t he was well
grown, and was exceedingly talented and handsome.

The power to win stanch and loving friends was inborn in him, and when
he left the quiet halls of Oxford for the frivolous court of Queen
Elizabeth, there was more than one heart that was anxious for him. The
Irish Sea lay between him and his sober, upright father; while the
voluptuous and insincere Earl of Leicester was to be his patron, and all
the hollow, glittering, pleasure-loving men and women of the court were
to be his daily companions. No wonder his friends watched the young
courtier's career with anxiety! But time soon showed how truly the young
Philip was stanch old Sir Henry's son. As was natural, Sidney loved the
brilliant Leicester, and failed to see his uncle's vices as plainly as
he might have seen another man's, but he did not make those vices his
own. It was natural, too, that he should feel a youthful enjoyment in
the gayety and glitter about him, but he somehow kept himself unstained
by what lay beneath.

There were two influences at work in the youth which, together, saved
him from the follies about him: first, and greater, the nobleness of
character which was his by heredity; and, second, the high ideals formed
in his boyhood.

Sidney had dreamed of a truth unsullied, of a manhood devoted to high
and noble deeds, of a faith that was stronger than death. He waked to
find himself, in satin and gold lace, dawdling about a vain and
licentious court.

Fortunately for the ambitious youth, a change now took place in his
affairs which enabled him to see something of the world, and to pursue
his studies further. Before he had been a year at court, he was sent to
Paris in the train of the Earl of Lincoln, whose mission it was to
arrange a marriage between the English queen and the Duke d'Alencon,
brother to King Charles IX. of France.

A clause from Sidney's passport, issued in the queen's name, shows for
what purpose her young courtier was sent abroad: "Her truly and
well-beloved Philip Sidney, Esquire, licensed to go out of England into
parts beyond the seas, with three servants, four horses, and all other
requisites, and to remain the space of two years immediately following
his departure out of the realm, for his attaining the knowledge of
foreign languages."

For reasons of Church and State, Lincoln's mission to France failed, and
Sidney was left free to spend the time of his voluntary exile at his
own discretion. He wisely chose t