“One day, quoth he, I sat (as was my trade)
    Under the foot of Mole, that mountain hoare,
    Keeping my sheep amongst the cooly shade,
    Of the green alders by the Mulla’s* shore: 
    There a strange shepherd chanst to find me out,
    Whether allured by my pipe’s delight,
    Whose pleasing sound y-shrilled far about,
    Or thither led by chance, I know not right: 
    Whom when I asked from what place he came,
    And how he hight, himself he did y-clep,
    The Shepherd of the Ocean by name,
    And said he came far from the main sea deep. 
    He sitting me beside in that same shade,
    Provoked me to play some pleasant fit;**
    And, when he heard the music that I made,
    He found himself full greatly pleased at it.”

    River Awbeg.
    *Strain.

Spenser tells then how the “other shepherd” sang:—­

“His song was all a lamentable lay, Of great unkindness, and of usage hard, Of Cynthia, the Lady of the Sea, That from her presence faultless him debarred. . . . . . . .  When thus our pipes we both had wearied well, And each an end of singing made, He gan to cast great liking to my lore, And great disliking to my luckless lot, That banished had myself, like wight forlore, Into that waste, where I was quite forgot:  The which to leave henceforth he counselled me, Unmeet for man in whom was ought regardful, And wend with him his Cynthia to see, Whose grace was great, and bounty most rewardful. . . . . . . .  So what with hope of good, and hate of ill He me persuaded forth with him to fare.”

Queen Elizabeth received Spenser kindly, and was so delighted with the Faery Queen that she ordered Lord Burleigh to pay the poet 100 pounds a year.

“What!” grumbled the Lord Treasurer, “it is not in reason.  So much for a mere song!”

“Then give him,” said the Queen, “what is reason,” to which he consented.

But, says an old writer, “he was so busied, belike about matters of higher concernment, that Spenser received no reward."* In the long-run, however, he did receive 50 pounds a year, as much as 400 pounds would be now.  But it did not seem to Spenser to be enough to allow him to give up his post in Ireland and live in England.  So back to Ireland he went once more, with a grudge in his heart against Lord Burleigh.

Thomas Fuller.

Chapter XLII SPENSER—­THE “FAERY QUEEN”

SPENSER’S plan for the Faery Queen was a very great one.  He meant to write a poem in twelve books, each book containing the adventures of a knight who was to show forth one virtue.  And if these were well received he purposed to write twelve more.  Only the first three books were as yet published, but they made him far more famous than the Shepherd’s Calendar had done.  For never since Chaucer had such poetry been written.  In the Faery Queen Spenser has, as he says, changed his “oaten reed” for “trumpets stern,” and sings no longer now of shepherds and their loves, but of “knights and ladies gentle deeds” of “fierce wars and faithful loves.”