"_veruntamen te sequor solum; nunquam vero assequar_." Portions of the early correspondence between Harvey and Spenser have been preserved to us, possibly by Gabriel Harvey's self-satisfaction in regard to his own compositions. But with the pedagogue's jocoseness, and a playfulness which is like that of an elephant, it shows on both sides easy frankness, sincerity, and warmth, and not a little of the early character of the younger man. In Spenser's earliest poetry, his pastorals, Harvey appears among the imaginary rustics, as the poet's "special and most familiar friend," under the name of Hobbinol,-- "Good Hobbinol, that was so true." To him Spenser addresses his confidences, under the name of Colin Clout, a name borrowed from Skelton, a satirical poet of Henry VIII.'s time, which Spenser kept throughout his poetical career. Harvey reappears in one of Spenser's latest writings, a return to the early pastoral, _Colin Clout's come home again_, a picture drawn in distant Ireland, of the brilliant but disappointing court of Elizabeth. And from Ireland in 1586, was addressed to Harvey by "his devoted friend during life," the following fine sonnet, which, whatever may have been the merit of Harvey's criticisms and his literary quarrels with Greene and Nash, shows at least Spenser's unabated honour for him. TO THE RIGHT WORSHIPFUL, MY SINGULAR GOOD FRIEND, M. GABRIEL HARVEY, DOCTOR OF THE LAWS. HARVEY, the happy above happiest men I read; that, sitting like a looker on Of this world's stage, dost note with critic pen The sharp dislikes of each condition; And, as one careless of suspicion, Ne fawnest for the favour of the great; Ne fearest foolish reprehension Of faulty men, which danger to thee threat; But freely dost, of what thee list, entreat, Like a great lord of peerless liberty; Lifting the good up to high honour's seat, And the evil damning over more to die; For life and death is in thy doomful writing; So thy renown lives ever by enditing. Dublin, this xviii. of July, 1586. Your devoted friend, during life, EDMUND SPENSER.