Henry Sidgwick Bradlaugh

“ Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother.
Death! ere thou hast slain another
Learned and fair and good as she,
Time shall throw a dart at thee."
Sir Philip Sidney was her brother, born at Penshurst in 1554. The estate came through various owners, until, in the reign of Henry II., it was granted to Sir William Sidney, who commanded a wing of the victorious English at Flodden. Sir Philip, we are told, would have been King of Poland had not Queen Elizabeth interposed, "lest she should lose the jewel of her times." Algernon Sidney, beheaded on Tower Hill, was his descendant. ”

“ For it has become plain that though two different kinds of conduct cannot both be right under the same circumstances, two contradictory opinions as to the rightness of conduct may possibly both be expedient; it may conduce most to the general happiness that A should do a certain act, and at the same time that B, C, D should blame it. The Utilitarian of course cannot really join in the disapproval, but he may think it expedient to leave it unshaken ”

“ It seems clear that the prominence given to this Virtue in historic systems of morality has been due to the great social importance that must always attach to it, so long as communities of men are continually called upon to fight for their existence and well-being: but still the quality of bravery is the same essentially, whether it be exhibited for selfish or social ends. ”

“ Mr Sidney laughed.
'He shall come to no harm, Mistress Gifford. My hand is ready to stop him if he falls. But, indeed, there is no fear; he sits square and upright, like a man.'
The beautiful, well-trained horse arched his neck in reply to his master's 'Softly, Hero—quietly,' as he stepped out, raising his feet deliberately, with that stately air which marks high breeding, and pacing down the rugged path of the lane, with slow and measured tread, Mr Sidney at his side, the groom in attendance following with the other horse. ”

“ Only a few words passed, but when Philip had moved away there was a change in Lady Rich's face, and the lines of discontent and the restless glance of her dark eyes, [Pg 150] seeking for admiration, were exchanged for a satisfied smile, which had something also of sadness in it.
'That lady is Lord Rich's wife, and Mr Sidney's love. He will never look with favour on anyone besides. The pity of it! And,' she added in a low voice, 'the shame too!'
'But, hush!' as Lucy was about to respond. ”

“ Sidney, mastering his own wretchedness, which he could not altogether conceal, made attempts to strengthen her.
"When things are at the worst they begin to mend," he said. "It can't be much longer before he gets work. And look here, Mrs. Hewett, I won't hear a word against it; you must and shall let me lend you something to go on with!"
"I dursn't, I dursn't, Sidney! John won't have it. He's always a-saying: 'Once begin that, an' it's all up; you never earn no more of your own.' It's one of his fancies, an' you know it is. You'll only make trouble, Sidney." ”

“ If you can decide to travel with me for a year, be frank with Mr. Peak, and ask him to wait so long—till you have made up your mind. He cannot reasonably find fault with you, for he knows all you have to consider. Won't this be best?'
Sidwell was long silent.
'I will go with you,' she said at last, in a low voice. 'I will ask him to grant me perfect liberty for a year.'
When she came down next morning it was Sidwell's intention to seek a private interview with her father, and make known her resolve to go abroad with Sylvia; but Mr. Warricombe anticipated her. ”

“ He had a lady on his arm, and he passed with her between himself and Mr. Bradlaugh, so that her dress trailed over the hero's feet. It was a wretched display of insolence and cowardice. But the lady must be exonerated. She looked annoyed, her cheeks reddened, and her eyelids fell. It is so hard for a woman to resist the attraction of courage, and the coward by her side must have suffered in her estimation.
There was a crowded meeting that evening at the Hall of Science, at which I had the honor of speaking, Mr. Bradlaugh's greeting was tremendous. ”

“ Bradley,” said Lady Mary with just the brush of a smile across her lips, “one does like them. Why not?”
“Dissolute people? People with no sense of conduct or duty? I’ve never met them. Giles has never, I am sure, met them before. I don’t understand,” said Mrs. Bradley, and her drawing-room seemed to be saying that it did not understand either;—the Watts’s “Love and Life” and “Love and Death,” the bowls of primroses picked by Jack and Francis, the crétonne covers, and the crayon drawing of Mrs. Bradley’s grandmother, a dove-eyed lady with lace tied over her head and a cameo brooch. ”

