interest as the first important example of the union of pastoral
with heroic romance, out of which came presently, in France, a
distinct school of fiction. But the genius of its author was at
play, it followed designedly the fashions of the hour in verse and
prose, which tended to extravagance of ingenuity. The "Defence of
Poesy" has higher interest as the first important piece of literary
criticism in our literature. Here Sidney was in earnest. His style
is wholly free from the euphuistic extravagance in which readers of
his time delighted: it is clear, direct, and manly; not the less,
but the more, thoughtful and refined for its unaffected simplicity.
As criticism it is of the true sort; not captious or formal, still
less engaged, as nearly all bad criticism is, more or less, with
indirect suggestion of the critic himself as the one owl in a world
of mice. Philip Sidney's care is towards the end of good
literature. He looks for highest aims, and finds them in true work,
and hears God's angel in the poet's song.

The writing of this piece was probably suggested to him by the fact
that an earnest young student, Stephen Gosson, who came from his
university about the time when the first theatres were built, and
wrote plays, was turned by the bias of his mind into agreement with
the Puritan attacks made by the pulpit on the stage (arising chiefly
from the fact that plays were then acted on Sundays), and in 1579
transferred his pen from service of the players to attack on them,
in a piece which he called "The School of Abuse, containing a
Pleasant Invective against Poets, Pipers, Players, Jesters, and such
like Caterpillars of a Commonwealth; setting up the Flag of Defiance
to their mischievous exercise, and overthrowing their Bulwarks, by
Profane Writers, Natural Reason, and Common Experience: a Discourse
as pleasant for Gentlemen that favour Learning as profitable for all