ambitious tragedy under the title of " Cleopatra." Again, to advert to a very different matter: near the end of the poem, Spenser, in 1591, introduced clear references to his romantic attachment to Rosalind : he was then, as we may conjecture, a widower, and perhaps wrote with some of the youthful feelings and propensities which had inspired him in 1579: but in 1595 he was once more a married man; and, not liking to omit what was so great a grace and ornament to his " Colin Clout's come Home again," he may have permitted the old love-passages to stand, though his friends must have known that they had lost their application.

What we take to have been an interpolation after April, 1594, when Lord Derby died, only occupies eleven lines; and they read like an insertion for the occasion, beginning thus artificially,—

"There also is (ah no! he is not now)

But since I said he is, he quite is gone."-(Vol. v. p. 100.

That is, "he is gone since I said in the first instance, in 1591, that he is." Again at the close,—

"He, whilest he lived, was the noblest swaine
That ever piped in an oaten quill;

Both did he other which could pipe maintaine,
And eke could pipe himselfe with passing skill."

This was in part a substitution, and in part an addition; and the junction was not managed with much skill. Todd quotes a long passage from Nash's "Pierce Pennilesse his Supplication to the Divel," (which was so popular that it went through three editions in 1592, and at least three more in 1593), in order to show that this powerful prose satirist had reminded Spenser of the omission at the end of his "Faerie Queene," of a complimentary sonnet to the Earl of Derby. No doubt of it: the omission was

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evident, for his lordship had deserved much better at the hands of Spenser than many of the noblemen thus distinguished; and, as soon as our poet was made aware of the circumstance, he did his best to repair the error: the result perhaps was, not what we now see in "Colin Clout's come Home again," but what originally stood there, as we suppose the piece had been forwarded to Raleigh in the very beginning of 1592. What we read in "Colin Clout's come Home again" is what Spenser substituted, after April, 1594, for his original amends to the Earl of Derby written in 1591.

This brings us to advert here more distinctly (see also p. xlv.) to the generous spirit in which Spenser, in this remarkable piece of autobiography, applauds and criticises, or rather applauds than criticises, some of the most distinguished and promising poets of the day-not merely those who were high in office, as Buckhurst, Raleigh, or Gorges, but old Churchyard, who was poor and neglected; young Daniel, who was just struggling into notice; Alabaster, who was, or was to be, in disgrace for religious tergiversation; Peele, Fraunce, Breton, and others, who kept themselves alive by their pens. All these, and more, have liberally assigned to them their full share of excellence. Shakespeare, regarding whom we gladly indulge a belief that he and Spenser were intimate friends, was sure to be remembered; and as in "The Tears of the Muses" he was greeted as our pleasant Willy,” so in Colin Clout's come Home again" he is introduced, as it were, by name :

"Whose Muse, full of high thoughts invention,
Doth, like himselfe, heroically sound."

Such men as Greene and Nash, the pamphleteers of the period, and the enemies and antagonists of Gabriel Harvey, had perhaps no right to expect to be immortalised by Spenser; but those who are well, or

even moderately, acquainted with our old poets and poetry may be surprised at the omission of the name of Michael Drayton, certainly superior to Daniel in power, if not in purity, and quite as popular. Drayton was an admirer of, and well read in Spenser, but he does not appear to have attracted much notice until after "Colin Clout's come Home again" had been, as we believe, written, and more than two years after the first three books of "The Faerie Queene" had been printed. It seems that Drayton and Shakespeare, about 1595, which is still later, were perhaps not on the best terms, and Spenser (we only put it as a remote speculation) may have taken part with the latter. It is but a conjecture that Drayton and Shakespeare had a difference, and even less than a conjecture—a mere surmise—that Spenser, as Shakespeare's friend, sided with him. This, however, was just at the time that "Colin Clout's come Home again,” in its altered state, was printed; and, as originally written in 1591, Drayton might have been mentioned in it.

