Read The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare Page 9

  CHAPTER V.

  SIR PHILIP SIDNEY AND PASTORAL ROMANCE.

  When nowadays we see our shepherds, wrapped in their long brown cloaks,silently following the high roads in the midst of a suffocating dustwhich seems to come out of their sheep, it is difficult to explain theenthusiasm that has ascribed to this race of mutes such fine speechesand such pleasant adventures. Greeks, Romans, Italians, Spaniards, theFrench and the English, have differed in a multitude of points, but theyhave one and all delighted in pastorals. No class of heroes either inhistory or fiction has uttered so much verse and prose as the keepers ofsheep. Neither Ajax son of Telamon, nor the wise king of Ithaca, norMerlin, Lancelot, or Charlemagne, nor even the inexhaustible Grandison,can bear the least comparison with Tityrus. It is easy to give manyreasons for this; but the phenomenon still remains somewhat strange. Thebest explanation is perhaps that the pastoral is one of the mostconvenient pretexts existing for saying what would otherwise beembarrassing. To many authors the eclogue is like a canvas for tryingtheir colours and brushes. Many would not willingly confess it, and Popewould have vowed a mortal hatred to any one who explained his ecloguesthus: but it is better for his reputation to believe that he had atleast that reason for writing them. For some, the pastoral is anallegory, where, if one would, place can be given to Cynthia, Queen ofthe Sea, that is to say, to Elizabeth, and to a Shepherd of the Oceanwho is Raleigh; it allows the poet to speak to kings, to ask almsdiscreetly of them, and to thank them.

  In England in Shakespeare's time people were passionately fond of thecountry of Arcadia, not the Arcady "for better for worse" that can beseen anywhere outside London,[167] but the old poetical Arcadia, theArcadia of nowhere, which was the more cherished on account of itsnon-existence. They could invent at their ease, imagine prodigiousadventures and wonderful amours; since no one had ever been in Arcadia,it was hardly possible for any one to protest that events happeneddifferently there. To-day we think in quite another way; we must be toldof well-ascertained facts, of warranted catastrophes, at once certifiedand provable. That is why the action of our novels, far from carryingus into Arcadia, often unfolds itself in our kitchens and on our backstaircases. It is not at all as it was in the time of Robert Greene.

  Very rarely now does any one ask if perchance some of these "Arcadias,"so cherished by our fathers, contained their share of enduring beauty,or if their lasting success is to be explained otherwise than by theirimprobabilities and their artificial embellishments. Nevertheless thestudy might be profitable, for it must be borne in mind that the readersof these romances went in the afternoon to the "Globe" to seeShakespeare play his own pieces, and that, admitting their fondness forsuch dramas, in which, without speaking of other merits, the kitchen issometimes the place represented, it would be surprising to find onlymere nonsense in the whole collection of their favoured romances. Letthese suggestions justify us at need in examining one more Arcadia:besides, it is not that of a penniless Bohemian; it is the Arcadia ofSir Philip Sidney, the pattern of chivalrous perfection under Elizabeth.His life is not, in its way, less characteristic of his time than thatof starving Robert Greene, or of Thomas Lodge the corsair.

  I.

  Born in 1554, in the noble castle of Penshurst in Kent,[168] Sidneypassed a part of his childhood in Ludlow Castle, where in the nextcentury Milton's "Comus" was to be represented. At college he was famousfor his personal charm, his knowledge, and the thoughtful turn of hismind. "I knew him," wrote in later years his friend and companion FulkeGreville, "with such staiednesse of mind, lovely and familiar gravity,as carried grace and reverence above greater years."[169] During theyear 1572 he was staying in France, where he had been appointed by KingCharles IX. one of the gentlemen of his chamber. It was the time of theSt. Bartholomew massacre, and Sidney, who belonged to the Englishmission, remained in the house of Sir Francis Walsingham, the Queen'sambassador, and escaped the perils of that terrible day.

  He left France shortly after and travelled in several countries ofEurope, studying men and nations, storing his mind with information; hewas comparatively free from prejudice, and believed that useful examplesand precepts might be obtained even from "the great Turk." "As surely,"did he write some years later to his brother Robert, "in the great Turk,though we have nothing to do with him, yet his discipline in war mattersis ... worthy to be known and learned. Nay even the kingdom of Chinawhich is almost as far as the Antipodes from us, their good laws andcustoms are to be learned."[170] In such a disposition of mind hevisited successively Germany, Austria, Hungary, and Italy. The mostinteresting incident of his journey was the acquaintance he made with aFrenchman, the political thinker Hubert Languet, from whom Milton, along time before Rousseau, probably derived his ideas of the socialcontract "foedus," says Languet, "inter [principem] and populum," andhis theories on the right of insurrection.[171] A most tender friendshipwas formed between the revolutionary writer and the aristocratic Sidney.They began a correspondence which did not cease till the former's deathin 1581. Languet had great influence over his young friend, and wasconstantly giving him most manly advice and that best suited tostrengthen his character, warning him especially in very wise fashionagainst a melancholy unsuitable to his age, which in the graveHuguenot's opinion was only a useless impedimentum in life. "I readilyallow," wrote Sidney, in answer to his friend's remonstrances, "that Iam often more serious than either my age or my pursuits demand."[172]That this tendency to pensiveness left its trace on his features may beseen in most of his portraits, among others in that by Isaac Oliver, ofwhich we give a reproduction.

  The most interesting of Sidney's portraits is unfortunately lost. He satfor it while in Italy, at the request of his friend, and chose no meanartist to paint it: "As soon as ever I return to Venice, I will have itdone, either by Paul Veronese or by Tintoretto, who hold by far thehighest place in the art." He decided for Veronese, and sent thepicture to Languet, who wrote shortly after: "As long as I enjoyed thesight of you, I made no great account of the portrait you gave me, andscarcely thanked you for so beautiful a present. I was led by regret foryou on my return from Frankfort to place it in a frame and fix it in aconspicuous place. When I had done this, it appeared to me so beautifuland so strongly to resemble you that I possess nothing that I value more... The painter has represented you sad and thoughtful. I should havebeen better pleased if your face had worn a more cheerful look when yousat for the painting."[173] When Languet died, Sidney described hissentiments for him in a touching poem, inserted in his "Arcadia"; it wassung by the shepherd Philisides, who represents the author himself andwhose name is a contraction of the words Philip Sidney:

  "I sate me downe; for see to goe ne could, And sang unto my sheepe lest stray they should. The song I sang old Lan[g]uet had me taught, Lan[g]uet, the shepeard best swift Ister knew, For clearkly reed, and hating what is naught, For faithfull heart, cleane hands and mouth as true. With his sweet skill my skillesse youth he drew, To have a feeling taste of him that sits Beyond the heaven, farre more beyond our wits ... With old true tales he wont mine cares to fill, How shepeards did of yore, how now they thrive ... He liked me, but pitied lustfull youth: His good strong staffe my slipperie yeares upbore: He still hop'd well because I loved truth."[174]

  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 thingseasy for him. He assisted that year at the fetes given in Elizabeth'shonour at Kenilworth, in those famous gardens "though not so goodly,"writes a witness of the festivities, "as Paradis, for want of the fayrrivers, yet better a great deal by the lack of so unhappy a tree."[175]Then Sidney accompanied the Queen to Chartley, and these ceremonies marka great epoch in his existence. While Elizabeth listened to thecompliments of her entertainers, Sidney's eyes were fixed on a child. Asentiment, the full strength of which he was to feel only in after time,sprang up in his heart for Penelope Devereux, the twelve-year-olddaughter of the Earl of Essex, who wa
s as beautiful as Dante's Beatrice.He began to visit at her father's house frequently; it seemed as if amarriage would ensue; Essex himself was favourable to it, but for somecause or other Sidney did not press his suit; and while his friendLanguet strongly advised him to marry, he was answering him in theleisurely style of one who believes himself heart-whole: "Respecting herof whom I readily acknowledge how unworthy I am, I have written you myreasons 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 ofSidney's verse, was, very much against her will, compelled at last byher family to marry the wealthy Lord Rich, and then Sidney awoke to hisfate: what he had believed to be mere inclination, a light feeling ofwhich 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, andat length ascertained that she too, despite her marriage ties, lovedhim. He continued then, in altered tones, the magnificent series ofsonnets dedicated to her and which read still like a love-drama of reallife, a love-drama which is all summarized in the beautiful andwell-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?

  * * * * *

  Alas! I lie: rage hath this errour bred; Love is not dead; Love is not dead, but sleepeth In her unmatched mind, Where she his counsell keepeth, Till due desert she find. Therefore from so vile fancie To call such wit a franzie, Who Love can temper thus, Good Lord, deliver us!"

  Love that was not dead but asleep awoke, and Sidney's raptures wereagain expressed in his verse:

  "O joy too high for my low stile to show!... For Stella hath, with words where faith doth shine, Of her high heart giv'n me the monarchie: I, I, O I, may say that she is mine."[178]

  This lasted some time and when love faded away, at least in Stella'sfickle heart, "Astrophel" wrote the real dirge of his passion.

  Sidney had nevertheless continued his active life all this while,sometimes at court and sometimes on the continent, recognized as astatesman by statesmen, as a poet by poets, as a perfect knight by allexperts in knightly accomplishments. Spenser dedicated in 1579 his"Shepheardes Calender" to "the most noble and vertuous gentleman, mostworthy of all titles, both of learning and chevalrie, M. PhilipSidney"[179]; and William the Silent, Prince of Orange, once said toFulke Greville that "Her Majesty had one of the ripest and greatestcounsellors of estate in Sir Philip Sidney that at this day lived inEurope." The remaining years of his short life were well filled; he hadbeen ambassador to the German Emperor in 1577; he had taken part athome, though unasked, in the negotiations concerning the Queen'smarriage, and he lost favour for a while on account of the extraordinaryfreedom with which he had written to Elizabeth against the French match.He retired from court at that moment and went to live in the country;while staying with his sister at Wilton in the midst of congenialsurroundings, he wrote most of his "Arcadia" (1580). He was a member ofParliament in 1581 and 1584, and married in 1583 the daughter of SirFrancis Walsingham. He all but accompanied Drake to America, where hehad received from the Queen a large grant of lands; he became at lastGovernor of Flushing in the Netherlands. He died in that country atthirty-one years of age, in 1586, of a wound received at Zutphen; apremature death that gave the finishing touch to men's sympathy and lovefor him; all England wept for him.[180] Even now, it is difficult tothink unmoved of his well-filled career ending on the eve of the greattriumphs of his country, to call to our memory this brave man who diedwith his face to the enemy without knowing that victory would bedeclared for his side, without having known Shakespeare, without havingseen the defeat of the Armada.

