SOURCE: "The Poetry of Sir Walter Ralegh," in A Review of English Literature, Vol. 1, No. 3, July, 1960, pp. 19-29.

In the following essay, Ure contrasts Raleigh's poetry with that of Spenser and emphasizes that, as both a literary artist and man, Raleigh left an ambiguous impression.

When Sir Walter Ralegh paid a visit to Edmund Spenser in the autumn of 1589, a few months after Spenser had acquired his castle and estate near Cork, he was a man who had already created his own legend. He was perhaps the most brilliant figure at the brilliant court, hated and courted for his pride and power, already a sea-captain, an empire-builder, and an Irish landowner. Spenser has left us an idealised account of their poetical intercourse in Colin Clouts Come Home Again. They read each other's poems. Spenser had the first three books of The Faerie Queene to show, and Ralegh had...