“ A sharp altercation was going on between two of the servants, each wishing to have the honour of taking Lady Mary Sidney's youngest son on his pillion.
Presently the boy himself appeared in his black velvet riding suit, booted and spurred, his red-gold locks—the true Sidney badge—falling over his shoulders from under the stiff, pointed cap which shaded his forehead.
'I am to ride alongside of you, not on the pillion like a babe. Peace! I tell you, Mr Philip saith so. ”

“ Or, at all events, only heart enough for one person.”
“How did you find her?” Alix asked Mrs. Bradley when they were left alone. “She will be too unhappy now, so soon after her father's death, to think of Giles. But for the future, is there hope did you feel?”
“I really don't know what to think, dear,” said Mrs. Bradley, taking off her hat and putting up her hand, with a gesture so like Giles, to push back her hair. “Toppie is rather strange. That is what I feel most. She doesn't seem unhappy. Not more unhappy than she's always been, I mean. She talked about Owen all the time. ”

“ Sidney at once handed it to the dying man with the famous words, ‘Thy necessity is yet greater than mine’ (Greville, p. 145; cf. Motley, ii. 50 seq., where the dates, given in the new style, are ten days later) .
From the camp Sidney was carried in Leicester's barge down the Yssel and the Rhine to Arnhem, and lodged in the house of a lady named Gruithuissens. His wife, although far advanced in pregnancy, hastened from Flushing to nurse him, and his brother Robert was a frequent visitor to the sick-chamber. The wound failed to heal, and ultimately mortified. ”

“ She had the sensation of drowning, yet of keeping calm while she drowned, resourceful, even as she measured her calamity, and she heard her own voice speaking from far above her it seemed—while beneath Mrs. Bradley's eyes, beneath Giles's, her thoughts raced swiftly, swiftly;—“Yes; we should, of course, have seen him, but we were away; we were away in the country at that time.”
“At Cannes, I suppose,” said Mrs. Bradley. “What a pity for Owen. How lonely he must have been. He hadn't time to come home, you see; only the two days. ”

“ Roach, who also lived in Clerkenwell, and was a working jeweller. Two years later the father died, all but bankrupt. The few pounds realised from his effects passed into the hands of Mr. Roach, and were soon expended in payment for Sidney’s board and lodging.
His bereavement possibly saved Sidney from a young-manhood of foolishness and worse. In the upper world a youth may ‘sow his wild oats’ and have done with it; in the nether, ‘to have your fling’ is almost necessarily to fall among criminals. ”

“ Bradley once pertinently argued against Professor Sidgwick, no philosopher is entitled to assert its truth on moral grounds unless he is prepared to maintain that he could produce more goodness and less badness by such an exact proportioning of happiness to merit than without it. ”

“ Probably this implies little more than that the ballad was known in Henry VIII.’s day. Three broadsides are known, two in the Roxburghe and one in the Pepys collection. Both the Roxburghe ballads are later than the Folio version.
The Story is derived from that of Roswall and Lillian. Roswall, the king’s son, of Naples, overhearing three lords bewailing their long imprisonment, promised to set them free, and did so by stealing the keys from under the king’s pillow at night. The king, on hearing of their escape, vowed to slay at sight the man who had set them free. ”

“ Bradlaugh is a very big man, as well in mind as in body, and large objects ought never to be inspected with a microscope. He has been the hero of a hundred fights, and it may well be that he has not on all occasions conducted himself with the perfect chivalry of a knight of romance. ”

“ Thomas Sidney was very small for his age, and was treated as youngest children often are treated by the elders of a family, as if he were much younger than his years.
His delicacy appealed particularly to his brother [Pg 182] Philip, who was always ready to stand his friend, when his elder brother Robin was inclined to exercise a boyish tyranny over him.
'Yes, forsooth, Thomas, you shall ride old Joan. Come, let me see you mount. That is it, spring into the saddle; nay, do not take the rein so slackly, and settle firmly in the saddle, nor use the stirrup for support. ”

“ He strongly pressed me to take a trip to sunny Italy for the same object, and recited some verses which he had composed on Garibaldi. Mr Bradlaugh dwelt very little indeed upon religious matters, only saying that if he were “religious” he should be a Roman Catholic. Thus the time on our journey from Silsden to Keighley sped very pleasantly. It was almost midnight when we got into the town. While at Keighley, Mr Bradlaugh stayed with Mr John Rhodes, who conducted a small temperance hotel in the corner of the Market-place. ”

