[Footnote:
Lodge, in his _Defence of Poetry, Musick, and Stage Plays_ (1579 or
1580), is hardly less scurrilous. "There came into my hand lately a
little (would God a wittye) pamphelet.... Being by me advisedly wayed,
I find it the oftscome of imperfections, the writer fuller of words
than judgement, the matter certainely as ridiculus as serius."--In
_Ancient Critical Essays_, ii. 5.]
From this war of words Sidney turned loftily aside. Pointedly challenged
at the outset--for the first and second pamphlets of Gosson had, without
permission, been dedicated to "the right noble gentleman, Maister
Philip Sidney"--he seldom alludes to the arguments, and never once
mentions the name of Gosson. He wrote to satisfy his own mind, and not
to win glory in the world of letters. And thus his _Apologie_, though
it seems to have been composed while the controversy was still fresh
in men's memory, was not published until nearly ten years after his
death (1595). It was not written for controversy, but for truth. From
the first page it rises into the atmosphere of calm, in which alone
great questions can be profitably discussed.
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