was indifferent to the poet, since we reap the benefit of her indifference.

The Shepherd's Calendar is dedicated to Sir Philip Sidney, who was one of Spenser's best friends and patrons. Sidney, Raleigh and Spenser were very near each other in age, Sidney being about a year younger and Raleigh a year or two older than the great poet. One of the finest things about these two noblemen is that they were generous friends of Spenser. And there can be no better proof of Spenser's friendship for them than his dedication of The Fairy Queen to Walter Raleigh, and the Lament to Astrophel, which he wrote on Sidney's death.

When Spenser was about twenty-eight, he went to Ireland as secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, Lord Arthur Grey. There, after a time, a castle and some lands were given him, the share of a confiscated estate of a famous Irish rebel. In this castle-Kilcolman, on the banks of the river Mulla-he lived happily, working upon his greatest of poems, The Fairy Queen. He had been more fortunate in a second love than in the affair with Rosalynde, and was married to a lovely wife, to whom he wrote an Epithalamium, which is one of the grandest wedding hymns ever written. Here in his beautiful retirement, Sir Walter Raleigh, then one of the officers in the English army in Ireland, paid him a visit. I fancy the two friends lying at ease on the green banks under the trees that bordered the Mulla, while Spenser read extracts from The Fairy Queen, and Raleigh praised it and answered with bits of verse of his own making. There, doubtless, they discussed poetry, politics, their common friends in London, and all the gossip of the time. It was not long after Raleigh's visit that Spenser published the first part of The Fairy Queen. He went to London, and Queen Elizabeth gave him a pension for his verses, which they richly deserved for the fine praises of her which the poem contains.

* Astrophel was the name Sidney assumed in his Sonnets.

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Spenser kept his home in Ireland for twelve years, although he was in England during that period for a year or two at a time. In the last of the year 1597, his affairs looked prosperous; the Queen had recommended him to a good appointment; the first half of the Fairy Queen was published, and the last half begun; when a fresh rebellion broke out in Ireland. Spenser's house was burned, and he and his family were forced to fly. It is reported that his new-born infant was left in the castle in this hurried flight, and perished in the flames. He came to London, overwhelmed by all these troubles, and died a few months later, brokenhearted and in poverty, and was laid in Westminster Abbey, near Chaucer.

Besides his Shepherd's Calendar and Fairy Queen Spenser wrote many other poems. The most beautiful among these shorter works is Muiopotmos, or the Tale of a Butterfly. This is like a picture for brilliancy of color and description. If you want to know Spenser's quality as a poet with little study, read this poem; his Lament to Astrophel; and a few extracts from the Fairy Queen; and you will get an excellent idea of him.

His poem of poems, The Fairy Queen, stands as one of the monuments of literature. There are few people who have read it through, and their number is likely to grow less as the years go by. It is useless for any one to read poetry merely for the sake of saying she has read it, and I certainly should advise no one to read the poem unless she reads it purely for the enjoyment of it. To those who do enjoy it there is no need to say anything in its praise. To those who would find it tedious to read the entire poem -and I think perhaps these will form the larger number-I will briefly tell its plan, and give a few extracts as illustrations of the style.

In his preface to Raleigh, Spenser himself gives his design. This was to write a poem in twelve books, each book representing some high virtue. Thus the Red-Cross Knight in the first book is Holiness; in the

second book Sir Guyon is Temperance; in the third book Britomart, the heroine, illustrates Chastity; Cambel and Triamond are the heroes of the fourth book, the Legend of Friendship; Sir Artegall in the fifth book represents Justice; and Sir Calidore in the sixth and last, is the embodiment of Courtesy. Spenser had planned to write twelve books, but only finished the first six, leaving a few fragments towards the last half of his work.

The stanza in which the poem is written has since his time been called Spenserian. It was the eight lined stanza used by the poets of Italy, to which a ninth line was added by Spenser which gave it its name.

The poem is an allegory, and you will find in some editions of the work explanation of the real events which are told in allegorical form, and the names of the real persons who are meant under the names of Arthur, Sir Guyon, Timeas, Amoret, Belphoebe, and the rest. For my part, I prefer to read Spenser for his poetry and not for his allegory, and, therefore, I attempt no explanation of it here.

The first book of The Fairy Queen tells the story of Una, one of the most beautiful figures in all the poem. The picture of the gentle knight "ypricking o'er the plain," while a gentle lady rides close beside him, upon a lowly ass, "more white than snow," is the very first picture that catches our eyes as we open the book. Soon after we see Una separated from her knight, who has been drawn away from his true lady by an enchantress, who assumes her shape, and Una is described as in search of him:

Yet, she, most faithful lady, all this while
Forsaken, woeful, solitary maid,

Far from all peoples' preace,* as in exile,
In wilderness and wasteful deserts strayed
To seek her knight; who subtily betrayed,

Through that late vision which the enchanter wrought,

Had her abandoned; she of naught afraid,

Through woods and wasteness wide, him daily sought,
Yet, wished tidings none of him unto her brought.

*Press or crowd.

One day, nigh weary of the irksome way,
From her unhasty beast she did alight;
And on the grass her dainty limbs did lay,
In secret shadow, far from all men's sight.
From her fair head her fillet she undight
And laid her stole aside; her angel's face,
As the great eye of heaven, shined bright,
And made a sunshine in the shady place;
Did never mortal eye behold such heavenly grace?

It fortuned, out of the thickest wood
A ramping lion rushed suddenly,
Hunting full greedy after savage blood.
Soon as the royal virgin he did spy,
With gaping mouth ran at her greedily.
To have at once devoured her tender corse;
But to the prey, when as he drew more nigh,
His bloody rage assuaged with remorse,

And, with the sight amazed, forgot his furious force.
Instead thereof he kissed her weary feet,
And licked her lily hands with fawning tongue,
As he her wronged innocence did weet.*
O, how can beauty master the most strong,
And simple truth sudden avenging wrong!
Whose yielded pride and proud submission,
Still dreading death, when she had marked long.
Her breast 'gan melt in great compassion,
And drizzling tears she shed for pure affection.

The lion would not leave her desolate,
But with her went along, as a strong guard
Of her chaste person, and a faithful mate

Of her sad troubles and misfortune hard.

Still when she slept, he kept both watch and ward;

And when she waked, he waited diligent,

With humble service to her will prepared. From her fair eyes he took commandment, And ever by her looks conceived her intent.

The story of the fair Una ends happily, and we see her at the end of Book I united to her knight on a happy wedding

*Weet-to know.

day, in which she lays her sad garments aside and appears

All lily-white, withouten spot or pride,

That seemed like silk or silver woven near,
But neither silk nor silver therein did appear.

The blazing brightness of her beauty's beam,
And glorious light of her sunshiny face
To tell, where as to strive against the stream:
My rugged rhyme were all too rude and base
Her heavenly lineaments for to enchace.
No wonder if her own dear-loved knight-
All were she daily with himself in place-
Did wonder much at her celestial sight;

Oft had he seen her fair, but never so fair digh+

ON SPENSER'S FAIRY QUEEN.

THE story of Florimel, a musical name made out of flowers and honey, is another of the interesting episodes in The Fairy Queen. She appears first in the third book, a beautiful picture of fright, fleeing on a white palfrey from a monster who seeks to devour her. She re-appears in many cantos, in all sorts of romantic adventures, until Book V, when all her troubles are ended amid the festivities that attend her marriage to the handsome Prince Marinell.

The women in Spenser's poem are a constant delight in the imagination. They live in his pages like creatures in some land of enchantment, and while they are not like real women in a real world, they are so natural to their surroundings that we cannot help believing in them as much as if they had actually existed.