The Romance of Biography (Vol 1 of 2) / or Memoirs of Women Loved and Celebrated by Poets, from the Days of the Troubadours to the Present Age. 3rd ed. 2 Vols.

by Mrs. Jameson

SYDNEY'S STELLA.

At the very name of Sir Philip Sydney,—the generous, gallant, all-accomplished Sydney,—the roused fancy wakes, as at the sound of a silver trumpet, to all the gay and splendid associations of chivalry and romance. He was in the court of Elizabeth, what Surrey had been in that of her father, Henry the Eighth; and like his prototype. Sir Calidore in the Fairy Queen,—

Every look and word that he did say
Was like enchantment, that through both the ears
And both the eyes, did steal the heart away.

And as Surrey had his Fair Geraldine, Sydney had his Stella.

Simplicity was not the fashion of Elizabeth's age in any particular: the conversation and the poetry addressed by her stately romantic courtiers to her and her maids of honour, were like the dresses they wore,—stiff with jewels and standing on end with embroidery, gorgeous of hue and fantastic in form; but with many a brilliant gem of exceeding price, scattered up and down, where one would scarce think to find them; losing something of their effect by being misplaced, but none of their inherent beauty and value. The poetry of Sir Philip Sydney was extravagantly admired in his own time, and it has since been less read than it deserves. It contains much of the pedantic quaintness, the laboured ornament, the cumbrous phraseology, which was the taste, the language of the day: but he had elegance of mind and tenderness of feeling; above all, he was in earnest, and accordingly, there are beautiful and brilliant things scattered through both his poetry and prose. If his "Phœnix-Stella" be less popularly celebrated than the Fair Geraldine,—her name less intimate with our fancy,—it is not because her poet lacked skill to immortalize her in superlatives: it is the recollection of the mournful fate and darkened fame of that beautiful but ill-starred woman, contrasted with the brilliant career and spotless glory of her lover, which strikes the imagination with a painful contrast, and makes us reluctant to dwell on her memory.

The Stella of Sydney's poetry, and the Philoclea of his Arcadia, was the Lady Penelope Devereux, the elder sister of the favourite Essex. While yet in her childhood, she was the destined bride of Sydney, and for several years they were considered as almost engaged to each other: it was natural, therefore, at this time, that he should be accustomed to regard her with tenderness and unreproved admiration, and should gratify both by making her the object of his poetical raptures. She was also less openly, but even more ardently, loved by young Charles Blount, afterwards Lord Mountjoy, who seems to have disputed with Sydney the first place in her heart.

She is described as a woman of exquisite beauty, on a grand and splendid scale; dark sparkling eyes; pale brown hair; a rich vivid complexion; a regal brow and a noble figure. Sydney tells us that she was at first "most fair, most cold;"—and the beautiful sonnet,

"With how sad steps, O moon, thou climb'st the sky![102]
How silently, and with how wan a face!"

refers to his earlier feelings. He describes a tilting-match, held in presence of the Queen and Court, in which he came off victor—

Having this day my horse, my hand, my lance,
Guided so well, that I obtained the prize, &c.[103]

"Stella looked on," he says, "and from her fair eyes sent forth the encouraging glance that gave him victory." These soft and brilliant eyes are often and beautifully touched upon; and it must be remarked, never without an allusion to the modesty of their expression.

O eyes! that do the spheres of beauty move,
Which while they make Love conquer, conquer Love.

And on some occasion, when she turned from him bashfully, he addresses her in a most impassioned strain,—

Soul's joy! bend not those morning stars from me,
Where virtue is made strong by beauty's might,
Where love is chasteness—pain doth learn delight
And humbleness doth dwell with majesty:
Whatever may ensue, O let me be
Copartner of the riches of that sight;
Let not mine eyes be hell-driven from that light.
O look! O shine! O let me die, and see![104]

Another, "To Sleep," is among the most beautiful, and I believe more generally known.

Lock up, fair lids! the treasure of my heart! &c.

There is also much vivacity and earnest feeling in the lines addressed to one who had lately left the presence of Stella, and of whom he inquires of her welfare. Whoever has known what it is to be separated from those beloved, to ask after them with anxious yet suppressed fondness, of some unsympathising acquaintance, to be alternately tantalised and desesperé, by their vague and careless replies, will understand, will feel their truth and beauty. Even the quaint, petulant commencement is true to the sentiment:

Be your words made, good Sir, of Indian ware,
That you allow me them at so small rate?

....*....*....*....*

When I demand of Phœnix-Stella's state,
You say, forsooth, "You left her well of late."
O God! think you that satisfies my care?
I would know whether she do sit or walk,—
How clothed, how waited on? sighed she, or smiled?
Whereof—with whom—how often did she talk?
With what pastime, time's journey she beguiled?
If her lips deign'd to sweeten my poor name?
Say all! and all well said, still say the same!

At length, after the usual train of hopes, fears, complaints, and raptures, the lady begins to look with pity and favour on the "ruins of her conquest;"[105] and he exults in an acknowledged return of love, though her heart be given conditionally,—

His only, while he virtuous courses takes.

