for a time, filled with dismay and forrow all claffes, and may be faid to have wakened to anguish and defpair nearly all the poets of England. No fubject was ever mourned with, perhaps, fo many feparately published elegiac effufions; and it is matter of surprise that more of them were not collected together and printed. Of a comparatively small affemblage of them, most likely tranflated into myter, &c. which requyre the care of his frends, not to amend, for I think it falls within the reach of no man living, but only to fee to the paper, and other common errors of mercenary printing. Gayn ther wilbe, no doubt, to be difpofed by you: let it be to the poorest of his fervants; I defyre only care to be had of his honor, who, I fear, hath caried the honor of thes latter ages with him. 'S', pardon me, I make this the busness of my lofe, and defyre God to fhew that he is your God. From my Lodge, not well, this day in haft. "Your honors "FOULK GREvill. 'S', I had wayted on you my selfe for answer, because I am jelous of tyme in it, but in trothe I am nothing well. Good S', think of it." It is to be observed that Ponsonby was the stationer who published `the "Arcadia," in 4to. 1590, as well as the folios of 1593, 1598, &c. He was also Spenfer's publisher of "The Faerie Queene," ""Complaints," and other productions. It will be seen from the following, extracted from the Stationers' Registers, that Ponfonby himself entered Sidney's "Arcadia" for the prefs, two years before it came out: it has, we think, never yet been quoted :— "23 Augusti [1588.] "Wm Ponsonby. Rd of him for a booke of S Php Sidney's makinge, intitled Arcadia: authorised under the Archb. of Cante hand vjd." Florio, in the dedication of the Second Book of his translation of Montaigne, fol. 1603, tells Lady Rutland and Lady Penelope Rich that he had "feene the firft Septimaine of that arch-poet Du Bartas," rendered into English by Sidney, and he entreats them to honour the age by making it public. This verfion has never fince been heard of, but that there was an intention to print it is evident from the subsequent entry at Stationers' Hall, made by Ponsonby at the fame time as the entry regarding the " Arcadia." "Wm Ponsonby. Item, Rd of him for a translation of Saluft de Bartas, done by the fame S' P. into englishe Sylvefter tranflated portions of Du Bartas in 1590 and 1591. vjd." made by Spenfer, including his own and Lady Pembroke's contributions, we shall speak immediately; but there were many others, by Breton, Churchyard, Philips, Whetstone, and minor verfifyers, all of which deserved prefervation, if not for their own merits, on account of the admirable fubject of them. The confequence has been that several are now loft, but that they once existed is testified by the Stationers' Registers.* The small affemblage of them made by Spenfer was not published by itself, but appended to a work of a totally different character, fome years afterwards: we cannot, however, but believe that this appendix to "Colin Clout's come Home again," 1595, was intended for the press in 1587, and one of the pieces there given was entered in the usual manner late in the fummer of that year.' Spenfer calls his own "paftoral elegy," after Sidney's poetical name, " "Aftrophel," and follows it by fome stanzas, of &c. * See the "Extracts from the Registers of the Stationers' Company " (published by the Shakespeare Society in 1849) vol. ii. pp. 222, 224, Dr. Butler, late Bishop of Litchfield, formerly Master of Shrewfbury School (where Sir Philip Sidney was educated) reprinted some of these as a present to the Roxburghe Club, in 1837, 4to. Various others, ftill extant, might have been added. 1 In the fubfequent form, and, it will be obferved, that the Stationers' Register discloses the name of the writer, which was not given by Spenfer : xxijdo Augufti [1587] "John Woulfe. Rd of him for printinge the Mourning Mufes of Lod. Bryfkett, upon the death of the most noble S' Phlp Sydney, knighte, &c. vjd." It is remarkable that Ritfon (Bibliographia Poetica, p. 145) fhould not have been aware that this poem was ever printed; while T. Warton attributes it to Spenser, and charges him with borrowing in it from the Italian (Obf. on "The Faerie Queene,” vol. i. p. 222). Malone tells us that Bryskett's "Mourning Mufe of Theftylis" was written in Dublin, and he is most likely right (Shakesp. by Boswell, vol ii. p. 580). There, we apprehend, Spenfer obtained it from his friend, and afterwards forwarded it to England with other pieces of the fame kind. a fimilar form and character, avowedly by Sidney's fifter, Lady Pembroke, whom Spenfer names Clorinda. Next to it comes Bryskett's "Mourning Mufe of Theftylis;” and thirdly, a "Pastoral Eclogue" from the same pen, and fubfcribed by his initials, in which Lycon, the writer of the paftoral, and Colin, meaning Spenser, are the speakers. Matthew Roydon's "Elegy, or Friends Paffion for