sso and his
sister Cornelia has often been the theme of painting and of song.
When, escaping from Ferrara, lacerated, irritated, melancholy, the
poor half-mad poet fled from his persecutors, he thought he would
test the affection of this early playmate and friend, whom he had not
seen for many a weary year. Disguising himself as a shepherd, he
presented himself before her in her home at Sorrento. He drew so
piteous a picture of her brother's misfortunes and condition that she
fainted. As soon as she recovered, he made himself known; and
Torquato and Cornelia, with a swift revival of their old affection,
were locked in a tender embrace, as has been described by Mrs. Hemans
in a poem of extreme beauty and power of feeling.

The peaceful retreat, the glorious scenery, the gentle nursing,
restored him to health and cheerfullness. Alas that he would not
stay, but rushed away to his fate The beautiful and chivalrous
Margaret of Navarre was a pattern of enthusiastic devotion to her
brother, Francis I When Charles V carried him prisoner to Madrid, and
he was dying there, she went to him through every peril, and, by her
nursing, restored him. She then formed a friendship with the sister
of Charles, and induced her secretly to espouse Francis, thus
securing his deliverance by his imperial brother-in-law. The enduring
monuments of art with which Francis embellished his kingdom were her
inspiration. At a distance from him in his last illness, "she went
every day, and sat down on a stone in the middle of the road, to
catch the first glimpse of a messenger afar off. And she said, "Ah
whoever shall come to announce the recovery of the king my brother,
though he be tired, jaded, soiled, dishevelled, I will kiss him and
embrace him as though he were the finest gentleman in the kingdom."
Hearing of his death, she soon followed him. It is painful to know
that the love of Francis to her was not a tithe of hers to him. He
loved her, but treated her with a good deal of the feudal tyranny
which belonged to the age. She deserved from him boundless tenderness
and generosity. Sir Philip and Mary Sidney shared the same studies
and labors, and were endeared even more by similarity of soul than by
their common parentage. Together they translated the Psalms. The name
and dedication which the brother gave to his principal work are an
imperishable shrine of his affection for his sister, "The Countess of
Pembroke's Arcadia." Spenser refers to her as "