CHAPTER V.
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY AND PASTORAL ROMANCE.
When nowadays we see our shepherds, wrapped in their long brown cloaks, silently following the high roads in the midst of a suffocating dust which seems to come out of their sheep, it is difficult to explain the enthusiasm that has ascribed to this race of mutes such fine speeches and such pleasant adventures. Greeks, Romans, Italians, Spaniards, the French and the English, have differed in a multitude of points, but they have one and all delighted in pastorals. No class of heroes either in history or fiction has uttered so much verse and prose as the keepers of sheep. Neither Ajax son of Telamon, nor the wise king of Ithaca, nor Merlin, Lancelot, or Charlemagne, nor even the inexhaustible Grandison, can bear the least comparison with Tityrus. It is easy to give many reasons for this; but the phenomenon still remains somewhat strange. The best explanation is perhaps that the pastoral is one of the most convenient pretexts existing for saying what would otherwise be embarrassing. To many authors the eclogue is like a canvas for trying their colours and brushes. Many would not willingly confess it, and Pope would have vowed a mortal hatred to any one who explained his eclogues thus: but it is better for his reputation to believe that he had at least that reason for writing them. For some, the pastoral is an allegory, where, if one would, place can be given to Cynthia, Queen of the Sea, that is to say, to Elizabeth, and to a Shepherd of the Ocean who is Raleigh; it allows the poet to speak to kings, to ask alms discreetly of them, and to thank them.
In England in Shakespeare's time people were passionately fond of the country of Arcadia, not the Arcady "for better for worse" that can be seen anywhere outside London,[167] but the old poetical Arcadia, the Arcadia of nowhere, which was the more cherished on account of its non-existence. They could invent at their ease, imagine prodigious adventures and wonderful amours; since no one had ever been in Arcadia, it was hardly possible for any one to protest that events happened differently there. To-day we think in quite another way; we must be told of well-ascertained facts, of warranted catastrophes, at once certified and provable. That is why the action of our novels, far from carrying us into Arcadia, often unfolds itself in our kitchens and on our back staircases. It is not at all as it was in the time of Robert Greene.
Very rarely now does any one ask if perchance some of these "Arcadias," so cherished by our fathers, contained their share of enduring beauty, or if their lasting success is to be explained otherwise than by their improbabilities and their artificial embellishments. Nevertheless the study might be profitable, for it must be borne in mind that the readers of these romances went in the afternoon to the "Globe" to see Shakespeare play his own pieces, and that, admitting their fondness for such dramas, in which, without speaking of other merits, the kitchen is sometimes the place represented, it would be surprising to find only mere nonsense in the whole collection of their favoured romances. Let these suggestions justify us at need in examining one more Arcadia: besides, it is not that of a penniless Bohemian; it is the Arcadia of Sir Philip Sidney, the pattern of chivalrous perfection under Elizabeth. His life is not, in its way, less characteristic of his time than that of starving Robert Greene, or of Thomas Lodge the corsair.
I.
Born in 1554, in the noble castle of Penshurst in Kent,[168] Sidney passed a part of his childhood in Ludlow Castle, where in the next century Milton's "Comus" was to be represented. At college he was famous for his personal charm, his knowledge, and the thoughtful turn of his mind. "I knew him," wrote in later years his friend and companion Fulke Greville, "with such staiednesse of mind, lovely and familiar gravity, as carried grace and reverence above greater years."[169] During the year 1572 he was staying in France, where he had been appointed by King Charles IX. one of the gentlemen of his chamber. It was the time of the St. Bartholomew massacre, and Sidney, who belonged to the English mission, remained in the house of Sir Francis Walsingham, the Queen's ambassador, and escaped the perils of that terrible day.
