Continual comfort in a face,

Fawn on myself, and others do despise,

Unseen, unheard, -- while thought to highest place

Can judge of love, thou feelst a lovers case;

SYDNEYS Sonnets -- I speak of the best of them -- are among the very best of their sort. They fall below the plain moral dignity, the sanctity, and high yet modest spirit of self-approval, of Milton, in his compositions of a similar structure. They are in truth what Milton, censuring the Arcadia, says of that work (to which they are a sort of after-tune or application), "vain and amatorious" enough, yet the things in their kind (as he confesses to be true of the romance) may be "full of worth and wit." They savour of the Courtier, it must be allowed, and not of the Commonwealthsman. But Milton was a Courtier when he wrote the Masque at Ludlow Castle, and still more a Courtier when he composed the Arcades. When the national struggle was to begin, he becomingly cast these vanities behind him; and if the order of time had thrown Sir Philip upon the crisis which preceded the Revolution, there is no reason why he should not have acted the same part in that emergency, which has glorified the name of a later Sydney. He did not want for plainness or boldness of spirit. His letter on the French match may testify, he could speak his mind freely to Princes. The times did not call him to the scaffold.

Having this day, my horse, my hand, my lance,

Now blessed You bear onward blessed Me

This is loving in a strange fashion; and it requires some candour of construction (besides the slight darkening of a dead language) to cast a veil over the ugly appearance of something very like blasphemy in the last two verses. I think the Lover would have been staggered, if he had gone about to express the same thought in English. I am sure, Sydney has no flights like this. His extravaganzas do not strike at the sky, though he takes leave to adopt the pale Dian into a fellowship with his mortal passions.

And that my Muse, to some ears not unsweet,

That makes me oft my best friends overpass,

To me, that feel the like, thy state descries.

Of the foregoing, the first, the second, and the last sonnet, are my favourites. But the general beauty of them all is, that they are so perfectly characteristical. The spirit of "learning and of chivalry, -- "of which union, Spenser has entitled Sydney to have been the "president," -- shines through them. I confess, I can see nothing of the "jejune "or "frigid" in them; much less of the "stiff" and "cumbrous "九九藏書; -- which I have sometimes heard objected to the Arcadia. The verse runs off swiftly and gallantly. It might have been tuned to the trumpet; or tempered (as himself: expresses it) to "trampling horses feet." They abound in felicitous phrases --

While those fair planets on thy streams did shine;

IV

My Muse and I must you of duty greet

I saw thyself, with many a smiling line

To love a man of virtuous name.

What! may it be, that even in heavenly place

A chamber deaf to noise, and blind to light;

Bends all his powers, even unto Stellas grace.

I have dwelt the longer upon what I conceive the merit of these poems, because I have been hurt by the wantonness (I wish I could treat it by a gentler name) with which W. H. takes every occasion of insulting the memory of Sir Philip Sydney. But the decisions of the Author of Table Talk, &c., (most profound and subtle where they are, as for the most part, just) are more safely to be relied upon, on subjects and authors he has a partiality for, than on such as he has conceived an accidental prejudice against. Milton wrote Sonnets, and was a kinghater; and it was congenial perhaps to sacrifice a courtier to a patriot. But I was unwilling to lose a fine idea from my mind. The noble images, passions, sentiments, and poetical delicacies of character, scattered all over the Arcadia (spite of some stiffness and encumberment), justify to me the character which his contemporaries have left us of the writer. I cannot think with the Critic, that Sir Philip Sydney was that opprobrious thing which a foolish nobleman in his insolent hostility chose to term him. I call to mind the epitaph made on him, to guide me to juster thoughts of him; and I repose upon the beautiful lines in the "Friends Passion for his Astrophel," printed with the Elegies of Spenser and others.

And on the mountain Partheny,

2nd Sonnet

Above all others this is he,

Schoold only by his mothers tender eye;

And Muses scorn with vulgar brains to dwell;

Nor hope, nor wish, another course to frame,

Of him you know his merit such,

That love and honour might agree,

Though strongly hedged of bloody Lions paws

The Sonnets which we oftenest call to mind of Milton were the compositions of his maturest years. Those of Sydney, which I am about to produce, were written in the very hey-day of his blood. They are stuck full of amorous fancies -- far-fetched conceits, befitting his occupation; for True Love thinks no labour to send out Thoughts upon the vast, and more than Indian voyages, to bring home rich pearls, outlandish wealth, gums, jereａd.９９ｃｓｗ•ｃomwels, spicery, to sacrifice in self-depreciating similitudes, as shadows of true amiabilities in the Beloved. We must be Lovers -- or at least the cooling touch of time, the circum praecordia frigins, must not have so damped our faculties, as to take away our recollection that we were once so -- before we can duly appreciate the glorious vanities, and graceful hyperboles of the passion. The images which lie before our feet (though by some accounted the only natural) are least natural for the high Sydnean love to express its fancies by. They may serve for the loves of Tibullus, or the dear Author of the Schoolmistress; for passions that creep and whine in Elegies and Pastoral Ballads. I am sure Milton never loved at this rate. I am afraid some of his addresses (ad Leonoram I mean) have rather erred on the farther side; and that the poet came not much short of a religious indecorum, when he could thus apostrophise a singing-girl: --

Sent forth the beams which made so fair my race.

