Yet ere this happie soule to heaven went Out of this fleshie gaole, he did devise Unto his heavenlie Maker to present His bodie as a spotles sacrifise, And chose, that guiltie hands of enemies Should powre forth th' offring of his guiltles blood, So life exchanging for his countries good. O noble spirite, live there ever blessed, The world's late wonder, and the heaven's new ioy. Live ever there, and leave me here distressed With mortall cares and cumbrous worlds anoy; But where thou dost that happiness enioy, Bid me, O bid me quicklie come to thee, That happie there I maie thee alwaies see. Yet whilest the Fates affoord me vitell breath, I will it spend in speaking of thy praise, And sing to thee untill that timelie death By Heaven's doome doe ende my earthlie daies: Thereto doo thou my humble spirite raise, And into me that sacred breath inspire Which thou there breathest perfect and entire. It is not quite certain in what part of Ireland the poet was living when the news that Sidney was not reached him. Was he still residing at Dublin, or had he transferred his home to that southern region which is so intimately associated with his name? The sonnet to Harvey mentioned above shows that he was at Dublin in July of the year of his friend's death. It has been said already that he did not resign his Chancery clerkship until 1588. We know that he was settled in Cork county, at Kilcolman castle, in 1589, because Raleigh visited him there that year. He may then have left Dublin in 1588 or 1589. According to Dr. Birch's Life of Spenser, prefixed to the edition of the _Faerie Queene_ in 1751,{4} and the _Biographia Britannica_, the grant of land made him in Cork is dated June 27, 1586. But the grant, which is extant, is dated October 26, 1591. Yet certainly, as Dr. Grosart points out, in the 'Articles' for the 'Undertakers,' which received the royal assent on June 27, 1586, Spenser is set down for 3,028 acres; and that he was at Kilcolman before 1591 seems certain. As he resigned his clerkship in the Court of Chancery in 1588, and was then appointed, as we have seen, clerk of the Council of Munster, he probably went to live somewhere in the province of Munster that same year. He may have lived at Kilcolman before it and the surrounding grounds were secured to him; he may have entered upon possession on the strength of a promise of them, before the formal grant was issued. He has mentioned the scenery which environed his castle twice in his great poem; but it is worth noticing that both mentions occur, not in the books published, as we shall now very soon see, in 1590, but in the books published six years afterwards. In the famous passage already referred to in the eleventh canto of the fourth book, describing the nuptials of the Thames and the Medway, he recounts in stanzas xl.-xliv. the Irish rivers who were present at that great river-gathering, and amongst them