world. He joined the Parliament, and became a busy soldier--serving with repute in Ireland, where he was “sometime Lieut.-General of the Horse, and Governor of Dublin”--until Cromwell assumed the position of a sovereign, when Sidney retired in disgust to the family seat in Kent, and began to write his celebrated “Discourses on Government.” At the Restoration, he was abroad, and “being so noted a republican,” thought it unsafe to return to England; for seventeen years after this event he was a wanderer throughout Europe,--suffering severe privations--“exposed (according to his own words) to all those troubles, inconveniences, and mischiefs, unto which they are liable who have nothing to subsist upon, in a place farre from home, wheare no assistance can possibly be expected, and wheare I am known to be of a quality which makes all lowe and meane wayes of living shamefull and detestible.” The school of adversity failed to subdue the proud spirit of the republican; and on his return to his native country--in 1677--at the entreaty of his father, who “desired to see him before he died,” the “later Sidney” became a marked man, whom the depraved Charles and his minions were resolved to sacrifice. He was accused of high-treason--implicated in the notorious Rye-house plot--carried through a form of trial on the 21st of November--and beheaded on Tower-hill on the 7th December, 1683. Philip, Algernon’s brother, the third Earl, died in 1696. Three of his grandsons were successively Earls of Leicester. Jocelyn, the last Earl of this family, died in 1743, leaving no legitimate issue. His next brother, who died before him, had however two daughters, to whom the estate devolved as coheiresses, after a long course of litigation with a natural daughter of the late Earl. In the division of the property, Penshurst [Illustration] Place was allotted to the youngest, Elizabeth, who was married to William Perry, Esq., of Turvile Park, Buckinghamshire. After the death of her sister, Lady Sherrard, Mrs. Perry was enabled, by purchase, to re-unite a part of her moiety to the Penshurst estate. This Mrs. Elizabeth Perry had an only son--Algernon Perry Sidney--who died in his mother’s life-time, but left two daughters; the eldest, Elizabeth, was married to Bysshe Shelley, Esq.; their son, John Shelley Sidney, inherited Penshurst and the manors and estates in Kent; he was created a Baronet in 1818; and his son, who married one of the daughters of his late Majesty William the Fourth, was elevated to the Peerage, by the title of Lord De L’Isle and Dudley, in 1835. Consequently, Penshurst, “the seat of the Sidneys,” is now the inheritance of a very remote branch of the illustrious family. The Church at Penshurst is dedicated to St. John the Baptist. It immediately adjoins the Park; and is connected, by a private walk, with the garden of the Mansion. It is an ancient and very venerable structure, containing many monuments to the Sidneys, [Illustration]