IN TE UNA LOQUITUR, CAETERA MUTUS HABET.

Sweet Saints, it is no Sin or blame

And if these things, as being thine by right,

-------That sweet enemy, -- France --

Seem most alone in greatest company,

He wrote of Love with high conceit,

While wanton winds, with beauty so divine

How silently; and with how wan a face!

While with the peoples shouts (I must confess)

Nor that he made the Floure-de-luce so `fraid,

O heavnly Fool, thy most kiss-worthy lips

A chamber deaf to noise, and blind to light,

Nor trumpets sound I heard, nor friendly cries.

His personage seemed most divine:

I do not envy Aristotles wit,

Of all my thoughts hath neither stop nor start,

Obtigit aetheriis ales ab ordinibus.

And beauty reard above her height.

That taught him sing, to write, and say.

And yet to break more staves did me address,

I read it in thy looks; thy languisht grace

By no encroachment wrongd, nor time forgot;

VIII

My heart then quakd, then dazzled were mine eyes;

O heavnly Fool, thy most kiss-worthy face

Let Fortune lay on me her worst disgrace;

Or let any one read the deeper sorrows (grief running into rage) in the Poem, -- the last in the collection accompanying the above, -- which from internal testimony I believe to be Lord Brookes, -- beginning with "Silence augmenteth grief,"and then seriously ask himself, whether the subject of such absorbing and confound regrets could have been that thing which Lord Oxford termed him.

That poison foul of bubbling Pride doth lie

Who hard by made a window send forth light.

O give my passions leave to run their race;

I will good tribute pay,九九藏書 if thou do so.

That busy Archer his sharp arrows tries?

When for so soft a rod dear play he try?

A Poets brain with finer store.

To them that would make speech of speech arise,

Nam tua praesentem vox sonat ipsa Deum?

In martial sports I had my cunning tried,

But one worse fault -- Ambition -- I confess,

Sweet, it was saucy Love, not humble I.

O fools, or over-wise! alas, the race

My blood from them, who did excel in this,

Have made; but, forced by nature still to fly,

Come, Sleep, O Sleep, the certain knot of peace,

Then, even of fellowship, O Moon, tell me,

Nor ever did in shade of Tempe sit,

Move not thy heavy grace, thou shalt in me,

Those lovers scorn, whom that love doth possess?

But harder judges judge, ambitions rage,

And that you know, I envy you no lot

A thousand graces one might count

The last line of this poem is a little obscured by transposition. He means, Do they call ungratefulness there a virtue?

That witty Lewis to him a tribute paid.

My thoughts I speak, and what I speak doth flow

Let honours self to thee grant highest place!

But they are not rich in words only, in vague and unlocalised feelings -- the failing too much of some poetry of the present day they are full, material, and circumstantiated. Time and place appropriates every one of them. It is not a fever of passion wasting itself upon a thin diet of dainty words, but a transcendent passion pervading and illuminating action, pursuits, studies, feats of arms, the opinions of contemporaries and his judgment of them. An historical thread runs through them, which almost affixes a date to them; marks the when and where they were written.

That angers self I needs must kiss again.

And have not in possession still!) --

Be you still fair, honourd by public heed,

So in my swelling breast, that only I

Doth lour, nay chide, nay threat, for only this.

Townsfolk my strength, a daintier judge applies

Some, that know how my spring I did address,

With shield of proof shield me from out the prease

Although less gifts imp feathers oft on Fame.

To Her, where I my heart safe left shall meet,

When Cupid, having me (his slave) descried

In verse, and that my verse best wits doth please?

First did with puffing kiss those locks display.

With dearth of words, or answers quite awry,

She, so dishevelld, blushd; from window I

But (God wot) wot not what they mean by it;

-------Sweet pillows, sweetest bed;

Upon thy cheerful face, Joys livery wear,

And fain those Aeols youth there would their stay

Let me no steps, but of lost labour, trace;

I trow that countnance cannot lye,

Ravishd, stayd not, till in her gold九-九-藏-書en hair

My foe came on, and beat the air for me --

You knew -- who knew not Astrophel?

Both by the judgment of the English eyes

8th Sonnet

V

Let folk oer-charged with brain against me cry;

The Muses met him every day,

And, and by Mars could yet mad Mars so tame,

To hear him speak, and sweetly smile,

*****

Highway, since you my chief Parnassus be;

Of all the kings that ever here did reign,

Hundreds of years you STELLAS feet may kiss.

