differently there. To-day we think in quite another way; we must be told
of well-ascertained facts, of warranted catastrophes, at once certified
and provable. That is why the action of our novels, far from carrying
us into Arcadia, often unfolds itself in our kitchens and on our back
staircases. It is not at all as it was in the time of Robert Greene.

Very rarely now does any one ask if perchance some of these "Arcadias,"
so cherished by our fathers, contained their share of enduring beauty,
or if their lasting success is to be explained otherwise than by their
improbabilities and their artificial embellishments. Nevertheless the
study might be profitable, for it must be borne in mind that the readers
of these romances went in the afternoon to the "Globe" to see
Shakespeare play his own pieces, and that, admitting their fondness for
such dramas, in which, without speaking of other merits, the kitchen is
sometimes the place represented, it would be surprising to find only
mere nonsense in the whole collection of their favoured romances. Let
these suggestions justify us at need in examining one more Arcadia:
besides, it is not that of a penniless Bohemian; it is the Arcadia of
Sir Philip Sidney, the pattern of chivalrous perfection under Elizabeth.
His life is not, in its way, less characteristic of his time than that
of starving Robert Greene, or of Thomas Lodge the corsair.

I.

Born in 1554, in the noble castle of Penshurst in Kent,[168] Sidney
passed a part of his childhood in Ludlow Castle, where in the next
century Milton's "Comus" was to be represented. At college he was famous
for his personal charm, his knowledge, and the thoughtful turn of his
mind. "I knew him," wrote in later years his friend and companion Fulke
Greville, "with such staiednesse of mind, lovely and familiar gravity,
as carried grace and reverence above greater years."[169] During the
year 1572 he was staying in France, where he had been appointed by King
Charles IX. one of the gentlemen of his chamber. It was the time of the
St. Bartholomew massacre, and Sidney, who belonged to the English
mission, remained in the house of Sir Francis Walsingham, the Queen's
ambassador, and escaped the perils of that terrible day.

He left France shortly after and travelled in several countries of
Europe, studying men and nations, storing his mind with information; he
was comparatively free from prejudice, and believed that useful examples
and precepts mi