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And she was the subject of Ben Jonson's famous epitaph. Sidney's Defense of Poesy composed in 1581, but not printed till 1595, was written in manlier English than the Arcadia, and is one of the very few books of criticism belonging to a creative and uncritical time.
Spenser calls him "the summer's nightingale," and George Puttenham, in his Art of English Poesy , finds his "vein most lofty, insolent, and passionate." Puttenham used insolent in its old sense, uncommon; but this description is hardly less true, if we accept the word in its modern meaning.
Sir PHILIP SIDNEY, in his Defence of Poesy, gives us one, which, in my opinion, is not the least considerable: I mean, the Help it brings to Memory; which Rhyme so knits up by the Affinity of Sounds, that by remembering the last word in one line, we often call to mind both the verses.
The Cupids were fresh as ever, and the goddesses had not removed the trumpets from their lips. But where were the of the merry round-table? Returned to dust. The jests and poesy have died away all have sunken to decay and darkness. The king silently raised his glass of Tokay, gazing up to the clouds and Cupids, draining it slowly in sacrifice for the dead.
Already Chateaubriand, prince of poesy, wrapping the horrible idol in his pilgrim's mantle, had placed it on a marble altar in the midst of perfumes and holy incense. Already the children were clenching idle hands and drinking in a bitter cup the poisoned brewage of doubt. Already things were drifting toward the abyss, when the jackals suddenly emerged from the earth.
Unpretentious in their aim, there was in these gatherings a harmony of charm and earnestness; pervading them was the true "joy of service." Above all he loved the liturgy. Here the self-taught man must excel. Homer said: Dear to gods and men is sacred song. Self-taught I sing: by Heaven and Heaven alone The genuine seeds of poesy are sown.
But at a maturer period of life, after looking at various metrical versions of the Psalms, I am well satisfied that the version used in Scotland is, upon the whole, the best; and that it has in general a simplicity and unction of sacred Poesy; and in many parts its transfusion is admirable. 'Burke and Reynolds are the same one day as another, Johnson said, post, under Sept. 22, 1777.
Speaking of books of Moral science in general, and their adaptation to different ages, he says 'Did not one of the fathers, in great indignation, call POESY "vinum demonum," because it increaseth temptations, perturbations, and vain opinions? He does, indeed, go a little out of his way in time, to introduce it; but he is a poet who is fond of an anachronism, when it happens to serve his purpose
I compared God forgive me for doing so! the ex-dealer in iron bedsteads, ill at ease in his dress-coat, to the priest; the trivial and commonplace words of the mayor, with the eloquent outbursts of the venerable prelate. What a lesson! There earth, here heaven; there the coarse prose of the man of business, here celestial poesy.
If any one thing definitely committed me to poesy it was that poem; and as has nearly always happened to me, the crisis of discovery came in a flash. We were all there ranked at our inky desks on some drowsy afternoon. The books lay open before us, the lesson, I suppose, prepared.
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