each Paynim gentleman burned to enter the lists with him, and to exhibit his prowess to the Galianas and the Daraxas, in a joust to the utterance. Independently of the influence, real or imaginary, which they are supposed to have exercised over modern literature, there is something exceedingly brilliant and captivating in these pictures of Moorish life. The splendor of oriental imagination is there— the soft and bewitching voluptuousness of those bright climes, where the earth is ever gay with flowers and the whole air loaded with perfumes, and the sky lighted up with a cloudless and tranquil glory. The dreams of that "delightful londe of faerie" where the fancy of Spenser lingered so fondly, seem to be realized in these sunny regions. In the garden of Generalife, with its fresh fountains and its myrtle bowers, the very atmosphere breathed of poetry and love. But the sensibility of the Moors of Spain was refined by the imagination which it awakened and warmed. The Ommiades of Cordova, as is well known, rivalled the Abassides in their patronage of letters, and the arts of cultivated taste at once heightened and chastened every enjoyment of a life of pleasaunce. Such the gay splendor, the luxurious state, Held their bright court, where was of ladies store, And music lent new sweetness to the morning air. VOL. II-39 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY'S MISCELLANIES. The Miscellaneous Works of Sir Philip Sidney, Knight. With a Life of the Author, and Illustrative Notes. By WILLIAM GRAY, Esq., of Magdalen College and the Inner Temple. 1829. THE reputation of Sir Philip Sidney, as a knight and a gentleman, is familiar to every body, and may be summed up in the following apostrophe to a Preux Chevalier, which is a perfect picture of that old-fashioned character. "And now I dare say," exclaims Sir Bohort in the Morte Arthur, "that Sir Launcelot there thou liest; thou were never matched of none earthly hands. And thou were the curtiest knight that ever bare shield. And thou were the truest freende to thy lover that ever bestrode horse. And thou were the truest lover of a sinful man that ever loved woman. And thou were the goodliest person that ever came among prece (press) of knyghtes. And thou were the meekest man and the gentillest that ever ate in hal among ladies. And thou were the sternest knight to thy mortal foe, that ever put spere in rest." But his renown as a scholar and a poet, though equally high among his contemporaries, has not proved so enduring; and many of our readers, we have no doubt, will be surprised to learn what immense literary honours have been showered down upon this rival of Bayard, and right worthy successor of Chandos and Du Guesclin. We are informed by his biographers that no fewer than two hundred authors have borne testimony to his merits. He had not attained his twentieth year when he was honoured with the friendship and the correspondence of Hubert Languet-then an old man, universally esteemed in Europe for his learning, integrity and political wisdom. The muse of Spenser, which he patronized, and the graver pen of Camden united in eulogizing him. The two universities poured out three volumes of scholastic lamentation over his untimely grave. The "Royal Solomon," King James I., wrote his epitaph both in Latin and English. An elegant scholar would have no other inscription upon his own tomb-stone, save that he had been "tutor of Sir Philip Sidney ;" and Lord Brooke-the well-known Fulke Greville-took the same means of perpetuating the memory of his intimacy with that accomplished person. Some, perhaps a considerable portion, of this popularity and renown, was, doubtless, owing to the favour of Elizabeth and the influence of Leicester. But, long after these transient causes had ceased to operate, men of learning and taste spoke of his literary talents with high, and even with exalted praise. Dr. Young characterizes the "Arcadia," as the "charm of ages." Johnson, in the preface to his Dictionary, associates Sidney with Spenser, as an authority in our language as a writer, in whose works all the richness, variety and compass of English poetic diction have been displayed. And, what is still more extraordinary, the sober and elegant Sir William Temple speaks of our author as "the greatest poet and the noblest genius of any that have left writings [subaudi, of a certain sort] behind them, or published in ours or any other language a person, born capable not only of forming the greatest idea, but leaving the noblest example, if the length of his life had been equal to the excellence of his wit and his virtues." It is, on the other hand, quite amusing to contrast with these high-flown panegyrics the dogmatical and contemptuous criticism of Horace Walpole, who treats the reputation of Sidney as a hum of the first magnitude. The remarks of this Iconoclast by profession-this wayward and opiniated sceptic whose perverse delight it was to doubt where others believed, and decry what all the world admired-may be found in his Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors in the notice of Fulke Greville. It is due to him, however, to state that some of our contemporaries have shewn themselves inclined to the same way of thinking. This wide diversity of opinion as to the merits of a person, in every point of view so interesting, is calculated to awaken the liveliest curiosity, and will, no doubt, supersede the necessity of an apology for troubling our readers with a few remarks suggested by the volume under review. As we shall confine ourselves principally to the literary character of Sir Philip Sidney, and to that character, as it is exhibited in the work before us, we shall only remind our readers that he acted a most conspicuous part in the affairs of his time-that, after receiving a liberal education, he was appointed, at the early age of twenty-one, ambassador to the Court of the Emperor Rodolph-that his influence with Elizabeth's government was deemed considerable enough to be put into requisition by Du Plessis Mornay, on behalf of the Huguenots-that, happening to be at Paris on the dreadful night of the St. Bartholomew, he