An English Garner | Page 3

has he any of the finer
qualities of style, his rhythm being harsh and unmusical, his diction
cumbrous and diffuse.
The excerpt which comes next in this miscellany is by the author of
that treatise which is, with the exceptions, perhaps, of George
Puttenham's Art of English Poesie and Ben Jonson's Discoveries, the
most precious contribution to criticism made in the Elizabethan age;
but, indeed, the Defence of Poesie stands alone: alone in originality,
alone in inspiring eloquence. The letter we print is taken from Arthur
Collins's Sydney Papers, vol. i. pp. 283-5, and was written by Sir Philip
Sidney to his brother Robert, afterwards (August 1618) second Earl of
Leicester, then at Prague. From letters of Sir Henry Sidney in the same

collection (see letters dated March 25th and October 1578) we learn
that Robert, then in his eighteenth year, had been sent abroad to see the
world and to acquire foreign languages, that he was flighty and
extravagant, and had in consequence greatly annoyed his father, who
had threatened to recall him home. 'Follow,' Sir Henry had written, 'the
direction of your most loving brother. Imitate his virtues, exercyses,
studyes and accyons, hee ys a rare ornament of thys age.' This letter
was written at a critical time in Sidney's life. With great courage and
with the noblest intentions, though with extraordinary want of tact, for
he was only in his twenty-sixth year, he had presumed to dissuade
Queen Elizabeth from marrying the Duke of Anjou. The Queen had
been greatly offended, and he had had to retire from Court. The greater
part of the year 1580 he spent at Wilton with his sister Mary, busy with
the Arcadia. In August he had, through the influence of his uncle
Leicester, become reconciled with the Queen, and a little later took up
his residence at Leicester House, from which this letter is dated. It is a
mere trifle, yet it illustrates very strikingly and even touchingly
Sidney's serious, sweet, and beautiful character. The admirable remarks
on the true use of the study of history, such as 'I never require great
study in Ciceronianism, the chief abuse of Oxford, _qui dum verba
sectantur, res ipsas negligunt_,' remind us of the author of the
_Defence_; while the 'great part of my comfort is in you,' 'be careful of
yourself, and I shall never have cares,' and the 'I write this to you as one
that for myself have given over the delight in the world,' show that he
had estimated royal reconciliations at their true value, and anticipate the
beautiful and pathetic words with which he is said to have taken leave
of the world. Short and hurried as this letter is, we feel it is one of those
trifles which, as Plutarch observes, throw far more light on character
than actions of importance often do.
Between 1580 and the appearance of Meres's work in 1598 there was
much activity in critical literature. Five years before the date of
Sidney's letter George Gascogne had published his Certayne Notes of
Instruction concerning the makyng of Verse in Rhyme. This was
succeeded in 1584 by James I.'s Ane Short Treatise conteining some
rewles and cautelis to be observit. Then came William Webbe's
Discourse of English Poesie, 1586, which had been preceded by
Sidney's charming Defence of Poetry, composed in or about 1579, but

not published till 1593. This and Puttenham's elaborate treatise, The Art
of English Poesie contrived into three books (1589), had indeed marked
an epoch in the history of criticism. Memorable, too, in this branch of
literature is Harington's Apologie for Poetry (1591), prefixed to his
translation of the Orlando Furioso. But it was not criticism only which
had been advancing. The publication of the first part of Lyly's Euphues
and of Spenser's _Shepherd's Calendar_ in 1579 may be said to have
initiated the golden age of our literature. The next twenty years saw
Marlowe, Greene, Peele, Kyd, Shakespeare, Chapman, Decker, and
Ben Jonson at the head of our drama; Spenser, Warner, Daniel, and
Drayton leading narrative poetry; the contributors to _England's
Helicon_, published a year later, at the head of our sonneteers and lyric
poets; and Sidney, Lyly, Greene, and Hooker in the van of our prose
literature. The history of Meres's work, a dissertation from which is
here extracted, is curious. In or about 1596, Nicholas Ling and John
Bodenham conceived the idea of publishing a series of volumes
containing proverbs, maxims, and sententious reflections on religion,
morals, and life generally. Accordingly in 1597 appeared a small
volume containing various apothegms, extracted principally from the
Classics and the Fathers, compiled by Nicholas Ling and dedicated to
Bodenham. It was entitled _Politeuphuia_: Wits Commonwealth. In the
following year appeared '_Palladis Tamia, Wits Treasury_: Being the
Second Part of Wits Commonwealth. By Francis