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 which are its chief defect were
due to the unsettled condition of the language, and to the influence of
foreign works, which the general love of learning had made familiar to
cultivated Englishmen. The position of the "Arcadia" in fiction is
established by the exquisite descriptions of nature and the life-like
sketches of character which will often reward the patient reader. That
prolixity, which more than any other cause has made the work obsolete,
and, as a whole, unreadable, was a recommendation rather than an
objection at the time of publication. The "Arcadia," standing almost
alone in the department of fiction, and far superior to its few
competitors, took the place of a small circulating library. A spirit of
lofty ideality pervades the work of Sir Philip Sidney, which is
expressive of the aspirations of his time. In the fictions of that age
is to be seen a constant attempt, not always successful, to dignify
life, to exalt the beautiful, and to conceal or condemn the base.
Everyday life was not tempting to the writer, because it contained too
much that was repulsive. The story teller and the poet painted amid
unreal scenes that happiness and virtue which they thought more easily
to be conceived in an ideal land of knights and shepherds, than amidst
the cares and dangers of their own existence.[81]