A Defence of Poesie and Poems | Page 5

all bad criticism is, more or less, with indirect suggestion of the critic himself as the one owl in a world of mice. Philip Sidney's care is towards the end of good?literature. He looks for highest aims, and finds them in true work, and hears God's angel in the poet's song.
The writing of this piece was probably suggested to him by the fact that an earnest young student, Stephen Gosson, who came from his university about the time when the first theatres were built, and wrote plays, was turned by the bias of his mind into agreement with the Puritan attacks made by the pulpit on the stage (arising chiefly from the fact that plays were then acted on Sundays), and in 1579 transferred his pen from service of the players to attack on them, in a piece which he called "The School of Abuse, containing a Pleasant Invective against Poets, Pipers, Players, Jesters, and such like Caterpillars of a Commonwealth; setting up the Flag of Defiance to their mischievous exercise, and overthrowing their Bulwarks, by Profane Writers, Natural Reason, and Common Experience: a Discourse as pleasant for Gentlemen that favour Learning as profitable for all that will follow Virtue." This Discourse Gosson dedicated "To the right noble Gentleman, Master Philip Sidney, Esquire." Sidney himself wrote verse, he was companion with the poets, and counted Edmund Spenser among his friends. Gosson's pamphlet was only one expression of the narrow form of Puritan opinion that had been misled into attacks on poetry and music as feeders of idle appetite that withdrew men from the life of duty. To show the fallacy in such opinion, Philip Sidney wrote in 1581 this piece, which was first printed in 1595, nine years after his death, as a separate publication, entitled "An Apologie for Poetrie." Three years afterwards it was added, with other pieces, to the third edition of his "Arcadia," and then entitled "The Defence of Poesie." In sixteen subsequent editions it continued to appear as "The Defence of Poesie." The same title was used in the separate editions of 1752 and 1810. Professor Edward Arber re-issued in 1869 the text of the first edition of 1595, and restored the original title, which probably was that given to the piece by its author. One name is as good as the other, but as the word "apology" has somewhat changed its sense in current English, it may be well to go on calling the work "The Defence of Poesie."
In 1583 Sidney was knighted, and soon afterwards in the same year he married Frances, daughter of Sir Francis Walsingham. Sonnets written by him according to old fashion, and addressed to a lady in accordance with a form of courtesy that in the same old fashion had always been held to exclude personal suit--personal suit was private, and not public--have led to grave misapprehension among some critics. They supposed that he desired marriage with Penelope Devereux, who was forced by her family in 1580--then eighteen years old--into a hateful marriage with Lord Rich. It may be enough to say that if Philip Sidney had desired her for his wife, he had only to ask for her and have her. Her father, when dying, had desired-- as any father might--that his daughter might become the wife of Philip Sidney. But this is not the place for a discussion of Astrophel and Stella sonnets.
In 1585 Sidney was planning to join Drake it sea in attack on Spain in the West Indies. He was stayed by the Queen. But when Elizabeth declared war on behalf of the Reformed Faith, and sent Leicester with an expedition to the Netherlands, Sir Philip Sidney went out, in November, 1585, as Governor of Flushing. His wife joined him there. He fretted at inaction, and made the value of his counsels so distinct that his uncle Leicester said after his death that he began by "despising his youth for a counsellor, not without bearing a hand over him as a forward young man. Notwithstanding, in a short time he saw the sun so risen above his horizon that both he and all his stars were glad to fetch light from him." In May, 1586, Sir Philip Sidney received news of the death of his father. In August his mother died. In September he joined in the investment of Zutphen. On the 22nd of September his thigh-bone was shattered by a musket ball from the trenches. His horse took fright and galloped back, but the wounded man held to his seat. He was then carried to his uncle, asked for water, and when it was given, saw a dying soldier carried past, who eyed it greedily. At once he gave the water to the soldier, saying, "Thy necessity is yet greater than mine." Sidney lived on,