518 



SYLVAN SKETCHES. 



rest there. It was all of Pine-trees, whose broad heads 

 meeting together, yeelded a perfecte shade to the grounde 

 where their bodies gave a spacious and pleasant room to 

 walke in : they were set in so perfect an order, that every 

 way the eye being full, yet no ways stopped. And even 

 in the middest of them, were many svv^eet springs, which 

 did loose themselves upon the face of the earth. Here 

 Musidorus drew out such provisions of fruits and other 

 cates, as hee had brought for that daies repaste, and 

 laide it downe upon the faire carpet of the greene grasse. 

 But Pamela had much more pleasure to walke under 

 those trees, making in their barkes pretty knots, that 

 tyed together the names of Musidorus and Pamela, 

 sometimes intermixedly changing them to Pammidorus 

 and Musimela, with twenty other flowers of her travel- 

 ling fancies, which had bound themselves to a greater 

 restraint than they coulde, without much paine, well en- 

 dure ; and to one tree, more beholding to her than the 

 rest, she entrusted the treasure of her thoughts in these 

 verses 



As the verses of Sir Philip Sidney are generally the 

 least poetical part of his writings, the reader will not 

 perhaps be anxious to be entrusted with the treasure ; 

 let the pine therefore retain its charge. The brilliancy 

 of water seen through the dark shafts of Pine-trees, is 

 beautifully represented in these few lines : 



And midst the flowers, turfed round beneath a shade 

 Of circling pines^, a babbling fountain played. 

 And 'twixt their shafts you saw the water bright, 

 Which through the darksome tops glimmered with showering 

 light." 



Leigh HuNxf. 



* Sidney's Arcadia. 



t Story of Rimini, Canto iii. 



