Chapter III (2)

The most brilliant and characteristic work of fiction belonging to the Elizabethan era composed by a man who was himself regarded by his contemporaries as the embodiment of all the qualities they most loved and admired. During the three hundred years which have elapsed since the death of Sir Philip Sidney, the same enthusiastic praise has accompanied the mention of his name. Sir William Temple, writing in a critical time, and when the effect of Sidney's personal character need no longer have biassed a literary judgment, pronounced Sir Philip to be "the greatest poet and the noblest genius of any that have left writings behind them."[67] Such were the words of a man of genius, who was acquainted with the works of Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Spenser. While all admirers of Sidney must regret a praise of his literary abilities so exaggerated and mistaken, the eulogies which have been lavished upon his personal character have never been thought to surpass the worth of their object. Sir Philip Sidney, in the short life allotted to him, had added to his personal beauty and amiable disposition all that was most fitted to win the admiration of his time. His rare accomplishments, his chivalrous manners and unusual powers of conversation made him so great a favorite at court, that it was the pride of Elizabeth to call him "her Philip." A considerable knowledge of military affairs, and a fearless gallantry in battle, combined, with Sidney's genial disposition, to win for him the universal affection of the army. The violence of the Middle Ages lingers in Sir Philip's angry words to his father's secretary: "Mr. Molyneux, if ever I know you to do so much as read any letter I write to my father, without his commandment or my consent, I will thrust my dagger into you. And trust to it, for I speak it in earnest." But the spirit of generosity and self-sacrifice, which we are also accustomed to associate with mediaeval knighthood, was realized in the famous scene on the battle-field before Zutphen. With good natural talents and an untiring industry, Sir Philip acquired a knowledge of science, of languages, and of literature, which gave him a reputation abroad as well as at home. The learned Languet relinquished his regular duties without prospect of pecuniary reward "to be a nurse of knowledge to this hopeful young gentleman."[68] The regrets of the universities at Sidney's death filled three volumes with academic eulogies. But a better testimony than these volumes to the general admiration for Sidney's talents, and to his position as a patron of literature, is to be found in the beautiful lines in which Spenser lamented his benefactor, and in two sentences by poor Tom Nash[69], who knew but too well the value of what he and his fellow-laborers had lost: "Gentle Sir Philip Sidney, thou knewest what belonged to a scholar; thou knewest what pains, what toil, what travel conduct to perfection; well could'st thou give every virtue his encouragement, every art his due, every writer his desert, cause none more virtuous, witty, or learned than thyself. But thou art dead in thy grave, and has left too few successors of thy glory, too few to cherish the sons of the Muses, or water those budding hopes with their plenty, which thy bounty erst planted." The public manifestations of grief at Sidney's death, and the rivalry of two nations for the possession of his remains, seem to have proceeded rather from the fame of his personal virtues than from the accomplishment of great achievements. It was recorded on the tomb of the learned Dr. Thornton that he had been "the tutor of Sir Philip Sidney," and Lord Brooke caused the inscription to be placed over his own grave: "Fulke Greville, servant to Queen Elizabeth, counsellor to King James, and friend to Sir Philip Sidney."

The work of a man who belonged so thoroughly to his own time, and who united in himself talents and virtues so remarkable could hardly fail to be of historical interest. Such is the value now belonging to the "Arcadia"--a work unrivalled in its own day, and deserving the admiration of the present, but which has been left behind in the great advance of English prose fiction. In the courtly pages of the "Arcadia" are brilliantly reflected the lofty strain of sentiment characteristic of Elizabeth's time, and the chivalry, the refinement, and the impetuosity of if its noble author. "Heere have you now," wrote Sir Philip to his sister, the Countess of Pembroke, "most deare, and most worthy to be most deare Ladie, this idle worke of mine. * * * Youre deare self can best witnesse the manner, being done in loose sheetes of paper, most of it in your presence, the rest by sheetes sent unto you, as fast as they were done." It would be tedious to the reader to receive a detailed description of the story which extends through the four hundred and eighty pages of Sidney's folio. The plot turns on the fulfilment of a Delphian prophecy, in fear of which Basilius, king of Arcadia, retires to a forest with his wife and two daughters. One daughter, Philoclea, lives with her father Basilius, and the other, Pamela, is confided to the care of Dametas, a country fellow, in the service of Basilius, who lives close by with his wife. Pyrocles, prince of Macedon, and Musidorus, prince of Thessaly, are wrecked on the coast of Arcadia, where they soon become enamored of the two daughters of Basilius. To the better attainment of their ends, Pyrocles obtains admittance to the house of Basilius in the disguise of an Amazon, and Musidorus enters the service of Dametas in the character of a shepherd. The story which is unrolled in the remainder of the work relates the extraordinary occurrences which are necessary to the fulfilment of the Delphian prophecy, together with the intrigues and adventures of the young lovers. Shipwrecks, attacks by pirates, rescues, journeys through Arcadia among poetic shepherds, a war with the Helots, through forests and carving sonnets on trees,--such are the scenes which succeed each other with unending variety. On the arrival of Pyrocles and Musidorus in Arcadia, the reader is introduced to that ideal land, never more happily described than by Sidney's pen[70]:

