And, if ever poet won heaven for a song, 1660. SP R. O. MASSON. EDMUND SPENSER. PENSER was one of the great men who from age to age mark out the general course of poetry, and who take a place among the few selected from the illustrious of every age whom we look up to as the instructors of all time. He claimed to be descended from a noble family, though the chief evidence of the truth of the assertion is that he took his place in Queen Elizabeth's court as a gentleman of birth. He was born in East Smithfield about the year 1553, in humble circumstances. In his sixteenth year he was entered as a sizar at Cambridge, where he continued seven years, and where he took the degree of A. M. After leaving Cambridge he obtained an introduction to Sir Philip Sidney, to whom he dedicated his first poem, "The Shepherd's Calendar," published in 1579. He seems to have been employed at court, much to his dis on. colman. taste, on various state missions, and experienced much of the discomfort of a hangerIn 1580, however, he was appointed secretary to the viceroy of Ireland, and six years afterward he obtained a grant of forfeited land in the county of Cork, where he fixed his residence in the old castle of KilHere he brought home his wife, the “Elizabeth” of his sonnets, and here he wrote the greater part of his immortal poem the "Faery Queen." The first part was published in 1589, and met with an enthusiastic reception. Queen Elizabeth at once settled a pension of fifty pounds pounds a year on the poet. In 1596 the second part of the 66 Faery Queen" issued from the press. It was intended to have been continued, but was never completed. But fortune, which had so long befriended him, now changed; the Tyrone rebellion broke out in 1598, his house was burned by the rebels, and his infant child perished in the flames. He had to flee with his wife to England in the greatest destitution, and, dejected and heartbroken, he died in the following year, in the forty-fifth year of his age, in a small lodging in London. His remains were laid beside those of Chaucer in Poet's Corner. "The term 'faery' is used by Spenser to denote something existing in the regions of fancy, and the Faery Queen is the impersonation of glory; the knights of Faeryland are the twelve virtues, who are the champions of the queen." H ROBERT INGLIS. THE MODEST MUSE. OW nice the reputation of the maid! Let not austerity breed servile fear, Habitual innocence adorns her thoughts, But your neglect must answer for her faults. WENTWORTH DILLON (Earl of Roscommon. WILLIE BAIRD. 'S two and thirty summers of Inverburn. My father was a shepherd Yonder above you? Are you dead, my doo, To school the village lads The clouds above and becks the bonnie birds old and poor, Oh, well I mind the day his mother brought But waited silently with shoeless feet watched The small black bell that stands behind the | Which beat the mathematics. Quærere bite, Then grasped it firm, and as it jingled gave And ran full merry to the door and rang The laddie still Was seated on my knee when at the door We heard a scrape-scrape-scraping. Willie pricked His ears and listened, then he clapt his hands: "Hey! Donald, Donald, Donald!" (See! the rogue Looks up and blinks his eyes: he knows his name.) "Hey, Donald, Donald!" Willie cried. At I saw beneath me, at the door, a dog- His nose between his paws, his eyes half At sight of Willie, with a joyful bark Into my face while patting Donald's back: home." An old man's tale-a tale for men grayhaired Who wear through second childhood to the grave: I'll hasten on. Thenceforward Willie came Came Donald trotting, and they homeward I cannot frame in speech the thoughts that went Together, Willie walking slow but sure And Donald trotting sagely by his side. (Ay, Donald, he is dead. Be still, old man!) What link existed, human or divine, But when I looked on Willie's face, it seemed seem To be among the mists, the tracks of rain, filled This gray old brow, the feelings dim and warm That soothed the throbbings of this weary heart; But when I placed my hand on Willie's head, Warm sunshine tingled from the yellow hair Through trembling fingers to my blood within ; And when I looked in Willie's stainless eyes, And often when, in his old-fashioned way, Best left alone, and shut my eyes to themes Gray homespun hose and clumsy boots like |