TO DAY IN HISTORY

Southland Times, Issue 20618, 17 October 1928, Page 4

TO DAY IN HISTORY

OCTOBER 17. Born: Augustus 111., King of Poland, 1696; John Wilkes, demagogue, London, 1727; William Scott, Baron Stowell, consistorial lawyer, Newcastle-on-Tyne, 1745. Died: Pope John VII., 707: Philip de Comines, historian, Argenton, 1509; Andres Oisander, Lutheran divine; Konigsbcrg, 1552; Sir Philip Sidney, poet and hero, Arnheim, 1586; Sir Edmundbury Godfrey, mysteriously murdered, 1678; Ninon de Lendos, celebrated beauty and wit, 1705; Dr. John Ward, rhetorician, 1758; Frederic Chopin, musical composer, Paris, 1849. Sir Philip Sidney. Sir Philip Sidney, the idol of his own, and the boast of succeeding ages, was not quite thirty-two when he died. He lived long enough to afford to all who knew him unmistakable promise of greatness, but not so long as to leave to posterity any singular proof of it. And yet we can read his character with sufficient clearness to feel assured that the universal love of him was founded on a solid basis. Though at times we catch glimpses of a certain haughtiness a hastiness, an ill-tempered boldness of valour, such as in an older man, we should not have looked for, we find on the other hand, unmistakable marks of a true-hearted patriot, a wise statesman, a skilful general, an eloquent scholar, a graceful writer, a kind patron and a Christian gentleman. Ophelia's description of Hamlet has often been applied to him, and it seems to fail in no particular : “The courtier’s scholar’s, soldier’s, eye, tongue, sword, The expectancy and rose of the fair state, The glass of fashion and the mould of form, The observed of all observers.” “Imitate his virtues, studies and actions,” said his father to Sidney’s younger brother, speaking of Sidney, “he is a rare ornament of this age, the very formular that all well disposed young gentlemen of our court do form their manners and life by .... In truth, I speak it without flattery of him or of myself, he hath the most rare virtues that ever I found in any man.” Sir Philip Sidney was named after Philip of Spain, as well as from gratitude to that king, to whom the family was beholden, as in honour of Mary. His mother was a Dudley. Her father, her grandfather, her brother, and her sister-in-law, Lady Jane Grey, had all died on the scaffold; and this was the Dudley blood of which Sidney was proud. The events of Sidney’s short career are not very prominent in history’. After leaving the university he travelled for some years. Being a Protestant, he encountered some personal danger in Paris, where he happened to be during the treacherous massacre of St. Bartholomew. Afterwards he was present at Venice at a time when that already waning power was making peace with the Turk. Besides these particulars there is nothing worthy of remark in Sidney’s travels. After his return his progress at Court was slow. Elizabeth employed him on several important embassies, in which he gave entire satisfaction; but the Queen had a way of holding back ambitious youths of merit, and though she was very fond of Sidney, and even took a journey to stand god-mother to his daughter, Elizabeth, she received his honest, unasked counsels with considerable coldness, while she appears at the same time to have acted on them. At last, she stopped him in the very act of secretly embarking with Sir Francis Drake on a voyage of discovery; and as she was always whimsical, instead of punishing him, she' made him Governor of Flushing, a post which he had sometime previously applied for in vain. Sidney threw himself heart and soul into the cause of the Low Countries; took an important town by a skilful night attack; showed himself apt for war; and received his death wound in the battle of Zutphen. This battle of Zutphen, so named, was not a battle. A few hundred men were sent to intercept supplies, which the Prince of Parma was conveying into the town, and fell into an ambush of several thousands. Sidney, from a restless thirst for adventure, had joined the troops, unbidden, with other English leaders; and these valiant men, to whom retreat was open, foolishly performed prodigies of valour. Sidney, in a fit of generous boldness, had thrown away his thigharmour, because a friend had unintentionally come without his own, and a ball shattered his thigh. He had the best of attendance, his wife’s nursing, but he died, and was carried in a black ship to London, where after lying in state for many months, he was given a national burial in old St. Paul’s.