and the composition mean, yet carrieth some delight, even the rather because of the simplicity and meanness thus personated." This is in some measure a true, as it is a very modest character of this production, which is in fact one the most pleasing of Spenser's minor pieces. It is one of the most felicitous specimens of fable - a happy combination of simplicity and strength, lively, arch, and satirical. It is, more than any other of his writings, distinguished by precision and pregnancy of expression, and contains many lines of great power; the most striking example of which is the wellknown description of the miseries of a suitor at court. "Muiopotmos, or the Fate of the Butterflie," is also a very agreeable and poetical fable; light, and airy, and beautiful, as its subject. It is not so much labored as some pieces of this poet, is quite long enough without appearing tedious, and is, in short, a very elegant little poem.

"Daphnaida," which was also published this year, is a long string of lugubrious complaints, and exaggerated and unnatural sentiments, in which the reader has no sympathy, on the death of Douglas Howard, daughter of Henry Lord Howard, and the wife of Arthur Gorges, Esquire. This lady is first lamented under the figure of a white lioness, (the white lion being one of the supporters on the armorial bearings of the Howard family,) and then under that of a shepherdess, by Alcyon, her husband.

In 1595, our poet published his "Colin Clouts come Home againe," which contains an account of the Shepherd of the Ocean, Sir Walter Raleigh, finding him one day

"Under the foote of Mole, that mountaine hore,
Keeping his sheepe amongst the cooly shade
Of the greene alders by the Mullae's shore,"

and persuading him to accompany him to England; of his introduction to the queen; and a description of various persons about the court, under feigned names, which Mr. Todd, in his Life of Spenser, has taken great pains to assign to the proper owners. Daniel and Dr. Alabaster, however, appear in their own names. This poem is only interesting on account of its reference to the poet's contemporaries.

B*

In the same year appeared “Astrophel, a pastorall Elegie upon the death of the most noble and valorous knight, Sir Philip Sidney;" a series of poems which partake more of elaborate conceit than of emotion. They possess no intensity of feeling, and when we do meet with an occasional glimpse of it, it is instantly interrupted by some play upon words, or some explanatory parenthesis, which appeals to the understanding, and not to the heart. One of these pieces is written in iambic lines of three feet, without rhyme, and possesses considerable melody.

His "Amoretti, or Sonnets," which were published in 1595, were probably written in 1592 and 1593: in one of them (the 60th) he states that he had attained forty years of age. These Sonnets, which are supposed to have been addressed to the lady whom he afterwards married, are cold, unimpassioned productions, abounding with conceits and verbal quibbles. The "Epithalamion," which succeeds them, is in a much more impassioned strain, containing an eloquent and poetical expression of feeling; but it is, like most of Spenser's minor pieces, extended to an injudicious length. The event which this poem celebrates occurred, it is conjectured, in 1594. In 1596 appeared his "Fowre Hymnes," dedicated to the Countesses of Warwick and Cumberland. "Having," says Spenser in the dedication, "in the greener times of my youth, composed these former two Hymnes in the praise of love and beautie, and finding that the same too much pleased those of like age and disposition, which, being too vehemently carried with that kind of affection, do rather sucke out poyson to their strong passion, then honey to their honest delight, I was moved, by the one of you two most excellent Ladies, to call in the same; but, being unable so to do, by reason that many copies thereof were formerly scattered abroad, I resolved at least to amend, and, by way of retraction, to reforme them, making (instead of those two Hymnes of earthly or naturall love and beautie) two others of heavenly and celestiall." There was, we conceive, more of compliment to the opinion of the ladies in these expressions, than of real feeling of danger or impropriety in the poems. This year also produced his “Prothalamion, or a Spousall Verse," a short poem in honor of the double marriage of Lady Elizabeth and Lady Catherine Somerset, under the type of two swans.

"So purely white they were,

That even the gentle stream, the which them bare,
Seem'd foule to them, and bad his billowes spare
To wet their silken feathers."

The same year was distinguished by the appearance of the second part of "The Faerie Queene," consisting of three more books. Of the remaining six books, only two imperfect cantoes "Of Mutabilitie" have been published. Indeed, considerable difference of opinion has existed amongst the biographers and critics of Spenser, whether the latter part of "The Faerie Queene" was ever written. That the poet completed it rests chiefly on the authority of Sir James Ware, who, in his Preface to Spenser's "View of the State of Ireland," published in 1633, asserts that he finished the latter part in Ireland; "which was soon after unfortunately lost, by the disorder and abuse of his servants whom he had sent before him into England." Against this assertion may be adduced the testimony of William Browne, who, in his "Brittania's Pastorals," published 1616, thus speaks of Spenser:

"He sung th' heroicke knights of faiery land,

In lines so elegant, of such command,
That had the Thracian plaid but halfe so well,

He had not left Eurydice in hell.

