Sidney's Writings.

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romance, "containing discourses on the affections, passions, and events of life, observations on human nature, and the social and political relations of men, and all the deductions which a richly endowed and cultivated mind had drawn from actual experience." Such is an admirer's view of the “Arcadia.” Hear now what Hazlitt, who never did a thing by halves, says of it: "It is to me one of the greatest monuments of the abuse of intellectual power upon record. It puts one in mind of the court dresses and preposterous fashions of the time, which are grown obsolete and disgusting. It is not romantic, but scholastic; not poetry, but casuistry; not nature, but art, and the worst sort of art, which thinks it can do better than nature. . . . In a word, and not to speak it profanely, the 'Arcadia' is a riddle, a rebus, an acrostic in folio; it contains about 4000 far-fetched similes, and 6000 impracticable dilemmas, about 10,000 reasons for doing nothing at all, and as many against it; numberless alliterations, puns, questions, and commands, and other figures of rhetoric; about a score good passages, that one may turn to with pleasure, and the most involved, irksome, unprogressive, and heteroclite subject that ever was chosen to exercise the pen or the patience of man." This is half-humorous exaggeration, but it must be confessed that the "Arcadia," though full of sweetness and gentle feeling, is tedious, and not likely to be ever much read, except in extracts. The "Apologie for Poetry," written, it is supposed, in 1581, and printed in 1595, is valuable both for its intrinsic merits and as an indication of the literary taste of the period. It is Sidney's best work in literature, and shows that he had a fine natural taste in poetry, and possessed a high degree of skill in warding off the objections of opponents.

Sidney was a considerable poet, but he was not a great one. Like Spenser's friend, Gabriel Harvey, he was very fond of trying to introduce new metres, particularly Greek and Latin ones, into the English language; but his efforts in this way do not call for much praise beyond what may be due to their ingenuity. The "Astrophel and Stella" sonnets, his most famous poems, were first published, perhaps surreptitiously, in

1591. Astrophel represents Sidney; Stella, Lady Penelope Devereux, sister of the Earl of Essex, whom he had loved and was to marry. The match, however, was broken off, and "Stella" married Lord Rich, a brutal and ignorant man, from whom she was afterwards divorced. Sidney's sonnets, which

were addressed to her after her marriage, show cultivated taste and refinement of expression, and more impassioned emotion and deep personal feeling than is generally found in the love sonnets of that age, which were often written rather to exhibit the writer's talent than to express his love. One of the finest of Sidney's sonnets is the following, which would deserve to be called perfect were it not for the awkward transposition in the last line :

"With how sad steps, O Moon, thou climb'st the skies!
How silently, and with how wan a face!

What may it be that even in heavenly place
That busy archer his sharp arrows tries?
Sure, if that long-with-love-acquainted eyes
Can judge of love, thou feel'st a lover's case;
I read it in thy looks; thy languisht grace
To me, that feel the like, thy state descries.
Then, even of fellowship, O Moon, tell me
Is constant love deem'd there but lack of wit?
Are beauties there as proud as here they be?
Do they above love to be loved, and yet

Those lovers scorn whom that love doth possess?
Do they call virtue there—ungratefulness.” 1

Sidney's prose is distinctly superior to that of any preceding writer it is clear, copious, and easy, containing few obsolete words; but it is frequently languid and diffuse, and wants the great quality of strength. The full resources of the English language as an instrument of prose composition were first distinctly shown by Richard Hooker, the "judicious Hooker," as he is called. Like many other great men, Hooker has suffered from the panegyrics of rash admirers. "So stately and graceful is the march of his periods," said Hallam, "so various the fall of his musical cadences upon the ear, so rich in images, so condensed in sentences, so grave and noble his diction, so 1 Meaning, "Do they call ungratefulness virtue there."

Richard Hooker.

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little is there of vulgarity in his racy idiom, of pedantry in his learned phrases, that I know not whether any later writer has more admirably displayed the capacities of our language, or produced passages more worthy of comparison with the splendid monuments of antiquity." Hallam was not apt to sin on the side of over-praise, but here he undoubtedly does so, and thus, perhaps, has been the means of causing some writers to err on the opposite side. John Austin, no mean judge, spoke of the first book of the "Ecclesiastical Polity" as "tustian." The truth, as is usual in such cases, lies between the two extremes. Hooker's style is undoubtedly heavy, but it is also stately and powerful; he is no safe model for a student of English composition to follow, as his sentences are formed too exclusively upon Latin models, but the sonorousness and dignity of many of his periods will always give him a high place in literature.

