,--so well that if God do move
their hearts, I wish that he might match with my daughter. I call him
son--he is so wise, virtuous, and godly. If he go on in the course he
hath begun, he will be as famous and worthy a gentleman as ever England
bred."

Two years after Essex's death, his widow was secretly married to
Sidney's uncle, the Earl of Leicester. This made a sad change in Philip
Sidney's fortunes. As long as Leicester was unmarried and childless,
Philip Sidney, as his natural heir, was a man of great prospects and a
very desirable match; but Leicester, married, with the probability of
children to inherit his titles and wealth, left Sidney only a poor
commoner.

[Illustration: Sir Philip Sidney and Penelope Devereux]

With Sidney's prospects ruined by her own marriage, Penelope's mother
decided that her daughter should make a more ambitious match, and
betrothed her to the powerful and cruel Lord Rich. Too late, the little
maid realized the value of the love with which she had been playing.
When she could no longer look forward to a match with the noble young
Sidney, she waked to the knowledge that her whole heart was bound up
in him; and she protested, even at the altar, against the marriage into
which her mother was forcing her. "Being in the power of her friends,"
as the Earl of Devonshire afterwards wrote concerning her, "she was by
them married against her will unto one against whom she did protest at
the very solemnity and ever after."

His love for Penelope was the supreme passion of Sidney's life. His was
a heart too true to change. And as Orpheus gave to his harp his love for
the lost Eurydice and charmed all nature into silence, so Philip Sidney,
bereft of the woman he loved, poured out his soul in poems that still
touch every loving heart.

From politician and courtier, Sidney rose to be one of the most
distinguished poets of his day. He wrote many poems which are still
considered of high order, but his "Astrophel and Stella," which contains
the story of his love for the Lady Penelope, is his most popular work.

Though possessed of all the grace and elegance of an Elizabethan
courtier, as well as of a gentle and artistic temperament, Philip Sidney
was no weakling. Under the costly trappings of his court finery beat a
heart as bold and passionate as King Richard's own.

Throughout all his varied experiences, public and private, he did not
once relinquish his double hope of aiding the Netherlands an