acquired freedom, security and strength, Elizabeth, the Virgin Queen, was regarded by her subjects with feelings of passionate loyalty.

It would indeed have been wonderful if such an epoch had not found appropriate expression in poetry, and accordingly the Elizabethan age is recognized as a period of poetical activity, seldom, if ever, equalled in the history of literature. During the troubled times which intervened between the death of Chaucer and the accession of Elizabeth, no great singer had been heard in England; the voice of the elder bard, however, still sounded from the distant past;-three poets of the Elizabethan age, Spenser, Sir Philip Sidney, and Michael Drayton, having borne emphatic testimony to their high appreciation of his genius. At length the prolonged

silence was to come to an end.

Foremost in the quire of Elizabethan singers was Edmund Spenser, in whom we hail Chaucer's worthy successor to the poetic throne. As the inventor of the Spenserian stanza, with its rich harmonies, and wonderful variety of cadence, were that his sole achievement-he would deserve the lasting gratitude of all true lovers of poetry.' This feeling of gratitude should be enhanced, when we remember that, at one time, under the influence of Sir Philip Sidney, Spenser appears to have been converted to the scheme of so-called "Artificial versifying," which aimed at banishing rhyme as barbarous, and at imposing upon English verse the laws and rules of classical metre. In accordance with these rules, he not only made attempts at English Hexameters and Sapphics, he also composed nine plays, named after the nine muses, which were hailed with delight by the advocates of the new scheme, but of which all traces have been lost. Fortunately, Spenser's genius triumphed eventually over the literary pedantry of the day. He was the first to reveal, in perfection, the musical resources of the English language; the melody of his versification is

See the "History of Elizabethan Literature" by George Saintsbury.

wonderful; "It is a labyrinth of sweet sounds, that would cloy by their very sweetness, but that the ear is constantly relieved and enchanted by their continued variety of modulation." What the great Italian trio, Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio had been to Chaucer, their illustrious successors, Ariosto and Tasso, were to Spenser. The "Faerie Queene" as he himself avows, was written in emulation of Ariosto's "Orlando Furioso," while his manifold obligations to Tasso, with whose genius he was in far closer sympathy, are manifest to every student of the "Gerusalemme Liberata," several stanzas of which he has transferred to his own poem. A few verses of the "Faerie Queene," evidently suggested by parallel passages in the "Divina Commedia," bear witness also to his familiarity with Dante, his obligations to whom are however far slighter than to the two later Italian Poets.

It is interesting to find, as showing his early familiarity with the Italian language, that among the productions of his boyhood, published under another name in 1569, are translations of some of Petrarch's sonnets.

In 1580 appeared "The Shepherd's Calendar," dedicated to Sir Philip Sidney, the excellence of which was immediately recognized, and which won for the anonymous author the title of the New Poet, who was compared favourably with Virgil, and who, it was hoped, might take rank with Chaucer.

Written in conformity with the fashion of the period, the poem is eminently artificial, representing the world as a pastoral scene, wherein the men and women, including Queen Elizabeth, Henry VIII., Anna Boleyn, and others, figure as shepherds and shepherdesses, the poet himself appearing as Colin Clout.

This first essay of the poet's genius was eclipsed by his greater work, the "Faerie Queene," wherein, as in a magic mirror, we see reflected the marvellously varied and apparently incongruous elements which were strangely intermingled in the national life of the period: its loyalty, its patriotism, its religious fervour, its passionate

love of adventure and romance, its sympathy with the spirit of the Renaissance which blended the gods and goddesses of classical antiquity with the elves, fairies, dwarfs, giants, gnomes, and other fantastic beings of Celtic and Scandinavian mythology. With these features of the Elizabethan age, Spenser combined the chivalry of "the antique tymes," which he dearly loved, and to which he has paid many a noble tribute in his "Faerie Queene."

In an age saturated with marvels and adventures, no poetic dream, how remote soever from ordinary experience, could transcend belief.

Dominating these various elements, and bringing them into harmony, was the intense religious and moral earnestness characteristic of the poet and of the Puritan section of the community, which was rapidly growing in numbers and in influence.

