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dreamily down; a long and straight nose, strongly developed, answering to a long and somewhat spare face, with a wellformed sensible-looking forehead; a mouth almost obscured by the moustache, but still showing rather full lips, denoting feeling, well set together, so that the warmth of feeling shall not run riot, with a touch of sadness in them—such is the look of Spenser as his portrait hands it down to us.”

The "Faerie Queen" was intended to have extended to twelve books, but only six books and two cantos were writtenat least that is all which has survived. Whether it is a matter for regret that the poem is incomplete may be disputed. Ardent admirers of the bard who sang of "heavenly Una and her milk-white lamb," who revel in his luxuriant descriptions and in his "linked sweetness long drawn out," who, like Christopher North, find something attractive even in such passages of his as are most repellent to the ordinary mind, may sigh when they think that half of the poetical feast which they might have enjoyed has been denied them. But it may well be doubted whether Spenser's popularity among readers in general would not have been diminished had the "Faerie Queen" extended to twelve books. Macaulay expressed the opinion of thousands when he said, "One unpardonable fault, the fault of tediousness, pervades the whole of the Fairy Queen.' We become sick of cardinal virtues and deadly sins, and long for the society of plain men and women. Of the persons who read the first canto not one in ten reaches the end of the first book, and not one in a hundred perseveres to the end of the poem. Very few and very weary are those who are in at the death of the Blatant Beast. If the last six books, which are said to have been destroyed in Ireland, had been preserved, we doubt whether any heart less stout than that of a commentator would have held out to the end." This extract (which proves that Macaulay, indefatigable reader though he was, had not been able to hold out to the end of the "Faerie Queen," for the Blatant Beast does not die) doubtless appears to those whose admiration of Spenser's beauties blinds them to a sense of his faults, one of the many

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The "Faerie Queen."

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proofs of Macaulay's deficiencies as a literary critic. Nevertheless the majority of readers will agree that in this instance Macaulay was substantially right. Books are written to be read; and surely a poem, which many who love poetry can with difficulty finish, is liable to the charge of tediousness. Now tediousness is so serious a fault that it needs many surpassing excellences to compensate for it. These excellences Spenser possesses. Perhaps no poet ever had so truly poetical a spirit-the power of viewing everything in a poetical light. "His command of imagery," writes Campbell, "is wide, easy, and luxuriant. He threw the soul of harmony into our verse, and made it more warmly, tenderly, and magnificently descriptive than it ever was before, or, with a few exceptions, than it has ever been since. It must certainly be owned that in description he exhibits nothing of the brief strokes and robust power which characterise the very greatest poets, but we shall nowhere find more airy and expansive images of visionary things, a sweeter tone of sentiment, or a finer flush in the colours of language than in this Rubens of English poetry."

If we wish fully to understand the "Faerie Queen," and to appreciate Spenser's mode of literary workmanship, we must note carefully the allegory which runs through the poem. This is no easy task, for not only are virtues and vices personified, but the personifications are made also to represent personages of Spenser's time, whom he wished to compliment or the reverse. Fortunately, however, the beauties of the poem may be felt though the allegory is disregarded, and perhaps the best advice to give to one reading Spenser for the first time is to let the allegory alone altogether. Spenser is a poet to be read leisurely: we must fully surrender ourselves to his spell before we can feel its power; and nothing is more apt to break the spell than to pause in the middle of some fine passage and endeavour to find out, either from commenlators or from one's own resources, what Spenser meant to typify in the passage, and what living character, if any, was therein personified. Impatient readers, who wish for some

thing clear and definite, must seek for it elsewhere than in the shadowy dreamland of the "Faerie Queen."

To the fastidious critics of Queen Anne's time, to whom "correctness" and good taste seemed the highest virtues of poetry, Spenser, if they read him at all, must have proved a terrible stumbling-block. Keen as was his sense of beauty, he sometimes draws pictures which, to present-day readers at any rate, are intolerably repulsive. Such are his description of Error, and, in an even higher degree, the picture of Duessa unmasked. Burke is said to have admired the former, disgusting though it be, and in his old age repeated it to Sir James Mackintosh as reminding him "of that putrid carcase, that mother of all evil, the French Revolution." That Burke should have been fond of the passage appears les singular when we remember that his own speeches are now and again stained by similar violations of good taste.

