"
"Ah," said the little quarto, with a heavy sigh, "I see how it is;
these modern scribblers have superseded all the good old authors. I
suppose nothing is read now-a-days but Sir Philip Sydney's Arcadia,
Sackville's stately plays, and Mirror for Magistrates, or the
fine-spun euphuisms of the 'unparalleled John Lyly.'"
"There you are again mistaken," said I; "the writers whom you
suppose in vogue, because they happened to be so when you were last in
circulation, have long since had their day. Sir Philip Sydney's
Arcadia, the immortality of which was so fondly predicted by his
admirers,* and which, in truth, is full of noble thoughts, delicate
images, and graceful turns of language, is now scarcely ever
mentioned. Sackville has strutted into obscurity; and even Lyly,
though his writings were once the delight of a court, and apparently
perpetuated by a proverb, is now scarcely known even by name. A
whole crowd of authors who wrote and wrangled at the time, have
likewise gone down, with all their writings and their controversies.
Wave after wave of succeeding literature has rolled over them, until
they are buried so deep, that it is only now and then that some
industrious diver after fragments of antiquity brings up a specimen
for the gratification of the curious.
* Live ever sweete booke; the simple image of his gentle witt, and
the golden-pillar of his noble courage; and ever notify unto the world
that thy writer was the secretary of eloquence, the breath of the
muses, the honey-bee of the daintyest flowers of witt and arte, the
pith of morale and intellectual virtues, the arme of Bellona in the
field, the tonge of Suada in the chamber, the sprite of Practise in
esse, and the paragon of excellency in print.
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