SIR PHILIP SIDNEY AND PASTORAL ROMANCE.
When 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 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,[167] 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 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,"
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,[168] Sidney
passed a part of his childhood in Ludlow 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."[169] 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 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."[170] In such a 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 "foedus," says Languet, "inter [principem] and populum," and
his theories on the right of insurrection.[171] 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."[172]
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 for Veronese, and sent the
picture to Languet, who wrote shortly after: "As long as I enjoyed the
sight of you, I made no great account of the portrait you gave me, and
scarcely thanked you for so beautiful a present. I was led by regret for
you on my return from Frankfort to place it in a frame and fix it in a
conspicuous place. When I had done this, it appeared to me so beautiful
and so strongly to resemble you that I possess nothing that I value more
... The painter has represented you sad and thoughtful. I should have
been better pleased if your face had worn a more cheerful look when you
sat for the painting."[173] When Languet died, Sidney described his
sentiments for him in a touching poem, inserted in his "Arcadia"; it was
sung by the shepherd Philisides, who represents the author himself and
whose name is a contraction of the words Philip Sidney:
"I sate me downe; for see to goe ne could,
And sang unto my sheepe lest stray they should.
The song I sang old Lan[g]uet had me taught,
Lan[g]uet, the shepeard best swift Ister knew,
For clearkly reed, and hating what is naught,
For faithfull heart, cleane hands and mouth as true.
With his sweet skill my skillesse youth he drew,
To have a feeling taste of him that sits
Beyond the heaven, farre more beyond our wits ...
With old true tales he wont mine cares to fill,
How shepeards did of yore, how now they thrive ...
He liked me, but pitied lustfull youth:
His good strong staffe my slipperie yeares upbore:
He still hop'd well because I loved truth."[174]
In 1575, when twenty-one years old, Sidney returned to shine at court,
where his uncle Leicester, the Queen's favourite was to make all things
easy for him. He assisted that year at the fetes given in Elizabeth's
honour at Kenilworth, in those famous gardens "though not so goodly,"
writes a witness of the festivities, "as Paradis, for want of the fayr
rivers, yet better a great deal by the lack of so unhappy a tree."[175]
Then Sidney accompanied the Queen to Chartley, and these ceremonies mark
a great epoch in his existence. While Elizabeth listened to the
compliments of her entertainers, Sidney's eyes were fixed on a child. A
sentiment, the full strength of which he was to feel only in after time,
sprang up in his heart for Penelope Devereux, the twelve-year-old
daughter of the Earl of Essex, who was as beautiful as Dante's Beatrice.
He began to visit at her father's house frequently; it seemed as if a
marriage would ensue; Essex himself was favourable to it, but for some
cause or other Sidney did not press his suit; and while his friend
Languet strongly advised him to marry, he was answering him in the
leisurely style of one who believes himself heart-whole: "Respecting her
of whom I readily acknowledge how unworthy I am, I have written you my
reasons long since, briefly indeed, but yet as well as I was able."[176]
He was soon to write in a very different manner. Penelope, the Stella of
Sidney's verse, was, very much against her will, compelled at last by
her family to marry the wealthy Lord Rich, and then Sidney awoke to his
fate: what he had believed to be mere inclination, a light feeling of
which he would always remain the master, had from the first been Love,
irrepressible, unconquerable love:
"I might;--unhappie word--O me, I might,
And then would not, or could not see my blisse;
Till now wrapt in a most infernall night,
I find how heav'nly day, wretch! I did miss."[177]
He remained a lover of Stella, saw her, wrote to her, sang of her, and
at length ascertained that she too, despite her marriage ties, loved
him. He continued then, in altered tones, the magnificent series of
sonnets dedicated to her and which read still like a love-drama of real
life, a love-drama which is all summarized in the beautiful and
well-known dirge:
"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 game.
From so ungratefull 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?
* * * * *
Alas! I lie: rage hath this errour bred;
Love is not dead;
Love is not dead, but sleepeth
In her unmatched mind,
Where she his counsell keepeth,
Till due desert she find.
Therefore from so vile fancie
To call such wit a franzie,
Who Love can temper thus,
Good Lord, deliver us!"
Love that was not dead but asleep awoke, and Sidney's raptures were
again expressed in his verse:
"O joy too high for my low stile to show!...
For Stella hath, with words where faith doth shine,
Of her high heart giv'n me the monarchie:
I, I, O I, may say that she is mine."[178]
This lasted some time and when love faded away, at least in Stella's
fickle heart, "Astrophel" wrote the real dirge of his passion.
Sidney had nevertheless continued his active life all this while,
sometimes at court and sometimes on the continent, recognized as a
statesman by statesmen, as a poet by poets, as a perfect knight by all
experts in knightly accomplishments. Spenser dedicated in 1579 his
"Shepheardes Calender" to "the most noble and vertuous gentleman, most
worthy of all titles, both of learning and chevalrie, M. Philip
Sidney"[179]; and William the Silent, Prince of Orange, once said to
Fulke Greville that "Her Majesty had one of the ripest and greatest
counsellors of estate in Sir Philip Sidney that at this day lived in
Europe." The remaining years of his short life were well filled; he had
been ambassador to the German Emperor in 1577; he had taken part at
home, though unasked, in the negotiations concerning the Queen's
marriage, and he lost favour for a while on account of the extraordinary
freedom with which he had written to Elizabeth against the French match.
He retired from court at that moment and went to live in the country;
while staying with his sister at Wilton in the midst of congenial
surroundings, he wrote most of his "Arcadia" (1580). He was a member of
Parliament in 1581 and 1584, and married in 1583 the daughter of Sir
Francis Walsingham. He all but accompanied Drake to America, where he
had received from the Queen a large grant of lands; he became at last
Governor of Flushing in the Netherlands. He died in that country at
thirty-one years of age, in 1586, of a wound received at Zutphen; a
premature death that gave the finishing touch to men's sympathy and love
for him; all England wept for him.[180] Even now, it is difficult to
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.[181] Thus again Florio asks
her conjointly with Sidney's daughter[182] 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, 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."[183]
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 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[184]; the Kenilworth fetes amuse him
and he writes a masque, "The Lady of May,"[185] 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_, he
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 a l'Academie."[186] This work is
very 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 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 things doone and veritie be
written in theyr foreheads."
In spite of his fondness for the ancients, whose unities and messenger
he greatly approves, and of his contempt for the modern drama, such as
it was understood in those pre-Shakespearean times, he remains, at
bottom, entirely English; he adores the old memorials of his native
land, and does not know his Virgil better than his Chaucer, or even the
popular songs hummed by the wayfarer along the high roads. Irish
ballads, English ballads of Robin Hood, Scottish ballads of Douglas, are
familiar to him, and some of them make him start as at the sound of a
trumpet: "Certainly, I must confesse my own barbarousnes, I never heard
the olde song of Percy and Douglas, that I found not my heart mooved
more then with a trumpet: and yet it is sung by some blind crouder, with
no rougher voyce then rude stile; which being so evill apparelled in the
dust and cobwebbes of that uncivill age, what would it worke, trymmed in
the gorgeous eloquence of Pindar?" He would have loved, like Moliere,
the song of the "roi Henri," and like La Fontaine, the story of Peau
d'Ane. But his closest sympathies were reserved for poetical tales, for
the adventures of Roland and King Arthur, which are a soldier's reading,
and even for the exploits of Amadis of Gaul. "I dare undertake 'Orlando
furioso' or honest King Arthur will never displease a souldier....
Truely, I have knowen men, that even with reading 'Amadis de Gaule,'
which God knoweth wanteth much of a perfect poesie, have found their
hearts mooved to the exercise of courtesie, liberalitie and especially
courage." He imagines nothing more enchanting or more powerful than the
charm of poetical prose stories, "any of which holdeth children from
play, and old men from the chimney corner." Their attraction has
something superior, divine; for, he adds with a depth of emotion that
appears quite modern, "so is it in men, most of which are childish in
the best things, till they bee cradlid in their graves."[187]
He closes with a witty and delightful ending, a kindly wish for the
hardened enemies of poetry: "Yet this much curse I must send you, in the
behalfe of all Poets, that while you live, you live in love, and never
get favour, for lacking skill of a sonnet: and when you die, your memory
die from the earth, for want of an epitaph."
Neither did Sidney lack epitaphs; all the poets wept for him; nor was he
wanting in those favours that a sonnet can win, for he wrote the most
passionate that appeared in England before those of Shakespeare. Like
the "Apologie" they move us by their youth and sincerity; they come from
the heart:
"Loving in truth, and faine in verse my love to show,
That She, dear She! might take some pleasure of my paine:
* * * * *
I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe,
Studying inventions fine, her wits to entertaine;
Oft turning others' leaves, to see if thence would flow
Som fresh and fruitfull showers upon my sun-burn'd brain:
But words came halting forth ...
Biting my trewand pen, beating myselfe for spite:
'Foole!' said my Muse to me, 'looke in thy heart, and write!'"[188]
Unfortunately, when Sidney took up his pen to write his "Arcadia,"[189]
he no longer looked into his heart; he loosed the rein of his
imagination, and, without concerning himself with a critical posterity
for whom the book was not destined, he only wished, like Lyly, to write
a romance for ladies, or rather for one lady, his sister, the Countess
of Pembroke, famous as his sister, famous as a patron of letters,[190]
famous also as the mother of William Herbert, the future friend of
Shakespeare, the "W. H." for whom in all probability the sonnets of the
great poet were written. Sidney sent the sheets to his sister as fast as
he penned them, charging her to destroy them, a thing she did not do.
The poet knight only saw in it an amusement for himself and for the
Countess, and he gave free vent to his fondness for poetical prose: "For
severer eyes it is not," says he to his sister, "being but a trifle and
that triflingly handled. Your deare selfe can best witnesse the manner,
being done in loose sheets of paper, most of it in your presence, the
rest by sheetes, sent unto you as fast as they were done. In summe, a
young head, not so well staied as I would it were (and shall bee when
God will) having many fancies begotten in it, if it had not beene in
some way delivered, would have growne a monster, and more sorry might I
bee that they came in than that they gat out." His "Apologie" was
perhaps from its style more useful to the development of the novel than
the "Arcadia"; but the latter, in spite of its enormous defects of style
and composition, was also of use, and it is not unimportant to note that
its influence lasted until and even beyond the time of Richardson.
