songs, which they call Arentos, both of smelling flowers, nor whatsoever else may their ancestors' deeds, and praises of their make the too-much-loved earth more lovegods. A sufficient probability that, if ly: her world is brazen, the poets only deever learning came among them, it must liver a golden."-" Neither let it be deemed be by having their hard, dull wits softened too saucy a comparison, to balance the highand sharpened with the sweet delight of poe- est point of man's wit with the efficacy of try; for until they find a pleasure in the nature; but rather give right honour to the exercise of the mind, great promises of much heavenly Maker of that maker, who having knowledge will little persuade them that made man in his own likeness, set him beknow not the fruits of knowledge." He yond and over all the works of that second next proceeds to contrast poetry generally, nature, which in nothing he showed so much as an art, with all other arts and sciences, as in poetry-when, with the force of a di

in the following skilful and highly eloquent

manner:

vine breath, he bringeth things forth surpassing her doings; with no small arguinents to the incredulous of that first accursed fall of Adam.-Since our erect wit maketh us know what perfection is, and yet our infected will keepeth us from reaching unto it."

He now proceeds to arrange poetry under various artificial divisions and subdivi

"There is no art delivered to mankind, that hath not the works of nature for its principal object, without which they could not exist, and on which they so depend, as they become actors and players, as it were, of what nature will have set forth. So doth the astronomer look upon the stars, and by that he seeth set down what order nature sions; showing, however, that they all do hath taken therein. So doth the geome- and must lead to the same great end, of bettrician and arithmetician, in their divers tering mankind by means of delighting sorts of quantities. So doth the musician, them. We shall not follow him minutely in tunes tell you which by nature agree, through this part of the subject, but may which not. The natural philosopher there- mention, in passing, that he here announces,

on hath his name, and the moral philosopher standeth upon the natural virtues, vices, or passions of man: And follow nature, saith he, therein, and you shall not err. The

and in some degree developes, those views in regard to versification and diction, the mere revival of which has been thought a stroke of genius in our own times.

lawyer saith what men have determined. The next step our author takes in his eloThe historian, what men have done. The quent disquisition on the value and virtue grammarian speaketh only of the rules of of poesy, is to contrast it somewhat circumspeech, and the rhetorician and logician, stantially with the other high sciences, and considering what in nature will soonest demonstrate its comparative superiority over

prove and persuade, thereon give artificial rules, which are still compassed within the circle of a question, according to the proposed matter. The physician weigheth the nature of man's body, and the nature of

them all. Those who only know Sir Philip Sidney as a chivalrous soldier, an inditer of extravagant verses, and a builder up of the most romantic romance that ever represented things and persons as they are not, will

things hurtful or helpful to it. And the be surprised to observe the extraordinary

metaphysic, though it be in the second and abstract notions, and therefore be counted supernatural, yet doth he indeed build upon the depth of nature."

accuracy of thought, as well as of feeling, which pervades all the definitions and descriptions that occur in this part of the Essay. Let the reader take the following as proofs, that acute penetration and thor

How extremely accurate are the thoughts, in all this; and with what felicitous simpli-ough good sense are in no degree incompaticity are they expressed! Now mark the ble with the most fervid enthusiasm and the

fine burst of enthusiasm by which the argument is applied and summed up.

most lofty imagination.

"So that the ending of all earthly learning being virtuous action, those skills that most serve to bring forth that, have a most just title to be princes over all the rest;

"Only the poet, disdaining to be tied to any such subjection, lifted up with the vigour of his own invention, doth grow, in effect, into another nature; in making things either wherein, if we can show it rightly, the poet better than nature bringeth forth, or quite is worthy to have it before any other comanew, forms such as never were in nature, petitors: among whom, principally to chalas the heroes, denigods, cyclops, chymeras, lenge it, step forth the moral philosophers; furies, and such like, so as he goeth hand in whom methinks I see coming towards me hand with nature, not enclosed within the with a sullen gravity, as though they could narrow warrant of her gifts, but freely rang- not abide vice by day-light: rudely clothing within the zodiac of his own wit. Na-ed, for to witness outwardly their contempt ture never set forth the earth in so rich of outward things; with books in their tapestry as divers poets have done; neither hands against glory, whereto they set their with so pleasant rivers, fruitful trees, sweet- names; sophistically speaking against sub

tlety, and angry with a man in whom they delights, bewailing his absence from barren

see the foul fault of anger."