The story of Hooker's life has been related by Isaac Walton with his usual quaint felicity. He was born at Heavitree, near Exeter, in 1553. His parents were poor, but Hooker's industry and talents early attracted the attention of his schoolmaster, who persuaded them to use every effort to give the promising boy a liberal education. "The good schoolmaster," as Walton calls him, also applied to a rich uncle of Hooker's to do something for his relative. The application was so far successful. The uncle spoke about the lad to Jewel, Bishop of Salisbury, who, after examining the youthful prodigy, "gave his schoolmaster a reward, and took order for an annual pension for the boy's parents, promising also to take him under his care for a future preferment." This promise he fulfilled by sending him to Oxford in 1567, and specially recommending him to the care of Dr. Cole, the President of Corpus Christi College. In 1571 Hooker lost his patron, but his fortunes were not impaired thereby, for Dr. Cole promised to see that he should not want; and nine months later he was appointed tutor to Edwin Sandys, son of the Bishop of London, who had heard Hooker warmly praised by Jewel. Soon after George Cranmer (nephew's son to the Archbishop) and other pupils came under his care.

He

In 1577 Hooker became a Fellow of his College, and two years later was appointed to read the public Hebrew lecture in the University. The period of his residence at Oxford was probably the happiest of his life. The quiet, regular life of a Fellow was well adapted to one of his retiring disposition; he had ample opportunities of gratifying to the full his love of study; and he could enjoy the company of men of similar tastes to himself. But less happy days were at hand. He took orders in 1581, and in the same year was appointed to preach one of the sermons at Paul's Cross in London. This visit of Hooker's to London is a striking instance of important results arising from trivial causes. He arrived at London very tired, and afraid that he would not be able to preach, but the careful attentions of the woman in whose house he lodged restored him, and he was able to perform his duty. Seeing that his constitution was feeble, the woman persuaded him that he ought to marry a wife who would attend to his comforts. assented, and asked her to find him such a wife. She provided for him her daughter Joan, "who had neither beauty nor portion," and who proved lacking in the yet more essential qualities of good temper and love to her husband. After his marriage, Hooker settled with his wife in the living of Drayton-Beauchamp, near Aylesbury, where for about a year he led a very miserable life, owing to the shrewishness of his wife, who tyrannised over her meek-spirited husband in the most merciless manner. While in this wretched situation he was visited by his old pupils Sandys and Cranmer. The former, pitying his distress, spoke about it to his father, then Archbishop of York, at whose recommendation Hooker was in 1585 appointed Master of the Temple. In his new office Hooker found another source of vexation. The afternoon lecturer at the Temple, Walter Travers, defended the Presbyterian form of Church. government, Hooker defended Episcopacy; so that, as Hooker preached in the forenoon and Travers in the afternoon, “the pulpit spoke pure Canterbury in the morning and Geneva in the afternoon." From verbal controversy the advocates of the opposing systems proceeded to a paper war, of which Hooker

Hooker's Appearance.

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soon became heartily tired, and wrote to the Archbishop of Canterbury, asking to be removed to some quiet place in the country. His request was granted, and in 1591 he obtained the living of Buscombe, near Salisbury. There he elaborated the first four books of his "Ecclesiastical Polity," which were published in 1594. In the following year he removed to the living of Bishopsgate, near Canterbury, where he died in 1600. The fifth book of the "Ecclesiastical Polity" was published in 1597, the three remaining books being issued posthumously. The latter were suspected by some to have been tampered with by the Presbyterians, but there is no certain evidence of this. Walton has given a graphic description of Hooker's appearance and disposition: "An obscure harmless man; a man in poor clothes, his loins usually girt in a coarse gown or canonical coat; of a mean stature and stooping, and yet more lowly in the thoughts of his soul: his body worn out, not with age, but study and holy mortifications; his face full of heat pimples, begot by his unactivity and sedentary life. And to this true characteristic of his person let me add this of his disposition and behaviour: God and nature blessed him with so blessed a bashfulness, that as in his younger days his pupils might easily look him out of countenance, so neither then, nor in his age, did he ever willingly look any man in the face: and was of so mild and humble a nature, that his poor parish-clerk and he did never talk but with both their hats on, or both off, at the same time and to this may be added, that though he was not purblind, yet he was short or weak-sighted; and where he fixed his eyes at the beginning of the sermon, there they continued till it was ended." The circumstances of his marriage alone would suffice to prove that Hooker was not a man of much worldly wisdom, and that he was ill fitted for an active life. From Walton's account we gather that he was a timorous, sickly man, finding his only pleasure in study, and content to be "put upon" by any one. It is seldom that men of this kind are distinguished by remarkable talents; Hooker's genius and eloquence as a writer contrast strangely with his feebleness and incapacity in the ordinary affairs of life.