Sidney's romance is not, as might be believed, an enormous pseudo-Greek
pastoral, with tunic-wearing shepherds in the foreground, piping their
ditties to their flocks, to their nymphs, to Echo. Elizabethan Arcadias
were knightly Arcadias. Sidney's heroes are all princes or the daughters
of kings. Their adventures take place in Greece, undoubtedly, and among
learned shepherds, but the great parts are left to the noblemen, and the
distance between the two classes is well marked. However intelligent and
well bred the shepherds may be, they are only there for decoration and
ornament, to amuse the princes with their songs, and to pull them out of
the water when they are drowning. There are Amadises and Palmerins in
Sidney's work. Amadis has come to live among the shepherds, but he
remains Amadis, as valiant and as ready as ever to draw his sword. To
please his sister the better, Sidney mingles thus the two kinds of
affectations in fashion, the affectation of pastoral and of chivalry,
taking in this as his example the famous "Diana" of George de
Montemayor, which was then the talk not only of Spain, but of all the
reading public in Europe.[191] As for the shepherds, are we to pity them
because their domain is invaded by foreign knights, by whom they are
dispossessed of the high rank belonging to them, of all places, in
Arcady? There is no need for pity; a time will come when they will repay
their invaders, and the end of their piping has not come yet. Leaving
their country, where their place has been taken by British noblemen, we
shall see them some day invade the land of their conquerors, and,
sitting in their turn under the elms of Windsor Park, sing their songs
at the call of Mr. Pope. They will look a little awry, no doubt, among
the mists of an English landscape, with their loose tunics, bare limbs,
and "in-folio" wigs; but they will prove none the less fine speakers,
and they will for a time concentrate upon themselves the attention of
the capital. Better still will be their treatment at the hands of a
Frenchman, not a poet, but a painter, Gaspard Poussin, who will gain
more permanent attention and sympathy for them than most poets when he
will inscribe in his canvas, on the representation of a ruined tomb, his
famous "Et in Arcadia ego."[192]
Sidney's heroes, in the meantime, Prince Musidorus and Prince Pyrocles,
the latter disguised as a woman under the name of the amazon Zelmane,
are in love with the Princesses Pamela and Philoclea, daughters of the
King of Arcady. A great many crosses are in the way of the lovers'
happiness. They have to fight helots, lions, bears, enemies from
Corinth. They lose each other, find each other again, and relate their
adventures. The masculine amazon especially does wonders, for she has to
fight not only with the sword, but in argument. She is so pretty in
woman's costume that the old king Basilius, until then wise and
virtuous, falls distractedly in love with her, as imprudent as
Fior-di-Spina in Ariosto; while the queen, whom the disguise does not
deceive, feels an intense passion spring up in her heart for the false
amazon and a terrible jealousy of her own daughter, Philoclea.
Disguises are numerous in this romance; they are also frequent in
Shakespeare's plays and in most of the novels of the time. Parthenia
gives herself out to her admirer, Argalus, as the Queen of Corinth, whom
she resembles, and announces her own death. As pretended queen she
offers her hand to Argalus, to prove him; but he refuses with horror;
she then discovers herself to this paragon of lovers, and gives him his
Parthenia alive and more loving than ever.
When we read now of such disguises, of princes Pyrocles dressed as
women, of Rosalinds dressed as pages, we are tempted to smile at the
vain fancies of the novelists of the Shakespearean era.[193] But it must
not be forgotten that, after all, there was not so much invention in
these fancies, and that living examples were not rare from which writers
might copy. Disguises were abundantly used in fetes and ceremonies, but
they were also utilized in actual life. The manners of the time in this
particular are well illustrated by the earnest entreaties of a certain
ambassador to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, advising her to leave her
palace secretly and travel over the country as his page. The Queen was
in no way shocked, but rather pleased; she did not order the ambassador
to be turned out of her palace, but heard him expound his plan, wishing
she might have followed it. This happened in one of those curious
conversations of which Melville, the ambassador of Mary Queen of Scots,
has left us an account. Elizabeth was very desirous of seeing her "dear
sister" of Scotland and of judging with her own eyes what truth there
was in the reports concerning her beauty. "Then again," says Melville,
"she wished that she might see the queen at some convenient place of
meeting. I offered to convey her secretly to Scotland by post, clothed
like a page, that under this disguise she might see the queen, as James
the fifth had gone in disguise to France with his own Ambassadour, to
see the Duke of Vendom's sister,[194] who should have been his wife.
Telling her that her chamber might be kept in her absence, as though she
were sick; that none needed to be privy thereto except my Lady Strafford
and one of the grooms of her chamber.
"She appeared to like that kind of language, only answered it with a
sigh, saying: Alas, if I might do it thus."[195]
Surely ladies who "appeared to like that kind of language," and men who
were wont to use it, would be certain to accept with much pleasure
representations in plays and novels of he-Rosalinds and she-Pyrocles.
In the midst of battles, masques and eclogues, interludes are
consecrated to fetes of chivalry. As much as in Italy, France or
England, the knights of Arcady challenge each other, and in brilliant
tournaments break lances in honour of their mistresses. Sidney himself
was very skilful at these sports; he proved it about this time in the
festivities of May, 1581, by attacking with his companions, the Castle
of perfect Beauty, which was reputed to contain the grace and
attractions of the Queen, a treasure as may well be believed, most
allegorical. His sonnets more than once refer to his prowess in the
lists:
"Having this day, my horse, my hand, my lance
Guided so well that I obtain'd the prize,
Both by the judgment of the English eyes,
And of some sent from that sweet enemie France.
Horsemen my skill in horsemanship advance;
Towne-folks my strength; a daintier judge applies
His praise to sleight, which from good use doth rise;
Some luckie wits impute it but a chance ...
Stella lookt on...."[196]
In his letters to his brother Robert, he is most particular as to the
every-day exercise by which the young man should improve his fencing. He
could not help giving his tastes to his Arcadian knights. They would,
otherwise, have been considered by his lady-readers, uninteresting
barbarians. He therefore allowed them good spurs and a ready lance; this
meant civilization. On a certain day every knight appears in the vale of
Arcady, with drawn sword, and carrying a portrait of his fair lady; the
painting is to become the prey of the conqueror. The order of merit of
the various beauties is thus determined by blows of the lance. Pyrocles,
who, dressed as a woman, cannot take part in the fighting, has the
mortification of seeing the champion of Philoclea bite the dust and give
up her portrait. He goes immediately and secretly puts on some wretched
armour, lowers his visor, and like a brave hero of romance, runs into
the lists, throws every one to the ground, regains the portrait, and all
the others as well. He is proclaimed conqueror of the tourney, and the
first of knights, while at the same time, Philoclea becomes again the
most beautiful of women.
In this Arcadia of chivalry it must not be thought that only cottages
and huts are to be found; sometimes the heroes sleep soundly in the open
air, but seldom. In this country there are palaces like those of the
rich English lords. The dwelling of the noble Kalander is of this
number. The park is magnificent, and quite in the style of the
Elizabethans, that style which is so minutely described in Bacon's
"Essay on gardens." It did not differ much from the park at Kenilworth,
a place well known to Sidney: "whearin, hard all along the castell wall
iz reared a pleazaunt terres of a ten foot hy and a twelve brode, even
under foot, and fresh of fyne grass: as iz allso the side thearof toward
the gardein, in whiche by sundry equall distauncez, with obelisks,
sphearz and white bearz [bears], all of stone, upon theyr curiouz basez,
by goodly shew wear set; too theez, too fine arbers redolent by sweete
trees and floourz, at ech end one, the garden plot under that, with fayr
alleyz green by grass." There were fountains with marble Tritons, with
Neptune on his throne, and "Thetis on her chariot drawn by her
Dollphins,"[197] with many other gods and goddesses.
Kalander's gardens in Arcady were of the same sort; their adornments
were not very sober, and many eccentricities are presented as beauties;
thus the fashion of the day would have it; Versailles in comparison is
simplicity itself. Kalander and his guest go round the place, and "as
soone as the descending of the staires had delivered them downe, they
came into a place cunningly set with trees of the most taste-pleasing
fruits: but scarcely they had taken that into consideration, but that
they were suddenly stept into a delicate greene; of each side of the
greene a thicket, and behind the thickets againe new beds of flowers,
which being under the trees, the trees were to them a pavilion, and they
to the trees a mosaicall floore....
[Illustration: A SHEPHERD OF ARCADY, FROM THE TITLE-PAGE OF SIDNEY'S
"ARCADIA."]
"In the middest of all the place was a faire pond, whose shaking
cristall was a perfect mirrour to all the other beauties, so that it
bare shew of two gardens, one in deed, the other in shadowes. And in one
of the thickets was a fine fountaine made thus: a naked Venus of white
marble, wherin the graver had used such cunning that the natural blue
veins of the marble were framed in fit places to set forth the
beautifull veines of her body. At her breast she had her babe AEneas, who
seemed, having begun to sucke, to leave that, to look upon her faire
eyes, which smiled at the babe's folly, meane while the breast
running."[198] The effect produced must undoubtedly have been very
pleasant, but scarcely more "natural" than the embellishments
recommended by Bacon, who declares that hedges and arbours ought to be
enlivened by the songs of birds; and that to make such enlivening sure
and permanent, the birds should be secured in cages. A good example of a
garden in Sidney's time with beds of flowers, arbours, pavilions, and
covered galleries is to be seen in his own portrait by Isaac Oliver, of
which we give a reproduction. It must be noticed that only the lower
part of the long gallery at the back is built; the vault-shaped upper
portion is painted green, being supposed to be made of actual leaves and
foliage. Except for such books as Sidney's it could not be said of those
gardens that "they too were once in Arcady."
[Illustration: A PRINCESS OF ARCADY, FROM THE TITLE-PAGE OF SIDNEY'S
"ARCADIA."]
