DEFENSE OF POETRY.*

GENTLE Sir Philip Sidney, thou knewest what belonged to a scholar; thou knewest what pains, what toil, what travel, conduct to perfection; well couldest thou give every virtue his encouragement, every art his due, every writer his desert, 'cause none more virtuous, witty, or learned than thyself." This eulogium was bestowed upon one of the most learned and illustrious men that adorned the last half of the sixteenth century. Literary history is full of his praises. He is spoken of as the ripe scholar, the able statesman-"the soldier's, scholar's, courtier's eye, tongue, sword" -the man "whose whole life was poetry put into action." He and the Chevalier Bayard were the connecting links between the ages of chivalry and our own.

Sir Philip Sidney was born at Penshurst, in West Kent, on the 29th of November, 1554, and died on the 16th day of October, 1586, from the wound of a musket-shot received under the walls of Zutphen, a town in Guelderland, on the banks of the Issel. When he was retiring from the field of battle an incident occurred which well illustrates his chivalrous spirit, and that goodness of heart which gained him

* The Defence of Poesy. By Sir Philip Sidney. Republished in the Library of the Old English Prose Writers. Vol. II.

Nash's Pierce Penniless.

the appellation of the "Gentle Sir Philip Sidney." The circumstance has been made the subject of an historical painting by West. It is thus related by Lord Brooke:

The horse he rode upon was rather furiously choleric than bravely proud, and so forced him to forsake the field, but not his back, as the noblest and fittest bier to carry a martial commander to his grave. In which sad progress, passing along by the rest of the army where his uncle the General was, and being thirsty with excess of bleeding, he called for drink, which was presently brought him; but, as he was putting the bottle to his mouth, he saw a poor soldier carried along, who had eaten his last at the same feast, ghastly casting up his eyes at the bottle. Which Sir Philip perceiving, took it from his head, before he drank, and delivered it to the poor man, with these words, "Thy necessity is yet greater than mine."

The most celebrated productions of Sidney's pen are the "Arcadia" and the "Defence of Poesy." The former was written during the author's retirement at Wilton, the residence of his sister, the Countess of Pembroke. Though so much celebrated in its day,* it is now little known, and still less read. Its very subject prevents it from being popular at present; for now the pastoral reed seems entirely thrown aside. The muses no longer haunt the groves of Arcadia. The shepherd's song-the sound of oaten pipe, and the scenes of pastoral loves and jealousies, are no becoming

* Many of our readers will recollect the high-wrought eulogium of Harvey Pierce, when he consigned the work to immortality: "Live ever sweete, sweete booke: the simple image of his gentle witt; and the golden pillar of his noble courage; and ever notify unto the world that thy writer was the secretary of eloquence, the breath of the muses, the honey-bee of the daintyest flowers of witt and arte; the pith of morale and intellectual virtues, the arme of Bellona in the field, the tongue of Suada in the chamber, the sprite of Practice in esse, and the paragon of excellency in print."

themes for the spirit of the age. Few at present take for their motto, "flumina amo silvasque inglorius," and, consequently, few read the "Arcadia."

The "Defence of Poesy" is a work of rare merit. It is a golden little volume, which the scholar may lay beneath his pillow, as Chrysostom did the works of Aristophanes. We do not, however, mean to analyze it in this place; but recommend to our readers to purchase this "sweet food of sweetly uttered knowledge." It will be read with delight by all who have a taste for the true beauties of poetry; and may go far to remove the prejudices of those who have not. To this latter class we address the concluding remarks of the author:

So that since the ever-praiseworthy poesy is full of virtue, breeding delightfulness, and void of no gift that ought to be in the noble name of learning; since the blames laid against it are either false or feeble; since the cause why it is not esteemed in England is the fault of poet-apes, not poets; since, lastly, our tongue is most fit to honor poesy, and to be honored by poesy; I conjure you all that have had the evil luck to read this ink-wasting toy of mine, even in the name of the nine muses, no more to scorn the sacred mysteries of poesy; no more to laugh at the name of poets, as though they were next inheritors to fools; no more to jest at the reverend title of "a rhymer"; but to believe, with Aristotle, that they were the ancient treasurers of the Grecians' divinity; to believe, with Bembus, that they were the first bringers in of all civility; to believe, with Scaliger, that no philosopher's precepts can sooner make you an honest man, than the reading of Virgil; to believe, with Clauserus, the translator of Cornutus, that it pleased the heavenly Deity by Hesiod and Homer, under the veil of fables, to give us all knowledge, logic, rhetoric, philosophy, natural and moral, and "quid non?" to believe, with me, that there are many mysteries contained in poetry, which

of purpose were written darkly, lest by profane wits it should be abused; to believe, with Landin, that they are so beloved of the gods, that whatsoever they write proceeds of a divine fury; lastly, to believe themselves, when they tell you they will make you immortal by their verses.

Thus doing, your names shall flourish in the printers' shops; thus doing, you shall be of kin to many a poetical preface; thus doing, you shall be most fair, most rich, most wise, most all; you shall dwell upon superlatives; thus doing, though you be "libertino patre natus," you shall suddenly grow "Herculea proles "—

"Si quid mea carmina possunt":

thus doing, your soul shall be placed with Dante's Beatrix, or Virgil's Anchises.

But if (fie of such a but!) you be born so near the dull-making cataract of Nilus, that you can not hear the planet-like music of poetry; if you have so earth-creeping a mind that it can not lift itself up to look to the sky of poetry, or rather, by a certain rustical disdain, will become such a mome as to be a Momus of poetry; then, though I will not wish unto you the ass's ears of Midas, nor to be driven by a poet's verses, as Bubonax was, to hang himself; nor to be rhymed to death, as is said to be done in Ireland; yet thus much curse I must send you in the behalf of all poets; that while you live, you live in love, and never get favor, for lacking skill of a sonnet; and when you die, your memory die from the earth for want of an epitaph.

As no "Apologie for Poetrie" has appeared among us, we hope that Sir Philip Sidney's "Defence" will be widely read and long remembered. O that in our country it might be the harbinger of as bright an intellectual day as it was in his own! With us, the spirit of the age is clamorous for utility -for visible, tangible utility-for bare, brawny, muscular utility. We would be roused to action by the voice of the

populace, and the sounds of the crowded mart, and not "lulled asleep in shady idleness with poet's pastimes." We are swallowed up in schemes for gain, and engrossed with contrivances for bodily enjoyments, as if this particle of dust were immortal-as if the soul needed no aliment, and the mind no raiment. We glory in the extent of our territory, in our rapidly increasing population, in our agricultural privileges, and our commercial advantages. We boast of the magnificence and beauty of our natural scenery of the various climates of our sky-the summers of our Northern regions—the salubrious winters of the South, and of the various products of our soil, from the pines of our Northern highlands to the palm-tree and aloes of our Southern frontier. We boast of the increase and extent of our physical strength, the sound of populous cities, breaking the silence and solitude of our Western Territories-plantations conquered from the forest, and gardens springing up in the wilderness. Yet the true glory of a nation consists not in the extent of its territory, the pomp of its forests, the majesty of its rivers, the height of its mountains, and the beauty of its sky, but in the extent of its mental power-the majesty of its intellect-the height, and depth, and purity of its moral nature. It consists not in what nature has given to the body, but in what nature and education have giver to the mind-not in the world around us, but in the world within us-not in the circumstances of fortune, but in the attributes of the soul-not in the corruptible, transitory, and perishable forms of matter, but in the incorruptible, the permanent, the imperishable mind. True greatness is the greatness of the mind-the true glory of a nation is moral and intellectual preeminence.