If the work was roughly completed by Philip, the duty remained for his
sister, with loving melancholy, to revise and prepare it for the press
after his death.
It appears to have been, also, at this time that Sidney and his sister
commenced their joint work of translating the Psalms into English
verse, to which it will be necessary to refer later.
Before alluding to the other literary labours of the Countess of
Pembroke, reference may be made to the few remaining years of the life
of her brother. Towards the close of the year we find him again at
Court, and sitting in Parliament for his native county. Although
holding the office of Cup Bearer to the Queen, he does not seem to
have received any distinct marks of the Royal favour for some years.
In fact, his family was neglected, and especially so his father, who
had become impoverished through his disinterested devotion to the
Crown. In the early part of 1583, however, Philip received from Her
Majesty the honour of knighthood, together with benefits of a more
substantial character. About the same time he married the daughter of
the distinguished statesman, Sir Francis Walsingham.
It was about two years later, when Sir Philip was yet only in the
flower of his manhood and the height of his fame, that he received the
appointment which led to his early death. The President of the
Netherlands, having applied to the English Queen for help against the
Duke of Alva, she sent an expedition under the Earl of Leicester, Sir
Philip being appointed General of the Horses and Governor of Flushing.
Thither he repaired in the month of November, 1585, leaving his young
and devoted wife (who had only shortly before given birth to a
daughter) in England. In his character as a soldier, Sir Philip was as
conscientious and brave as he was distinguished as a scholar and
diplomatist; but he was not therein so happy. Entering with marked
zeal and energy upon his duties, he conducted the campaign with
considerable success in spite of many difficulties.
The year 1586 proved to be one of successive sorrows to the Countess
of Pembroke. Her earliest affections had never waned. Blessed with
such parents and brothers as she was, life without them could never be
the same to her; and the rapidity with which the strokes of
bereavement followed each other gave no room for Time's healing power
to intervene. The first shock was sustained in the month of May by the
death of her father. But three months later her mother finished her
brave, devoted, and self-sacrificing life. However opinions may have
differed as to her husband, no word seems to have been spoken or
written of Lady Mary but in terms of the highest praise. "Born," says
a competent authority, "of the noblest blood, surviving ambitious
relatives who reached at royalty and perished, losing health and
beauty in the service of an exacting Queen, suffering poverty at
Court, supporting husband and children through all trials with wise
counsel and sweet hopeful temper, she emerges with pale lustre from
all the actors of that time to represent the perfect wife and mother
in a lady of unpretending, but heroic, dignity."[1] This is the mother
whom we find mirrored in her illustrious daughter.
[1] "Sir Philip Sidney." By J. A. Symonds, p. 180.
This double bereavement, whilst her brother was still at Flushing,
could not fail to have fallen heavily on the Countess. But this was
not all. The close bonds which bound together brother and sister, not
only in the most loving sympathy, but in interests and pursuits they
both loved best, were destined to be rudely broken. Within two months
came tidings of the disastrous events attending the siege of Zutphen
and the scene of generous chivalry, which from its solitary grandeur
has become familiar history. It was on the 22nd September, when Sir
Philip was endeavouring to stop a reinforcement of the enemy on the
way to Zutphen, that he received a wound in the thigh which
subsequently proved fatal. He had displayed great valour, having twice
had his horse shot under him and a third time returned to the charge.
Here occurred the incident that, so well known, cannot be too often
repeated. As Sir Philip was being taken from the field, weak and
exhausted through loss of blood, he wished some water to be brought to
him. As he was, however, in the act of raising the precious flask to
his lips, his attention was drawn to a dying soldier, whose gaze was
fixed longingly upon it. To this poor soldier he instantly handed the
coveted beverage, saying, "Thy necessity is greater than mine."
As all the world knows, Sidney's wound proved fatal. After much
suffering, borne with exemplary fortitude and resignation, he died in
the arms of his faithful wife, who had joined him some time before, on
the 7th October, 1586, while still only in the thirty-third year of
his age. So greatly was his loss felt that the whole country went into
mourning for him. His remains were brought to England and interred in
St. Paul's Cathedral. It is said that no gentleman appeared in any gay
or gaudy dress, either in the City or at the Court, for many months.
The poets and scholars of that cultured period vied with each other in
speaking in praise of the departed. As he was so entirely one in heart
with his twin-souled sister, the more immediate subject of this
sketch, one of these may be selected by way of illustration. Camden,
writing of him, says: "Philip Sidney, the great glory of his family,
the great hopes of mankind, the most lively pattern of virtue, and the
darling of the world, nobly engaging the enemy at Zutphen in
Guelderland, lost his life bravely and valiantly. This is that Sidney
whom, as Providence seems to have sent into the world to give the
present age a specimen of the ancients, so did it on a sudden recall
him, and snatch him from us, as more worthy of heaven than of earth.
