noblest specimens of impassioned eloquence in the language. Charles I. shewed how deeply that passage had touched him by adopting it as his own petition to the Supreme Being as he went to the scaffold; and the closing portion of it shall close these passing remarks on Sir Philip Sidney's writings, as very expressive of his nature.—“Let calamity bee the exercise, but not the overthrow of my virtue. Let the power of my enemies. prevail, but prevail not to my destruction. Let my greatness bee their prey; let my pain bee the sweetness of their revenge; let them, if so it seem good unto thee, vex me with more and more punishment: but, O Lord, let never their wickedness have such a hand, but that I may carry a pure mind in a pure body!"

The death of Sir Philip Sidney, from a wound received on the field of Zutphen, has become celebrated by the circumstance continually referred to as an example of the most heroic magnanimity-giving up the water for which he had earnestly implored to a dying soldier near-saying, "he has more need of it than I." But the whole of his behaviour from that time to the hour of his death, twenty-five days afterwards, was equally characteristic,-being spent amongst his friends in the exercise of the most exemplary patience and sweetness of temper, and in the discussion of such solemn topics as the near view of eternity naturally brings before the spirit of the dying Christian.

Algernon Sidney is as fine a character, though seen under another and a sterner aspect. He was born to more troublous

times and a less courtly scene. He had evidently formed himself upon a model of Roman virtue. He was a pure republican, placing public virtue before him as his guide, from which neither interest nor ambition were ever able to make him swerve; and that such was his life as well as his creed, has been nobly avowed by a great writer of very opposite political profession.

Great men have been amongst us; hands that penned

And tongues that uttered wisdom, better none;

The later Sidney, Marvel, Harrington,

Young Vane, and others who called Milton friend.

These moralists could act and comprehend;

They knew how genuine glory is put on;

Taught us how rightfully a nation shone

In splendour; what strength was that would not bend
But in magnanimous weakness.

WORDSWORTH.

We see in his portraits the firm and melancholy look of a man who had grown up for political martyrdom, and the times afforded him but too much opportunity to arrive at it. The words of one of his letters to his father, Lord Leicester,* are more demonstrative of his character than the most laboured exposition of it by any other man can be.-"I walk in the light God hath given me: if it be dimme or uncertaine I must beare the penalty of my errors. I hope to do it with patience, and that noe burthen should be very grievous to me except sinne and shame! God keepe me from these evils, and in all things else dispose of me according to his pleasure." They were singular coincidences, that these two great men of one

* Blencowe's Sidney Papers.

family died young – one in the field and the other on the scaffold; and that each had a sister celebrated for their charms by the poets, and one herself a poet-the Countess of Pembroke, "Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother;" and Waller's Saccharissa.

In thus noticing the exalted principles and splendid characters of these Sidneys, it is a very natural and important question, what were the influences under which such men and women sprung up from one stock? Ben Jonson, in his visit to Robert Sidney, Sir Philip's brother, when Earl of Leicester, can partly let us into the secret:

They are and have been taught religion. Thence

Their gentle spirits have sucked innocence.
Each morne and even they are taught to pray
With the whole household, and may every day
Reade in their virtuous parents' noble parts,
The mysteries of manners, arms, and arts.
The Forrest, ii.

Sir Philip Sidney grew under the most favourable auspices. His mother was Mary Dudley, the daughter of the Duke of Northumberland, and sister of Lord Guildford Dudley, the husband of Lady Jane Grey. The tragedies which the enthronement of Lady Jane brought into her family, made her retire from the world, and devote herself to the careful education of her children. His father, Sir Henry Sidney, was, as I have already observed, one of the noblest and best of men, and one who, had he not been eclipsed by the glory of his descendants, must have occupied more of the attention of the

English historian than he has done. In his arms expired the pious young prince, Edward VI., who entertained the warmest friendship for him; and his conduct in the government of Ireland, of which he was thrice Lord Deputy, and all his recorded sentiments, exhibit him a rare example of integrity and wisdom.

Such were some of the Sidneys of other days; and, as if poetry were destined to break forth with periodical lustre in this family, it has now to add Percy Bysshe Shelley to its enduring names; for Shelley was a lineal Sidney. The present Sir John Shelley Sidney being his paternal uncle, and his cousin Philip Sidney, Lord de L'Isle, being the present possessor of Penshurst.

In these preliminary pages I have traced some of the causes which must throw a lasting and peculiar interest around Penshurst, let us now hasten thither at once.

Having received from Lord de L'Isle an order to see everything of public interest at Penshurst, accompanied by an expectation that he would himself be there, and ready to give me all the information in his power, I went there on Tuesday September 25th, 1838.

I took coach to Tunbridge on Monday, and after breakfast on Tuesday morning walked on to Penshurst, through a delightful country; now winding along quiet green lanes, and

now looking out on the great beautiful dale in which Tun

bridge stands, and over other valleys to my left. Green fields and rustic cottages interspersed amongst woods; and the picturesque hop-grounds on the steep slopes and in the hollows of the hills, now in their full glory; and all the rural population out and busy in gathering the hops, completed just such scenery as I expected to find in the lovely county of Kent.

The whole road as I came from town was thronged with huge wagons of pockets of new hops, piled nearly as high as the houses they passed, a great quantity of these going up out of Sussex; and here, at almost every farm-house and group of cottages, you perceived the rich aromatic odour of hops, and saw the smoke issuing from the cowls of the drying kilns. The whole county was odoriferous of hop.

The first view which I got of the old house of Penshurst, called formerly both Penshurst Place and Penshurst Castle,* was as I descended the hill opposite to it. Its grey walls and turrets, and high-peaked and red roofs rising in the midst of them; and the new buildings of fresh stone, mingled with the ancient fabric, presented a very striking and venerable aspect. It stands in the midst of a wide valley, on a pleasant elevation; its woods and park stretching away beyond, northwards; and the picturesque church, parsonage, and other houses of the village, grouping in front.

From whichever side you view the house, it strikes you as a fitting abode of the noble Sidneys. Valleys run out on every

Originally Pencester.