Algernon Sidney

“ He had not loved his brother to half the measure that he hated the man who had brought him to death. Indolent in mind and temper, he loathed cruelty, and the blood of Algernon Sidney was not the only witness to the cruelty of James Stewart. Mr. Sidney had seen the look on the fair face of Lord Monmouth when he landed at the Tower stairs; he had seen well-born men and women, implicated only indirectly in the late rebellion, shipped off to Virginia as slaves, while the Italian Queen and her women quarrelled over the price of them ”

“ There are other minor gentry who seek to curry favor & get into office by adding their mite of abuse, but I think for coarseness & malignity of invention Algernon Sidney surpasses all party writers who have ever made pretensions to any decency of character. There is on this subject no such thing as a free press in Virginia, and of consequence the calumnies and misrepresentations of this gentleman will remain uncontradicted & will by many be believed to be true. He will be supposed to be the champion of state rights, instead of being what he really is, the champion of dismemberment. ”

“ A placid-looking woman in a big stiff white cap sat by the window sewing.
“Now, there’s Bonny,” said Alexia, still sitting on the floor, and looking over at her, “she’s thoroughly commonplace, and can’t rise to the superiority of that blessed child. And strange to say, Grace, his father can’t either. But I can; oh, you dear!” with that she caught Algernon by one of his fat little legs, and drew him to her. And then ensued a wild screaming on Algernon’s part, and a petting on Alexia’s, Grace backing off to the door, feeling that the room was too small for so much action. ”

“ It meets us in the last work of Algernon Sidney, which, like Eliot's treatise, bears about it the air of a martyr's cell. We find it again explicitly in the Oceana of Harrington, in the fragmentary writings of Shaftesbury, and in actual politics it finds triumphant expression at last in the eloquence that was like a battle-cry, in the energy that at moments seems superhuman, the wisdom, the penetrating foresight, of the mightiest of all England's statesmen-orators, the elder Pitt. It burns in clear flame in the men who come after him, in his own son, only less great than his great sire ”

“ Charles Scribner has published an original Life of Algernon Sidney, by G. Van Santvoord, including copious sketches of several of the distinguished republicans who were his fellow-laborers in the cause of political freedom. Among the biographical portraits introduced by the author, are those of Cromwell, Milton, Sir Henry Vane, Bradshaw, Marten, Scot, and others. They are drawn with considerable spirit, and evident historical fidelity. ”

“ Whitney, charmed that the rage usually produced by conversation with Cousin Algernon's wife was not forthcoming, began to laugh, too, so that the amusement of the tall lady was quenched in the general hilarity.
"What you can find in my words to cause such an unseemly outburst, I cannot see," she cried in a passion.
"I'm under the impression that you led off the amusement yourself," said Mr. King, wiping his eyes. "Phronsie, it's all very funny, isn't it?" looking down into the little wondering face.
"Is it really funny?" asked Phronsie. "Does the lady like it?" ”

“ He was condemned principally for the treatise in which he advocated the rights of subjects, under certain contingencies, to depose their king, and although this paper had never been published, or, in fact, printed, it was sufficient material for Jeffreys, who bullied the jury into a committal against Sidney. Algernon Sidney’s life had been as noble as was his name, but his unbending republican principles had made him the bête noire of both Charles and James, and any evidence by which he could80 be entrapped into a charge of treason was welcome to them. ”

“ In 1681 he was again sent to the Tower on the false charge preferred by Edward Fitzharris [q. v.] of writing the ‘True Englishman.’ Algernon Sidney's influence procured his release (February 1682) and his admission to the counsels of the opposition. He was arrested on the first rumours of the Rye House plot, and, turning informer at Russell's trial (July 1683) , gave accounts of meetings at Hampden's and Russell's houses, which mainly led to Russell's conviction. His evidence similarly ruined Sidney (Evelyn, ii. 190) . He was pardoned, and died in obscurity at York in April 1694. ”