Thus when virtue has come to perfection it presently leaves us, and
the best things are seldom lasting. Rest, then, in peace, O Sidney! if
I may be allowed this address. We will not celebrate thy memory with
tears, but with admiration. Whatever we loved best in thee (as the
best of authors speaks of the best governor of Britain), whatever we
admire in thee continues and will continue in the memories of men, the
revolutions of ages, and the annals of time. Many, as being inglorious
and ignoble, are buried in oblivion; but Sidney shall live to all
posterity. For, as the Greek poet has it, Virtue is beyond the reach
of fate."
An elegy, entitled, "The Doleful Lay of Clorinda," included by Spenser
in his "Astrophel," and by him ascribed to the Countess of Pembroke,
affords an example of her own writing and an intimation of the way in
which she bore her irreparable loss. A few stanzas only can be
quoted:--
"Ay me, to whom shall I my case complain,
That may compassion my impatient grief?
Or where shall I unfold my inward pain,
That my enriven heart may find relief?
Shall I unto the heavenly powers it show,
Or unto earthly men that dwell below?
* * * * *
"Woods, hills, and rivers now are desolate,
Sith he is gone the which did all them grace;
And all the fields do wail their widow state,
Sith death their fairest flower did late deface.
The fairest flower in field that ever grew,
Was Astrophel; that was, we all may rue.
"What cruel hand of cursed foe unknown,
Hath cropt the stalk that bore so fair a flower?
Untimely cropt, before it well were grown,
And clean defaced in untimely hour.
Great loss to all that ever him did see;
Great loss to all, but greatest loss to me!
"Ah! no; he is not dead, nor can he die;
But lives for aye in blissful Paradise.
* * * * *
"There liveth he in everlasting bliss,
Sweet spirit! never fearing more to die;
Nor dreading harm from any foes of his,
Nor fearing savage beasts' more cruelty.
Whilst we here, wretches, wail his private lack,
And with vain vows do often call him back."
Of the life of the Countess of Pembroke subsequently to the death of
her brother there is not much to be gleaned. Her chief immediate care
was to complete and prepare for publication the manuscripts left by
him. This labour of love she doubtless found to be one of sweet
melancholy, which served, if anything could do, to endear still more
his memory. It is stated that Sir Philip, on his death-bed, expressed
a desire that the _Arcadia_ should be committed to the flames. But,
with a greater regard for his reputation than a simple compliance with
his desire would have evinced, his sister lovingly undertook the task
of revising, correcting, and completing this work. How much we are
indebted to the pruning and shaping of the gentler hand we do not
know. She carefully removed all blemishes, which, though not uncommon
in the literature of the time, could not but offend her more refined
sense of delicacy. It is, indeed, probable that the share of the
sister in the romance is much larger than has been commonly supposed.
In an address prefixed to some earlier editions it is said: "It moved
that noble lady, to whose honour consecrated, to whose protection it
was committed, to take in hand the wiping away those spots wherewith
the beauties thereof were unworthily blemished. But as often repairing
a ruinous house, the mending of some old part occasioneth the making
of some new, so here her honourable labour began in correcting the
faults, indeed in supplying the defects; by view of what was ill done,
guided to the consideration of what was not done. Which part, with
what advice entered into, most by her doing, all by her directing, if
they may be entreated not to divine, which are unfurnished of means to
discern, the rest, it is hoped, will favourably censure." "It is now,"
adds the writer, "by more than one interest, the Countess of
Pembroke's 'Arcadia,' done, as it was, for her, as it is, by her.
Neither shall these pains be the last (if no unexpected accident cut
off her determination) which the everlasting love of her excellent
brother will make her consecrate to his memory."
The "Arcadia" was, according with the intention thus expressed, not
the only memorial of the loving sympathy of the Countess of Pembroke
and her brother. In addition to their joint translation of the
Psalter, Sir Philip, at the time of his death, had almost completed a
translation from the French of a work by his friend Philip de Mornay
Du Plessis on "The True Use of the Christian Religion." This was
completed and published a few months after the death of Sir Philip.
The intimacy of her brother with Du Plessis doubtless induced the
Countess also to study his works, which so much commended themselves
to her that, some years later, she translated and published "A
Discourse of Life and Death." The following passage from the preface,
written by the Countess, affords a pleasant illustration of her prose
writings, and at the same time is strikingly suggestive of her
thoughtful character:--
"It seems to me strange," she writes, "and a thing much to be
marvelled, that the labourer to repose himself hasteneth, as it were,
the course of the sun; that the mariner rows with all his force to
attain the port, and with a joyful cry salutes the descried land; that
the traveller is never quiet nor content till he be at the end of his
voyage; and that we in the meanwhile, tied in this world to a
perpetual task, tost with continual tempest, tired with a rough and
cumbersome way, cannot yet see the end of our labour but with grief,
nor behold our port but with tears, nor approach our home and quiet
abode but with horror and trembling. This life is but a Penelope's
web, wherein we are always doing and undoing; a sea open to all winds,
which, sometime within, sometime without, never cease to torment us; a
weary journey through extreme heats and colds, over high mountains,
steep rocks and thievish deserts. And so we term it, in weaving this
web, in rowing at this oar, in passing this miserable way. Yet, lo!
