had a keen æsthetic appreciation of the poetical parts of the Bible, as appears from his estimate of the Song of Solomon and the Book of Revelation, concluding with the following words (Reason of Church Government): "But those frequent songs throughout the law and prophets beyond all these, not in their divine argument alone, but in the very critical art of composition, may be easily made appear over all the kinds of lyric poesy to be incomparable" (see 6 3 ff., 9 19 ff.). And Milton, like Sidney, inveighs against those who persist in writing verse while still ignorant of the first principles of poetry conceived as an ethical force, or rather while deliberately inculcating the negation of all principle, and abandonment to the seductions of vice. Thus again in the Reason of Church Government, Milton denounces "the writings and interludes of libidinous and ignorant poetasters, who, having scarce ever heard of that which is the main consistence of a true poem, the choice of such persons as they ought to introduce, and what is moral and decent to each one, do for the most part lay up vicious principles in sweet pills to be swallowed down, and make the taste of virtuous documents harsh and sour (cf. 45 20 ff., 23 29 ff.).

These comparisons illustrate the consensus of opinion among men of different centuries, but substantially equal endowments, with respect to the ethical function of the highest creative poetry, and its kinship with religion. It can hardly be necessary to provide further proof that Sidney's position is not only defensible, but inexpugnable. As he himself says, poetry may be perverted and turned from its rightful use; but this being true of every most excellent thing, we should not allow ourselves to be prejudiced by the fact of such abuse, otherwise, if we are logical, we shall approve of nothing, however blameless and salutary in its unpolluted state.

Sidney owes much to Plato, but still more to Aristotle. Plato, in his joy over the new-found virtues of philosophy, was scarcely capable of recognizing poetry as a coördinate, much less a superior, power. He demanded a purer ethics as the guide of life than any which he found in the poetry then extant. That it taught moral lessons he could not deny; but it was neither free from imperfections, nor did it contain, in his view, any sufficient self-regenerative or selfpurifying principle. This must be supplied by philosophy. Failing to perceive that his own philosophy was merely a phase of poetry, dependent like poetry upon undemonstrable intuitions for its beauty and efficacy, he endeavored to sunder them by artificial distinctions, though such as must have had a certain validity to his own mind. But in the very act of dethroning poetry he gave it a new title to dominion. The spoils with which he endowed philosophy returned by inheritance to her elder sister and rival. Platonism became the intellectual ally of Christianity, and Christianity generated a new poetry. Nay, Platonism itself reappeared in the intellectual awakening of modern Europe as the quickening impulse, in some instances as the very soul, of Italian and English poetry. Who can measure Michael Angelo's debt to Plato, or Spenser's? In this debt Sidney shared, as his allusions clearly show. As Spenser would not have been the poet we know, had he been deprived of the influence of Plato, so neither would Sidney have been the essayist we know, had he not read and reread the burning pages where poetry strives to masquerade as philosophy, and betrays, by the very rhythm of her 'movements, her incapacity to keep the sober pace of reasoning prose. But as the framework of the Fairy Queen depends upon Aristotle's classification of the virtues, so the framework of the Defense of Poetry, or at least of its central and most important division, depends upon the opening para

graphs of Aristotle's Ethics and a few sentences from his Poetics.

That there is a branch of learning sovran over all the rest, that poetry is superior to history, and that poetry contains a philosophic element, — such were the cardinal truths which Sidney learned from Aristotle. From these premises Sidney deduced that, as poetry superadds a peculiar attractiveness to the philosophic element it embodies, it must in its effects be superior to philosophy, as it is, by the demonstration of Aristotle, to history, and that it must accordingly be entitled to the highest rank among secular learnings. This being granted, the further course of his main argument follows in natural sequence.

