Then came the iolly Sommer, being dight wore, from which as he had chauffed been The sweat did drop; and in his hand he bore And now would bathe his limbes with labor heated sore. Then came the Autumne all in yellow clad, Laden with fruits that made him laugh, full glad Upon his head a wreath, that was enrold With eares of corne of every sort, he bore; And in his hand a sickle he did holde, To reape the ripened fruits the which the earth had yold. Lastly came Winter cloathed all in frize, In his right hand a tipped staffe he held, With which his feeble steps he stayed still; For he was faint with cold, and weak with eld, That scarce his loosèd limbes he able was to weld. In these glowing lines, Spenser pays beautiful tribute to the floral month of May Then came faire May, the fairest maid on ground, Deck'd all with dainties of her season's pride, And throwing flowres out of her lap around; Upon two brethren's shoulders she did ride, Lord! how all creatures laugh'd when her they spied, And leap'd and danced as they had ravisht been; And Cupid's self about her flutter'd all in greene. Here is another choice stanza from the Faerie Queene, descriptive of Una (the impersonation of Faith)—" radiant with beauty beaming through her tears:" One day, nigh wearie of the yrkesome waye, As the great eye of heaven, shyned bright, Did ever mortall eye behold such heavenly grace? The original plan of this work contemplated twelve books, " fashioning twelve moral virtues ;" of these, however, we have only six; the others, if ever written, were probably destroyed with the rest of his property, and, it is said, his child, in the burning of his castle in Ireland during the rebellion. There is a story on record, but generally discredited, to the effect that when Spenser took his manuscript of the Faerie Queene to the Earl of Southampton,the great patron of the poets of his day, that after reading a few pages, his lordship ordered his servant to carry to the author twenty pounds. Reading further, he cried out in a rapture, “Give him twenty more:" proceeding still with the perusal, he soon again stopped, and added another twenty pounds: but at length, checking his enthusiasm, he told his servant to "put him out of his house or he should be ruined." career was full of sorrow. Sad to state, the close of our gentle poet's in poverty, and of a broken heart for his loss. Ben Jonson affirms that he died "for lack of bread," and that when Lord Essex sent him (too late) twenty guineas, Spenser refused the gift, saying, “He was sorry he had no time to spend them." He was the friend of Sidney, at whose estate, Penshurst, these gifted sons of genius consecrated many happy hours to friendship and the muse. In 1580 the poets separated, one to the service of the camp, the other to his estate in Ireland, where he became acquainted with another master-spirit, Sir Walter Raleigh, by whom he was introduced to Queen Elizabeth. "When we conceive," says Campbell, "Spenser reciting his compositions to Raleigh, in a scene so beautifully appropriate, the mind casts a pleasing retrospect over that influence which the enterprise of the discoverer of Virginia, and the genius of the author of the Faerie Queene,' have respectively produced on the fortune and language of England. The fancy might even be pardoned for a momentary superstition, that the genius of their country hovered unseen over their meeting, casting her first look of regard on the poet that was destined to inspire her future Milton, and the other on the maritime hero who paved the way for colonizing distant regions of the earth, where the language of England was to be spoken, and the poetry of Spenser to be admired.” SHAKSPEARE, whom Bunsen styles "the great prophet of human destinies on the awakening of a new world," was, in his fifteenth year, withdrawn from the "free school," where, in the words of Ben Jonson," he had acquired small Latin and less Greek," for the purpose of aiding his father's business, which, according to Aubrey, was then that of a butcher; and that "when he killed a calf, he would do it in a high style, and make a speeche." A pursuit so uncongenial naturally tended to pervert his taste, and we soon find him among the roystering fraternities, known as "the topers and sippers" of Stratford, "so renowned for the excellence of its beer and the unquenchable thirst of its inhabitants." The lady of his love, as all the world knows, was Anne Hathaway, the dark-eyed maiden of the adjacent hamlet of Shottery; at whose picturesque cottage, worthy Master William was, doubtless, not an unfrequent visitor. The traditionary charge of deer-stealing preferred against our embryo bard, and the indignities he suffered in consequence thereof, are supposed to have caused him to leave his native town, and seek his fortune in the British metropolis, where, after being seventeen years a player, he at length became proprietor of the "Globe" and other theatres, from which he derived an ample income. In 1612 he returned to Stratford, after having written most of his dramas. It was not till seven years after his death that the first collective edition of his plays appeared; and it is no less remarkable that it should have omitted Pericles, and included seven dramas since rejected as apocryphal. We all regret our ignorance of the "sayings and doings," and personal history of the great poet, who himself seemed to be so well acquainted with our common humanity. Even the walls of that rendezvous of rollicking wits, |