THE DEFENCE OF POETRY. I conjure you all that have the evil luck to read this ink-wasting toy of mine, even in the name of the nine muses, no more to scorn the sacred mysteries of poesy; no more to laugh at the name of poets, as though they were next inheritors to fools; no more to jest at the reverend title of a rhymer. Thus doing, your names shall flourish in the printers' shops; thus doing, you shall be of kin to many a poetical preface; thus doing you shall be most fair, most rich, most wise, most all; you shall dwell upon superlatives.-SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. "GENTLE Sir Philip Sidney, thou knewest what belonged to a scholar; thou knewest what pains, what toil, what travel, conduct to perfection; well couldest thou give every virtue his encouragement, every art his due, every writer his desert, 'cause none more virtuous, witty, or learned than thyself."* This eulogium was bestowed upon one of VOL. II.-S * Nash's Pierce Penniless. the most learned and illustrious men that adorned the last half of the sixteenth century. Literary history is full of his praises. He is spoken of as the ripe scholar, the able statesman, "the soldier's, scholar's, courtier's eye, tongue, sword," the man "whose whole life was poetry put into action." He and the Chevalier Bayard were the connecting links between the ages of chivalry and our own. No Englishman can travel through Holland without calling to mind the melancholy end of this gifted man. He died from the wound of a musketshot, received under the walls of Zutphen, a town in Guelderland, on the banks of the Issel. As he was retiring from the field of battle, an incident occurred, which well illustrates his chivalrous spirit, and that goodness of heart which gained him the appellation of the Gentle Sir Philip Sidney. The circumstance has been made the subject of an historical painting by West. It is thus related by Lord Brooke :— "The horse he rode upon was rather furiously choleric than bravely proud, and so forced him to forsake the field, but not his back, as the noblest and fittest bier to carry a martial commander to his grave. In which sad progress, passing along by the rest of the army where his uncle the general was, and 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 drank, and delivered it to the poor man, with these words:- Thy necessity is yet greater than mine."" The most celebrated productions of Sidney's pen are the Arcadia and the Defence of Poetry. The former was written during the author's retirement at Wilton, the residence of his sister, the Countess of Pembroke. Though so much celebrated in its day, it is now little known, and still less read. Its very subject prevents it from being popular at present; for now the pastoral reed seems entirely thrown aside. The muses no longer haunt the groves of Arcadia. The shepherd's song, the sound of oaten pipe, and the scenes of pastoral loves and jealousies, are no becoming themes for the spirit of the age. 'The intelligible forms of ancient poets, The Power, the Beauty, and the Majesty, That had their haunts in dale, or piny mountain, Or forest by slow stream, or pebbly spring, Or chasms and watery depths; all these have vanished. |