face, that
despaire began now to threaten him destruction, she grew content
both to pitie him, and let him see shee pitied him. * * * by making
her owne beautifull beames to thaw away the former ycinesse of her
behaviour.[78]

That portion of the "Arcadia" which relates to pastoral life owes its
origin to Spanish and Portuguese works. But there were not wanting to
Sidney's experience actual examples of that peaceful existence to
which, in troubled times, men have so often turned as a pleasing
contrast to their own cares, and dangers. The shepherds of the Sussex
Downs, pursuing through centuries their simple vocation, unheeded by
the world, untouched by revolution or civil war, tended their sheep
with little thought or knowledge of the world beyond the downs, and
presented to the poet a picture of calm content, in pleasing contrast
to the active or terrible incidents which more frequently made up the
sum both of romance and of actual life. The shepherds of the "Arcadia"
make even less pretence to reality than the martial heroes. They are
usually poets and musicians; speaking in courtly phrases, and occupied
with amorous adventures, they serve sometimes to relieve, and sometimes
to heighten, the more stirring scenes.

A third element in the "Arcadia" is the comic, and with this, as might
be expected from the rather crude ideas of humor prevalent in the
sixteenth century, Sidney met with indifferent success. The wit depends
on the ugliness, the perversity, and the clownish character of Dametas,
his wife, and their daughter Mopsa. It partakes of the nature of the
practical joke, and though it no doubt amused the courtiers of
Elizabeth, is too clumsy for a more cultivated taste. But although
Sidney's comic scenes may no longer amuse, it must be said that they
are free from the low coarseness and ribaldry which have furnished
merriment to times which pretended to a much higher standard of wit and
education than his own. An interesting contrast may be made between a
comic passage of the "Arcadia,"[79] representing a fight between two
cowards, and perhaps the only scene in the "Morte d'Arthur" of
humorous intent,[80]--that in which King Mark is ignominiously put to
flight by Arthur's court fool disguised in the armor of a knight.

In the history of English literature, Sir Philip Sidney's romance will
always have a prominent place as the first specimen of a fine prose
style. The affectations and mannerisms whi