the Arcadia istedious, lamentable, and pedantic*." It is said, however, that it gave delight to Shakspeare, and even in a later day to Milton; and their admiration is a tolerable set-off against the sneers of modern critics. It might have been supposed, as I think Hazlitt has observed, that the single pastoral image of the shepherd boy piping as though he should never be old, would have saved it from the contempt of every reader who has himself any share of imagination. It is true that the style is occasionally quaint and prolix, and the sentiments affected and fantastic; but the strange or unsightly foliage of some few trees of this Arcadian Orchard do not render less delightful the ripe and precious fruits that abound beneath it and the general beauty of the scene.

But let us return to the poem. Both Rhotus and Cleon are subsequently discovered to be noblemen of high character, who had been persecuted by the government ;-the latter had been banished. It is not at all necessary to enter into the minute details of their adventures. To confess the truth, the whole story of the poem is a little tedious, and there are so many plots within plots, and the main thread is so intricately interwoven with the general texture, that nothing but the exquisite truth and simplicity of the descriptions, and the sweetness and variety of the verse, could make so long and involved a narrative at all supportable. On this account I shall not weary the reader or myself, with following up the progress of the story, but select such detached passages as will show the author's genius to

* Sir William Temple, in his Essay on Poetry, has paid a glowing tribute to the merits of the Arcadia. "The true spirit or vein of ancient poetry," says he, "in this kind," (prose romance, a kind of poetry in prose) 66 seems most to shine in Sir Philip Sidney, whom I esteem both the greatest poet, and the noblest genius of any that have left writings behind them, and published in ours or any other modern language; a person born capable, not only of forming the greatest ideas, but of leaving the noblest examples, if the length of his life had been equal to the excellence of his wit and virtues."

the best advantage. The following description of the Temple of Diana, is a picture as highly finished as any thing in modern art.

Within a little silent grove hard by
Upon a small ascent, he might espy
A stately chapel, richly gilt without,
Beset with shady sycamores about :
And ever and anon he might well hear
A sound of musick steal in at his ear
As the wind gave it being so sweet an air
Would strike a syren mute and ravish her.
He sees no creature that might cause the same,
But he was sure that from the grove it came.
And to the grove he goes to satisfy

The curiosity of ear and eye.

Thóróugh the thick leav'd boughs he makes a way,
Nor could the scratching brambles make him stay;
But on he rushes, and climbs up the hill,
Thórough a glade he saw, and heard his fill.

A hundred virgins there he might espy
Prostrate before a marble deity:
Which by its portraiture appear'd to be
The image of DIANA: on their knee

They tender'd their devotions: with sweet airs,
Off'ring the incense of their praise and prayers.
Their garments all alike ;-

And cross their snowy silken robes, they wore
An azure scarf, with stars embroidered o'er.
Their hair in curious tresses was knit up,
Crown'd with a silver crescent on the top.
A silver bow their left hand held, their right
For their defence, held a sharp-headed flight
Drawn from their broidered quiver, neatly tied
In silken cords, and fastened to their side.
Under their vestments something short before
White buskins lac'd with ribbanding they wore.
It was a catching sight for a young eye
That Love had fir'd before; he might espy
One, whom the rest had sphere-like circled round,
Whose head was with a golden chaplet crown'd.
He could not see her face, only his ear

Was blest with the sweet words that came from her.

Who would suppose, from the style of this beautiful passage, that it had been written upwards of three centuries ago? Dr. Johnson knew very little of our old English poetry, or he would never have so egregiously overrated the improvements of the moderns. It is wonderful how slight a change has been effected in our language in so long a period as three hundred years. There is nothing in the lines just quoted to indicate their antiquity. There is a greater number of old phrases in some of our living poets than in the page of Chalkhill. Though we dislike the incongruous mixture of archaisms and neologisms which deform the productions of too many of the poets of the present day, we observe with great delight that the study of our elder writers has led to the introduction of a fresher style of description and a more varied music of verse than the public were accustomed to a few years ago.

