To about 1580 may be assigned Sidney's Apologie for Poetrie (1591, afterwards named Defence of Poesie), written in clear, manly English in reply to an abusive Puritan pamphlet by Gosson. Sidney defines poetry, after Aristotle, as Ideal Imitation, and for her claims her ancient place as the highest mode of literature, teaching mankind the most important truths through the medium of that pleasure which is the formal end of all fine art. In mediæval fashion, many authorities are quoted, and the

on episodes in it. The eighteenth century, on the whole, reversed the verdict of that of the sixteenth and seventeenth, though Richardson borrowed his heroine Pamela from it, and Cowper unfeignedly admired it, calling its author a warbler of poetic prose.' Horace Walpole called it a 'tedious, lamentable, pedantic, pastoral romance, which the patience of a young virgin in love cannot now wade through;' Hazlitt was hardly more favourable, and Hallam's praise is faint. Now, unquestionably, its interest is mainly historical, though much of it is fine. Drayton commended Sidney for having checked Euphuism and improved English style; he says he

Thoroughly paced our language as to show

That plenteous English hand in hand might go
With Greek and Latin, and did first reduce
Our tongue from Lyly's writing then in use.

author's wide range of reading is displayed. Sidney criticises severely the crowd of contemporary versifiers -not peculiar to that age to whose want of power, bad taste, and trivial style he partly ascribes the then existing. low estimate of poetry. And here he names the best English poets known to him: Chaucer, Sackville, Surrey, and Spenser's just (anonymously) published Calendar. 'Besides these, I do not remember to have seen but few (to speak boldly) printed, that have poetical sinews in them.' English drama, it will be

remembered, was then in its cradle. In 1580 Ralph Roister Doister, Gorboduc, and Gammer Gurton were practically all the drama here to show; and Sidney could not foresee that his own contemporaries were just about to recreate the art. His criticism of the contemporary English stage was severe trained to Italian and pseudo-classical canons, he demanded the complete separation of tragedy and comedy, and the adhesion to Senecan models. Even Gorboduc, which might have been 'an exact model of all tragedies,' is 'very defectuous in the circumstances.' The next ten years saw Greene, Peele, Marlowe, and Shakespeare all busily at work. In 1575 Sidney had met Penelope Devereux (1560-1607), daughter of the first Earl of Essex ; but it was only in 1581, the year following her marriage to the Puritan Lord Rich, who afterwards divorced her, that Sidney awoke too late to

In

love for her. The one hundred and eight sonnets and eleven songs of Astrophel and Stella (1591) offer a marvellous picture of passionate love. 1583 he was knighted, and married Walsingham's young daughter, Frances. Sidney also translated the Psalms. He was among the first to recognise Spenser's promise; he knew Gabriel Harvey, Thomas Lodge, Marlowe, Bacon, and Raleigh; and he accepted dedications from Giordano Bruno.

Sidney's impetuosity of temper is seen in much of his writing, as in his reply to Leicester's Commonwealth, an attack on the Earl, his uncle: declaring to the attacker, 'thou therein liest in thy throat, which I will be ready to justify upon thee in any place in Europe.' The same trait appears in the following letter-containing what proved to be a groundless accusation-which he addressed in 1578 to Edward Molyneux, his father's secretary and (ultimately, at least) his own valued friend :

MR MOLYNEUX-Few words are best. My letters to my father have come to the eyes of some. Neither can I condemn any but you for it. If it be so, you have played the very knave with me; and so I will make you know, if I have good proof of it. But that for so much as is past. For that is to come, I assure you before God, that if ever I know you do so much as read any letter I write to my father, without his commandment, or my consent, I will thrust my dagger into you. And trust to it, for I speak it in earnest. In the meantime, farewell.

Of the following extracts, four are from Sidney's Arcadia, and the fifth from his Defence of Poesie : The Arcadia professes to deal with love and adventures in the Greek province which, actually famed for its pure air and its people and the purity and simplicity of their lives, the Roman poets had idealised into a kind of pastoral and romantic Utopia. This is the opening :

It was in the time that the earth begins to put her new aparrel against the approch of her lover, and that the Sun running a most even course becomes an indifferent arbiter betwene the night and the day: when the hopeless shepheard Strephon was come to the scendes which lie against the island of Cithera: where viewing the place with a heavy kinde of delight and sometimes casting his eyes to the Ileward, he called his friendly rivall the pastor Claius unto him; setting first downe in his darkened countenance a dolefull copie of what he would speake, and with a long speech on his absent love, during which they see a shipwrecked man, Musidorus, washed ashore. Him they offer to conduct back with them to their home in Arcadia, and to present to the hospitable gentleman Kalander.

