  For the incidents in the life of Sir Philip Sidney, who is the central figure in this story of 'the spacious times of great Elizabeth,' I am indebted to Mr H. R. Fox Bourne's interesting and exhaustive Memoir of this noble knight and Christian gentleman. In his short life of thirty-one years are crowded achievements as scholar, poet, statesman and soldier, which find perhaps few, if indeed any equal, in the records of history; a few only of these chosen from among many appear in the following pages. The characters of Mary Gifford and her sister, and the two brothers, Humphrey and George Ratcliffe, are wholly imaginary. The books which have been consulted for the poetry of Sir Philip Sidney and the times in which he lived are—Vol. I. of An English Garner; M. Jusserand's Roman du Temps de Shakespere, and a very interesting essay on Sir Philip Sidney and his works, published in Cambridge in 1858. Woodside, Leigh Woods,   |
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