In the year 1579 he, though neither magistrate nor counsellor, did show himself, for several weighty reasons, opposite to the Queen’s matching with the Duke of Anjou, which he very pithily expressed by a due address of his humble reasons to her, as may be fully seen in a book called “Cabala” (Part III., p. 201). The said address was written at the desire of some great personage—his Uncle Robert, I suppose, Earl of Leicester, upon which a great quarrel happened between him and Edward Vere, Earl of Oxford. This, as I conceive, might occasion his retirement from Court next summer, 1580, wherein, perhaps, he wrote that pleasant romance called “Arcadia.”[7]
In 1581 the treaty of marriage was renewed, and our author, Sidney, with Fulke Greville,[8] were two of the tilters at the entertainment of the French Ambassador; and at the departure of the Duke of Anjou from England, in February of the same year, he attended him to Antwerp.[9]
On the 8th of January 1582 he, with Perigrine Bertie, received the honour of knighthood from the Queen, and in the beginning of 1585 he designed an expedition with Sir Francis Drake into America, but being hindered by the Queen (in whose opinion he was so highly prized that she thought the Court deficient without him) he was, in October following, made Governor of Flushing—about that time delivered to the Queen for one of the cautionary towns—and General of the Horse. In both which places of great trust his carriage testified to the world his wisdom and valour, with addition of honour to his country by them; and especially the more, when in July 1586 he surprised Axil, and preserved the lives and honour of the English army at the enterprise of Gravelin: so that whereas (through the fame of his high deserts) he was then, or rather before, in election for the Crown of Poland, the Queen of England refused to further his advancement, not out of emulation, but out of fear to lose the jewel of her times. What can be said more? He was a statesman, soldier, and scholar—a complete master of matter and language, as his immortal pen shows. His pen and his sword have rendered him famous enough: he died by the one, and by the other he will ever live as having been hitherto highly extolled for it by the pens of princes. This is the happiness of art, that although the sword doth achieve the honour, yet the arts do record it, and no pen hath made it better known than his own in that book called “Arcadia.” Certain it is, he was a noble and matchless gentleman, and it may be justly said, without hyperbole or fiction, as it was of Cato Uticensis, that “he seemed to be born to that only which he went about.” His written works are these:—
The Countess of Pembroke’s “Arcadia,”[10] which being the most celebrated romance that was ever written, was consecrated to his noble, virtuous, and learned sister Mary, the wife of Henry, Earl of Pembroke, who, having lived to a very fair age, died in her house in Aldersgate Street, in London, the 25th of September 1621, whereupon her body was buried in the cathedral church of Salisbury, among the graves of the Pembrochian family. This “Arcadia,” though then, and since, it was, and is, taken into the hands of all ingenious men, and said by one living at, or near, the time when first published, to be “a book most famous for rich conceits and splendour of courtly expressions.” This work was first printed in the year 1613 in quarto; it hath been translated into French, Dutch, and other languages in 1624.
Besides Astrophel and Stella,[11] A Remedy for Love, The Defence of Poesy,[12] Sonnets, etc., Sir Philip also turned the Psalms of David into English verse, which are in manuscript in the library of the Earl of Pembroke at Wilton, curiously bound in a crimson velvet cover, left thereunto by his sister Mary, Countess of Pembroke.[13]
The following dialogue, composed by our author, was spoken between two shepherds in a pastoral entertainment before several gentlemen and ladies at the seat of the noble family above mentioned.
Will. Dick, since we cannot dance, come, let a cheerful voice
Show that we do not grudge at all, when others do rejoice.
Dick. Ah, Will, though I grudge not, I count it feeble glee,
With sight made dim with daily tears, another’s sport to see.
Whoever lambkins saw (yet lambkins love to play)
To play when that their loved dams are stoll’n or gone astray?
If this in them be true, as true in men, think I,
A lustless song, forsooth, thinks he, that hath more lust to cry.
Will. A time there is for all, my mother often says,
When she, with skirts tuck’d very high, with girls at stoolball plays.
When thou hast mind to weep, seek out some smoky room:
Now let those lightsome sights we see, thy darkness overcome.
Dick. What joy the joyful sun gives unto bleared eyes,
That comfort in these sports you like, my mind his comfort tries.
Will. What! is thy bagpipe broke? or are thy lambs miswent?
