s with all
the accomplishments of the soldier, the courtier and the scholar? Still
rises upon the memory through the mists of three centuries that touching
legend of Zutphen, where the wounded hero waived from his lips the cup of
water because it was more needed by the dying comrade at his side; and the
pure morality and lofty chivalry which animate the 'Arcadia,' still bear
witness to us of the personal merit of this pride and ornament of the
English court. His sagacious but selfish mistress, Elizabeth, once stood,
we are told, between him and the proffered crown of Poland, as being loth
to part (so she expressed herself,) with him who was 'the jewel of her
time.' She is reported too to have denied him on another occasion the
permission which he earnestly sought, of connecting his fame and fortunes
with those trans-atlantic enterprises which were already beginning to
crown with success and distinction the efforts of such men as Drake and
Frobisher. This last is a field of adventure upon which we must still
regret that Sir Philip was not allowed to enter. The New World was then no
less the region for romantic enterprise than profitable exertion, although
the explorers of these distant climes had too often sunk the generosity of
the soldier in the rapacity of the spoiler. In Sir Philip Sydney the world
of Columbus would have had a visitor of a different order. To the courage
of Smith and the accomplishments of Raleigh he would have added a spirit
of honor and moderation peculiarly his own, and we should still have
delighted to trace the impressions of his genius and virtue in the early
annals of our continent. But his fate was destined to a different scene;
and his career, though thus limited by a jealous sovereign and an early
death, has left little which we can reasonably deplore but its brevity;
while that brevity itself throws around his character the last touches of
romantic interest, and assigns him the not unenviable lot of having
carried off the rewards of age without its infirmities, and borne a
maturity of honors into the safe asylum of a premature grave:

'Invida quem Lachesis raptum,
Dum numerat palmas, credidit esse senem.'

In this age of literary and multifarious pilgriming, it cannot be
unacceptable to propose an excursion to a mansion dignified by its
associations with such a name. Neither is it a slight recreation to him
who has been confined for weeks and months within the dusky enclosures of
Lond