Again :

"The historian scarce gives leisure to the moralist to say so much, but that he, loaden with old mouse-eaten records, authorising himself for the most part upon other histories, whose greatest authorities are built upon the notable foundation of hearsayhaving much ado to accord differing writers, and to pick truth out of partiality; better acquainted with a thousand years ago than with the present age, and yet better knowing how this world goes than how his own wit runs; curious for antiquities, and inquisitive of novelties; a wonder to young folks, and a tyrant in table-talk-denieth, in a great chafe, that any man, for teaching of virtue and virtuous actions, is comparable to him."-" The philosopher, therefore, and the historian are they which would win the goal, the one by precept, the other by example: but both, not having both, do both halt. For the philosopher, sitting down with the thorny arguments, the bare rule is so hard of utterance, and so misty to be conceived, that one that hath no other guide but him shall wade in him until he be old, before he shall find sufficient cause to be honest. For this knowledge standeth so upon the abstract and general, that happy is that man who may understand him, and more happy that can apply what he doth understand. On the other side, the historian, wanting the precept, is so tied, not to what should be, but to what is to the particular truth of things, and not the general reason of things-that his example draweth not necessary consequence, and therefore a less fruitful doctrine. Now doth the peerless poet perform both; for whatsoever the philosopher saith should be done, he giveth a perfect picture of it, by some one by whom he presupposeth it was done; so as he coupleth the general notion with the particular example. A perfect picture, I say -for he yieldeth to the powers of the mind an image of that whereof the philosopher bestoweth but a wordish description, which doth neither strike, pierce, nor possess the sight of the soul, so much as that other doth." -"So, no doubt, the philosopher with his learned definitions, be it of virtues or vices, matters of public policy or private government, replenisheth the memory with many infallible grounds of wisdom, which, notwithstanding, lie dark before the imaginative and judging power, if they be not illuminated and figured forth by the speaking picture of poesy. Tully taketh much pains, and many times not without poetical helps, to make us know what force the love of our country hath in us: let us but hear old Anchises, speaking in the midst of Troy's flames; or see Ulysses, in the fulness of all Calypso's

and beggarly Ithaca! Anger, the Stoics said, was a short madness; let but Sophocles bring you Ajax on a stage, killing or whipping sheep and oxen, thinking them the army of the Greeks, with their chieftains Agamemnon and Menelaus; and tell me if you have not a more familiar insight into anger than finding in the school-men its genus and difference?"

After a multiplicity of other examples of a similar kind, he adds :

"For conclusion, I say, the philosopher teacheth, but he teacheth obscurely, so as the learned only can understand him; that is to say, he teacheth them that are already taught. But the poet is the food for tender stomachs; the poet is indeed the right popular philosopher."

Thus far our author has been comparing the poet's power of teaching with that of the philosopher. He next examines, in detail, the relative pretensions of the poet and the historian. One of his most powerful arguments in favor of the former's infinite superiority, is set down as follows:

"But history, being captived to the truth of a foolish world, is many times a terror to well doing, and an encouragement to unbridled wickedness. For see we not valiant Miltiades rot in his fetters? The just Phocion and the accomplished Socrates put to death like traitors? The cruel Severus living prosperously? Sylla and Marius dying in their beds? Pompey and Cicero slain then, when they would have thought exile a happiness? See we not virtuous Cato driven to kill himself, and rebel Cæsar so advanced, that his name yet, after sixteen hundred years, lasteth in the highest honour ?"

Having gone through these particular comparisons, and added many more arguments, no less just than ingenious, in proof of his proposition, he now concludes this part of his subject by a general summary, from which we select the following admirable passages-which, for justness of thought, and curious felicity of expression, cannot well be surpassed.

"Now therein"-(that is to say, the power of at once teaching and enticing to do well)-" Now therein, of all sciences-I speak still of human and according to human conceit-is our poet the monarch. For he doth not only show the way, but giveth so sweet a prospect into the way, as will entice any man to enter into it. Nay, he doth as if your journey should lie through a fair vineyard, at the very first give you a cluster of grapes, that, full of that taste, you may long to pass further. He beginneth not with obscure definitions, which must blur the margent with interpretations, and load the memory with doubtfulness; but he umph."

