rence of the
Holy Ghost, whose office is to dictate and present our Christian
prayers, so little care of truth in his last words, or honour to himself
or to his friends, or sense of his afflictions or of that sad hour which
was upon him, as immediately before his death to pop into the hand of
that grave bishop who attended him, for a special relique of his saintly
exercises, a prayer stolen word for word from the mouth of a heathen
woman, praying to a heathen god, and that in no serious book, but in
the vain amatorious poem of Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia."[206] Here is
this prayer which is a very grave and eloquent one, and in no way
justifies the bitter reproaches addressed to Charles by his enemies:

"Kneeling down, even where she stood, she thus said: O All-seeing Light,
and eternall Life of all things, to whom nothing is either so great,
that it may resist, or so small that it is contemned: looke upon my
misery with thine eye of mercy, and let thine infinite power vouchsafe
to limit out some proportion of deliverance unto mee, as to thee shall
seeme most convenient. Let not injurie, O Lord, triumph over mee, and
let my faults by thy hand bee corrected, and make not mine unjust enemy
the minister of thy Justice. But yet, my God, if, in thy wisedome, this
be the aptest chastisement for my unexcusable folly; if this low bondage
be fittest for my over-high desires; if the pride of my not enough
humble heart, be thus to be broken, O Lord, I yeeld unto thy will, and
joyfully embrace what sorrow thou wilt have me suffer. Onely thus much
let me crave of thee ... let calamity be the exercise, but not the
overthrow of my vertue: let their power prevaile, but not prevaile to
destruction: let my greatnesse be their prey: let my paine be the
sweetnesse of their revenge: let them, if so it seem good unto thee,
vexe me with more and more punishment. But, O Lord, let never their
wickednesse have such a hand, but that I may carry a pure minde in a
pure body. And pausing a while: And, O most gracious Lord, said shee,
what ever become of me, preserve the vertuous Musidorus."[207]

Thus incidents, showing much diversity, but little order, follow each
other in great variety. There are touching episodes, ludicrous and, to
our modern ideas, even shocking episodes, brilliant adventures, fine
pastoral scenes, and much pleasant description; Sidney had been
perfectly frank and true when he had spoken of "his young head" and his
"many many fa