Thestylis," written soon after Sidney's death in October, 1586, was entered at Stationers' Hall for publication in 1587, but no copy has reached us of a separate issue. Bryskett was a near friend to Spenser as well as to Sidney, and Spenser first printed in 1595 his "Mourning Muse," together with other unsigned verses of lament that have been ascribed to Matthew Roydon, at the end of “Colin Clout's Come Home Again." "Astrophel," as published in 1596, opens with Spenser's pastoral Introduction. That tells of the Arcadian shepherd Astrophel who loved Stella, sought savage prey in a wild forest abroad, was wounded in the thigh by one of "the beastly rout," died mourned by Stella, and was joined with her by change of both into one flower.

"That hearbe of some Starlight is cald by name

Of others Penthea, though not so well;

But thou wherever thou dost find the same
From this day forth do call it Astrophell."

It is described as having petals that grow red and fade to blue, with a well-formed image of a star in the midst.* Spenser's introduction was dedicated to the Countess of Essex, Sidney's widow, now in her second marriage, and there was no unfitness to her mind, or to any mind, in the poetical association of Astrophel with Stella.

Laments follow of shepherds and shepherdesses for dead Astrophel, and "first his sister that Clorinda hight

"The gentlest shepheardesse that lives this day
And most resembling both in shape and spright
Her brother deare, began this doleful lay."

After the poem by Sidney's sister, the Countess of Pem

*In Burnett's Medical Botany this plant is thought to be Veronica Chamadrys. Starlights" is a South Buckinghamshire name for Geranium molle, which takes the change of colour, and whose flower has a star of white lines on the petals, whence its other old name, Dovefoot.

broke, there follows Bryskett's "Mourning Muse of Thestylis." Next in the collection is a "pastorall Æglogue upon the death of Sir Phillip Sidney, Knight, &c.," between Lycon and Colin-was it written by Sir Edward Dyer?--each shepherd beginning his alternation of lament with the words "Philisides is dead." Then follow the "Elegie, or friend's passion for his Astrophel," written by Matthew Roydon, and the collection is closed with two "Epitaphs" which had been printed in "The Phoenix Nest" of 1593, and are known to have been written by Sir Walter Raleigh and one of Sidney's dearest friends, Fulke Greville.

There is one spirit in the lines last quoted from the Hymn to Heavenly Beauty, and in the lines not published

The frag-
ment of a
Seventh
Book of

"The Faerie
Queene."

until after Spenser's death as fragment of a Book of Constancy, that was to have become part of "The Faerie Queene." If those lines of the Book of Constancy were written after the publishing of the four Hymns of Earthly and of Heavenly Love and Beauty, they still breathe a like sense of rest in the Lord, of faith in the immutable, the constancy of God that underlies all change.

Although a fragment of the Book of Constancy, this piece is a complete poem in itself. Its indicated place in the book for which it was written, as covering the sixth and seventh cantos and opening the eighth, is not to be overlooked. Spenser seems to have begun his seventh book by preparation for that eighth canto in which the intervention of Prince Arthur would help the knight, by grace of the Allwise God with whom is no variableness neither shadow of turning. Before adventures of the knights were planned, Spenser seemed to have shaped here an allegory of the fixed purposes of God, in a world whereof change claimed to be the mistress. And he appears to have done this as distinct preparation for the theme of the eighth canto.

The sixth canto would break off from the knights' adven

tures, with beginning of an episode to tell how Changean earth-born Titaness-claimed rule over the gods. Among men, she had turned life to death. She climbed then to the circle of the moon, where Cynthia reigns in everlasting glory, sought to pluck her from her ivory throne, darkened the skies, and caused appeal to Jove from gods and men, who dreaded the return of Chaos. The Titaness replied proudly to Mercury, who summoned her to leave the moon and come to answer for herself before high Jove,

"that in evil hour

IIe from his Jove such message to her brought,

To bid her leave fair Cynthia's silver bower;

Sith she his Jove and him esteeméd nought,

No more than Cynthia's self; but all their kingdoms sought."