cometh to you with words set in delightful for triumphant captains, doth worthily, of proportion, either accompanied with, or pre- all other learnings, honour the poet's tripared for, the well-enchanting skill of music; and with a tale, forsooth, he cometh unto you with a tale, which holdeth children from play, and old men from the chimneycorner; and pretending no more, doth intend the winning of the mind from wickedness to virtue, even as the child is often brought to take most wholesome things, by hiding them in such other as have a pleasant taste."" For even those hard-hearted evil men, who think virtue a school-name, and know no other good but indulgere genio, and therefore despise the austere admonitions of the philosopher, and feel not the inward reason they stand upon, yet will be content to be delighted: which is all the good fellow poet seems to promise; and so steal to see the form of goodness-which seen, they cannot but love ere themselves be aware, as if

Our author now proceeds to state the objections that have been made, or that may be, against his art-doing this, however, rather as a work of supererogation, than of necessity; but giving as a reason for it, "because we have ears as well as tongues, and that the lightest reasons that may be, will seem to weigh greatly, if nothing be put in the counter-balance." Let our modern critical wits-who pique themselves on the pointedness of their pens, and pretend to think that ridicule is the test not only of truth but of beauty also, hear what a real wit says of them. It should seem by what follows, that their calling has not even novelty in its favour, but was as rife three hundred years ago as it is now.

He says, he has observed, of "that kind they had taken a medicine of cherries."- of people who seek a praise by dispraising

"By these, therefore, examples and reasons, I think it may be manifest that the poet, with that same hand of delight, doth draw the mind more effectually than any other art doth. And so a conclusion not unfitly ensues, that as virtue is the most excellent resting-place for all worldly learning to make an end of, so poetry, being the most familiar to teach it, and most princely to move towards it, in the most excellent work is the most excellent workman."-" Since, then, poetry is of all human learning the most antient, and of most fatherly antiquity, as from thence other learnings have taken their beginnings; -Since it is so universal that no learned nation doth despise it, no barbarous nation is without it ;-Since both Roman and Greek gave such divine names unto it, the one of prophesying, the other of making; and that, indeed, that name of making is fit for it, considering that whereas all other arts retain themselves within their subject, and receive, as it were, their being from it-the poet, only, bringeth his own stuff, and doth not learn a conceit out of the matter, but maketh matter for a conceit;-Since neither his description nor end containing any evil, the thing described cannot be evil;-Since his effects be so good as to teach goodness and delight the learners of it;-Since therein (namely, in moral doctrine, the chief of all knowledge) he doth not only far pass the historian, but, for instructing, is well nigh comparable to the philosopher, and for moving leaveth him behind;-Since the Holy Scripture (wherein there is no uncleanness) hath whole parts in it poetical, and that even our Saviour Christ

others, that they do prodigally spend a great many wandering words in quips and scoffs, carping and taunting at each thing which, by stirring the spleen, may stay the brain from a thorough beholding the worthiness of the subject. These kind of objections, as they are full of a very idle easiness, since there is nothing of so sacred a majesty, but that an itching tongue may rub itself upon it, so deserve they no other answer but, instead of laughing at the jest, to laugh at the jester. We know a playing wit can praise the discretion of an ass, the comfortableness of being in debt, and the jolly commodities of being sick of the plague."" Marry, these pleasant fault-finders, who will correct the verb before they understand the noun, and confute other's knowledge before they confirm their own, I would have them only remember that scoffing cometh not of wisdom: so as the best title, in true English, they get with their merriments is, to be called good fools; for so have our grave forefathers ever termed that humourous kind of jesture."

If the reader should find that some of the arguments in the following extracts do not come upon him with the force of novelty, he must recollect that this is any body's fault rather than Sir Philip Sidney's.

"But what! shall the abuse of a thing make the right use odious? Nay, truly, though I yield that poesy may not only be abused, but that, being abused, by the reason of its sweet charming force it can do more hurt than any other army of words; yet shall it be so far from concluding that the abuse shall give reproach to the abused,

vouchsafed to use the flowers of it; -Since that, contrariwise, it is a good reason that all its kinds are not only in their united whatsover, being abused, doth most harm, forms, but in their severed dissections fully being rightly used (and upon the right use commendable:-I think-(and I think I each thing receives its title) doth most good. think rightly)-the laurel crown appointed Do we not see skill in physic-the best ram

