Page:Sir Walter Raleigh by Thoreau, Henry David,.djvu/117

 NOTES

From the first tentative draft of the MS. of Thoreau's Sir Walter Raleigh

1. Another and kindred spirit contemporary with Raleigh, who survives yet more exclusively in his reputation, rather than in his works, and has been the subject perhaps of even more and more indiscriminate praise, is Sir Philip Sidney; a man who was no less a presence to his contemporaries, though we now look in vain in his works for satisfactory traces of his greatness. Who, dying at the age of thirty-two, having left no great work behind him, or the fame of a single illustrious exploit, has yet left the rumor of a character for heroic impulses and gentle behavior which bids fair to survive the longer lives and more illustrious deeds of many a worthy else, the splendor of whose reputation seems to have blinded his critics to the faults of his writings. So that we find his Arcadia spoken of with vague and dubious praise as "a book most famous for rich conceits and splendor of courtly expressions." With regard to whom also this reason is assigned why no monument should be erected to him,