In Arcadia.

The 3. day after in the time that the morning did throw roses and violets in the heavenly floore against the comming of the Sun (the nightingales striving one with the other which could in most dainty variety recount their wrong-caused sorow) and made them part of their sleep, and rising from under a tree (which that night had bin their pavilion) they went on their jorney which by and by welcomed Musidorus eyes, wearied with the wasted soile of Laconia, with delightfull prospects.

There were hilles which garnished their proud heights with stately trees; humble valleis, whose base estate seemed comforted with the refreshing of silver rivers; medows, enameld with al sorts of ey-pleasing floures; thickets, which being lined with most pleasant shade, were witnessed so to by the chereful deposition of many wel-tuned birds; each pasture stored with sheep, feeding with sober security; while the prety lambs with bleting oratory craved the dams comfort; here a shepheards boy piping, as though he should never be old; there a yong shepherdesse knitting, and withall singing; and it seemed that her voice comforted her hands to work, and her hands kept time to her voices music. (Book i. chap. 2.)

A Stag Hunt.

Then went they together abroad, the good Kalander entertaining them with pleasaunt discoursing-howe well he loved the sporte of hunting when he was a young man, how much in the comparison thereof he disdained all chamber delights, that the sunne (how great a jornie soever he had to make) could never prevent him with earlines, nor the moone (with her sober countenance) disswade him from watching till midnight for the deeres feeding. O, saide he, you will never live to my age, without you kepe your selves in breath with exercise, and in hart with joyfullnes; too much thinking doth consume the spirits; and oft it falles out, that, while one thinkes too much of his doing, he leaves to doe the effect of his thinking. Then spared he not to remember, how much Arcadia was chaunged since his youth; activitie and good felowship being nothing in the price it was then held in; but according to the nature of the old-growing world, still worse and worse. Then would he tell them stories of such gallaunts as he had knowen; and so with pleasant company beguiled the times hast, and shortned the wayes length, till they came to the side of the wood, where the houndes were in couples, staying their comming, but with a whining accent craving libertie; many of them in colour and marks so resembling, that it shewed they were of one kinde. The huntsmen handsomely attired in their greene liveries, as though they were children of Sommer, with staves in their hands to beat the guiltlesse earth, when the houndes were at a fault; and with hornes about their neckes, to sound an alarum upon a sillie fugitive: the houndes were straight uncoupled, and ere long the Stagge thought it better to trust the nimblenes of his feet then to the slender fortification of his lodging; but even his feete betrayed him; for, howsoever they went, they themselves uttered themselves to the scent of their enimies; who, one taking it of an other, and sometimes beleeving the windes advertisement, sometimes the view of their faithful councellors the huntsmen, with open mouthes then denounced warre, when the warre was alreadie begun. Their crie being composed of so well sorted mouthes, that any man would perceive therein some kind of proportion, but the skilful woodmen did find a musick. Then delight and varietie of opinion drew the horsemen sundrie wayes, yet cheering their houndes with voyce and horn, kept still as it were together. The wood seemed to conspire with them against his own citizens, dispersing their noise through all his quarters; and even the nimph Echo left to bewayle the losse of Narcissus, and became a hunter. But the Stagge was in the end so hotly pursued, that (leaving his flight) he was driven to make courage of despaire; and so turning his head, made the hounds with

change of speech to testify that he was at a bay: as if from hot pursuit of their enemie, they were sodainly come to a parley. (Book i. chap. 10.)

Shipwracke.

But by that the next morning began to make a guilden shewe of a good meaning, there arose even with the sun a vaile of darke cloudes before his face, which shortly (like inck powred into water) had blacked over all the face of heaven, preparing (as it were) a mourneful stage for a Tragedie to be plaied on. For forthwith the windes began to speake lowder, and as in a tumultuous kingdome to thinke themselves fittest instruments of commaundement; and blowing whole stormes of hayle and raine upon them, they were sooner in daunger then they coulde almost bethinke themselves of chaunge. For then the traiterous Sea began to swell in pride against the afflicted Navie, under which (while the heaven favoured them) it had layne so calmely; making mountaines of it selfe, over which the tossed and tottring ship shoulde clime, to the streight carried downe againe to a pit of hellish darkenesse, with such cruell blowes against the sides of the shippe that which way soever it went was still in his malice, that there was left neither power to stay nor way to escape. And shortly had it so dissevered the loving companie, which the daie before had tarried together, that most of them never met againe, but were swallowed up in his never-satisfied mouth.

