«34 Lovgleat Papers, No. 3. 



XXTI.— 157-2, March 18th. Sir Philip Sidney, on his Travkls 

 IN his nineteenth year, to his Uncle, the Earl of Leicester, 

 FROM Frankfort.^ 



[Sir Philip Sidney, born at Penshurst, in Kent, 29th November, 

 ISSi, was the son of Sir Henry Sidney, by Lady Mary Dudley, 

 sister of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. With Wiltshire he 

 was much connected by the marriage of his sister Mary with 

 Henry, second Earl of Pembroke. He was often at Wilton, and 

 at Ivy Church. John Aubrey, among other anecdotes of him 

 (" Letters from the Bodleian, vol. ii., pt. 2, p. 55ii ") says : " My 

 great nncle, Mr. T. Browne, remembered him : and sayd that ho 

 was wont to take his table book out of his pockets and write down 

 his notions as they came into his head, when he was writing his 

 Arcadia (wch. was never finished by him) as he was hunting on 

 our pleasant plaines." In 1585 Queen Elizabeth having taken 

 the Protestants in the Netherlands under her protection, sent a 

 militaiy force to their assistance, and appointed Sir Philip 

 Governor of Flushing. He was followed by his uncle, the 

 Earl of Leicester, who made him General of the Horse. He died 

 16th October, 1586,- about a fortnight after receiving a wound 

 at the Battle of Zutphen, and his body was brought back to 

 England and interred in St. Paul's Cathedral. After the burning 

 of the Church Aubrey saw Sir Philip's leaden coffin, under 

 " Our Ladies Chapel." 



Sir Philip has bad several biographers, some recently.^ Letters 

 written by him are very rare. In his " Works," collected by 

 W. Gray, 1829, only six are given, of the years 1572, and 1586. 

 His handwriting was remarkably neat and precise. He spells his 

 own family name, " Sidney ; " but his father. Sir Henry, in letters 

 preserved at Longleat, writes " Sydney."] 



" Ryghte honorable and my singular good Lorde and Unkle, this hearer 

 havinge showed me the woorkes he dothe cary into Englande gave me ocasion 



^ In Collins's lives of the Sidneys it is stated that his license to travel was dated 

 25th 3Iai/, 1572. But both the letters here printed are dated from Frankfort in 

 March of that year. 



' H. E. Fox Bourne, and Julius Lloyd. 



