er.[181] Thus again Florio asks
her conjointly with Sidney's daughter[182] to patronize the second book
of Montaigne's Essays, addressing Penelope, in the extraordinary style
that belonged to him: "I meane you (truely richest Ladie Rich) in riches
of fortune not deficient, but of body incomparably richer, of minde most
rich: who yet, like Cornelia, were you out-vied, or by rich shewes
envited to shew your richest jewelles, would stay till your sweet
images (your deere-sweete children) came from schoole." And then,
addressing the ladies together, both the daughter and the mistress of
the departed hero: "I know not this nor any I have seen, or can
conceive, in this or other language, can in aught be compared to that
perfect-imperfect Arcadia, which all our world yet weepes with you, that
your all praise-exceeding father (his praise-succeeding countesse) your
worthy friend (praise-worthiest lady) lived not to mend or end it."[183]
Once Astrophel had sung of Stella, and now Lady Rich was praised by the
pedant Rombus.

II.

Sidney's works well accord with his life; in these few years he had time
to take in with a clear and kindly glance all those beauties of ancient
or modern times, of distant countries or of his own which set the
hearts of his contemporaries beating, and he is therefore perhaps, on
account of his catholicity, the most worthy of Shakespeare's immediate
precursors. The brilliance of the Spaniards enchants him, and he
translates fragments of Montemayor[184]; the Kenilworth fetes amuse him
and he writes a masque, "The Lady of May,"[185] to be used at like
festivities. A true Christian he translates the Psalms of David; a
tender and passionate heart, he rhymes the sonnets of Astrophel to
Stella; enamoured of chivalry and great exploits, he writes, with fluent
pen, his "Arcadia," where he imitates the style made fashionable in
Europe by Montemayor in his "Diana"; a lover of _belles lettres_, he
defends the poet's art in an argument charming from its youthfulness,
vibrating with enthusiasm, which holds in English literature the place
filled in French by Fenelon's "Lettre a l'Academie."[186] This work is
very important with regard to the subject that now occupies us, not
only because Sidney gives in it his opinion on works of fiction in
general; but because here we have at last a specimen of flexible,
spirited, fluent prose, without excessive ornament of style, or learned
_impedimenta_, a specimen of that prose