thing clear and definite, must seek for it elsewhere than in the shadowy dreamland of the "Faerie Queen." To the fastidious critics of Queen Anne's time, to whom "correctness" and good taste seemed the highest virtues of poetry, Spenser, it they read him at all, must have proved a terrible stumbling-block. Keen as was his sense of beauty, he sometimes draws pictures which, to present-day readers at any rate, are intolerably repulsive. Such are his description of Error, and, in an even higher degree, the picture of Duessa unmasked. Burke is said to have admired the former, disgusting though it be, and in his old age repeated it to Sir James Mackintosh as reminding him "of that putrid carcase, that mother of all evil, the French Revolution." That Burke should have been fond of the passage appears less singular when we remember that his own speeches are now and again stained by similar violations of good taste. The language of the "Faerie Queen," like that of the "Shepherd's Calendar," is more archaic than that in general use at the time when it was written. The antique phraseology employed is not displeasing in a poem of the kind; perhaps upon the whole it rather adds to its attractiveness. The metre in which it is written, the "Spenserian stanza," as it is called, has been employed by so many great poets in great poems as to conclusively prove how admirably it is adapted for certain kinds of metrical effect. It is the stanza adopted by Thomson in the "Castle of Indolence;" by Burns in the "Cottar's Saturday Night;" by Campbell in "Gertrude of Wyoming;" by Scott in "Don Roderick;" by Wordsworth in the "Female Vagrant;" by Shelley in the "Revolt of Islam ;" by Keats in the "Eve of St. Agnes ;" and by Byron in "Childe Harold." Spenser's patron, Sir Philip Sidney, may be taken as a typical example of all that was greatest and best among the courtiers of Queen Elizabeth. Handsome in appearance, richly cultivated in mind, a proficient in all manly exercises, of unimpeachable courage, and great skill in the management of affairs, he was regarded by the aspiring young noblemen of his time as a model whom they would do well to emulate; Sir Philip Sidney. 59 while his courtesy to inferiors, his liberal benefactions, and his early and melancholy death, threw a halo around his name which even yet has not grown dim. He was born in 1554 at Penshurst, and was the son of Sir Henry Sidney, nephew of the Earl of Leicester, and of Mary Dudley, daughter of the Duke of Northumberland. Sidney is a good illustration of the axiom that the child is father of the man. From his earliest years he exerted his faculties to the utmost, striving to improve himself in every available way. He never seems to have been a boy. His friend, Fulke Greville, who was with him at Shrewsbury School, tells us that though he knew him from a child, he never knew him other than a man, with such staidness of mind, lovely and familiar gravity, as earned grace and reverence above greater years. He goes on to say that Sidney's talk was ever of knowledge, and his very play tending to enrich his mind, so that even his teachers found something in him to admire and learn above what they usually read and taught. It must not be supposed from this that Sidney was a mere plodding bookworm, buried in his studies, and with all the freshness and elasticity of youth crushed out of him. On the contrary, he cultivated his body as carefully as his mind, and attained high excellence in all the athletic sports which then prevailed. Spenser describes him as "In wrestling nimble, and in running swift; In shooting steady, and in swimming strong; In every one he vanquished every one, He vanquished all, and vanquished was of none.” From Shrewsbury Sidney proceeded to Oxford, which he quitted at the age of seventeen to undertake a prolonged tour on the Continent. He visited Paris, where he was during the terrible massacre of St. Bartholomew, the horrors of which no doubt did something to confirm him in his strongly Protestant principles, and afterwards went to Frankfort, Vienna, Padua, and other places. Everywhere his accomplishments and courtesy made him sure of a kind reception; and he formed a close friendship with some of the most eminent men of the Continent. On his return to England in 1575, he was received with enthusiasm at Court, and won the favour of Queen Elizabeth, who was pleased to address him as "her Philip." In 1577 he was employed on a diplomatic mission, in which he acquitted himself so well as to excite the admiration of William the Silent, who pronounced him one of the ripest and greatest counsellors of state in Europe. On his return to England, Sidney for eight years devoted himself mainly to literary pursuits, associating with men of letters, who found in him a bountiful patron, and writing his "Sonnets," the "Arcadia," and the "Apologie for Poetry." He did not neglect politics altogether, however, although he held no public appointment; on the contrary, he actively exerted himself in endeavouring to provide measures in defence of the Protestant religion and to thwart the power of Spain. In 1585 came the crowning event of his life. He was sent to the Netherlands as