expressed; and the vices and unruly appetites that oppose themselves against the same to be beaten down and overcome." This splendid opening, which Spenser never surpassed or even equalled, introduced to a learned and romantic court by the acknowledged guides of literary taste, took at once its indisputable rank among the poetry of England. Spenser's star shot to the zenith, and scarcely paled its fires when Shakspeare's followed it. "The Faëry Queen," says Hallam, "became at once the delight of every accomplished gentleman, the model of every poet, the solace of every scholar." The author, not unconscious of merit, but unspoiled by applause, returned to his castle in fairy-haunted Ireland, and encouraged anew the poetic impulse. "The XII. morall vertues" still stimulated his imagination; but he turned aside to honor the memory and lament the loss of Sidney. The collection of elegiac poems denominated "Astrophel," bespeak a true mourning, though expressed in the quaint and formal taste of the day. Such verses as this, however, belong to the nature of all ages:

"Was never eye did see that face,

Was never ear did hear that tongue,
Was never mind did mind his grace,

That ever thought the trave! long;

But eyes and ears, and every thought

Were with his sweet perfections caught."

'Daphnaida," an Elegy on the daughter of Henry, Lord Howard, appeared in 1591, in which year also, Ponsonby, the bookseller of the Faëry Queen, published a collection of minor pieces, all that he could find of Spenser's, to catch the breeze of public favor-and Astrophel, and "Colin Clout's come Home Again"—an account of the poet's visit to England, given under feigned names-appeared in 1595. In the latter year appeared also the "Amoretti," or Sonnets, inspired by the fortunate Elizabeth, who is thus described in one of them :

"Fair is my love, when her fair golden hairs
With the loose wind ye waving chance to mark;
Fair, when the rose in her red cheeks appears;
Or in her eyes the fire of love does spark;
Fair, when her breast, like a rich laden bark
With precious merchandize she forth doth lay ;
Fair, when that cloud of pride, which oft doth dark
Her goodly light, with smiles she drives away;

But fairest she, when so she doth display
The gate with pearls and rubies richly dight;
Through which her words so wise do make their way,
To bear the message of her gentle spright;

The rest be works of Nature's wonderment;

But this the work of heart's astonishment."

In 1596, were published the fourth, fifth, and sixth books of the Faëry Queen, with a reprint of the first three. Six books, then, comprise all that we have of the legends of the twelve moral virtues and their knights; if we except the two imperfect cantos of "Mutabilitie," which are considered a fragment of the lost "Legend of Constancie."

Some ascribe this imperfect condition of the great poem, as compared with the original design, to an accident which occurred in the course of Spenser's hasty return to England in 1598, on occasion of the breaking out of troubles in Ireland. The estate granted him by the crown, formed part of the forfeited possessions of the Earls of Desmond. The titular heir of that family headed a body of insurgents who attempted to expel the English from Ireland, and Kilcolman castle naturally became a point of attack. Spenser and his family fled; and such was the haste and disorder of this unhappy flight from a home of peace and love, that one of the poet's children is reported to have been left behind, and burned in the house, which was fired by the insurgents. Some have believed that the remaining six books of the Faëry Queen were lost in the confusion of wretchedness; but

this idea is not sanctioned by the best authorities, who consider it more probable that the work never was completed by its author. Judging by the time occupied in the composition of the first six books, the period allowed is quite too short for the completion of six more. The fourth, fifth, and sixth books are confessedly inferior to the original three; and it is thence concluded that the poet found the subject, as planned, too heavy for him; and wisely forbore to attempt the entire development of an allegory which, judging by what we have, would have stretched out almost to the "crack of doom,"* wearying the reader in proportion as it overtasked the writer.† Spenser, with all his dignified sense of power, was a modest man, not likely to overrate his own ability; and with taste equal to the strength of his imagination, he was as little likely to be blind to the falling off observable in the poem. He would naturally note the period when labor began to take the place of impulse; and, the Queen being his first great effort, he would not probably overrate his creations, as did Milton, when self-esteem had been fed to the uttermost by the transcendant merit of the work on which he had expended the flower of his strength. These, and other considerations, added to the entire lack of testimony as to the existence of more of the poem than we now possess, are deemed conclusive as to its having been completed beyond the sixth book.

