culties which arise from the personal setting and the chronology, and from the similar train of feeling found in the Arcadia.

Further confirmation of the view that Sidney had had no affair of the heart before the Arcadia, or at any rate the original body of it, was composed, or before his engagement to his wife, is found in the passage quoted at p. 6 above, where the author, in describing "Argalus," in terms which seem to point inevitably to Sidney, speaks of his "overvehement constancie of yet spotles affection," in other words, his indifference to women.

I have already suggested, in my volume on the Spenser works, that the real author of the Arcadia was Francis Bacon, and that Sidney was persuaded to lend his name to it in the cause of letters. The Languet correspondence, and the subsequent story of Sidney's life, show that his bent was not literature but arms. Like Essex after him, he thirsted for action, and above all for effecting something against Spain and the Papacy in the cause of English protestantism. But he was debarred from action by the Queen and Burghley. To this was due the discontented indolence of which he complains, but none the less, following the advice of Languet, he did what he could in the domestic sphere, and became, in the terms of Fulke Greville's panegyric, "a general Mæcenas of learning." Burghley, preoccupied by the business of government, and the great task of keeping above water the new protestant English state, held cheap the arts. There was therefore scope for Sidney here. But his heart was not really in such things when viewed by the tasks which he imagined for himself in the world of arms and adventure. It is not altogether surprising therefore that, in such circumstances, he should have been persuaded, by one whom he knew intimately, and of whose literary abilities he must have been fully aware, to cover a new writer's work with the protection of his name. Such protection in those days was needed, especially in the case of a class of writing for which there was no precedent in England. In this way I believe the Arcadia was fathered on Sidney, who, from simplicity of character, and probably also from carelessness, was ignorant of its

real bearing. Like Fulke Greville he was probably persuaded that it was a story written primarily with the object of political instruction.1

I also suggested that the object of the writer's devotion, as reflected both in the Arcadia and the Astrophel and Stella sonnets, was Sidney's sister, Mary, Countess of Pembroke. It will be noticed that the suppressed autobiographical passage states that the writer concealed his passion from the world: "So it happened that Love . . . diverted the course of tranquillitie, which, though I did with so much covering hyde that I was thought voyde of it as any man," etc. I suggested too that the author took advantage of Sidney's early betrothal to Penelope Devereux, and of the similarity in her circumstances and those of Mary Sidney, in both being married to wealthy husbands much older than themselves, and with whom they did not get on, to effect this impersonation. I admit that such a theory involves the attribution to the author of a subtlety which must seem almost inhuman, but there is abundant evidence of such subtlety in his concealed writings for those who are able to accept the conclusions of my previous works and of other writers who have adopted similar conclusions. In the following pages I shall endeavour to make this theory good.

1 See Life of Sir Philip Sidney. This treatise is evidently not to be entirely depended upon. Greville, for instance, though he says that he knew Sidney" from a child," speaks of him as travelling "at fourteen years old."

CHAPTER V

Argalus and Parthenia: The editions of the Arcadia, continued.

The episode of Argalus and Parthenia must now claim our attention, with a view to the discussion of the additions made to the Arcadia which are not found in the manuscripts. Though I have not had the advantage of seeing these manuscripts, I take the account of them given by Mr. Dobell in his article above referred to. It will be remembered that he there states that "the many independent stories by which the narrative, in its later form [namely, as published] is overlaid and confused, have no place in the first draft as shown in the manuscripts"; and that "in none of the manuscripts do we find the stories-such as those of Kalender and Clitophon, Argalus and Parthenia, Queen Helen of Corinth, etc."

It is open to me therefore to take the view, which I do, that in the death of Argalus the death of Sir Philip Sidney is celebrated. This occurred in October, 1586, and the episode therefore, in this view, was composed after that date. This would help to explain the letter written in November of the same year by Fulke Greville (Lord Brooke) to Walsingham, which is as follows:

"To the Right honourable Sr. francis Walsingham.

