which had to make
room for "Sydneida." Works without number were dedicated to the Countess
of Pembroke, not only because she was what she was, and a poetess of
some renown, but because she was the Mary Sidney of Arcadian fame.

As Sidney had stated that he did not consider his novel finished with
the marriage of his heroes, and the reconciliation of his royal couple,
continuations were not wanting; writers who did not consider their pen
"dulled" as he had declared his own to be, volunteered to add a further
batch of adventures to the "Sidneyd." Thus we have the "English Arcadia
alluding his beginning to Sir Philip Sidnes ending," by Gervase Markham,
1607; a "Sixth booke to the Countesse of Pembrokes Arcadia, written by
R[ichard] B[eling] of Lincolnes Inne," 1624; or again a "Continuation of
Sir Philip Sydney's Arcadia: wherein is handled the loves of Amphialus
and Helena ... written by a young gentlewoman, Mrs. A. W.," 1651. Dramas
were built upon incidents in the "Arcadia"; Shakespeare we have seen
made use of it in his "King Lear"; John Day wrote after Sidney's tale,
"The Ile of Guls," 1606, "the argument being a little string or rivolet
drawne from the full streme of the right worthy gentleman, Sir Phillip
Sydneys well knowne Archadea."[222] Some years later, in 1640, Shirley
put Basilius and his court again on the stage in his "Pastorall called
the Arcadia."[223]

Authors of poems also took their plots from stories in Sidney's novel,
one of the most popular among those stories was the adventures of
Argalus and Parthenia; it was constantly reprinted in a separate form,
and was the subject of a long poem by the well-known Francis Quarles,
the author of the "Emblemes." "It was," says he in his preface, "a scion
taken out of the orchard of Sir Philip Sidney of precious memory, which
I have lately graffed upon a crab-stock in mine own.... This book
differs from my former as a courtier from a churchman." Not less did it
differ from his later books, among which the "Emblemes" were to figure;
but the pious author eases his conscience about it by alleging
"precedents for it." It cannot be denied that if Quarles' "churchman"
was very devout his "courtier" was very worldly. He goes far beyond
Sidney in his descriptions of love, of physical love especially, and
uses in this matter a freedom of speech and a bantering tone which
reminds us much more of the Reine de Navarre than of the author of the
"Emblemes." Such as it is, how