(Book ii. chap. 7.)

The prayer of the Princess Pamela was a favourite prayer of King Charles I., whom Milton reproached for 'having stolen a prayer word for word from the mouth of a heathen woman praying to a heathen god':

O all-seeing Light and eternal Life of all things, to whom nothing is either so great, that it may resist; or so small, that it is contemned: looke vpon my miserie with thine eye of mercie, and let thine infinite power vouchsafe to limite out some proportion of deliuerance vnto me, as to thee shall seem most conuenient. Let not iniurie, O Lord, triumphe ouer me, and let my faultes by thy handes be corrected, and make not mine vniuste enemie the minister of thy Iustice. But yet, my God, if in thy wisdome this be the aptest chastizement for my inexcusable follie; if this low bondage be fittest for my ouer-hie desires; if the pride of my not-inough humble harte be thus to be broken, O Lord, I yeeld vnto thy will, and ioyfully embrace what sorrow thou wilt have me suffer. Onely thus much let me craue of thee, (let my crauing, O Lord, be accepted of thee, since euen that proceeds from thee,) let me craue, euen by the noblest title, which in my greatest affliction I may giue my selfe, that I am thy creature, and by thy goodnes (which is thy self) that thou wilt suffer some beame of thy Maiestie so to shine into my mind, that it may still depende confidently vpon thee. Let calamitie be the exercise but not the ouerthrowe of my vertue: let their power preuaile, but preuaile not to destruction: let my greatnes be their praie: let my paine be the sweetnes of their reuenge : let them (if so it seem good vnto thee) vexe me with more and more punishment. But, O Lord, let neuer their wickednes haue such a hand, but that I may carie a pure minde in a pure bodie. (And pausing a while) And O, most gracious Lord (said she) what euer become of me, preserue the vertuous Musidorus. (Book iii. chap. 6.)

'In these my not old yeres and idelest times, having slipt into the title of a Poet, I am provoked to say somthing unto you in defence of that my unelected vocation,' says Sidney in the Apologie ; 'I have just cause to make a pittiful defence of poore Poetry, which from almost the highest estimation of learning is fallen to be the laughingstocke of children.' And he thus compares poetry and philosophy :

The philosopher sheweth you the way, hee informeth you of the particularities, as well of the tediousnes of the way, as of the pleasant lodging you shall have when your journey is ended, as of the many by-turnings that may divert you from your way. But this is to no man but to him that will read him, and read him with attentive studious painfulnes. Which constant desire whosoever hath in him, hath already passed halfe the hardnes of the way, and therefore is beholding to the Philosopher but for the other halfe. Nay, truely, learned men have learnedly thought that where once reason hath so much over-mastred passion, as that the minde hath a free desire to doe well, the inward light each minde hath in it selfe is as good as a Philosophers book; since in nature we know it is well to do well, and what is well and what is evile, although not in the words of Arte which Philosophers bestowe upon us; for out of naturall conceit the Philosophers drew it. But to be moved to doe that which we know, or to be moved with desire to knowe, Hoc opus: Hic labor est.

Nowe therein of all sciences (I speak still of humane and according to the humane conceit) is our Poet the Monarch. For he dooth not only shew the way, but giveth so sweete a prospect into the way, as will intice any man to enter into it. Nay, he dooth, as if your journey should lye through a fayr Vineyard, at the very firste, give you a cluster of Grapes; that, full of that taste, you may long to passe further. He beginneth not with obscure definitions; which must blur the margent with interpretations, and load the memory with doubtfulnesse; but he commeth to you with words set in delightfull proportion, either accompanied with, or prepared for, the well-inchaunting skill of musicke; with a tale forsooth he commeth unto you, with a tale which holdeth children from play, and old men from the chimney-corner. And pretending no more, doth intende the winning of the mind from wickednesse to vertue; even as the childe is often brought to take most wholsom things, by hiding them in such other as have a pleasant taste; which if one should beginne to tell them the nature of the Aloes or Rubarb they shoulde receive, would sooner take their Phisicke at their eares then their mouth. So is it in men (most of which are childish in the best things) till they bee cradled in their graves; glad they will be to hear the tales of Hercules, Achilles, Cyrus, Æneas; and hearing them, must needs heare the right description of wisdom, valure, and justice; which if they had been barely, that is to say philosophically, set out, they would sweare they bee brought to schoole againe.