The third day after, in the time that the Morning did strow roses
and violets in the heavenly floore against the comming of the
sunne, the Nightingales, (striving one with the other which could
in most daintie varietie recount their wrong caused sorrow,) made
them put off their sleepe, and rising from under a tree, (which
that night had bin their pavillion,) they went on their journey,
which by and by welcomed Musidorus eies (wearied with the wasted
soile of Laconia) with delightfull prospects. There were hills
which garnished their proud heights with stately trees: humble
vallies, whose base estate seemed comforted with the refreshing of
silver rivers: medowes, enameled with all sorts of eie pleasing
flowers; thickets, which being lined with most pleasant shade, were
witnessed so too, by the cheerfull disposition of manie well tuned
birds: each pasture stored with sheep feeding with sober securitie,
while the prettie lambes with bleating oratorie craved the dammes
comfort: here a shepheards boy piping, as though he should never be
old: there a young shepheardesse knitting, and withall singing, and
it seemed that her voice comforted her hands to worke, and her
hands kept time to her voice's musick. As for the houses of the
country, (for manie houses came under their eye,) they were all
scattered, no two being one by th' other, and yet not so farre off
as that it barred mutuall succour: a shew, as it were, of an
accompanable solitarinesse, and of a civill wildeness.

Amid such scenes dwell Basilius and his wife, whose two daughters are described by Sidney in language unsurpassed for delicacy and charm.

Of these two are brought to the world two daughters, so beyond
measure excellent in all the gifts allotted to reasonable
creatures, that we may thinke they were borne to shew, that nature
is no stepmother to that sexe, how much so ever some men (sharp
witted onely in evill speaking) have sought to disgrace them. The
elder is named Pamela, by many men not deemed inferiour to her
sister: for my part, when I marked them both, me thought there was,
(if at least such perfections may receive the word of more,) more
sweetness in Philoclea, but more majestie in Pamela: mee thought
love plaied in Philoclea's eies, & threatened in Pamela's; me
thought Philoclea's beautie only perswaded, but so perswaded that
all hearts must yield; Pamela's beautie used violence, and such
violence as no heart could resist. And it seems that such
proportion is betweene their mindes; Philoclea so bashfull, as
though her excellencies had stolne into her before she was aware,
so humble, that she will put all pride out of countenance; in
summe, such proceeding as will stirre hope, but teach hope good
maners. Pamela of high thoughts, who avoids not pride with not
knowing her excellencies, but by my making that one of her
excellencies to be void of pride: her mother's wisdome, greatnesse,
nobilitie, but (if I can guesse aright) knit with a more constant
temper.[71]

The description of an envious man in the second book,[72] which suggested to Sir Richard Steele his essay in the nineteenth number of the _Spectator_, is another good example of Sidney's ability in delineating character. The passage in which Musidorus is represented showing off the paces of his horse,[73] a subject especially adapted to excite the best effort of the author, is a very remarkable effort of descriptive power, for the insertion of which, unfortunately, space is wanting here. Sidney might have quoted his description of Pamela sewing, to justify his belief that "It is not rhyming and versing that maketh poesy":