He left France shortly after and travelled in several countries of Europe, studying men and nations, storing his mind with information; he was comparatively free from prejudice, and believed that useful examples and precepts might be obtained even from "the great Turk." "As surely," did he write some years later to his brother Robert, "in the great Turk, though we have nothing to do with him, yet his discipline in war matters is ... worthy to be known and learned. Nay even the kingdom of China which is almost as far as the Antipodes from us, their good laws and customs are to be learned."[170] In such a disposition of mind he visited successively Germany, Austria, Hungary, and Italy. The most interesting incident of his journey was the acquaintance he made with a Frenchman, the political thinker Hubert Languet, from whom Milton, a long time before Rousseau, probably derived his ideas of the social contract "fœdus," says Languet, "inter [principem] and populum," and his theories on the right of insurrection.[171] A most tender friendship was formed between the revolutionary writer and the aristocratic Sidney. They began a correspondence which did not cease till the former's death in 1581. Languet had great influence over his young friend, and was constantly giving him most manly advice and that best suited to strengthen his character, warning him especially in very wise fashion against a melancholy unsuitable to his age, which in the grave Huguenot's opinion was only a useless impedimentum in life. "I readily allow," wrote Sidney, in answer to his friend's remonstrances, "that I am often more serious than either my age or my pursuits demand."[172] That this tendency to pensiveness left its trace on his features may be seen in most of his portraits, among others in that by Isaac Oliver, of which we give a reproduction.
The most interesting of Sidney's portraits is unfortunately lost. He sat for it while in Italy, at the request of his friend, and chose no mean artist to paint it: "As soon as ever I return to Venice, I will have it done, either by Paul Veronese or by Tintoretto, who hold by far the highest place in the art." He decided for Veronese, and sent the picture to Languet, who wrote shortly after: "As long as I enjoyed the sight of you, I made no great account of the portrait you gave me, and scarcely thanked you for so beautiful a present. I was led by regret for you on my return from Frankfort to place it in a frame and fix it in a conspicuous place. When I had done this, it appeared to me so beautiful and so strongly to resemble you that I possess nothing that I value more ... The painter has represented you sad and thoughtful. I should have been better pleased if your face had worn a more cheerful look when you sat for the painting."[173] When Languet died, Sidney described his sentiments for him in a touching poem, inserted in his "Arcadia"; it was sung by the shepherd Philisides, who represents the author himself and whose name is a contraction of the words Philip Sidney:
"I sate me downe; for see to goe ne could,
And sang unto my sheepe lest stray they should.
The song I sang old Lan[g]uet had me taught,
Lan[g]uet, the shepeard best swift Ister knew,
For clearkly reed, and hating what is naught,
For faithfull heart, cleane hands and mouth as true.
With his sweet skill my skillesse youth he drew,
To have a feeling taste of him that sits
Beyond the heaven, farre more beyond our wits ...
With old true tales he wont mine cares to fill,
How shepeards did of yore, how now they thrive ...
He liked me, but pitied lustfull youth:
His good strong staffe my slipperie yeares upbore:
He still hop'd well because I loved truth."[174]
In 1575, when twenty-one years old, Sidney returned to shine at court, where his uncle Leicester, the Queen's favourite was to make all things easy for him. He assisted that year at the fêtes given in Elizabeth's honour at Kenilworth, in those famous gardens "though not so goodly," writes a witness of the festivities, "as Paradis, for want of the fayr rivers, yet better a great deal by the lack of so unhappy a tree."[175] Then Sidney accompanied the Queen to Chartley, and these ceremonies mark a great epoch in his existence. While Elizabeth listened to the compliments of her entertainers, Sidney's eyes were fixed on a child. A sentiment, the full strength of which he was to feel only in after time, sprang up in his heart for Penelope Devereux, the twelve-year-old daughter of the Earl of Essex, who was as beautiful as Dante's Beatrice. He began to visit at her father's house frequently; it seemed as if a marriage would ensue; Essex himself was favourable to it, but for some cause or other Sidney did not press his suit; and while his friend Languet strongly advised him to marry, he was answering him in the leisurely style of one who believes himself heart-whole: "Respecting her of whom I readily acknowledge how unworthy I am, I have written you my reasons long since, briefly indeed, but yet as well as I was able."[176] He was soon to write in a very different manner. Penelope, the Stella of Sidney's verse, was, very much against her will, compelled at last by her family to marry the wealthy Lord Rich, and then Sidney awoke to his fate: what he had believed to be mere inclination, a light feeling of which he would always remain the master, had from the first been Love, irrepressible, unconquerable love:
"I might;—unhappie word—O me, I might,
And then would not, or could not see my blisse;
Till now wrapt in a most infernall night,
I find how heav'nly day, wretch! I did miss."[177]
He remained a lover of Stella, saw her, wrote to her, sang of her, and at length ascertained that she too, despite her marriage ties, loved him. He continued then, in altered tones, the magnificent series of sonnets dedicated to her and which read still like a love-drama of real life, a love-drama which is all summarized in the beautiful and well-known dirge:
"Ring out your belles, let mourning shewes be spread;
For Love is dead:
All Love is dead, infected
With plague of deep disdaine:
Worth, as nought worth, rejected
And Faith faire scorne doth game.
