paid but little respect to Sidney on account
of his youth, and seeming inexperience; but having had occasion to
hear him talk, and give some account of the manners of every court
where he had been, he was so struck with his vivacity, the propriety
of his observations, and the lustre of his parts, that he ever
afterwards used him with familiarity, and paid him more respect in his
private character, than he did to any ambassador from whatever court.
Some years after this, Wood observes, that in a book called Cabala, he
set forth his reasons why the marriage of the queen with the duke of
Anjou was disadvantageous to the nation. This address was written at
the desire of the earl of Leicester, his uncle; upon which, a quarrel
happened between him and the earl of Oxford, which perhaps occasioned
his retirement from court for two years, when he wrote that renowned
romance called Arcadia. We find him again in high favour, when the
treaty of marriage was renewed; he was engaged with Sir Fulk Greville
in tilting, for the diversion of the court; and at the departure of
the duke of Anjou from England, he attended him to Antwerp [2].

On the 8th of January, 1582, he received the honour of knighthood
from the queen; and in the beginning of the year 1585, he designed an
expedition with Sir Francis Drake into America; but being hindered by
the Queen, who thought the court would be deficient without him, he
was made Governor of Flushing, (about that time delivered to the Queen
for one of the cautionary-towns) and General of the Horse. In both
these places of important trust, his behaviour in point of prudence
and valour was irreproachable, and gained additional honour to his
country, especially when in July 1586 he surprized Axil, and preserved
the lives and reputation of the English army, at the enterprise of
Gravelin. About that time he was in election for the crown of Poland,
but the queen refused to promote this his glorious advancement, not
from jealousy, but from the fear of losing the jewel of her times. He
united the statesman, the scholar and the soldier; and as by the one,
he purchased fame and honour in his life, so by the other, he has
acquired immortality after death.

In the year 1586, when that unfortunate stand was made against the
Spaniards before Zutphen, the 22d of September, when he was getting
upon the third horse, having had two slain under him before, he was
wounded with a musket-shot out of the trenches, which