Pamela, who that day having wearied her selfe with reading, * * * was
working upon a purse certaine roses and lillies. * * * The flowers
shee had wrought caried such life in them, that the cunningest
painter might have learned of her needle: which, with so pretty a
manner, made his careers to & fro through the cloth, as if the needle
it selfe would haue been loth to haue gone fromward such a mistresse,
but that it hoped to returne thitherward very quickly againe; the
cloth looking with many eyes vpon her, and louingly embracing the
wounds she gaue it: the sheares also were at hand to behead the silke
that was growne too short. And if at any time shee put her mouth to
bite it off, it seemed, that where she had beene long in making of
a rose with her hands, she would in an instant make roses with her
lips; as the lillies seemed to haue their whitenesse rather of the
hand that made them, than of the matter whereof they were made;
& that they grew there by the suns of her eyes, and were refreshed
by the most * * * comfortable ayre, which an unawares sigh might
bestow upon them.[74]

Charles I. passed many hours of his prison life in reading the "Arcadia," and Milton[75] accused him of stealing a prayer of Pamela to insert in the "Eikon Basilike": "And that in no serious book, but the vain amatorious poem of Sir Philip Sidney's 'Arcadia'; a book in that kind, full of worth and wit, but among religious thoughts and duties not worthy to be named: nor to be read at any time without good caution, much less in time of trouble and affliction to be a Christian's prayerbook." This prayer is in itself so beautiful, coming from the lips of Pamela, and the greater part of it suits so perfectly the unhappy circumstances of King Charles, that at the risk of unduly multiplying our extracts from the "Arcadia," it will be inserted here:--

And therewith kneeling downe, euen where shee 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 condemned: looke vpon my misery with thine eye of mercie, and
let thine infinite power vouchsafe to limite out some proportion of
deliuerance vnto me, as to thee shall seeme most conuenient. Let
not injurie, O Lord, triumph ouer me, and let my faults by thy hand
bee corrected, and make not mine vnjust enemy the minister of thy
justice. But yet, my God, if in thy wisdome this be the aptest
chastisement for my vnexcusable folly: if this low bondage be
fittest to my ouerhigh desires: if the pride of my not inough
humble heart be thus to be broken, O Lord I yeeld vnto thy will,
and joyfully embrace what sorrow thou will haue mee suffer. Onely
thus much let me craue of thee, (let my crauing, O Lord, be
accepted of thee, since euen that proceeds from thee,) let me
craue, euen by the noblest title, which in my greatest affliction I
may give myself, that I am thy creature, and by thy goodness (which
is thyselfe) that thou wilt suffer some beame of thy Majestie so to
shine into my minde, that it may still depend confidently on thee.
Let calamitie be the exercise, but not the ouerthrow or my vertue;
let their power preuaile, but preuaile not to destruction; let my
greatnesse be their pray; let my paine bee the sweetnesse of there
reuenge: let them, (if so it seeme good vnto thee) vexe me with
more and more punishment. But, O Lord, let neuer their wickednesse
haue such a hand, but that I may cary a pure minde in a pure body.
(And pausing a while.) And O most gracious Lord, (said she) what
euer become of me, preserve the vertuous Musidorus.[76]

The "Arcadia" combines the elements of both the chivalric and the pastoral romance. Sidney's familiarity with the legends of Arthur, together with his own gallantry and love of adventure, peculiarly adapted him to describe martial scenes. But the chivalry of Sir Philip is not more apparent where he describes the shock of arms than where, with such exquisite delicacy, he writes of women. The student of English fiction would fain linger long over the pages which describe the loves of Pamela and Philoclea. For when these pages are laid aside, it is long before he may again meet with the poetry, the manly and womanly sentiment, and the pure yet stirring passion which adorn the romance of Elizabeth's Philip. Three centuries have passed away since the "Arcadia" was written, and we who live at the end of this period not unjustly congratulate ourselves on our superior civilization and refinement. And yet in all this time we have arrived of no higher conception of feminine virtue or chivalrous manhood than is to be found in this sixteenth-century romance, and during one half of these three hundred years there was to be seen so little trace of such a conception, whether in life or in literature, that the word love seemed to have lost its nobler meaning and to stand for no more than animal desire. There is not in English fiction a more charming picture of feminine modesty than that of Pamela hiding her love for Musidorus.

