V.
No youth shall sue such one to win.
Unmark'd by all the shining fair,
Save for her pride and scorn, such sin
As heart of love can never bear;
Like leafless plant in blasted shade,
So liveth she--a barren maid.
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY.
All hail to Sidney!--the pink of chivalry--the hero of Zutphen--the author
of the 'Arcadia,'--the gifted, courteous, genial and noble-minded man! He
was born November 29, 1554, at Penshurst, Kent. His father's name was
Henry. He studied at Shrewsbury, at Trinity College, Cambridge, and at
Christ Church, Oxford. At the age of eighteen he set out on his travels,
and, in the course of three years, visited France, Flanders, Germany,
Hungary, and Italy. On his return he was introduced at Court, and became a
favourite with Queen Elizabeth, who sent him on an embassy to Germany. He
returned home, and shortly after had a quarrel at a tournament with Lord
Oxford. But for the interference of the Queen, a duel would have taken
place. Sidney was displeased at the issue of the affair, and retired, in
1580, to Wilton, in Wiltshire, where he wrote his famous 'Arcadia,'--that
true prose-poem, and a work which, with all its faults, no mere sulky and
spoiled child (as some have called him in the matter of this retreat)
could ever have produced.
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