SIR PHILIP SIDNEY, author of “Arcadia,” and the “Defense of Poesy” was born in Kent, England, November 29th, 1554. After leaving the University of Oxford, he traveled several years in various European countries “to complete his education.” On his return he came into such high favor with Queen Elizabeth that she called him one of the “jewels of her crown.” At the age of twenty-two he was pronounced “one of the ripest statesmen in Europe,” by no less a judge of statesmanship than William the Silent. This early ripeness of intellect is attested by his “Arcadia,” his “Sonnets,” his “Defense of Poesy,” and other works he left behind when he died at the early age of thirty-two, as a result of a wound received at the battle of Zutphen, September 22d, 1586. It is said by the critical that the story of his generosity in passing to a dying soldier the cup of water he was about to drink when wounded at Zutphen is not sufficiently attested to be regarded as historical, but it is one of the things which it is well to believe on the general principle that it is much easier for the critical to assert a negative than to prove it.