How delightfull soeuer it was, my delight might well bee in my
soule, but it neuer wente to looke out of the window to doe him any
comforte. But how much more I found reason to like him, the more I
set all the strength of my minde to conceale it. * * * Full often
hath my breast swollen with keeping my sighes imprisoned: full
often have the teares I draue back from mine eyes turned back to
drowne my heart. But, alas, what did that helpe poore Dorus?[77]

Hardly less beautiful is the gradual yielding, through pity, of Pamela's maidenly heart.

This last dayes danger having made Pamela's loue discerne what a
losse it should haue suffered if Dorus had beene destroyed, bred
such tendernesse of kindnesse in her toward him, that she could no
longer keepe loue from looking out through her eyes, and going
forth in her words; whom before as a close prisoner, shee had to
her heart onely committed: so as finding not onely by his speeches
and letters, but by the pitifull oration of a languishing behaviour,
and the easily deciphered character of a sorrowfull face, that
despaire began now to threaten him destruction, she grew content
both to pitie him, and let him see shee pitied him. * * * by making
her owne beautifull beames to thaw away the former ycinesse of her
behaviour.[78]

That portion of the "Arcadia" which relates to pastoral life owes its origin to Spanish and Portuguese works. But there were not wanting to Sidney's experience actual examples of that peaceful existence to which, in troubled times, men have so often turned as a pleasing contrast to their own cares, and dangers. The shepherds of the Sussex Downs, pursuing through centuries their simple vocation, unheeded by the world, untouched by revolution or civil war, tended their sheep with little thought or knowledge of the world beyond the downs, and presented to the poet a picture of calm content, in pleasing contrast to the active or terrible incidents which more frequently made up the sum both of romance and of actual life. The shepherds of the "Arcadia" make even less pretence to reality than the martial heroes. They are usually poets and musicians; speaking in courtly phrases, and occupied with amorous adventures, they serve sometimes to relieve, and sometimes to heighten, the more stirring scenes.

A third element in the "Arcadia" is the comic, and with this, as might be expected from the rather crude ideas of humor prevalent in the sixteenth century, Sidney met with indifferent success. The wit depends on the ugliness, the perversity, and the clownish character of Dametas, his wife, and their daughter Mopsa. It partakes of the nature of the practical joke, and though it no doubt amused the courtiers of Elizabeth, is too clumsy for a more cultivated taste. But although Sidney's comic scenes may no longer amuse, it must be said that they are free from the low coarseness and ribaldry which have furnished merriment to times which pretended to a much higher standard of wit and education than his own. An interesting contrast may be made between a comic passage of the "Arcadia,"[79] representing a fight between two cowards, and perhaps the only scene in the "Morte d'Arthur" of humorous intent,[80]--that in which King Mark is ignominiously put to flight by Arthur's court fool disguised in the armor of a knight.

In the history of English literature, Sir Philip Sidney's romance will always have a prominent place as the first specimen of a fine prose style. The affectations and mannerisms which are its chief defect were due to the unsettled condition of the language, and to the influence of foreign works, which the general love of learning had made familiar to cultivated Englishmen. The position of the "Arcadia" in fiction is established by the exquisite descriptions of nature and the life-like sketches of character which will often reward the patient reader. That prolixity, which more than any other cause has made the work obsolete, and, as a whole, unreadable, was a recommendation rather than an objection at the time of publication. The "Arcadia," standing almost alone in the department of fiction, and far superior to its few competitors, took the place of a small circulating library. A spirit of lofty ideality pervades the work of Sir Philip Sidney, which is expressive of the aspirations of his time. In the fictions of that age is to be seen a constant attempt, not always successful, to dignify life, to exalt the beautiful, and to conceal or condemn the base. Everyday life was not tempting to the writer, because it contained too much that was repulsive. The story teller and the poet painted amid unreal scenes that happiness and virtue which they thought more easily to be conceived in an ideal land of knights and shepherds, than amidst the cares and dangers of their own existence.[81]

[Footnote 57: Paine's "History of English Literature," book iii, ch. 1.]

[Footnote 58: Nichol's "Progresses," vol. I, p. 3.]

