same manner as Blandamour has Duessa, but is notwithstanding soon after expressly stated to be unprovided with any particular lady-love for the present. The figure seems to have taken successively two distinct shapes under the poet's forming fancy, or to have been originally designed for something different from what she eventually

turns out.

Canto II. (54 stanzas).-"Firebrand of hell, first tined (or kindled) in Phlegethon by a thousand furies," exclaims the poet in commencing this stanza, "is wicked Discord".

whose small sparks once blown

None but a god or godlike man can slake:

Such as was Orpheus, that, when strife was grown
Amongst those famous imps of Greece, did take

His silver harp in hand and shortly friends them make.

When the story is resumed we find ourselves in company of Blandamour and Paridel, and their two female fellow-travellers-"the one a fiend, the other an incarnate devil." It may be remembered that in the Eighth Canto of the last Book the snowy lady formed after the likeness of Florimel, after falling into the hands of Braggadoccio, was carried off from that vaunting dastard by a knight who is there left unnamed. This knight, who, we are now informed, is called the bold Sir Ferraugh, is the next person whom the four encounter, riding along in high delight with his fair-seeming prize. He is attacked and overthrown by Blandamour, and the false Florimel passes to a new proprietor. She is more expert than Blandamour himself in every subtile sleight, and, although he

by his false allurements' wily drafta

Had thousand women of their love beraft,b

yet he is now completely deceived and taken in, and every day becomes more enamoured and enslaved. Ate, however, after a time stirs up Paridel to demand his share of the lady, according to a covenant which he says

they had made to divide between them whatever spoil or prey should be taken by either. A long and desperate fight ensues, which the poet supposes might have gone on till this day, if there had not come up by chance another notable personage of the last Book, the Squire of Dames, who, well knowing them both of old, prevails upon the two combatants, though not without difficulty, to suspend their animosity. The Squire is greatly delighted to see the snowy lady-" for none alive but joyed in Florimel," and he, as well as all others, had thought her dead or lost. He tells them that Satyrane having found her girdle, which he had ever since worn for her sake, had on that account excited the envy and displeasure of many other knights; to put an end to which he had lately proclaimed a solemn feast and tournay, "to which," he adds, "all knights with them their ladies are to bring:"

"And of them all she that is fairest found

Shall have that golden girdle for reward;

And of those knights who is most stout on ground
Shall to that fairest lady be prefard.c

Since therefore she herself is now your ward,

To you that ornament of her's pertains,

Against all those that challenge it, to guard,

And save her honour with your venturous pains;

That shall you win more glory than ye here find gains." This prospect reunites the two, for the present at least, so that they ride along in outward harmony as before, though their friendship, as indeed it always had been, is but hollow and precarious. Thus proceeding, they overtake two knights riding close beside each other as if in intimate converse, with their two ladies similarly associated not far behind them; and the Squire being sent forward to ascertain who they are, comes back with the intelligence that they are "two of the prowest knights in Fairy Land," Cambel and Triamond, and that the ladies are Canace and Cambin "their two lovers dear." The poet now prepares himself for what he is about to

e Preferred.

relate by invocation of his greatest English predeces

sor:

Whilome, as antique stories tellen us,

Those two were foes the fellonest d on ground,
And battle made the dreadest dangerous
That ever shrilling trumpet did resound;
Though now their acts be nowhere to be found,
As that renowmed poet them compiled
With warlike numbers and heroic sound,
Dan Chaucer, well of English undefiled,
On fame's eternal beadroll worthy to be filed.
But wicked Time, that all good thoughts doth waste,
And works of noblest wits to nought outwear,
That famous moniment hath quite defaced,
And robbed the world of threasure endless dear,
The which mote have enriched all us here.
O cursed eld, the canker-worm of writs!
How may these rhymes, so rude as doth appear,
Hope to endure, sith works of heavenly wits

Are quite devoured, and brought to nought by little
bits!

Then pardon, O most sacred happy spirit,

That I thy labours lost may thus revive,
And steal from thee the meed of thy due merit,
That none durst ever whilst thou wast alive,
And, being dead, in vain yet many strive:
Ne dare I like; but, through infusion sweet
Of thine own spirit which doth in me survive,
I follow here the footing of thy feet,

That with thy meaning so I may the rather meet.

The allusion is to the unfinished Tale of the Squire in the Canterbury Tales, the last lines of which are,

"And after wol I speak of Cambalo,

That fought in listes with the brethren two
For Canace, ere that he might her win,
And there I left I wol again begin."

Cambalo, Camballo, Camballus, Cambello, or Cambel,for all these transformations the name is made to undergo

d Fiercest.

according to the exigences of the measure and the rhyme was the brother of Canace; and she

was the learnedst lady in her days,

Well seen in every science that mote be,
And every secret work of nature's ways;
In witty riddles; and in wise soothsays;
In power of herbs; and tunes of beasts and birds;
And, that augmented all her other praise,

She modest was in all her deeds and words,

And wondrous chaste of life, yet loved of knights and lords.

66 SO

Many lords and knights loved her, and the more she
refused to return the affection of any one of them,
much the more she loved was and sought." At last,
their contention having produced many bloody fights,
one day, having assembled all the troop of warlike
wooers, Cambel, who was both stout and wise, proposed
to them that they should each in succession fight for her
with himself, and that whoever should conquer him
should carry off his sister. "Bold was the challenge, as
himself was bold ;" but what chiefly gave him confidence
was not so much his own strength and hardihood as a
ring provided for him by his sister, one of many virtues
of which was that it "had power to staunch all wounds
that mortally did bleed." Now,

Amongst those knights there were three brethren bold,
Three bolder brethren never were yborn,

Born of one mother in one happy mould,

Born at one burden in one happy morn;

Thrice happy mother, and thrice happy morn,

That bore three such, three such not to be fond ! e
Her name was Agape, whose children wern
All three as one; the first hight Priamond,
The second Diamond, the youngest Triamond.
Stout Priamond, but not so strong to strike;
Strong Diamond, but not so stout a knight;
But Triamond was stout and strong alike:
On horseback used Triamond to fight,

And Priamond on foot had more delight;
But horse and foot knew Diamond to wield:
With curtaxe used Diamond to smite,

And Triamond to handle spear and shield,
But spear and curtaxe both used Priamond in field.
These three did love each other dearly well,
And with so firm affection were allied
As if but one soul in them all did dwell,
Which did her power into three parts divide;
Like three fair branches budding far and wide,
That from one root derived their vital sap:
And like that root, that doth her life divide,
Their mother was; and had full blessed hap

These three so noble babes to bring forth at one clap.

Their mother was a fairy, their father a young and noble knight, into whose hands she had one day fallen in a forest,

As she sate careless by a crystal flood,

Combing her golden locks.

As they grew up their love of arms and adventures so alarmed their mother that to relieve her anxiety she had betaken her, in order to learn their destiny, to the house of the Three Fatal Sisters :

Down in the bottom of the deep abyss,

Where Demogorgon, in dull darkness pent,
Far from the view of gods and heaven's bliss

The hideous Chaos keeps, their dreadful dwelling is.
There she them found all sitting round about
The direful distaff standing in the mid,
And with unwearied fingers drawing out
The lines of life, from living knowledge hid.
Sad Clotho held the rock, the whiles the thread
By grisly Lachesis was spun with pain,
That cruel Atropos eftsoons undid,

With cursed knife cutting the twist in twain;

Most wretched men, whose days depend on threads so vain!

After having saluted them she sate by them for a while in