A few sad words will now conclude this unsatisfactory account of the third name in English literature. The disastrous flight from Ireland, the poverty which ensued upon the loss of the Irish property, and, above all, the death of the child by so dreadful

* One Canto of the Faëry Queen is as long as some books of the Iliad or Æneid; one Book therefore, consisting of twelve cantos, is as large as an ordinary epic.

† Sir John Stradling says, however, that part of Spenser's MSS. were burnt, and the "Legend of Constancie" was actually published in 1609, as a part of those which had been saved.

an accident, would seem to have been too much for the sensitive heart of the poet. Some have imagined him as suffering the extreme of destitution after his return to London, but this seems impossible. Where was Gabriel Harvey? Where Raleigh, who, though grasping, was generous too? And Essex who gave him a splendid funeral, and appeared at it himself as a mourner? Spenser must have lived at least a year in London, and these and other friends must have been acquainted with his condition. His pension of fifty pounds was larger than it seems to us now, and he had done nothing to forfeit the favor of the queen, but much to glorify her reign. We will not, therefore, adopt the painful suggestion that Spenser's fate resembled that of so many poets, in the penurious misery of its close. There is no hint of his having been accused of prodigality; his life was characterized by a high and pure morality, and no student of his character and works can doubt that as a husband and father the poet, gave way to the man. We choose, therefore, the more tolerable

belief that his "poverty was only such as contrasted with the comfort and abundance of his beloved home; his misery the loss of that home, and the sight of the dear ones on whose account he had chiefly prized it. Yet we fear his premature death must be ascribed to the wrench from so much that he loved, the interruption of his darling occupations, and the sense that the world was to be begun anew for the support of those so dear to him, acting upon a heart too finely strung to endure the rude blasts of fortune. So says the concurrent voice of authority and tradition, and we must receive the truth, mournful as it is. To one who was born and lived a poet, in the highest and most comprehensive sense of the term, we must not look for stoical or even practical philosophy.

He died, not as 66 a shock of corn fully ripe," but like the rich grain storm-blasted. His remains were laid in Westminster Abbey, and near those of "Father Chaucer," it is said at

his own request. Poets bore the pall that covered him, and threw into the grave tributary verses with the pens that wrote them. The noble Essex appeared as chief mourner, and we love his memory for the comely act. England's best and fairest wept for the romantic poet. He was not unappreciated during his life; but at his death he was ranked among the true-born sons of heaven❤

Thirty years after his death, Anne, Countess of Dorset, erected a monument to his memory. Queen Elizabeth is said to have ordered one, but some envious soul-not Burghley, for he died a year before the poet-intercepted the intended benignity. Browne, in "Britannia's Pastorals," ascribes the failure to "curst avarice" of some "factor" employed by the Queen, and tells us the tribute was to have been

"A pyramis, whose head, like wingéd fame,

Should pierce the clouds, yea, seem the stars to kiss ;"

and he curses bitterly the wretch who "robbed our Colin of his monument." The countess's monument was defaced during the civil wars, and restored to its present condition, at the expense of Pembroke College, in 1778. The inscription, which was at first in Latin, calls Spenser "facile princeps" of the poets of his time. The English one which replaced this when the tablet was restored, declares that his divine spirit needs no other witness than the works which he left behind him; an opinion in which we of this age heartily concur, believing that no poet ever left more evident testimony of his love for virtue and religion, and his desire that all men should be persuaded to be "holy, and just, and true," as the best and only means of happi

ness.

It has been well said of Milton, who owned Spenser for a master in art, that his "genius had angelic wings, and fed on manna," and we may say as much of Spenser, however he may