We have already (p. lvii.) noticed the renewed and perhaps pretended devotion to Rosalind at the conclusion of "Colin Clout's come Home again." We may add here that Rosalind was possibly a fancy name, adopted by our poet in his youth, and by it he may have subsequently distinguished any lady to whom he was attached, much in the same way that Drayton personified the damsel to whom he was devoted as 66 Idea," meaning the image he had formed in his imagination as the perfection of female excellence. We cannot ascertain at what particular time, and in what particular place, Spenser had seen the "country lass" whom, as we shall see, he married in 1594; but it certainly was in Ireland: and, for aught we know, it was she whom he so passionately addressed at the conclusion of " Colin Clout's come Home again," as,—

"The blossome of sweet joy and perfect love,
The pearle of peerelesse grace and modestie;'

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adding, with equal passion,

"To her my thoughts I daily dedicate,
To her my heart I nightly martyrise."

True it is that he there names Rosalind, and refers to an old and unrequited flame; but who shall say how much of this emphasis of affection was merely imaginary as regards Rosalind, and was intended to prove to the object he then adored the warmth, strength, and permanence of the attachment he was zapable of feeling? Certain it is, however, that Spenser's sonnets (of which we shall say more in the proper place), we mean such of them as are devoted to love, seem to be addressed to a different person, whom he courted in 1592 and 1593, and whom he ultimately married. It is perhaps impossible in any way to explain his love affairs satisfactorily.

During this period Spenser was resident upon his property in Ireland, and occupying his castle of Kilcolman. A document is in existence in the British Museum, which, if genuine, establishes that our poet exercised on his estate some of the ordinary rights of ownership. The total absence of any note of time in the paper is a lamentable and suspicious deficiency, since it seems most unlikely that an instrument, applicable to a period of seven years, would have been prepared without the statement of day, month, or year. There is also a noticeable confusion of persons at the close; and although there is the appearance of a seal, the impression, whatever it may have represented, has been either accidentally or purposely obliterated. By this dateless deed Spenser is supposed to have given to a person merely called "Mr. Henry" or "Mc Henry," without any christian name, the keeping of his woods, &c. in Balliganim. It runs as follows:—

"Be it knowen to all men by these presentes, that I, Edmund Spenser of Kilcolman, esqu', doe give

unto McHenry the keping of all the woodes which I have in Balliganim, the rushes and brakes wt out making any spoyle thereof; and also doe covenant with him that he shall have one house win the bawne of Richardston for him selfe and his cattell [in] tyme of warre. And also wt in the space of vij yeares repayre the castle of Richardston afore sayd, and in all other thinges to use good neighborhood to him and his.

L.S.

ED. SPENSER."

Who "Mc Henry" may have been, and what was his station or usual occupation, is nowhere stated; while "rushes and brakes" do not seem very well connected with the "woods" of Balliganim. The signature (which alone is Spenser's) does not look authentic; and taken together with the destruction of the impression of the seal, if it ever had any impression, and the want of date, we are compelled at least to hesitate before we admit that the instrument really was executed by the poet.' If indeed it be not spurious, it is the only specimen of the hand-writing of Spenser that is known to have survived the destruction of his papers; and we may guess that it belongs to this period of the poet's life, because he was probably more continuously resident in Ireland be

we

1 We are acquainted with the channel through which this relic found its way to the British Museum; and it was once offered to us in exchange for a copy of the earliest edition of Spenser's "Faerie Queene," and declined, because we did not consider its authenticity sufficiently established: speak of a period of more than twenty years ago. From that date, until it found its way into our national depository, we lost sight of it; but on seeing it again, we, of course, instantly recognized it. We feel persuaded that, when we inspected it before 1840, there was no visible impression on the seal, though it is now stated that it was accidentally destroyed by a binder. It would not, we think, be easy to obliterate the impression of a seal by any process connected with the preservation of such a curious and interesting record.