Governor of Flushing along with an army under Leicester. There he soon distinguished himself by his valour and his prudence, but his bright career was destined to be a brief one. In October 1586, at a skirmish at Zutphen he received a mortal wound. As he rode from the battle-field occurred the touching incident which has done more than either his writings or his contemporary fame to keep Sidney's memory alive. "Being thirsty with excess of bleeding, he called for drink, which was presently brought him; but as he was putting the bottle to his mouth, he saw a poor soldier carried along, who had eaten his last at the same feast, ghastly, casting up his eyes at the bottle, which Sir Philip perceiving, took it from his head before he drunk and delivered it to the poor man with these words, 'Thy necessity is greater than mine."" None of Sidney's works were printed in his lifetime, though, as he was well known to be an author, writings of his were pro. bably rather extensively handed about in manuscript. His most famous work is the "Arcadia," written in 1580, and dedicated to "Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother," the illustrious Countess o Pembroke. It was not published till 1590. It is a pastoral Sidney's Writings. 61 romance, "containing discourses on the affections, passions, and events of life, observations on human nature, and the social and political relations of men, and all the deductions which a richly endowed and cultivated mind had drawn from actual experience." Such is an admirer's view of the "Arcadia." Hear now what Hazlitt, who never did a thing by halves, says of it: "It is to me one of the greatest monuments of the abuse of intellectual power upon record. It puts one in mind of the court dresses and preposterous fashions of the time, which are grown obsolete and disgusting. It is not romantic, but scholastic; not poetry, but casuistry; not nature, but art, and the worst sort of art, which thinks it can do better than nature. . . . In a word, and not to speak it profanely, the 'Arcadia' is a riddle, a rebus, an acrostic in folio; it contains about 4000 far-fetched similes, and 6000 impracticable dilemmas, about 10,000 reasons for doing nothing at all, and as many against it; numberless alliterations, puns, questions, and commands, and other figures of rhetoric; about a score good passages, that one may turn to with pleasure, and the most involved, irksome, unprogressive, and heteroclite subject that ever was chosen to exercise the pen or the patience of mar." "This is half-humorous exaggeration, but it must be confessed that the "Arcadia," though full of sweetness and gentle feeling, is tedious, and not likely to be ever much read, except in extracts. The "Apologie for Poetry," written, it is supposed, in 1581, and printed in 1595, is valuable both for its intrinsic merits and as an indication of the literary taste of the period. It is Sidney's best work in literature, and shows that he had a fine natural taste in poetry, and possessed a high degree of skill in warding off the objections of opponents. Sidney was a considerable poet, but he was not a great one. Like Spenser's friend, Gabriel Harvey, he was very fond of trying to introduce new metres, particularly Greek and Latin ones, into the English language; but his efforts in this way do not call for much praise beyond what may be due to their ingenuity. The "Astrophel and Stella" sonnets, his most famous poems, were first published, perhaps surreptitiously, in 1591. Astrophel represents Sidney; Stella, Lady Penelope Devereux, sister of the Earl of Essex, whom he had loved and was to marry. The match, however, was broken off, and "Stella" married Lord Rich, a brutal and ignorant man, from whom she was afterwards divorced. Sidney's sonnets, which were addressed to her after her marriage, show cultivated taste and refinement of expression, and more impassioned emotion and deep personal feeling than is generally found in the love sonnets of that age, which were often written rather to exhibit the writer's talent than to express his love. One of the finest of Sidney's sonnets is the following, which would deserve to be called perfect were it not for the awkward transposition in the last line : "With how sad steps, O Moon, thou climb'st the skies! How silently, and with how wan a face! What may it be that even in heavenly place That busy archer his sharp arrows tries? Those lovers scorn whom that love doth possess? Sidney's prose is distinctly superior to that of any preceding writer: it is clear, copious, and easy, containing few obsolete words; but it is frequently languid and diffuse, and wants the great quality of strength. The full resources of the English language as an instrument of prose composition were first distinctly shown by Richard Hooker, the "judicious Hooker," as he is called. Like many other great men, Hooker has suffered from the panegyrics of rash admirers. "So stately and graceful is the march of his periods," said Hallam, SO various the fall of his musical cadences upon the ear, so rich in images, so condensed in sentences, so grave and noble his diction, so 1 Meaning, "Do they call ungratefulness virtue there." |