the 66

xij ecloges proportionable to the xij monthes." Although there are reasons for believing that Shepheards Calender" was by no means the first fruits of Spenser's muse, that volume was his first serious bid for the suffrages of Elizabethan England as its chief poet. But the bid was made in a very modest manner. The volume appeared anonymously, under the sheltering wing of a dedication to Sidney, and with a commendatory epistle from the pen of E. K., the initials, as we know, of the poet's Cambridge friend. True, the epistle was bold enough; E. K. had no doubts about the quality of the poet for whom he stood sponsor. Unknown, unkissed, he might be at that moment, "but I doubt not, so soon as his name shall come into the knowledge of men, and his worthiness be sounded in the trump of fame, but that he shall be not only kissed, but also beloved of all, embraced of the most, and wondered at of the best."

Edward Kirke had not long to wait for the fulfilment of his prophecy. Spenser's success appears to have been instantaneous. England was waiting for a new poet, and had grace given to recognise him when he appeared. "But now yet at the last," wrote one critic

while his mind was filled with thoughts of Virgil, "hath England hatched one poet of this sort, in my conscience comparable with the best in any respect: even master Sp., author of the 'Shepherd's Calender,' whose travail in that piece of English poetry I think verily is so commendable, as none of equal judgment can yield him less praise for his excellent skill and skilful excellency showed forth in the same than they would to either Theocritus or Virgil.”

Very soothing, no doubt, all this must have been to the "New Poet," as Spencer was called, but also not very satisfying. These fine words did not butter his parsnips. The days were not yet when laudatory reviews and a consensus of favourable opinion had their immediate result in substantial cheques from the publisher. Spenser had come to London "for his more preferment," and praise for his poetry, however comforting, was but a poor stone instead of bread. And yet his success as a singer may have been responsible for such advancement in life as was to be his share. Sidney was the relative of many influential men in those days, and the friend of many more, and he it was, we may be sure, who secured the poet a place in the household of Leicester House. That was a notable

river-side mansion in Spenser's time.

Once the

house of Lord Paget, it was now the abode of

THE WATER-GATE OF ESSEX HOUSE, LONDON

the Earl of Leicester, and known by his name. Years after it was by him bequeathed to his son-in-law, the Earl of Essex, and as Essex

House it sheltered Spenser when in London, sixteen years later, on the last quest for "more preferment." It has all vanished now, save the arch and steps at the bottom of Essex Street which once served as the water-gate of the mansion and saw the "two gentle knights" of the "Prothalamion" receive those "two faire Brides, their Loves delight." There are probably no other stones standing in all London which can claim to have figured as these archway pillars did in the life of Spenser.

Perhaps those were not happy days he spent in Leicester House; instinctively they recall the sorrows of the solitary Florentine and his

"Thou shalt have proof how savoureth of salt
The bread of others, and how hard a road
The going down and up another's stairs."

It may have been otherwise; we cannot tell; but to the high-spirited man there are few trials so galling as waiting for the oportunity to put out to usury the talents of which he is conscious. Spenser, twenty-eight years old, acknowledged the chief poet of his country since Chaucer, well-equipped for serving the State in high capacity, was waiting, wearily waiting, for something to do. It was his mischance that that age bred a plethora of able men.

At last his opportunity came, but in a form he probably little expected. It seems clear that his heart was set on some state service which would give him space to approve the reputation he had won; his letters to his friend Harvey bristle with poetic projects and schemes for high achievement in the realm of letters. That he fulfilled his mission, but independent of the aid he had anticipated, is not the least jewel in his crown.

Sid

While Spenser was still waiting, the ministers of Elizabeth were struggling with that problem which has been the nightmare of English statesmen for countless generations, -the problem of what to do with Ireland. Deputy after deputy, many of them men of clear vision and high purpose, had returned home foiled in the task of giving that country a stable government. ney's father, Sir Henry Sidney, had been the last to resign the hopeless labour, and for two years the Queen had no personal representative among her Irish subjects. But circumstances had arisen which made the appointment of a new deputy an urgent necessity, and in the summer of 1580 Lord Grey of Wilton was appointed to fill that "great place which had wrecked the reputation and broken the hearts of a succession of able and high-spirited servants of the