Costumes and furniture are of the same style, and accord with such
gardens much more than with shepherd life. They are pure Renaissance,
half Italian and half English. Musidorus disguised as a shepherd,
dresses his hair in such a way as to look much more like one of the
Renaissance Roman Emperors at Hampton Court than like a keeper of sheep:
we see him while receiving a lesson on the use of the "sheep-hooke,"
wearing "a garland of laurell mixt with cypres leaves on his head."[199]
The glowing descriptions of the private apartments of the heroes suit
modern palaces better than Greek cottages; while representations of
ladies recumbent on their couches are obvious reminiscences of
Tintoretto or Titian, whose newly painted works Sidney had admired in
Italy. Here is a description of the beautiful Philoclea, resting in her
bedroom; it shows unmistakable signs of Sidney's acquaintance with the
Italian painters: "She at that time lay, as the heate of that country
did well suffer, upon the top of her bed, having her beauties eclipsed
with nothing, but with her faire smocke, wrought all in flames of
ash-colour silk and gold; lying so upon her right side, that the left
thigh down to the foot, yielded hir delightfull proportion to the full
view, which was seene by the helpe of a rich lampe, which thorow the
curtaines a little drawne cast forth a light upon her, as the moone doth
when it shines into a thinne wood."[200]
Sidney, according to his friend Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke, had the
highest moral and political purposes, in writing his "Arcadia": "In all
these creatures of his making, his interest and scope was, to turn the
barren philosophy precepts into pregnant images of life; and in them,
first on the monarchs part, lively to represent the growth, state and
declination of princes, changes of government and lawes ... Then again
in the subjects case, the state of favour, disfavour, prosperitie,
adversity ... and all other moodes of private fortunes or misfortunes,
in which traverses, I know, his purpose was to limn out such exact
pictures of every posture in the minde, that any man might see how to
set a good countenance upon all the discountenances of adversitie."[201]
When Greville wrote thus, Sidney was dead, and in his retrospect of his
friend's life he was with perfect good faith discovering high, not to
say holy motives, for all his actions. Sidney's own explanation suits
his work better; he was delivering his "young head" of "many, many
fancies," and their main object was not politics, but love. He described
it as it was known and practised in his time. Most of the heroes in the
"Arcadia," talk like Surrey, Wyatt, Watson, and all the "amourists" of
the century, like Sidney himself when he addressed another than Stella.
The modesty of their characters is equal to their tenderness; valiant as
lions before the enemy, they tremble like the leaf before their
mistresses; they feed on smiles and tender glances; when they have to
suffer a scarcity of this heavenly food they can only die: "Hee dieth:
it is most true, hee dieth; and he in whom you live dieth. Whereof if
though hee plaine, hee doth not complaine: for it is a harme but no
wrong which hee hath received. He dies, because in wofull language all
his senses tell him, that such is your pleasure." Fair Pamela feels
deeply moved when reading this, and confesses her harshness; she denied
him a look: "Two times I must confess," says she to her sister, not
without a pretty touch of humour of a very modern sort, "I was about to
take curtesie into mine eyes, but both times the former resolution stopt
the entrie of it: so, that hee departed without obtaining any further
kindenesse. But he was no sooner out of the doore, but that I looked to
the doore kindly!" The poor lover who did not see this change in his
lady's countenance went away fainting, "as if he had beene but the
coffin that carried himselfe to his sepulchre!"[202]
Happiness produces the same effect on these heroes. Pyrocles-Zelmane
when present in his false quality of woman at the bath of his mistress
in the Ladon is on the point of swooning with admiration.[203] His
friend, Prince Musidorus, in the ecstasies of his passion, falls "downe
prostrate," uttering this prayer to the awful god who reigns paramount
in Arcady: "O thou, celestiall or infernall spirit of Love, or what
other heavenly or hellish title thou list to have (for effects of both I
find in my selfe), have compassion of me, and let thy glory be as great
in pardoning of them that be submitted to thee as in conquering them
that were rebellious."[204]
But Sidney painted also amours of another sort, and one of the great
attractions of his book is the variety in the descriptions of this
passion. Never had the like been seen before in any English novel, and
as for France, it must be remembered, that d'Urfe's "Astree," which has
kept its place in literature for the very same quality, for its
inconstant Hylas and its faithful Celadon, for its Astree and its
Madonte, was yet to be written. Sidney has, among several others,
created one character which, forgotten as it is now, would be enough to
give a permanent interest to this too much neglected romance; it is the
Queen Gynecia, who is consumed by a guilty love, and who is the worthy
contemporary of the strongly passionate heroes of Marlowe's plays. With
her, and for the first time, the dramatic power of English genius leaves
the stage and comes to light in the novel; it was destined to pass into
it entirely.
Gynecia does not allow herself to be blinded by any subterfuge; love has
taken possession of her; the rules of the world, the laws of blood, the
precepts of virtue that she has observed all her life, are lost sight
of; she is conscious of nothing but that she loves, and is ready, like
Phaedra of old, to trample everything under foot, to forsake everything,
the domestic hearth, child, husband: and it is very interesting to see,
about the time of Shakespeare, this purely dramatic character develop
itself in a novel.
"O vertue," she cries, in her torment, "where doest thou hide thy selfe?
What hideous thing is this which doth eclipse thee? or is it true that
thou wert never but a vaine name, and no essentiall thing; which hast
thus left thy professed servant, when she had most neede of thy lovely
presence? O imperfect proportion of reason, which can too much foresee,
and too little prevent: Alas, alas, said she, if there were but one hope
for all my paines, or but one excuse for all my faultinesse! But wretch
that I am, my torment is beyond all succour, and my evill deserving doth
exceed my evill fortune. For nothing else did my husband take this
strange resolution to live so solitarily: for nothing else have the
winds delivered this strange guest to my countrey: for nothing else have
the destinies reserved my life to this time, but that onely I, most
wretched I, should become a plague to my selfe and a shame to
woman-kind. Yet if my desire, how unjust soever it be, might take
effect, though a thousand deaths followed it, and every death were
followed with a thousand shames, yet should not my sepulchre receive me
without some contentment. But, alas, so sure I am, that Zelmane is such
as can answer my love; yet as sure I am, that this disguising must needs
come for some foretaken conceit: and then, wretched Gynecia, where canst
thou find any small ground plot for hope to dwell upon? No, no, it is
Philoclea his heart is set upon, it is my daughter I have borne to
supplant me: but if it be so, the life I have given thee, ungratefull
Philoclea, I will sooner with these hands bereave thee of, than my
birth shall glory she hath bereaved me of my desires."[205]
We see with how little reason the "Arcadia" is sometimes placed in the
category of bedizened pastorals, where the reader is reduced to regret
the absence of a "little wolf," and whether Gynecia, in spite of the
oblivion which has gathered over her, does not deserve a place by the
side of the passionate heroines of Marlowe and Webster rather than in a
gallery of Lancret-like characters.
Sidney, thus possesses the merit, unique at that time with prose
writers, of varying his subjects by marking its _nuances_ and by
describing in his romance different kinds of love. Side by side with
Gynecia's passion, he has set himself to paint the love of an old man in
Basilius, of a young man in Pyrocles, of a young girl in Pamela. This
last study led him to portray a scene which was to be represented again
by one of the great novelists of the eighteenth century. Richardson
borrowed from Sidney, with the name of Pamela, the idea of the adventure
that shows her a prisoner of her enemies, imploring heaven that her
virtue may be preserved. The wicked Cecropia who keeps Sidney's Pamela
shut up, laughs heartily at her invocations: "To thinke," she says,
"that those powers, if there be any such, above, are moved either by the
eloquence of our prayers, or in a chafe at the folly of our actions,
carries as much reason, as if flies should thinke that men take great
care which of them hums sweetest, and which of them flies nimblest."
Pamela, "whose cheeks were dyed in the beautifullest graine of vertuous
anger," replies by speeches which yield in nothing as regards nobility
and dignity, and length also, to those of her future sister, and which
are followed as in Richardson, by an unexpected deliverance. These
speeches are famous for yet another reason; they are said to have been
recited in one of the most terrible crises of the history of England and
were not this time followed by a deliverance. Charles I., it is
reported, had copied out, and recited a short time before his death, the
eloquent prayers to God, of the young heroine of Sidney's novel. It
seems that Pamela's prayer figured among the papers that he gave with
his own hand, at the last moment, to the prelate who was attending him:
and the Puritans, Milton especially, uttered loud cries, and saw in this
reminiscence of the artist-prince, an insult to the divine majesty.
