Note 63 — PENSHURST, KENT.
Reading edition
It has been the fortune of the “Arcadia” to be too highly valued in one age, and far too much underrated in another. Immediately after its publication it was received with unbounded applause:—“From it was taken the language of compliment and love, it gave a tinge of similitude to the colloquial and courtly dialect of the time, and from thence its influence was communicated to the lucubrations of the Poet, the Historian, and the Divine.” The Book is a mixture of what has been termed the heroic and the pastoral Romance, interspersed with interludes and episodes, and details the various and marvellous adventures of two friends, Musidorus and Pyrocles. It was not intended to be published to the world; but was written merely to pleasure the Countess of Pembroke—“a principal ornament to the family of the Sidneis.”