ner, giving instruction in some points, and to learn by him that all things here áre vanity.

"His speech failing, he made sign with his hand to be still spoken to, and could less endure that I should make any intermission; even as one that runneth a race, when he approacheth unto the end, doth straine himself most vehemently; he would have the help that might be to carry him forward, now in the very of his race, to the goal.

end

"It now seemed as if all natural heat and life were almost utterly gone out of him, that his understanding had failed, and that it was to no purpose to speak any more unto him. But it was far otherwise. I spake thus unto him: Sir, if you heare what I saye, let us by some means know it, and if you have still your inward joy and consolation in God, hould up your hand. With that he did lift up his hand, and stretched it forth on high, which we thought he could scarce have moved, which caused the beholders to cry out with joy, that his understanding should be still so perfect, and that the weak body beyond all expectation should so readily give a sign of the joy of the soul. After this, requiring of him to lift up his hands to God, seeing he could not speak or open his eyes-that we might see his heart still prayed, he raised both his hands, and sett them together on his breast, and held them upwards after the manner of those which make humble petitions: and so his hands did remain, and even so stiff, that they would have so continued standing up, being once so sett, but that we took the one from

the other.

Thus his hearing going away, we commended him to God divers times by prayer, and at the last he yielded up his spirit into the hands of God, unto his most happy comfort.

"He died," saith one of his dearest friends, not languishing in idleness,

riot, and excess, not as overcome with nice pleasures and fond vanities; but of manly wounds received in the service of his prince, in defence of persons oppressed, in maintenance of the only true Catholick and Christian religion, among the noble, valiant, and wise, in the open field, in martial manner, the honorablest death that could be desired, and best beseeming a Christian knight,

whereby he hath worthily won to himself immortal fame among the godly, and left example worthy of imitation to others of his calling."

Thus in his thirty-second year perished our Sidney, the hero, the philosopher, the poet, the perfect man. No gentleman for many months after his death appeared in

a gay or gaudy dress either in the city or the court; and this is believed to be the first instance in

England of a public mourning for a private person. Philip of Spain himself expressed sorrow for his death, and when that king's secretary, D. Bernardino de Mendoza heard of it, he replied, that however glad he was king Philip his master had lost, in a private gentleman, an enemy to his estate, yet he could not but lament to see Christendom deprived of so rare a light in these cloudy times, and bewail poor Widow England that, having been many years in breeding one eminent spirit, was in a moment bereaved of him. The States of Holland petitioned to have the honour of burying his body, engaging themselves to erect for him as fair a monument as any prince had in Christendom; but Elizabeth reserved this honour for herself: his body was removed to Flushing, and then embarked with all the solemnities due to a noble soldier. It was landed at Tower Hill, lay in state in the Minories, and was buried with a public funeral in St. Paul's, where it had no other monument than a tablet with wretched epitaph. would become the representatives of his family to erect a better in the place of this which has perished.

a

It

Robert, the brother of Sir Philip was created Earl of Leicester in 1618. "Is it not, says Dr. Zouch, to be deeply lamented, that Philip Sidney, the third Earl of Leicester, of the name of Sidney, and a lincal descendant of this nobleman, should degrade his high birth by engaging in the rebellion against his lawful

overeign? He adhered to the regicides after the murder of Charles I. became one of Cromwell's council of twenty-one persons, and dishonoured himself by sitting in the Parliament in 1657, with men of the lowest parentage, with mean and obscure mechanics." Obsolete as this language is, we must not let it pass without reprehension:-the Sidneys acted as behoved them in that great struggle of the nation for its rights and liberties against the usurpations of a perfidious king, they acted asSir Philip would himself have done; nor is this assertion merely gratuitous. He and Fulk Greville had one heart, one mind, one faith; and the nephew of Fulk Greville, trained up by his uncle in his own faith, feelings, and principles, died in arms for the Commonwealth: here then is proof demonstrative what was the conduct to which those principles necessarily led.

It was at Wilton, the seat of his brother-in-law, the Earl of Pembroke, that Sidney planned his Arcadia. The story was painted there on the pannels of a drawing and anti-room, and a century ago the inhabitants related with pride that the greater part of that romance had been written in the adjacent woods. Dr. Zouch perceives some of the beauties of this work, but he concedes too much to the despicable criticisms which have been past upon it, if those persons can be said to criticise who pass censure upon what they have not perused. Lord Orford calls it a tedious, lamentable, pedantic, pastoral romance! No man who had read this romance would have called it pastoral. It is an heroic romance with pastoral interJudes, but not pedantic;--not tedious, not lamentable. Never was there a story in which the light and shade were more happily blended and proportioned, nor one which more delightfully excited interest, or more irresistibly maintained it. The fable is wound up with such consummate

skill, the events follow so naturally, and yet the issue is so well concealed, that the suspense of the reader almost amounts to pain. They whọ admire Shakespear, and despise the Arcadia, admire they know not what, and only because such admiration is the fashion. Dr. Zouch is just in his commendations: we differ from him only in the censure at which the weight of authority (such authority!) seems to have intimidated him.