  As for his Stella she survived him only too long. A few years afterSidney's death she deserted her husband by whom she had had sevenchildren, and became the mistress of Charles Blount, Lord Mountjoy,afterwards Earl of Devonshire, to whom she gave three sons and twodaughters. Lord Rich, a man full of prudence it seems, waited for thedeath of the Earl of Essex, his wife's brother, to divorce her. She thenmarried her lover in 1605. But till her death, which happened in 1608she was mostly remembered as having been Sidney's friend, and books werededicated to her because she had been Astrophel's "Stella." Thus Yong'stranslation of the "Diana" of Montemayor, a pastoral from which Sidneyhad taken many hints, is dedicated to her.[181] Thus again Florio asksher conjointly with Sidney's daughter[182] to patronize the second bookof Montaigne's Essays, addressing Penelope, in the extraordinary stylethat belonged to him: "I meane you (truely richest Ladie Rich) in richesof fortune not deficient, but of body incomparably richer, of minde mostrich: who yet, like Cornelia, were you out-vied, or by rich shewesenvited to shew your richest jewelles, would stay till your sweetimages (your deere-sweete children) came from schoole." And then,addressing the ladies together, both the daughter and the mistress ofthe departed hero: "I know not this nor any I have seen, or canconceive, in this or other language, can in aught be compared to thatperfect-imperfect Arcadia, which all our world yet weepes with you, thatyour all praise-exceeding father (his praise-succeeding countesse) yourworthy friend (praise-worthiest lady) lived not to mend or end it."[183]Once Astrophel had sung of Stella, and now Lady Rich was praised by thepedant Rombus.

  II.

  Sidney's works well accord with his life; in these few years he had timeto take in with a clear and kindly glance all those beauties of ancientor modern times, of distant countries or of his own which set thehearts of his contemporaries beating, and he is therefore perhaps, onaccount of his catholicity, the most worthy of Shakespeare's immediateprecursors. The brilliance of the Spaniards enchants him, and hetranslates fragments of Montemayor[184]; the Kenilworth fetes amuse himand he writes a masque, "The Lady of May,"[185] to be used at likefestivities. A true Christian he translates the Psalms of David; atender and passionate heart, he rhymes the sonnets of Astrophel toStella; enamoured of chivalry and great exploits, he writes, with fluentpen, his "Arcadia," where he imitates the style made fashionable inEurope by Montemayor in his "Diana"; a lover of _belles lettres_, hedefends the poet's art in an argument charming from its youthfulness,vibrating with enthusiasm, which holds in English literature the placefilled in French by Fenelon's "Lettre a l'Academie."[186] This work isvery important with regard to the subject that now occupies us, notonly because Sidney gives in it his opinion on works of fiction ingeneral; but because here we have at last a specimen of flexible,spirited, fluent prose, without excessive ornament of style, or learned_impedimenta_, a specimen of that prose which is exactly suited tonovels and that no one--Roger Ascham perhaps excepted--had until thenused in England.

  Perhaps it will be found, he writes at the beginning of his work, withthe elegant gracefulness of a man who knows how to do everything that hedoes well, that I carry my apology to excess; but that is excusable:listen to what Pietro Pugliano, my master of horsemanship, at theEmperor's Court, said: "Hee sayde souldiours were the noblest estate ofmankinde, and horsemen, the noblest of souldiours. Hee sayde, they werethe maisters of warre, and ornaments of peace: speedy goers and strongabiders, triumphers both in camp and courts." For a prince noaccomplishment is comparable to that of being a good horseman; "skill ofgovernment was but a Pedanteria in comparison: then would hee addecertaine prayses, by telling what a peerlesse beast a horse was. Theonely serviceable courtier without flattery, the beast of most beutie,
faithfulnes, courage, and such more, that if I had not beene a peece ofa logician before I came to him, I think he would have perswaded mee tohave wished my selfe a horse. But thus much at least with his no fewewords hee drave into me, that selfe-love is better then any guilding tomake that seeme gorgious, wherein our selves are parties. Wherein, ifPugliano his strong affection and weake arguments will not satisfie you,I wil give you a neerer example of my selfe, who (I knowe not by whatmischance) in these my not old yeres and idelest times, having sliptinto the title of a poet, am provoked to say somthing unto you in thedefence of that my unelected vocation."

  Set at ease by Pugliano's example, who seems to have had the sameveneration for the horse as his countryman Vinci, Sidney enters on hisdefence and does not restrain himself from extolling poetry beyond anyproduct of the human mind. Poetry is superior to history, to philosophy,to all forms of literature. Poets have, by the charm of their works,surpassed the beauties of nature and they have succeeded in making "thetoo much loved earth more lovely." He gives to poetry, in effect, animmense domain: everything that is poetic or even merely a work of theimagination is poetry for him: "there have beene many most excellentpoets, that never versified, and now swarme many versifiers that needenever aunswere to the name of poets." For him, the romance of "Theaginesand Cariclea" is a "poem"; Xenophon's "Cyrus" is "an absolute heroicallpoem." To the great joy of their author he would certainly have seen anepic in Chateaubriand's "Martyrs." "It is not riming and versing thatmaketh a poet, no more then a long gowne maketh an advocate: who thoughhe pleaded in armor should be an advocate and no soldiour." Evenhistorians have sometimes to do the work of poets, that is imagining,inventing, "although theyr lippes sounde of things doone and veritie bewritten in theyr foreheads."

  In spite of his fondness for the ancients, whose unities and messengerhe greatly approves, and of his contempt for the modern drama, such asit was understood in those pre-Shakespearean times, he remains, atbottom, entirely English; he adores the old memorials of his nativeland, and does not know his Virgil better than his Chaucer, or even thepopular songs hummed by the wayfarer along the high roads. Irishballads, English ballads of Robin Hood, Scottish ballads of Douglas, arefamiliar to him, and some of them make him start as at the sound of atrumpet: "Certainly, I must confesse my own barbarousnes, I never heardthe olde song of Percy and Douglas, that I found not my heart moovedmore then with a trumpet: and yet it is sung by some blind crouder, withno rougher voyce then rude stile; which being so evill apparelled in thedust and cobwebbes of that uncivill age, what would it worke, trymmed inthe gorgeous eloquence of Pindar?" He would have loved, like Moliere,the song of the "roi Henri," and like La Fontaine, the story of Peaud'Ane. But his closest sympathies were reserved for poetical tales, forthe adventures of Roland and King Arthur, which are a soldier's reading,and even for the exploits of Amadis of Gaul. "I dare undertake 'Orlandofurioso' or honest King Arthur will never displease a souldier....Truely, I have knowen men, that even with reading 'Amadis de Gaule,'which God knoweth wanteth much of a perfect poesie, have found theirhearts mooved to the exercise of courtesie, liberalitie and especiallycourage." He imagines nothing more enchanting or more powerful than thecharm of poetical prose stories, "any of which holdeth children fromplay, and old men from the chimney corner." Their attraction hassomething superior, divine; for, he adds with a depth of emotion thatappears quite modern, "so is it in men, most of which are childish inthe best things, till they bee cradlid in their graves."[187]

  He closes with a witty and delightful ending, a kindly wish for thehardened enemies of poetry: "Yet this much curse I must send you, in thebehalfe of all Poets, that while you live, you live in love, and neverget favour, for lacking skill of a sonnet: and when you die, your memorydie from the earth, for want of an epitaph."

  Neither did Sidney lack epitaphs; all the poets wept for him; nor was hewanting in those favours that a sonnet can win, for he wrote the mostpassionate that appeared in England before those of Shakespeare. Likethe "Apologie" they move us by their youth and sincerity; they come fromthe heart:

  "Loving in truth, and faine in verse my love to show, That She, dear She! might take some pleasure of my paine:

  * * * * *

  I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe, Studying inventions fine, her wits to entertaine; Oft turning others' leaves, to see if thence would flow Som fresh and fruitfull showers upon my sun-burn'd brain: But words came halting forth ... Biting my trewand pen, beating myselfe for spite: 'Foole!' said my Muse to me, 'looke in thy heart, and write!'"[188]

  Unfortunately, when Sidney took up his pen to write his "Arcadia,"[189]he no longer looked into his heart; he loosed the rein of hisimagination, and, without concerning himself with a critical posterityfor whom the book was not destined, he only wished, like Lyly, to writea romance for ladies, or rather for one lady, his sister, the Countessof Pembroke, famous as his sister, famous as a patron of letters,[190]famous also as the mother of William Herbert, the future friend ofShakespeare, the "W. H." for whom in all probability the sonnets of thegreat poet were written. Sidney sent the sheets to his sister as fast ashe penned them, charging her to destroy them, a thing she did not do.The poet knight only saw in it an amusement for himself and for theCountess, and he gave free vent to his fondness for poetical prose: "Forseverer eyes it is not," says he to his sister, "being but a trifle andthat triflingly handled. Your deare selfe can best witnesse the manner,being done in loose sheets of paper, most of it in your presence, therest by sheetes, sent unto you as fast as they were done. In summe, ayoung head, not so well staied as I would it were (and shall bee whenGod will) having many fancies begotten in it, if it had not beene insome way delivered, would have growne a monster, and more sorry might Ibee that they came in than that they gat out." His "Apologie" wasperhaps from its style more useful to the development of the novel thanthe "Arcadia"; but the latter, in spite of its enormous defects of styleand composition, was also of use, and it is not unimportant to note thatits influence lasted until and even beyond the time of Richardson.

  Sidney's romance is not, as might be believed, an enormous pseudo-Greekpastoral, with tunic-wearing shepherds in the foreground, piping theirditties to their flocks, to their nymphs, to Echo. Elizabethan Arcadiaswere knightly Arcadias. Sidney's heroes are all princes or the daughtersof kings. Their adventures take place in Greece, undoubtedly, and amonglearned shepherds, but the great parts are left to the noblemen, and thedistance between the two classes is well marked. However intelligent andwell bred the shepherds may be, they are only there for decoration andornament, to amuse the princes with their songs, and to pull them out ofthe water when they are drowning. There are Amadises and Palmerins inSidney's work. Amadis has come to live among the shepherds, but heremains Amadis, as valiant and as ready as ever to draw his sword. Toplease his sister the better, Sidney mingles thus the two kinds ofaffectations in fashion, the affectation of pastoral and of chivalry,taking in this as his example the famous "Diana" of George deMontemayor, which was then the talk not only of Spain, but of all thereading public in Europe.[191] As for the shepherds, are we to pity thembecause their domain is invaded by foreign knights, by whom they aredispossessed of the high rank belonging to them, of all places, inArcady? There is no need for pity; a time will come when they will repaytheir invaders, and the end of their piping has not come yet. Leavingtheir country, where their place has been taken by British noblemen, weshall see them some day invade the land of their conquerors, and,sitting in their turn under the elms of Windsor Park, sing their songsat the call of Mr. Pope. They will look a little awry, no doubt, amongthe mists of an English landscape, with their loose tunics, bare limbs,and "in-folio" wigs; but they will prove none the less fine speakers,and they will for a time concentrate upon themselves the attention ofthe capital. Better still will be their treatment at the hands of aFrenchman, not a poet, but a painter, Gaspard Poussin, who will gainmore permanent attention an
d sympathy for them than most poets when hewill inscribe in his canvas, on the representation of a ruined tomb, hisfamous "Et in Arcadia ego."[192]

  Sidney's heroes, in the meantime, Prince Musidorus and Prince Pyrocles,the latter disguised as a woman under the name of the amazon Zelmane,are in love with the Princesses Pamela and Philoclea, daughters of theKing of Arcady. A great many crosses are in the way of the lovers'happiness. They have to fight helots, lions, bears, enemies fromCorinth. They lose each other, find each other again, and relate theiradventures. The masculine amazon especially does wonders, for she has tofight not only with the sword, but in argument. She is so pretty inwoman's costume that the old king Basilius, until then wise andvirtuous, falls distractedly in love with her, as imprudent asFior-di-Spina in Ariosto; while the queen, whom the disguise does notdeceive, feels an intense passion spring up in her heart for the falseamazon and a terrible jealousy of her own daughter, Philoclea.

