LETTER VI.

TO M. A. DE CHEVRY.

AT Seven Oaks, a town in Kent so called from seven oak-trees, which would now be looked for in vain, we find the tradition of the famous Jack Cade, who, at the head of a band of insurgent peasantry, defeated the army of Henry VI. commanded by Sir Humphrey Stafford. This might be truly called a war of la Jacquerie. At the same period England also had her war of the league, in the civil conflicts of the red and white roses. If I may continue these parallels, it may be observed, that the revolution gave us our Charles I. our anarchy styled republican, and our Cromwell; but let us hope that these comparisons will end with our double restoration.

In the neighbourhood of Seven Oaks are the magnificent park and Castle of Knowle, the residence of the Sackvilles, Dukes of Dorset. An ancestor of this family, Lord Buckhurst, has left his name in literature by his tragedy of Gorboduc, the first imitation of the regular classic drama. Lest any Aristarchus should be inclined to reproach Shakspeare, for not having taken the author of Gorboduc as his model, it may be observed that this tragedy is but a tissue of monotonous narratives and speeches, and a cold and heavy accumulation of incidents. There is more

poetic merit in the verses which this same nobleman has introduced into his collection of legends, entitled the Mirror for Magistrates.

I will now transport you to more poetic ground, namely Penshurst Park, the birth-place of Sir Philip Sydney, the author of Arcadia, and the most accomplished knight of Queen Elizabeth's court. Beside a beautiful piece of water stands a memorable oak tree, which is said to have been planted at the birth of Sydney, and which has been successively celebrated by Ben Jonson and Waller. The Sacharissa of the latter was a Sydney.

Go boy, and carve this passion on the bark

Of yonder tree, which stands the sacred mark
Of noble Sydney's birth.

Sir Philip Sydney, who, in the court of a queen more pedantic than amiable, was distinguished above every other for chivalric gallantry; that knight, whose life, says Campbell, may be regarded as poetry in action; that great Captain who for his valour on the field of glory, was offered the crown of Poland at the death of Stephen Bartori, was originally merely a humble dependant on the Earl of Oxford. His dispute with that nobleman shews the length to which the aristocratic pretensions of the privileged classes were at that period carried. Sydney, having been called a puppy by the earl, gave him the lie, and went out of the Tennis Court where they had been playing, expecting to be followed. Lord Oxford did not, however, think proper to demand

honourable satisfaction for the affront; and the queen, interfering in the affair, reminded Sydney of the difference between a nobleman and a private gentleman. She required that he should make an apology; but Sydney refused to submit to this, and retired to Penshurst, where, for the amusement of his sister, he composed his Arcadia. This pastoral romance, which has been too highly praised by some, and too severely condemned by others, bears some resemblance to Urfe's Astrée and Montemayor's Diana. It is also in many respects an imitation of Sannazar, particularly in the verses in every kind of measure with which it is interspersed, and which are certainly not the best part of the work. Shakspeare, Spencer, and other distinguished poets have occasionally imitated Sydney; and Milton bitterly reproaches Charles I. for having borrowed from him a prayer which is introduced in the Ikon Basiliké, an eloquent manifesto long attributed to the royal victim. Indeed one of Milton's strange accusations against Charles is, that he sometimes read the Arcadia to divert the melancholy hours of his captivity. The taste for pastoral romances is now extinct; yet the Arcadia deserves to be read, were it only as a literary monument of the reign of Elizabeth. It exhibits the figurative style, the mythological allusions, and the fatiguing allegories which were so much in favour at the time. Sydney, like his contemporaries, sometimes indulged in affectation and concetti, merely to gratify the taste of the virgin queen; but the style of the Arcadia is cer

tainly more pure, nervous, and clear than that of any other work of the same date.

Sydney was but thirty-two years of age when he closed his brilliant career by a premature death. In the reign of Elizabeth the adventurous spirit of preceding ages survived the feudal chivalry and this spirit instigated the maritime enterprises, and even the piratical expeditions of Sir Francis Drake. Sydney formed the determination of secretly setting out on a voyage of discovery, but Elizabeth, being informed of his intention, forbade his visiting foreign countries in quest of adventures, in the same arbitrary way as she had opposed the wishes of the Poles, when they offered him the crown. Sydney was appointed governor of Flushing. He commanded the English cavalry in the army of his uncle, the Earl of Leicester, and he received a mortal wound in a battle which was fought near Zutphen. Exhausted by loss of blood, and tormented by thirst, he raised to his lips a draught of water which had been brought to him; but perceiving a poor soldier, more grievously wounded than himself, who cast a longing eye on the drink offered to his general, Sydney immediately handed the cup to the dying soldier, saying: "Comrade, you need it more than I." In his last moments he evinced the heroism of the warrior, the patience of the philosopher, and the resignation of the Christian. Like Socrates, he died reflecting on the immortality of the soul, and affectionately thinking of his friends. When I både adieu to the secular oak of Pens

hurst, I should, as a Frenchman, have been jealous of the glory of Sydney, had I not recollected that we may proudly oppose to him the life and death of the chevalier sans peur et sans reproche.

My preceding letter, and the subject of my present one, naturally remind me of the old cypress, which casts its vast shade over the terrace of your country house, and which is as dear and sacred to you as the chesnut tree described in the Mysteries of Udolpho was to St. Aubert. Trees which have shaded the cradle of the old proprietors of a domain, and to which local and family traditions are attached, are venerable witnesses of the past, and serve to link generations together. Even when not connected with historical circumstances, they revive recollections of childhood, which are always gratifying to the heart in mature age. I often think how many times you and I have sought shelter from a sudden shower beneath the great cypress, smiling to see that not a drop of rain could penetrate its thick foliage, How often have I climbed to its pointed summit, where I have found a pleasant seat on two crossed branches,