63 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY Love in Arcady 1554-1586 O it is, Mistress, said he, that yesterday driving head over the fair City of Mantinea, I happened upon the side of it, in a little falling of the ground which was a rampier against the Sun's rage, to perceive a young maid, truly of the finest stamp of beauty, and that which made her beauty the more admirable, there was at all no art added to the helping of it. For her apparel was but such as Shepherds' daughters are wont to wear and as for her hair, it hung down at the free liberty of his goodly length, but that sometimes falling before the clear stars of her sight, she was forced to put it behind her ears, and so open again the treasure of her perfections, which that for a while had in part hidden. In her lap there lay a Shepherd, so wrapped up in that well-liked place, that I could discern no piece of his face; but as mine eyes were attent in that, her Angel-like voice strake mine ears with this song: My true love hath my heart, and I have his, His heart in me, keeps me and him in one, Arcadia 64 Now With a Tale he cometh OW therein of all Sciences (I speak still of humane, and according to the humane conceits) is our Poet the Monarch. For he doth not only show the way, but giveth so sweet a prospect into the way, as will entice any man to enter into it. Nay, he doth, as if your journey should lie through a fair Vineyard, at the first give you a cluster of Grapes, that, full of that taste, you may long to passe further. He beginneth not with obscure definitions, which must blur the margent with interpretations, and load the memory with doubtfulness; but he cometh to you with words set in delightful proportion, either accompanied with, or prepared for, the well enchanting skill of Musick; and with a tale forsooth he cometh unto you: with a tale which holdeth children from play, and old men from the chimney corner. And, pretending no more, doth intend the winning of the mind from wickedness to virtue: even as the child is often brought to take most wholesome things by hiding them in such other as have a pleasant taste: which, if one should begin to tell them the nature of Aloes or Rhubarb they should receive, would sooner take their Physick at their ears than at their mouth. So is it in men (most of which are childish in the best things, till they be cradled in their graves); glad they will be to hear the tales of Hercules, Achilles, Cyrus, and Aeneas; and hearing them, must needs hear the right description of wisdom, valour, and justice; which, if they had been barely, that is to say, Philosophically set out, they would swear they be brought to school again. An Apologie for Poetrie 65 Is Chevy Chase 'S it the Lyrick that most displeaseth, who with his tuned Lyre and well-accorded voice, giveth praise, the reward of virtue, to virtuous acts; who gives moral precepts and natural Problems; who sometimes raiseth up his voice to the height of the heavens, in singing the laudes of the immortal God? Certainly, I must confess my own barbarousness, I never heard the old song of Percy and Duglas that I found not my heart moved more than with a Trumpet; and yet is it sung but by some blind Crouder, with no rougher voice than rude style; which, being so evil apparelled in the dust and cobwebs of that uncivil age, what would it work trimmed in the gorgeous eloquence of Pindar? JOHN LYLY An Apologie for Poetrie ? 1554-1606 66 TH Two Sisters HERE are also in this Island two famous Universities, the one Oxford, the other Cambridge, both for the profession of all sciences, for Divinity, Physick, Law, and all kind of learning, excelling all the Universities in Christendom. I was myself in either of them, and like them both so well that I mean not in the way of controversy to prefer any for the better in England, but both for the best in the world, saving this, that Colleges in Oxenford are much more stately for the building, and Cambridge much more sumptuous for the houses in 10 Crouder) fiddler the town; but the learning neither lieth in the free stones of the one, nor the fine streets of the other, for out of them both do daily proceed men of great wisdom to rule in the commonwealth, of learning to instruct the common people, of all singular kind of professions to do good to all. And let this suffice, not to inquire which of them is the superior, but that neither of them have their equal; neither to ask which of them is the most ancient, but whether any other be so famous. Euphues and his England 67 NOW RICHARD HOOKER Laws of Nature 1554-1600 if nature should intermit her course, and leave altogether though it were but for a while the observation of her own laws; if those principal and mother elements of the world, whereof all things in this lower world are made, should lose the qualities which now they have; if the frame of that heavenly arch erected over our heads should loosen and dissolve itself; if celestial spheres should forget their wonted motions, and by irregular volubility turn themselves any way as it might happen; if the prince of the lights of heaven, which now as a giant doth run his unwearied course, should as it were through a languishing faintness begin to stand and to rest himself; if the moon should wander from her beaten way, the times and seasons of the year blend themselves by disordered and confused mixture, the winds breathe out their last gasp, the clouds yield no rain, the earth be defeated of heavenly influence, the fruits of the earth pine away as children at the withered breasts of their mother no longer able to yield them relief: what would become of man himself, whom these things now do all serve? See we not plainly that obedience of creatures unto the law of nature is the stay of the whole world? 68 MAN The Laws of Ecclesiasticall Politie Man's Ascending Search AN doth seek a triple perfection: first a sensual, consisting in those things which very life itself requireth either as necessary supplements, or as beauties and ornaments thereof; then an intellectual, consisting in those things which none underneath man is either capable of or acquainted with; lastly a spiritual and divine, consisting in those things whereunto we tend by supernatural means here, but cannot here attain unto them. They that make the first of these three the scope of their whole life, are said by the Apostle to have no god but only their belly, to be earthly minded men. Unto the second they bend themselves, who seek especially to excel in all such knowledge and virtue as doth most commend To this branch belongeth the law of moral and civil perfection. That there is somewhat higher than either of these two, no other proof doth need than the very process of man's desire, which being natural should be frustrate, if there were not some farther thing wherein it might rest at the length contented, which in the former it cannot do. For man doth not seem to rest satisfied, either with fruition of that wherewith his life is preserved, or with performance men. |