  Disguises are numerous in this romance; they are also frequent inShakespeare's plays and in most of the novels of the time. Partheniagives herself out to her admirer, Argalus, as the Queen of Corinth, whomshe resembles, and announces her own death. As pretended queen sheoffers her hand to Argalus, to prove him; but he refuses with horror;she then discovers herself to this paragon of lovers, and gives him hisParthenia alive and more loving than ever.

  When we read now of such disguises, of princes Pyrocles dressed aswomen, of Rosalinds dressed as pages, we are tempted to smile at thevain fancies of the novelists of the Shakespearean era.[193] But it mustnot be forgotten that, after all, there was not so much invention inthese fancies, and that living examples were not rare from which writersmight copy. Disguises were abundantly used in fetes and ceremonies, butthey were also utilized in actual life. The manners of the time in thisparticular are well illustrated by the earnest entreaties of a certainambassador to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, advising her to leave herpalace secretly and travel over the country as his page. The Queen wasin no way shocked, but rather pleased; she did not order the ambassadorto be turned out of her palace, but heard him expound his plan, wishingshe might have followed it. This happened in one of those curiousconversations of which Melville, the ambassador of Mary Queen of Scots,has left us an account. Elizabeth was very desirous of seeing her "dearsister" of Scotland and of judging with her own eyes what truth therewas in the reports concerning her beauty. "Then again," says Melville,"she wished that she might see the queen at some convenient place ofmeeting. I offered to convey her secretly to Scotland by post, clothedlike a page, that under this disguise she might see the queen, as Jamesthe fifth had gone in disguise to France with his own Ambassadour, tosee the Duke of Vendom's sister,[194] who should have been his wife.Telling her that her chamber might be kept in her absence, as though shewere sick; that none needed to be privy thereto except my Lady Straffordand one of the grooms of her chamber.

  "She appeared to like that kind of language, only answered it with asigh, saying: Alas, if I might do it thus."[195]

  Surely ladies who "appeared to like that kind of language," and men whowere wont to use it, would be certain to accept with much pleasurerepresentations in plays and novels of he-Rosalinds and she-Pyrocles.

  In the midst of battles, masques and eclogues, interludes areconsecrated to fetes of chivalry. As much as in Italy, France orEngland, the knights of Arcady challenge each other, and in brillianttournaments break lances in honour of their mistresses. Sidney himselfwas very skilful at these sports; he proved it about this time in thefestivities of May, 1581, by attacking with his companions, the Castleof perfect Beauty, which was reputed to contain the grace andattractions of the Queen, a treasure as may well be believed, mostallegorical. His sonnets more than once refer to his prowess in thelists:

  "Having this day, my horse, my hand, my lance Guided so well that I obtain'd the prize, Both by the judgment of the English eyes, And of some sent from that sweet enemie France.

  Horsemen my skill in horsemanship advance; Towne-folks my strength; a daintier judge applies His praise to sleight, which from good use doth rise; Some luckie wits impute it but a chance ... Stella lookt on...."[196]

  In his letters to his brother Robert, he is most particular as to theevery-day exercise by which the young man should improve his fencing. Hecould not help giving his tastes to his Arcadian knights. They would,otherwise, have been considered by his lady-readers, uninterestingbarbarians. He therefore allowed them good spurs and a ready lance; thismeant civilization. On a certain day every knight appears in the vale ofArcady, with drawn sword, and carrying a portrait of his fair lady; thepainting is to become the prey of the conqueror. The order of merit ofthe various beauties is thus determined by blows of the lance. Pyrocles,who, dressed as a woman, cannot take part in the fighting, has themortification of seeing the champion of Philoclea bite the dust and giveup her portrait. He goes immediately and secretly puts on some wretchedarmour, lowers his visor, and like a brave hero of romance, runs intothe lists, throws every one to the ground, regains the portrait, and allthe others as well. He is proclaimed conqueror of the tourney, and thefirst of knights, while at the same time, Philoclea becomes again themost beautiful of women.

  In this Arcadia of chivalry it must not be thought that only cottagesand huts are to be found; sometimes the heroes sleep soundly in the openair, but seldom. In this country there are palaces like those of therich English lords. The dwelling of the noble Kalander is of thisnumber. The park is magnificent, and quite in the style of theElizabethans, that style which is so minutely described in Bacon's"Essay on gardens." It did not differ much from the park at Kenilworth,a place well known to Sidney: "whearin, hard all along the castell walliz reared a pleazaunt terres of a ten foot hy and a twelve brode, evenunder foot, and fresh of fyne grass: as iz allso the side thearof towardthe gardein, in whiche by sundry equall distauncez, with obelisks,sphearz and white bearz [bears], all of stone, upon theyr curiouz basez,by goodly shew wear set; too theez, too fine arbers redolent by sweetetrees and floourz, at ech end one, the garden plot under that, with fayralleyz green by grass." There were fountains with marble Tritons, withNeptune on his throne, and "Thetis on her chariot drawn by herDollphins,"[197] with many other gods and goddesses.

  Kalander's gardens in Arcady were of the same sort; their adornmentswere not very sober, and many eccentricities are presented as beauties;thus the fashion of the day would have it; Versailles in comparison issimplicity itself. Kalander and his guest go round the place, and "assoone as the descending of the staires had delivered them downe, theycame into a place cunningly set with trees of the most taste-pleasingfruits: but scarcely they had taken that into consideration, but thatthey were suddenly stept into a delicate greene; of each side of thegreene a thicket, and behind the thickets againe new beds of flowers,which being under the trees, the trees were to them a pavilion, and theyto the trees a mosaicall floore....

  A SHEPHERD OF ARCADY, FROM THE TITLE-PAGE OF SIDNEY'S"ARCADIA."]

  "In the middest of all the place was a faire pond, whose shakingcristall was a perfect mirrour to all the other beauties, so that itbare shew of two gardens, one in deed, the other in shadowes. And in oneof the thickets was a fine fountaine made thus: a naked Venus of whitemarble, wherin the graver had used such cunning that the natural blueveins of the marble were framed in fit places to set forth thebeautifull veines of her body. At her breast she had her babe AEneas, whoseemed, having begun to sucke, to leave that, to look upon her faireeyes, which smiled at the babe's folly, meane while the breastrunning."[198] The effect produced must undoubtedly have been verypleasant, but scarcely more "natural" than the embellishmentsrecommended by Bacon, who declares that hedges and arbours ought to beenlivened by the songs of birds; and that to make such enlivening sureand permanent, the birds should be secured in cages. A good example of agarden in Sidney's time with beds of flowers, arbours, pavilions, andcovered galleries is to be seen in his own portrait by Isaac Oliver, ofwhich we give a reprod
uction. It must be noticed that only the lowerpart of the long gallery at the back is built; the vault-shaped upperportion is painted green, being supposed to be made of actual leaves andfoliage. Except for such books as Sidney's it could not be said of thosegardens that "they too were once in Arcady."

  A PRINCESS OF ARCADY, FROM THE TITLE-PAGE OF SIDNEY'S"ARCADIA."]

  Costumes and furniture are of the same style, and accord with suchgardens much more than with shepherd life. They are pure Renaissance,half Italian and half English. Musidorus disguised as a shepherd,dresses his hair in such a way as to look much more like one of theRenaissance Roman Emperors at Hampton Court than like a keeper of sheep:we see him while receiving a lesson on the use of the "sheep-hooke,"wearing "a garland of laurell mixt with cypres leaves on his head."[199]The glowing descriptions of the private apartments of the heroes suitmodern palaces better than Greek cottages; while representations ofladies recumbent on their couches are obvious reminiscences ofTintoretto or Titian, whose newly painted works Sidney had admired inItaly. Here is a description of the beautiful Philoclea, resting in herbedroom; it shows unmistakable signs of Sidney's acquaintance with theItalian painters: "She at that time lay, as the heate of that countrydid well suffer, upon the top of her bed, having her beauties eclipsedwith nothing, but with her faire smocke, wrought all in flames ofash-colour silk and gold; lying so upon her right side, that the leftthigh down to the foot, yielded hir delightfull proportion to the fullview, which was seene by the helpe of a rich lampe, which thorow thecurtaines a little drawne cast forth a light upon her, as the moone dothwhen it shines into a thinne wood."[200]

  Sidney, according to his friend Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke, had thehighest moral and political purposes, in writing his "Arcadia": "In allthese creatures of his making, his interest and scope was, to turn thebarren philosophy precepts into pregnant images of life; and in them,first on the monarchs part, lively to represent the growth, state anddeclination of princes, changes of government and lawes ... Then againin the subjects case, the state of favour, disfavour, prosperitie,adversity ... and all other moodes of private fortunes or misfortunes,in which traverses, I know, his purpose was to limn out such exactpictures of every posture in the minde, that any man might see how toset a good countenance upon all the discountenances of adversitie."[201]When Greville wrote thus, Sidney was dead, and in his retrospect of hisfriend's life he was with perfect good faith discovering high, not tosay holy motives, for all his actions. Sidney's own explanation suitshis work better; he was delivering his "young head" of "many, manyfancies," and their main object was not politics, but love. He describedit as it was known and practised in his time. Most of the heroes in the"Arcadia," talk like Surrey, Wyatt, Watson, and all the "amourists" ofthe century, like Sidney himself when he addressed another than Stella.The modesty of their characters is equal to their tenderness; valiant aslions before the enemy, they tremble like the leaf before theirmistresses; they feed on smiles and tender glances; when they have tosuffer a scarcity of this heavenly food they can only die: "Hee dieth:it is most true, hee dieth; and he in whom you live dieth. Whereof ifthough hee plaine, hee doth not complaine: for it is a harme but nowrong which hee hath received. He dies, because in wofull language allhis senses tell him, that such is your pleasure." Fair Pamela feelsdeeply moved when reading this, and confesses her harshness; she deniedhim a look: "Two times I must confess," says she to her sister, notwithout a pretty touch of humour of a very modern sort, "I was about totake curtesie into mine eyes, but both times the former resolution stoptthe entrie of it: so, that hee departed without obtaining any furtherkindenesse. But he was no sooner out of the doore, but that I looked tothe doore kindly!" The poor lover who did not see this change in hislady's countenance went away fainting, "as if he had beene but thecoffin that carried himselfe to his sepulchre!"[202]

  Happiness produces the same effect on these heroes. Pyrocles-Zelmanewhen present in his false quality of woman at the bath of his mistressin the Ladon is on the point of swooning with admiration.[203] Hisfriend, Prince Musidorus, in the ecstasies of his passion, falls "downeprostrate," uttering this prayer to the awful god who reigns paramountin Arcady: "O thou, celestiall or infernall spirit of Love, or whatother heavenly or hellish title thou list to have (for effects of both Ifind in my selfe), have compassion of me, and let thy glory be as greatin pardoning of them that be submitted to thee as in conquering themthat were rebellious."[204]

  But Sidney painted also amours of another sort, and one of the greatattractions of his book is the variety in the descriptions of thispassion. Never had the like been seen before in any English novel, andas for France, it must be remembered, that d'Urfe's "Astree," which haskept its place in literature for the very same quality, for itsinconstant Hylas and its faithful Celadon, for its Astree and itsMadonte, was yet to be written. Sidney has, among several others,created one character which, forgotten as it is now, would be enough togive a permanent interest to this too much neglected romance; it is theQueen Gynecia, who is consumed by a guilty love, and who is the worthycontemporary of the strongly passionate heroes of Marlowe's plays. Withher, and for the first time, the dramatic power of English genius leavesthe stage and comes to light in the novel; it was destined to pass intoit entirely.