Sidney was not unacquainted with Dante, and there are even reasons for supposing that he may have perused one or more of Dante's prose treatises. If the evidence derived from the quotations from Dante on a preceding page is regarded as slight, this may be supplemented by other considerations. In his Convito, which is largely based upon Aristotle's Ethics, Dante, like Sidney, enters into a defense of his mother-tongue. Sidney, near the close of his argument, supplements this defense of English with a discussion of its prosody, apparently following the example of Dante in his De Vulgari Eloquio. Even more curious is the circumstance that Dante attributes the same two senses to the word 'rime' as does Sidney (see note on 56 17). In the Convito (Hillard's tr., p. 233), Dante thus distinguishes between these senses: "Strictly speaking, it [i.e. rime] means that correspondence of the ultimate and penultimate syllables which it is customary to use; generally speaking, it means any speech which, regulated by number and time, falls into rhythmic consonance." These correspondences will hardly be thought accidental, and must incline us to the belief that Sidney had Dante's prose writing in mind in composing his own treatise. The improbability that two

authors, one in Italian and the other in English, should independently arrive, in the treatment of themes then so novel in their respective tongues, at so similar a mode of introducing the same subsidiary topics, is too evident to require

comment.

Grosart, in his edition of Spenser, suggests that Sidney may have utilized Spenser's unpublished treatise, The English Poet. Thus he says (1.99): "If not bodily, yet largely, I like to think that we have The Englishe Poet utilized at least in Sidney's Apology or Defense of Poetry. It is also to be remembered it was posthumously published." And again (1. 453-4): "I may be wrong, but I have a soupçon of suspicion that if Sir Philip Sidney had lived to have published his Defense of Poesy himself, there would have been an acknowledgment of indebtedness to Spenser in its composition. Is it utterly improbable - as I ventured earlier to suggest that Sir Philip should have incorporated or adapted the English Poet of Spenser in his Defense? I trow not. Only thus can I understand its suppression when 'finished' and ready for the press." Since we know nothing of the contents of Spenser's work, this surmise is incapable of confirmation, and the question thus raised must for ever remain indeterminable.

To sum up our chief results, Sidney's fundamental doctrine is true of the highest creative poetry, and in general of the noblest literature produced by the creative imagination, whether executed in verse or prose. This doctrine is founded upon Aristotle's teaching, and leavened with the best of Plato's spirit, as interpreted and supplemented by Christianity and the literature produced under Christian influence. Of the latter Dante was probably recognized by Sidney as the foremost representative, and he may thus have come to be accepted as Sidney's guide in the conception and arrangement of some of the minor topics of the Defense. Finally, his threefold division of poetry is taken

from Scaliger's Poetics (see note on 9 17). A reference to the Analysis (p. xli ff.) will suffice to show the nature and extent of Sidney's originality, after allowance has been made for his borrowings from predecessors.

6. FOLLOWERS AND IMITATORS.

Sidney's Defense must have been extensively circulated. in manuscript before its publication in 1595. Extensive quotations from it are found in Puttenham's Art of English Poesy, published in 1589; in Harington's Apology of Poetry, prefixed to the first edition of his translation of the Orlando Furioso, and published in 1591; and in Meres' Palladis Tamia, 1598. These have all been reprinted in Haslewood's Critical Essays upon English Poets and Poesy, London, 2 vols., the first volume bearing date of 1811, the second of 1815. This edition is the one which has been cited in the notes to the present volume. Harington is outspoken with regard to his knowledge of Sidney (Haslewood, 2. 123): "For as for all, or the most part, of such questions, I will refer you to Sir Philip Sidney's Apology, who doth handle them right learnedly." The obligations of the others, however, are no less evident, and it is instructive to observe how Meres makes literal excerpts from Sidney, while Puttenham now adopts his method of treatment, and now employs his illustrations, or slightly varies his phraseology.

Among moderns it is difficult to believe that Shelley was ignorant of Sidney's tractate, though the similarities of opinion may be due to familiarity with common sources in Plato and Aristotle, or to the deeper insight of which genius alone is capable. As to modern imitations in general, it will suffice to quote from the essay on the Defense in Vol. 10 of the Retrospective Review, published in 1824: "Should it occur to the reader, in the midst of his admiration of these passages, that he has met with something like parts of them