Hark, hark, with what a pretty throat,
Poor Robin Red-breast tunes his note ;
Hark how the jolly cuckoos sing
"Cuckoo," to welcome in the spring.

SPENSER.

BORN ABOUT 1553-DIED 1599.

"AMONG the numerous poets," says Mr Campbell, "belonging exclusively to Elizabeth's reign, Spenser stands without a class and without a rival." He might have extended this affirmation to the reign of George IV. No one has attempted to class the most purely poetical of all poets; nor has he, in his own chosen field, ever been rivalled. "In Spenser," says that modern critic who beyond all others, has caught the fire, and formed himself on the catholic taste of our elder poets, we wander in another world among ideal beings. The poet takes us and lays us in the lap of a lovelier nature, by the sound of softer streams, among greener hills and fairer valleys. He paints nature, not as we find it, but as we expected to find it, and fulfils the delightful promise of our youth. He waves his wand of enchantment, and at once embodies airy beings, and throws a delicious veil over all actual objects. The two worlds of reality and fiction are poized on the wings of his imagination. His ideas seem more distinct than his perceptions." With equal felicity another of his modern critics has said,-" Much of his expression has now become antiquated, though it is beautiful in its antiquity, and, like the moss and ivy on some majestic building, covers the fabric of his language with romantic and venerable associations."

The structure, the music of Spenser's peculiar verse, is not less admirable. It combines the stately suspense and sweeping magnificence of blank verse with the melody, the sweetness, and varied cadences of rhyme. His stanza is that which the greatest among the modern poets have talked of as monotonous and cumbrous, and adopted when they would excel themselves. It is the very air, the native melody to which his thoughts and fancies should be set.

DESCRIPTION OF BELPHEBE.

[From the Faerie Queene.]

IN her faire eyes two living lamps did flame,
Kindled above at th' heavenly Maker's light,
And darted fyrie beames out of the same,
So passing persant, and so wondrous bright,
That quite bereav'd the rash beholders sight:
In them the blinded god his lustfull fyre
To kindle oft assayd, but had no might;

For, with dredd majestie and awfull yre,

She broke his wanton darts, and quenched base desyre.

Her yvorie forhead, full of bountie brave,
Like a broad table did itselfe dispred,
For Love his loftie triumphes to engrave,
And write the battailes of his great godhed:
All good and honour might therein be red;
For there their dwelling was. And, when she
spake,

Sweete wordes, like dropping honey, she did shed;
And twixt the perles and rubins softly brake
A silver sound, that heavenly musicke seemd to
make.

Upon her eyelids many Graces sate,
Under the shadow of her even browes,
Working belgardes and amorous retrate;
And everie one her with a grace endowes,
And everie one with meekenesse to her bowes:
So glorious mirrhour of celestiall grace,
And soveraine moniment of mortall vowes,
How shall frayle pen descrive her heavenly face,
For feare, through want of skill, her beauty to
disgrace!

So faire, and thousand thousand times more faire,
She seemd, when she presented was to sight;
And was yclad, for heat of scorching aire,
All in a silken Camus lily white,

Purfled upon with many a folded plight,
Which all above besprinckled was throughout
With golden aygulets, that glistred bright,
Like twinckling starres; and all the skirt about
Was hemd with golden fringe.

And in her hand a sharpe bore-speare she held,
And at her backe a bow, and quiver gay
Stuft with steel-headed dartes, wherewith she queld
The salvage beastes in her victorious play,
Knit with a golden bauldricke which forelay
Athwart her snowy brest, and did divide
Her daintie paps; which, like young fruit in May,
Now little gan to swell, and being tide

Through her thin weed their places only signifide.

Her yellow lockes, crisped like golden wyre,
About her shoulders weren loosely shed,

And, when the winde emongst them did inspyre,
They waved like a penon wyde despred,
And low behinde her backe were scattered:
And, whether art it were or heedlesse hap,
As through the flouring forrest rash she fled,
In her rude heares sweet flowres themselves did lap,
And flourishing fresh leaves and blossomes did
enwrap.

Such as Diana by the sandy shore

Of swift Eurotas, or on Cynthus greene,
Where all the nymphes have her unwares forlore,
Wandreth alone with bow and arrowes keene,
To seeke her game: or as that famous queene
Of Amazons, whom Pyrrhus did destroy,
The day that first of Priame she was seene,
Did shew herselfe in great triumphant joy,

To succour the weake state of sad afflicted Troy.

*

THE BOWER OF BLISS.

[From the Faerie Queene.]

EFTSOONES they heard a most melodious sound, Of all that mote delight a daintie eare,

Such as attonce might not on living ground, Save in this paradise, be heard elsewhere: Right hard it was for wight which did it heare, To read what manner musicke that mote bee; For all that pleasing is to living eare

Was there consorted in one harmonee;

Birdes, voices, instruments, windes, waters, all

agree:

The joyous birdes, shrouded in chearefull shade,
Their notes unto the voice attempred sweet,
Th' angelical soft trembling voyces made
To th' instruments divine respondence meet;
The silver-sounding instruments did meet
With the base murmure of the waters fall;
The waters fall with difference discreet,
Now soft, now loud, unto the wind did call;
The gentle warbling wind low answered to all.

There, whence that musick semed heard to bee,
Was the faire witch herselfe now solacing
With a new lover, whom, through sorcerie
And witchcraft, she from farre did thether bring:
There she had him now laid a slombering
In secret shade after long wanton joyes;
Whilst round about them pleasauntly did sing
Many faire ladies and lascivious boyes,

That ever mixt their song with light licentious toyes.

And all that while right over him she hong
With her false eyes fast fixed in his sight,
As seeking medicine whence she was stong,
Or greedily depasturing delight;

And oft inclining downe with kisses light,
For feare of waking him, his lips bedewd,
And through his humid eyes did sucke his spright,
Quite molten into lust and pleasure lewd;
Wherewith she sighed soft, as if his case she
rewd.

The whiles some one did chaunt this lovely lay;
Ah! see, whoso fayre thing doest faine to see,
In springing flowre the image of thy day!