  Gynecia does not allow herself to be blinded by any subterfuge; love hastaken possession of her; the rules of the world, the laws of blood, theprecepts of virtue that she has observed all her life, are lost sightof; she is conscious of nothing but that she loves, and is ready, likePhaedra of old, to trample everything under foot, to forsake everything,the domestic hearth, child, husband: and it is very interesting to see,about the time of Shakespeare, this purely dramatic character developitself in a novel.

  "O vertue," she cries, in her torment, "where doest thou hide thy selfe?What hideous thing is this which doth eclipse thee? or is it true thatthou wert never but a vaine name, and no essentiall thing; which hastthus left thy professed servant, when she had most neede of thy lovelypresence? O imperfect proportion of reason, which can too much foresee,and too little prevent: Alas, alas, said she, if there were but one hopefor all my paines, or but one excuse for all my faultinesse! But wretchthat I am, my torment is beyond all succour, and my evill deserving dothexceed my evill fortune. For nothing else did my husband take thisstrange resolution to live so solitarily: for nothing else have thewinds delivered this strange guest to my countrey: for nothing else havethe destinies reserved my life to this time, but that onely I, mostwretched I, should become a plague to my selfe and a shame towoman-kind. Yet if my desire, how unjust soever it be, might takeeffect, though a thousand deaths followed it, and every death werefollowed with a thousand shames, yet should not my sepulchre receive mewithout some contentment. But, alas, so sure I am, that Zelmane is suchas can answer my love; yet as sure I am, that this disguising must needscome for some foretaken conceit: and then, wretched Gynecia, where canstthou find any small ground plot for hope to dwell upon? No, no, it isPhiloclea his heart is set upon, it is my daughter I have borne tosupplant me: but if it be so, the life I have given thee, ungratefullPhiloclea, I will sooner with these hands bereave thee of, than mybirth shall glory she hath bereaved me of my desires."[205]

  We see with how little reason the "Arcadia" is sometimes placed in thecategory of bedizened pastorals, where the reader is reduced to regretthe absence of a "little wolf," and whether Gynecia, in spite of theoblivion which has gathered over her, does not deserve a place by theside of the passionate heroines of Marlowe and Webster rather than in agallery of Lancret-like characters.

  Sidney, thus possesses the merit, unique at that time with prosewriters, of varying his subjects by marking its _nuances_ and bydescribing in his romance different kinds of love. Side by side withGynecia's passion, he has set himself to paint the love of an old man inBasilius, of a young man in Pyrocles, of a young girl in Pamela. Thislast study led him to portray a scene which was to be represented againby one of the great novelists of the eighteenth century. Richard
sonborrowed from Sidney, with the name of Pamela, the idea of the adventurethat shows her a prisoner of her enemies, imploring heaven that hervirtue may be preserved. The wicked Cecropia who keeps Sidney's Pamelashut up, laughs heartily at her invocations: "To thinke," she says,"that those powers, if there be any such, above, are moved either by theeloquence of our prayers, or in a chafe at the folly of our actions,carries as much reason, as if flies should thinke that men take greatcare which of them hums sweetest, and which of them flies nimblest."Pamela, "whose cheeks were dyed in the beautifullest graine of vertuousanger," replies by speeches which yield in nothing as regards nobilityand dignity, and length also, to those of her future sister, and whichare followed as in Richardson, by an unexpected deliverance. Thesespeeches are famous for yet another reason; they are said to have beenrecited in one of the most terrible crises of the history of England andwere not this time followed by a deliverance. Charles I., it isreported, had copied out, and recited a short time before his death, theeloquent prayers to God, of the young heroine of Sidney's novel. Itseems that Pamela's prayer figured among the papers that he gave withhis own hand, at the last moment, to the prelate who was attending him:and the Puritans, Milton especially, uttered loud cries, and saw in thisreminiscence of the artist-prince, an insult to the divine majesty."This King," writes the poet, "hath as it were unhallowed andunchristened the very duty of prayer itself, by borrowing to a Christianuse prayers offered to a heathen god. Who would have imagined so littlefear in him of the true all-seeing deity, so little reverence of theHoly Ghost, whose office is to dictate and present our Christianprayers, so little care of truth in his last words, or honour to himselfor to his friends, or sense of his afflictions or of that sad hour whichwas upon him, as immediately before his death to pop into the hand ofthat grave bishop who attended him, for a special relique of his saintlyexercises, a prayer stolen word for word from the mouth of a heathenwoman, praying to a heathen god, and that in no serious book, but inthe vain amatorious poem of Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia."[206] Here isthis prayer which is a very grave and eloquent one, and in no wayjustifies the bitter reproaches addressed to Charles by his enemies:

  "Kneeling down, even where she stood, she thus said: O All-seeing Light,and eternall Life of all things, to whom nothing is either so great,that it may resist, or so small that it is contemned: looke upon mymisery with thine eye of mercy, and let thine infinite power vouchsafeto limit out some proportion of deliverance unto mee, as to thee shallseeme most convenient. Let not injurie, O Lord, triumph over mee, andlet my faults by thy hand bee corrected, and make not mine unjust enemythe minister of thy Justice. But yet, my God, if, in thy wisedome, thisbe the aptest chastisement for my unexcusable folly; if this low bondagebe fittest for my over-high desires; if the pride of my not enoughhumble heart, be thus to be broken, O Lord, I yeeld unto thy will, andjoyfully embrace what sorrow thou wilt have me suffer. Onely thus muchlet me crave of thee ... let calamity be the exercise, but not theoverthrow of my vertue: let their power prevaile, but not prevaile todestruction: let my greatnesse be their prey: let my paine be thesweetnesse of their revenge: let them, if so it seem good unto thee,vexe me with more and more punishment. But, O Lord, let never theirwickednesse have such a hand, but that I may carry a pure minde in apure body. And pausing a while: And, O most gracious Lord, said shee,what ever become of me, preserve the vertuous Musidorus."[207]

  Thus incidents, showing much diversity, but little order, follow eachother in great variety. There are touching episodes, ludicrous and, toour modern ideas, even shocking episodes, brilliant adventures, finepastoral scenes, and much pleasant description; Sidney had beenperfectly frank and true when he had spoken of "his young head" and his"many many fancies." He allows his imagination to wander; fancies areswarming in his mind, and he is no more capable of restraining orputting them into logical order than a man can restrain or introducereason into a dream. Arcadia is sometimes in England and sometimes inGreece; Basilius' cottage sometimes becomes Hampton Court; there aretemples and churches also; heroes are Christians, but they believe inMars; they act according to the Gospel and also according to theoracles; they are before everything men of the Renaissance. Followinghis vein, Sidney, after innumerable adventures, pastoral and warlikescenes, disappearances, unexpected meetings, scenes of deep love, ofcriminal, sweet or foolish love, comes at last to a sort of conclusion.King Basilius drinks a soporific draught; he is given up as dead. QueenGynecia is accused of being the author of the deed; Zelmane, who hasbeen found out to be a man is adjudged an accomplice; both are about tobe executed. At that point, fortunately, the dead king springs to hisfeet; there are explanations, embracings, and a general pardon. GoodBasilius, who alone seems to have understood nothing of all thathappened, asks pardon of his wife and of the world at large for hissilly love for Pyrocles-Zelmane, and proclaims, unasked, Queen Gyneciathe most virtuous woman that ever was. The Queen blushes deeply and saysnothing, but finding that the ties of her passion are now broken, sheinwardly pledges herself to live in order to justify her husband'spraise. She becomes the "example and glory of Greece: so uncertain aremortall judgements, the same person most infamous and most famous, andneither justly."

  This might be taken as a sufficient conclusion in so loose a tale; butin that case it would mean giving up many heroes whose fates are yet insuspense. In fact, an "Arcadia" of this sort might be continued tilldoomsday. Unless the hand of the writer grew tired, there is no reasonwhy it should ever end. This is, in fact, the one and only reason Sidneyputs forth as an excuse for taking his leave; he makes no pretence ofhaving finished, just the reverse; for when he has married his princeshe concludes thus: "But ... the strange stories of Artaxia andPlexirtus, Erona and Plangus, Hellen and Amphialus, with the wonderful!chances that befell them; the shepheardish loves of Menalcas withKalodulus daughter; the poore hopes of the poor Philisides," that is,Sidney himself, "in the pursuit of his affections; the strangecontinuance of Klaius and Strephons desire; lastly the sonne of Pyroclesnamed Pyrophilus, and Melidora the faire daughter of Pamela byMusidorus, who even at their birth entred into admirable fortunes, mayawake some other spirit to exercise his pen in that wherwith mine isalready dulled." From generation to generation the tale might as we see,have been continued for ages: so numerous were the wonderful adventuresstill to be told.

  The style of the book is scarcely less fanciful than the stories ittells. It is only now and again that the charming prose of the "Apologiefor Poetrie" is to be found in the "Arcadia." Sidney wished to remainfaithful to his theories, and he believed it possible to write a poem inprose.[208] Here and there some speeches, passionate like those ofGynecia, or noble like Pamela's prayer, some brilliant repartee, a fewobservations of exquisite charm are lasting beauties, always in theirplace in all kinds of writing. Thus we meet the witty Sidney of the"Apologie" in the description of a spaniel, coming out of a river, whoshakes off the water from his coat "as great men doe their friends;"Sidney, the poet and lover, appears in the description of Philocleaentering the water "with a prettie kind of shrugging ... like thetwinkling of the fairest among the fixed stars;" or in this expressionin reference to the fair hair of one of his heroines: "her haire--alastoo poore a word, why should I not rather call them her beams!"[209]

  But, by the side of these graceful flowers, how many others are faded!What concessions to contemporary taste for tinsel and excessiveornament! Sidney forgets the rules of enduring beauty, and with theexcuse that he will never be printed, he only seeks to please his onereader. To charm the Countess, his sister, like most women of his time,it was necessary to put his phrases in full dress, to place ruffs on hisperiods, and to make them walk according to the rules followed incourtly pageants. When, in spite of Sidney's earnest desire, his bookwas published after his death, people were enraptured with hisingeniously dressed out phrases. Lyly might shake with envy withouthaving however the right to complain, for Sidney did not imitate him.Sidney never liked euphuism, quite the contrary, he formally condemns itin his "Apologie"
: "Now for similitudes in certain printed discourses Ithink all herberists, all stories of beasts, fowles and fishes, arerifled up, that they may come in multitudes to wait upon any of ourconceits, which certainely is as absurd a surfet to the eares as ispossible." But his own style is scarcely less artificial than that ofLyly, and consequently, its rules are quite as easy to discover.

  They consist firstly in the antithetical and cadenced repetition of thesame words in the sentences written merely for effect; secondly, inpersistently ascribing life and feeling to inanimate objects. Sidney, itis true, as Lyly with his euphuism, happily only employs this style onparticular occasions, when he intends to be especially attractive andbrilliant. A few specimens will afford means of judging, and will showhow difficult it was in Shakespeare's time, even for the best educatedand most sensible men, for the sincerest admirers of the ancients, tokeep within the bounds of good taste and reason. They might appeal tothe Castalian virgins in their invocations, but William Rogers'Elizabeth was the Muse that rose before their eyes.

