No worthy scholar had succeeded the great master. The fifteenth century in England had abounded in movements of profound social and political interest--in movements which eventually fertilised and enriched and ripened the mind of the nation; but, not unnaturally, the immediate literary results had been of no great value. In the reign of Henry VIII, the condition of literature, for various reasons, had greatly improved. Surrey and Wyatt had heralded the advent of a brighter era. From their time the poetical succession had never failed altogether. The most memorable name in our literature between their time and the _Faerie Queene_ is that of Sackville, Lord Buckhurst--a name of note in the history of both our dramatic and non-dramatic poetry. Sackville was capable of something more than lyrical essays. He it was who designed the _Mirror for Magistrates_. To that poem, important as compared with the poetry of its day, for its more pretentious conception, he himself contributed the two best pieces that form part of it--the _Induction_ and the _Complaint of Buckingham_. These pieces are marked by some beauties of the same sort as those which especially characterise Spenser; but they are but fragments; and in spirit they belong to an age which happily passed away shortly after the accession of Queen Elizabeth--they are penetrated by that despondent tone which is so strikingly audible in our literature in the middle years of the sixteeth century, not surprisingly, if the general history of the time be considered. Meanwhile, our language had changed much, and Chaucer had grown almost unintelligible to the ordinary reader. Therefore, about the year 1590, the nation was practically without a great poem. At the same time, it then, if ever, truly needed one. Its power of appreciation had been quickened and refined by the study of the poetries of other countries; it had translated and perused the classical writers with enthusiasm; it had ardently pored over the poetical literature of Italy. Then its life had lately been ennobled by deeds of splendid courage crowned with as splendid success. In the year 1590, if ever, this country, in respect of its literary condition and in respect of its general high and noble excitement, was ready for the reception of a great poem. Such a poem undoubtedly was the _Faerie Queene_, although it may perhaps be admitted that it was a work likely to win favour with the refined and cultured sections of the community rather than with the community at large. Strongly impressed on it as were the instant influences of the day, yet in many ways it was marked by a certain archaic character. It depicted a world--the world of chivalry and romance--which was departed; it drew its images, its forms of life, its scenery, its very language, from the past. Then the genius of our literature in the latter part of Queen Elizabeth's reign was emphatically dramatic; in the intense life of these years men longed for reality.