The following description of the situation of the cell of the witch Orandra would have been worthy of Spenser himself;

Down in a gloomy valley thick with shade
Which two aspiring hanging rocks had made,
That shut out day, and barr'd the glorious sun
From prying into th' actions there done;

Set full of box, and cypress, poplar, yew,

And hateful elder that in thickets grew,

Amongst whose boughs the screech-owl and night-crow
Sadly recount their prophecies of woe,

Where leather-winged bats, that hate the light,
Fan the thick air, more sooty than the night.

The ground o'er-grown with weeds, and bushy shrubs,
Where milky hedgehogs nurse their prickly cubs:
And here and there a mandrake grows, that strikes
The hearers dead with their loud fatal shrieks;
Under whose spreading leaves the ugly toad,
The adder, and the snake make their abode :
Here dwelt Orandra.

Then follows a very striking description of the cell itself.

Her cell was hewn out in the marble rock,

By more than human art; she need not knock,

The door stood always open, large and wide,
Grown o'er with woolly moss on either side,
And interwove with ivie's flatt'ring twines,
Thro' which the carbuncle and di'mond shines;
Not set by art, but there by Nature sown
At the world's birth, so star-like bright they shone.
They serv'd instead of tapers to give light
To the dark entry, where perpetual Night,
Friend to black deeds, and sire of ignorance,
Shuts out all knowledge; lest her eye by chance
Might bring to light her follies: in they went.

The ground was strow'd with flowers, whose sweet scent,
Mixt with the choice perfumes from India brought,
Intoxicates his brain, and quickly caught

His credulous sense; the walls were gilt and set
With precious stones, and all the roof was fret
With a gold vine, whose straggling branches spread
All o'er the arch; the swelling grapes were red;
This art had made of rubies cluster'd so,

To the quick'st eye they more than seem'd to grow.
About the walls lascivious pictures hung,

Such as whereof loose Ovid sometimes sung.

The portrait of the witch herself, though powerfully drawn, is rather too disgusting in some of its details, to permit of my transferring it to these pages, as my sole object is to give pleasure to the reader. The following description of King Alexis (who turns out to be Clearchus), under the alternate influence of opposite emotions, is highly poetical and picturesque. The metre is singularly harmonious. It is a pity that the beauty of this little passage is somewhat marred by the word dropsy in the first line.

Now a fair day, anon a dropsy cloud

Puts out the sun, and, in a sable shroud,

The day seems buried; when the clouds are o'er,
The glorious sun shines brighter than before:

But long it lasts not; so Alexis far'd
His sun-like majesty was not impair'd

So much by sorrow, but that now and then
It would break forth into a smile again.

In this beautiful old pastoral, a reader unacquainted with our elder English poets might find many lines that he would regard as strangely irregular and inharmonious. The very same passages, however, would seem perfectly smooth and accurate to an ear accustomed to our ancient pronunciation. In the following lines, for example, readers who have confined their poetical studies to modern verse, would feel themselves disappointed of the legitimate quantity of syllables.

But she, being unwilling to be known,
Answered his quere with this questión.
And all the passengers, save a young man,
That fortune rescued from the ocean.

A hot spurred youth hight Hylas, such a one,
As pride had fitted for commotión.

But a very superficial acquaintance with our elder poets would prevent a reader from falling into a mistake of this nature. A great number of such words as patience, partial, nation, &c. &c. that are now inelegantly shortened into two sounds, were invariably resolved into their component syllables by all our poets until about the middle of the sixteenth century. Mr. Gifford, in his edition of Massinger, speaks of this peculiarity of accent as more characteristic of that writer than of his cotemporaries; but on this point he is undoubtedly mistaken. It was not a characteristic of any individual writer: it was the universal practice of the age. Every reader of Shakspeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Ford and Marlowe, is aware that it is almost impossible to light on a single page of their productions in which they have not used such words as have been alluded to with a distinct trisyllabic sound. They frequently gave by this means a fluency and sweetness to their verse, of which the moderns have been deprived by the change in our pronunciation. The dactyle nasheón, (nation) is surely a richer and more pleasing sound, especially in a line of verse, than when cut down into the misera