'Mans life is well compared to a feast,
Furnisht with choice of all Varietie:
To it comes Tyme; and as a bidden guest
Hee sets him downe, in Pompe and Majestie;
The three-folde Age of Man the Waiters bee:
Then with an earthen voyder (made of clay)
Comes Death, and takes the table clean away.'
We now reach a group of elegies (pp. 271-318) by various hands on Sir Philip Sidney, printed as an Appendix to Spenser's Colin Clouts Come Home Againe, 1595, with a dedication to Sidney's widow, who by her second marriage had become Countess of Essex. There was no man more generally beloved than Sidney, and none whose loss was more sincerely deplored. Numberless were the tributes paid in verse and prose to his memory. The present collection embraces 'Astrophel,' by Spenser; the 'Dolefull Lay of Clorinda,' by Sidney's sister, the Countess of Pembroke; 'The Mourning Muse of Thestylis' and 'A Pastorall Æglogue,' both by Lodowick Bryskett; 'An Elegie, or Friends Passion, for his Astrophel,' by Matthew Roydon; 'An Epitaph,' probably by Sir Walter Ralegh; and 'Another of the same' (i.e. on the same subject), which Malone was inclined to attribute to Sir Edward Dyer, while Charles Lamb ascribed it on internal evidence to Fulke Greville. Although Colin Clouts Come Home Againe was first published in 1595, the dedicatory epistle to Sir Walter Ralegh is dated from Kilcolman, 27th December 1591. All the elegies were doubtless written soon after Sidney's death. Lodowick Bryskett's two poems had been entered in the Stationers' Register on 22nd August 1587, but are not known to have been separately published. Matthew Roydon's elegy had appeared in the Phœnix Nest, 1593, where also are found the 'Epitaph' and 'Another of the Same. Excellently written by a most woorthy gentleman.'
In The Ruines of Time (1591) there are some fine stanzas to Sidney's memory; but if the literary public expected an elaborate elegy from Spenser, 'Astrophel' must have disappointed their hopes. When we recall Moschus' lament over Bion, or Ovid's tribute to Tibullus, or Lycidas, or Adonais, Spenser's elegy on Sidney seems thin and colourless. Scores of poets who had not a tithe of Spenser's genius have left elegies that far transcend 'Astrophel.' Lady Pembroke's sisterly tribute of affection will be read with respect; but however much we may commend the pious intentions of the naturalised Italian Ludowick Bryskett, it is impossible to find a word of praise for such 'rude rhymes' as
'Come forth, ye Nymphes, come forth, forsake your watry boures!