143. Into purely bibliographical questions, such as the history of the Edinburgh edition of 1599, it is of course impossible to enter here.
144. Letter in the State Papers. See Introduction to Sommer's facsimile of the first edition, 1891.
145. Conversations with Drummond, X. Shakespeare Society, 1842, p. 10.
146. K. Brunhuber, to whose work on the Arcadia (Sir Philip Sidneys Arcadia und ihre Nachläufer, 1903) I am in a measure indebted, failing to find many specific borrowings, is inclined to make light of Montemayor's influence. There can, however, be little question that, in general style and conception, Sidney, while influenced by the Greek romance, yet belonged essentially to the Spanish school.
147. Analyses of the Arcadia will be fouud in all works upon the novel from Dunlop to J. J. Jusserand and W. Raleigh. Perhaps the fullest, which is also provided with copious extracts, is that in the Retrospective Review, 1820, ii. p. 1.
148. An allegorical interpretation certainly found favour among the critics of the time, and was advanced by Puttenham in his Art of English Poesy (1589), even before the publication of the romance. See also Thomas Wilson's allusion on the title-page of his translation from the Diana, given above (p. 141, note).
149. A critical edition remains, however, a desideratum.
150. See Jusserand's English Novel in the time of Shakespeare, 1890, p. 274.
151. The later fashionable pastoral of French origin, with the Astrée as its type and chief representative, does not concern us, or at most concerns us so indirectly as not to warrant our lingering over it here.
152. I should at once say that the view of the development of the pastoral drama adopted above is not endorsed by all scholars. To have set forth at length the considerations upon which it is based would have swollen beyond all bounds an introductory section of my work. Since, however, the question is one of considerable interest, I have added what I believe to be a fairly full and impartial discussion in the form of an appendix.