So far Stella appears in a most amiable and captivating light, worthy the romantic homage of her accomplished lover. But a dark shade steals, like a mildew, over this bright picture of beauty, poetry, and love, even while we gaze upon it. The projected union between Sydney and Lady Penelope was finally broken off by their respective families, for reasons which do not appear.[106] Sir Charles Blount offered himself, and was refused, though evidently agreeable to the lady; and she was married by her guardians to Lord Rich, a man of talents and integrity, but most disagreeable in person and manners, and her declared aversion.[107]

This inauspicious union ended, as might have been expected, in misery and disgrace. Lady Rich bore her fate with extreme impatience. Her warm affections, her high spirit, and her strength of mind, so heroically displayed in behalf of her brother, served but to render her more poignantly sensible of the tyranny which had forced her into detested bonds. She could not forget,—perhaps never wished or sought to forget—that she had received the homage of the two most accomplished men of that time,—Sydney and Blount; "and not finding that satisfaction at home she ought to have received, she looked for it abroad where she ought not to find it."

Sydney describes a secret interview which took place between himself and Lady Rich shortly after her marriage. I should have observed, that Sydney designates himself all through his poems by the name of Astrophel.

In a grove, most rich of shade,
Where birds wanton music made,
May, then young, his pied weeds showing,
New perfumed with flowers fresh growing.
Astrophel, with Stella sweet,
Did for mutual comfort meet;
Both within themselves opprest,
But each in the other blest;
Him great harms had taught much care,
Her fair neck a foul yoke bear;
But her sight his cares did banish,
In his sight her yoke did vanish, &c.

He pleads the time, the place, the season, and their divided vows; and would have pressed his suit more warmly,

But her hand, his hands repelling,
Gave repulse—all grace excelling!

....*....*....*....*

Then she spake! her speech was such
As not ear, but heart did touch.
"Astrophel, (said she) my love,
Cease in these effects to prove!
Now be still!—yet still believe me,
Thy grief more than death would grieve me.
Trust me, while, I thus deny,
In myself the smart I try:
Tyrant honour doth thus use thee;
Stella's self might not refuse thee!
Therefore, dear! this no more move:
Lest, though I leave not thy love,
(Which too deep in me is framed!)
I should blush when thou art named!"

The sentiment he has made her express in the last line is beautiful, and too feminine and appropriate not to have been taken from nature; but, unhappily, it did not always govern her conduct. How far her coquetry proceeded we do not know. Sydney, about a year afterwards, married the daughter of Secretary Walsingham, and survived his marriage but a short time. This theme of song, this darling of fame, and ornament of his age, perished at the battle of Zutphen, in the very summer of his glorious youth. "He had trod," as the author of the Effigies Poeticæ so beautifully expresses it, "from his cradle to his grave, amid incense and flowers—and died in a dream of glory!"

His death was not only such as became the soldier and Christian;—the natural elegance and sensibility of his mind followed him even to the verge of the tomb: in his last moments, when the mortification had commenced, and all hope was over, he called for music into his chamber, and lay listening to it with tranquil pleasure. Sydney died in his thirty-fourth year.

Among the numerous poets who lamented this deep-felt loss (volumes, I believe, were filled with the tributes paid to his memory), was Spenser, whom Sydney had early patronised. His elegy, however, is too laboured, too lengthy, too artificial, to please altogether, though containing some lines of great beauty. It is singular, and a little incomprehensible to our modern ideas of bienséance and good taste, that in this elegy, which Spenser dedicates to Sydney's widow after her remarriage with Essex, he introduces Stella as lamenting over the body of Astrophel, tells us how she beat her fair bosom—"the treasury of joy,"—how she tore her lovely hair, wept out her eyes,—

And with sweet kisses suckt the parting breath
Out of his lips.

At length, through excess of grief, or the compassion of the gods, she is changed into the flower, "by some called starlight, by others penthia." This might pass in those days; though, considering all the circumstances, it is strange that, even then, it escaped ridicule.

The tears shed for Sydney, by those nearest and dearest to him, were but too soon dried. His widow was consoled by Essex, and his Stella, by her old lover Mountjoy, who returned from Ireland, flushed with victory and honours, and cast himself again at her feet. Their secret intercourse remained, for several years, undiscovered. Lady Rich, who was tenderly attached to her brother, was guarded in her conduct, fearing equally the loss of his esteem, and the renewal of those hostile feelings which had already caused one duel between Essex and Mountjoy. She had also children; and as all, without exception, lived to be distinguished men and virtuous women, we may give her credit for some attention to their education,—some compunctious visitings of nature on their account.

During her brother's imprisonment, she made the most strenuous, the most persevering efforts to save his life: she besieged Elizabeth with the richest presents, the most eloquent letters of supplication;—she waylaid her at the door of her chamber, till commanded to remain a prisoner in her own house;—she bribed, or otherwise won, all whom she thought could plead his cause;—and when these were of no avail, and Essex perished, she seems, in her despair, to have thrown off all restraint—and at length, fled from the house of her husband.

In 1605 she was legally divorced from Lord Rich; and soon after married Mountjoy, then Earl of Devonshire. The marriage of a divorced wife in the lifetime of her first husband, was in those days a thing almost unprecedented in the English court, and caused the most violent outcry and scandal. Laud (the archbishop, then chaplain to the Earl of Devonshire,) incurred the censure of the Church for uniting the lovers, and ever after fasted on the anniversary of this fatal marriage. The Earl, one of the most admirable and distinguished men of that chivalrous age, who "felt a stain as a wound," found it impossible to endure the infamy brought on himself and the woman he loved: he died about a year after: "the griefe," says a contemporary, "of this unhappie love brought him to his end."[108]

His unfortunate Countess lingered but a short time after him, and died in a miserable obscurity.—Such is the history of Sydney's Stella.

Three of her sons became English earls; the eldest, Earl of Warwick; the second, Earl of Holland; and the third (her son by Mountjoy) Earl of Newport. The earldoms of Warwick and Holland were held by her lineal descendants, till the death of that young Lord Warwick, whose mother married Addison.