Reformation. In every age and country, religious dissensions have been unfavourable to the progress of Literature; and to these continued troubles may be ascribed its utter prostration in England at the commencement of the reign of Elizabeth. Her accession was hailed with no common feeling of enthusiasm by both the court and the people, who, weary of the merciless exactions of her father from which the reign of the youthful Edward proved but a transient relief, and groaning beneath the bigotry and sanguinary persecutions of her sister, beheld in their new queen the harbinger of a happier season; nor were these hopes disappointed. During the strict seclusion in which she had been detained by Mary, Elizabeth had acquired, under the able tuition of the erudite and elegant minded Ascham, no small share of those intellectual acquirements which are usually confined to the sterner sex. Thus nurtured, her inclinations naturally leaned to the society of those who were conspicucus for either talent or learning: from among these she selected her counsellors, and, aided by their willing co-operation, laid the foundation of that impulse to literature which has increased rather than diminished under every succeeding sovereign. The forty-five years of her reign must be regarded as the brightest epoch of our national history, and may challenge the annals of Europe to rival the galaxy of men, so illustrious in arms and arts, who flourished under her auspices. It is a period which, of all others, has a peculiar charm for the sympathies of youth; and though in after years reason and experience may in some degree temper the warmth of our imaginations, and dispose us to contemplate the character of Elizabeth in a more just and less romantic light, it must ever retain an especial place in our regards, as the age which produced such men as Spenser, Raleigh, Sidney, and Shakspeare. The life and writings of Spenser, "the fascinating poet of Faerie Land," and one of the fairest ornaments of this era, the following observations are designed to illustrate.

When Sir James Mackintosh was invited by a body of London Booksellers to superintend an edition of the Poets, from Chaucer to Cowley, he characterized the life of Spenser as one which would offer no little difficulty, on account of the paucity of materials for its execution. This difficulty has certainly not been removed; but though, unable to present the reader with any new facts relating to the "Prince of Poets of his time," we may, perhaps, while condensing the existing information, so guide him to the beauties of our author, as to obviate the necessity of wading through the more voluminous labours of Todd and Warton.

Edmund Spenser, styled the "Sunrise," as Chaucer was the "Day Starre," of English poetry, was born in the year 1553, in East Smithfield,—in

"Merry London, my most kindly nurse,

That to me gave this life's first native source,
Though from another place I take my name,
A house of ancient fame."

Although frequently referring in his poems to his gentle birth, and claiming in some of his dedications consanguinity with the noble house of Spencer, of his parentage he has left us no record. The university of Cambridge had the honour of his education; and though the history of his college life partakes of the same obscurity that envelopes his origin, it has been ascertained that he was admitted a sizar of Pembroke Hall, May 20,

1569,-that he took his degree of Bachelor of Arts, June 16, 1572-3,-and that of Master of Arts, June 26, 1576.

We gather from their correspondence, that he here became intimate with the learned, but pedantic, Gabriel Harvey, of Christchurch; and to his critical opinions, although occasionally fantastic, he seems to have paid great deference. During his residence at Cambridge, he gave evidence of his poetical abilities, and was well known to his fellow students as a votary of the Muses, having contributed, although anonymously, several poems to the "Theatre of Worldlings," published in 1569. But his hopes of further advancement at the university having been annihilated, in consequence of a quarrel with the master of the society to which he belonged, respecting some preferment unjustly conferred upon a rival, he withdrew to the North of England, where he lived as tutor in the family of one of his relatives. In this retirement he became enamoured of the "widdowe's daughter of the glenne," a lady of no common accomplishments, whom he has celebrated in his poems, under the name of Rosalind. In one of the notes to "The Shepheards Calendar," she is said to have been one" that for her rare and singular gifts of person and mind, Spenser need not have been ashamed to love." Nor was she insensible of her lover's merit; for, according to Harvey, "gentle Mistresse Rosalinde once reported him to have all the intelligences at commandment, and another time christened him Signor Pegaso."-To this attachment we are indebted for many of his sweetest productions. He seems to have loved with the most fervent ardour; and has imparted to the strains in which he sang the praises of his mistress, a tone of tender entreaty inexpressibly beautiful. Of this affair, too little is known; but the very mystery in which it is enshrined, has thrown around the tradition of the poet's first love, all the "strong interest of reality, and all the charm of romance and poetry." But the passion which gave birth to so many exquisite lyrics was doomed to be but a day-dream; the affections of Rosalind were transferred to another, the Menalcas of the Shepheards Calendar; and Spenser poured forth in tuneful numbers his complaint," how he was forsaken unfaithfully; and in his stead another received disloyally."

Having removed to London at the suggestion of Harvey, he there published the Shepheards Calendar in 1579. This Poem, which is composed in a style of language, nearly obsolete in the age in which it was written, is therefore accompanied by a glosse or commentary, which was furnished, together with an introductory letter to Harvey, by E. K., respecting whose identity many ingenious conjectures have been hazarded; but every attempt at his discovery has been ineffectual: that he was an intimate and partial friend of the author, is evident.