"This King," writes the poet, "hath as it were unhallowed and
unchristened the very duty of prayer itself, by borrowing to a Christian
use prayers offered to a heathen god. Who would have imagined so little
fear in him of the true all-seeing deity, so little reverence of the
Holy Ghost, whose office is to dictate and present our Christian
prayers, so little care of truth in his last words, or honour to himself
or to his friends, or sense of his afflictions or of that sad hour which
was upon him, as immediately before his death to pop into the hand of
that grave bishop who attended him, for a special relique of his saintly
exercises, a prayer stolen word for word from the mouth of a heathen
woman, praying to a heathen god, and that in no serious book, but in
the vain amatorious poem of Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia."[206] Here is
this prayer which is a very grave and eloquent one, and in no way
justifies the bitter reproaches addressed to Charles by his enemies:
"Kneeling down, even where she stood, she thus said: O All-seeing Light,
and eternall Life of all things, to whom nothing is either so great,
that it may resist, or so small that it is contemned: looke upon my
misery with thine eye of mercy, and let thine infinite power vouchsafe
to limit out some proportion of deliverance unto mee, as to thee shall
seeme most convenient. Let not injurie, O Lord, triumph over mee, and
let my faults by thy hand bee corrected, and make not mine unjust enemy
the minister of thy Justice. But yet, my God, if, in thy wisedome, this
be the aptest chastisement for my unexcusable folly; if this low bondage
be fittest for my over-high desires; if the pride of my not enough
humble heart, be thus to be broken, O Lord, I yeeld unto thy will, and
joyfully embrace what sorrow thou wilt have me suffer. Onely thus much
let me crave of thee ... let calamity be the exercise, but not the
overthrow of my vertue: let their power prevaile, but not prevaile to
destruction: let my greatnesse be their prey: let my paine be the
sweetnesse of their revenge: let them, if so it seem good unto thee,
vexe me with more and more punishment. But, O Lord, let never their
wickednesse have such a hand, but that I may carry a pure minde in a
pure body. And pausing a while: And, O most gracious Lord, said shee,
what ever become of me, preserve the vertuous Musidorus."[207]
Thus incidents, showing much diversity, but little order, follow each
other in great variety. There are touching episodes, ludicrous and, to
our modern ideas, even shocking episodes, brilliant adventures, fine
pastoral scenes, and much pleasant description; Sidney had been
perfectly frank and true when he had spoken of "his young head" and his
"many many fancies." He allows his imagination to wander; fancies are
swarming in his mind, and he is no more capable of restraining or
putting them into logical order than a man can restrain or introduce
reason into a dream. Arcadia is sometimes in England and sometimes in
Greece; Basilius' cottage sometimes becomes Hampton Court; there are
temples and churches also; heroes are Christians, but they believe in
Mars; they act according to the Gospel and also according to the
oracles; they are before everything men of the Renaissance. Following
his vein, Sidney, after innumerable adventures, pastoral and warlike
scenes, disappearances, unexpected meetings, scenes of deep love, of
criminal, sweet or foolish love, comes at last to a sort of conclusion.
King Basilius drinks a soporific draught; he is given up as dead. Queen
Gynecia is accused of being the author of the deed; Zelmane, who has
been found out to be a man is adjudged an accomplice; both are about to
be executed. At that point, fortunately, the dead king springs to his
feet; there are explanations, embracings, and a general pardon. Good
Basilius, who alone seems to have understood nothing of all that
happened, asks pardon of his wife and of the world at large for his
silly love for Pyrocles-Zelmane, and proclaims, unasked, Queen Gynecia
the most virtuous woman that ever was. The Queen blushes deeply and says
nothing, but finding that the ties of her passion are now broken, she
inwardly pledges herself to live in order to justify her husband's
praise. She becomes the "example and glory of Greece: so uncertain are
mortall judgements, the same person most infamous and most famous, and
neither justly."
This might be taken as a sufficient conclusion in so loose a tale; but
in that case it would mean giving up many heroes whose fates are yet in
suspense. In fact, an "Arcadia" of this sort might be continued till
doomsday. Unless the hand of the writer grew tired, there is no reason
why it should ever end. This is, in fact, the one and only reason Sidney
puts forth as an excuse for taking his leave; he makes no pretence of
having finished, just the reverse; for when he has married his princes
he concludes thus: "But ... the strange stories of Artaxia and
Plexirtus, Erona and Plangus, Hellen and Amphialus, with the wonderful!
chances that befell them; the shepheardish loves of Menalcas with
Kalodulus daughter; the poore hopes of the poor Philisides," that is,
Sidney himself, "in the pursuit of his affections; the strange
continuance of Klaius and Strephons desire; lastly the sonne of Pyrocles
named Pyrophilus, and Melidora the faire daughter of Pamela by
Musidorus, who even at their birth entred into admirable fortunes, may
awake some other spirit to exercise his pen in that wherwith mine is
already dulled." From generation to generation the tale might as we see,
have been continued for ages: so numerous were the wonderful adventures
still to be told.
The style of the book is scarcely less fanciful than the stories it
tells. It is only now and again that the charming prose of the "Apologie
for Poetrie" is to be found in the "Arcadia." Sidney wished to remain
faithful to his theories, and he believed it possible to write a poem in
prose.[208] Here and there some speeches, passionate like those of
Gynecia, or noble like Pamela's prayer, some brilliant repartee, a few
observations of exquisite charm are lasting beauties, always in their
place in all kinds of writing. Thus we meet the witty Sidney of the
"Apologie" in the description of a spaniel, coming out of a river, who
shakes off the water from his coat "as great men doe their friends;"
Sidney, the poet and lover, appears in the description of Philoclea
entering the water "with a prettie kind of shrugging ... like the
twinkling of the fairest among the fixed stars;" or in this expression
in reference to the fair hair of one of his heroines: "her haire--alas
too poore a word, why should I not rather call them her beams!"[209]
But, by the side of these graceful flowers, how many others are faded!
What concessions to contemporary taste for tinsel and excessive
ornament! Sidney forgets the rules of enduring beauty, and with the
excuse that he will never be printed, he only seeks to please his one
reader. To charm the Countess, his sister, like most women of his time,
it was necessary to put his phrases in full dress, to place ruffs on his
periods, and to make them walk according to the rules followed in
courtly pageants. When, in spite of Sidney's earnest desire, his book
was published after his death, people were enraptured with his
ingeniously dressed out phrases. Lyly might shake with envy without
having however the right to complain, for Sidney did not imitate him.
Sidney never liked euphuism, quite the contrary, he formally condemns it
in his "Apologie": "Now for similitudes in certain printed discourses I
think all herberists, all stories of beasts, fowles and fishes, are
rifled up, that they may come in multitudes to wait upon any of our
conceits, which certainely is as absurd a surfet to the eares as is
possible." But his own style is scarcely less artificial than that of
Lyly, and consequently, its rules are quite as easy to discover.
They consist firstly in the antithetical and cadenced repetition of the
same words in the sentences written merely for effect; secondly, in
persistently ascribing life and feeling to inanimate objects. Sidney, it
is true, as Lyly with his euphuism, happily only employs this style on
particular occasions, when he intends to be especially attractive and
brilliant. A few specimens will afford means of judging, and will show
how difficult it was in Shakespeare's time, even for the best educated
and most sensible men, for the sincerest admirers of the ancients, to
keep within the bounds of good taste and reason. They might appeal to
the Castalian virgins in their invocations, but William Rogers'
Elizabeth was the Muse that rose before their eyes.
Here is an example of the first sort of embellishment: "Our Basilius
being so publickly happy, as to be a prince, and so happy in that
happiness, as to be a beloved prince; and so in his private estate
blessed, as to have so excellent a wife, and so over-excellent children,
hath of late taken a course which yet makes him more spoken of than all
these blessings." In another passage Sidney wishes to describe the
perfections of a woman; and "that which made her fairness much the
fairer, was, that it was but a fair ambassador of a most fair mind."
Musidorus considers it "a greater greatness to give a kingdome than get
a kingdome."[210] Phalantus challenges his adversary to fight "either
for the love of honour or honour of his love." In many of these
sentences the same words are repeated like the rhymes of a song, taken
up from strophe to strophe, and the sentence twists and turns, drawing
and involving the readers in its spiral curves, so that he arrives at
the end all bruised, and falls half stunned on the full stop.[211]
The other kind of elegance that Sidney affects is to be found in very
many authors, and it is, so to say, of all time; poets especially
indulge in it without measure; but Sidney surpasses them all in the
frequent use he makes of it; this peculiar language is more apparent and
has still stranger effect in a prose writer than in a poet. In his
Arcady, the valleys are consoled for their lowness by the silver streams
which wind in the midst of them; the ripples of the Ladon struggle with
one another to reach the place where Philoclea is bathing, but those
which surround her refuse to give up their fortunate position. A
shepherdess embarks: "Did you not marke how the windes whistled, and the
seas danced for joy; how the sales did swell with pride, and all because
they had Urania?" Here is a description of a river: "... The banks of
either side seeming armes of the loving earth, that faine would embrace
it; and the river a wanton nymph which hill would slip from it ... There
was ... a goodly cypres, who bowing her faire head over the water, it
seemed she looked into it and dressed her green locks by that running
river." One of the heroines of the romance appears, and immediately the
flowers and the fruits experience a surprising commotion; the roses
blush and the lilies grow pale for envy; the apples perceiving her
breast fall down from the trees out of vexation, unexpected vanity on
the part of this modest fruit.[212]
Similar conceits were at that time the fashion not only in England, but
also in Italy, in Spain, and in France. There might still be found in
France, even in the seventeenth century, authors who described in these
terms the appearance of flowers in spring: "There perhaps at the end of
the combat, a pink all bleeding falls from fatigue; there a rosebud,
elated at the ill-success of her antagonist, blooms with joy; there the
lily, that colossus among the flowers, that giant of curdled cream, vain
of seeing her image triumph at the Louvre, raises herself above her
companions, and looks at them with contemptuous arrogance." The same
author, who is Cyrano de Bergerac, calls ice "an hardened light, a
petrified day, a solid nothing."[213] But contrary to what was the case
in England, this style was in France, even before Boileau and in the
preceding century, the style of bad authors. In England it is frequently
adopted by the most eminent writers, since on many occasions it is even
that of Shakespeare himself. Besides, the combinations of sound obtained
by means of the repetition of words, added to the turgidness of the
images, give to Sidney's language in the passages written for effect, a
degree of pretension and bad taste that Cyrano himself, in spite of his
natural disposition, could never have equalled. When both kinds of
Sidney's favourite embellishments are combined in the same sentence, it
becomes impossible to keep serious, and it is difficult to recognize the
author of the "Apologie." Sidney thus describes wreckage floating on the
water after a sea-fight: "Amidst the precious things were a number of
dead bodies, which likewise did not onely testifie both elements
violence, but that the chiefe violence was growne of humane inhumanity:
for their bodies were full of grisly wounds, and their blood had, as it
were, filled the wrinkles of the sea's visage; which it seemed the see
would not wash away, that it might witnesse it is not always his fault,
when we do condemne his cruelty."[214] There is indeed in French
literature a dagger celebrated for having _rougi le traitre_! but what
is it in comparison, and ought it not in its turn to grow pale with envy
at the thought of this sea that will not wash itself?
Thus men wrote in the time of Shakespeare, guilty himself of having made
many a dagger blush and weep in his bloody dramas: "See how my sword
weeps for the poor king's death!" says Gloucester in "Henry VI." When
Brutus stabs Caesar the blood followed the dagger
"As rushing out of doors, to be resolv'd
If Brutus so unkindly knocked or no."
