PAGE

Yes, in this map of what is fair and good,
This glorious index of a heav'nly book,
Not seldom, as in youthful years he stood,
Divinest Spenser would admiring look ;
And, framing thence high wit and pure desire,
Imagin'd deeds, that set the world on fire.
Lord Thurlow.1

14-XXVII. posy: first 4to 1591 and fol. 1598 Poesie,' second 4to 1591 'Poems.' 5-6. 'Alliteration is "dictionary's" or alphabetical method; and 1. 6 sarcastically illustrates this. Dryden has a similar conjunction of rhyming and rattling, though he is not attacking Doeg-Settle on the score of alliteration:

"He was too warm on picking-work to dwell,

But faggoted his notions as they fell,

And, if they rhymed and rattled, all was well."

=

(Abs. and Achit., Pt. II, 418). Sidney himself is alliterative beyond what one would expect from these lines.'-Grosart. denizened naturalized in English; far-fet = far-fetched. 15-XXVIII. wan. Other texts read 'meane', which Dr. Grosart observes may in Sidney's time have been an adjectival use of mean or mene = lamenting,' however intolerable in our present sense. But the epithet wan, applied to the moon, has passed into our ordinary poetical vocabulary; e.g., Mr. Ruskin's early poem of The Months (Poems. J. R., Collected 1850, p. 23):

'the wan and weary moon;'

and Cornelius Webbe's Lyric Leaves, 1832, p. 119:
'Oh Moon, it is a passionate delight

To pore upon thy beautiful wan face.'

1-2 Wordsworth (Miscellaneous Sonnets, Pt. II, 17) borrows more of these lines than he acknowledges. 14 'The last line of this poem is a little obscured by transposition. He means, Do they call ungratefulness there a virtue?'-Charles Lamb. Sidney has been beautifully echoed in one of Shelley's fragments (ed. Forman, 1877, iv, 61):

'TO THE MOON.

Art thou pale for weariness

Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth,
Wandering companionless

Among the stars that have a different birth,-
And ever changing, like a joyless eye

That finds no object worth its constancy?'

1 First printed in his lordship's private edition of Sidney's Defence of Poesy, 1810. A biographer of Sidney (S. M. D.', Boston, 3rd ed., 1859, p. 278) mistakenly quotes it as Campbell's.

1

Sir Philip Sidney.

An obscure contemporary of Sidney has an address to the Moon which an undue licence in the rimes scarcely disqualifies from a place among the best (Davison's Poeticall Rapsodie, 1602, The Fourth Impression, 1621, p. 83):

'to.

A SONNET OF THE MOONE.

Looke how the pale Queene of the silent night
Doth cause the Ocean to attend upon her,
And he as long as she is in his sight,
With his full tide is ready her to honor;
But when the silver wagon of the Moone
Is mounted up so high he cannot follow,
The sea cals home his christall waves to mone,
And with low ebbe doth manifest his sorrow :
So you that are the soveraigne of my heart,
Have all my joyes attending on your will,
My joyes low ebbing when you doe depart,
When you returne, their tide my heart doth fill.
So as you come, and as you doe depart
Joyes ebbe and flow within my tender heart.
Charles Best.1

· .

=

XXIX, 4. Cf. Drummond, CXIV, 3. prease press, throng. 10. of... of: adopted from the texts of 1591 as preferable to the to' of 1598. Perhaps Dr. Trench's via media, 'to... of,' is best (Household Book of Eng. Poetry, p. 29). II. "rosie garland", as the garland of silence (sub rosa)—a pun that would have delighted Thomas Fuller, and Charles Lamb if he had noticed it.'Grosart. This invocation should be compared with those of Daniel (XLVI), Drummond (CXIV), Wordsworth (CLXXXIII-CLXXXIV), Keats (CCCVIII), and others. The sonnet immediately preceding it in Astrophel and Stella is worth quoting here:

(38)

This night, while sleepe begins with heavy wings
To hatch mine eyes, and that unbitted thought

Doth fall to stray, and my chiefe powres are brought

To leave the scepter of all subject things;

The first that straight my fancies error brings
Unto my mind is Stellas image, wrought

By Loves owne selfe, but with so curious drought

Except that he contributed a handful of verses to the old miscellany named, hardly anything is known of Best. See, however, some particulars in Joseph Hunter's Chorus Vatum Anglicanorum, 1851, V, 497 (Addit. MSS. Mus. Brit., 24,491), and the miscellaneous volume 24,493, p. 226. An anonymous writer in The London Magazine for October, 1823-possibly Charles Lamb-called attention to the sonnet, introducing it thus: Among our older poets are some whose genius was perfect in one or two smaller instances, but whose powers were never exerted on any larger work, at least no proof of it has been put on record: of this number was Charles Best, the author of the following sonnet.'

