That time of seclusion,after the end of March,1580,he spent with his sister at Wilton.They versified psalms together;and he began to write for her amusement when she had her baby first upon her hands,his romance of "Arcadia."It was never finished.Much was written at Wilton in the summer of 1580,the rest in 1581,written,as he said in a letter to her,"only for you,only to you ...for severer eyes it is not,being but a trifle,triflingly handled.
Your dear self can best witness the manner,being done in loose sheets of paper,most of it in your presence,the rest by sheets sent unto you as fast as they were done."He never meant that it should be published;indeed,when dying he asked that it should be destroyed;but it belonged to a sister who prized the lightest word of his,and after his death it was published in 1590as "The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia."The book reprinted in this volume was written in 1581,while sheets of the "Arcadia"were still being sent to Wilton.But it differs wholly in style from the "Arcadia."Sidney's "Arcadia"has literary interest as the first important example of the union of pastoral with heroic romance,out of which came presently,in France,a distinct school of fiction.But the genius of its author was at play,it followed designedly the fashions of the hour in verse and prose,which tended to extravagance of ingenuity.The "Defence of Poesy"has higher interest as the first important piece of literary criticism in our literature.Here Sidney was in earnest.His style is wholly free from the euphuistic extravagance in which readers of his time delighted:it is clear,direct,and manly;not the less,but the more,thoughtful and refined for its unaffected simplicity.
As criticism it is of the true sort;not captious or formal,still less engaged,as nearly 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.
