Once upon a time, there comes to see Spenser in his Kilcolman home--that daring adventurer, that roving knight, Sir Walter Raleigh--who is so well taught, so elegant, so brave that he can make the bright eyes even of Queen Bess twinkle again, with the courtliness of his adulation; he comes, I say, to see Spenser;--for he too has a grant of some forty thousand acres carved out of that ever-wretched and misgoverned Ireland: and Spenser, to entertain his friend, reads somewhat of the _Faery Queene_ (not more than one canto I suspect), and Sir Walter locks arms with the poet, and carries him off to London, and presents him to the Queen; and Spenser weaves subtle, honeyed flattery for this great _Gloriana_; and his book is printed; and the Queen smiles on him, and gives him her jewelled hand to kiss, and a pension of £50 a year, which the stout old Burleigh thinks too much; and which Spenser, and poets all, think too beggarly small. There are little poems that come after this, commemorating this trip to Court, and Raleigh’s hobnobbing with him-- “Amongst the coolly shade Of the green alders, by the Mulla’s shore [Where]--he piped--I sung-- And when he sung, I piped, By chaunge of tunes, each making other merry.” Spenser has found, too, a new _Rosalind_ over amid the wilds of Ireland, to whom he addresses a cluster of gushing _Amoretti_; and she becomes eventually his bride, and calls out what seems to me that charmingest of all his poems--the _Epithalamium_. You will excuse my reciting a tender little lovely picture from it:-- “Behold, whiles she before the Altar stands Hearing the Holy Priest that to her speaks, And blesseth her with his two happy hands. How the red roses flush up in her cheeks, And the pure snow, with goodly vermeil stain Like crimson dyed in grain: That even the Angels, which continually About the sacred altar do remain, Forget the service, and about her fly, Oft peeping in her face, that seems more fair, The more they on it stare-- But her sad eyes still fastened on the ground, Are governèd with goodly modesty, That suffers not one look to glance awry, Which may let in a little thought unsound. Why blush ye, Love, to give to me your hand? The pledge of all our band? Sing, ye Sweet Angels, Allelujah sing! That all the woods may answer, and your echos ring!”