“ Gale Jones being a noted radical orator at the time of his birth. And I suppose Algernon Sidney was prefixed to Gale in order to devote the new-born more emphatically to republican principles."
"Naturally, therefore, Algernon Sidney Gale Jones baptizes his house Cromwell Lodge, seeing that Algernon Sidney held the Protectorate in especial abhorrence, and that the original Gale Jones, if an honest radical, must have done the same, considering what rough usage the advocates of Parliamentary Reform met with at the hands of his Highness. ”

“ To which Udall replied, “It is for the queen to hear all things when the life of any of her subjects is in question.” The criminal felt what was just more than his judges; and yet the judge, though to be reprobated for his mode, calling so learned a man “Sirrah!” was right in the thing, when he declared that “you would bring the queen and the crown under your girdles.” It is remarkable that Udall repeatedly employed that expression which Algernon Sidney left as his last legacy to the people, when he told them he was about to die for “that Old Cause in which I was from my youth engaged.” ”

“ Algernon Sidney seems to have had an opinion of his brother rather below that of Danby, but, as Blencowe remarks, he had such an exalted opinion of himself that he had little capacity for a just appreciation of others. Romney's ‘Diary’ shows that, pleasure-loving as he was, he had an exceptionally square head where his own interests were concerned, and a decided gift for conciliating people who were irritated against him. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And you’ve frightened this blessed child;” as Algernon [263] put up his little lip, and scuttled over like a rabbit to the side of the bed next to his mother.
“I can’t help it—I can’t help it,” cried Grace wildly, and spinning around the room on her toes; “to think that my dear Miss Phronsie Pepper loves my cousin Roslyn May—oh, oh!”
“Do stop!” cried Alexia, picking off her boy from the bed to go after her and pluck her by the sleeve. “Hush, hush—Bonny will hear. And besides, it can’t ever be—no, never in all this world, I tell you; so what’s the use of hopping so.”
“Can’t ever be?” ”

“ If the Privy Councillors had not used their authority to keep the crowds out of the King's chamber, he had been smothered; the bedchamber men could do nothing to hinder it.
My niece, Martha, passed this way into Northamptonshire; my sister has been very kind to them, and keeps the child; the two sisters, I doubt, are not very kind, nor the two brothers-in-law. I dare say, by what Montague has told me, Mr. Algernon has been a good while at Paris, and not gone to Holland. Penn did what he could to help Fagg and hinder my brother, Pelham, who had not one gentleman against him. ”

“ There isn’t anything that’ll be quite the thing for him.”
“I suppose he can be President of the United States,” said Grace.
“Oh, dear me, no!” cried Alexia hastily. “There have been twenty-four of them already. I want my boy to be something new, and ahead of other people. And just think, it won’t be but a little while before he’ll be in college, and then he’ll [142] be through, and then I’m sure he’ll want to be something quite unusual; I’m sure he will.”
“What’s his name?” asked Grace, wishing she could see this wonderful baby.
“Algernon Rhys Dodge,” said Alexia ”

“ I was much comforted when he looked up from the letter and grinned.
“Ben Sidney’s boy! Well, your father was the only critter on two legs in Levant, in the old days, who could stand in a barrel, like I could, and jump out without touching the sides. You look as if you have some of his spryness and grit!”
“I hope so, sir. I have always worked at what has come to my hands to do.”
“Dod says business is a mite slow in Levant and that you want a job.” ”

“ Mr. King pushed into the house with his burden. “Don't anybody know,” he burst out, puffing up the stairs, and scolding furiously at every step, “enough to take better care of this child, than to have such goings on!”
“What is the matter, father?” asked Mrs. Whitney, coming up the stairs, after him. “What has happened out of the way?”
“'TWAS A NAUGHTY HORSE!'”
“Out of the way!” roared the old gentleman, irascibly, “well, if you want Phronsie racing off to the Post Office by herself, and nearly getting killed, poor child! yes, Marian, I say nearly killed!” he continued. ”

