think unmoved of his well-filled career ending on the eve of the great triumphs of his country, to call to our memory this brave man who died with his face to the enemy without knowing that victory would be declared for his side, without having known Shakespeare, without having seen the defeat of the Armada. As for his Stella she survived him only too long. A few years after Sidney's death she deserted her husband by whom she had had seven children, and became the mistress of Charles Blount, Lord Mountjoy, afterwards Earl of Devonshire, to whom she gave three sons and two daughters. Lord Rich, a man full of prudence it seems, waited for the death of the Earl of Essex, his wife's brother, to divorce her. She then married her lover in 1605. But till her death, which happened in 1608 she was mostly remembered as having been Sidney's friend, and books were dedicated to her because she had been Astrophel's "Stella." Thus Yong's translation of the " Diana" of Montemayor, a pastoral from which Sidney had taken many hints, is dedicated to her. Thus again Florio asks her conjointly with Sidney's daughter 2 to patronize the second book of Montaigne's Essays, addressing Penelope, in the extraordinary style that belonged to him: "I meane you (truely richest Ladie Rich) in riches of fortune not deficient, but of body incomparably richer, of minde most rich who yet, like Cornelia, were you out-vied, or by rich shewes envited to shew your richest jewelles, 1 London, 1598, fol. 2 Sidney left only one daughter who became Countess of Rutland. His wife remarried twice, first with the Earl of Essex, brother of Penelope, then with Lord Clanricarde. would stay till your sweet images (your deere-sweete children) came from schoole." And then, addressing the ladies together, both the daughter and the mistress of the departed hero: "I know not this nor any I have seen, or can conceive, in this or other language, can in aught be compared to that perfect-imperfect Arcadia, which all our world yet weepes with you, that your all praise-exceeding father (his praise-succeeding countesse) your worthy friend (praise-worthiest lady) lived not to mend or end it." I Once Astrophel had sung of Stella, and now Lady Rich was praised by the pedant Rombus. II. Sidney's works well accord with his life; in these few years he had time to take in with a clear and kindly glance all those beauties of ancient or modern times, of distant countries or of his own which set the hearts I "Essayes," London, 1603, fol. Dedication of Book II. This "Epistle is followed by two sonnets, one to each lady, again praising them for their connection with Sidney. The sonnet to Penelope begins thus: "Madame, to write of you, and doe you right, What meane we, or what meanes to ayde meane might? Entiteling you perfections heire, joies light, Loves life, lifes gemme, vertues court, Heav'ns delight, This last line alludes to Astrophel's first sonnet to Stella (quoted below, p. 233). of his contemporaries beating, and he is therefore perhaps, on account of his catholicity, the most worthy of Shakespeare's immediate precursors. The brilliance of the Spaniards enchants him, and he translates fragments of Montemayor; the Kenilworth fêtes amuse him and he writes a masque, "The Lady of May," 2 to be used at like festivities. A true Christian he translates the Psalms of David; a tender and passionate heart, he rhymes the sonnets of Astrophel to Stella; enamoured of chivalry and great exploits, he writes, with fluent pen, his "Arcadia," where he imitates the style made fashionable in Europe by Montemayor in his "Diana"; a lover of belles lettres, hel defends the poet's art in an argument charming from its youthfulness, vibrating with enthusiasm, which holds in English literature the place filled in French by Fenelon's "Lettre à l'Académie." 3 This work is very "What changes here," &c. "translated out of the 'Diana' of Montemayor in Spanish. Where Sireno a shepheard pulling out a little of his mistresse Diana's haire, wrapt about in greene silke, who now had utterly forsaken him, to the haire hee thus bewayled himselfe."—"The same Sireon . . . holding his mistresse glasse... thus sung." "Certaine sonnets written by Sir Philip Sidney, never before printed." 2 This masque was written in 1578; and was performed before the Queen when staying with the Earl of Leicester at Wanstead. Sidney wrote also for festivities of the same kind a "Dialogue betweene two shepheards, uttered in a pastorall shew at Wilton" (the seat of his sister the Countess of Pembroke). Both works are to be found in divers old editions of the "Arcadia" (e.g., the eighth, 1633, fol.), which in fact contain, very nearly, Sidney's complete works. 3 The "Apologie" written about 1581, which circulated in MS. during Sidney's life-time, was published only after his death : important with regard to the subject that now occupies us, not only because Sidney gives in it his opinion on works of fiction in general; 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 to novels and that no one-Roger Ascham perhaps excepted-had until then used in England. "Perhaps it will be found, he writes at the beginning of his work, with the elegant gracefulness of a man who knows how to do everything that he does well, that I carry my apology to excess; but that is excusable listen to what Pietro Pugliano, my master of horsemanship, at the Emperor's Court, said: 'Hee sayde souldiours were the noblest estate of mankinde, and horsemen, the noblest of souldiours. Hee sayde, they were the maisters of warre, and ornaments of peace speedy goers and strong abiders, triumphers both in camp and courts." For a prince no accomplishment is comparable to that of being a good horseman; "skill of government was but a Pedanteria in comparison then would hee adde certaine prayses, by telling what a peerlesse beast a horse was. The onely serviceable courtier without flattery, the beast of most beutie, faithfulnes, courage, and such more, that if I had not beene a peece of a logician before I came to him, I think he would have perswaded mee to have wished my selfe a horse. But thus much at least with his no fewe words hee drave into me, that selfe-love is "An Apologie for Poetrie, written by the right noble, vertuous and learned Sir Philip Sidney, Knight," London, 1595, reprinted by Arber, London, 1869. better then any guilding to make that seeme gorgious, wherein our selves are parties. Wherein, if Pugliano 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 what mischance) in these my not old yeres and idelest times, having slipt into the title of a poet, am provoked to say somthing unto you in the defence of that my unelected vocation." Set at ease by Pugliano's example, who seems to have had the same veneration for the horse as his countryman Vinci, Sidney enters on his defence and does not restrain himself from extolling poetry beyond any product 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 "the too much loved earth more lovely." He gives to poetry, in effect, an immense domain: everything that is poetic or even merely a work of the imagination is poetry for him: "there have beene many most excellent poets, that never versified, and now swarme many versifiers that neede never aunswere to the name of poets." For him, the romance of "Theagines and Cariclea" is a "poem "; Xenophon's "Cyrus" is "an absolute heroicall poem." To the great joy of their author he would certainly have seen an epic in Chateaubriand's "Martyrs." "It is not riming and versing that maketh a poet, no more then a long gowne maketh an advocate who though he pleaded in armor should be an advocate and no soldiour." Even historians have sometimes to do the work of poets, that is imagining, inventing, "although theyr lippes sounde of |