from you has great weight with me; and, to speak candidly, I am in some measure doubting whether some one, more suspicious than wise, has not whispered to you something unfavourable concerning me; which, though you did not give entire credit to it, you nevertheless, prudently and as a friend, thought right to suggest for my consideration. Should this have been the case, I entreat you to state the matter to me in plain terms, that I may be able to acquit myself before you, of whose good opinion I am most desirous: and should it only prove to have been a joke or a piece of friendly advice, I pray you nevertheless to let me know; since everything from you will always be no less acceptable to me than the things that I hold most dear.[1]
If the former letter—which must have been written subsequent to SIDNEY'S return home on the 31st of May 1575 though "written long ago"—could be recovered, we might then know for certain who this Lady was, to whom he thus significantly refers. After the expression in WATERHOUSE'S letter, there is a high presumption that it was STELLA: and this presumption is increased to a moral certainty by SIDNEY'S own words in the following Sonnet at page 519.
I might—unhappy word, O me!—I might,
And then would not, or could not see my bliss:
Till now, wrapt in a most infernal night,
I find, how heavenly day, wretch! did I miss.
Heart rent thyself! thou dost thyself but right.
No lovely PARIS made thy HELEN his;
No force, no fraud robbed thee of thy delight;
No fortune, of thy fortune author is;
But to myself, myself did give the blow;
While too much wit (forsooth) so troubled me,
That I, respects for both our sakes must show.
And yet could not by rising morn foresee
How fair a day was near. O punisht eyes!
That I had been more foolish or more wise!
- ↑ The correspondence of Sir PHILIP SIDNEY and HUBERT LANGUET. Ed. by S. A. PEARS, M.A., p. 144. Ed. 1845.
