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II.

BAYARD - SIDNEY - MORAL FREEDOM - ESTHETIC ELEMENT.

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now, leaving sententious judgments and the abstract brevities of definition, let us, in our endeavor to comprehend gentlemanhood, confront it concretely, and bring before our minds the two foremost gentlemen of Christendom, - the Chevalier Bayard and Sir Philip Sidney. The lives and characters of these two, - even briefly sketched as they must be here, - by presenting in fullest actuality the moving, speaking gentleman, will help us to deduce what is his interior, essential nature.

And first, as coming first in time, the "Good Knight, without fear and without reproach." Born in the South of France, towards the end of the fifteenth century, when Chivalry still survived in its forms and usages, from which had died out the Christian spirit, when gross living and rapaciousness and perfidy were characteristics of knights and nobles and sovereigns, the Chevalier Bayard, by the splendor and the uninfected purity of his nature, shone amid the corruptions and affectations of decay, an example of loyalty, of self-sacrifice, of generosity, of unclouded honor, of romantic courage, that in the healthiest days of Chivalry would have made him, amid the noblest and most chivalrous, a model of knighthood. So uniquely towering was his fame, that high-spirited adversaries, who in their extremity would have died rather than yield them, were proud to drop the point of their swords, as from behind the opponent's closed vizor they heard the name of Bayard.

When the French had taken Brescia, in Lombardy, and he lay for several weeks wounded in the house of a wealthy citizen, who had fled, he refused the large customary ransom which the wife brought him, as he was about to depart, and, sending for her two daughters, divided the sum between them. On another occasion, after sternly rebuking a base, impoverished mother, who would have sold him her child, he gave the daughter a portion that enabled her to espouse her lover. Having, by a shrewd, bold movement, captured from the enemy fifteen thousand gold ducats, he bestowed one half of them on his Lieutenant, - thereby enriching him, - and divided the other half among his followers. Nor was this an isolated act of munificence. It was his habit, not only to share his purse with his friends, but to give away the many sums that came to him in presents and prizes. And while he was as affable as he was brave, he was as just as he was liberal. Gifted in rare measure with the sterling qualities for command, he was cheerful in obedience to superiors. Never subject to the ignoble gnawings of envy, he enjoyed as he did his own the triumphs of companions. Many contemporary knights were sans peur; he alone was sans reproche. So true and great was the soul of Bayard, that the noblest and purest grow nobler and purer in the glow of its perpetual light.

About eighty years later than Bayard, was born his English competitor, Sir Philip Sidney, one of the glories of the resplendent reign of Queen Elizabeth, -a power, although so shortlived, among the potencies that bear the immortal names of Shakspeare, of Bacon, of Raleigh, of Spenser, of Howard, of Drake, of Ben Jonson. Precocious, like Bayard, - who, dying on the field of battle at forty-eight, was thirty-four years a soldier, - Sidney, born in an epoch of general and deep intellectual ferment, at the age when Bayard donned armor, entered, the classmate of Raleigh and Spenser, the University of Oxford, where his young mind, at once quick and capacious, fed on every kind of knowledge, and sought preeminence in whatever is attainable by genius and labor. On quitting Oxford, at eighteen, he set out in a brilliant company on a tour of travel, going first to Paris, where his bearing and conversation fascinated the King, Charles IX., and the young King of Navarre, afterwards Henry IV. From France he journeyed through Germany to Italy, consorting with the most learned and accomplished of those countries. At Padua he made acquaintance with the renowned poet, Tasso; and Scipio Gentilis, a famous scholar of Italy, inscribed to him a Latin translation of Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered. Later, Hakluyt and the learned Lipsius dedicated works to him in terms of cordial eulogium. On his return to England, he became the delight of the English Court, to which, says Fuller, "He was so essential, that it seemed maimed without his company, being a complete master of matter and language." Queen Elizabeth called him her Philip. The following year, although only twenty-two, he went ambassador to Germany and Poland, acquitting himself so well as to draw high praise even from the severe, exacting Burleigh. Among his friends and admirers was the great Prince of Orange; and Don John of Austria, though hating all heretics, was won by his manners and attainments. For a time he represented his native county in Parliament; and, finally, in 1586, he joined his uncle, the Earl of Leicester, in a campaign in the Netherlands