to have them with him in the library, which is hung
with the portraits of Sidney, Surrey, Raleigh, Wyat, and others. "Look
at those models of true English gentlemen, my sons," he would say with
enthusiasm; "those were men that wreathed the graces of the most
delicate and refined taste around the stern virtues of the soldier;
that mingled what was gentle and gracious, with what was hardy and
manly; that possessed the true chivalry of spirit, which is the exalted
essence of manhood. They are the lights by which the youth of the
country should array themselves. They were the patterns and idols of
their country at home; they were the illustrators of its dignity
abroad. 'Surrey,' says Camden, 'was the first nobleman that illustrated
his high birth with the beauty of learning. He was acknowledged to be
the gallantest man, the politest lover, and the completest gentleman of
his time.' And as to Wyat, his friend Surrey most amiably testifies of
him, that his person was majestic and beautiful, his visage 'stern and
mild;' that he sung, and played the lute with remarkable sweetness;
spoke foreign languages with grace and fluency, and possessed an
inexhaustible fund of wit. And see what a high commendation is passed
upon these illustrious friends: 'They were the two chieftains, who,
having travelled into Italy, and there tasted the sweet and stately
measures and style of the Italian poetry, greatly polished our rude and
homely manner of vulgar poetry from what it had been before, and
therefore may be justly called the reformers of our English poetry and
style.' And Sir Philip Sidney, who has left us such monuments of
elegant thought, and generous sentiment, and who illustrated his
chivalrous spirit so gloriously in the field. And Sir Walter Raleigh,
the elegant courtier, the intrepid soldier, the enterprising
discoverer, the enlightened philosopher, the magnanimous martyr. These
are the men for English gentlemen to study. Chesterfield, with his cold
and courtly maxims, would have chilled and impoverished such spirits.
He would have blighted all the budding romance of their temperaments.
Sidney would never have written his Arcadia, nor Surrey have challenged
the world in vindication of the beauties of his Geraldine. "These are
the men, my sons," the Squire will continue, "that show to what our
national character may be exalted, when its strong and powerful
qualities are duly wrought up and refined. The solidest bodies are
capable o