  Here is an example of the first sort of embellishment: "Our Basiliusbeing so publickly happy, as to be a prince, and so happy in thathappiness, as to be a beloved prince; and so in his private estateblessed, as to have so excellent a wife, and so over-excellent children,hath of late taken a course which yet makes him more spoken of than allthese blessings." In another passage Sidney wishes to describe theperfections of a woman; and "that which made her fairness much thefairer, was, that it was but a fair ambassador of a most fair mind."Musidorus considers it "a greater greatness to give a kingdome than geta kingdome."[210] Phalantus challenges his adversary to fight "eitherfor the love of honour or honour of his love." In many of thesesentences the same words are repeated like the rhymes of a song, takenup from strophe to strophe, and the sentence twists and turns, drawingand involving the readers in its spiral curves, so that he arrives atthe end all bruised, and falls half stunned on the full stop.[211]

  The other kind of elegance that Sidney affects is to be found in verymany authors, and it is, so to say, of all time; poets especiallyindulge in it without measure; but Sidney surpasses them all in thefrequent use he makes of it; this peculiar language is more apparent andhas still stranger effect in a prose writer than in a poet. In hisArcady, the valleys are consoled for their lowness by the silver streamswhich wind in the midst of them; the ripples of the Ladon struggle withone another to reach the place where Philoclea is bathing, but thosewhich surround her refuse to give up their fortunate position. Ashepherdess embarks: "Did you not marke how the windes whistled, and theseas danced for joy; how the sales did swell with pride, and all becausethey had Urania?" Here is a description of a river: "... The banks ofeither side seeming armes of the loving earth, that faine would embraceit; and the river a wanton nymph which hill would slip from it ... Therewas ... a goodly cypres, who bowing her faire head over the water, itseemed she looked into it and dressed her green locks by that runningriver." One of the heroines of the romance appears, and immediately theflowers and the fruits experience a surprising commotion; the rosesblush and the lilies grow pale for envy; the apples perceiving herbreast fall down from the trees out of vexation, unexpected vanity onthe part of this modest fruit.[212]

  Similar conceits were at that time the fashion not only in England, butalso in Italy, in Spain, and in France. There might still be found inFrance, even in the seventeenth century, authors who described in theseterms the appearance of flowers in spring: "There perhaps at the end ofthe combat, a pink all bleeding falls from fatigue; there a rosebud,elated at the ill-success of her antagonist, blooms with joy; there thelily, that colossus among the flowers, that giant of curdled cream, vainof seeing her image triumph at the Louvre, raises herself above hercompanions, and looks at them with contemptuous arrogance." The sameauthor, who is Cyrano de Bergerac, calls ice "an hardened light, apetrified day, a solid nothing."[213] But contrary to what was the casein England, this style was in France, even before Boileau and in thepreceding century, the style of bad authors. In England it is frequentlyadopted by the most eminent writers, since on many occasions it is eventhat of Shakespeare himself. Besides, the combinations of sound obtainedby means of the repetition of words, added to the turgidness of theimages, give to Sidney's language in the passages written for effect, adegree of pretension and bad taste that Cyrano himself, in spite of hisnatural disposition, could never have equalled. When both kinds ofSidney's favourite embellishments are combined in the same sentence, itbecomes impossible to keep serious, and it is difficult to recognize theauthor of the "Apologie." Sidney thus describes wreckage floating on thewater after a sea-fight: "Amidst the precious things were a number ofdead bodies, which likewise did not onely testifie both elementsviolence, but that the chiefe violence was growne of humane inhumanity:for their bodies were full of grisly wounds, and their blood had, as itwere, filled the wrinkles of the sea's visage; which it seemed the seewould not wash away, that it might witnesse it is not always his fault,when we do condemne his cruelty."[214] There is indeed in Frenchliterature a dagger celebrated for having _rougi le traitre_! but whatis it in comparison, and ought it not in its turn to grow pale with envyat the thought of this sea that will not wash itself?

  Thus men wrote in the time of Shakespeare, guilty himself of having mademany a dagger blush and weep in his bloody dramas: "See how my swordweeps for the poor king's death!" says Gloucester in "Henry VI." WhenBrutus stabs Caesar the blood followed the dagger

  "As rushing out of doors, to be resolv'd If Brutus so unkindly knocked or no."

  Such was the irresistible power of fashion. Sidney who in his"Apologie" had laughed at these extravagances in the poets anddramatists, could not himself avoid them when he wrote his romance. Whenthey concern themselves with criticism, nearly all, Shakespeare, Sidney,and their contemporaries, are to be admired for their moderation,wisdom, and good sense; but as soon as they take up the pen to writetheir imaginative works, intoxication overcomes their brain, a divineintoxication that sometimes transports them to heaven, an earthlyintoxication that sometimes leads them into bogs and gutters.

  III.

  These surprising embellishments were in no way harmful, quite thecontrary, to the success of the "Arcadia." From the first it wasextremely popular and widely read; Sidney, who has kept his high reputeas a knight and a poet to our day, was still more famous at first, andindeed for a long time, as a novelist. He was before all the author ofthe "Arcadia."[215] His influence as such was very great, if not alwaysvery beneficial; for his examples, as often happens, were more readilyfollowed than his precepts. Until the practical Defoe worked his greatreform in style, the language of the novel was encumbered with imagesand unexpected metaphors, or distorted by a pompous verbosity; romancewriters mostly looked at life and realities through painted glass. Forthis, Sidney is in some degree responsible.

  His book was, so to speak, a standard one; everybody had to read it;elegant ladies now began to talk "Arcadianism" as they had been beforetalking "Euphuism." Dekker, in 1609, advises gallants to go to the playto furnish their memories with fine sayings, in order to be able todiscourse with such refined young persons: "To conclude, hoarde up thefinest play-scraps you can get, upon which your leane wit may mostsavourly feede for want of other stuffe, when the _Arcadian_ and_Euphuized_ gentlewomen have their tongues sharpened to set uponyou."[216] When he has to represent "a court-lady, whose weightiestpraise is a light wit, admired by herself, and one more," her lover, BenJonson, in his "Every man out of his humour," makes her talk"Arcadianism." Her lover, who is quite the man to appreciate theseelegancies of speech, being "a neat, spruce, affecting courtier, onethat wears clothes well and in fashion, practiseth by his glass how tosalute ... can post himself into credit with his merchant, only with thegingle of his spur and the jerk of his wand," thus describes theArcadian music which falls from the lips of the lady Saviolina: "She hasthe most harmonious and musical strain of wit that ever tempted a trueear ... oh! it flows from her like nectar, and she doth
give it thatsweet quick grace and exornation in the composure, that by this goodair, as I am an honest man, would I might never stir, sir, but--she doesobserve as pure a phrase and use as choice figures in her ordinaryconference as any be in the 'Arcadia.'"[217]

  The demand for Sidney's book continued long unabated. It was oftenreprinted during the seventeenth century,[218] and found imitators,abbreviators and continuators. Among its early admirers it had thatindefatigable reader of novels, William Shakespeare, who took from itseveral hints, especially from the story of the "Paphlagonian unkindking," which he made use of in his "King Lear."[219] Books werepublished under cover of Sidney's name, as "Sir Philip Sydney'sOurania";[220] others were given away bearing as an epigraph anadaptation of two well-known verses:

  "Nec divinam _Sydneida_ tenta Sed longe sequere et vestigia semper adora,"[221]

  no insignificant compliment, considering the word which had to makeroom for "Sydneida." Works without number were dedicated to the Countessof Pembroke, not only because she was what she was, and a poetess ofsome renown, but because she was the Mary Sidney of Arcadian fame.

  As Sidney had stated that he did not consider his novel finished withthe marriage of his heroes, and the reconciliation of his royal couple,continuations were not wanting; writers who did not consider their pen"dulled" as he had declared his own to be, volunteered to add a furtherbatch of adventures to the "Sidneyd." Thus we have the "English Arcadiaalluding his beginning to Sir Philip Sidnes ending," by Gervase Markham,1607; a "Sixth booke to the Countesse of Pembrokes Arcadia, written byR[ichard] B[eling] of Lincolnes Inne," 1624; or again a "Continuation ofSir Philip Sydney's Arcadia: wherein is handled the loves of Amphialusand Helena ... written by a young gentlewoman, Mrs. A. W.," 1651. Dramaswere built upon incidents in the "Arcadia"; Shakespeare we have seenmade use of it in his "King Lear"; John Day wrote after Sidney's tale,"The Ile of Guls," 1606, "the argument being a little string or rivoletdrawne from the full streme of the right worthy gentleman, Sir PhillipSydneys well knowne Archadea."[222] Some years later, in 1640, Shirleyput Basilius and his court again on the stage in his "Pastorall calledthe Arcadia."[223]

  Authors of poems also took their plots from stories in Sidney's novel,one of the most popular among those stories was the adventures ofArgalus and Parthenia; it was constantly reprinted in a separate form,and was the subject of a long poem by the well-known Francis Quarles,the author of the "Emblemes." "It was," says he in his preface, "a sciontaken out of the orchard of Sir Philip Sidney of precious memory, whichI have lately graffed upon a crab-stock in mine own.... This bookdiffers from my former as a courtier from a churchman." Not less did itdiffer from his later books, among which the "Emblemes" were to figure;but the pious author eases his conscience about it by alleging"precedents for it." It cannot be denied that if Quarles' "churchman"was very devout his "courtier" was very worldly. He goes far beyondSidney in his descriptions of love, of physical love especially, anduses in this matter a freedom of speech and a bantering tone whichreminds us much more of the Reine de Navarre than of the author of the"Emblemes." Such as it is, however, this poem remains, so far asliterary merit goes, one of the best Quarles ever wrote. He scarcelyever reached again this terseness and vivacity of style, and this_entrain_. Having for once shut himself out of the church, and not forlong, he wanted it seems to do the best with his time, and if he wassinning, at least to enjoy his sin.

  ARGALUS AND PARTHENIA READING A BOOK IN THEIR GARDEN,1656.]

  His contemporaries enjoyed it greatly; "Argalus and Parthenia" wentthrough an extraordinary number of editions;[224] some of them were veryfine, and were even illustrated with cuts. We give an example of themshowing the newly married couple sitting in their garden to read astory:

  "Upon a day as they were closely seated, Her ears attending whilst his lips repeated A story treating the renown'd adventures And famous acts of great Alcides, enters A messenger whose countenance did bewray A haste too serious to admit delay."

  Is there any necessity for reminding the reader of the cause of themessenger's haste? Is it possible that such world-famous adventures canbe now forgotten? The messenger was sent by King Basilius, who wassorely pressed by his arch-enemy Amphialus. The young hero rushes to therescue of the Arcadian king, but he is piteously slain in a duel withAmphialus. Then Parthenia dresses herself as a knight, and fights herhusband's conqueror. With more verisimilitude than is usually the case,she too is piteously slain. And this is the end of Argalus andParthenia.