“ You will be about the Court with Mr Sidney, and you will keep a watch over her. I know you will.'
'Yes, as you know full well, I will serve you in that or in any way, nor ask for my guerdon till such time [Pg 80] as you may see good to grant it to me, your friend always, Mistress Gifford, your lover, your humble suitor, when—'
'Hush,' she said, laying her hand on his arm, 'such words may not pass between you and me. Did I not tell you, did I not warn you that so it must be. ”

“ The sound of these words by Sir Philip Sidney, sung in a sweet melodious voice, was borne upon the summer air of a fair June evening in the year 1590.
It came through the open casement from the raised seat of the parlour at Hillbrow, where once Mistress Ratcliffe had sat at her spinning-wheel, casting her watchful eyes from time to time upon the square of turf lying between the house and the entrance gate, lest any of her maidens should be gossiping instead of working. ”

“ Sir Philip Sidney’s apologetic words are well known:— ‘Certainly I must confesse my own barbarousnes, I never heard the olde song of Percy and Duglas, that I found not my heart mooved more then with a Trumpet.’ Addison was bolder. ‘It is impossible that anything should be universally tasted and approved by a Multitude, tho’ they are only the Rabble of a Nation, which hath not in it some peculiar Aptness to please and gratify the Mind of Man.’ With these and other encouragements the popular poetry of England was not lost to sight ”

“ Bradley said: “Is your mother well, dear? How did you leave her?” This was the first inquiry about Maman she had heard, the first interest she had seen displayed. Giles, she remembered it now, had volunteered not a remark or question.
“She wrote so kindly,” said Mrs. Bradley. “She understood, I know, how much we hoped to see you here, how much pleasure it would give us. I wish she could have come, too. Owen so often wrote about you both, from Cannes. He said you made him think of Jeanne d'Arc, and your mother of Madame Récamier.—I'm glad you still do your hair like that,” said Mrs. ”

“ Warricombe had eaten such an excellent lunch, that Sidwell could not feel uneasy.
'We'll see how you are this evening. At all events, it will be safer for you not to go downstairs. If you lie quiet for an hour or two, I can look for those pamphlets that father wants.'
'Just as you like, dear.'
By three o'clock the invalid was calmly slumbering. Having entered the bedroom on tiptoe and heard regular breathing, Sidwell went down and for a few minutes lingered about the hall. A servant came to her for instructions on some domestic matter ”

“ One day, at Turner-street, he told me that a creditor of this species had coolly invited him to dinner. "Hang it," he said, "you can't dine with a man who charges you sixty per cent."
Another recollection I have of Mr. Bradlaugh is in connexion with the funeral of Mr. Austin Holyoake. The death of this gentleman was a great loss to the Freethought cause. He was highly respected by all who knew him. The geniality of his disposition was such that he had many friends and not a single enemy. For some years he was Mr. Bradlaugh's printer and publisher, and a frequent contributor to his journal. ”

“ John sat with dark brow, his eyes staring on vacancy.
‘It’s right what Sidney says, father,’ put in Mrs. Hewett; ‘we can’t help it.’
‘You may perhaps have done harm when you meant only to do good,’ pursued Sidney. ‘Always being so anxious, and showing what account you make of her, perhaps you’ve led her to think a little too much of herself. She knows other fathers don’t go on in that way. And now she wants more freedom, she feels it worse than other girls do when you begin to deny her. Talk to her in a different way; talk as if you trusted her. ”

“ Time and again one seems to observe Miss Sidgwick working towards some inevitable scène-à-faire, when bounce! off go her people on an entirely unexpected tack, which you must yet admit to be the very one they quite obviously would follow. Never was a cast so incalculably alive. ”

“ I am sorry I have any occasion to give you trouble, but much more to hear that you and Mr. Sidney are not good friends, for I am sure he has ever loved and honoured you: but, my Lord, all the things in this world are fickle and inconstant as fortune herself; but I was a little afflicted to hear Mr. Sidney say he believes I was bribed to go to Whitehall, and that he suspected you set me to work; to which I only answered, that I never had the honour yet to see your face, and that I did not know whether you had a face or no * * * I am sorry Mr. ”