pire to our often assaulted bodies-being name of the nine muses, no more to scorn abused, turn poison-the most violent de- the sacred mysteries of poesy; no more to stroyer? Doth not knowledge of law- laugh at the name of poets, as though they whose end is to even and right all things- were next inheritors to fools; no more to being abused, grow the crooked fosterer of jest at the reverend title of a rhymer; but horrible injuries? Doth not (to go to the to believe, with Aristotle, that they were highest) God's word abused breed heresy, the antient treasures of the Grecian's diand his name abused become blasphemy ?- vinity; to believe, with Bembus, that they Truly, a needle cannot do much hurt; and were the first bringers in of all civility; as truly (with leave of ladies be it spoken) it to believe, with Scaliger, that no philosocannot do much good. But with a sword pher's precepts can sooner make you an thou mayest kill thy father, and with a sword honest man than the reading of Virgil; to thou mayest defend thy prince and country. believe, with Clauserus, the translator of So that, as in their calling poets the fathers Cornutus, that it pleased the Heavenly Dei

of lies, they said nothing, so in this their argument of abuse they prove the commendation."

There is great acuteness and precision in the following remarks on laughter :

"But our comedians think there is no delight without laughter; which is very wrong. For though laughter may come with delight,

ty, by Hesiod and Homer, under the veil of fables, to give us all knowledge-logic, rhetoric, philosophy natural and moral, and quid non ? -to believe, with me, that there are many mysteries contained in poetry, which of purpose were written darkly, lest of profane wits they should be abused; to believe, with Landin, that they are so be

ertino patre natus, you shall suddenly grow Herculea proles :

yet cometh it not of delight, as though delight loved of the gods that whatsoever they write should be the cause of laughter. But well proceeds from a divine fury; lastly, to bemay one thing breed two together. Nay, in lieve themselves, when they tell you they themselves they have, as it were, a kind of will make you immortal by their verses.contrariety; for delight we scarcely do, but Thus doing, your names shall flourish in in things that have a conveniency to our- printers' shops; thus doing, you shall be selves and to general nature; whereas a-kin to many a poetical preface; thus dolaughter almost ever cometh of things most ing, you shall be most fair, most rich, most disproportionate to ourselves and nature. - wise, most all; you shall dwell among suDelight hath a joy in it either permanent or perlatives:-thus doing, though you be libpresent; laughter hath only a scornful tickling. For example, we are ravished with delight to see a fair woman, and yet are far from being moved to laughter. We laugh at deformed creatures, wherein, certainly, Dante's Beatrix, or Virgil's Anchises. we cannot delight. We delight in good "But if (fie of such a but!) you be born chances; we laugh at mischances. We so near the dull-making cataract of Nilus delight to hear the happiness of our friends that you cannot hear the planet-like music and country; at which he were worthy to of poetry; if you have so earth-creeping a be laughed at, that would laugh. We shall, mind that it cannot lift itself up to look to contrarily, sometimes laugh to find a matter the sky of poetry, or rather, by a certain quite mistaken, and go down the hill against rustical disdain, will become such a Mome the bias. In the mouth of some such men as to be a Momus to poetry; then, though I as, for the respect of them, one shall be will not wish unto you the ass's ears of Miheartily sorry, yet he cannot chuse but das, nor to be driven by a poet's verses, as laugh, and so is rather pained than delighted Bubonax was, to hang himself, nor to be

with laughter."

We now pass at once to the concluding passage of this charming piece of writing; a conclusion that is in every way worthy of what has preceded it: and a greater panegyric on it cannot be pronounced.

Si quid mea carmina possunt.
Thus doing, your soul shall be placed with

rhymed to death, as is said to be done in Ireland: yet thus much curse I must lend you in the behalf of all poets-that, while you lacking skill of a sonnet; and when you live, you live in love, and never get favour for die, your memory die from the earth for want of an epitaph."

"So that, since the ever-praise-worthy poesy is full of virtue, breeding delightfulness, and void of no gift that ought to be in On the evening of St. Bartholomew's, duthe noble name of learning; since the blames ring the massacre, a citizen of Paris, repulaid against it are either false or feeble; ted to be very rich, was closely pursued by since the cause why it is not esteemed in an assassin, sword in hand, to whom the citiEngland is the fault of poet-apes, not poets; zen kept crying-" Sir, sir, you are mistasince, lastly, our tongue is most fit to honour ken, I am really a true catholic."-" Possipoesy, and to be honoured by poesy; I con- bly," replied the other, at the same time pierjure you all, that have the evil luck to read cing him with his sword, " but your money this ink-wasting toy of mine, even in the is heretic."