fraide to bee seane,
knowing that little joy would moove desire to have more." This clever
young person had been "sworn a nymph," which prevented her getting
married for some years. Waiting for that auspicious date a lover was
offering his addresses to her, and as Lady Wroth's Arcadia is an Arcadia
with a peerage, we are informed that this sworn nymph's lover was "the
third sonne of an earle."[227]

No less a man than Ben Jonson proclaimed himself an admirer of Lady
Mary; he dedicated one of his masterpieces, "the Alchemist," to "the
lady most deserving her name and blood, Lady Mary Wroth," and in his
"Epigrams" he addressed her as follows, his only but sufficient excuse
being that the "Urania" was not yet written:

"Madam, had all antiquity been lost,
All history seal'd up and fables crost,
That we had left us, nor by time nor place,
Least mention of a Nymph, a Muse, a Grace,
But even their names were to be made anew
Who could not create them all from you?"[228]

The eighteenth century began, and Sidney's romance was not yet
forgotten; his book was still alive, if one may say so, when the novel
assumed its definite shape, style and compass with Defoe, Richardson and
Fielding. Addison notices its presence in the fair Leonora's library,
among "the some few which the lady had bought for her own use."[229] It
continued then to be fashionable, and a subject of conversation. No
wonder, therefore, that between the date of "Robinson Crusoe" and the
date of "Pamela" two more editions of the "Arcadia" were given to the
public. One of them contained engravings after drawings by L.
Cheron.[230] The other was "moderniz'd" and was published by
subscription under the patronage of the Princess of Wales.[231] Sidney's
novel continued to act on men's minds, and many proofs of its influence
on eighteenth-century literature might be pointed out. That Sidney was
Richardson's first teacher in the art of the novel is well known; that
Cowper read the "Arcadia" with delight is well known too, and he confers
no mean praise on our author when he speaks of

"those golden times
And those arcadian scenes that Maro sings
And Sidney, warbler of poetic prose."[232]

Examples of Sidney's style are also to be found in several authors of
that time. Consciously or not, Young sometimes adopts all the
peculiarities of Sidney; for example, when he writes:

"Sweet harmonist! and beautiful as sweet