As a Pastoral, the value of the Shepheards Calendar is considerably diminished, by being written in a quaint and antiquated dialect, and by the frequent satire on ecclesias

'Harvey," says D'Israeli, in those curious and entertaining volumes, "The Calamities of Authors," "is not unknown to the lover of poetry, from his connection with SPENSER, who loved and revered him. He is the Hobynol, whose poem is prefixed to the Faerie Queene, who introduced Spenser to Sir Philip Sidney, and besides his intimacy with the literary characters of his time, he was a Doctor of Laws, an erudite scholar, and distinguished as a poet." The most remarkable feature of his life was his quarrel with Nash, Greene, and the most pregnant Lucianic wits who ever flourished at one time,'" for an account of which, see the work quoted above.

'tical matters, certainly incongruous in the mouths of the rustic heroes, who have been not inaptly styled by Campbell," parsons in disguise." The consequence of this obtrusion of Church Polemics into the simplicity of rural affairs has been, that the Eclogues for May, July, and September, are anything but Pastorals. Indep ndent, however, of these blemishes, the poem is enriched with many passages of exquisite beauty; and in the Eclogues for January, June, October, and December, the descriptions of nature are minute and luxuriant, and may be cited as among the sweetest specimens of their class, extant in our language. Dryden and Pope have bestowed upon it their most emphatic applause; and the former has not hesitated to place it in the same rank with the writings of Theocritus or Virgil. The novelty of its subject and its style; it being the first poem of the kind published in England, with the exception, perhaps, of Lord Buckhurst's "Induction and Legend of Henry Duke of Buckingham" (the allegorical pictures of which, in the opinion of Warton," are so beautifully drawn, that in all probability they contributed to direct, or at least to stimulate, Spenser's imagination”), excited universal attention; and such was its popularity that, during the author's life time, it passed through no less than five editions. It is supposed that some political passages in these poems, especially the allusions to Abp. Grindall, in the Eclogue for April, excited the wrath of the great Burghley, the effects of which had no inconsiderable influence on the Poet's after-life. In vain he distinguished the minister with the most flattering adulation in one of the sonnets prefixed to the Faerie Queene: the mighty Peere remained implacable; and it is doubtless to the loss of this noble's "grace" that he alludes in the following terse and pregnant lines from Mother Hubberds Tale :

"Most miserable man, whom wicked fate

Hath brought to court, to sue, for had-ywist,
That few hath found, and many one hath mist!
Full little knowest thou, that hast not tride,
What hell it is, in suing long to bide:

To loose good dayes, that might be better spent;
To wast long nights in pensive discontent;
To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow;
To feede on hope, to pine with feare and sorrow;
To have thy princes grace, yet want her peeres;
To have thy asking, yet waite manie_yeares;
To fret thy soule with crosses and with cares;
To eate thy heart through comfortlesse despaires;
To fawne, to crowche, to waite, to ride, to ronne:
To spend, to give, to want, to be undonne.
Unhappie wight, borne to desastrous end,
That doth his life in so long tendance spend !"

But if the Shepheards Calendar procured for its author a powerful enemy, on the other hand it secured him some no less powerful friends. The poem, partly written at Penshurst, was dedicated to Sir Philip Sidney, who, from this period to the close of his

Published in "The Mirror for Magistrates,” 1559—a collection of stories by different authors, on the plan of Boccaccio's "De Casibus Virorum Illustrium." Of this Induction and Legend, Hallam, in his latroduction to the Literature of Europe, says, "It displays a fertility of imagination, vividness of description, and strength of language, not only superior to the productions of any of his predecessors, but will bear comparison with some of the most poetical passages of Spenser."

career, continued the kind protector of Spenser, and obtained for him the countenance and support of his uncle the Earl of Leicester. By Leicester, Spenser was received into his house, for the furtherance, no doubt, of some literary undertaking; probably to assist in the composition of the "Stemmata Dudleiana," an account of the Earl's genealogy, on which, in one of his letters, the Poet states himself to have been employed in 1580. About July in the same year, he was indebted to his patron for an appointment as secretary to Arthur Lord Grey de Wilton, then nominated Lord Deputy of Ireland, which situation he held during the two years of that nobleman's administration. Lord Grey's measures with the Irish were energetic and severe,—so much so, as to have induced his recall to England and to this event Spenser alludes in his Faerie - Queene, when describing Artegall returning from the succour of Irene, as leaving his labours incomplete :—

"But, ere he could reform it thoroughly,

He through occasion called was away

To Faerie Court, that of necessity

His course of iustice he was forst to stay."