From so ungratefull fancie,
From such a femall franzie
From them that use men thus,
Good Lord, deliver us!
Weepe, neighbours, weepe; do you not heare it said
That Love is dead?
Alas! I lie: rage hath this errour bred;
Love is not dead;
Love is not dead, but sleepeth
In her unmatchèd mind,
Where she his counsell keepeth,
Till due desert she find.
Therefore from so vile fancie
To call such wit a franzie,
Who Love can temper thus,
Good Lord, deliver us!"
Love that was not dead but asleep awoke, and Sidney's raptures were again expressed in his verse:
"O joy too high for my low stile to show!...
For Stella hath, with words where faith doth shine,
Of her high heart giv'n me the monarchie:
I, I, O I, may say that she is mine."[178]
This lasted some time and when love faded away, at least in Stella's fickle heart, "Astrophel" wrote the real dirge of his passion.
Sidney had nevertheless continued his active life all this while, sometimes at court and sometimes on the continent, recognized as a statesman by statesmen, as a poet by poets, as a perfect knight by all experts in knightly accomplishments. Spenser dedicated in 1579 his "Shepheardes Calender" to "the most noble and vertuous gentleman, most worthy of all titles, both of learning and chevalrie, M. Philip Sidney"[179]; and William the Silent, Prince of Orange, once said to Fulke Greville that "Her Majesty had one of the ripest and greatest counsellors of estate in Sir Philip Sidney that at this day lived in Europe." The remaining years of his short life were well filled; he had been ambassador to the German Emperor in 1577; he had taken part at home, though unasked, in the negotiations concerning the Queen's marriage, and he lost favour for a while on account of the extraordinary freedom with which he had written to Elizabeth against the French match. He retired from court at that moment and went to live in the country; while staying with his sister at Wilton in the midst of congenial surroundings, he wrote most of his "Arcadia" (1580). He was a member of Parliament in 1581 and 1584, and married in 1583 the daughter of Sir Francis Walsingham. He all but accompanied Drake to America, where he had received from the Queen a large grant of lands; he became at last Governor of Flushing in the Netherlands. He died in that country at thirty-one years of age, in 1586, of a wound received at Zutphen; a premature death that gave the finishing touch to men's sympathy and love for him; all England wept for him.[180] Even now, it is difficult to think unmoved of his well-filled career ending on the eve of the great triumphs of his country, to call to our memory this brave man who died with his face to the enemy without knowing that victory would be declared for his side, without having known Shakespeare, without having seen the defeat of the Armada.
As for his Stella she survived him only too long. A few years after Sidney's death she deserted her husband by whom she had had seven children, and became the mistress of Charles Blount, Lord Mountjoy, afterwards Earl of Devonshire, to whom she gave three sons and two daughters. Lord Rich, a man full of prudence it seems, waited for the death of the Earl of Essex, his wife's brother, to divorce her. She then married her lover in 1605. But till her death, which happened in 1608 she was mostly remembered as having been Sidney's friend, and books were dedicated to her because she had been Astrophel's "Stella." Thus Yong's translation of the "Diana" of Montemayor, a pastoral from which Sidney had taken many hints, is dedicated to her.[181] Thus again Florio asks her conjointly with Sidney's daughter[182] to patronize the second book of Montaigne's Essays, addressing Penelope, in the extraordinary style that belonged to him: "I meane you (truely richest Ladie Rich) in riches of fortune not deficient, but of body incomparably richer, of minde most rich: who yet, like Cornelia, were you out-vied, or by rich shewes envited to shew your richest jewelles, would stay till your sweet images (your deere-sweete children) came from schoole." And then, addressing the ladies together, both the daughter and the mistress of the departed hero: "I know not this nor any I have seen, or can conceive, in this or other language, can in aught be compared to that perfect-imperfect Arcadia, which all our world yet weepes with you, that your all praise-exceeding father (his praise-succeeding countesse) your worthy friend (praise-worthiest lady) lived not to mend or end it."[183] Once Astrophel had sung of Stella, and now Lady Rich was praised by the pedant Rombus.