There in one famous
example they were shortly to excite the enthusiasm of the knight of La
Mancha--'The reason of the unreason which is done to my reason in such
manner enfeebles my reason that with reason I lament your beauty'--a
sentence which one is sometimes tempted to imagine Sidney must have set
before him as a model. Thus it would appear that, for their essential
elements, Euphuism and Arcadianism, though distinct, alike sought their
models, direct or indirect, in the Spanish literature of the day. Almost
any passage, chosen at random, will illustrate Sidney's style. Observe the
balance of clauses in the following sentence from Kalander's speech, which
inclines perhaps towards Euphuism:
I am no herald to enquire of mens pedegrees, it sufficeth me if I know
their vertues, which, if this young mans face be not a false witnes, doe
better apparrell his minde, then you have done his body. (1590, fol.
8v.)
Or again, as an instance of the jingle of words, take the following from
the steward's narration:
I thinke you thinke, that these perfections meeting, could not choose
but find one another, and delight in that they found, for likenes of
manners is likely in reason to drawe liking with affection; mens actions
doo not alwaies crosse with reason: to be short, it did so in deed. (ib.
fol. 20.)
Of Sidney's power of description the stock example is his account of the
Arcadian landscape (fol.
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