  But there was still more than this, and like Lyly, Sidney had directimitators who copied him in prose, and tried to fashion novels after hismodel. All the peculiarities of his style and of his way, or ratherwant, of composition, are to be found minutely reproduced in: "Thecountesse of Mountgomeries Urania; written by the Rt. Hon. the Lady MaryWroath, daughter of the Rt. noble Robert earle of Leicester, and neeceto the ever famous and renowned S^r Phillips Sidney Kt. and to y^e mostexcelent Lady Mary Countesse of Pembroke late deceased."[225] Thispedigree-shaped title is enough in itself to show what we may expectfrom the performance. It is a complete and pious imitation of Sidney'smanner, especially of his defects, for they were more easily attained.Thus we have those repetitions of the same words which were so pleasantto Sidney's ear, and Lady Mary Wroth has a felicity of her own intwisting the idea into the words, screw-wise, with a perfection hermodel had scarcely ever attained: "All for others grieved; pittieextended so, as all were carefull, but of themselves most carelesse: yettheir mutual care made them all cared for." A very true and logicalobservation. Lady Mary is also fond of giving sense and feeling toinanimate objects, and scarcely, again, can Sidney, with his sea thatwill not wash, or Cyrano with his proud giant of curdled milk, suffercomparison with this description of a burning tower into which a womanthrows the head of her enemy: "For her welcome [Dorileus] presented herwith the head of her enemy, which he then cut off and gave unto her, wholike Tomeris of Sithia, held it by the haire, but gave it quicklyanother conclusion, for she threw it into the midst of the flamingtower, which then, as being in it selfe enemy to good, because wastinggood, yet hotly desiring to embrace as much ill, and so headlongly andhastily fell on it, either to grace it with the quickest and hottestkisses, or to conceale such a villanous and treacherous head from moreand just punishments."[226]

  As to the story, it is, like the "Arcadia," a tale of shepherds who areprinces, and of shepherdesses with royal blood in their veins; there areeclogues, dialogues, and if not much poetry at least much verse. Theevents take place in Greece and in the Greek islands; people go to thetemple of Diana and to the temple of Venus. In the last-named place theyget married. These worshippers of the deities of old are dressed asfollows. Here is the description of a man's costume: "Then changed hehis armour taking one of azure colour, his plume crimson, and one fallof blew in it; the furniture to his horse being of those colours, andhis device onely a cipher, which was made of all the letters of hismisstrisses name, delicately composed within the compasse of one." Hereis now a description of the costume women wore in Lady Mary's Greekland: "She was partly in greene too; as her upper garment, white buskinsshe had, the short sleeves which she wore upon her armes and came insight from her shoulders were also white, and of a glistering stuffe, alittle ruffe she had about her neck, from which came stripps which werefastned to the edges of her gowne, cut downe equally for length andbreadth to make it square; the strips were of lace, so as the skinnecame steallinglie through, as if desirous but afraide to bee seane,knowing that little joy would moove desire to have more." This cleveryoung person had been "sworn a nymph," which prevented her gettingmarried for some years. Waiting for that auspicious date a lover wasoffering his addresses to her, and as Lady Wroth's Arcadia is an Arcadiawith a peerage, we are informed that this sworn nymph's lover was "thethird sonne of an earle."[227]

  No less a man than Ben Jonson proclaimed himself an admirer of LadyMary; he dedicated one of his masterpieces, "the Alchemist," to "thelady most dese
rving her name and blood, Lady Mary Wroth," and in his"Epigrams" he addressed her as follows, his only but sufficient excusebeing that the "Urania" was not yet written:

  "Madam, had all antiquity been lost, All history seal'd up and fables crost, That we had left us, nor by time nor place, Least mention of a Nymph, a Muse, a Grace, But even their names were to be made anew Who could not create them all from you?"[228]

  The eighteenth century began, and Sidney's romance was not yetforgotten; his book was still alive, if one may say so, when the novelassumed its definite shape, style and compass with Defoe, Richardson andFielding. Addison notices its presence in the fair Leonora's library,among "the some few which the lady had bought for her own use."[229] Itcontinued then to be fashionable, and a subject of conversation. Nowonder, therefore, that between the date of "Robinson Crusoe" and thedate of "Pamela" two more editions of the "Arcadia" were given to thepublic. One of them contained engravings after drawings by L.Cheron.[230] The other was "moderniz'd" and was published bysubscription under the patronage of the Princess of Wales.[231] Sidney'snovel continued to act on men's minds, and many proofs of its influenceon eighteenth-century literature might be pointed out. That Sidney wasRichardson's first teacher in the art of the novel is well known; thatCowper read the "Arcadia" with delight is well known too, and he confersno mean praise on our author when he speaks of

  "those golden times And those arcadian scenes that Maro sings And Sidney, warbler of poetic prose."[232]

  Examples of Sidney's style are also to be found in several authors ofthat time. Consciously or not, Young sometimes adopts all thepeculiarities of Sidney; for example, when he writes:

  "Sweet harmonist! and beautiful as sweet! And young as beautiful! and soft as young! And gay as soft! and innocent as gay! And happy (if aught happy here) as good! For fortune fond had built her nest on high."[233]

  Sidney's popularity did not, of course, last so long withoutencountering some opposition. For Milton, and no wonder, the "Arcadia"was nothing but "a vain amatorious poem," though he is fair enough toadd that it is "in that kind, full of worth and wit."[234] HoraceWalpole was very hard upon our novelist: "We have a tedious, lamentable,pedantic pastoral romance," says he, in his "Royal and Noble Authors,""which the patience of a young virgin in love cannot now wadethrough."[235] It is sad to think that the once famous "Castle ofOtranto," though twenty times shorter, requires now no smaller dose ofpatience.

  "See the fond youth! he burns, he loves, he dies, He wishes as he pines and feeds his famish'd eyes."]

  None the less, the "Arcadia" was popular in the last century, and, atthe same time as it attracted the attention of fair Leonoras, it alsointerested and delighted a much commoner sort of readers. It was severaltimes printed in an abbreviated form, and circulated, with engravings,as a chap-book. Sometimes the whole of the "Arcadia" was compressed intoa small volume, sometimes only an episode was given to the public. Thestory of Argalus and Parthenia was especially popular.[236] Theengravings, it is needless to say, were very coarse; and if Sidney hadtaken little trouble to be historically or geographically accurate, thewood-block makers took even less, and they offer to our eyes anextraordinary medley of fifteenth-century knights, Roman soldiers,gentlemen in flowing wigs and court swords, all of them supposed to haveat one time adorned with their presence the groves of Arcady. A fewspecimens of these engravers' art are here given; no doubt the readerwill be pleased to know what the famous Argalus and Parthenia weresupposed to have been like, how the bathing of Philoclea in the Ladonwas represented, and the sorts of fetes and courtly dances thatenlivened the marriage of that princess.

  More striking even than these tributes to Sidney's merits as a novelistis the treatment awarded him in France. The famous Du Bartas in hissecond "Week" names Sidney as one of the "three firm pillars of theEnglish Speech." This speech, according to the French poet, is mainlysupported by Thomas More and Bacon,

  "Et le milor Cydne qui cygne doux-chantant Va les flots orgueilleux de Tamise flatant; Ce fleuve gros d'honneur emporte sa faconde Dans le sein de Thetis et Thetis par le monde."[237]

  "HOW THE TWO PRINCESSES PAMELA AND HER SISTER PHILOCLEAWENT TO BATH THEMSELVES ... AND WHAT AFTER HAPNED."]

  Besides this, Sidney's romance received in France an homage very rareat that epoch: it was translated. A Frenchman possessing a knowledge ofthe English language was then an extraordinary phenomenon. As late asthe year 1665, no less a paper than the "Journal des Scavans" printed astatement to the following effect: "The Royal Society of Londonpublishes constantly a number of excellent works But whereas most ofthem are written in the English language, we have been unable till nowto review them in our pages. But we have at last found an Englishinterpreter through whose offices it will be henceforth possible for usto enrich our publication with the best things appearing in England." Asfor Sidney, not only was he translated, but what is not less strange,the fact provoked in France one of the most violent literary quarrels ofthe time. Two translations of the "Arcadia," now entirely forgotten,were published simultaneously, both in three volumes, both adorned withengravings.[238] As soon as a volume appeared, each of the translatorsprofited by the occasion to write a new preface, and to repeat that hisrival was a mere plagiarist and did not know a word of English. Theother replied offering to prove such a rare knowledge; had it been aquestion of Chinese or of Hindustani they could not have boasted morenoisily of their unique acquaintance with so mysterious an idiom. Eachappealed to his patroness, who was, in either case, no ordinary woman:the one had dedicated his work to Diane de Chateaumorand (D'Urfe'sDiane), who had indeed the right to judge of Arcadias; the other invokedthe authority of the Queen-mother, Marie de Medicis, by whose expresscommand he had carried on his work.

  Baudoin, who had been the first to turn the "Arcadia" into French,published it in 1624, prefixing to it this remark, flattering toSidney's memory, but which shows how very little his language was knownin France: "Merely the desire of understanding so rare a book caused meto go to England, where I remained for two years in order to gain aknowledge of it."

  "THE GLORIOUS ENTERTAINMENTS THAT GRACED THE HAPPYNUPTIALS."]

  Two years! immediately retorts the publisher of the other translation;we can do better than that: the author of the work that we publish isMademoiselle Genevieve Chappelain, and what guarantees does she notoffer! "She has the honour to have lived more than seven years at thecourt of the King of Great Britain, in the suite of the Countess ofSalisbury, who esteemed her as no ordinary young girl, but as a verywell-bred demoiselle who had been presented to her with goodcredentials, and who was descended from a race that has given us greatmen: verily, and women, too, that the muses have deigned to favour."This is a little like the argument of Scudery, boasting, ten yearslater, of his noble birth in order to prove to poor Pierre Corneillethat he is the better poet of the two, and that the "Cid" is worthnothing.

  But something better still follows, and here the worthy publishersomewhat betrays himself: "If she has not been able to learn thelanguage of the country in which she has lived for more than sevenyears, and nearly always with great ladies: how, I beg of you, couldthose who have only lived there two years, and among the common people,know the language? I do not wish to offend any one by this notice, whichI thought it necessary to make only to defend a young lady _who is mynear relation_."

  Baudoin maintains his statement, and defies his rivals to translateSidney's verse, and he enumerates the precautions he himself has taken,precautions which certainly ought to satisfy the reader as regards hisaccuracy. Not only did he live for two years in England, but, he says,"I secured the assistance of a French gentleman of merit and learning,who has been good enough to explain to me the whole of the first book. Ihave acted in such a way as to procure two different versions of it inorder to produce one good one." And he has done even something more: "Ihave always had near me one of my friends to whom this tongue was asfamiliar as our ow
n; he has taken the trouble to elucidate for me anydoubts I may have had." In truth, he could hardly have surroundedhimself with more light, but then, what an arduous task to translatefrom English!

