The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare Part 16

[195] "Memoires of Sir James Melvil," London, 1683, fol., p. 51.

[196] Sonnet 41. See also Sonnet 53.

[197] "Captain c.o.x his ballads ... or Robert Laneham's Letter, 1575,"

ed. Furnivall, London, 1871, 8vo, p. 49.

[198] Book i. p. 8 (edition of 1633).

[199] Book ii. p. 99.

[200] Book iii. p. 382.

[201] "Life of Sidney," London, 1652, 12mo, p. 18.

[202] Book ii. p. 117.

[203] "Zelmane would have put to her helping hand, but she was taken with such a quivering, that she thought it was more wisdome to lean her selfe to a tree and look on" (book ii. p. 138).

[204] Book i. p. 65.

[205] Book ii. p. 95. The daughter's speeches though she believes Zelmane to be a woman and cannot understand her own feelings are scarcely less intemperate (book ii. p. 112).

[206] And in order that no doubt may exist, Milton refers his reader to the page in Sidney and in Dr. Juxon's book of "[Greek: Eikonoklastes],"

"Prose Works," London, 1806, 6 vols., 8vo, vol. ii. p. 407.

[207] "Arcadia," book iii. p. 248. In the "[Greek: Eikon Basilike], the portraiture of his sacred majesty in his solitude and sufferings," 1648, 8vo, towards the end of the book, where are to be found "praiers used by his majestie in the time of his sufferings, delivered to Dr. Juxon, bishop of London, immediately before his death," the end of the prayer of course is altered: "... so that at the last, I may com to thy eternal kingdom through the merits of thy son our alone Saviour Jesus Christ.

Amen."

[208] His contemporaries agreed in his belief: "Sir Philip Sidney writ his immortal poem 'The Countesse of Pembrokes Arcadia' in prose; and yet our rarest poet" (F. Meres "Paladis Tamia," 1598).

[209] Pp. 138 and 51.

[210] On this and other occasions Sidney combines alliteration with the repet.i.tion of words. Here is another example: "Is it to be imagined that Gynecia, a woman, though wicked, yet witty, would have attempted and atchieved an enterprise no lesse hazzardous than horrible without having some counsellor in the beginning and some comforter in the performing?"

(book v. p. 466).

[211] Pp. 10, 17, 129, 267, &c. The same curious repet.i.tion of words is sometimes to be noticed in Sidney's poetry:

"Nor faile my faith in my fayling fate; Nor change in change, though change change my state."

("The Smokes of melancholie.")

[212] Pp. 2, 137, 51.

[213] "La, possible au sortir du combat, un oeillet tout sanglant tombe de la.s.situde; la un bouton de rose, eufle du mauvais succes de son antagoniste, s'epanouit de joie; la le lys, ce colosse entre les fleurs, ce geant de lait caille, glorieux de voir ses images triompher au Louvre, s'eleve sur ses compagnes et les regarde de haut en bas." Ice is for Cyrano: "une lumiere endurcie, un jour petrifie, un solide neant"

("Lettre pour le printemps"; "Lettre a M. le Bret").

[214] Book i. p. 4.

[215] Here is an example among many others. Sidney's portrait, now belonging to Earl Darnley, bears the following inscription painted on its canvas: "S^r Phillip Sidney, who writ the Arcadia" (Tudor Exhibition, 1890).

[216] "The Guls Horne-booke," "Works," ed. Grosart, vol. ii. p. 254.

[217] Act ii. sc. 1, performed 1599, printed 1600. See also in "Bartholomew fair," performed in 1614, act iv. sc. 2, how Quarlous chooses the word "Argalus" to try his luck in a love affair.

[218] The British Museum, which does not possess a complete collection, has editions of 1590, 1598, 1599, 1605, 1613, 1621, 1623, 1627, 1629, 1633, 1638, 1655, 1662, 1674.

[219] From book ii. of the "Arcadia." It resembles the episode of Gloucester and his sons, and shows the old King of Paphlagonia dispossessed, become blind and led by his son Leonatus. See "Shakespeare's Library," ed. Collier and Hazlitt, London, 1875, 6 vol.

8vo, "King Lear."

[220] A philosophical and scientific poem by N. Baxter, dedicated to the Countess of Pembroke, Lady Mary Wroth, &c., and published in 1606, 4to.

[221] "Theophania or severall modern histories, represented by way of Romance ... by an English person of quality," London, 1655, 4to.

[222] "The Ile of Guls, as it hath been often played in the blacke fryars by the children of the revels" (reprinted by Bullen, "Works of John Day," 1881, 4to.)

[223] "Works," ed. Dyce, vol. vi. All the main incidents of Sidney's novel are reproduced by Shirley except the quarrel with Cecropia, and as the romance might very well have ended where Sidney left it, the dramatist did not go further and did not use any of the continuations.

See also "Zelmane," by W. Mountfort, 1705, "Parthenia, an Arcadian Drama," 1764, &c.

[224] It was published in 1622. The British Museum possesses editions of the years 1629, 1632, 1647, 1651, 1656, 1677, 1684, 1687, 1700, 1708, 1726. Grosart (Quarles' "Complete Works," 1876) mentions one more of the year 1630.

[225] London, 1621, fol. (a very curious engraved t.i.tle).

[226] Pp. 39 and 519.

[227] Pp. 295, 298.

[228] In Jonson's "Masque of Blackness," 1605, Lady Mary Wroth played the part of Baryte, and Lady Rich, Sidney's Stella of many years before, personated Ocyte.

[229] "Spectator," April 12, 1711.

[230] "The Works of the honourable S^r Philip Sidney," London, 1725, 3 vols. 8vo.

[231] "Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia," modernized by Mrs. [D.] Stanley, London, 1725, fol. It is a very fine volume with wide margins. One of the "improvements" due to Mrs. Stanley, is the suppression of all the verses. She did so, she says, at the invitation of her subscribers. The list of them which prefaces the book contains many Leonoras, who even at this late period desired to have a copy of the "Arcadia" for "their own use." In our century an abbreviated edition of the same work was published by Mr. Hain Friswell, London, 1867, 8vo.

[232] "The Task," bk. iii. l. 514.

[233] Night iii. "Narcissa."

[234] "[Greek: Eikonoklastes]," "Prose Works," 1806, vol. ii. p. 408.

[235] Ed. of 1806, 5 vols., 8vo, "Life of Fulke Greville," vol. ii. p.

231.

[236] "The unfortunate lovers: the history of Argalus and Parthenia,"

London, 12mo. The date, 1700 (?), given for this edition in the British Museum catalogue, is obviously too early, as the publisher advertises at the beginning of this volume "Robinson Crusoe," "Jonathan Wild," &c.

There were (not to mention earlier versions of "Argalus," _e.g._, one of 1691) other editions of (about) 1710, 1715, 1750, 1770, 1780, 1788, &c.

These little books had sometimes very long descriptive t.i.tles, such as those Defoe has made us familiar with: "The famous history of heroick acts of the honour of chivalry, being an abstract of Pembrokes'

'Arcadia,' with many strange and wonderful adventures, the whole being a compleat series interwoven with the heroick actions of many valiant men, as kings, princes, and knights, of undoubted fame, whose matchless deeds, ..." &c., &c. London, 1701, 12mo, "Bound, 1s."