The fame of Spenser is not quite rooted out of the minds of the neighboring peasantry. I inquired of an old man and his family, who live close by the castle, whom that castle formerly belonged to, and they replied, "To one Spenser." "Who was he?" "They could not tell: they only knew that many officers from Fermoy, and others, came to see the place." "Ay, I have heard of him," I added. "He was an Englishman, and the Irish burned him out of the castle, and he fled to England." "Oh no! nothing of the kind. He lived and died there, and was buried just below the castle, which used to be a church-yard. Bones are often dug up, and on the western side of the mound there had been a nunnery." In fact, they knew nothing accurately, but, like the people at Lissoy, by Goldsmith, would insist on his death and burial on the spot. But the desolated spot possesses an interest stronger than the possession of the poet's dust. It was the scene of his happiest hours--hours of love and of inspiration. Here the Faërie Queene grew in heavenly zeal, and here it was suddenly arrested by the howl of savage vengeance, and the flames which wrapped the poet's heart in ruin. "Ah! what a warning for a thoughtless man, Could field or grove, or any spot of earth, Show to his eye an image of the pangs Which it hath witnessed; render back the echo Of the sad steps by which it hath been trod." _Wordsworth._ SHAKSPEARE. [Illustration] There are two reasons why I proposed to omit the homes and haunts of Shakspeare from the present volumes; the first, because I have found it impossible to include the dramatic poets in the compass of these two, and must reserve them for a third; and the second, because I have already, in my Visits to Remarkable Places (vol. i.), devoted a considerable article to almost the only place where his homes and haunts still remain, Stratford-upon-Avon. A very little reflection, however, convinced me that an entire omission of the haunts of this great national poet from these first two volumes would be received as a disappointment by a numerous class of readers. Shakspeare is not merely a dramatic poet. Great and peerless as is his dramatic fame, the very elements, not of dramatic art and fame alone, but of universal poetry, and that of the highest order, are so diffused throughout all his works, that the character of poet soars above the character of dramatist in him, like some heaven-climbing tower above a glorious church. Every line, almost every word, is a living mass of poetry; these are scattered through the works of all authors as such exponents of their deepest sentiments as they can not command themselves. They are like the branches, the buds, the flowers and leaves of a great tree of poetry, making a magnificent whole, and rich and beautiful as nature itself, down to its minutest portions. To leave out Shakspeare were, indeed, to