when Death comes to end our work; when she stretcheth out her arms to
pull us into port; when, after so many dangerous passages and
loathsome lodgings, she would conduct us to our true home and
resting-place; instead of rejoicing at the end of our labour, of
taking comfort at the sight of our land, of singing at the approach of
our happy mansion, we would fain (who would believe it?) retake our
work in hand, we would again hoist sail to the wind, and willingly
undertake our journey anew. No more then remember we our pains; our
ship-wrecks and dangers are forgotten; we fear no more the travails
and the thieves. Contrariwise, we apprehend death as an extreme pain,
we doubt it as a rock, we fly it as a thief. We do as little children,
who all the day complain, and when the medicine is brought them, are
no longer sick; as they who all the week long run up and down the
streets with pain of the teeth, and, seeing the barber coming to pull
them, out, feel no more pain. We fear more the cure than the disease,
the surgeon than the pain. We have more sense of the medicine's
bitterness, soon gone, than of a bitter languishing, long continued;
more feeling of death, the end of our miseries, than the endless
misery of our life, and wish for that we ought to fear."
The literary labours of the Countess of Pembroke were not, however,
confined to prose. The work by which she is most deservedly remembered
as a writer was the unique translation of the Book of Psalms, begun
during the latter part of the life of Sir Philip, and completed by his
sister after his death. This work is interesting not only as a joint
production, the result of a loving unity of thought and pursuit, but
also from its remarkable character. It bears at once the stamp of
serious thought, scholarship, and rare culture. Composed of various
kinds of verse, to suit best the subject and scope of the Psalm, it
contains passages of striking power and beauty. It does not seem to be
settled with absolute certainty which portions were written by Sir
Philip and which by his sister. Unfortunately, the original
manuscript, which was for many years preserved in the library at
Wilton House, appears to have been lost. Probably the earlier portions
were, if written by the brother, so written while he was enjoying much
of his sister's society, either at Wilton or at the old residence
overlooking Coniston Lake, in which the Countess for a period resided,
and whither Sir Philip would come riding over the hills to visit her.
The editor of the Chiswick Press edition, issued in 1823, in referring
to the various MS. copies in existence, gives a substantial reason for
endorsing the opinion of Dr. Woodford, a contemporary of the Sidneys,
that the earlier part, as far as the 43rd Psalm, was the work of Sir
Philip, and the remainder, much the greater portion, by the sister.
Mr. Ruskin has done excellent service in publishing in his
"Bibliotheca Pastorum" portions of the first half of the work. He has
stated that, in commencing, he had expected to have little difficulty
in distinguishing Sidney's work from that of any other writer
concerned in the book. "But," he says, "I found, with greater
surprise, that, instead of shining out with any recognisable
brightness, the translations attributed by tradition to Sidney
included many of the feeblest in the volume; and that, while several
curious transitions in manner, and occasional fillings and retouchings
by evidently inferior writers, were traceable through the rest, the
entire body of the series was still animated by the same healthy and
impetuous spirit, and could by no criticism of mine be divided into
worthy and unworthy portions." This significant and authoritative
criticism, however, only strengthens the assumption that the greater
portion, and the best, is the work of the sister. There is no reason
to suppose that her power as a writer or skill as a versifier was
inferior to that of her brother. The objection advanced by some, that
she would not be likely to have had the requisite knowledge of Hebrew
to undertake such a work, is even of less importance. The period was
remarkable for female learning. Her kinswoman, Lady Jane Grey, is said
by Sir Thomas Chaloner, a contemporary, to have been well versed in
Hebrew, Chaldee, Arabic, French, and Italian, in addition to Greek and
Latin; and, remembering the disposition and pursuits of the Countess,
it is not at all improbable that she possessed the necessary learning
for the important work attributed to her. Daniel, also a poet of the
period, referring to this version of the Psalms, says:--
"By this, great lady, thou must then be known,
When Wilton lies low levelled in the ground;
And this is that which thou must call thine own,
Which sacrilegious time cannot confound;
Here thou survivest those; here thou art found
Of late succeeding ages, fresh in fame,
Where in eternal brass remains thy name."
It is also a noticeable fact that in a portrait of the Countess, a
copy of which is prefixed to the edition before mentioned, the lady is
taken holding in her hand a copy of "David's Psalms."
We cannot do more than give a few passages of this exquisite work of
Mary Sidney. They will serve to show how carefully the subject had
been studied, having regard to the circumstances, the mind and
purposes of the psalmist, and how the meaning and beauty are
elaborated and emphasized.