PAGE

That she, methinks, not onely shines but sings.

I start, looke, hearke; but what in closde up sence
Was held, in opend sense it flies away,

Leaving me nought but wailing eloquence.

I, seeing better sights in sights decay,
Cald it anew, and wooed sleepe againe;

But him her host that unkind guest had slaine.

16-XXX. For an account of this jousting, doubtless that which took place 15-16 May, 1581, and for many other particulars regarding the probable circumstances and dates of these sonnets, see Mr. Arber's English Garner, vol. i, 1877.

XXXI, 6. who: 'which' (1591). 14. Cf. the close of Petrarca's 137th Sonnet, and, for comment, Shakspeare (Two Gentlemen of Verona, ii, 2, 16):

'What! gone without a word?

Ay, so true love should do: it cannot speak ;

For truth hath better deeds than words to grace it.'

In a copy of the first edition of Astrophel and Stella which once belonged to Anthony à Wood there is written over against this sonnet, in the antiquary's own beautiful handwriting: 'Amor levis loquit', ingens silet;' and on the title-page :

'Well in the Ring there is the Ruby sett,

Where comly shape, & vertue both are mett.'

A fourteen-lined poem of Herrick's ('sonnet' one hesitates to call it,
like his Dean-bourn, also of fourteen lines) suggests some interesting
parallels (Poems, ed. Grosart, 1876, i, 25):

TO HIS MISTRESSE OBfecting to HIM NEITHER
TOYING NOR TALKING.

You say I love not, 'cause I doe not play
Still with your curles, and kisse the time away.

You blame me too, because I cann't devise

Some sport, to please those Babies in your eyes:

By Loves Religion, I must here confesse it,

The most I love, when I the least expresse it.
Small griefs find tongues: Full Casques are ever found
To give, (if any, yet) but little sound.

Deepe waters noyse-lesse are; And this we know,
That chiding streams betray small depth below.
So when Love speechlesse is, she doth expresse
A depth in love, and that depth, bottomlesse.
Now since my love is tongue-lesse, know me such,
Who speak but little, 'cause I love so much.

Robert Herrick.1

1 L. 4. For examples of this sportive conceit' see Grosart's ed. of Marvell, i, 1872, 114, and add T. Lodge (Scillaes Metamorphosis, 1589, p. 24, Hunterian Club ed. 1876), N. Breton (Pasquils Fooles-Cap, 1600, p. 20, ed. Grosart, 1876), and R. Chester (Love's Martyr, 1601, p. 4, New Shak. Soc. ed. 1878). 7 Seneca's 'Curæ leves loquuntur,

PAGE

Sir Philip Sidney.

17-XXXII. I cannot forbear appending the two following additional examples, the latter of which, and the two on page 15, were the three special favourites of Sidney's gentle apologist, Charles Lamb:

( 84 )

Highway, since you my chiefe Pernassus be,
And that my Muse, to some eares not unsweet,
Tempers her words to trampling horses feet
More oft then to a chamber melodie.
Now blessed you, beare onward blessed me
To her, where I my heart safeleft shall meet,
My Muse and I must you of dutie greet
With thankes and wishes, wishing thankfully.
Be you still carefull kept by publike heed,
By no encrochment wrongd, nor time forgot:
Nor blam'd for bloud, nor sham'd for sinfull deed.
And that you know I envy you no lot

Of highest wish, I wish you so much blisse,
Hundreds of yeares you Stellas feet may kisse. '

(103)

O happie Tems, that didst my Stella beare,
I saw thee with full many a smiling line

Upon thy cheerefull face joy's livery weare:

While those faire planets on thy streames did shine,

The bote for joy could not to daunce forbeare,
While wanton winds with beauties so devine

ingentes stupent:' cf. Shakspeare (Macbeth, iv, 3. 209), S. Daniel (Complaint of Rosamond, 1595, st. 114, ed. 1602, sig. Niiii):

Striving to tell his woes, words would not come :

For light cares speak, when mighty griefs are dombe.'