[Footnote 59: The Italian tales were issued in various collections, such as Painter's "Palace of Pleasure," Whetstone's "Heptameron," the "Histories" of Goulard and Grimstone. One of the best of these collections is "Westward for Smelts," by Kinde Kit of Kingstone, circa 1603, reprinted by the Percy Society. It is on the same plan as Boccaccio's "Decamerone," except that the story-tellers are fish-wives going up the Thames in a boat. Imitations of the Italian tales may be found in Hazlitt's "Shakespeare's Library," notably "Romeo and Julietta." Most of these are modernized versions of old tales. I may here add, as undeserving further mention, such stories as "Jacke of Dover's Quest of Inquirie," 1601, Percy Soc.; "A Search for Money," by William Rowley, dramatist, 1609, Percy Soc.; and "The Man in the Moone, or the English Fortune-Teller," 1609, Percy Soc.]

[Footnote 60: The most comprehensive remarks on Lyly and "Euphues" are to be found in the _London Quarterly Review_ for April, 1801, and are due to Mr. Henry Morley.]

[Footnote 61: Henry Peacham, "Compleat Gentleman." See Drake's "Shakespeare and his Times."]

[Footnote 62: Shakespeare ridiculed the affectations of contemporary language in "Love's Labour Lost." Among the characters of Ben Jonson are some good Euphuists. In "Every Man out of his Humour," Fallace says (act v, sc. x), "O, Master Brisk, as 'tis said in Euphues, Hard is the choice, when one is compelled, either by silence to die with grief, or by speaking to live with shame." In "The Monastery," a novel which the author himself considered a failure, Sir Walter Scott represented a Euphuist. But the language of Sir Piercie Shafton is entirely devoid of the characteristics of Euphuism, and gives a very false impression concerning it. (See introduction to "The Monastery.") Compare passages quoted in the text with one in chap. xiv ("Monastery") beginning: "Ah, that I had with me my Anatomy of Wit." Also _passim_.]

[Footnote 63: The lines quoted from the "Winter's Tale" are in act iv, sc. 3. For Greene's words see "Dorastus and Fawnia," in Hazlitt's "Shakespeare's Library," part I, vol. 4, p. 62. The resemblance between the two passages is pointed out by Dunlop ("History of Fiction," p. 404). Collier in his introduction to "Dorastus and Fawnia" denied this obligation of Shakespeare to Greene. But he was evidently led into this error by liking the following passage, instead of the one quoted in the text, for the foundation of Shakespeare's lines: "The gods above disdaine not to love women beneathe. Phoebus liked Sibilla: Jupiter Io; and why not I, then Fawnia?"]

[Footnote 64: Another of Greene's tales, possessing much the same merits and the same defects as those already mentioned is "Never too Late."]

[Footnote 65: Shakespeare's Celia.]

[Footnote 66: Act I, sc. 3.]

[Footnote 67: "Miscellanea," part ii, essay iv.]

[Footnote 68: Gray's "Life of Sidney," p. 8.]

[Footnote 69: "Pierce Penniless."]

[Footnote 70: Folio, 1622. p. 6.]

[Footnote 71: Folio, 1622, p. 10.]

[Footnote 72: Folio, p. 130.]

[Footnote 73: Folio, p. 115.]

[Footnote 74: Folio, p. 260.]

[Footnote 75: See an "Answer in 'Eikon Basilike,'" Milton's Works, Symmons' ed., v. 2, p. 408.]

[Footnote 76: Folio, p. 248.]

[Footnote 77: Folio, p. 116.]

[Footnote 78: Folio, p. 231.]

[Footnote 79: Book iii.]

[Footnote 80: "Morte d'Arthur," book x, chap. 12.]

[Footnote 81: A Scotchman named Barclay published a partly political and partly heroic volume called "Argenis" in 1621. It was much commended by Cowper the poet, but being written in Latin, is hardly to be included in English fiction. See Dunlop, chap. x. Francis Godwin wrote a curious story about 1602, called "The Man in the Moon," in which is described the journey of one Domingo Gonzales to that planet. Dunlop ("Hist. of Fiction") thought Domingo to be the real author. See chapter xiii. This romance is chiefly remarkable for its scientific speculations, and the adoption by the author of the Copernican theory. It was translated into French, and imitated by Cyrano de Bergerac, who in his turn was imitated by Swift in Brobdignag. See Hallam, "Lit. of Europe," vol 3, p. 393.]