  Baudoin's adversaries were in no way intimidated by this display;firstly, they had had the assistance of exactly the same gentleman; itappears that a second equally learned was not to be found; secondly,Mdlle. Chappelain also showed her translation to persons who knew bothlanguages, and they found her work perfect; lastly, and what more can berequired? she sends a challenge to Baudoin and his accomplices, andinvites them to a decisive combat: "She is ready to show that she knowsthe English language better than they, and they would not dare to appearin order to speak it with her in the presence of persons capable ofjudging." Baudoin does not appear, indeed, to have accepted thischallenge, but neither does it seem to have discouraged him. He closesthe preface of his last volume with this poetical apostrophe to thosewho are envious of his reputation: "By the mouth of good wits--Apolloholds you in contempt,--Troop so ignorant and bold:--For you profane hisbeauteous gifts,--And cause thistles to spring up--In the midst of yourArcady."[239]

  What astonishes us now, when we follow the vicissitudes of thelong-forgotten dispute of these two writers is that so much passionshould have been expended over Sidney's romance, however great might beits merit; while the attention of no one in France was attracted byShakespeare and the inimitable group of dramatists of his time. NoBaudoin, no Genevieve Chappelain disputed the honour of translating"Hamlet," and a century was still to elapse before so much asShakespeare's name should figure in a book printed in France.[240]

  This double translation of the "Arcadia" did not, however, passunnoticed, far from it; and from time to time we find the name of Sidneyreappearing in French books, while the giants of English literaturecontinued entirely unknown on the continent. When Charles Sorelsatirized the long-winded romances of his time in his "BergerExtravagant," he did not forget Sidney, who figures among the authorsalternately praised and criticized in the disputation between Clarimondand Philiris. The criticism is not very severe, and compared with thetreatment inflicted on other authors, it would seem that Sorel wished toshow courtesy to a foreigner who had been invited, so to say, as avisitor to France by his translators.[241] Copies of Sidney's original"Arcadia" crept into France, and are to be found in rather unexpectedplaces. Thus a copy of the edition of 1605 is to be seen in the NationalLibrary in Paris, with the [Greek: Ph Ph] of surintendant Fouquet on thecover. The way in which the letters are interlaced shows that the bookdid not come from Fouquet's own library, but from the library of theJesuits,[242] to whom he had given a yearly income of 6,000 livres, andwho, in memory of their benefactor, stamped thus books purchased fromthis fund.

  In France, too, as well as in England, the "Arcadia" was turned into aplay. Antoine Mareschal, a contemporary of Corneille and the author ofsuch dramas as "La genereuse Allemande ou le triomphe de l'amour," 1631,the "Railleur ou la satyre du temps," 1638, the "Mauzolee," 1642,derived a tragi-comedy, in five acts, and in verse from the "Arcadia."The piece, which, if the author is to be believed, made a greatsensation in Paris, was called the "Cour Bergere," and was dedicated toRobert Sidney, Earl of Leicester, ambassador of England to France, andbrother to Sir Philip. It appeared in 1640; it was thus later than the"Cid." None the less, it exhibits the phenomenon of several deaths onthe stage; but the ridiculous manner in which these deaths areintroduced could only strengthen Corneille in his scruples. The wickedCecropia, standing on a terrace at the back of the stage, moves withoutseeing the edge, and falls head foremost on the boards, exclaiming:

  "Ah! je tombe, et l'enfer a mon corps entraine ... Je deteste le ciel! Ah! je meurs enragee!"

  In the following century Sidney was still remembered in France. In his"Memoires pour servir a l'histoire de la Republique des lettres,"Niceron mentions the "Arcadia" as "a romance full of intelligence andvery well written in the author's language."[243] Florian knew him andheld him in great honour; he names him with D'Urfe, Montemayor, andCervantes, as being, as it were, one of his literary ancestors,[244] andthe fact is not without importance; for Florian, continuing, as he did,Sidney's tradition, and trying in his turn to write poems in prose,stands as a link between the pastoral writers of the sixteenth centuryand the author who was the last to compose prose epics in our time: theauthor of "Les Martyrs" and of that American Arcadia called"Atala"--Chateaubriand.

  SAGITTARIUS.]

  AN INTERIOR VIEW OF A THEATRE IN THE TIME OFSHAKESPEARE. THE SWAN THEATRE, 1596.]

  FOOTNOTES:

  [167] And which has been faithfully and touchingly described in Dr.Jessopp's book: "Arcady: For better, for worse," recently published inLondon.

  [168] Besides its fine collection of family portraits, one of which isreproduced in this volume, by the kind permission of Lord de l'Isle andDudley, Penshurst is remarkable because it offers to this day a perfectexample of a fourteenth-century hall with the fireplace in the middle.

  [169] "Life of the renowned S^r Philip Sidney," London, 1652, 12mo.

  [170] "The Correspondence of Sir Ph. Sidney and Hubert Languet," ed.Pears London, 1845, 8vo, Appendix; A.D. 1579(?).

  [171] "Vindictae contra tyrannos," Edinburgh, 1579, part iii.

  [172] Padua, February 4, 1574, "Correspondence," p. 29.

  [173] A.D. 1575, "Correspondence," p. 94.

  [174] "Arcadia," bk. iii.

  [175] "Captain Cox his ballads ... or Robert Laneham's Letter, 1575,"ed. Furnivall, London, Ballad Society, 1871, 8vo, p. 53.

  [176] "Correspondence," _ut supra_, March 1, 1578.

  [177] "Sir Philip Sidney's Astrophel and Stella ... edited from thefolio of 1598," by Alfred Pollard, London, 1888, 8vo, sonnet 33.Penelope's marriage with Lord Rich seems to have taken place in April,1581.

  [178] "Astrophel and Stella," _ut supra_, pp. 170 and 72 (sonnet 69).

  [179]

  "Goe little booke! thy selfe present As childe whose father is unkent To him that is the President Of noblenesse and chevalree...."

  Dedication of the "Shepheardes Calender." Sidney seems to have had aright and not over-enthusiastic appreciation of Spenser's eclogues; inhis "Apologie for Poetrie" he is content to say that "the SheapheardesKalender hath much poetrie in his eglogues: indeede worthy the readingif I be not deceived" (Arber's reprint, p. 62).

  [180] The elegies written on this occasion are counted by the hundred. Asplendid series of engravings were published by T. Laut to perpetuatethe memory of Sidney's funeral, London, 1587

  [181] London, 1598, fol.

  [182] Sidney left only one daughter who became Countess of Rutland. Hiswife remarried twice, first with the Earl of Essex, brother of Penelope,then with Lord Clanricarde.

  [183] "Essayes," London, 1603, fol. Dedication of Book II. This"Epistle" is followed by two sonnets, one to each lady, again praisingthem for their connection with Sidney. The sonnet to Penelope beginsthus:

  "Madame, to write of you, and doe you right, What meane we, or what meanes to ayde meane might? Since HE who admirably did endite, Entiteling you perfections heire, joies light, Loves life, lifes gemme, vertues court, Heav'ns delight, Natures chiefe worke, fair'st booke, his muses spright, Heav'n on earth, peerlesse Phoenix, Phoebe bright, Yet said he was to seeke, of you to write" (p. 191).

  This last line alludes to Astrophel's first sonnet to Stella (quotedbelow, p. 233).

  [184] "What changes here," &c. "translated out of the 'Diana' ofMontemayor in Spanish. Where Sireno a shepheard pulling out a little ofhis mistresse Diana's haire, wrapt about in greene silke, who now hadutterly forsaken him, to the haire hee thus bewayled himselfe."--"Thesame Sireon ... holding his mistresse glasse ... thus sung." "Certainesonnets written by Sir Philip Sidney, never before printed."

  [185] This masque was written in 1578; and was performed before theQueen when staying with the Earl of Leicester at Wanstead. Sidney wrotealso for festivities of the same kind a "Dialogu
e betweene twoshepheards, uttered in a pastorall shew at Wilton" (the seat of hissister the Countess of Pembroke). Both works are to be found in diversold editions of the "Arcadia" (_e.g._, the eighth, 1633, fol.), which infact contain, very nearly, Sidney's complete works.

  [186] The "Apologie" written about 1581, which circulated in MS. duringSidney's life-time, was published only after his death: "An Apologie forPoetrie, written by the right noble, vertuous and learned Sir PhilipSidney, Knight," London, 1595, reprinted by Arber, London, 1869.

  [187] Arber's reprint, pp. 46, 55, 41, and 40.

  [188] "The Complete Poems of Sir Philip Sidney," ed. Grosart, London,1877, 3 vol. 8vo; "Sir Philip Sidney's Astrophel and Stella ... editedfrom the folio of 1598," by Alfred Pollard, London, 1888, 8vo.

  [189] The "Arcadia" begun in 1580, appeared after Sidney's death: "TheCountesse of Pembrokes Arcadia, written by Sir Philippe Sidnei," London,1590, 4to. Several of the numerous poems inserted in the "Arcadia" arewritten in classical metres; for Sidney took part with several of hiscontemporaries in the futile effort made in England as in France toapply to modern languages the rules of ancient prosody. The pagesreferred to in the following notes are those of the edition of 1633,"now the eighth time published with some new additions."

  [190] And compared as such to Octavia, sister of Augustus, by Meres inhis "Paladis Tamia," 1598. She helped her brother in translating thePsalms of David and published various works, one of them being atranslation of one of Garnier's neo-classical tragedies: "The tragedieof Antonie," written in 1590, printed in 1595, which contains,conformably to Sidney's taste, messengers, monologues and choruses. Itbegins thus in the regular classical style of that time:

  "Since cruel Heav'ns against me obstinate, Since all mishappes of the round engin doo Conspire my harme: since men, since powers divine, Aire, earth, and sea are all injurious: And that my queene her selfe, in whom I liv'd The idoll of my harte, doth me pursue, It's meete I dye."

  [191] The "Diana" was turned into English by B. Yong, London, 1598, fol.Shakespeare derived from one of the stories in Montemayor's romance (thestory of the shepherdess Felismena) a part of the plot of his "TwoGentlemen of Verona." See above p. 150.

  [192] Now in the Louvre.

  [193] The taste for these fancies had been handed down from the MiddleAges; ladies following as pages their own lovers, unknown to them,abound in the French mediaeval literature; one, _e.g._, is to be found inthe "Tres chevaleureux Comte d'Artois," a very old tale, of which wehave only a version of the fifteenth century, but which existed longbefore, and supplied Boccaccio with the groundwork of his story ofGiletta of Narbonne. From Boccaccio, this tale was transferred byPaynter to his "Palace of Pleasure," and from this work, by Shakespeare,to the stage, under the name of "All's well." Sidney's model Montemayorgives the same part to play, as we have seen, to his pretendedshepherdess Felismena, who follows as his page her lover Don Felix.

  [194] See "Les projets de mariage de Jacques V.," by Edmond Bapst,Secretaire d'Ambassade, Paris, 1889, 8vo, ch. xxiv. p. 289.

  [195] "Memoires of Sir James Melvil," London, 1683, fol., p. 51.

  [196] Sonnet 41. See also Sonnet 53.

  [197] "Captain Cox his ballads ... or Robert Laneham's Letter, 1575,"ed. Furnivall, London, 1871, 8vo, p. 49.

  [198] Book i. p. 8 (edition of 1633).

  [199] Book ii. p. 99.

  [200] Book iii. p. 382.

  [201] "Life of Sidney," London, 1652, 12mo, p. 18.

  [202] Book ii. p. 117.

  [203] "Zelmane would have put to her helping hand, but she was takenwith such a quivering, that she thought it was more wisdome to lean herselfe to a tree and look on" (book ii. p. 138).

  [204] Book i. p. 65.

  [205] Book ii. p. 95. The daughter's speeches though she believesZelmane to be a woman and cannot understand her own feelings arescarcely less intemperate (book ii. p. 112).

  [206] And in order that no doubt may exist, Milton refers his reader tothe page in Sidney and in Dr. Juxon's book of "[Greek: Eikonoklastes],""Prose Works," London, 1806, 6 vols., 8vo, vol. ii. p. 407.