The boat for joy could not to dance forbear,

Yet Pride, I think, doth not my soul possess,

X

When he descended down the mount,

With sight thereof cried out, O fair disgrace,

The curious wits, seeing dull pensiveness

I cannot Say -- you hear -- too much.

Tempers her words to trampling horses feet,

Some lucky wits impute it but to chance;

(That I should live to say I knew,

The baiting place of wit, the balm of woe,

Which looks too oft in his unflattering glass:

To lose his crown rather than fail his love.

Guided so well that I obtained the prize,

In beautys throne -- see now, who dares come near

Aut Deus, aut vacui certe mens tertia coeli,

More soft than to a chamber melody, --

Take thou of me sweet pillows, sweetest bed,

Of those fierce darts despair at me doth throw,

Look here, I say." I lookd, and STELLA spied,

Let clouds bedim my face, break in mine eye;

Till that her blush made me my shame to see.

What wonder then, if he his lesson miss,

Do they call virtue there -- ungratefulness?

A rosy garland, and a weary head.

Are beauties there as proud as here they be

Things known permit me to renew --

But only, for this worthy knight durst prove

A full assurance given by looks;

That balance weighd what Sword did late obtain.

Angelus unicuique suus (sic credite gentes)

His praise to sleight, which from good use doth rise;

In Marss livery, prancing in the press,

Upon the crystal liquid brook,

Serpit agens, facilisque docet mortalia corda

Guess me the cause -- what is it thus ? -- fye, no.

But that which once may win thy cruel heart:

IX

With thanks and wishes, wishing thankfully.

You were in Paradise the while,

They deem, and of their doom the rumour flies,

Let all the earth with scorn recount my case --

"What now, Sir Fool!" said he; "I would no less:

With how sad steps, O Moon, thou climbst the skies;

Within these woods of Arcady

Nor do aspire to Caesars bleeding fame;

Some do I hear of Poets fury tell,

VII

VI

Youth, luck, and praise, even filld my veins with pride --

Or so ? -- much less. How then ? sure thus it is,

One hand forgot to rule, thother to fight;

And this I swear by blackest brook of hell,

Love still a boy, https://read.99csw.comand oft a wanton, is,

Not for his fair outside, nor well-lined brain --

Sensim immortal assuescere posse sono.

Horsemen my skill in horsemanship advance,

Think Nature me a man of arms did make.

5th Sonnet,

A rosy garland, and a weary head.

Which erst approved in his song,

A sweet attractive kind of grace;

How far they shot awry! the true cause is,

Those scarlet judges, threatning bloody pain?

Nor blamd for blood, nor shamed for sinful deed.

III

Is constant love deemd there but want of wit?

Thou art my wit, and thou my virtue art.

STELLA lookd on, and from her heavenly face

Do they above love to be loved, and yet

No more, my dear, no more these counsels try;

Because I oft in dark abstracted guise

In any mortal breast before:

XII

Scourge of itself, still climbing slippery place

I never drank of Aganippe well,

The poor mans wealth, the prisoners release,

But only Stellas eyes, and Stellas heart.

Nor that he could, young-wise, wise-valiant, frame

Of highest wish, I wish you so much bliss,

Edward, named Fourth, as first in praise I name,

O make in me those civil wars to cease:

My lips are sweet, inspired with STELLAs kiss.

His sires revenge, joind with a kingdoms gain;

Others, because the prince my service tries

Others, because of both sides I do take

Bewray itself in my long-settled eyes,

With idle pains, and missing aim, do guess.

Livelier than elsewhere, Stellas image see.

How falls it then, that with so smooth an ease

Nor this, nor that, nor any such small cause --

And yet my STAR, because a sugard kiss

QUOD SI CUNCTA QUIDEM DEUS EST, PER CUNCTAQUE FUSUS,

Think, that I think state errors to redress,

In sport I suckd, while she asleep did lie,

But do not will me from my love to fly.

Whose thoughts are legible in the eye.

Did never Love so sweetly breathe

Sure, if that long-with-love-acquainted eyes

The indifferent judge between the high and low,

O happy Thames, that didst my STELLA bear,

I am no pickpurse of anothers wit.

Per tua secreto guttura serpit agens;

XI

They did themselves (O sweetest prison) twine.

The lineaments of Gospel books --

He chief delight and pleasure took;

Deem that my muse some fruit of knowledge plies,

Did never Muse inspire beneath

Poor lay-man I, for sacred rites unfit.

Holds my young brain captivd in gold cage.

And that pure love will do no wrong.

Upon his lovely chearful eyne.

And of some sent from that sweet enemy -- France,

But no `scuse serves; she makes her wrath appear

Quid mirum, Leonora, tibi si gloria major,

Whence those same fumes of melancholy rise,

Anger invests with such a lovely grace,

Nor aught do care, though some above me sit;