his Aftrophil," is the fourth production of this class, and it is fucceeded by two anonymous epitaphs. By whom the fecond of these was compofed is nowhere stated, and its merit is not so striking as to render it of much consequence to whom it is attributed; but the firft epitaph, beginning, "To praise thy life, or waile thy worthie death," is by Sir Walter Raleigh, as is established by the evidence of a contemporary, although none of the biographers of Sidney, Spenfer, or Raleigh have ever yet given the last his undoubted property. The final ftanza of this epitaph runs thus (vol. v. p. 107):— "That day their Hanniball died, our Scipio fell, Sir John Harington published his tranflation of the Orlando Furiofo in 1591; and, in a note to the Sixteenth Canto, we read: -"And our English Petrarke, Sir Philip Sidney, or (as Sir Walter Raleigh, in his epitaph, worthily calleth him) the Scipio and the Petrarke of our time, often comforting himselfe in the fonets of Stella, though defpairing to attaine his defire," &c. Hence it is indubitable that Sir John Harington was referring to the laft epitaph but one among the poems on the death of Sidney collected by Spenfer, and fubfequently printed at his inftance with another of his own poems of far greater importance. To this latter we fhall have occafion to refer more particularly. The chief object of the Council of Munster, when Spenfer was appointed its secretary, was to repair, as far as poffible, the ravages of war and rebellion by re-peopling the province with perfons, especially natives of England, who were willing to embark capital in the improvement of the foil, and in the promotion of civilization among the inhabitants. Various adventurers, or "undertakers' as they were called, obtained extenfive grants of the territory which had formerly been the property of the Defmonds and their adherents. Among the reft Sir Walter Raleigh had intereft enough to fecure to himself a district, it is faid, of no fewer than 42,000 acres. Spenfer, as may be fuppofed, obtained a much smaller share, and he was moft probably indebted for it to the fame court-favourite: his eftate in the county of Cork was estimated at something more than 3,000 acres ; but there is confiderable difference as to the date when he first became poffeffed of these lands, including the castle and manor of Kilcolman. Some have afferted that the grant bore date on 27th June, 1586; but it has been recently shown that, at all events, certain Letters Patent for the purpose are not anterior to 26 October, 1591: there the property is faid to confift of 3,028 acres, in the Barony of Fermoy in the county of Cork, and the manor and caftle of Kilcolman are specifically named." The true mode of reconciling the discrepancy may be, and probably was, this :-that Spenfer received the grant of his new estate in the summer of 1586, but that the formal document con See Hardiman's " Irish Minstrelfy," vol. i. P. 320, who quotes the original document preserved in the Rolls Office, Dublin. e veying it to him, as forfeited land, was not iffued until 1591. We know that our poet dated his "Colin Clout's come Home again" (vol. v. p. 29), "from my house of Kilcolman" on the 27th December, 1591, which reads as if he had not very recently come into poffeffion, and the delay may have been occafioned by other circumftances, without imputing it to hoftility on the part of the Lord Treasurer. of the Lord Treasurer. The uncertain condition of the affairs of Ireland, and an unwillingness on the part of the government to complete the gift, until they could be tolerably fure of enabling the new owner to retain it, may have had fomething to do with the poftponement at the office of the Great Seal; and we are to remember that that owner, in a comparatively few years, was obliged to abandon the estate in consequence of the re-affertion of their right by the rebels. Even the greater importunity of powerful adventurers, anxious to obtain their patents, may have occafioned the neglect of the claims of a man in the dependent fituation of Spenfer. Be that as it may, for the whole 3,028 acres, with the castle of Kilcolman, our poet was only to pay an annual rent of 171. 75. 6d., fo that the advantage to himself was very confiderable indeed. Upon the fuppofition that Spenfer was a married man in 1587, and that he was the father of Florence Spenser, baptized at the end of Auguft in that year (fee p. xvi.), we may farther speculate that he may have taken a wife in 1586 upon the strength of the ample provifion then made for him in the county of Cork. It will be obferved, too, that he calls the lady to whom he was subsequently united "my life's laft ornament" (vol. v. p. 154), as if he were referring to fome previous period, when he had obtained a first" ornament" of a fimilar defcription. It would, however, be very unwife to adopt any pofitive conclufion founded upon evidence fo incomplete; and |