None is happy but a glutton, None an ass but who wants money. CHORUS. CUPID and my Campaspe play'd O love! has she done this to thee? SONG. [From “ Gallathea.") O yes ! O yes! if any maid O yes ! O yes ! has any lost Is any one undone by fire, SON G. [In Sappho and Phaon.] O crueL love ! on thee I lay ' Hope, like thy fool, at thy bed's head, VULCAN's song. [In the same.] By my wife's sparrows, Shall singing fly Through many a wanton's eye. But this of lead He falls into a trance, SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. The anecdotes of the short, but brilliant life of this accom, plished man, to whose patronage our literature owes so many obligations, are too well known to require any notice in this place. Considered as a poet, he was certainly too much infected with that fondness for conceit and antithesis, which the example of the Italian writers had rendered fashionable ; but this fault in him, was evidently the effect of imitation, not of character ; and is often compensated by real wit, and elegance, and facility. His amatory poems are not whining lamentations aboùt the perfections and cruelty of an ideal paragon, but are lively, dramatic, and descriptive of real passion. The Arcadia, if considered as a romance, is tiresome and unin teresting ; so that few readers have the patience to search for the many curious and many animated descriptions, the acute observations, and just sentiments, with which it abounds, and which induced Sir William Temple to describe this author as “the greatest poet, and the noblest genius of “any that have left writings in our own, or any modern “ language.” The first edition of the Arcadia appeared in 1590, and the second in 1593. The Defence of Poesy, which, in the modern edition, is printed with it, and which is valuable as a most judicious and early piece of criticism, was first published in 1595. Sir Philip Sidney was born the 29th of November, 1554, and died of a wound received before Zutphen, on the 22d of Sept. 1586. |