s own library, but from the library of the
Jesuits,[242] to whom he had given a yearly income of 6,000 livres, and
who, in memory of their benefactor, stamped thus books purchased from
this fund.

In France, too, as well as in England, the "Arcadia" was turned into a
play. Antoine Mareschal, a contemporary of Corneille and the author of
such dramas as "La genereuse Allemande ou le triomphe de l'amour," 1631,
the "Railleur ou la satyre du temps," 1638, the "Mauzolee," 1642,
derived a tragi-comedy, in five acts, and in verse from the "Arcadia."
The piece, which, if the author is to be believed, made a great
sensation in Paris, was called the "Cour Bergere," and was dedicated to
Robert Sidney, Earl of Leicester, ambassador of England to France, and
brother to Sir Philip. It appeared in 1640; it was thus later than the
"Cid." None the less, it exhibits the phenomenon of several deaths on
the stage; but the ridiculous manner in which these deaths are
introduced could only strengthen Corneille in his scruples. The wicked
Cecropia, standing on a terrace at the back of the stage, moves without
seeing the edge, and falls head foremost on the boards, exclaiming:

"Ah! je tombe, et l'enfer a mon corps entraine ...
Je deteste le ciel! Ah! je meurs enragee!"

In the following century Sidney was still remembered in France. In his
"Memoires pour servir a l'histoire de la Republique des lettres,"
Niceron mentions the "Arcadia" as "a romance full of intelligence and
very well written in the author's language."[243] Florian knew him and
held him in great honour; he names him with D'Urfe, Montemayor, and
Cervantes, as being, as it were, one of his literary ancestors,[244] and
the fact is not without importance; for Florian, continuing, as he did,
Sidney's tradition, and trying in his turn to write poems in prose,
stands as a link between the pastoral writers of the sixteenth century
and the author who was the last to compose prose epics in our time: the
author of "Les Martyrs" and of that American Arcadia called
"Atala"--Chateaubriand.

[Illustration: SAGITTARIUS.]

[Illustration: AN INTERIOR VIEW OF A THEATRE IN THE TIME OF
SHAKESPEARE. THE SWAN THEATRE, 1596.]

FOOTNOTES:

[167] And which has been faithfully and touchingly described in Dr.
Jessopp's book: "Arcady: For better, for worse," recently published in
London.

[168] Besides its fine collection of family portraits, one of which is
reproduced in this volume, by