"The taste, the manners, the opinions, the language of the English na tion, have undergone a very great _revolution, since the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Yet there are passages in this work exquisitely beautiful-useful ob servations on life and manners—a variety and accurate discrimination of characters-fine sentiments expressed in strong and adequate terms-animated descriptions, equal to any that occur in the ancient or modern poets-sage lessons of morality, and judicious reflexions on government and policy. A reader who takes up the volume, may be compared to a traveller, who has a long and dreary road to pass. The objects that successively meet his eye, may not in general be very pleasing; but occasionally he is charmed with a more beautiful prospect-with the verdure of a rich valley-with a meadow enamelled with flowers-with the murmur of a rirock-the splendid villa. These charmvulet-the swelling grove-the hanging ing objects abundantly compensate for the joyless regions he has traversed. They fill him with delight, exhilarate his drooping spirits and at the decline of day he reposes with complacency and satisfaction."

There is nothing wearying except the interludes. They indeed come in like bad music between the acts of Macbeth, but as little do they spoil the piece.

of the two daughters of Basilius? so "What description can surpass that beyond measure excellent in all the gifts allotted to reasonable creatures, that we may think they were born to show, that nature is no step-mother to that sex, how much soever some men,

sharp-witted only in evil-speaking, have sought to disgrace them. The elder is named Pamela, by many men not deemed inferior to her sister: for my part, when I marked them both, methought there was, if at least such perfections may receive the word of more, more sweetness in Philoclea, but more majesty in Pamela: methought love played in Philocleu's eyes, and threatened in Pamela's methought Philoclea's beauty only persuaded, but so persuaded as all hearts must yield: Pamela's beauty used violence, and such violence as no heart could resist. And it seems that such proportion is between their minds: Philoclea SO bashful, though her excellencies had stolen into her before she was aware. so humble that she will put all pride out of counte nance in sum, such proceeding as will stir hope, but teach good manners. Pamela of high thoughts, who avoids not pride with not knowing her excellencies, but by making that one of her excellencies to be void of pride; her mother's wisdom, greatness, nobility, but knit with a more constant temper."

as

In his attempt to model English verse by Latin rules of quantity, Sidney has egregiously failed, beyond a doubt. Had he and his associates substituted accent for quantity, instead of torturing the established pronunciation to new laws, they would probably have succeeded. His sonnets, tainted as they are with the original sin of their subject, abound with beauty in spite of that subject. Were it not for the feebleness with which they usually conclude, there are few in the language which would bear comparison with them. These which follow will amply justify this commendation to all who are capable of appreciating poetry.

"With how sad steps, O Moon, thou climb'st the skies,

How silently and with how wan a face! What, may it be that even in heavenly place

That busy archer his sharp arrows tries? Sure, if that long-with-love-acquainted

I read it in thy looks; thy languisht

grace

To me that feel the like thy state descries. Then, even of fellowship, Ó Moon tell me Is constant love deem'd there but want of wit?

Are beauties there as proud as here they be?

Do they above love to be lov'd, and yet Those lovers scorn whom that love doth possess?

Do they call virtue there ungratefulness?

Come sleep, O sleep, the certain knot of peace,

The baiting place of wit, the balm of woe, The poor man's wealth, the prisoner's release,

The indifferent judge between the high and low;

With shield of proof shield me from out the preasin

of those fierce darts despair at me doth throw,

O make in me those civil wars to cease,
I will good tribute pay, if thou do so.
Take thou of me smooth pillows, sweetest
bed,

A chamber deaf to noise, and blind of light,

A rosy garland, and a weary head:
And if these things, as being thine by
Move not thy heavy grace, thou shalt in
right,

But only Stella's eyes and Stella's heart,

My muse and I must you, of duty, greet With thanks and wishes, wishing thank fully;

Be you still fair, honour thy public heed, By no encroachment wrong'd, nor time forgot.

Ruined as these sonnets usually are by their lame and impotent conclusions, there are no poems of the age which approach so nearly to the strength of Milton's language.

It is dishonourable to our literature, that there is no compleat and well edited collection of the works of this great man. A very fine portrait after Velasquez is prefixed to these praise-worthy memoirs.

THE United States having been originally colonized by emigrants from this country, and notwithstanding their political separation from us, still retaining the English language, it will always be interesting to our literary public to read any work of consequence issuing from their press. The present in deed is not absolutely printed in America, which circumstance by the way augers ill of the present state of literary patronage there, requiring so much bolstering in this country, but it is written by a person who from his high official station may be presumed to hold more than an average rank in the polished society of that country. From what we already knew of American literature, our expectations were not very highly raised, notwithstanding the pompous manner in which this work was first announced to the public. Whether even our moderate expectations have been realised will appear in the detail of our review, but at the very onset we must express our severe disappointment in being deprived, by the death of the Marquis of Lansdowne, of a

secret history of the peace of 1783, which that nobleman it seems had promised to communicate to this work, but which unhappily he was not enabled to complete. We wish the English publisher, to make some amends for the nonfulfilment of his engage ment to the public, had been authorized to insert any fragment, however imperfect, left behind by one who had so great a share in the conclusion of that peace, and whose great diplomatic skill will not speedily be forgotten in the present dearth of political talent.

In proceeding to the work itself; what first strikes us, and will, we imagine, also strike every reader, is its enormous bulk. This in our estimation is no small evil.

The first volume, after a dedication by Mr. now Sir Richard Philips, to the Marquis of Lansdowne, and a preface by Mr. Marshall, is wholly made up of a history of the original settlement of our American colonies compiled from the works of Belknap, Hutchinson, Minor, Smith and Chalmer, of whose very words Mr. Marshall