very incarnate spirit of battle, so splendidly did his
genius and courage rise in the storm of carnage. None might hope to
equal him or match his many deeds that day. Once, seeing Willoughby
surrounded and far over among the enemy, Sidney, with a few followers,
fought through to him and accomplished his rescue. Twice he charged the
Spanish, pressing them back and hacking them down in his path.

At the crisis of the second charge, his horse was shot under him; but he
quickly mounted another. Then in one last glorious dash, he cut his way
straight through the Spanish masses, and he did not stop while there was
a foe to be beaten out of his path. But when he had blazed his solitary
way entirely through the ranks of the enemy, and was faced with empty
trenches beyond, he turned his horse to press back again. As he wheeled
back, a musket-ball struck him in the thigh and gave him a mortal wound.
The horse he was riding was not trained to battle, and, taking fright at
the din about him, became utterly unmanageable to Sidney's weakening
grasp. The terror-stricken animal struggled out of the press and dashed,
with his almost fainting rider, back to Leicester's distant camp.

As some of the soldiers rushed to him to help him down, Sidney was
seized with the terrible thirst of the wounded, and begged for a drink
of water. He was about to press the flagon to his parched lips when he
saw the eyes of a wounded foot-soldier turned agonizingly toward it.
Without tasting it, he at once handed it to the dying man, with the
words,--

"Thy necessity is greater than mine."

But Sidney's necessity was great--so great that the skill of man could
not avail to save him; and after a long, agonizing illness, he expired
at Arnhem in the arms of his heart-broken wife.

So lived and died Sir Philip Sidney, the last and most perfect flower of
knighthood,--failing in his efforts to revive the old passing chivalry,
but, all unconsciously, achieving more than his cherished ideal in
teaching men how to live and die nobly in the changed order of things.

SIDNEY IN TOURNAMENT

Call back the gorgeous past!
The lists are set, the trumpets sound,
Bright eyes, sweet judges, throned around;
And stately on the glittering ground
The old chivalric life!
"Forward!" The signal word is given;
Beneath the shock the greensward shakes;
The lusty cheer, the gleaming spear,
The snow-plume's falling flakes,
The fi