Such was the irresistible power of fashion. Sidney who in his
"Apologie" had laughed at these extravagances in the poets and
dramatists, could not himself avoid them when he wrote his romance. When
they concern themselves with criticism, nearly all, Shakespeare, Sidney,
and their contemporaries, are to be admired for their moderation,
wisdom, and good sense; but as soon as they take up the pen to write
their imaginative works, intoxication overcomes their brain, a divine
intoxication that sometimes transports them to heaven, an earthly
intoxication that sometimes leads them into bogs and gutters.
III.
These surprising embellishments were in no way harmful, quite the
contrary, to the success of the "Arcadia." From the first it was
extremely popular and widely read; Sidney, who has kept his high repute
as a knight and a poet to our day, was still more famous at first, and
indeed for a long time, as a novelist. He was before all the author of
the "Arcadia."[215] His influence as such was very great, if not always
very beneficial; for his examples, as often happens, were more readily
followed than his precepts. Until the practical Defoe worked his great
reform in style, the language of the novel was encumbered with images
and unexpected metaphors, or distorted by a pompous verbosity; romance
writers mostly looked at life and realities through painted glass. For
this, Sidney is in some degree responsible.
His book was, so to speak, a standard one; everybody had to read it;
elegant ladies now began to talk "Arcadianism" as they had been before
talking "Euphuism." Dekker, in 1609, advises gallants to go to the play
to furnish their memories with fine sayings, in order to be able to
discourse with such refined young persons: "To conclude, hoarde up the
finest play-scraps you can get, upon which your leane wit may most
savourly feede for want of other stuffe, when the _Arcadian_ and
_Euphuized_ gentlewomen have their tongues sharpened to set upon
you."[216] When he has to represent "a court-lady, whose weightiest
praise is a light wit, admired by herself, and one more," her lover, Ben
Jonson, in his "Every man out of his humour," makes her talk
"Arcadianism." Her lover, who is quite the man to appreciate these
elegancies of speech, being "a neat, spruce, affecting courtier, one
that wears clothes well and in fashion, practiseth by his glass how to
salute ... can post himself into credit with his merchant, only with the
gingle of his spur and the jerk of his wand," thus describes the
Arcadian music which falls from the lips of the lady Saviolina: "She has
the most harmonious and musical strain of wit that ever tempted a true
ear ... oh! it flows from her like nectar, and she doth give it that
sweet quick grace and exornation in the composure, that by this good
air, as I am an honest man, would I might never stir, sir, but--she does
observe as pure a phrase and use as choice figures in her ordinary
conference as any be in the 'Arcadia.'"[217]
The demand for Sidney's book continued long unabated. It was often
reprinted during the seventeenth century,[218] and found imitators,
abbreviators and continuators. Among its early admirers it had that
indefatigable reader of novels, William Shakespeare, who took from it
several hints, especially from the story of the "Paphlagonian unkind
king," which he made use of in his "King Lear."[219] Books were
published under cover of Sidney's name, as "Sir Philip Sydney's
Ourania";[220] others were given away bearing as an epigraph an
adaptation of two well-known verses:
"Nec divinam _Sydneida_ tenta
Sed longe sequere et vestigia semper adora,"[221]
no insignificant compliment, considering the word which had to make
room for "Sydneida." Works without number were dedicated to the Countess
of Pembroke, not only because she was what she was, and a poetess of
some renown, but because she was the Mary Sidney of Arcadian fame.
As Sidney had stated that he did not consider his novel finished with
the marriage of his heroes, and the reconciliation of his royal couple,
continuations were not wanting; writers who did not consider their pen
"dulled" as he had declared his own to be, volunteered to add a further
batch of adventures to the "Sidneyd." Thus we have the "English Arcadia
alluding his beginning to Sir Philip Sidnes ending," by Gervase Markham,
1607; a "Sixth booke to the Countesse of Pembrokes Arcadia, written by
R[ichard] B[eling] of Lincolnes Inne," 1624; or again a "Continuation of
Sir Philip Sydney's Arcadia: wherein is handled the loves of Amphialus
and Helena ... written by a young gentlewoman, Mrs. A. W.," 1651. Dramas
were built upon incidents in the "Arcadia"; Shakespeare we have seen
made use of it in his "King Lear"; John Day wrote after Sidney's tale,
"The Ile of Guls," 1606, "the argument being a little string or rivolet
drawne from the full streme of the right worthy gentleman, Sir Phillip
Sydneys well knowne Archadea."[222] Some years later, in 1640, Shirley
put Basilius and his court again on the stage in his "Pastorall called
the Arcadia."[223]
Authors of poems also took their plots from stories in Sidney's novel,
one of the most popular among those stories was the adventures of
Argalus and Parthenia; it was constantly reprinted in a separate form,
and was the subject of a long poem by the well-known Francis Quarles,
the author of the "Emblemes." "It was," says he in his preface, "a scion
taken out of the orchard of Sir Philip Sidney of precious memory, which
I have lately graffed upon a crab-stock in mine own.... This book
differs from my former as a courtier from a churchman." Not less did it
differ from his later books, among which the "Emblemes" were to figure;
but the pious author eases his conscience about it by alleging
"precedents for it." It cannot be denied that if Quarles' "churchman"
was very devout his "courtier" was very worldly. He goes far beyond
Sidney in his descriptions of love, of physical love especially, and
uses in this matter a freedom of speech and a bantering tone which
reminds us much more of the Reine de Navarre than of the author of the
"Emblemes." Such as it is, however, this poem remains, so far as
literary merit goes, one of the best Quarles ever wrote. He scarcely
ever reached again this terseness and vivacity of style, and this
_entrain_. Having for once shut himself out of the church, and not for
long, he wanted it seems to do the best with his time, and if he was
sinning, at least to enjoy his sin.
[Illustration: ARGALUS AND PARTHENIA READING A BOOK IN THEIR GARDEN,
1656.]
His contemporaries enjoyed it greatly; "Argalus and Parthenia" went
through an extraordinary number of editions;[224] some of them were very
fine, and were even illustrated with cuts. We give an example of them
showing the newly married couple sitting in their garden to read a
story:
"Upon a day as they were closely seated,
Her ears attending whilst his lips repeated
A story treating the renown'd adventures
And famous acts of great Alcides, enters
A messenger whose countenance did bewray
A haste too serious to admit delay."
Is there any necessity for reminding the reader of the cause of the
messenger's haste? Is it possible that such world-famous adventures can
be now forgotten? The messenger was sent by King Basilius, who was
sorely pressed by his arch-enemy Amphialus. The young hero rushes to the
rescue of the Arcadian king, but he is piteously slain in a duel with
Amphialus. Then Parthenia dresses herself as a knight, and fights her
husband's conqueror. With more verisimilitude than is usually the case,
she too is piteously slain. And this is the end of Argalus and
Parthenia.
But there was still more than this, and like Lyly, Sidney had direct
imitators who copied him in prose, and tried to fashion novels after his
model. All the peculiarities of his style and of his way, or rather
want, of composition, are to be found minutely reproduced in: "The
countesse of Mountgomeries Urania; written by the Rt. Hon. the Lady Mary
Wroath, daughter of the Rt. noble Robert earle of Leicester, and neece
to the ever famous and renowned S^r Phillips Sidney Kt. and to y^e most
excelent Lady Mary Countesse of Pembroke late deceased."[225] This
pedigree-shaped title is enough in itself to show what we may expect
from the performance. It is a complete and pious imitation of Sidney's
manner, especially of his defects, for they were more easily attained.
Thus we have those repetitions of the same words which were so pleasant
to Sidney's ear, and Lady Mary Wroth has a felicity of her own in
twisting the idea into the words, screw-wise, with a perfection her
model had scarcely ever attained: "All for others grieved; pittie
extended so, as all were carefull, but of themselves most carelesse: yet
their mutual care made them all cared for." A very true and logical
observation. Lady Mary is also fond of giving sense and feeling to
inanimate objects, and scarcely, again, can Sidney, with his sea that
will not wash, or Cyrano with his proud giant of curdled milk, suffer
comparison with this description of a burning tower into which a woman
throws the head of her enemy: "For her welcome [Dorileus] presented her
with the head of her enemy, which he then cut off and gave unto her, who
like Tomeris of Sithia, held it by the haire, but gave it quickly
another conclusion, for she threw it into the midst of the flaming
tower, which then, as being in it selfe enemy to good, because wasting
good, yet hotly desiring to embrace as much ill, and so headlongly and
hastily fell on it, either to grace it with the quickest and hottest
kisses, or to conceale such a villanous and treacherous head from more
and just punishments."[226]
As to the story, it is, like the "Arcadia," a tale of shepherds who are
princes, and of shepherdesses with royal blood in their veins; there are
eclogues, dialogues, and if not much poetry at least much verse. The
events take place in Greece and in the Greek islands; people go to the
temple of Diana and to the temple of Venus. In the last-named place they
get married. These worshippers of the deities of old are dressed as
follows. Here is the description of a man's costume: "Then changed he
his armour taking one of azure colour, his plume crimson, and one fall
of blew in it; the furniture to his horse being of those colours, and
his device onely a cipher, which was made of all the letters of his
misstrisses name, delicately composed within the compasse of one." Here
is now a description of the costume women wore in Lady Mary's Greek
land: "She was partly in greene too; as her upper garment, white buskins
she had, the short sleeves which she wore upon her armes and came in
sight from her shoulders were also white, and of a glistering stuffe, a
little ruffe she had about her neck, from which came stripps which were
fastned to the edges of her gowne, cut downe equally for length and
breadth to make it square; the strips were of lace, so as the skinne
came steallinglie through, as if desirous but afraide to bee seane,
knowing that little joy would moove desire to have more." This clever
young person had been "sworn a nymph," which prevented her getting
married for some years. Waiting for that auspicious date a lover was
offering his addresses to her, and as Lady Wroth's Arcadia is an Arcadia
with a peerage, we are informed that this sworn nymph's lover was "the
third sonne of an earle."[227]
No less a man than Ben Jonson proclaimed himself an admirer of Lady
Mary; he dedicated one of his masterpieces, "the Alchemist," to "the
lady most deserving her name and blood, Lady Mary Wroth," and in his
"Epigrams" he addressed her as follows, his only but sufficient excuse
being that the "Urania" was not yet written:
"Madam, had all antiquity been lost,
All history seal'd up and fables crost,
That we had left us, nor by time nor place,
Least mention of a Nymph, a Muse, a Grace,
But even their names were to be made anew
Who could not create them all from you?"[228]
The eighteenth century began, and Sidney's romance was not yet
forgotten; his book was still alive, if one may say so, when the novel
assumed its definite shape, style and compass with Defoe, Richardson and
Fielding. Addison notices its presence in the fair Leonora's library,
among "the some few which the lady had bought for her own use."[229] It
continued then to be fashionable, and a subject of conversation. No
wonder, therefore, that between the date of "Robinson Crusoe" and the
date of "Pamela" two more editions of the "Arcadia" were given to the
public. One of them contained engravings after drawings by L.
