Of Spenser’s personal history we know very little. He was educated at Cambridge, where he took the degree of Master of Arts in 1576. He is supposed to have passed the three following years with some relations in the country, where he wrote verses and fell in love with a lady whom he calls Rosalind, and of whom we know nothing further unless we are satisfied to take the portrait which Shakspeare has associated forever with the name which he complimented by adopting. He is said to have been employed to carry a despatch or two, but Lord Burleigh did not fancy him. Poor Lord Burleigh! Sidney and Raleigh, however, were luckier. He was recommended to the great queen, and received at last a grant of Kilcolman Castle and three thousand acres of land in the south of Ireland. Here the “Faëry Queene” was in great part written. At last came a rebellion. The wild kernes and gallow-glasses had not the delicacy of the Emathian conqueror, and they burned the castle, from which Spenser and his wife with two of their children barely escaped, leaving an infant to perish in the flames. Spenser came to London and died broken-hearted three months afterward, on the 16th of January, 1599. That rare nature was like a Venice glass, meant only to mantle with the wine of the sunniest poetry. The first drop of poisonous sorrow shattered it. In 1579 Spenser published the “Shepherd’s Calendar,” a series of twelve eclogues, one for each month in the year. In these poems he professedly imitated Chaucer, whom he called his master, but without much success. Even with the light reflected upon them from the lustre of his great poem, one can find but little in them that is not dull. There are indications in these poems, however, here and there, of a nice ear for harmony in verse. Spenser was the pure sense of the Beautiful put into a human body only that it might have the means of communicating with men. His own description of Clarion, the butterfly in his “Muiopotmos,” gives, perhaps, the best possible idea of his own character. Over the fields, in his frank lustiness, And all the champaign o’er, he soared light And all the country wide he did possess, Feeding upon their pleasures bounteously, That none gainsay, and none did him envy. The woods, the rivers, and the meadows green, With his air-cutting wings he measured wide, Nor did he leave the mountains bare unseen, Nor the rank grassy fens’ delights untried; But none of these, however sweet they been, Mote please his fancy, or him cause to abide; His choiceful sense with every change doth flit, No common things may please a wavering wit.