  [207] "Arcadia," book iii. p. 248. In the "[Greek: Eikon Basilike], theportraiture of his sacred majesty in his solitude and sufferings," 1648,8vo, towards the end of the book, where are to be found "praiers used byhis majestie in the time of his sufferings, delivered to Dr. Juxon,bishop of London, immediately before his death," the end of the prayerof course is altered: "... so that at the last, I may com to thy eternalkingdom through the merits of thy son our alone Saviour Jesus Christ.Amen."

  [208] His contemporaries agreed in his belief: "Sir Philip Sidney writhis immortal poem 'The Countesse of Pembrokes Arcadia' in prose; and yetour rarest poet" (F. Meres "Paladis Tamia," 1598).

  [209] Pp. 138 and 51.

  [210] On this and other occasions Sidney combines alliteration with therepetition of words. Here is another example: "Is it to be imagined thatGynecia, a woman, though wicked, yet witty, would have attempted andatchieved an enterprise no lesse hazzardous than horrible without havingsome counsellor in the beginning and some comforter in the performing?"(book v. p. 466).

  [211] Pp. 10, 17, 129, 267, &c. The same curious repetition of words issometimes to be noticed in Sidney's poetry:

  "Nor faile my faith in my fayling fate; Nor change in change, though change change my state."

  ("The Smokes of melancholie.")

  [212] Pp. 2, 137, 51.

  [213] "La, possible au sortir du combat, un oeillet tout sanglant tombede lassitude; la un bouton de rose, eufle du mauvais succes de sonantagoniste, s'epanouit de joie; la le lys, ce colosse entre les fleurs,ce geant de lait caille, glorieux de voir ses images triompher auLouvre, s'eleve sur ses compagnes et les regarde de haut en bas." Ice isfor Cyrano: "une lumiere endurcie, un jour petrifie, un solide neant"("Lettre pour le printemps"; "Lettre a M. le Bret").

  [214] Book i. p. 4.

  [215] Here is an example among many others. Sidney's portrait, nowbelonging to Earl Darnley, bears the following inscription painted onits canvas: "S^r Phillip Sidney, who writ the Arcadia" (TudorExhibition, 1890).

  [216] "The Guls Horne-booke," "Works," ed. Grosart, vol. ii. p. 254.

  [217] Act ii. sc. 1, performed 1599, printed 1600. See also in"Bartholomew fair," performed in 1614, act iv. sc. 2, how Quarlouschooses the word "Argalus" to try his luck in a love affair.

  [218] The British Museum, which does not possess a complete collection,has editions of 1590, 1598, 1599, 1605, 1613, 1621, 1623, 1627, 1629,1633, 1638, 1655, 1662, 1674.

  [219] From book ii. of the "Arcadia." It resembles the episode ofGloucester and his sons, and shows the old King of Paphlagoniadispossessed, become blind and led by his son Leonatus. See"Shakespeare's Library," ed. Collier and Hazlitt, London, 1875, 6 vol.8vo, "King Lear."

  [220] A philosophical and scientific poem by N. Baxter, dedicated to theCountess of Pembroke, Lady Mary Wroth, &c., and published in 1606, 4to.

  [221] "Theophania or severall modern histories, represented by way ofRomance ... by an English person of quality," London, 1655, 4to.

  [222] "The Ile of Guls, as it hath been often played in the blackefryars by the children of the revels" (reprinted by Bullen, "Works ofJohn Day," 1881, 4to.)

  [223] "Works," ed. Dyce, vol. vi. All the main incidents of Sidney'snovel are reproduced by Shirley except the quarrel with Cecropia, and asthe romance might very well have ended where Sidney left it, thedramatist did not go further and did not use any of the continuations.See also "Zelmane," by W. Mountfort, 1705, "Parthenia, an ArcadianDrama," 1764, &c.

  [224] It was published in 1622. The British Museum possesses editions ofthe years 1629, 1632, 1647, 1651, 1656, 1677, 1684, 1687, 1700, 1708,1726. Grosart (Quarles' "Complete Works," 1876) mentions one more of theyear 1630.

  [225] London, 1621, fol. (a very curious engraved title).

  [226] Pp. 39 and 519.

  [227] Pp. 295, 298.

  [228] In Jonson's "Masque of Black
ness," 1605, Lady Mary Wroth playedthe part of Baryte, and Lady Rich, Sidney's Stella of many years before,personated Ocyte.

  [229] "Spectator," April 12, 1711.

  [230] "The Works of the honourable S^r Philip Sidney," London, 1725, 3vols. 8vo.

  [231] "Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia," modernized by Mrs. [D.] Stanley,London, 1725, fol. It is a very fine volume with wide margins. One ofthe "improvements" due to Mrs. Stanley, is the suppression of all theverses. She did so, she says, at the invitation of her subscribers. Thelist of them which prefaces the book contains many Leonoras, who even atthis late period desired to have a copy of the "Arcadia" for "their ownuse." In our century an abbreviated edition of the same work waspublished by Mr. Hain Friswell, London, 1867, 8vo.

  [232] "The Task," bk. iii. l. 514.

  [233] Night iii. "Narcissa."

  [234] "[Greek: Eikonoklastes]," "Prose Works," 1806, vol. ii. p. 408.

  [235] Ed. of 1806, 5 vols., 8vo, "Life of Fulke Greville," vol. ii. p.231.

  [236] "The unfortunate lovers: the history of Argalus and Parthenia,"London, 12mo. The date, 1700 (?), given for this edition in the BritishMuseum catalogue, is obviously too early, as the publisher advertises atthe beginning of this volume "Robinson Crusoe," "Jonathan Wild," &c.There were (not to mention earlier versions of "Argalus," _e.g._, one of1691) other editions of (about) 1710, 1715, 1750, 1770, 1780, 1788, &c.These little books had sometimes very long descriptive titles, such asthose Defoe has made us familiar with: "The famous history of heroickacts of the honour of chivalry, being an abstract of Pembrokes''Arcadia,' with many strange and wonderful adventures, the whole being acompleat series interwoven with the heroick actions of many valiant men,as kings, princes, and knights, of undoubted fame, whose matchlessdeeds, ..." &c., &c. London, 1701, 12mo, "Bound, 1s."

  [237] Second day of the second Week, "Oeuvres," Paris, 1611, fol., p.211. After Sidney, Du Bartas thus addresses the Queen:

  "Claire perle du nort, guerriere domte-Mars, Continue a cherir les muses et les arts, Et si jamais ces vers peuvent, d'une aile agile, Franchissant l'ocean voler jusqu'a ton isle, Et tomber, fortunez, entre ces blanches mains Qui sous un juste frein regissent tant d'humains, Voy les d'un oeil benin et, favorable, pense Qu'il faut, pour te louer, avoir ton eloquence."

  [238] "L'Arcadie de la Comtesse de Pembrok, mise en nostre langue," byJ. Baudoin; Paris, 1624, three vol. 8vo. It contains fancy portraits ofSidney and of his sister. The second translation appeared at thebookseller's, Robert Fouet, in 1625, in the same size; it is ornamentedwith pretty engravings. Of its three parts the first was the work of "unbrave gentilhomme," and the two others of Mdlle. Genevieve Chappelain.It is needless to observe that the great success of D'Urfe's "Astree"had much to do with this zeal for translating Sidney's pastoral novel.

  Baudoin, who died in 1650, was the translator of various other foreignworks, among which part of the works of Bacon. Sir Kenelm Digby, whosefondness for romances was great, had in his library a copy of the"Arcadia" in French; this was Baudoin's translation, and it is one ofthe items of the catalogue drawn in view of the sale of his library("Bibliotheca Digbeiana," London, 1680, 4to). There was, a little later,a translation in German: "Arcadia ... in unser Hochteutsche Sprach ...ubersetzt," by Theocritus von Hirschberg [_i.e._, Martin Opitz],Francfort, 1629, 4to.

  [239]

  "Par la bouche des bons esprits Apollon vous tient a mespris Troupe ignorance et trop hardie, Car vous prophanez ses beaux dons Et faites naistre des chardons Au milieu de vostre Arcadie."

  [240] And then it was spelt _Chaksper_, "La critique du theatreanglois," translated from the English of Collier, Paris, 1715, 8vo. Inthe "Journal des Scavans" for the year 1710 it appears under the shape"Shakees Pear," p. 110.

  [241] Thus speaks Clarimond in his harangue against romances:"L'Angleterre n'a pas manque d'avoir aussi son Arcadie, laquelle ne nousa este montree que depuis peu par la traduction qui en a este faite. Jene trouve point d'ordre la dedans et il y a beaucoup de choses qui ne mepeuvent satisfaire.... Il est vrai que Sidney, etant mort jeune, a pulaisser son ouvrage imparfait." In his defence of romances, Philirisanswers: "Quant a l'Arcadie de Sidney, apres avoir passe la mer pournous venir voir, je suis marry que Clarimond la recoive avec un simauvais compliment. S'il n'entend rien aux amours de Strephon et deClajus, il faut qu'il s'en prenne a luy, non pas a l'autheur qui a renduson livre l'un des plus beaux du monde. Il y a des discours d'amour etdes discours d'estat si excellens et si delectables que je ne melasserois jamais de les lire" ("Le Berger extravagant, ou, parmy desfantaisies amoureuses, l'on void les impertinences des romans et de lapoesie," vol. iii., Paris, 1628, pp. 70 and 134). Sorel's work wastranslated into English: "The extravagant shepherd. The anti-romance, orthe history of the shepherd Lysis," by John Davies, of Kidwelly; London,1653, fol. The book has very curious plates; Davies in his preface isextremely hard upon Sidney, and heaps ridicule especially on the head ofKing Basilius. See _infra_, chap. vii.

  [242] Fouquet, however, was very fond of foreign books; the catalogue(dated 1665) of his library, drawn up after his committal, shows that hehad a fairly large number of English books. He was the earliest knownFrench possessor of a Shakespeare. The catalogue, it is true, revealsthe fact that he preserved it "in his garret":

  "Livres in folio qui se trouvent dans le grenier: Comedies de Jazon [_i.e._, Ben Jonson] en anglois, 2 vol., London, 1640 _3l._ Idem, comedies angloises _10s._ Shakespeares comedies angloises _1l._ Fletcher commedies angloises _1l._"

  (MS. 9,438 francais, in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris.)

  The second in date of the French possessors of copies of Shakespearewas, strange to say, no less a person than the patron of Racine andBoileau, the Roi-Soleil himself. Looking over, some time ago, at theBibliotheque Nationale, the original manuscript slips made in 1684 bythe royal librarian, Nicolas Clement, for his catalogue of the booksconfided to his care, I found one inscribed: "Will. Shakspeare, poetaAnglicus. Opera poetica, continentia tragoedias, comoedias ethistoriolas, Anglice, Londres, Th. Cotes, 1632, fol." And to this,considering that he had to deal with a thoroughly unknown person,Clement was careful to add a note that people might be informed what wasto be thought of the poet. This is (so far as now known) the earliestFrench allusion to Shakespeare: "Ce poete anglois a l'imagination assesbelle, il pense naturellement; mais ces belles qualitez sont obscurciespar les ordures qu'il mele dans ses comedies."

  [243] Vol. xv. published in 1731.

  [244] "Essai sur la pastorale," prefacing "Estelle."

  ELIZABETHAN GAIETIES. KEMP'S DANCE FROM LONDON TONORWICH.]