bite it off, it seemed, that where she had beene long in making of
a rose with her hands, she would in an instant make roses with her
lips; as the lillies seemed to haue their whitenesse rather of the
hand that made them, than of the matter whereof they were made;
& that they grew there by the suns of her eyes, and were refreshed
by the most * * * comfortable ayre, which an unawares sigh might
bestow upon them.[74]

Charles I. passed many hours of his prison life in reading the
"Arcadia," and Milton[75] accused him of stealing a prayer of Pamela
to insert in the "Eikon Basilike": "And that in no serious book, but
the vain amatorious poem of Sir Philip Sidney's 'Arcadia'; a book in
that kind, full of worth and wit, but among religious thoughts and
duties not worthy to be named: nor to be read at any time without good
caution, much less in time of trouble and affliction to be a
Christian's prayerbook." This prayer is in itself so beautiful, coming
from the lips of Pamela, and the greater part of it suits so perfectly
the unhappy circumstances of King Charles, that at the risk of unduly
multiplying our extracts from the "Arcadia," it will be inserted
here:--

And therewith kneeling downe, euen where shee stood, she thus said:
O All-seeing Light, and eternall Life of all things, to whom
nothing is either so great, that it may resist; or so small, that
it is condemned: looke vpon my misery with thine eye of mercie, and
let thine infinite power vouchsafe to limite out some proportion of
deliuerance vnto me, as to thee shall seeme most conuenient. Let
not injurie, O Lord, triumph ouer me, and let my faults by thy hand
bee corrected, and make not mine vnjust enemy the minister of thy
justice. But yet, my God, if in thy wisdome this be the aptest