SIDNEY 



SIDONIUS 



437 



exceptional merit may be noticed the dialogue 

 between Nico and Dorus, and an Epithalamium of 

 stately dignity, which may have been suggestive 

 to Spenser. In Arcadia Sidney tried numerous 

 metres, English, Italian, classical ; the latter, in- 

 evitably, with small success. 



To about 1580 may lie assigned Sidney's Apology 

 for Poetry (afterwards named Defence of Poesy), 

 in reply to an abusive Puritan pamphlet, and to a 

 general disesteem then felt in England for that art; 

 published 1591. In this tract, written in clear, 

 manly English, and still well worthy of readers, 

 Sidney defines poetry, after Aristotle, as Ideal Imi- 

 tation, and for her claims her ancient place as the 

 highest mode of literature, teaching mankind the 

 most important truths through the medium of that 

 pleasure which is the formal end of all fine art. In 

 mediaeval fashion, many authorities are quoted, and 

 Sidney displays his wiife range of reading. Lastly, 

 he criticises severely and justly the crowd of con- 

 temporary versifiers not pecufiar to that age ! to 

 whose want of power, bad taste, and trivial style 

 he partly ascribes the then existing low estimate 

 of poetry. And here he names the liest English 

 poets known to him : Chaucer, Sackville, Surrey, 

 and Spenser's just (anonymously) published Calen- 

 der. ' Besides these, I do not remember to have 

 seen bat few (to speak boldly) printed, that have 

 poetical sinews in them.' English drama, it will 

 be rememlwred, was then in its cradle. 



Sidney, like Shelley, was so great a poet that he 

 had just right to come forward in defence of poetry. 

 But for himself it was love, not instruction, that 

 moved him : 



Come, let me write : And to what end ? To eue 

 A burthen'd heart ; 



and again, to his Love, 



Only in you my *ong begins and emleth. 



For the origin of Astrophel and Stella ( published 

 1591 ), however, we must go back to an episode 

 in Sidney's life. In 1575, aged twenty, he met 

 Penelope Devereux, daughter to Lord Essex, then 

 a chilil of twelve. Some intimacy followed, and 

 Essex, on his deathbed (1576), expressed a hope 

 that the two might in due time marry. In Sidney's 

 nature, however, was some want of youthfnlness ; 

 M* heart did not respond, and it was only in 1581, 

 when Penelope was engaged and wedded (appar- 

 ently without love on her part) to Lord Rich, that 

 Sidney awoke too late to find ','///,/ gU Amor to 

 find also that she might have loved him. It is 

 hence a sad drama, a miniature tragedy in lyrics, 

 that U revealed in this long series ; as Nash, the 

 editor, said, ' The argument, cruel chastity ; the 

 prologue hope, the epilogue despair.' 



These 108 sonnets and 11 songs (to which a few 

 separately published in 1598 may be added), after, 

 or rather with, Shakespeare's sonnet*, have long 

 seemed to us to offer the most complete and power- 

 ful pictnre, in this form, of passionate love, in our 

 language. And they have a straightforward tnith 

 of expression which unveils the poet's own character 

 brynrid Shakespeare's : they truly speak every- 

 where heart to heart. Sidney's Canzoniere has 

 hence escaped those elaborate futile attempts to 

 give it an impersonal or symbolical character which 

 have wearied mankind in the case of Shakes|>eare. 

 Yet, as Dante's love for Beatrice, Petrarch's for 

 Laura, have been doubted, so has it been with 

 Astrophel's for Stella. But readers who do not 

 bring only brains to reading Sidney's little Liber 

 . I ///;/. will iiHsiirnlly set aside every such ingeni- 

 ous sophist and sceptic at once and for ever : He 

 has not loved ' 



Considering the charm that Sidney's name still 

 exerts, the close relation of his poetry to the 

 romance of his life, and the high place in our 



literature merited by its great qualities, that as 

 poet he should have met hitherto so imperfect a 

 recognition is little to the credit of popular taste. 