Sidney never heard the old song of Percy and Douglas but he found his heart stirred as with the sound of a trumpet,' and said 'they are never alone who are accompanied with noble thoughts;' 'there will be the time to die nobly when you cannot live nobly;' 'there is nothing more terrible to a guilty heart than the eye of a respected friend.'

Sonnets from 'Astrophel and Stella.' With how sad steps, O Moone, thou clim'st the skies, How silently, and with how wanne a face! What, may it be, that even in heavenly place That busie Archer his sharpe arrowes tries? Sure, if that long-with-love-acquainted eyes Can judge of love, thou feel'st a lover's case; I read it in thy lookes, thy languisht grace To me that feele the like thy state discries. Then, even of fellowship, O Moone, tell me, Is constant love deemed there but want of wit? Are beauties there as proud as here they be? Do they above love to be loved, and yet Those lovers scorne whom that love doth possesse ? Do they call vertue there ungratefulnesse?

O happie Thames, that didst my Stella beare!

I saw thee with full many a smiling line
Upon thy cheereful face joy's livery weare,

While those faire planets on thy streames did shine.
The boate for joy could not to daunce forbear;
While wanton winds, with beauties so divine
Ravisht, staid not, till in her golden haire
They did themselves (O sweetest prison) twine:
And faine those (Eol's youth there would their stay
Have made; but, forst by Nature still to flie,
First did with puffing kisse those lockes display.
She, so disheveld, blusht. From window I,
With sight thereof, cried out: 'O faire disgrace;
Let Honur' selfe to thee grant highest place!'

I never dranke of Aganippe well,
Nor ever did in shade of Tempe sit,

And Muses scorne with vulgar brains to dwell;
Poore layman I, for sacred rites unfit.
Some doe I heare of poets' furie tell,

But, God wot, wot not what they meane by it;
And this I sweare by blackest brooke of hell,

I am no pick-purse of another's wit.

How falles it then, that with so smooth an ease

My thoughts I speake; and what I speake doth flow

In verse, and that my verse best wits doth please?
Ghess we the cause? What, is it this? Fie, no.
Or so?
How then? Sure thus it is,
My lips are sweet, inspired with Stella's kisse.

Muche lesse.

Come, Sleepe, O Sleepe, the certaine knot of peace,
The baiting-place of wit, the balme of woe,
The poore man's wealth, the prisoner's release,
Th' indifferent judge betweene the high and low.
With shield of proofe shield me from out the prease
Of those fierce darts Despaire at me doth throw;
O make in me those civil warres to cease:
I will good tribute pay, if thou do so.
Take thou of me smooth pillowes, sweetest bed;
A chamber deaf of noise, and blind of light;
A rosie garland, and a weary hed.
And if these things, as being thine in right,
Move not thy heavy grace, thou shalt in me
Livelier than else-where Stella's image see.

Whether the Turkish new moone minded be
To fill her hornes this yeere on Christian coast?
How Poles' right king means without leave of hoast
To warme with ill-made fire cold Muscovy?

If French can yet three parts in one agree?
What now the Dutch in their full diets boast?
How Holland hearts, now so good townes be lost,
Trust in the shade of pleasant Orange-tree?
How Ulster likes of that same golden bit
Wherewith my father once made it halfe tame?
If in the Scotch Court be no weltring yet?
These questions busie wits to me do frame :
I, cumbred with good maners, answer doe,
But know not how; for still I thinke of you.

Song: 'Love is dead.'

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 gaine. From so ungrateful 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?

His death-bed, peacock's follie ;

His winding-sheete is shame;

His will, false-seeming holie ;
His sole exec'tour, blame.

From so ungrateful fancie,
From such a femall franzie,
From them that use men thus,
Good Lord, deliver us!

My True Love hath my Heart.
My true-love hath my heart, and I have his,
By just exchange the one for the other giv'ne:
I hold his deare, and mine he cannot misse ;
There never was a better bargaine driv'ne.
His heart in me keepes me and him in one ;
My heart in him his thoughts and senses guides:
He loves my heart, for once it was his owne ;
I cherish his because in me it bides.

His heart has wound received from my sight;
My heart was wounded with his wounded heart,
For as from mee on him his hurt did light,
So still methought in me his hurt did smart :
Both equal hurt, in this change sought our blisse,
My true-love hath my heart, and I have his.

(From the Arcadia.) 'Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother' (c.15551621), was not merely the friend and patron of Spenser, Samuel Daniel, Nicholas Breton, and other poets and literary men. She edited the Arcadia her brother had dedicated to her, had a share with him in the translation of the Psalms, translated from the French A Discourse of Life and Death by her brother's friend Plessis du Mornay, and rendered into English blank verse Garnier's French tragedy, Antonie. She was the wife of the second Earl of Pembroke, and mother of the Earl to whom it has been supposed (and denied) that Shakespeare dedicated his sonnets.