Webster (White Devil, ed. Dyce, 1830, i, 43), and Dekker-and-Webster (Famous Hist. of Sir Tho. Wyatt, ed. Dyce, 1857, p. 201). Casques = casks. 9-10 'A classical common-place from Ovid onward, and frequent in the Elizabethan poets' (Grosart); e.g., Sidney's Eclogue (Arcadia, Lib. i, p. 74, ed. 1598); Raleigh's Silent Lover (Dr. Hannah's Courtly Poets, 1870, p. 20):

'Passions are likened best to floods and streams:

The shallow murmur, but the deep are dumb;
So, when affections yield discourse, it seems
The bottom is but shallow whence they come;'

Earl of Sterline's Aurora, 1604, Song 1:

'The deepest rivers make least din,
The silent soule doth most abound in care;'

and W. Browne's Britannia's Pastorals, 1625, Booke i, Song 5, p. 118. For other examples see Dr. Hannah's earlier volume, Poems by Sir Henry Wotton, Sir Walter Raleigh, and Others, 1845, p. xli, Intro. Ll. 13-14 Echoed to-day in Mr. Browning's

song:

'I touch

But cannot praise, I love so much'

doubtless in both cases recollected from Shakspeare's 106th Sonnet (XCIII, 14: supra, P. 47).

L. 9. Adopted from eds. of 1591 as better than 1598:

'Be you still faire, honourd by publike heed.'

PAGE

Ravisht, staid not, till in her golden haire
They did themselves (O sweetest prison) twine.
And faine those Æols youth there would their stay
Have made, but forst by Nature still to flie,
First did with puffing kisse those lockes display:
She, so discheveld, blusht; from window I
With sight thereof cride out, O faire disgrace,
Let honor selfe to thee graunt highest place. '

14-17-XXVII-XXXII. First printed in 4to. Sir P. S. his Astrophel and
Stella. Wherein the excellence of sweete Poesie is concluded. 1591.
17-XXXIII. One of Certaine Sonets written by Sir Philip Sidney:
Never before printed. ARCADIA, 1598. Dr. Grosart has doubtless
assigned it its proper place as concluding the Astrophel and Stella
series. L. 1. Cf. Drummond's Song (Poems, 1616, sig. 14):
'O leave that Love which reacheth but to Dust,
And in that Love eternall only trust,

And Beautie, which, when once it is possest,
Can only fill the Soule, and make it blest.'

rich. It is perhaps unnecessary to remind the reader of Stella's married name-Lady Rich. evil: pronounced as a monosyllable, and ultimately contracted to ill. The sonnet should be compared with Shakspeare's 146th (see CV, with note). 18-XXXIV, 5. Cf. Shakspeare (Macbeth, i, 3, 137):

'Present fears

2

Are less than horrible imaginings ;'*

and Wordsworth (Ecclesiastical Sonnets, Pt. 1, 7) :

'For all things are less dreadful than they seem.'

evil: see remark under XXXIII. The thoughts, and too often perhaps the very language of Sidney's sonnet-of which the opening argument is, as Leigh Hunt observes, a favourite one of M. Aurelius Antoninus (Meditations, transl. Long, 1862, ii, 17; vi, 10, 44; ix, 28; x, 1, 6)—are reiterated by Drummond in his Cypresse Grove: e.g., 'If Death bee good, why should it bee feared, and if it bee the worke of Nature, how should it not bee good?' (ed. 1630, p. 76). It ought to be read in connection with the noble dialogue in the 5th Book of the Arcadia where it occurs. The friends Musidorus and Pyrocles, on the eve of what seemed certain doom, comfort each other in speculations on the condition of the soul after death; and Musidorus, 'looking with a heavenly joy upon him,' sings the 'Song' to his companion.—Arcadia, p. 445, ed. 1598.