In 1575, when twenty-one years old, Sidney returned to shine at court, where his uncle Leicester, the Queen's favourite was to make all things easy for him. He assisted that year at the fetes given in Elizabeth's honour at Kenilworth, in those famous gardens "though not so goodly," writes a witness of the festivities, "as Paradis, for want of the fayr rivers, yet better a great deal by the lack of so unhappy a tree."[175] Then Sidney accompanied the Queen to Chartley, and these ceremonies mark a great epoch in his existence. While Elizabeth listened to the compliments of her entertainers, Sidney's eyes were fixed on a child. A sentiment, the full strength of which he was to feel only in after time, sprang up in his heart for Penelope Devereux, the twelve-year-old daughter of the Earl of Essex, who was as beautiful as Dante's Beatrice. He began to visit at her father's house frequently; it seemed as if a marriage would ensue; Essex himself was favourable to it, but for some cause or other Sidney did not press his suit; and while his friend Languet strongly advised him to marry, he was answering him in the leisurely style of one who believes himself heart-whole: "Respecting her of whom I readily acknowledge how unworthy I am, I have written you my reasons long since, briefly indeed, but yet as well as I was able."[176] He was soon to write in a very different manner. Penelope, the Stella of Sidney's verse, was, very much against her will, compelled at last by her family to marry the wealthy Lord Rich, and then Sidney awoke to his fate: what he had believed to be mere inclination, a light feeling of which he would always remain the master, had from the first been Love, irrepressible, unconquerable love: "I might;--unhappie word--O me, I might, And then would not, or could not see my blisse; Till now wrapt in a most infernall night, I find how heav'nly day, wretch! I did miss."[177] He remained a lover of Stella, saw her, wrote to her, sang of her, and at length ascertained that she too, despite her marriage ties, loved him. He continued then, in altered tones, the magnificent series of sonnets dedicated to her and which read still like a love-drama of real life, a love-drama which is all summarized in the beautiful and well-known dirge: "Ring out your belles, let mourning shewes be spread; For Love is dead: All Love is dead, infected With plague of deep disdaine: Worth, as nought worth, rejected And Faith faire scorne doth game. From so ungratefull fancie, From such a femall franzie From them that use men thus, Good Lord, deliver us! Weepe, neighbours, weepe; do you not heare it said That Love is dead? * * * * *