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Notwithstanding the ungenerous conduct of Lord Burleigh, which has been made the subject of indignant animadversion by every biographer of the poet, it cannot be justly affirmed that he experienced neglect. He was only twenty-six years of age, and had not yet formed the idea of that noble poem on which his fame chiefly depends, when he entered on the enjoyment of his office (as poetlaureat), and was thus rewarded in his special character as a poet. In 1579, he was despatched by Leicester on a mission to France; and in the following year he accompanied Lord Grey de Wilton to Ireland as his secretary, on his receiving the appointment of Lord Lieutenant. He returned to England with Lord Grey in 1582, but four years afterwards he again visited Ireland, to take possession of one of the forfeited estates of the Earl of Desmond, in the county of Cork, amounting to above 3000 acres of land, which had been presented to him by his sovereign. There he took up his residence in Kilcolman Castle, and in the course of the eleven following years, which he passed chiefly in Ireland, he composed his immortal "Færie Queen." In this noble retreat he was visited by Sir Walter Raleigh, whom he celebrates under the poetical figure of the "Shepherd of the Ocean," and it was by his urgent advice that Spenser was induced to prepare the first three books of his great poem for publication. In the interval between the publication of the earlier portion and the completion of the rest of this national work, Spenser visited England in company with his friend Raleigh, and paid his court to Queen Elizabeth, to whom his poem was dedicated. There he received new rewards and honours, and had an additional pension of £50 a-year conferred on him by his royal mistress. Four years afterwards he married his wife Elizabeth, a

country girl, as is believed, of humble birth, who had smitten the poet's fancy, and with her he renewed his residence in the old castle of the Desmonds, with the addition to his honours and duties of the office of Sheriff of Cork, to which he was recommended by her Majesty.

Thus did fortune and royal favour seem to smile propitiously on the great poet, when the Tyrone rebellion broke out in the year 1598. His estate was plundered, and his house burned by the rebels. One of his children perished in the flames, and he was driven to flee with his wife to England, in a state of extreme destitution. From the effects of this dire calamity he never recovered. He suffered alike from dejection of mind, and, as is believed, from all the evils of poverty; and at lengtlı died, the same year, in the forty-fifth year of his age, in an obscure lodging in London. His remains were interred in Westminster Abbey, beside the grave of Chaucer; and the expenses of his funeral were defrayed by the Earl of Essex.

So sad and premature a close to the life of so great and justly esteemed a poet, has been made the subject of many lamentations, as well as of some severe animadversions on his contemporaries. But it has been justly remarked by Mr. George Ellis, that "the period during which our amiable poet was condemned

To fret his soul with crosses and with cares,
To eat his heart with comfortless despairs,'

was not very long protracted, since he began to enjoy the advantages of public office at the age of twenty-six, and at thirty-three was rewarded by an ample and independent fortune, of which he was only deprived by a general and national calamity." Still more, it must be remem

bered that he did not survive long enough to receive permanent compensation for losses in which so many were involved besides himself. It cannot be doubted that, had he lived, he would once more have partaken of the royal favour, so generously bestowed on him in earlier years, and which was extended by Queen Elizabeth to the great men of that remarkable era which still bears her name, with a liberality as strikingly contrasting with her general economy, as with the ill-directed profusion of her successor. The writings of Spenser, though involved in the obscurity of elaborate allegories, and further encumbered by an obsolete diction, have been acknowledged by the poets of every succeeding age as an inexhaustible source of rich imagery and the finest poetic fancy. They are characterized, moreover, by a pure and elevated tone of morals, and a fervent spirit of piety, worthy to be the embodiment of the grand ideal of that age in which the religious and intellectual freedom of England had its rise.

SIR PHILIP SIDNEY.

BORN, 1554; DIED, 1586.

SIR PHILIP SIDNEY was privileged to be the early patron and friend of Spenser, while he himself forms one of the brightest ornaments of the Elizabethan age; though, like the Earl of Surrey, prematurely cut off when he had seemed only to give the promise of fruits worthy of his great genius. He was born at Penhurst, in Kent, on the 29th of November 1554, his father being Sir Henry Sidney, a favourite at the court of Edward VI., and his mother, the Lady Mary, eldest daughter of the Duke of Northum

berland, and sister to Robert Dudley, the favourite of Queen Elizabeth. When only twelve years of age, the remarkable intelligence and mature thoughtfulness of the boy attracted notice. In 1569, he was entered as a student at Christ Church, Oxford, where he greatly distinguished himself, during a residence of three years. He then proceeded on a tour, continued during upwards of two years, in which he visited France, Belgium, Germany, Hungary, and Italy, and formed an acquaintance with many of the most distinguished continental scholars. His noble person, highly accomplished mind, and fascinating manners, soon won the favour of Queen Elizabeth, and he was speedily recognised as one of the chief ornaments of her brilliant court. His first literary production was a masque, entitled "The Lady of May," which was performed for the gratification of the Queen, at Hampstead House, in Essex. We next find him filling various offices of trust, and proceeding on an important mission as her Majesty's ambassador to the court of Vienna. Thus did the duties of the state and the services of the muse gracefully harmonize under the rule of England's greatest queen.

Sidney's heroic romance of "Arcadia" was written during a temporary retirement from court; "Astrophel and Stella" was published in 1591; and in 1595, his most popular composition, the "Defence of Poesy," appeared. Having been disappointed in an ardent attachment formed for Lady Penelope Devereux, she figures in various of his poems and sonnets; and is addressed, according to the fashion of the age, under the fictitious names of Stella and Philoclea. Soon after, he married the only daughter of his old friend, Sir Henry Walsingham, and received from the Queen the honour of knighthood. But the poets of that age were no studious dreamers. Along with Sir

Francis Drake, he projected an expedition against the Spaniards in the West Indies; but was prevented joining in it from the unwillingness of the Queen to lose his society; and the same reason is believed to have prevented him accepting the crown of Poland. But the singular care of Elizabeth could not preserve the brave and gallant Sidney from the fate of war. In 1585, she appointed him governor of Flushing, as a special mark of her royal favour, and the Hollanders being then at war with Spain, he headed a body of troops, in an engagement fought under the walls of Zutphen, in Guelderland, and was mortally wounded by a musket-shot in the thigh. The well-known incident which marked the chivalrous courtesy of the dying poet has often been told. He was about to quench the extreme thirst which the feverishness of his mortal wound augmented, when he saw a poor wounded soldier borne past who cast a wistful eye on the bottle of water. So soon as Sidney perceived this, he handed the untasted draught to his poor comrade in arms, saying, "Thy necessity is greater than mine." So died the gallant, the chivalrous, the noble Sidney, in the thirty-second year of his age, leaving a name not unworthy to occupy a prominent place among the famous men of that age of giant intellects.

The names of GEORGE CHAPMAN, SIR JOHN HARRINGTON, SAMUEL DANIEL, ROBERT SOUTHWELL, JOSHUA SYLVESTER, and sundry other poets, all born within a very few years of the birth-date of the author of the "Arcadia,” are still remembered with favour in connection with the productions of their muse. But we pass over all these to turn to him whom his great contemporary, Ben Jonson, so justly characterizes as "the soul of the age."

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