Excerpt from Certaine SonetsIt would in fact be surprising if the fame of Sidney had not given his sonnets a special attraction apart from their intrinsic quality, for England has hardly produced since his day an other hero equally noble and equally lovable. From his youth Philip Sidney was a rare spirit, admired and emulated even by his elders. His parents, themselves born to great names and accustomed to great dignities, seem to have considered him the brightest ornament of their lives, and his father spoke of him as Lumen familia sua.' His preceptor at Cam bridge, who could hardly have known him long, and his friend F ulke Greville, Lord Brooke, who was a life-longfriend and intimate companion, united in thiriking their rela tion to Sidney a thing so memorable in their lives as to deserve recording in their epitaphs: the one had it engraved on his tomb that he had been Sidney's instructor, the other ordered mscnbed over him the line Friend to Sir Philip Sidney.The chief statesmen of the time regar'ded him as England's rising hope, poets and philosophers sought his company, scholars presented their theories, engineers their plans, and artists their paintings for his criticism. His reputation abroad was no less brilliant than at home. When the throne of Poland fell vacant, rumor nominated him for the succes sion, William of Orange wrote in congratulation to Queen Elizabeth upon having in him a counselor of state so ripe and wise, Giordano Bruno, the philosopher-theologian, and Henri Estienne (stephanus), the famous scholar-printer, each dedicated to him two books, in this following the ex ample of Sidney's fellow-countrymen, for Spenser had be fore this dedicated to him the Shepherd: Calerza'ar as had Hakluyt the first volume of his Voyager and Stephen Gos son his School ofdhwe, which had drawn from Sidney the Apologie for Poetrie.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.