AMONG MY BOOKS, 215 
through dewy fields, white with daisies, is very soothing 
_ and refreshing, and coincides agreeably with the cool of 
the morning breeze. Rambling through his works the 
other day I came across a “complainte” which, in these 
times, many of us will tearfully endorse; it is called 
A COMPLAINTE TO HIS PURSE, 
Now voucheth safe this day ere it be night, 
That I of you the blissful sound may hear 
Or see your colour like the sonné bright, 
That of yellowness haddé never peer. 
Ye be my life! Ye be mine heartés steer! 
Queen of comfort and goodé company ! 
Beth heavy again or ellés mote I die! 
Conspicuous among the early writers, stands Sir’ 
PHILIP SIDNEY, of whom his friend SPENSER wrote: 
To hear him speak, and sweetly smile, 
You were in Paradise the while. 
His prose romance, ‘‘ The Countess of Pembroke’s Ar- 
cadia,”’ so called on account of its dedication to his sister, 
for whose amusement it was partly written, abounds with 
rich gems of thought and fancy, Here is a beautiful 
description which will suggest to readers of SHAKESPEARE 
the opening lines of “Twelfth Night.” ‘ Her breath is | 
more sweet than a gentle south-west wind, which comes 
creeping over flowery fields and shadowed waters tn the 
extreme heat of summer,” and in the description of 
Arcadia we find “a shepherd’s boy piping as though he 
should never be old’’—surely a very suggestive phrase! 
An ancient chronicler*, referring to Sir WALTER 
RALEIGH, remarks, “ He was a tall, handsome, and bold 
man, but his nzve [blemish or weakness] was that he 
-was damnable proud,” and he-tells us further on: “‘ He 
* Minutes of Lives, by John Aubrey. Esq.,-1680. 
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