Many years afterwards, he appeared as the advocate of Lord Grey; and in his elaborate "View of the State of Ireland," has successfully vindicated his measures and his reputation. In 1586, through the combined influence of this nobleman, the Earl of Leicester, and Sir Philip Sidney, Spenser received a grant of 3028 acres of land in the county of Cork, being a portion of the forfeited estates of the rebel earls of Desmond. This was the last kindness which he received from his generous friend and patron Sir Philip Sidney. On the 22d of September of the same year, this accomplished scholar,-this gallant knight, this "flowre of chivalrie," received his death-wound before the walls of Zutphen, in Guelderland, while nobly fighting the battles of the Protestant religion. He lingered till the 17th October, when he expired in the arms of his secretary and friend, Mr. William Temple. By the tenor of the grant, our poet was compelled to reside on his newlyacquired property, and accordingly fixed his residence at Kilcolman castle, about two miles distant from Doneraile. Although now presenting a very different aspect, this spot seems to have offered considerable attractions to a man of Spenser's temperament. The castle was situated on an elevation, on the north side of a fine lake, in the midst of an extensive plain, whose horizon was terminated by the distant mountains of Waterford, Ballyhoura, Nagle, and Kerry. The views from its site are most delightful; and in Spenser's time, when the adjacent uplands were wooded, it must have been a most pleasant and romantic situation, to which we no doubt are indebted for many of those glowing descriptions of forest and pastoral scenery, with which his writings so richly abound. The river Mulla flowed through his grounds. In this congenial retreat, enlivened by the society of Sir Walter Raleigh, who had succeeded Sidney as his Mæcenas, Spenser finished the first part of his glorious and imperishable Faerie Queene; and having received the critical encomium of the "Shepheard of the Ocean," accompanied his patron to England, where, in 1590, he gave to the world the fruits of his matured intellect. It was published with the title of "The Faerie Queene; disposed into Twelve Bookes, fashioning XII Morall Vertues" (although in this first edition, only three books were published), and, as appears from a conversation in his friend Ludowick Bryskett's "Discourse of

Civil Life," was intended" to represent all the Morall Virtues, assigning to every virtue a Knight, to be patron and defender of the same; in whose actions, feats of armes, and chivalry, the operation of that virtue, whereof he is the protector, are to be expressed ; and the vices and unruly appetites that oppose themselves against the same, to be beaten downe and overcome."

At this period Spenser was introduced by Raleigh to Queen Elizabeth, who, in February, 1590-1, as we learn from a patent discovered in the chapel of the Rolls, by the indefatigable Malone, conferred upon him a yearly pension of fifty pounds, which he enjoyed till his death. It has been asserted by some of the poet's biographers, that, attached to this pension was the office of laureat; but it has been satisfactorily proved by Malone, that Spenser, although addressed by that title by his contemporaries, was never officially appointed to the situation. In reference to this office, Gibbon (in the 12th volume of his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire) remarks, "From Augustus to Louis, the Muse has too often been false and venal; but I much doubt whether any age or court can produce a similar establishment of a stipendiary poet, who, in every reign, and at all events, is bound to furnish, twice a year, a measure of praise and verse, such as may be sung in the chapel, and, I believe, in the presence of the sovereign." Setting aside the adulation which the appointment entailed, and which is now obsolete, we are not disposed to quarrel with the office; for, at the least, it offers an encouragement to literary men, in the certainty of an income, no unwelcome benefit to a race not generally possessed of a superfluity of this world's gear, and though originating, no doubt, in royal vanity, it has not unfrequently lightened the sorrows and sweetened the labours of " these Foster-babes of Fame." After the publication of his poem, Spenser returned to Ireland; and during his absence from court, encouraged by the popularity into which his works were rapidly advancing, his bookseller collected and printed his minor pieces, in a volume, of which the following are the title and contents:

and, without reference to This want of discrimina

"Complaints, containing sundrie small Poemes of the World's Vanitie: viz. 1, The Ruines of Time. 2, The Teares of the Muses. 3, Virgils Gnat. 4, Prosopopoia, or Mother Hubberds Tale. 5, The Ruines of Rome, by Bellay. 6, Muiopotmos, or the Fate of the Butterflie. 7, Visions of the Worlds Vanitie. 8, Bellayes Visions. 9, Petrarches Visions." These pieces, although considerably inferior to his great work, have yet participated in the fame with which it endowed its author, their intrinsic merits, have been equally lauded by his critics. tion may be attributed to the dazzle of his name, which has induced them, with a blind devotion, to heap upon his minor poems those eulogiums which can only be justly claimed by the Faerie Queene. Of these, "Mother Hubberds Tale," though written in the "raw conceit of youth," is certainly the best; it abounds with satirical hits at the leading features of the times, the priests and the court: the lines devoted to this latter subject embody the description of the miseries of a place-hunter, already quoted. The language is bold and nervous, and the narrative in general unembarrassed. Take, for example, the following description of the ape purloining the crown, sceptre, and hide "which he had doft for heat," from the King of the Forest. To this adventure he is incited by the fox: