The dapper ditties, that I wont devise To feed youths' fancy and the flocking fry, Delighten much: what I the best for thy? They han the pleasure, I a sclender prize. I beat the bush, the birds to them do fly. What good thereof to Cuddie can arise? But Master Colin Clout is not everybody, and albeit his old companions, Master Cuddie and Master Hobinoll, be as little beholding to their mistress poetry as ever you wist: yet he, peradventure, by the means of her special favour, and some personal privilege, may haply live by _Dying Pelicans_, and purchase great lands and lordships with the money which his _Calendar_ and _Dreams_ have, and will afford him. FOOTNOTES: [42:1] In the _Guardian_, No. 40. Compare Johnson's _Life of Ambrose Phillips_. [42:2] _Shepherd's Calendar_, May, July, and September. [46:3] First published in 1559. It was popular book, and was often re-edited. [46:4] Dedication to Virgil. [49:5] Bolton in Haslewood, ii. 249. CHAPTER III. SPENSER IN IRELAND. [1580.] In the first week of October, 1579, Spenser was at Leicester House, expecting "next week" to be despatched on Leicester's service to France. Whether he was sent or not, we do not know. Gabriel Harvey, writing at the end of the month, wagers that "for all his saying, he will not be gone over sea, neither this week nor the next." In one of the Æglogues (September) there are some lines which suggest, but do not necessarily imply, the experience of an eye-witness of the state of religion in a Roman Catholic country. But we can have nothing but conjecture whether at this time or any other Spenser was on the Continent. The _Shepherd's Calendar_ was entered at Stationers' Hall, December 5, 1579. In April, 1580, as we know from one of his letters to Harvey, he was at Westminster. He speaks of the _Shepherd's Calendar_ as published; he is contemplating the publication of other pieces, and then "he will in hand forthwith with his _Fairie Queene_," of which he had sent Harvey a specimen. He speaks especially of his _Dreams_ as a considerable work. I take best my _Dreams_ should come forth alone, being grown by means of the Gloss (running continually in manner of a Paraphrase) full as great as my _Calendar_. Therein be some things excellently, and many things wittily discoursed of E. K., and the pictures so singularly set forth and portrayed, as if Michael Angelo were there, he could (I think) nor amend the best, nor reprehend the worst. I know you would like them passing well. It is remarkable that of a book so spoken of, as of the _Nine Comedies_, not a trace, as far as appears, is to be found. He goes on to speak with much satisfaction of another composition, which was probably incorporated, like the _Epithalamion Thamesis_, in his later work.