WH

HEN nowadays we see our shepherds, wrapped in their long brown cloaks, silently following the high roads in the midst of a suffocating dust which seems to come out of their sheep, it is difficult to explain the enthusiasm that has ascribed to this race of mutes such fine speeches and such pleasant adventures. Greeks, Romans, Italians, Spaniards, the French and the English, have differed in a multitude of points, but they have one and all delighted in pastorals. No class of heroes either in history or fiction has uttered so much verse and prose as the keepers of sheep. Neither Ajax son of Telamon, nor the wise king of Ithaca, nor Merlin, Lancelot, or Charlemagne, nor even the inexhaustible Grandison,

can bear the least comparison with Tityrus. It is easy to give many reasons for this; but the phenomenon still remains somewhat strange. The best explanation is perhaps that the pastoral is one of the most convenient pretexts existing for saying what would otherwise be embarrassing. To many many authors the eclogue is like a canvas for trying their colours and brushes. Many would not willingly confess it, and Pope would have vowed a mortal hatred to any one who explained his eclogues thus: but it is better for his reputation to believe that he had at least that reason for writing them. For some, the pastoral is an allegory, where, if one would, place can be given to Cynthia, Queen of the Sea, that is to say, to Elizabeth, and to a Shepherd of the Ocean who is Raleigh; it allows the poet to speak to kings, to ask alms discreetly of them, and to thank them.

In England, in Shakespeare's time people were passionately fond of the country of Arcadia, not the Arcady "for better for worse" that can be seen anywhere outside London, but the old poetical Arcadia, the Arcadia of nowhere, which was the more cherished on account of its non-existence. They could invent at their ease, imagine prodigious adventures and wonderful amours; since no one had ever been in Arcadia, it was hardly possible for any one to protest that events happened differently there. To-day we think in quite another way; we must be told of well-ascertained facts, of warranted catastrophes, at once certified and

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

provable. That is why the action of our novels, far from carrying us into Arcadia, often unfolds itself in our kitchens and on our back staircases. 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," Arcadias," so cherished by our fathers, contained their share of enduring beauty, or if their lasting success is to be explained otherwise than by their improbabilities and their artificial embellishments. Nevertheless the study might be profitable, for it must be borne in mind that the readers of these romances went in the afternoon to the "Globe" to see Shakespeare play his own pieces, and that, admitting their fondness for such dramas, in which, without speaking of other merits, the kitchen is sometimes the place represented, it would be surprising to find only mere nonsense in the whole collection of their favoured romances. Let these suggestions justify us at need in examining one more Arcadia besides, it is not that of a penniless] Bohemian; it is the Arcadia of Sir Philip Sidney, the pattern of chivalrous perfection under Elizabeth. His life is not, in its way, less characteristic of his time than that of starving Robert Greene, or of Thomas Lodge the corsair.

I.

Born in 1554, in the noble castle of Penshurst in Kent, Sidney passed a part of his childhood in Ludlow

Besides its fine collection of family portraits, one of which is reproduced in this volume, by the kind permission of Lord de

Castle, where in the next century Milton's "Comus" was to be represented. At college he was famous for his personal charm, his knowledge, and the thoughtful turn of his mind. "I knew him," wrote in later years his friend and companion Fulke Greville, "with such staiednesse of mind, lovely and familiar gravity, as carried grace and reverence above greater years." I During the year 1572 he was staying in France, where he had been appointed by King Charles IX. one of the gentlemen of his chamber. It was the time of the St. Bartholomew massacre, and Sidney, who belonged to the English mission, remained in the house of Sir Francis Walsingham, the Queen's ambassador, and escaped the perils of that terrible day.

He left France shortly after and travelled in several countries of Europe, studying men and nations, storing his mind with information; he was comparatively free from prejudice, and believed that useful examples and 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 matters is . . . worthy to worthy to be known and learned. Nay even the kingdom of China which is almost as far as the Antipodes from us, their good laws and customs are to be learned." 2 In such a

l'Isle and Dudley, Penshurst is remarkable because it offers to this day a perfect example of a fourteenth-century hall with the fireplace in the middle.

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"Life of the renowned S Philip Sidney," London, 1652,

I2mo.

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

disposition of mind he visited successively Germany, Austria, Hungary, and Italy. The most interesting incident of his journey was the acquaintance he made with a Frenchman, the political thinker Hubert Languet, from whom Milton, a long time before Rousseau, probably derived his ideas of the social contract "fœdus," says Languet, "inter [principem] and populum," and his theories on the right of insurrection. A most tender friendship was formed between the revolutionary writer and the aristocratic Sidney. They began a correspondence which did not cease till the former's death in 1581. Languet had great influence over his young friend, and was constantly giving him most manly advice and that best suited to strengthen his character, warning him especially in very wise fashion against a melancholy unsuitable to his age, which in the grave Huguenot's opinion was only a useless impedimentum in life. "I readily allow," wrote Sidney, in answer to his friend's remonstrances, "that I am often more serious than either my age or my pursuits demand." 2 That this tendency to pensiveness left its trace on his features may be seen in most of his portraits, among others in that by Isaac Oliver, of which we give a reproduction.

The most interesting of Sidney's portraits is unfortunately lost. He sat for it while in Italy, at the request of his friend, and chose no mean artist to paint it: "As soon as ever I return to Venice, I will have it done, either by Paul Veronese or by Tintoretto, who hold by far the highest place in the art." He decided "Vindictæ contra tyrannos," Edinburgh, 1579, part iii.

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2 Padua, February 4, 1574, "Correspondence," p. 29.