Cheron.[230] The other was "moderniz'd" and was published by
subscription under the patronage of the Princess of Wales.[231] Sidney's
novel continued to act on men's minds, and many proofs of its influence
on eighteenth-century literature might be pointed out. That Sidney was
Richardson's first teacher in the art of the novel is well known; that
Cowper read the "Arcadia" with delight is well known too, and he confers
no mean praise on our author when he speaks of
"those golden times
And those arcadian scenes that Maro sings
And Sidney, warbler of poetic prose."[232]
Examples of Sidney's style are also to be found in several authors of
that time. Consciously or not, Young sometimes adopts all the
peculiarities of Sidney; for example, when he writes:
"Sweet harmonist! and beautiful as sweet!
And young as beautiful! and soft as young!
And gay as soft! and innocent as gay!
And happy (if aught happy here) as good!
For fortune fond had built her nest on high."[233]
Sidney's popularity did not, of course, last so long without
encountering some opposition. For Milton, and no wonder, the "Arcadia"
was nothing but "a vain amatorious poem," though he is fair enough to
add that it is "in that kind, full of worth and wit."[234] Horace
Walpole was very hard upon our novelist: "We have a tedious, lamentable,
pedantic pastoral romance," says he, in his "Royal and Noble Authors,"
"which the patience of a young virgin in love cannot now wade
through."[235] It is sad to think that the once famous "Castle of
Otranto," though twenty times shorter, requires now no smaller dose of
patience.
[Illustration:
"See the fond youth! he burns, he loves, he dies,
He wishes as he pines and feeds his famish'd eyes."]
None the less, the "Arcadia" was popular in the last century, and, at
the same time as it attracted the attention of fair Leonoras, it also
interested and delighted a much commoner sort of readers. It was several
times printed in an abbreviated form, and circulated, with engravings,
as a chap-book. Sometimes the whole of the "Arcadia" was compressed into
a small volume, sometimes only an episode was given to the public. The
story of Argalus and Parthenia was especially popular.[236] The
engravings, it is needless to say, were very coarse; and if Sidney had
taken little trouble to be historically or geographically accurate, the
wood-block makers took even less, and they offer to our eyes an
extraordinary medley of fifteenth-century knights, Roman soldiers,
gentlemen in flowing wigs and court swords, all of them supposed to have
at one time adorned with their presence the groves of Arcady. A few
specimens of these engravers' art are here given; no doubt the reader
will be pleased to know what the famous Argalus and Parthenia were
supposed to have been like, how the bathing of Philoclea in the Ladon
was represented, and the sorts of fetes and courtly dances that
enlivened the marriage of that princess.
More striking even than these tributes to Sidney's merits as a novelist
is the treatment awarded him in France. The famous Du Bartas in his
second "Week" names Sidney as one of the "three firm pillars of the
English Speech." This speech, according to the French poet, is mainly
supported by Thomas More and Bacon,
"Et le milor Cydne qui cygne doux-chantant
Va les flots orgueilleux de Tamise flatant;
Ce fleuve gros d'honneur emporte sa faconde
Dans le sein de Thetis et Thetis par le monde."[237]
[Illustration: "HOW THE TWO PRINCESSES PAMELA AND HER SISTER PHILOCLEA
WENT TO BATH THEMSELVES ... AND WHAT AFTER HAPNED."]
Besides this, Sidney's romance received in France an homage very rare
at that epoch: it was translated. A Frenchman possessing a knowledge of
the English language was then an extraordinary phenomenon. As late as
the year 1665, no less a paper than the "Journal des Scavans" printed a
statement to the following effect: "The Royal Society of London
publishes constantly a number of excellent works But whereas most of
them are written in the English language, we have been unable till now
to review them in our pages. But we have at last found an English
interpreter through whose offices it will be henceforth possible for us
to enrich our publication with the best things appearing in England." As
for Sidney, not only was he translated, but what is not less strange,
the fact provoked in France one of the most violent literary quarrels of
the time. Two translations of the "Arcadia," now entirely forgotten,
were published simultaneously, both in three volumes, both adorned with
engravings.[238] As soon as a volume appeared, each of the translators
profited by the occasion to write a new preface, and to repeat that his
rival was a mere plagiarist and did not know a word of English. The
other replied offering to prove such a rare knowledge; had it been a
question of Chinese or of Hindustani they could not have boasted more
noisily of their unique acquaintance with so mysterious an idiom. Each
appealed to his patroness, who was, in either case, no ordinary woman:
the one had dedicated his work to Diane de Chateaumorand (D'Urfe's
Diane), who had indeed the right to judge of Arcadias; the other invoked
the authority of the Queen-mother, Marie de Medicis, by whose express
command he had carried on his work.
Baudoin, who had been the first to turn the "Arcadia" into French,
published it in 1624, prefixing to it this remark, flattering to
Sidney's memory, but which shows how very little his language was known
in France: "Merely the desire of understanding so rare a book caused me
to go to England, where I remained for two years in order to gain a
knowledge of it."
[Illustration: "THE GLORIOUS ENTERTAINMENTS THAT GRACED THE HAPPY
NUPTIALS."]
Two years! immediately retorts the publisher of the other translation;
we can do better than that: the author of the work that we publish is
Mademoiselle Genevieve Chappelain, and what guarantees does she not
offer! "She has the honour to have lived more than seven years at the
court of the King of Great Britain, in the suite of the Countess of
Salisbury, who esteemed her as no ordinary young girl, but as a very
well-bred demoiselle who had been presented to her with good
credentials, and who was descended from a race that has given us great
men: verily, and women, too, that the muses have deigned to favour."
This is a little like the argument of Scudery, boasting, ten years
later, of his noble birth in order to prove to poor Pierre Corneille
that he is the better poet of the two, and that the "Cid" is worth
nothing.
But something better still follows, and here the worthy publisher
somewhat betrays himself: "If she has not been able to learn the
language of the country in which she has lived for more than seven
years, and nearly always with great ladies: how, I beg of you, could
those who have only lived there two years, and among the common people,
know the language? I do not wish to offend any one by this notice, which
I thought it necessary to make only to defend a young lady _who is my
near relation_."
Baudoin maintains his statement, and defies his rivals to translate
Sidney's verse, and he enumerates the precautions he himself has taken,
precautions which certainly ought to satisfy the reader as regards his
accuracy. Not only did he live for two years in England, but, he says,
"I secured the assistance of a French gentleman of merit and learning,
who has been good enough to explain to me the whole of the first book. I
have acted in such a way as to procure two different versions of it in
order to produce one good one." And he has done even something more: "I
have always had near me one of my friends to whom this tongue was as
familiar as our own; he has taken the trouble to elucidate for me any
doubts I may have had." In truth, he could hardly have surrounded
himself with more light, but then, what an arduous task to translate
from English!
Baudoin's adversaries were in no way intimidated by this display;
firstly, they had had the assistance of exactly the same gentleman; it
appears that a second equally learned was not to be found; secondly,
Mdlle. Chappelain also showed her translation to persons who knew both
languages, and they found her work perfect; lastly, and what more can be
required? she sends a challenge to Baudoin and his accomplices, and
invites them to a decisive combat: "She is ready to show that she knows
the English language better than they, and they would not dare to appear
in order to speak it with her in the presence of persons capable of
judging." Baudoin does not appear, indeed, to have accepted this
challenge, but neither does it seem to have discouraged him. He closes
the preface of his last volume with this poetical apostrophe to those
who are envious of his reputation: "By the mouth of good wits--Apollo
holds you in contempt,--Troop so ignorant and bold:--For you profane his
beauteous gifts,--And cause thistles to spring up--In the midst of your
Arcady."[239]
What astonishes us now, when we follow the vicissitudes of the
long-forgotten dispute of these two writers is that so much passion
should have been expended over Sidney's romance, however great might be
its merit; while the attention of no one in France was attracted by
Shakespeare and the inimitable group of dramatists of his time. No
Baudoin, no Genevieve Chappelain disputed the honour of translating
"Hamlet," and a century was still to elapse before so much as
Shakespeare's name should figure in a book printed in France.[240]
This double translation of the "Arcadia" did not, however, pass
unnoticed, far from it; and from time to time we find the name of Sidney
reappearing in French books, while the giants of English literature
continued entirely unknown on the continent. When Charles Sorel
satirized the long-winded romances of his time in his "Berger
Extravagant," he did not forget Sidney, who figures among the authors
alternately praised and criticized in the disputation between Clarimond
and Philiris. The criticism is not very severe, and compared with the
treatment inflicted on other authors, it would seem that Sorel wished to
show courtesy to a foreigner who had been invited, so to say, as a
visitor to France by his translators.[241] Copies of Sidney's original
"Arcadia" crept into France, and are to be found in rather unexpected
places. Thus a copy of the edition of 1605 is to be seen in the National
Library in Paris, with the [Greek: Ph Ph] of surintendant Fouquet on the
cover. The way in which the letters are interlaced shows that the book
did not come from Fouquet's own library, but from the library of the
Jesuits,[242] to whom he had given a yearly income of 6,000 livres, and
who, in memory of their benefactor, stamped thus books purchased from
this fund.