Thy wallet or thy tar-box lost? or thy new raiment rent?
Dick. I would it were but thus, for thus it were too well.
Will. Thou seest my ears do itch at it; good Dick, thy sorrow tell.
Dick. Hear then, and learn to sigh; a mistress I do serve,
Whose wages make me beg the more, who feeds me till I starve,
Whose livery is such, as most I freeze apparelled most,
And look! so near unto my cure, that I must needs be lost.
Will. What? these are riddles sure; art thou then bound to her?
Dick. Bound as I neither power have, nor would have power to stir.
Will. Who bound thee?
Dick. Love, my lord.
Will. What witnesses thereto?
Dick. Faith in myself, and worth in her, which no proof can undo.
Will. What seal?
Dick. My heart deep graven.
Will. What made the band so fast?
Dick. Wonder, that by two so black eyes the glittering stars be past.
Will. What keepeth safe thy band?
Dick. Remembrance is the chest
Lock’d fast with knowing that she is of worldly things the best.
Will. Thou late of wages ’plainst: what wages mayst thou have?
Dick. Her heav’nly looks, which more and more do give me cause to crave.
Will. If wages make you want, what food is that she gives?
Dick. Tear’s drink, sorrow’s meat, wherewith, not I, but in me my death lives.
Will. What living get you then?
Dick. Disdain; but just disdain:
So have I cause myself to plain, but no cause to complain.
Will. What care takes she for thee?
Dick. Her care is to prevent
My freedom with show of her beams, with virtue my content.
Will. God shield us from such dames. If so our downs be sped
The shepherds will grow lean, I trow, their sheep will be ill fed;
But, Dick, my counsel mark: run from the place of woe;
The arrow being shot from far doth give the smaller blow.
Dick. Good Will, I cannot lack the good advice, before
That foxes leave to steal, because they find they die therefore.
Will. Then, Dick, let us go hence, lest we great folks annoy;
For nothing can more tedious be, than ’plaint in time of joy.
Dick. Oh, hence! O cruel word! which even dogs do hate;
But hence, even hence, I must needs go—such is my dogged fate.
To return again to Sir Philip.
In the year 1586,[14] when that unfortunate stand was made against the Spaniards before Zutphen, the 22nd of September, while he was getting upon the third horse, having had two slain under him before, he was wounded with a musket shot out of the trenches, which broke the bone of his thigh. The horse he rode upon was rather furiously choleric than bravely proud, and so forced him to forsake the field, but not his back, as the noblest and fittest bier to carry a martial commander to his grave. In which sad progress, passing along by the rest of the army, where his uncle,[15] the general, was, and, being thirsty with excess of bleeding, he called for drink, which was presently brought him; but, as he was putting the bottle to his mouth, he saw a poor soldier carried along, who had eaten his last at the same feast, ghastly casting up his eyes at the bottle, which Sir Philip perceiving, took it from his head before he drank, and delivered it to the poor man, with these words: “Thy necessity is yet greater than mine.” And when he had pledged this poor soldier, he was presently carried to Arnheim, where the principal surgeons of the camp attended for him. When they began to dress his wounds, he, both by way of charge and advice, told them that, while his strength was yet entire, his body free from fever, and his mind able to endure, they might freely use their art, cut, and search to the bottom; but if they should neglect their art, and renew torments in the declination of nature, their ignorance, or overtenderness, would prove a kind of tyranny to their friend, and, consequently, a blemish to their reverend science. With love and care well mixed they began the cure, and continued it some sixteen days, with such confidence of his recovery as the joy of their hearts overflowed their discretion, and made them spread the intelligence of it to the Queen, and all his noble friends here in England, where it was received, not as private, but public good news.
At the same time Count Hollock was under the care of a most excellent surgeon for a wound in his throat by a musket shot, yet did he neglect his own extremity to save his friend, and to that end had sent him to Sir Philip. This surgeon, notwithstanding, out of love to his master, returning one day to dress his wound, the Count cheerfully asked him how Sir Philip did? and he answered, with a heavy countenance, that he was not well. At these words the worthy prince, as having more sense of his friend’s wound than his own, cries out: “Away, villain! never see my face again, till thou bring better news of that man’s recovery, for whose redemption many such as I were happily lost.”