SIDNEY, or SYDNEY, ALGERNON (1622-1683).—­Political writer, s. of the 2nd Earl of Leicester, and grand-nephew of Sir Philip S., in his youth travelled on the Continent, served against the Irish Rebels, and on the outbreak of the Civil War, on the side of the Parliament.  He was one of the judges on the trial of Charles I., and though he did not attend, he thoroughly approved of the sentence.  He opposed the assumption of the supreme power by Cromwell.  After the Restoration he lived on the Continent, but receiving a pardon, returned in 1677 to England.  He, however, retained the republican principles which he had all his life advocated, fell under the suspicion of the Court, and was in 1683, on the discovery of the Rye House Plot, condemned to death on entirely insufficient evidence, and beheaded on Tower Hill, December 7, 1683.  Though no charge of personal venality has been substantiated, yet it appears to be certain that he received money from the French King for using his influence against war between the two countries, his object being to prevent Charles II. from obtaining command of the war supplies.  S. was deeply versed in political theory, and wrote Discourses concerning Government, pub. in 1698.

SIDNEY, SIR PHILIP (1554-1586).—­Poet and romancist, s. of Sir Henry S., Deputy of Ireland, and Pres. of Wales, b. at the family seat of Penshurst, and ed. at Shrewsbury School and Oxf.  He was at the French Court on the fateful August 24, 1572—­the massacre of St. Bartholomew—­but left Paris soon thereafter and went to Germany and Italy.  In 1576 he was with his f. in Ireland, and the next year went on missions to the Elector Palatine and the Emperor Rudolf II.  When his father’s Irish policy was called in question, he wrote an able defence of it.  He became the friend of Spenser, who dedicated to him his Shepherd’s Calendar.  In 1580 he lost the favour of the Queen by remonstrating against her proposed marriage with the Duke of Anjou.  His own marriage with a dau. of Sir Francis Walsingham took place in 1583.  In 1585 he was engaged in the war in the Low Countries, and met his death at Zutphen from a wound in the thigh.  His death was commemorated by Spenser in his Astrophel.  S. has always been considered as the type of English chivalry; and his extraordinary contemporary reputation rested on his personal qualities of nobility and generosity.  His writings consist of his famous pastoral romance of Arcadia, his sonnets Astrophel and Stella, and his Apologie for Poetrie, afterwards called Defence of Poesie.  The Arcadia was originally written for the amusement of his sister, afterwards Countess of Pembroke, the “Sidney’s sister, Pembroke’s mother,” of Ben Jonson.  Though its interest now is chiefly historical, it enjoyed an extraordinary popularity for a century after its appearance, and had a marked influence on the immediately succeeding literature.  It was written in 1580-81 but not pub. until 1590, and is a medley of poetical prose, full of conceits, with occasional verse interspersed.  His Defence of Poesie, written in reply to Gosson (q.v.), is in simple and vigorous English.  S. also made a translation of the Psalms.