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CHAPTER VI.

MINOR ELIZABETHAN POETRY.

EFORE the close of the sixteenth century the wisest and most productive age of our poetical literature had fairly commenced. Spenser alone had added to the language a world of wealth, a golden inheritance for all posterity. Of the minor poets of the Elizabethan age, who succeeded him by hundreds, few are altogether without merit; "all have caught some echoes of the spirit of music that then filled the universal air."

The minor Elizabethan poetry is for the most part remarkable for ingenuity and elaboration, and for quaintness of thought and expression. It has been observed that "there is often more art in it than nature, yet if it is sometimes unnatural, it is very seldom simply insipid, like much of the well-sounding verse of more recent eras.”

Cotemporary with Spenser is Sir Philip Sidney, who in 1554-86 takes his rank in English literary history both as a poet and a prose-writer. What Surrey was in the court of Henry VIII., Sidney was in the court of Elizabeth, who counted him "the jewel of her times." Generous, gallant, and accomplished, we associate him with all the fascinations of chivalry and romance. The brightest ornament of his age, he is still handed down to us as a model of knighthood and manhood. His bravery and chivalrous magnanimity, his grace and polish of manner, the purity of his morals, his learning and refinement,

won for him universal love and esteem; and it is even said that in 1585 he was named one of the candidates for the crown of Poland, at that time vacant, when Elizabeth, being unwilling to lose him, "threw obstacles in the way of his election." His military exploits were highly honorable. He died of a wound received at Zutphen in October, 1586, at the early age of thirty-two. Every school-boy is familiar with the beautiful story of his abnegation in favor of the dying soldier, the brightest and greenest leaf in the immortal bays that encircle the memory of this darling of fame, of whom it has been said, “he trod from his cradle to his grave amid incense and flowers, and died in a dream of glory!"

The poetry of Sidney, though it is now comparatively but little read, was extravagantly admired in his own time. His graces are rather those of artful elaboration than of vivid natural expression. His style, according to the fashion of the day, runs into conceits, and has also some want of animation; yet it is always harmonious, and rises often into great stateliness and splendor. As is the man, so is the poet; and it has been happily observed that "a breath of beauty and noble feeling exhales from his productions like the fragrance from a garden of flowers." Sidney's sonnets to Stella the Philoclea of his "Arcadia "— have been much admired. His writings are now less read than they deserve, and undoubtedly for the same reason that the poetry of Shelley (who, lineally descended from the same noble house, was in many respects the counterpart of Sidney) is not widely appreciated; they "lack" as Willis expresses it" flesh and blood;" they are too refined and impalpable for human nature's daily food.

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Cooper has called Sidney "a warbler of poetic prose;" his "Arcadia" may indeed be styled a prose poem. Modern

critics disagree as to its merits. The personal fame of its author, and the scarcity of works of fiction in the reign of Elizabeth, are supposed in some degree to have contributed to the admiration it excited in his own time. A modern critic has observed that "a work so extensively perused, must have contributed not a little to fix the English tongue, and to form that vigorous and imaginative style which characterizes the literature of the beginning and middle of the seventeenth century." The work was not intended for the press, but was written chiefly for the amusement of his sister; and he gave it the title of "The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia." The "Arcadia" is an uncompleted work, and appeared only after its author's death. The Puritans of Sidney's age, in their mistaken crusade against poetry and art, had contemptuously denominated poets "Caterpillars of the Commonwealth;" to repel their objections to the poetic art he wrote his tract entitled "The Defence of Poesy." It has been justly admired for the beauty of its style; and though written with the partiality of a poet, it has been commended for the general soundness of its reasoning.

The Stella whom Sidney addresses was the eldest sister of the favorite Essex, and intended from her childhood for his bride. For reasons which do not appear, the projected marriage was broken off by their families, and the lady was married by her guardian to Lord Rich, her declared aversion. She is described as a woman of exquisite beauty, on a grand and splendid scale. Passionately beloved to the last by Sidney, whose love should have "set her high in heaven as any star," one can hardly believe that this woman's after-life was not above reproach. This sonnet, addressed to one who has lately left the presence of Stella, and of whom he inquires of her welfare, "will," says Mrs. Jameson," commend itself

for truth and beauty to all who have known the agony of separation from one beloved."

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I would know whether she doth sit or walk,-
How clothed, how waited on? Sighed she, or smiled?
With what pastime Time's journey she beguiled?
If her lips deigned to sweeten my poor name?
Say all, and all well said, still say the same!"

This sonnet to "Sleep" is one of Sidney's best, and may be regarded as a fairer specimen of his style.

"Come, Sleep, O Sleep, the certain knot of peace,

The baiting place of wit, the balm of woe,
The poor man's wealth, the prisoner's release,
The indifferent judge between high and low.
With shield of proof, shield me from out the press
Of those fierce darts Despair at me doth throw;
O make me in those civil wars to cease.

I will good tribute pay, if thou do so.
Take thou of me smooth pillows, sweetest bed;
A chamber deaf to noise, and blind to light;

A rosy garland, and a weary head.

And if these things, as being thine by right,

Move not thy heavy grace, thou shalt in me
Livelier than elsewhere Stella's image see."

Sir Walter Raleigh, born in 1552, though he has left us much more prose than verse, deserves for the excellence of his few short poems a place among the poets of Elizabeth's reign. In the character of this noble knight we have the brave and chivalrous soldier, the elegant scholar, the man of practical energy, and the sage philosopher singularly united. "Being educated," observes Hume, "amidst naval and military enterprises, he surpassed in

the pursuits of literature even those of the most recluse and sedentary lives." Of an ancient family in Devonshire, Raleigh became a soldier at seventeen; at twenty-eight we find him in London. The loyal surrender of his gay plush mantle for the protection of Elizabeth's immaculate shoes from the soiling mud in her pathway, is a well-known incident. This ready gallantry, by which the young soldier won the favor of his queen, forcibly illustrates his chivalry and tact. It has been aptly said that "this cloak was the means of procuring him many a good suit."

Of an adventurous and restless disposition, Raleigh became, in 1585, a principal abettor of the unsuccessful attempt to colonize Virginia. This expedition was the means of introducing into England that disreputable plant, tobacco. Elizabeth knighted him, and granted him many solid marks of her favor, in return for which he engaged zealously in her service. On the accession. of James, Raleigh's prosperity came to an end. Through the malignant scheming of his political enemies, he was accused of conspiring to dethrone the king and place the crown on the head of Arabella Stuart, of attempting to excite sedition, and to establish popery by the aid of foreign powers. A trial for high treason ensued; "and though he defended himself," says his historian, "with such temper, eloquence, and strength of reasoning that some even of his enemies were convinced of his innocence, and all parties were ashamed of the judgment pronounced," Raleigh was, upon the paltriest evidence, condemned by a servile jury to death. He was, however, reprieved, and committed to the Tower. During the twelve years of his imprisonment in which his wife was permitted to bear him company - Raleigh wrote most of his works, of which his "History of the World" is the most considerable. This work was considered, both in

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