The poet's sympathy with Puritanism is shown by his bitter hatred of Catholicism, personified in his poem as "the false Duessa of Rome; this archfoe of the Red Cross Knight, the symbol of holiness, also typifies Elizabeth's rival, Mary, Queen of Scots, while Elizabeth herself figures, not only as the Faerie Queene, but also as "Gloriana, the Empress of all nobleness,-Belphœbe, the princess of all sweetness and beauty,-Britomart, the armed votaress of all purity, and Mercilla, the lady of all compassion and grace."

In Spenser's letter to Sir Walter Raleigh, wherein he expounds the intention and meaning of his poem, he tells us that "the general end of all the booke is to fashion a gentleman or noble person." As the framework of his poem he chose the history of King Arthur, "in whom he laboured to pourtray, before he was king, the image of a brave knight, perfected in the twelve private moral virtues, as Aristotle hath devised;" "the which is the purpose of these first twelve bookes; which, if I find to be well accepted, I may be perhaps encouraged to frame the other part of polliticke virtues in his person after that he came to be king."

It thus appears that Spenser, like Chaucer, executed little more than a fourth part of his plan, as originally conceived. The twelve moral virtues which were to unite in Arthur were, in Spenser's allegorical poem, to be embodied in twelve knights, each of whom was to be the hero of a separate story; thus in the first three books, the Red Cross Knight, Sir Guyon, and the heroine Britomart, are symbols respectively of Holiness, of Temperance, and of Chastity, while the three books subsequently published, treat of Friendship, of Justice, and of Courtesy. Ten years after the poet's death, appeared two cantos of " Mutabilitie,” being a fragment of the lost second part.

Among the most striking characteristics of Spenser's genius, in addition to his intense moral and religious earnestness, we may note his passionate love of the beautiful which he regards, in all its forms, material and spiritual, as the symbol and manifestation of celestial beauty, and his intense feeling for which finds illustration in his portraiture of human beings, and in his descriptions alike of natural scenery and of works of art.

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This feeling for beauty combines with his wonderful descriptive power to render the "Faerie Queene magnificent gallery filled with exquisite pictures of marvellous variety. "He makes one think always of Venice," says Mr. Lowell, "and as in Venice you swim in a gondola from Gian Bellini to Titian, and from Titian to Tintoret, so in him, where other cheer is wanting, the gentle sway of his measure, like the rhythmical impulse of the oar, floats you lullingly along from picture to picture.'

What distinguishes him, however, preeminently from most other poets is his inexhaustible imagination. As with the stroke of an enchanter's wand he transports us, mentally, into an ideal realm, remote from this work-aday world, illumined by a magic gleam "that never was on land or sea," and peopled by allegorical personages and fantastic shapes, into whom he breathes the breath of life, and who play their parts like living beings, native to the scenes of enchantment of which they are the

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denizens. Yet, strange to say, this ideal realm is no other than the England of the Elizabethan age, and the visionary beings by whom it is peopled, paladins and squires, damsels and peerless dames, are not merely impersonations of moral qualities; they also represent the leading men and women of the period, many of whom can still be identified. That this blending of the ideal and the actual was contemplated by the poet, appears from the lines addressed by him to Queen Elizabeth:

"And thou, O fairest princess under sky,
In this fair mirror mayst behold thy face,
And thine own realms in land of Faerie."

It must be confessed, that the poetic effect is occasionally marred by this identification of his magnificent ideal creations with living individualities, not always worthy of the honour thus conferred upon them, a discovery which painfully breaks the spell wherewith the genius of the poet had entranced us.

Among the imperishable creations of his genius wherewith he has enriched the imagination of men for all time, the first place ought perhaps to be assigned to Una, "the lovely ladie with the milkewhite lamb," the symbol not only of Truth, which lies at the root of all true nobleness, but also of purity, of humility, and steadfast allegiance to duty. Another of her attributes is courage, resting upon her unswerving reliance upon divine guidance and protection. Very significant is the divine radiance which emanated from her countenance, and which, on the removal of her veil, "wherewith her heavenly beautie she did hide," shone forth with surpassing lustre. Not only did her heavenly beautie overawe the simple wood-gods, it also subdued the ramping lyon, and transformed the king of beasts into her diligent and faithful servitor.

"O how can beautie maister the most strong,
And simple truth subdue avenging wrong.'

"Una's beauty," it has been said, "is an exquisite