nst
all that has been said in disparagement of the prose style of poets.
Let us pass what Hazlitt said of Coleridge's prose; or rather let us
quote it once again for its vivacity, and so pass on--

"One of his (Coleridge's) sentences winds its 'forlorn way
obscure' over the page like a patriarchal procession with camels
laden, wreathed turbans, household wealth, the whole riches of
the author's mind poured out upon the barren waste of his
subject. The palm tree spreads its sterile branches overhead, and
the land of promise is seen in the distance."

All this is very neatly malicious, and particularly the last
co-ordinate sentence. But in the chapter chosen by Mr. Rhys from the
"Biographia Literaria" Coleridge's prose is seen at its
best--obedient, pertinent, at once imaginative and restrained--as in
the conclusion--

"Finally, good sense is the body of poetic genius, fancy its
drapery, motion its life, and imagination the soul that is
everywhere, and in each; and forms all into one graceful and
intelligent whole."

The prose of Sidney's _Apologie_ is Sidney's best; and when that has
been said, nothing remains but to economize in quoting. I will take
three specimens only. First then, for beauty:--

"Nature never set forth the earth in so rich tapistry, as divers
Poets have done, neither with plesant rivers, fruitful trees,
sweet-smelling flowers: nor whatsoever else may make the too much
loved earth more lovely. Her world is brasen, the Poets only
deliver a golden: but let those things alone and goe to man, for
whom as the other things are, so it seemeth in him her uttermost
cunning is imployed, and know whether shee have brought forth so
true a lover as _Theagines_, so constant a friende as _Pilades_,
so valiant a man as _Orlando_, so right a Prince as _Xenophon's
Cyrus_; so excellent a man every way as _Virgil's Aeneas_...."

Next for wit--roguishness, if you like the term better:--

"And therefore, if _Cato_ misliked _Fulvius_, for carrying
_Ennius_ with him to the field, it may be answered, that if
_Cato_ misliked it, the noble _Fulvius_ liked it, or else he had
not done it."

And lastly for beauty and wit combined:--

"For he (the Poet) doth not only show the way, but giveth so
sweete a prospect into the way, as will intice any man to enter
into it. Nay he doth, as if your jo