In France, too, as well as in England, the "Arcadia" was turned into a
play. Antoine Mareschal, a contemporary of Corneille and the author of
such dramas as "La genereuse Allemande ou le triomphe de l'amour," 1631,
the "Railleur ou la satyre du temps," 1638, the "Mauzolee," 1642,
derived a tragi-comedy, in five acts, and in verse from the "Arcadia."
The piece, which, if the author is to be believed, made a great
sensation in Paris, was called the "Cour Bergere," and was dedicated to
Robert Sidney, Earl of Leicester, ambassador of England to France, and
brother to Sir Philip. It appeared in 1640; it was thus later than the
"Cid." None the less, it exhibits the phenomenon of several deaths on
the stage; but the ridiculous manner in which these deaths are
introduced could only strengthen Corneille in his scruples. The wicked
Cecropia, standing on a terrace at the back of the stage, moves without
seeing the edge, and falls head foremost on the boards, exclaiming:
"Ah! je tombe, et l'enfer a mon corps entraine ...
Je deteste le ciel! Ah! je meurs enragee!"
In the following century Sidney was still remembered in France. In his
"Memoires pour servir a l'histoire de la Republique des lettres,"
Niceron mentions the "Arcadia" as "a romance full of intelligence and
very well written in the author's language."[243] Florian knew him and
held him in great honour; he names him with D'Urfe, Montemayor, and
Cervantes, as being, as it were, one of his literary ancestors,[244] and
the fact is not without importance; for Florian, continuing, as he did,
Sidney's tradition, and trying in his turn to write poems in prose,
stands as a link between the pastoral writers of the sixteenth century
and the author who was the last to compose prose epics in our time: the
author of "Les Martyrs" and of that American Arcadia called
"Atala"--Chateaubriand.
[Illustration: SAGITTARIUS.]
[Illustration: AN INTERIOR VIEW OF A THEATRE IN THE TIME OF
SHAKESPEARE. THE SWAN THEATRE, 1596.]
FOOTNOTES:
[167] And which has been faithfully and touchingly described in Dr.
Jessopp's book: "Arcady: For better, for worse," recently published in
London.
[168] Besides its fine collection of family portraits, one of which is
reproduced in this volume, by the kind permission of Lord de 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.
[169] "Life of the renowned S^r Philip Sidney," London, 1652, 12mo.
[170] "The Correspondence of Sir Ph. Sidney and Hubert Languet," ed.
Pears London, 1845, 8vo, Appendix; A.D. 1579(?).
[171] "Vindictae contra tyrannos," Edinburgh, 1579, part iii.
[172] Padua, February 4, 1574, "Correspondence," p. 29.
[173] A.D. 1575, "Correspondence," p. 94.
[174] "Arcadia," bk. iii.
[175] "Captain Cox his ballads ... or Robert Laneham's Letter, 1575,"
ed. Furnivall, London, Ballad Society, 1871, 8vo, p. 53.
[176] "Correspondence," _ut supra_, March 1, 1578.
[177] "Sir Philip Sidney's Astrophel and Stella ... edited from the
folio of 1598," by Alfred Pollard, London, 1888, 8vo, sonnet 33.
Penelope's marriage with Lord Rich seems to have taken place in April,
1581.
[178] "Astrophel and Stella," _ut supra_, pp. 170 and 72 (sonnet 69).
[179]
"Goe little booke! thy selfe present
As childe whose father is unkent
To him that is the President
Of noblenesse and chevalree...."
Dedication of the "Shepheardes Calender." Sidney seems to have had a
right and not over-enthusiastic appreciation of Spenser's eclogues; in
his "Apologie for Poetrie" he is content to say that "the Sheapheardes
Kalender hath much poetrie in his eglogues: indeede worthy the reading
if I be not deceived" (Arber's reprint, p. 62).
[180] The elegies written on this occasion are counted by the hundred. A
splendid series of engravings were published by T. Laut to perpetuate
the memory of Sidney's funeral, London, 1587
[181] London, 1598, fol.
[182] 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.
[183] "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?
Since HE who admirably did endite,
Entiteling you perfections heire, joies light,
Loves life, lifes gemme, vertues court, Heav'ns delight,
Natures chiefe worke, fair'st booke, his muses spright,
Heav'n on earth, peerlesse Phoenix, Phoebe bright,
Yet said he was to seeke, of you to write" (p. 191).
This last line alludes to Astrophel's first sonnet to Stella (quoted
below, p. 233).
[184] "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."
[185] 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.
[186] The "Apologie" written about 1581, which circulated in MS. during
Sidney's life-time, was published only after his death: "An Apologie for
Poetrie, written by the right noble, vertuous and learned Sir Philip
Sidney, Knight," London, 1595, reprinted by Arber, London, 1869.
[187] Arber's reprint, pp. 46, 55, 41, and 40.
[188] "The Complete Poems of Sir Philip Sidney," ed. Grosart, London,
1877, 3 vol. 8vo; "Sir Philip Sidney's Astrophel and Stella ... edited
from the folio of 1598," by Alfred Pollard, London, 1888, 8vo.
[189] The "Arcadia" begun in 1580, appeared after Sidney's death: "The
Countesse of Pembrokes Arcadia, written by Sir Philippe Sidnei," London,
1590, 4to. Several of the numerous poems inserted in the "Arcadia" are
written in classical metres; for Sidney took part with several of his
contemporaries in the futile effort made in England as in France to
apply to modern languages the rules of ancient prosody. The pages
referred to in the following notes are those of the edition of 1633,
"now the eighth time published with some new additions."
[190] And compared as such to Octavia, sister of Augustus, by Meres in
his "Paladis Tamia," 1598. She helped her brother in translating the
Psalms of David and published various works, one of them being a
translation of one of Garnier's neo-classical tragedies: "The tragedie
of Antonie," written in 1590, printed in 1595, which contains,
conformably to Sidney's taste, messengers, monologues and choruses. It
begins thus in the regular classical style of that time:
"Since cruel Heav'ns against me obstinate,
Since all mishappes of the round engin doo
Conspire my harme: since men, since powers divine,
Aire, earth, and sea are all injurious:
And that my queene her selfe, in whom I liv'd
The idoll of my harte, doth me pursue,
It's meete I dye."
[191] The "Diana" was turned into English by B. Yong, London, 1598, fol.
Shakespeare derived from one of the stories in Montemayor's romance (the
story of the shepherdess Felismena) a part of the plot of his "Two
Gentlemen of Verona." See above p. 150.
[192] Now in the Louvre.
[193] The taste for these fancies had been handed down from the Middle
Ages; ladies following as pages their own lovers, unknown to them,
abound in the French mediaeval literature; one, _e.g._, is to be found in
the "Tres chevaleureux Comte d'Artois," a very old tale, of which we
have only a version of the fifteenth century, but which existed long
before, and supplied Boccaccio with the groundwork of his story of
Giletta of Narbonne. From Boccaccio, this tale was transferred by
Paynter to his "Palace of Pleasure," and from this work, by Shakespeare,
to the stage, under the name of "All's well." Sidney's model Montemayor
gives the same part to play, as we have seen, to his pretended
shepherdess Felismena, who follows as his page her lover Don Felix.
[194] See "Les projets de mariage de Jacques V.," by Edmond Bapst,
Secretaire d'Ambassade, Paris, 1889, 8vo, ch. xxiv. p. 289.
[195] "Memoires of Sir James Melvil," London, 1683, fol., p. 51.
[196] Sonnet 41. See also Sonnet 53.
[197] "Captain Cox his ballads ... or Robert Laneham's Letter, 1575,"
ed. Furnivall, London, 1871, 8vo, p. 49.
[198] Book i. p. 8 (edition of 1633).
[199] Book ii. p. 99.
[200] Book iii. p. 382.
[201] "Life of Sidney," London, 1652, 12mo, p. 18.
[202] Book ii. p. 117.
[203] "Zelmane would have put to her helping hand, but she was taken
with such a quivering, that she thought it was more wisdome to lean her
selfe to a tree and look on" (book ii. p. 138).
[204] Book i. p. 65.
[205] Book ii. p. 95. The daughter's speeches though she believes
Zelmane to be a woman and cannot understand her own feelings are
scarcely less intemperate (book ii. p. 112).
[206] And in order that no doubt may exist, Milton refers his reader to
the page in Sidney and in Dr. Juxon's book of "[Greek: Eikonoklastes],"
"Prose Works," London, 1806, 6 vols., 8vo, vol. ii. p. 407.
[207] "Arcadia," book iii. p. 248. In the "[Greek: Eikon Basilike], the
portraiture of his sacred majesty in his solitude and sufferings," 1648,
8vo, towards the end of the book, where are to be found "praiers used by
his majestie in the time of his sufferings, delivered to Dr. Juxon,
bishop of London, immediately before his death," the end of the prayer
of course is altered: "... so that at the last, I may com to thy eternal
kingdom through the merits of thy son our alone Saviour Jesus Christ.
Amen."
[208] His contemporaries agreed in his belief: "Sir Philip Sidney writ
his immortal poem 'The Countesse of Pembrokes Arcadia' in prose; and yet
our rarest poet" (F. Meres "Paladis Tamia," 1598).
[209] Pp. 138 and 51.
[210] On this and other occasions Sidney combines alliteration with the
repetition of words. Here is another example: "Is it to be imagined that
Gynecia, a woman, though wicked, yet witty, would have attempted and
atchieved an enterprise no lesse hazzardous than horrible without having
some counsellor in the beginning and some comforter in the performing?"
(book v. p. 466).
[211] Pp. 10, 17, 129, 267, &c. The same curious repetition of words is
sometimes to be noticed in Sidney's poetry:
"Nor faile my faith in my fayling fate;
Nor change in change, though change change my state."
("The Smokes of melancholie.")
[212] Pp. 2, 137, 51.
