Dismissing many of the paraphernalia of the ancient chivalric romance, its magicians, enchanted castles, dragons, and giants, but retaining its high-toned spirit of gallantry, heroism, and courtesy, combined with the utmost purity in morals, and with all the traditionary simplicity and innocence of rural life, the pastoral romance of Sidney exhibited a species of composition more reconcilable to probability
than the adventures of Arthur and Amadis, but less natural and familiar than the tales of the Italians. In these last, however, virtue and decency are too often sacrificed at the shrine of licentiousness, whilst in the Arcadia of our countryman not a sentiment occurs which can excite a blush on the cheek of the most delicate modesty. To this moral tendency of Sidney's fictions, the muse of Cowper has borne testimony in the following pleasing lines:—
"Would I had fall'n upon those happier days,
That poets celebrate; those golden times,
And those Arcadian scenes, that Maro sings,
And Sidney, warbler of poetic prose.
Nymphs were Dianas then, and swains had hearts.
That felt their virtues: innocence, it seems,
From courts dismissed, found shelter in the groves;
The footsteps of simplicity, impress'd