The story of his friendships is one of the most pleasing features of his biography. Not that we find anywhere in his verse or prose the thrilling accents of Montaigne commemorating his love of La Boëtie or of Shakespeare sacrificing to the young friend of the Sonnets his soul, his pride and his genius. There is none of that passion, none of that exquisite tenderness in Spenser. Perhaps the word friendship is not the most proper after all to describe his relation to the men of his time with whom he was connected. Apart from his fellow-students Gabriel Harvey and the more shadowy Edward Kirke, who were his equals, all the others were above him in rank and power. He stood to them rather in the relation of client to patron than of friend to friend. So it was in the case of Bishop Young, of the Earl of Leicester, of Philip Sidney, of Lord Grey of Wilton, of Sir Walter Raleigh, of Essex. The feeling manifested by him towards those men is more akin to clanship than to friendship properly so called. We would call it party-spirit in our days. But in an age when the traces of feudalism were still visible, and speaking of a man like Spenser who leaned back to the Middle Ages, perhaps the word clanship expresses the poet's attitude best of all. He appears to have been the poet of the clan into which his lot happened to be thrown and fought for its chief in bold intrepid verse. This is most evident in his relations to Leicester and Lord Grey of Wilton.

In the former instance it would be rash to speak of entire disinterestedness. Spenser was surely first drawn to Leicester by the want of a patron. He relied on the powerful earl to make his fortune. It is even hard for

clanship, Spenser had no hesitation abo He had to fight to the death for his pat investigating into his deeds and notions. write to Harvey when on the eve of be Leicester to the Continent:

"I goe thither, as sent by him, and mait what of him: and there am to employ r body, my mind, to his Honour's service.' Leicester's family had full claim to homage, and thus it was that he compos mata Dudleiana that were to be englishe as The Ruins of Time. Leicester's foes ne came Spenser's foes, and therefore did the in his lifelong duel with the Lord High T mighty Earl of Burleigh—a daring fight pinnace against the bulky man-of-war, whe poet could but receive the hardest blows future prospects. Yet once launched into struggled to the end, even long after Leice always singling out Burleigh as the chief t sharp satire. Had not he been in his you into the opposite clan? In an age of com

firm attachment of the poet to his dead patron moved the admiration of Florio, who wrote in 1591 (in the Epistle Dedicatory of his Second Fruits):

"Courteous Lord, courteous Spenser, I know not which hath purchased more fame, either he in deserving so well of a schollar, or so famous a Schollar in being so thankful without hope of requital, to so famous a Lord, who dying left all artes as orphans, forsaken and friendless."

We find the same devotion, but this time without any blot, in the poet's attachment to Lord Grey of Wilton. Spenser became his secretary at the outset of his stay in Ireland; of his politics he entirely approved and made them his own; and when Grey had been recalled and his stern policy as a governor was condemned by the queen, Spenser continued to extol it. We have here a proof that Spenser's friendship could not only survive his personal interest but even gainsay it. He never failed to vindicate the government of Grey under his successors nor to accuse his enemies, though accredited by the Sovereign, of injustice and ignorance. Moreover, wherever he considers the case of his revered and unfortunate patron, we catch an accent of generous indignation.

So far we have noticed a certain variety of elements in Spenser's character, all easily reconcilable however, all more or less related either to his sensitiveness or his innate idealism. They are natural to the make-up of the poetic temperament. But other aspects remain, and these constrain us to admit that his nature was

have his friend comply at times with th True wisdom is at equal distance from all medio superest via gurgite," as he express

Latin. He himself is determined to do all t sary to succeed in this world. The House of which he describes in the Second Book Queen, is the dwelling-place for him, or Palace of Golden Mean, inhabited by the Medina, Perissa and Elissa. He condemns who is "too much," and Elissa, who is On the contrary, Medina, who personifies Mean, is his ideal. He equally reproves knight Sansloi and the sour puritan Sir H

We have seen how sharp a satirist h vehemently he railed at the society of hi he takes care to see that his satire is ha own author. As a courtier, though he blames of the place, he adopts its ways so far as make sure of a hearing. He spares no flatt amends for his assaults. No one has m studied the art of flattery. When in Leice hold, he cautiously feels the ground bef

how best to pay his court to the great earl. Of course, as a poet he might lay siege to his favours by praises and dedications. But this, says he, ought to be done with the utmost circumspection. Would it be wise to dedicate his Shepherd's Calendar to Leicester? He wonders whether it would not be better policy to keep silent for a time. He thus describes his hesitations to Harvey:

"I was minded for a while to have intermitted the uttering of my writings, lest by over much cloying their noble ears, I should gather a contempt to myself, or else seem rather for gain and commodity to do it, for some sweetness that I have already tasted. Then also, meseemeth, the work too base for his excellent Lordship, .. or the matter not so weighty that it should be offered to so weighty a Personage.

In the same letter he ponders on the foolishness of Stephen Goss on inscribing his School of Abuse or denunciation of the poets to Philip Sidney, a poet and lover of poetry:

"Such folly it is not to regard aforehand the inclination and quality of him to whom we dedicate our Books. Such might I happily incur entituling my Slumber and the other pamphlets unto his Honour (i.e. Leicester)."

Thus is he led by degrees to more and more refinement or excess in his praise; thus he finally makes Leicester the hero of his Fairy Queen and adumbrates him as Arthur, the type of magnificence. All the common panegyrists of the earl are left far behind. The cloyed ears are opened to strains new and unmatchable.