'Sr, this day, one ponsonby, a booke-bynder in poles church yard, came to me and told me that ther was one in hand to print Sr Philip Sydney's old arcadia, asking me yf it were done with your honors consent, or any other of his frendes? I told him, to my knowledge, no: then he advysed me to give warninge of it, either to the archbishope or doctor Cosen, who have, as he says, a copy to peruse to that end.

1 See above pp. 6, 74-76.

"

'S', I am loth to renew his memory unto you, but yeat in this I must presume; for I have sent my lady, your daughter, at her request, a correction of that old one, don 4 or 5 years sinse, which he left in trust with me; whereof there is no more copies, and fitter to be printed then the first, which is so common: notwithstanding, even that to be amended by a direction sett downe undre his own hand, how and why; so as in many respects, espetially the care of printing of it, is to be don with more deliberation.

"Besydes, he hathe most excellently translated, among divers other notable workes, monsieur du Plessis book against Atheisme, which is sinse don by another; so as both in respect of lov between Plessis and him, besydes other affinities in their courses, but espetially St Philip's uncomparable judgement, I think fit ther be made stay of that mercenary1 book, so that SÅ Philip might have all thos religious works which ar worthily dew to his lyfe and death.

Your honors

FOULK GREVILL."

This letter is very suspicious. How could such a work of imagination as the Arcadia be amended by directions set down 'how and why?' Both Fulke Greville and Lady Sidney were friends of Bacon, and would have easily been persuaded to help him in perfecting for the press a work which they probably believed to be Sidney's. There was also no man of their acquaintance to whom they would more naturally have entrusted it. It must never be forgotten that, even as late as the death of Sidney, there were people and even representative literary people like Whetstone, who supposed that the first publication of Spenser, The Shepheards Calendar, was Sidney's work.2

The description of the character of Argalus given in the extract at p. 6, perfectly describes Sir Philip Sidney, as his character presented itself to the times. Every point is noticed, even to such touches as his "over-vehemence," and his tendency to musing and melancholy, on which Languet, as we have seen, commented. The author, no doubt, had reproduced the latter feature in Philisides, who is evidently intended to represent the author, and so to be supposed to

1i.e., to be published for profit.
2 See Edmund Spenser, etc., p. 4.

represent Sidney. This, however, is only part of the misleading subtlety of the writer's method.

The next extract (p. 7) introduces Parthenia, an only daughter, who is described with particular care, and again in the extract at page 19. In the extract at page 72 the beautiful passage occurs in which the married life of Argalus and Parthenia is described, and the dramatic interruption of their felicity by the challenge to arms. In this I believe the author alludes to Sidney's call to the Low Countries where he met his death. In the extract at page 75 the end of Argalus is described, which again follows history, as Lady Sidney went to Arnhem to nurse her dying husband. The author imagines Parthenia as refusing to live without Argalus, and falling in combat with Amphialus, disguised as a man. Her dying words are: "I come, my Argalus, I come,” etc. (iii., 16). The episode concludes with an account of the entombment:

"

'But both they with Philanax, and the rest of the principall Nobilitie, went out, to make Honour triumph over Death, conveying that excellent body (whereto Basilius himself would needes bend his shoulder) to a church a mile from the campe, where the valiant Argalus lay entombed; recommending to that sepulchre the blessed reliques of faithful and virtuous Love: giving order for the making of marble images, to represent them, and each way enriching the tombe. Upon which Basilius himself caused this Epitaphe to be written."

Here a square is printed on the page, and left blank. The space was filled in in the second edition, published three years later, with the following lines:

His Being was in her alone.

And he not Being she was none.

They joy'd One joy, One grief they griev'd,

One love they lov'd, One life they liv'd.

The hand was One, One was the sword
That did his death, her death afford.

As all the rest; so now the stone
That tombs the Two are justly One.

Argalus and Parthenia.