Sidney's poems and Apologie have been edited, the first by Grosart (1877), the second by Arber (1868), Flügel (1889), Cook (1890), and Shuckburgh (1891); Astrophel and Stella by Gray,

Arber, Flügel (1889), and Pollard (1888). The Arcadia was reproduced in facsimile by Professor Sommer in 1891. The Life by Fulke Greville (1652) was re-edited by Sir E. Brydges (1816); and there are Lives by Zouch (1808), J. A. Symonds (1886), and Fox Bourne (1862 and 1892). See Philip Sidney's Memoirs of the Sidney Family (1899), and his edition of the Sonnets and Songs (1900).

Edmund Spenser.

In a passage which has been often quoted Gibbon says, 'The nobility of the Spensers has been illustrated and enriched by the trophies of Marlborough; but I exhort them to consider the Faerie Queene as the most precious jewel of their coronet.' It is not, however, by any means certain that they have the right to claim him. He sprang from a family of Spensers settled at Hurstwood, in the north-east of Lancashire, and it is believed that his father was a certain John Spenser, a journeyman clothmaker, who came up to London before 1550. If so, his mother's name was Elizabeth, but her family is not known. He was born, about 1552, at East Smithfield, in 'merry London, my most kindly nurse,' as he says in the Prothalamion. From the Spending of the Money of Robert Nowell,' it appears that he was sent, as a 'poor scholar,' to Merchant Taylors' School when it was opened in 1561. It is supposed that he was a foundation scholar, and that he stayed at the school until 1569. Lancelot Andrewes was his schoolfellow, and their head-master was Dr Mulcaster.

Before he left school Spenser had 'commenced author,' for early in 1569 a Dutch refugee, Dr Jan van der Noodt, published a miscellany called A Theatre for Worldlings, in which were included certain translations from Petrarch and from Joachim du Bellay, which, though anonymous at the time, were afterwards in a modified form claimed by Spenser. These translations, in blank verse and rhyme, have created a great deal of discussion; but there is no reasonable doubt that they came from the hand of Spenser, and they already display some of the characteristics of his style.

On the 20th of May 1569 Spenser passed directly from Merchant Taylors' School to Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he matriculated as a sizar. We have evidence of his great poverty and of repeated illnesses while at college; he succeeded B.A. in 1573 and commenced M.A. in 1576, the year that he left Cambridge. He mentions the university in the Faerie Queene:

My mother Cambridge, whom as with a crown

He [i.e. the Ouse] doth adorn, and is adorned by it
With many a gentle Muse and many a learned Wit.

We know nothing of his academic life, but he formed at the university certain friendships which had an influence upon him. Edward Kirke, who afterwards edited the Shepherd's Calendar, and Gabriel Harvey, a poetaster and criticaster who assumed a position of authority at Cambridge, were his principal associates, and Harvey is the Hobbinol of Spenser's eclogues. As late as 1586

Spenser was still Harvey's 'devoted friend, during life.' Harvey was the chief of those who promulgated the heresy that the rhythms and rhymes of normal English verse were to be swept away in favour of accentuated rhymeless measures closely modelled on Greek and Latin prosody. There is no doubt that by too modestly acceding to all this nonsense Spenser was delayed in the development of his genius.

Spenser took his degree of M.A. in 1576 and left Cambridge. He went to his own people in Lancashire, and here, as has been suggested, met the Rosalind of his sonnets and pastorals. In the

next year, Gabriel Harvey urging him to 'forsake his shire' and come south, Spenser seems to have paid a short visit to Ireland, and in 1578 or 1579 to have settled in London. Here he seems to have been early presented to Sir Philip Sidney and his brother-in-law, the Earl of Leicester, and to have taken up his abode in Leicester House. He wrote a series of poems which have been lost, called Stemmata Dudleiana. A correspondence with Gabriel Harvey, who addresses Spenser as 'Immerito,' has been preserved, and is full of bad advice about hexameters and trimeters. In this winter of 1579-80 Spenser had other poetical works ready-Dreams, The Dying Pelican, and Nine Comedies. All these have disappeared; but on the 5th of December 1579 was entered at Stationers' Hall a poem, the effect of which on the expansion of English literature was astounding. This is, of course, The Shepherd's Calendar.

The publication of this famous collection of pastorals placed Spenser, at a bound, in front of all