conceived against the Catholics a hostility unusually intense, even in that age of bigotry and persecution, and, by a remonstrance published in this miscellany, did confessedly more, than any single person, to prevent the marriage of the Queen with the Duke d'Alençon--that his mother was a sister, and himself the favorite relative and presumptive heir of the insolent Leicester—and, finally, that, in the campaign of 1586, against the Spaniards in the Low Countries, he received a mortal wound at the battle of Zutphen, and died, a few days afterwards, the death of a knight and a christian, at the age of only thirty-two years. It is obvious to observe that the hasty productions of one who died at so early an age, and was so deeply engaged in the affairs of active life, ought not to be brought into comparison with the master-pieces of professed authors. It is not very common to see men of business or men of fashion-and Sidney united in himself both these characters-even in this age of universal authorship leaving behind them, in the maturity of their faculties, any thing that may challenge the attention of posterity. We are, therefore, bound in fairness to look upon these remains with an indulgent eye-non enim, as Cicero has it, res laudanda, sed spes. Considering the pieces in the miscellany before us, rather as promises of future excellence, than as the finished works of a ripe mind, we think that they entitle their author, if not to all the praise that has been bestowed upon them, at least to a good share of it. The pieces collected in the volume before us are all the works of Sir Philip Sidney, except the Arcadia and the Psalms. They are as follows: 1. The Defence of Poesy. 2. Astrophel and Stella. 3. Miscellaneous Poems. 4. The Lady of May, a Masque. 5. A Letter to Queen Elizabeth, in the year 1580, dissuading her from marrying Monsieur, (the then Duke of Anjou). 6. A Discourse in defence of the Earl of Leicester. 7. Letters. Of these, the first is the most elaborate of his prose compositions, and, in our opinion, by far the most able and finished of his works. Walpole gives the preference to the Defence of Leicester; but the truth is that he does not seem to have even read the fine essay which we have just mentioned. So far was the vindication alluded to from being regarded by the author and his friends as a master-piece, that it was never published until the Sidney papers appeared in the course of the last century. As an argument, it is admitted to be a failure; nor, indeed, could it be otherwise, for the conduct of the base and tyrannical favorite was altogether indefensible. Accordingly, Sir Philip takes much more pains to clear up the doubts thrown upon the blood of the Dudleys, than to refute the graver charges set forth in "Father Parson's Green Coat," and other publications of the exiled Catholics. Upon these charges, he takes issue in the old feudal way. He pleads "not guilty" in round termstells his adversary he "lies in his throat," and gives him to be informed, that "he (Sir Philip) will be ready to justify upon him in any place of Europe, where he shall assign him a free place of coming, within three months after the publishing of these presents." Certainly we are not to look to a contro versy settled by wager of battle, for the very best specimen of dialectics. The letter to Queen Elizabeth is a production, in every point of view, of a much higher order. It is written, as Hume observes, with "unusual elegance of expression, as well as force of reasoning;" and Zouch has not scrupled to claim for it the honor of having rescued England from the tyranny of a foreign race. It is hard to say what determined Elizabeth ultimately to reject her youthful lover, or whether that vain old coquette ever seriously entertained the idea of a marriage so outrageously disproportionate and unsuitable. It is certain, however, that the flirtation was become alarmingly warm and vehement, and that even Burleigh and Walsingham considered the "maiden reign" as at an end, when this young champion came to the rescue. That Elizabeth was far from being indifferent to her suitor, and that it was quite a perilous undertaking to "canvass his pretensions too freely, may be inferred from the cruel punishment inflicted on the author and publisher of a pamphlet, written about the same time, entitled, "The Discoverie of the Gaping Gulph, whereinto England is like to be swallowed by a French marriage, if the Lorde forbid not the bands by letting her Majestie see the sin and punishment thereof." These two pragmatical patriots-Stubbs, a member of Lincoln's Inn, and Page, a painter-were condemned to lose their right hands as libellers, and underwent that sentence without mercy. This shocking piece of barbarity was witnessed by the learned Camden. It is, by the bye, a fair specimen of the humanity of those timesdistinguished above all others by the cultivation of what scholars call the litera humaniores, and by an astonishing, perhaps, unparalleled development of talent in every intellectual pursuit, whether in active or speculative life. "The Defence of Poesy" is supposed to have been written about 1581-a year after Spenser is conjectured to have commenced the Fairy Queen, and sixteen years before the first plays of Shakspeare that made their appearance in print-Romeo and Juliet and Richard the Second and Third-were given to the world. We are not disposed to dissemble that we have conceived from this admirable essay-written when its author was only twenty-seven years of age-a very high idea of Sir Philip's talents. It is a masterly exposition of the subject, and, as the book is but rarely to be met with in this country, we shall furnish our readers with pretty copious extracts from it. For, although the very cause which is said to have produced it has long ago ceased to operate and even to exist, there is still, and ever will be, a considerable party entertaining the opinions so ably combated here. If we are to take what our author says, au pied de lettre, "he had most just cause to make a pitiful defence of poor poetry, which, from almost the highest estimation of learning, |