1 Sonnet 54. Because I breathe not love to every one, Of them, who in their lips love's standard bear ; But you fair maids, at length this truth shall find, That his right badge is worn but in the heart: Dumb swains, not chattering pies, do lovers prove; They love indeed, who quake to say they love! Lady Rich, as she appears in the volumes of Sir Philip Sidney, is a model of perfection, beautiful, and virtuous. She is by general consent allowed to be the original of the highly finished female character drawe by his hand in the Arcadia, and an exquisite character it is, one of those delightful visions "That youthful poets fancy when they love." In this romance he has assigned to her the poetic name of Philoclea, and has introduced her in the following beautiful passage:-" Methought there was more sweetness in Philoclea, but more majesty in Pamela; methought Philoclea's beauty only persuaded, but so persuaded, that all hearts must yield; Pamela's beauty. used violence, but such violence as no heart could resist. And it seemed that such proportion is between their minds. Philoclea is so bashful, as though her excellencies had stolen into her before she was aware; so humble, that she will put all pride out of countenance; in sum, such proceeding as will stir hope, but teach hope good manners. Pamela of high thoughts, who avoids not pride with not knowing her excellencies, but by making that one of her excellenlencies to be void of pride." He proceeds to describe the beauty of her person with all the ardour and all the voluptuousness of a poet and a lover. This description is introduced by the following climax, which is in itself worth all the metrical poetry in the romance. He calls her "The ornament of the earth, the model of heaven, the triumph of nature, the life of beauty, the queen of love, young Philoclea."" Sir Philip Sidney excelled in his delineations of female character. The two sisters in the Arcadia are sweetly drawn, and it is to be lamented that, from defective taste, he has blinded them with most unworthy associations. At the touch, however, of the Ithuriel's spear of impartial history this beautiful creation vanishes, and in its stead we have a mortifying picture of the frailty of our nature. Lady Rich, when no longer young, and the mother of a large family, abandoned her husband and children, and attached herself to one of her earliest lovers. This incident shall be related in the words of the seve ral authorities from whence it is derived. Sanderson, speaking of the affair of Somerset and the Countess of Essex remarks, "this case followed at the heels of a former divorce, fresh in memory, between the Lord Rich and his fair lady by mutual consent; but, because Mountjoy Earl of Devonshire married her while her lord lived, the King was so much displeased, as it broke the Earl's heart; for his Ma"jesty told him that "he had purchased a fair wife with a fonl soul," but this of Essex was a different example, when you seek to parallel them together." " Dr. Birch, an historian of more credit, gives the following account of this connection, on the authority of the Earl of Devonshire's secretary. "After the Irish wars, grief of unsuccessful love, brought him," (the Earl) "to his last end. He had engaged in a mutual affection, and even promises of marriage, with the Earl of Essex's sister Penelope, before she was married to Robert Lord Rich; whom she afterwards abandoned, and had several children by the Earl of Devonshire, who, finding her upon his return from Ireland delivered from her hnshand, married at Wanstead, in Essex, Dec. 26, 1605, the ceremony being performed by his Chaplain, Mr. William Laud, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury; an act which gave great concern to that divine upon cooler reflection, and exposed him to just censure. And his Lordships's conduct, with respect to that lady, gave such a wound to his reputation, though he endeavoured to excuse it by a written apology, that the impression which the disgrace made him was believed to have shortened his life." upon 1 In Winwood's Memoirs, is a letter from Mr. Chamberlain, dated April 5, 1606, who says, "The Earl of Devonshire left this life on Tuesday night last, soon and early for his years (cetate 43) but late enough for himself; and happy had he been if he had gone two or three years since; before the world was weary of him, or that he had left that scandal behind him. He was not long sick, past eight or ten days, and died of a burning fever and putrefaction of his lungs, a defect he never complained of. He hath left his lady, (for so she is now generally held to be,) 1500l. a year, and most of his moveables; and of five children that she fathered upon him at the parting from her former husband, I do not hear that he provided for more than three, leaving to the eldest son, I hear, between 3 and 4000l. a year, and to a daughter 60007. in money." The contradictions in these several accounts, and the circumstances that may be advanced in extenuation of this unfortunate lady's conduct, may be left to the reader's discernment. She was unhappily married at an early period, and was the object of attachment with two of the most accomplished and elegant men of the age in which she lived. The adage of "fortes creantur fortibus," may be very safely extended to the natural endowments of form and features; Lady Rich was without doubt remarkable for personal beauty, her two sons by Lord Rich, who make so conspicuous a figure in Clarendon's history, were the handsomest men of their day, and a portrait of her grand daughter Isabella first Countess of Radnor, now before the writer, presents one of the loveliest images ever created by that painter of the graces, Sir Peter Lelly. The following are from the Arcadia : An Epitaph. His being was in her alone And he not being she was none. A Song. Why dost thou haste away O Titan fair, the giver of the day? Is it to carry news To western wights, what stars in east appear? Is left a sun, whose beams thy place may usé ? What be her gifts that make her equal thee, Bend all thy light to see In earthy form inclos'd a heavenly spark: Thy running course cannot such beauties mark. No, no, thy motions be Hasten'd from us with bar of shadow dark, Because that thou, the author of our sight, Disdain'st we see thee stain'd with other's light. From a long piece, The lad Philisides Lay by a river side, In flow'ry field a gladder eye to please; His pipe was at his foot, |