principle and truth, set before us with so much insight and sympathy, and combined with so much just and broad observation on those accidents and conditions of our mortal state which touch us all, will never appeal to English readers in vain, till we have learned a new language, and adopted new canons of art, of taste, and of morals. It is not merely that he has left imperishable images which have taken their place among the consecrated memorials of poetry and the household thoughts of all cultivated men. But he has permanently lifted the level of English poetry by a great and sustained effort of rich and varied art, in which one main purpose rules, loyalty to what is noble and pure, and in which this main purpose subordinates to itself every feature and every detail, and harmonizes some that by themselves seem least in keeping with it. FOOTNOTES: [118:1] "Unknow, unkyst; and lost, that is unsoght." _Troylus and Cryseide_, lib. i. [128:2] Hales' _Life_, Globe Edition. [132:3] _Vid._ Keble, _Prælect. Acad._, xxiv. p. 479, 480. CHAPTER VI. SECOND PART OF THE FAERY QUEEN.--SPENSER'S LAST YEARS (1590-1599). The publication of the _Faery Queen_ in 1590 had made the new poet of the _Shepherd's Calendar_ a famous man. He was no longer merely the favourite of a knot of enthusiastic friends, and outside of them only recognized and valued at his true measure by such judges as Sidney and Ralegh. By the common voice of all the poets of his time he was now acknowledged as the first of living English poets. It is not easy for us, who live in these late times and are familiar with so many literary masterpieces, to realize the surprise of a first and novel achievement in literature; the effect on an age, long and eagerly seeking after poetical expression, of the appearance at last of a work of such power, richness, and finished art.