[213] "La, possible au sortir du combat, un oeillet tout sanglant tombe
de lassitude; la un bouton de rose, eufle du mauvais succes de son
antagoniste, s'epanouit de joie; la le lys, ce colosse entre les fleurs,
ce geant de lait caille, glorieux de voir ses images triompher au
Louvre, s'eleve sur ses compagnes et les regarde de haut en bas." Ice is
for Cyrano: "une lumiere endurcie, un jour petrifie, un solide neant"
("Lettre pour le printemps"; "Lettre a M. le Bret").
[214] Book i. p. 4.
[215] Here is an example among many others. Sidney's portrait, now
belonging to Earl Darnley, bears the following inscription painted on
its canvas: "S^r Phillip Sidney, who writ the Arcadia" (Tudor
Exhibition, 1890).
[216] "The Guls Horne-booke," "Works," ed. Grosart, vol. ii. p. 254.
[217] Act ii. sc. 1, performed 1599, printed 1600. See also in
"Bartholomew fair," performed in 1614, act iv. sc. 2, how Quarlous
chooses the word "Argalus" to try his luck in a love affair.
[218] The British Museum, which does not possess a complete collection,
has editions of 1590, 1598, 1599, 1605, 1613, 1621, 1623, 1627, 1629,
1633, 1638, 1655, 1662, 1674.
[219] From book ii. of the "Arcadia." It resembles the episode of
Gloucester and his sons, and shows the old King of Paphlagonia
dispossessed, become blind and led by his son Leonatus. See
"Shakespeare's Library," ed. Collier and Hazlitt, London, 1875, 6 vol.
8vo, "King Lear."
[220] A philosophical and scientific poem by N. Baxter, dedicated to the
Countess of Pembroke, Lady Mary Wroth, &c., and published in 1606, 4to.
[221] "Theophania or severall modern histories, represented by way of
Romance ... by an English person of quality," London, 1655, 4to.
[222] "The Ile of Guls, as it hath been often played in the blacke
fryars by the children of the revels" (reprinted by Bullen, "Works of
John Day," 1881, 4to.)
[223] "Works," ed. Dyce, vol. vi. All the main incidents of Sidney's
novel are reproduced by Shirley except the quarrel with Cecropia, and as
the romance might very well have ended where Sidney left it, the
dramatist did not go further and did not use any of the continuations.
See also "Zelmane," by W. Mountfort, 1705, "Parthenia, an Arcadian
Drama," 1764, &c.
[224] It was published in 1622. The British Museum possesses editions of
the years 1629, 1632, 1647, 1651, 1656, 1677, 1684, 1687, 1700, 1708,
1726. Grosart (Quarles' "Complete Works," 1876) mentions one more of the
year 1630.
[225] London, 1621, fol. (a very curious engraved title).
[226] Pp. 39 and 519.
[227] Pp. 295, 298.
[228] In Jonson's "Masque of Blackness," 1605, Lady Mary Wroth played
the part of Baryte, and Lady Rich, Sidney's Stella of many years before,
personated Ocyte.
[229] "Spectator," April 12, 1711.
[230] "The Works of the honourable S^r Philip Sidney," London, 1725, 3
vols. 8vo.
[231] "Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia," modernized by Mrs. [D.] Stanley,
London, 1725, fol. It is a very fine volume with wide margins. One of
the "improvements" due to Mrs. Stanley, is the suppression of all the
verses. She did so, she says, at the invitation of her subscribers. The
list of them which prefaces the book contains many Leonoras, who even at
this late period desired to have a copy of the "Arcadia" for "their own
use." In our century an abbreviated edition of the same work was
published by Mr. Hain Friswell, London, 1867, 8vo.
[232] "The Task," bk. iii. l. 514.
[233] Night iii. "Narcissa."
[234] "[Greek: Eikonoklastes]," "Prose Works," 1806, vol. ii. p. 408.
[235] Ed. of 1806, 5 vols., 8vo, "Life of Fulke Greville," vol. ii. p.
231.
[236] "The unfortunate lovers: the history of Argalus and Parthenia,"
London, 12mo. The date, 1700 (?), given for this edition in the British
Museum catalogue, is obviously too early, as the publisher advertises at
the beginning of this volume "Robinson Crusoe," "Jonathan Wild," &c.
There were (not to mention earlier versions of "Argalus," _e.g._, one of
1691) other editions of (about) 1710, 1715, 1750, 1770, 1780, 1788, &c.
These little books had sometimes very long descriptive titles, such as
those Defoe has made us familiar with: "The famous history of heroick
acts of the honour of chivalry, being an abstract of Pembrokes'
'Arcadia,' with many strange and wonderful adventures, the whole being a
compleat series interwoven with the heroick actions of many valiant men,
as kings, princes, and knights, of undoubted fame, whose matchless
deeds, ..." &c., &c. London, 1701, 12mo, "Bound, 1s."
[237] Second day of the second Week, "Oeuvres," Paris, 1611, fol., p.
211. After Sidney, Du Bartas thus addresses the Queen:
"Claire perle du nort, guerriere domte-Mars,
Continue a cherir les muses et les arts,
Et si jamais ces vers peuvent, d'une aile agile,
Franchissant l'ocean voler jusqu'a ton isle,
Et tomber, fortunez, entre ces blanches mains
Qui sous un juste frein regissent tant d'humains,
Voy les d'un oeil benin et, favorable, pense
Qu'il faut, pour te louer, avoir ton eloquence."
[238] "L'Arcadie de la Comtesse de Pembrok, mise en nostre langue," by
J. Baudoin; Paris, 1624, three vol. 8vo. It contains fancy portraits of
Sidney and of his sister. The second translation appeared at the
bookseller's, Robert Fouet, in 1625, in the same size; it is ornamented
with pretty engravings. Of its three parts the first was the work of "un
brave gentilhomme," and the two others of Mdlle. Genevieve Chappelain.
It is needless to observe that the great success of D'Urfe's "Astree"
had much to do with this zeal for translating Sidney's pastoral novel.
Baudoin, who died in 1650, was the translator of various other foreign
works, among which part of the works of Bacon. Sir Kenelm Digby, whose
fondness for romances was great, had in his library a copy of the
"Arcadia" in French; this was Baudoin's translation, and it is one of
the items of the catalogue drawn in view of the sale of his library
("Bibliotheca Digbeiana," London, 1680, 4to). There was, a little later,
a translation in German: "Arcadia ... in unser Hochteutsche Sprach ...
ubersetzt," by Theocritus von Hirschberg [_i.e._, Martin Opitz],
Francfort, 1629, 4to.
[239]
"Par la bouche des bons esprits
Apollon vous tient a mespris
Troupe ignorance et trop hardie,
Car vous prophanez ses beaux dons
Et faites naistre des chardons
Au milieu de vostre Arcadie."
[240] And then it was spelt _Chaksper_, "La critique du theatre
anglois," translated from the English of Collier, Paris, 1715, 8vo. In
the "Journal des Scavans" for the year 1710 it appears under the shape
"Shakees Pear," p. 110.
[241] Thus speaks Clarimond in his harangue against romances:
"L'Angleterre n'a pas manque d'avoir aussi son Arcadie, laquelle ne nous
a este montree que depuis peu par la traduction qui en a este faite. Je
ne trouve point d'ordre la dedans et il y a beaucoup de choses qui ne me
peuvent satisfaire.... Il est vrai que Sidney, etant mort jeune, a pu
laisser son ouvrage imparfait." In his defence of romances, Philiris
answers: "Quant a l'Arcadie de Sidney, apres avoir passe la mer pour
nous venir voir, je suis marry que Clarimond la recoive avec un si
mauvais compliment. S'il n'entend rien aux amours de Strephon et de
Clajus, il faut qu'il s'en prenne a luy, non pas a l'autheur qui a rendu
son livre l'un des plus beaux du monde. Il y a des discours d'amour et
des discours d'estat si excellens et si delectables que je ne me
lasserois jamais de les lire" ("Le Berger extravagant, ou, parmy des
fantaisies amoureuses, l'on void les impertinences des romans et de la
poesie," vol. iii., Paris, 1628, pp. 70 and 134). Sorel's work was
translated into English: "The extravagant shepherd. The anti-romance, or
the history of the shepherd Lysis," by John Davies, of Kidwelly; London,
1653, fol. The book has very curious plates; Davies in his preface is
extremely hard upon Sidney, and heaps ridicule especially on the head of
King Basilius. See _infra_, chap. vii.
[242] Fouquet, however, was very fond of foreign books; the catalogue
(dated 1665) of his library, drawn up after his committal, shows that he
had a fairly large number of English books. He was the earliest known
French possessor of a Shakespeare. The catalogue, it is true, reveals
the fact that he preserved it "in his garret":
"Livres in folio qui se trouvent dans le grenier:
Comedies de Jazon [_i.e._, Ben Jonson] en anglois,
2 vol., London, 1640 _3l._
Idem, comedies angloises _10s._
Shakespeares comedies angloises _1l._
Fletcher commedies angloises _1l._"
(MS. 9,438 francais, in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris.)
The second in date of the French possessors of copies of Shakespeare
was, strange to say, no less a person than the patron of Racine and
Boileau, the Roi-Soleil himself. Looking over, some time ago, at the
Bibliotheque Nationale, the original manuscript slips made in 1684 by
the royal librarian, Nicolas Clement, for his catalogue of the books
confided to his care, I found one inscribed: "Will. Shakspeare, poeta
Anglicus. Opera poetica, continentia tragoedias, comoedias et
historiolas, Anglice, Londres, Th. Cotes, 1632, fol." And to this,
considering that he had to deal with a thoroughly unknown person,
Clement was careful to add a note that people might be informed what was
to be thought of the poet. This is (so far as now known) the earliest
French allusion to Shakespeare: "Ce poete anglois a l'imagination asses
belle, il pense naturellement; mais ces belles qualitez sont obscurcies
par les ordures qu'il mele dans ses comedies."
[243] Vol. xv. published in 1731.
[244] "Essai sur la pastorale," prefacing "Estelle."
[Illustration: ELIZABETHAN GAIETIES. KEMP'S DANCE FROM LONDON TO
NORWICH.]