’Among all other lessons, this should first be learned, that we never affect any straunge ynkhorne termes, but to speake as is commonly received, neither seeking to be over fine, nor yet being over carelesse, using our speeche as most men doe, and ordering our wittes as the fewest have done.  Some seke so far outlandishe English, that thei forget altogether their mothers language.  And I dare sweare this, if some of their mothers were alive, thei were not able to tell what thei saie; and yet these fine English clerkes will saie thei speake in their mother tongue—­if a man should charge them for counterfeityng the kinges Englishe....  The unlearned or foolish phantasicalle that smelles but of learnyng (suche fellowes as have seen learned men in their daies) will so Latin their tongues that the simple can not but wonder at their talke, and thinke surely thei speake by some revelation.  I know them that thinke Rhetorique to stand wholie upon darke woordes; and he that can catche an ynke horne terme by the taile him thei coumpt to bee a fine Englisheman and a good Rhetorician.’

In turning to Wilson’s own style, we are reminded of Butler’s sarcasm—­

    ’All a rhetorician’s rules
    Teach nothing but to name his tools.’

He is not, indeed, deficient, as the excerpt given shows, in dignity and weightiness, but neither there nor elsewhere has he any of the finer qualities of style, his rhythm being harsh and unmusical, his diction cumbrous and diffuse.

The excerpt which comes next in this miscellany is by the author of that treatise which is, with the exceptions, perhaps, of George Puttenham’s Art of English Poesie and Ben Jonson’s Discoveries, the most precious contribution to criticism made in the Elizabethan age; but, indeed, the Defence of Poesie stands alone:  alone in originality, alone in inspiring eloquence.  The letter we print is taken from Arthur Collins’s Sydney Papers, vol. i. pp. 283-5, and was written by Sir Philip Sidney to his brother Robert, afterwards (August 1618) second Earl of Leicester, then at Prague.  From letters of Sir Henry Sidney in the same collection (see letters dated March 25th and October 1578) we learn that Robert, then in his eighteenth year, had been sent abroad to see the world and to acquire foreign languages, that he was flighty and extravagant, and had in consequence greatly annoyed his father, who had threatened to recall him home.  ‘Follow,’ Sir Henry had written, ’the direction of your most loving brother.  Imitate his virtues, exercyses, studyes and accyons, hee ys a rare ornament of thys age.’  This letter was written at a critical time in Sidney’s life.  With great courage and with the noblest intentions, though with extraordinary want of tact, for he was only in his twenty-sixth year, he had presumed to dissuade Queen Elizabeth from marrying the Duke of Anjou.  The Queen had been greatly offended, and he had had to retire from Court.  The greater