o. Two examples of the powerful effects produced by poetically devised tales, 25 3-262.

p. Poetry is therefore the noblest of all secular learnings, 26 3-11.

B. The subdivisions of Creative Poetry with reference to their several virtues, 26 12-31 17.

1. Mixed species may be disregarded, 26 19–30.

2. The pastoral, 26 31-27 11.

3. The elegiac, 27 12–18.

4. The iambic, 27.19-21.

5. The satiric, 27 22–30.
6. Comedy, 27 31-28 24.
7. Tragedy, 28 25-29 13.
8. The lyric, 29 14-30 11.

9. The epic, 30 12-31 17.

V. First Summary, of arguments adduced, 31 18-32 7.

VI. Objections against Poetry, and refutation of them, 32 8-44 2.
A. Minor considerations, 32 14-34 23.

1. Sophistical tricks to obscure the point at issue, 32 14—33 9.
2. Reply to the objections brought against rime and metre,
33 10-34 23.

a. Rime and metre the musical framework of perfect

speech, 33 16-24.

b. Rime and metre the best aids to memory, 33 28-34 23 B. The cardinal objections and the answers to each, 34 24-44 2.

1. The four objections, 34 24-35 8.

a. Other knowledges more fruitful, 34 26–29.

b. Poetry the parent of lies, 34 30.

c. Poetry the nurse of abuse, 34 31-35 4.

d. Plato condemned poetry, 35 5-8.

2. The objections answered, 35 9-44 2.

a. Refutation of first. Previous proof adduced, 35 9-20. b. Refutation of second.

35 21-37 7.

Impossibility demonstrated,

c. Refutation of third, 37 8-40 32.

aa. Abuse no argument against right use, 378-38 28 bb. Poetry not incompatible with action and martial courage, 38 29-40 32.

d. Refutation of fourth, 40 33—44 2.

aa. Sidney's reverence for Plato, 40 33-41 4.

bb. As a philosopher, Plato might be thought a natural enemy of poets, 41 5–26.

cc. The morals he taught by no means superior to those inculcated by the poets, 41 26-42 3.

dd. But Plato meant to condemn only the abuse of poetry, not the thing itself, 42 3–10.

ee. Plato would have had a purer religion taught, but this objection has been removed by the advent of Christianity, 42 10-43 1.

ff. Plato goes further than Sidney himself, in making poetry depend on a divine inspiration, 43 1-15. gg. The multitude of great men, Socrates and Aris totle included, who have countenanced poetry, 43 16-44 2.

VII. Second Summary, of objections refuted, 44 3–13.

VIII. The state of English poetry, 44 14-56 35.

A. Poetry, anciently and latterly held in estimation in other countries, and formerly even in England, is now despised,

44 14-45 20.

B. Hence only base men undertake it, 45 20—46 2.

C. Poetry not to be learned and practised as a trade, 46 3—47 5. D. Estimates of English poetry, with respect to matter (and composition in general), 47 6-51 32.

I. Chaucer, Sackville, Surrey, and Spenser praised with mod. eration, Sidney not ranking himself with poets (cf. 46 8-11, 55 6-10), 47 6-27.

2. Defects of the English drama, 47 28-52 10.

a. Disregards unity of place, 48 11-25.
b. Disregards unity of time, 48 26-49 18.

c. Disregards unity of action, 49 19-50 2.

d. Mingles tragedy and comedy, 50 3–22.

e. Broad farce usurps the place of comedy, 50 23-52 4. 3. The lyric, which might well sing the Divine beauty and goodness (52 12-19), is frigid and affected in celebrat. ing human love, 52 11-32.

E. English poetry with respect to diction, 52 33-56 35.

I. Affectations in diction, 52 33-53 6.

2. Excursus upon euphuism in prose, 53 7-55 10.

a. The excessive employment of phrases and figures bor rowed from the ancients, 53 10-54 4

6. Superabundance of similes, especially of such as are drawn from the animal and vegetable kingdoms,

54 5-15.

c. The means should not be suffered to obscure the end, 54 16-35.

d. Apology for the digression, 55 1-10.

3. The English language favorable to poetry, 55 10-56 35. a. Equal to all demands upon it, 55 10-12.

b. Its composite nature an advantage, 55 13-15.

c. The grammarless tongue, 55 15-22.

d. Its compound words, 55 22–27.

4. English versification the best for modern poetry, 55 2856 35.

a. Ancient and modern versification, 55 28-56 7.

b. English best adapted to modern metre, 567-22.

c. And to riming, 56 23–35.

IX. Third Summary. General review, 57 1-27.

Humorous peroration, 57 28-58 16.

Wahr

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PREFACE.

SIDNEY'S estimate of poetry heralded such poetic achievement as the world had only once or twice witnessed. What Sidney outlined, Spenser and Shakespeare executed, though not always in the precise forms which he himself would have approved. In this essay he appears as a link between the soundest theory of ancient times and the romantic production of the modern era, as a humanist actuated by ethical convictions, as a man of affairs discharging the function of the scholar with the imaginative insight of the poet. To assist in placing the student of English literature at the point of view from which he can rightly judge of the merits and relations of Sidney's immortal disquisition is the object of the present editor's labors.

In modernizing the spelling and punctuation of the text, I have been guided by the principles which have been well expressed by Dr. Edwin A. Abbott, in the Preface to his edition of Bacon's Essays, pp. iii-iv: "As regards spelling, the principle adopted in the following pages is this: whatever quotations or extracts are made for critical or antiquarian purposes are printed with the old spelling, but the Essays themselves are placed on the same footing as the Bible and Shakespeare; and, as being not for an age but for all ages, they are spelt with the spelling of this age.