A noble life is its own monument. To have influenced such a life as that of Philip Sidney; to have lived her own life--with its lasting impress on the literature of England, and its beneficial lessons to England's daughters--is to the subject of this sketch a more worthy and lasting memorial than stateliest pile of finest marble. We are, nevertheless, thankful for the familiar words of Ben Jonson:-- Underneath this sable hearse Lies the subject of all verse, Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother. Death, ere thou hast killed another, Fair and learned, and good as she, Time shall throw a dart at thee. WILHELMINA, MARGRAVINE OF BAIREUTH. His sorrow was my sorrow, and his joy Sent little leaps and laughs thro' all my frame. Wilhelmina, the beloved and devoted Sister of Frederick the Great, will be remembered chiefly as such, although her high character in other respects, and her chequered and saddened life, render it one of no common interest. To her immediate parentage she owed little; and, as is so frequently the case, we must attribute her excellences to a remoter ancestry. Her father, the then Prince Royal, afterwards Frederick William of Prussia, at no period of his life seems to have been possessed of any qualities of either mind or heart which "become the throned monarch better than his crown," or are of a truly kingly character. It was said of him by Macaulay that while "he must be allowed to have possessed some talents for administration," his "character was disfigured by odious vices, and his eccentricities were such as had never before been seen out of a madhouse." While her father was harsh and cruel, her mother (a daughter of George I. of England) was scheming and selfish. Wilhelmina Frederica Sophia was born on the 3rd July, 1709, and as her parents had looked for an heir, the royal infant had only an ungracious reception, and the presence of three sovereigns as sponsors at her baptism was a poor recompense for the love which ought to have been her portion. Little Wilhelmina soon showed that she was a precocious child and possessed of more than ordinary intelligence. When she was three years old a little brother was born. This was Frederick (afterwards Frederick the Great) who became such a power in Europe, with whom her own life was destined to be so much associated, and to whom she became from childhood so passionately devoted. The education of the young Princess was given into the hands of a lady who seems to have been well recommended to her parents, but was in no sense qualified for the post; and the acquirements attained and good sense displayed by the pupil in after life, speak more for the qualities of her own mind and heart than for the care bestowed upon the choice of her associates.