“ So it was all settled—“really and truly settled,” as Phronsie said. To-morrow Polly and Ben should take her to the town to be fitted, if Mr. Brown would let them have his wagon.
“Oh, mayn’t we go, too?” cried Joel; “we can sit in behind. Say, now, Mammy, mayn’t we?”
“Do, Mammy!” said David.
“Well, I don’t see why not, I’m sure,” said Mrs. Pepper; “’Twon’t cost anything; the wagon’s going anyway, and the horse is strong—if you’ll be good, Joey.”
“Oh, won’t I, though!” said Joel, giving his mother a hearty kiss, while little David beamed his satisfaction. ”

“ That is the thing I cannot get over; you have divested yourself in favour of the public of the dearest prejudice to which men can cling.... Good-bye. Go and make the French loved in Portugal, and leave me the hope that I shall see again a man who does so much honour to France. An Englishman had put upon his tomb: 'Here lies the friend of Philip Sidney;' allow me to write my own epitaph: 'Here lies the friend of the Marquis d'Argenson.'" [251]
"There is a place that one does not procure for cash down, and that I merit by the most respectful attachment and the most high esteem." ”

“ Go ahead, Alexia."
"No, I'm not going to," said Alexia obstinately, and leaning back in her chair; "you've just got to do it, Polly, so there!"
"There'll be no peace, Polly, for any of us until you do," said Pickering, thrusting his hands lazily into his pockets.
"And I think people would do better to go to work and help," said Alexia decidedly, "than to set other people against—oh, dear me!" as she found herself hopelessly entangled.
"You would do better to get yourself out of that sentence, Alexia," laughed
Jasper, "before you do anything else." ”

“ It was all very well for the men to laugh at Sidney and make fun of her news and her gossip. It was all very well for them to say—as the doctor said, according to his wife, who flashed her eyes at him—that Sidney made her news out of the whole cloth when she did not get it over the grapevine telegraph. Everybody knew how hard men always were on any woman who was not pretty. As though poor Sidney could help the length of her own nose! Let the mean men make fun as much as they pleased! ”

“ Just look at all this." Alexia waved her arms at the green draperies. "I'm going to pull the rest down anyway, though; that'll be fun," and she made a dash at it.
"No, no," said Polly, on her knees on the floor, "we must leave all that till Jasper comes back. Come, Alexia, help me look over these."
"Oh, bother!" cried Alexia, in great disdain, "I don't want to poke over those old things. You know yourself it's no earthly use; we'll never find it in all this world, Polly Pepper." ”

“ Phronsie looked back, the tears racing over her round cheeks.
"I'll bring it home," called Polly from the steps, where she was back among the knot of girls.
"My bag!" Phronsie continued to wail.
"Dear me!" cried Polly, "she must have it now." So she ran into the house to get it, where Phronsie had left it on her little cricket, Mr. Dyce meanwhile saying, "There, there, child, you shall have it," while he turned the little mare sharply about.
"We can't ever find the needle," said Alexia, rushing after Polly into the library, and getting down on her knees to prowl over the floor. ”

“ Speak low," said Sidney, bending over the fence and speaking herself in a hoarse whisper, "Doris has got a beau!"
"You don't say so!" exclaimed Mrs. Alexander under her breath, but not as yet much enlightened as to the cause of the extraordinary manœuvres which she had witnessed. "And who is it?"
"Old lady Gordon's grandson," said Sidney, trying vainly to keep the triumphant note out of her voice.
The doctor's wife involuntary pursed up her mouth; had she been a man, she certainly would have whistled. "Indeed!" was all she found to say. ”

“ Heavy steps sounded along the entry, and the door stood open, revealing the round, pleasant face of Mrs. Wilson, who, on his asking for the old gentleman, bade him come in, with a "Set down, do, an' I'll call pa."
Before "pa" came—which he did in his shirt sleeves, determined to show the young man no extra respect in the way of dressing up, as he knew pretty well who it was, "ma" having recognized him—Ingersol had time to rapidly take note of everything in the room, and to gauge the atmosphere of "Little Gray Hat's" home. ”