In presence of Jove, though inly quaking, she answered. boldly for herself. Daughter of Earth, the child of Chaos, she was greater in blood than all the gods, though wrongfully exiled from Heaven. She disdained Jove's warning, and appealed against Jove to the God of Nature.

"Eftsoones the time and place appointed were

Where all, both heavenly powers and earthly wights,
Before great Nature's presence should appear

For trial of their titles and best rights:
That was, to weet, upon the highest hights

Of Arlo Hill (who knows not Arlo Hill?)

That is the highest head in all men's sights
Of my old father Mole, whom Shepheards quill
Renowméd hath with hymnes fit for a rurall skill.”

The canto closes with poetic fancies of a happy time.

"when Ireland flourishéd in fame

Of wealths and goodnesse far above the rest

Of all that beare the British Islands' name."

The gods were often there, and Cynthia chose Arlo Hill for her delight. Then, in a tale of river-nymphs and Faunus,

Spenser fabled a cause for the rocks and stones in the bed of the Fanchin.

In the seventh canto, the Titaness and the gods plead before veiled Nature upon Arlo Hill.

"So hard it is for any living wight

All her array and vestiments to tell,
That old Dan Geffrey (in whose gentle spright
The pure well-head of poesy did dwell)
In his Fowles parley durst not with it mel,
But it transferd to Alane, who, he thought,

Had in his Plaint of kinde describ'd it wel."

Dame Mutability pleaded before Nature that she ruled changes of Earth from life to death, from death to life again ; the changes of unstable Waters; and unsteady Air; of Fire, too, that decays and dies if it be not fed by the death of others, "nought leaving but their barren ashes without seed." The Titaness described the changes of the Seasons over which she rules, and of the twelve Months, each in its turn; the changes also of the Hours, and Life and Death. Times change, and all this lower world is subject still to Mutability. Jove asked, Who causes all the change of Time? The Titaness denied the power of the gods, and showed them in their Planets changeable, with alteration also in the motions of their spheres. Nature decides

"that all things stedfastnesse do hate
And changéd be; yet, being rightly wayd,
They are not changéd from their first estate,
But by their change their being do dilate,

And turning to themselves at length againe
Do worke their own perfection so by fate :

Then ouer them Change doth not rule and raigne,

But they raigne ouer Change, and do their states maintaine."

The last words of Nature point to a time when

"all shall changéd bee,

And from thenceforth none no more change shall see.”

This argument in the sixth and seventh cantos leads to the two stanzas with which Spenser opened the eighth book, in preparation for his allegory of the intervention of Prince Arthur. The last thought in those stanzas--expressed, perhaps, in the last words written by Spenser as a poet

was

"Of that same time when no more change shall be,
But stedfast rest of all things firmely stayd

Upon the pillours of Eternity,

That is contrayr to Mutabilitie;

For all that moveth doth in Change delight,

But thenceforth all shall rest eternally

With Him that is the God of Sabaoth hight :

O, that great Sabaoth God, grant me that Sabaoth's sight!'

"View of the Present State of Ireland."

It remains only to speak of the "View of the Present State of Ireland," which Queen Elizabeth and her statesmen read in Spenser's handwriting in 1596, but which was not printed until 1633, and of which the theme points to the sorrows of the last year of the poet's life. Spenser's "View of the Present State of Ireland" was in the form of a prose dialogue between Eudoxus and Irenæus, whose names imply that one of them is a seeker of good doctrine and the other a seeker of peace. Spenser advocates-like his old chief, Arthur, Lord Grey of Wilton-unpitying severity in the suppression of rebellion, and does not shut his eyes to what this means. His Irenæus, the peacemaker, says to Eudoxus: "When you think that good and sound laws might amend and reform things amiss there, you think surely amiss. For it is vain to prescribe laws where no man careth for the keeping of them, nor feareth the danger for the breaking of them. But all the realm is first to be reformed, and laws afterwards to be made for the keeping and continuing it in that reformed estate." "How then," Eudoxus asks, "do you think is the reformation thereof to begin, if not by laws and ordinances?"