for whose character and attention to the interests of true religion he professes the greatest respect, whilst he makes a tender of his services and assistance, whenever they may be required.

FREDERICK III. the Elector Palatine, died on the fourteenth day of October, 1576, two days after the demise of Maximilian. He is represented by Gerard Brandt, as a prince endowed with great virtues. He had given the strongest proofs of his attention to the cause of the reformation, by liberally assisting the oppressed Protestants of France and the Low Countries. Mr. Sidney's uniform zeal for the welfare of the reformed religion did not permit him to decline his attendance on the electoral court, or to neglect the opportunity of executing another commission, by demanding the sums of money which had been advanced by his royal mistress towards the expense of carrying on a war with France. The English ambassador, of whom it was said, that " from a child he started into a man, without ever being a youth," conducted himself in the mangement of these matters with all the sagacity and discretion of an able and experienced statesman. Lord Burleigh himself, who was not always friendly to the

connexions of the Earl of Leicester, very cheerfully pronounced the most flattering eulogy on his industry and judgment, which could not have been exceeded by the wisdom of maturer years, or the exertions of a more enlarged experience.

Of his introduction into the imperial court, and of his reception there, he has given a correct narrative in an official letter to Walsingham, who was then secretary of state. He had his first audience on Easter-Monday, when, in obedience to the Queen's command, he made known unto the Emperor, how greatly her Majesty was grieved at the loss of so worthy a prince as his father was, the fruits of whose wisdom appeared both in maintaining the empire; and preventing the invasion of the Turks. He farther expressed her Majesty's good hope of him, that he would second his father in his virtues, and in the manner of his government: he urged her advice to him, to avoid the turbulent counsels which arose from the indulgence of private passion. The Emperor answered in Latin in very few words, declaring his grateful sense of the Queen's attention, and his resolution to imitate his father. The next day,"they are Mr. Sidney's own words," I delivered her "Majesty's letter to the Empress, with the singular signifi

"cation of her Majestie's great good will unto her, and her Majestie's request of her to advise her son to a wyse and "peaceable governmente. Of the Emperor deceased I "used but few wordes, because in troth I saw it bredd "some troble unto her, to hear him mentioned in that "kinde. She answered me with many courteouse speeches, "and greate acknowledging of her own beholdingnesse to "her Majestie. And for her son, she said, she hoped he "wolde do well, but that for her own parte, she said, she

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had given herselfe from the world, and woolde not greatly sturr from thence forward in it. Then did I "deliver the Queen of Fraunce's letter, she standing by the

Empresse, using such speeches as I thought were fitt for "her double sorrow, had her Majestie's good will unto her, "confirmed by her wise and noble governynge of herselfe in the tyme of her being in Fraunce (7). Her answer was full of humbleness, but she spake so low, that I "coulde not understande many of her wordes. From them "I went to the yonge princes, and paste of each syde certaine complimentes, which I will leave, because I feare

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(7) The lady Isabella, second daughter of the Emperor Maximilian, was married to Charles IX. King of France, in 1570. She now experienced a double pressure of affliction, from the recent deaths of her father and her husband

"me I have allreddy bene overlonge there. The rest of "the daise that I lay there, I informed myself as well as I "coolde of such particularities as I received in my instruc"tions; as 1. Of the Emperor's disposition; and his "brethren, 2. By whose advice he is directed. 3. When "it is likely he should marry. 4. What princes in “Jermany are most affected to him. 5. In what state he' " is left for revenews. 6. What good agremente there is "betwixt him and his brethren. 7. And what partage

they have. In these thinges I shall at my returne more

largely be hable and with more leysure to declare it. "Now only this much I will troble will troble you withe, that "the Emperor is holy (8) by his inclination given to the "warres, few of wordes, sullain of disposition, very secrete "and resolute, nothinge the mannerse his father had in "winninge men in his behaviour, but yet constant in' "keeping them; and such a one, as, though he promise "not much outwardly, but, as the Latins say, aliquid in recessu: his brother Earnest much lyke him in disposition,

but, that he is more franke, and forward, which per

chaunce the necessity of his fortune argues him to be: both extremely spaniolated."

HE

(8) Wholly.

He came to Heidelburg, the metropolis of the Electorate and Palatinate of the Rhine, on the last day of April, and had an audience the next day. He writes," I had from "her Majestie to condole with the Elector, and to perswade "him to unite with his brother. He made his Vice"chancelour to answere me, which he did in a very longe

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"

speeche withe thankes to her Majestie, and prayses of the worthy prince that is dead; the pointe of concorde with "his brother he thanked her Majestie for rememberinge, “ and fell into a common place of the necessite of brother's “love, but descended nothinge into his own particularitie, "or what he thought of him. One thing I was tolde to add in my speeche, to desyre him in her Majestie's name, to have mercifull consideration of the church of "the religion so notably established by his father, as in "all Jermany, there is not such a number of excellente

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learned men, and truly woolde rue (9) any man to see "the desolation of them. I laide before him, as well as I coolde the dangers of the mightiest princes of Christendom, by entering into lyke violent changes-the he should doe his worthy father, utterly to abolish

wronge

"that

(9) "It would rue"-A common ellipsis in our old English author.