But, e're he ended his melodious song,

An host of Angels flew the clouds among,

And rapt this swan from his attentive mates,

To make him one of their associates

In heavn's fair quire; where now he sings the praise
Of Him that is the first and last of daies."

That he did lose some papers in the Irish disturbances is apparent from the title of an epigram in Sir John Stradling's Epigrammatum libri quatuor, published in 1606, addressed "Ad Edm. Spencer, eximium poetam, de exemplaribus suis quibusdam manuscriptis, ab Hibernicis ex legibus igne crematis, in Hibernica defectione."

This is quoted by Mr. Todd, but proves nothing with respect to the present question. Browne's authority is probably as good as any; and as two cantoes, and two only, have been discovered, we are disposed to think that Spenser never completed the remainder of "The Faerie Queene."

Spenser finished in 1596 his "View of the State of Ireland," as appears by the concurrent dates of four old manuscripts of that composition. This discourse is written in the form of a dialogue between Irenæus (Spenser) and Eudoxus, and contains many sensible observations on the situation of that then and still unfortunate country. The object of the work is to show the evils "most hurtful to the common-weal of that land," and to point out remedies for them. In the course of his investigations, Spenser enters at some length into the early history and antiquities of the Irish: he displays a good deal of penetration in detecting the sources of those evils which required redress, but does not exhibit any comprehensive views for the advancement of the people, or the improvement of the system of government. The general tendency of his observations is to reduce the natives to complete subjection.

Amongst other remedies Spenser proposes to abolish the use of mantles, which were commonly worn by the people, and of long glibbs, "which is," he remarks, "a thick curled bush of hair, hanging down over their eyes, and monstrously disguising them.” As his reasons for prohibiting the use of the mantle are rather singular, and, besides, present a curious picture of the wretched state of the Irish peasantry, we shall quote them.

"Because the commodity doth not countervail the discommodity; for the inconveniences which thereby do arise, are much more many; for it is a fit house for an outlaw, a meet bed for a rebel, and an apt cloak for a thief. First, the outlaw being for his many crimes and villainies banished from the towns and houses of honest men, and wandering in waste places, far from danger of law, maketh his mantle his house, and under it covereth himself from the wrath of heaven, from the offence of earth, and from the sight of men. When it raineth it is his pent-house; when it bloweth it is his tent; when it freezeth it is his tabernacle. In summer he can wear it loose; in winter he can wrap it close; at all times he can use it; never heavy, never cumbersome. Likewise for a rebel it is as serviceable; for in his war that he maketh (if at least it deserve the name of war) when he still flieth from his foe and lurketh in the thick woods and straight passages, waiting for advantages, it is his bed, yea, and almost his household stuff. For the wood is his house against all weathers, and his mantle is his couch to sleep in. Therein he wrappeth himself

round, and coucheth himself strongly against the gnats, which in that country do more annoy the naked rebels whilst they keep the woods, and do more sharply wound them, than all their enemies' swords or spears, which can seldom come nigh them. Yea, and oftentimes their mantle serveth them when they are near driven, being wrapped about their left arm instead of a target; for it is hard to cut through with a sword; besides it is light to bear, light to throw away, and, being (as they commonly are) naked, it is to them all in all. Lastly, for a thief it is so handsome, as it may seem it was first invented for him; for under it he may cleanly convey any fit pillage that cometh handsomely in his way; and when he goeth abroad in the night in freebooting, it is his best and surest friend; for lying, as they often do, two or three nights together abroad to watch for their booty, with that they can prettily shroud themselves under a bush or a bank side, till they may conveniently do their errand: and when all is over he can, in his mantle, pass through any town or company, being closely hooded over his head, as he useth, from knowledge of any to whom he is endangered. Besides this, he or any man else that is disposed to mischief or villainy, may under his mantle go privily armed, without suspicion of any; carry his head-piece, his skean, or pistol if he please, to be always in readiness." Besides these extremely cogent reasons, he finds others arising from the abuse of this denounced garment by the female sex.

Spenser was at this time (1596) clerk of the council of the province of Munster. Two years afterwards, the rebellion of Tyrone drove him and his family from Kilcolman. In the confusion of flight, one of the poet's children was unfortunately left behind, and perished in the house, which was burnt by the rebels. He arrived in England, harassed by these misfortunes, and died in London on the 16th January, 1598-9, at the age of forty-five. He was buried in Westminster Abbey, near his poetical father Chaucer, at the expense of the Earl of Essex; and "his hearse was attended by poets; and mournful elegies and poems, with the pens that wrote them, were thrown into his tomb." He left a wife and two sons, Silvanus and Peregrine. Spenser has been represented by several authors to have died poor, and amongst others by Camden, his contemporary. Warton has exaggerated his poverty into something like starvation, and has also committed an