The language of the "Faerie Queen," like that of the "Shepherd's Calendar," is more archaic than that in general use at the time when it was written. The antique phraseology employed is not displeasing in a poem of the kind; perhaps upon the whole it rather adds to its attractiveness. The metre in which it is written, the "Spenserian stanza," as it is called, has been employed by so many great poets in great poems as to conclusively prove how admirably it is adapted for certain kinds of metrical effect. It is the stanza adopted by Thomson in the "Castle of Indolence;" by Burns in the "Cottar's Saturday Night;" by Campbell in "Gertrude of Wyoming;" by Scott in "Don Roderick ;" by Wordsworth in the "Female Vagrant;" by Shelley in the "Revolt of Islam;" by Keats in the "Eve of St. Agnes ;" and by Byron in "Childe Harold."

Spenser's patron, Sir Philip Sidney, may be taken as a typical example of all that was greatest and best among the courtiers of Queen Elizabeth. Handsome in appearance, richly cultivated in mind, a proficient in all manly exercises, of unimpeachable courage, and great skill in the management of affairs, he was regarded by the aspiring young noblemen of his time as a model whom they would do well to emulate;

Sir Philip Sidney.

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while his courtesy to inferiors, his liberal benefactions, and his early and melancholy death, threw a halo around his name which even yet has not grown dim. He was born in 1554 at Penshurst, and was the son of Sir Henry Sidney, nephew of the Earl of Leicester, and of Mary Dudley, daughter of the Duke of Northumberland. Sidney is a good illustration of the axiom that the child is father of the man. From his earliest years he exerted his faculties to the utmost, striving to improve himself in every available way. He never seems to have been a boy. His friend, Fulke Greville, who was with him at Shrewsbury School, tells us that though he knew him from a child, he never knew him other than a man, with such staidness of mind, lovely and familiar gravity, as earned grace and reverence above greater years. He goes on to say that Sidney's talk was ever of knowledge, and his very play tending to enrich his mind, so that even his teachers found something in him to admire and learn above what they usually read and taught. It must not be supposed from this that Sidney was a mere plodding bookworm, buried in his studies, and with all the freshness and elasticity of youth crushed out of him. On the contrary, he cultivated his body as carefully as his mind, and attained high excellence in all the athletic sports which then prevailed. Spenser describes him as

"In wrestling nimble, and in running swift;

In shooting steady, and in swimming strong;
Well made to strike, to throw, to leap, to lift,
And all the sports that shepherds are among.

In every one he vanquished every one,

He vanquished all, and vanquished was of none."

From Shrewsbury Sidney proceeded to Oxford, which he quitted at the age of seventeen to undertake a prolonged tour on the Continent. He visited Paris, where he was during the terrible massacre of St. Bartholomew, the horrors of which no doubt did something to confirm him in his strongly Protestant principles, and afterwards went to Frankfort, Vienna, Padua, and other places. Everywhere his accomplishments and courtesy made him sure of a kind reception; and he formed

a close friendship with some of the most eminent men of the Continent. On his return to England in 1575, he was received with enthusiasm at Court, and won the favour of Queen Elizabeth, who was pleased to address him as "her Philip." In 1577 he was employed on a diplomatic mission, in which he acquitted himself so well as to excite the admiration of William the Silent, who pronounced him one of the ripest and greatest counsellors of state in Europe. On his return to England, Sidney for eight years devoted himself mainly to literary pursuits, associating with men of letters, who found in him a bountiful patron, and writing his "Sonnets," the "Arcadia,” and the "Apologie for Poetry." He did not neglect politics altogether, however, although he held no public appointment; on the contrary, he actively exerted himself in endeavouring to provide measures in defence of the Protestant religion and to thwart the power of Spain. In 1585 came the crowning event of his life. He was sent to the Netherlands as Governor of Flushing along with an army under Leicester. There he soon distinguished himself by his valour and his prudence, but his bright career was destined to be a brief one. In October 1586, at a skirmish at Zutphen he received a mortal wound. As he rode from the battle-field occurred the touching incident which has done more than either his writings or his contemporary fame to keep Sidney's memory alive. "Being thirsty with excess of bleeding, he called for drink, which was presently brought him; but as he was putting the bottle to his mouth, he saw a poor soldier carried along, who had eaten his last at the same feast, ghastly, casting up his eyes at the bottle, which Sir Philip perceiving, took it from his head before he drunk and delivered it to the poor man with these words, Thy necessity is greater than mine.""

None of Sidney's works were printed in his lifetime, though, as he was well known to be an author, writings of his were probably rather extensively handed about in manuscript. His most famous work is the "Arcadia," written in 1580, and dedicated to "Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother," the illustrious Countess of Pembroke. It was not published till 1590. It is a pastoral

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