began his work by translating from foreign tongues into his own. His first original production was "The Shepherd's Calendar," containing twelve eclogues or pastoral poems; in which he assumes the name of Colin Clout, which he used afterward, in various works, in speaking of himself. He was in temper and disposition a Puritan and was recognized as such by the chiefs of the Puritan party; they seeing in his allegory a purpose to forward the glory of God as interpreted by their ideas.

Spenser was appointed - probably through Sidney's influence-private secretary to Lord Grey de Wilton, who went to Ireland as Lord Deputy of that distracted and unhappy country. There he wrote his only prose work, “A view of the present State of Ireland." In this we do not find, as we might expect from his nature, a gentle and merciful policy recommended in dealing with the savage islanders. The opinion he expresses of the native Irish coincides with the brutal saying setting forth the views held by certain western frontiersmen concerning the American savage; namely: "A good Indian is a dead Indian."

It was in the intervals of his work as secretary to the Lord Deputy, that he wrote the first three books of the "Faërie Queen." He was living in Kilcolman Castle, an abode which had been assigned to him from the confiscated estate of the Earl of Desmond, in a lovely spot on the bank of the picturesque river Mulla. Raleigh visited him there and heard him read part of the "Faërie Queen"; and on the strength of his admiration for its wonderful beauty and interest, prevailed on its author to go back to England with him, to "push his fortune at court." Nothing came of it-nothing except the often-quoted stanza of fine vituperation directed against patronage, which in these days is represented by "office-seeking":

Full little knowest thou, that hast not tried,
What hell it is in suing long to bide:

To lose good days that might be better spent;
To waste long nights in pensive discontent;
To speed today, to be put back tomorrow;
To feed on hope, to pine with fear and sorrow;;
To have thy Prince's grace, yet want her peers';
To have thy asking, yet wait many years;
To fret thy soul with crosses and with cares;
To eat thy heart with comfortless despairs;
To fawn, to crouch, to wait, to ride, to run,
To spend, to give, to want, to be undone.
Unhappy wight, born to disastrous end,

That doth his life in so long tendance spend!

The world of Elizabeth's time was quick to recognize the quality of the "Faërie Queen," and to bestow on it that praise to which no writer is indifferent. The great critic Hallam says of it that it became at once "the delight of every accomplished gentleman, the model of every poet, the solace of every scholar." Probably no poem ever took the literary and social world so completely by storm; with the possible exception of Byron's "Childe Harold." Spenser wrote a gay, spirited account of his trip, "Colin Clout's Come Home Again," in which, in his assumed character of a shepherd, Colin tells how Raleigh, shepherd of the ocean, caused him to "wend with him, his Cynthia for to see." In Cynthia one recognizes Elizabeth, who was sun, moon, and stars to her admiring courtiers. He describes England, thequeen herself, many celebrated persons in public life, and some living poets. Among the latter he introduces Shakespeare, whose name, he says, like himself, doth heroically sound.

Between the publication of the first three books of the "Faërie Queen" in 1590, and the next three in 1596, he married; and at this time we have his epithalamium and eighty-eight sonnets or "amoretti," as love-songs were then called. We can not doubt that he had a happy home, for every allusion--and there are many-which his verses make to the joys of an ideal family circle, gives the impression

that Spenser's was one which satisfied all his heart's desires. But the peaceful, gentle, dutiful, poetic course of his life was doomed to feel a terrible, heartrending blow; a catastrophe which perhaps caused or hastened its ending. A bloody rebellion broke out in Ireland, and Kilcolman Castlewas naturally a main point of attack. It was carried "by storm," a phrase of war which means that all within was at the mere mercy of the stormers, whereas a capitulation without final assault carries terms of mitigation of the horrors of defeat. It was sacked and burned, with circumstances from which the imagination shrinks in horror. Spencer with his wife and two sons escaped during the tumult; but, according to a tradition which is generally accepted as truthful, an infant child perished by violence or by fire.

If, as is supposed, Spenser had been occupied during the last preceding years in writing the remaining six books. planned in the scheme of the "Faërie Queen," the precious lines were lost in the catastrophe. We have only the first six. The silence of despair seems to have come upon the grand and gentle poet; and even his friends have left no sign whereby to do more than guess at the closing scene. He died in 1599, it is said, of a broken heart. His bones. were laid (by his own request) in Westminster Abbey, near to those of "Father Chaucer," where his tomb may still be seen in the sacred "Poets' Corner."

The plan of the "Faërie Queen" included twelve books, displaying the twelve moral virtues. The six he treated were holiness, temperance, purity, friendship, justice, and courtesy. He even speaks, in his preface, of twelve other books, to treat the twelve "political virtues," whatever that may mean probably loyalty to the powers that be, whether worthy or otherwise; battle-courage in whatever cause; unquestioning adherence to the established faith, etc.; such being the ideal of good citizenship in Spenser's age and station.

Doubtless the volumes grew in bulk, in the writing, beyond the author's original idea of length; for even the six books finished are of a voluminousness going far beyond our latter-day standard. Spenser's use of language was so lavish-though so admirable-as to lead us to think of the modern slur which finds expression in the epithet "wordy."

Yet this would be a flagrant injustice when applied to so great a work as Spenser's. It has been well said that he created not only his characters but the very ground they stand on; his scene is independent of all time and space; he has nothing to do with history or geography; the whole world of imagination is his theatre of action. We must indeed imbibe some drop of his spirit before we are capable of flying with its flight; that done, he lifts us to the skies and, like a true Merlin, carries us whither he will.

not.

Popular laziness has led to popular neglect of the "Faërie Queen." Men look at the splendid structure as a beautiful edifice of labyrinth, wherein they enter not for fear of losing their clue and wandering whither they know Hazlitt says: "Some persons look at the allegory as if they thought it would bite them. . . . This is very idle. If they do not meddle with the allegory, the allegory will not meddle with them." In truth the gorgeous descriptions, the plaintive tenderness, the exquisite adaptation of sound to sense, are themselves "a thing of beauty and a joy forever," while the portrayal of the loathsomeness of sin and the beauty of holiness; the tales of adventure, so thrilling that one almost loses breath in the reading; all these have their worth quite outside any allegorical unity which served the poet as a thread whereon to string his gems of thought.

Among the poets of lesser note in Spenser's time was William Warner, whose "Albion's England" is a lively poetical history of England from the Deluge (!) down to Warner's own time. It is not a great poem, but it is full of incidents,