The Shepheards Calender was published in the winter of 1579 with a grateful and complimentary dedication to Sidney.  It is an academic exercise consisting of a series of twelve pastoral poems in imitation of the eclogues of Vergil and Theocritus.  The poem is cast in the form of dialogues between shepherds, who converse on such subjects as love, religion, and old age.  In three eclogues the poet attacks with Puritan zeal the pomp and sloth of the worldly clergy, and one is devoted to the courtly praise of the queen.  It was at once recognized as the most notable poem that had appeared since the death of Chaucer, and placed Spenser immediately at the head of living English poets.

In 1580 Spenser went over to Ireland as private secretary to Lord Grey of Wilton, the Artegall of the Legend of Justice in the Faerie Queene.  After the recall of his patron he remained in that turbulent island in various civil positions for the rest of his life, with the exception of two or three visits and a last sad flight to England.  For seven years he was clerk of the Court of Chancery in Dublin, and then was appointed clerk to the Council of Munster.  In 1586 he was granted the forfeited estate of the Earl of Desmond in Cork County, and two years later took up his residence in Kilcolman Castle, which was beautifully situated on a lake with a distant view of mountains.  In the disturbed political condition of the country, life here seemed a sort of exile to the poet, but its very loneliness and danger gave the stimulus needed for the development of his peculiar genius.

“Here,” says Mr. Stopford Brooke, “at the foot of the Galtees, and bordered to the north by the wild country, the scenery of which is frequently painted in the Faerie Queene and in whose woods and savage places such adventures constantly took place in the service of Elizabeth as are recorded in the Faerie Queene, the first three books of that great poem were finished.”  Spenser had spent the first three years of his residence at Kilcolman at work on this masterpiece, which had been begun in England, under the encouragement of Sidney, probably before 1580.  The knightly Sidney died heroically at the battle of Zutphen, in 1586, and Spenser voiced the lament of all England in the beautiful pastoral elegy Astrophel which he composed in memory of “the most noble and valorous knight.”

Soon after coming to Ireland, Spenser made the acquaintance of Sir Walter Raleigh, which erelong ripened into intimate friendship.  A memorable visit from Raleigh, who was now a neighbor of the poet’s, having also received a part of the forfeited Desmond estate, led to the publication of the Faerie Queene.  Sitting under the shade “of the green alders of the Mulla’s shore,” Spenser read to his guest the first books of his poem.  So pleased was Raleigh that he persuaded the poet to accompany him to London, and there lay his poem at the feet of the great queen, whose praises he had so gloriously