 That high place has been amply vindicated in the 

 admirable essay by the most exquisite of poetical 

 critics, Charles Lamb. But that Sidney s fame 

 falls far below his deserts is due in part to that 

 inequality of his workmanship which he shares 

 with other supreme writers of sonnet-sequences ; 

 with Petrarch, Shakespeare, and Wordsworth. 

 Nor did life allow him to acquire their finished art. 

 'His end was not writing, even while he wrote." 

 Fanciful conceits, obscurity from the depth and 

 wealth of thought, are not unfrequent ; at times 

 the style is prosaic, bare, unmelodious. Bat over- 

 fancifulness was the defect of that age : obscurity 

 is common to his great rivals, when moving in the 

 sonnet's narrow bounds. It is the defect of high 

 thinking and intensity of passion. Space, how- 

 ever, does not allow us to offer even a few speci- 

 mens in proof ; and, after all, the poet is always his 

 own best interpreter. 



Sidney's Poetry and Apology have been carefully edited, 

 the first by the Rev. A. B. Grosart (3 vols. 1877), the 

 second by Mr Arber (1868) and Mr Slmckburgh (1891); 

 the last complete Arcadia was printed so long since as 

 1725. Dr H. Oskar Sommer published in 1891 a photo 

 graphic fac-simile of the original quarto edition of 1590. 

 Fnlke Greville's Life (1652) was re-edited by Sir 

 Kgerton Brydges (2 vols. 1816). Modern Lives are by 

 Dr Zouch (1808), H. R. Fox Boume (1862; also a 

 smaller book in 'Heroes of the Nations,' 1891), and J. 

 A. Symonds in 'English Men of Letters' (1886). An 

 elaborate life by Dr Ewald Fliigel was announced in 1891 

 by the Clarendon Press as in preparation. See also the 

 Sydney Papen edited by Arthtfr Collins (1746), and the 

 Correspondence of Sir Philin Sidney with Hubert 

 Languet, edited by Steuart A. Pears ( 1845 ). See also the 

 Sonnets, edited by Gray ( 1898 ), and the article ZuTPHEN. 



Sidon (Heb. Zidon), anciently a city of Phoe- 

 nicia, situated on the east coast of the Mediter- 

 ranean, half-way between Tyre and Beyrout. It 

 soon rose, lioth by its exceptional position and the 

 enterprising character of its inhabitants, to the 

 first position among the cities of Phoenicia (q.v. ), 

 so that the whole country is sometimes designated 

 by the name of Sidon, ' the Great,' ' the Metropolis. ' 

 The extensive commerce of Sidon is well known 

 from ancient authorities. Its colonies extended 

 over the coast of Asia Minor, the adjacent islands, 

 Thrace and Enboea, and even some parts of Sicily, 

 Sardinia, Spain, northern Africa, in fact, nearly 

 the whole of the ancient world. The Sidonian 

 manufactures of glass and linen, purple dye and 

 perfumes, were sources of vast wealth. At length 

 it surrendered to Shalmaneser, king of Assyria. 

 But under Assyrian, Chaldean, and Persian domin- 

 ation it retained a kind of independence- for its 

 internal affairs, and under the Persians reached its 

 highest prosperity. An unsuccessful revolt against 

 Artaxerxes Ochus ended in its temporary ruin (351 

 B.C.). Speedily rebuilt and repeopled, it opened 

 its gates to Alexander the Great (333 B.C.), and 

 from that time forth it fell successively into 

 the hands of Sjrrian, Greek, and Roman rulers. 

 Through the middle ages little is heard of it, 

 except that it was taken by the Crusaders. The 

 present town of Saida has 10,000 inhabitants, of 

 whom 7000 are Mohammedans. In the neighbour- 

 hood are numerous rock-cut burial-places of the 

 ancient Phoenicians, in which have been found the 

 sarcophagus of Eshmunazar, king of Assyria, and 

 others. The town was stormed by the allies under 

 Napier in 1840. 



Silonins Apollinaris, a 5th-century church- 

 man and author, descended from a noble Gaulish 

 family, who held high civil offices at Rome and in 

 472 became bishop of Clermont. Born about 430, 

 he died in 483. His letters (nine books) are 



