DEFENCE OF POESIE.—­The second work to be mentioned is his “Defence of Poesie.”  Amid the gayety and splendor of that reign, there was a sombre element.  The Puritans took gloomy views of life:  they accounted amusements, dress, and splendor as things of the world; and would even sweep away poetry as idle, and even wicked.  Sir Philip came to its defence with the spirit of a courtier and a poet, and the work in which he upholds it is his best, far better in style and sense than his Arcadia.  It is one of the curiosities of literature, in itself, and in its representation of such a social condition as could require a defence of poetry.  His Astrophel and Stella is a collection of amatory poems, disclosing his passion for Lady Rich, the sister of the Earl of Essex.  Although something must be allowed to the license of the age, in language at least, yet still the Astrophel and Stella cannot be commended for its morality.  The sentiments are far from Platonic, and have been severely censured by the best critics.  Among the young gallants of Euphuistic habitudes, Sidney was known as Astrophel; and Spenser wrote a poem mourning the death of Astrophel:  Stella, of course, was the star of his worship.

GABRIEL HARVEY.—­Among the friends of both Sidney and Spenser, was one who had the pleasure of making them acquainted—­Gabriel Harvey.  He was born, it is believed, in 1545, and lived until 1630.  Much may be gathered of the literary character and tendencies of the age by a perusal of the “three proper and wittie familiar letters” which passed between Spenser and himself, and the “four letters and certain sonnets,” containing valuable notices of contemporary poets.  He also prefixed a poem entitled Hobbinol, to the Faery Queene.  But Harvey most deserves our notice because he was the champion of the hexameter verse in English, and imbued even Spenser with an enthusiasm for it.

Each language has its own poetic and rhythmic capacities.  Actual experiment and public taste have declared their verdict against hexameter verse in English.  The genius of the Northern languages refuses this old heroic measure, which the Latins borrowed from the Greeks, and all the scholarship and finish of Longfellow has not been able to establish it in English.  Harvey was a pedant so thoroughly tinctured with classical learning, that he would trammel his own language by ancient rules, instead of letting it grow into the assertion of its own rules.

EDMUND SPENSER—­THE SHEPHERD’S CALENDAR.—­Having noticed these lesser lights of the age of Spenser, we return to a brief consideration of that poet, who, of all others, is the highest exponent and representative of literature in the age of Queen Elizabeth, and whose works are full of contemporary history.

Spenser was born in the year of the accession of Queen Mary, 1553, at London, and of what he calls “a house of ancient fame.”  He was educated at Cambridge, where he early displayed poetic taste and power, and he went, after leaving college, to reside as a tutor in the North of England.  A love affair with “a skittish female,” who jilted him, was the cause of his writing the Shepherd’s Calendar; which he soon after took with him in manuscript to London, as the first fruits of a genius that promised far nobler things.