hand the hope he hath in your well doing. "Farewell, my little Philip, and once again the Lord bless you! Your loving mother, It may readily be conceived that under the eye of parents such as these (for at this time sir Henry Sidney was residing at Ludlow Castle, not far from Shrewsbury, as lord president of the marches of Wales), their little Philip would, from what has * This postscript is taken from an unique copy of sir Henry's letter, in the hands of Thomas Park, esq., and which was printed at London by T. Dawson, 1591, with an epitaph on sir Henry Sidney, signed Wm. Griffith.—Vide Lord Orford's Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors, by Park, vol. ii. p. 192. been said of the promise of his earliest years, in every respect fulfil their expectations. He was, in short, a most ardent and indefatigable student; and when, shortly afterwards, he went to Oxford, then under the chancellorship of his uncle, Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester, such was the reputation which he sustained in that university, as a scholar of firstrate attainments, that it was thought worthy of record on the tomb of his tutor, Dr. Thomas Thornton, one of the most learned men of his age, that he had been "the tutor of sir Philip Sidney, when of Christ-church." Nor was he less distinguished at Cambridge, where he resided for a short time after leaving Oxford; a change of situation which afforded him an opportunity of acquiring the esteem and admiration of many of its most celebrated members, and among the rest, of his relation and subsequent biographer, Mr. Fulke Greville. Having laid a solid foundation on the basis of classical learning, it was thought necessary, in order to complete the superstructure, that he should visit foreign countries; and, accordingly, at the age of eighteen, Mr. Sidney obtained permission from queen Elizabeth to travel for two years on the continent. He passed through France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, and Belgium, not with the rapidity and idle curiosity of a common-place tourist, but with a mind prepared to comprehend and digest whatever of value might be presented to it in manners, customs, literature, and legislation. He became, in fact, during this short sojourn abroad, from the brilliancy of his talents and the amiability of his disposition, the friend and favourite of some of the first literary characters of which continental Europe could then boast of Hubert Languet, of Torquato Tasso, of Zacharias Ursinus, of Johannes Serranus, of Mornay Du Plessis, of Scipio Gentilis, of Henry Stephens, of Theophilus Banosius, and of Peter Ramus; men not less remarkable for their virtues than for their mental energies and profound learning. : Nor were the accomplishments demanded for the formation of the noble and chivalric cavalier in any degree forgotten; for no one, perhaps, ever availed himself with more complete success of the many opportunities which Vienna and other large capitals on the continent afforded for acquiring perfection in all the various arts, martial or ornamental, which war or peace might call for, than young Sidney. In short, whether in the tournament or the lady's bower, in the field of diversion or in the culture of the fine arts, his skill, his courtesy, and his taste, drew alike from valour, beauty, and from genius, a sincere and ample eulogy. Thus furnished, both by art and nature, he returned to England in May 1575, to become an object of almost unprecedented love and admiration to his native country; for, as Fuller has tersely observed, "his homebred abilities travel had perfected, and a sweet nature set a gloss upon both :" and he adds, that "he was so essential to the English court, that it seemed maimed without his company, being a complete master of matter and language." It was not long before Elizabeth, who possessed in a pre-eminent degree the happy talent of discovering and appreciating merit, and who had honoured young Sidney by many marks of peculiar favour and distinction, determined on calling his powers into exertion for the benefit of his country, by appointing him to an important embassy to the court of Vienna, with the ostensible purpose, indeed, of condoling with the emperor Rodolph, but with the further and more important view of uniting the protestant states in a defensive league against the ecclesiastical tyranny of the papal see, and the bigotry of Spain. In this he completely succeeded, evincing, at the early age of twenty-two, a sagacity, penetration, and knowledge of mankind, which would have done honour to the most mature years. It was on his return home from this embassy that, being directed to visit the court of John Casimir, Count Palatine of the Rhine, he became intimately acquainted with William prince of Orange, the most disinterested patriot, and altogether one of the best and greatest characters to which modern history has borne record. It speaks volumes, indeed, in support of the sterling worth and intellectual superiority of Sidney, that this firm friend of public virtue and rational liberty placed a high value on both the heart and head of our young diplomatist, and maintained with him a constant correspondence on the most important political transactions which were then agitating Europe. When Mr. Sidney reached England in 1577, after this embassy to the imperial Rodolph, there was not, perhaps, in the court of Elizabeth an individual who could, in all the various qualities necessary to constitute the perfect cavalier, in any degree compete with him. From this period, indeed, |