Petrarch might have written if Petrarch had been born a fool. It is the
impetus that I ask of you: the will to try.

Lastly, Gentlemen, do not set me down as one who girds at your
preoccupation, up here, with bodily games; for, indeed, I hold
'gymnastic' to be necessary as 'music' (using both words in the Greek
sense) for the training of such youths as we desire to send forth from
Cambridge. But I plead that they should be balanced, as they were in the
perfect young knight with whose words I will conclude to-day:--

Having this day my horse, my hand, my lance
Guided so well that I obtained the prize,
Both by the judgment of the English eyes
And of some sent by that sweet enemy France;
Horsemen my skill in horsemanship advance,
Town-folk my strength, a daintier judge applies
His praise to sleight which from good use doth rise;
Some lucky wits impute it but to chance;
Others, because of both sides I do take
My blood from them who did excel in this,
Think Nature me a man-at-arms did make.
How far they shot awry! the true cause is,
Stella looked on; and from her heavenly face
Sent forth the beams which made so fair my race.

'Untrue,' you say? Well, there is truth of emotion as well as of fact;
and who is there among you but would fain be able not only to win such a
guerdon but to lay it in such wise at your lady's feet?

That then was Philip Sidney, called the peerless one of his age; and