Shall I tell you anything of it--that it is an Allegory--shaped in fact after a famous Italian poem of the same name--that few people now read it continuously; that it requires great pluck to do so; and yet that no one can dip into it--high or low--without finding rich euphuisms, poetic symphonies, noble characters, dexterous experimentation in verse--iambics, sapphics, hexameters, all interlaced with a sonorous grandiloquence of prose--a curious medley, very fine, and _very_ dull? When published after his death it ran through edition after edition, and young wives were gravely cautioned not to spend too much time over that cherished volume. His little book of the _Defence of Poesie_, which he also wrote down at Wilton, appeals more nearly to our sympathies, and may be counted still a good and noble argument for the Art of Poetry. And Sidney gave proof of his skill in that art, far beyond anything in the _Arcadia_--in some of those amatory poems under title of _Astrophel and Stella_, which were supposed to have grown out of his fruitless love for Penelope Devereux, to which I made early reference. I cite a single sonnet that you may see his manner:-- “_Stella_, think not, that I by verse seek fame, Who seek, who hope, who love, who live--but thee; Thine eyes my pride, thy lips mine history. If thou praise not, all other praise is shame, Nor so ambitious am I as to frame A nest for my young praise in laurel tree; In truth I vow I wish not there should be Graved in my epitaph, a Poet’s name. Nor, if I would, could I just title make That any laud thereof, to me should grow Without--my plumes from other wings I take-- For nothing from _my_ wit or will doth flow Since all my words _thy_ beauty doth indite, And Love doth hold my hand, and _make_ me write.”