"
In the last two sonnets, with crowning truth and pathos he renounces
earthly love which reaches but to dust, and which because it fades
brings but fading pleasure:
"Then farewell, world! Thy uttermost I see.
Eternal love, maintain thy life in me."
The sonnets were published after Sidney's death, and it is certain that
like Shakespeare's they were never intended for publication at all. The
point is important because it helps to vindicate Sidney's sincerity, but
were any vindication needed another more certain might be found. The
_Arcadia_ is strewn with love songs and sonnets, the exercises solely of
the literary imagination. Let any one who wishes to gauge the sincerity
of the impulse of the Stella sequence compare any of the poems in it
with those in the romance.
With Sir Philip Sidney literature was an avocation, constantly indulged
in, but outside the main business of his life; with Edmund Spenser
public life and affairs were subservient to an overmastering poetic
impulse. He did his best to carve out a career for himself like other
young men of his time, followed the fortunes of the Earl of Leicester,
sought desperately and unavailingly the favour of the Queen, and
ultimately accepted a place in her service in Ireland, which meant
banishment as virtually as a place in India would to-day.
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