f 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"--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--

O heav'nly Fool, thy most kiss-worthy face--

_8th Sonnet._

--Sweet pillows, sweetest bed;
A chamber deaf to noise, and blind to light;
A rosy garland, and a weary head.

_2nd Sonnet._

--That sweet enemy,--France--

_5th Sonnet._

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.

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
king-hater; 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