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EDMUND SPENSER.

SPENSER 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

taste, on various state missions, and experienced much of the discomfort of a hanger

on.

In 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 Kilcolman. Here 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 a year on the In 1596 the second part of the

poet.

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 He

infant child perished in the flames. 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.

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ROBERT INGLIS.

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WILLIE BAIRD.

'S two and thirty summers
since I came

of Inverburn.

My father was a shepherd

doo,

Yonder above you? Are you dead, my
Or did you see the shining Hand that parts

To school the village lads The clouds above and becks the bonnie birds.
Until they wing away, and human eyes
That watch them till they vanish in the blue
Droop and grow tearful? Ay, I ken, I ken,
I'm talking folly, but I loved the child:
He was the bravest scholar in the school;
He came to teach the very dominie-
Me, with my lyart locks and sleepy heart.

old and poor,
Who dwelling 'mong the
clouds on norland
hills,

His tartan plaidie on, and
by his side
His sheep-dog running, reddened with the

winds

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The small black bell that stands behind the | Which beat the mathematics. Quærere
door
Verum in sylvis Academi, sir,
And ring the shouting laddies from their Is meet for men who can afford to dwell
play:
For ever in a garden, reading books
Run, Willie!" And he ran and eyed the Of morals and the logic. Good and well!
bell,
Give me such tiny truths as only bloom
Stooped o'er it, seemed afraid that it would Like red-tipt gowans at the hallanstone,
Or kindle softly, flashing bright at times,
In fuffing cottage fires.

bite,

Then grasped it firm, and as it jingled gave
A timid cry; next laughed to hear the
sound.

And ran full merry to the door and rang
And rang and rang, while lights of music lit
His pallid cheek, till, shouting, panting hard,
In ran the big rough laddies from their play.

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Came Donald trotting, and they homeward I cannot frame in speech the thoughts that

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To be among the mists, the tracks of rain,
Nearing the hueless silence of the snow.
Slowly and surely I began to feel
That I was all alone in all the world,
And that my mother and my father slept
Far, far away in some forgotten kirk
Remembered but in dreams. Alone at nights
I read my Bible more and Euclid less;
For, mind you, like my betters, I had been
Half scoffer, half believer; on the whole,
I thought the life beyond a useless dream
Best left alone, and shut my eyes to themes
That puzzled mathematics. But at last,
When Willie Baird and I grew friends and
thoughts

Came to me from beyond my father's grave,
I found 'twas pleasant late at e'en to read
My Bible-haply, only just to pick
Some easy chapter for my pet to learn;
Yet night by night my soul was guided on
Like a blind man some angel hand con-

voys.

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,
I saw the empty ether floating gray
O'er shadowy mountains murmuring low
with winds;

And often when, in his old-fashioned way,
He questioned me, I seemed to hear a voice
From far away that mingled with the cries
Haunting the regions where the round red

sun

Is all alone with God among the snow.

Who made the stars? and if within his hand He caught and held one, would his fingers burn?

If I, the gray-haired dominie, was dug
From out a cabbage-garden such as he
Was found in; if, when bigger, he would

wear

Gray homespun hose and clumsy boots like

mine

And have a house to dwell in all alone,— Thus would he question, seated on my knee, While Donald (wheesht, old man!) stretched lyart limbs

Under my chair, contented. Open-mouthed

He hearkened to the tales I loved to tell About Sir William Wallace and the Bruce, And the sweet lady on the Scottish throne Whose crown was colder than a band of ice,

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