Sidney the critic expounds in his _Apologie for Poetry_ his view that the novel of his time and of all anterior times, together {xiv} indeed with all literature having an imaginative and idealistic tendency, was comprehended under his definition of poetry. “For Xenophon,” says he, “who did imitate so excellently as to give us the portraiture of a just Empire under the name of Cyrus, made therein an absolute heroical poem. So did Heliodorus in his sugared invention of that picture of love in _Theagines and Cariclea_. And yet both writ in prose: which I speak to show, that it is not riming and versing that maketh a poet, no more than a long gowne maketh an Advocate.” What his theory of poetry was may be gathered from his description of the poet, who, “disdayning to be tied to any such subjection (as the natural rules of things), lifted up with the vigor of his owne invention, dooth growe in effect another nature, in making things either better than Nature bringeth forth, or, quite anewe, formes such as never were in Nature, as the _Heroes, Demigods, Cyclops, Chimeras, Furies_, and such like; so as hee goeth hand in hand with Nature, not inclosed within the narrow warrant of her gifts, but freely ranging onely within the Zodiack of his owne wit. Nature never set the earth in so rich tapestry, as divers Poets have done, neither with so pleasant rivers, fruitful trees, sweet smelling flowers, nor whatsoever els may make the too much loved earth more lovely. Her world is brasen, the Poets only deliver a golden.” This corresponds to Bacon’s famous account of the nature of poetry, in the _Advancement of Learning_:-- “Poesy is a part of learning in measure of words for the most part restrained, but in all other points extremely licensed, and doth truly refer to the imagination; which, not being tied to the laws of matter, may at pleasure join that which nature hath severed, and sever that which nature hath joined; and so make unlawful matches and divorces of things; _Pictoribus atque poetis, etc._ It is taken in two senses in respect of words and matter. In the first sense it is but a character of style, and belongeth to arts of speech, and is not pertinent for the present. In the latter it is (as hath been said) one of the principal parts of learning, and is nothing else but feigned history, which may be styled as well in prose as in verse.