Kilcolman Castle was near the high road between Mallow and Limerick, about three miles from Buttevant and Doneraile, in a plain at the foot of the last western falls of the Galtee range, watered by a stream now called the Awbeg, but which he celebrates under the name of the Mulla. In Spenser's time it was probably surrounded with woods. The earlier writers describe it as a pleasant abode with fine views, and so Spenser celebrated its natural beauties. The more recent accounts are not so favourable. "Kilcolman," says the writer in Murray's Handbook, "is a small peel tower, with cramped and dark rooms, a form which every gentleman's house assumed in turbulent times. It is situated on the margin of a small lake, and, it must be confessed, overlooking an extremely dreary tract of country." It was in the immediate neighbourhood of the wild country to the north, half forest, half bog, the wood and hill of Aharlo, or Arlo, as Spenser writes it, which was the refuge and the "great fastness" of the Desmond rebellion. It was amid such scenes, amid such occupations, in such society and companionship, that the poet of the _Faery Queen_ accomplished as much of his work as was given him to do. In one of his later poems, he thus contrasts the peace of England with his own home:-- No wayling there nor wretchednesse is heard, No bloodie issues nor no leprosies, No griesly famine, nor no raging sweard, No nightly bordrags [= border ravage], nor no hue and cries; The shepheards there abroad may safely lie, On hills and downes, withouten dread or daunger: No ravenous wolves the good mans hope destroy, Nor outlawes fell affray the forest raunger. FOOTNOTES: [54:1] Froude, x. 158. [58:2] Calendar of State Papers Ireland, 1574-1585. Mr. H. C. Hamilton's Pref. p. lxxi-lxxiii. Nov. 12, 1580. [62:3] Cox, Hist. of Ireland, 354. [63:4] Irish Papers, March 29, 1587. [79:5] Carew MSS. Calendar, 1587, p. 449. Cf. Irish Papers; Calendar, 1587, p. 309, 450. CHAPTER IV. THE FAERY QUEEN--THE FIRST PART. [1580-1590.] The _Faery Queen_ is heard of very early in Spenser's literary course. We know that in the beginning of 1580, the year in which Spenser went to Ireland, something under that title had been already begun and submitted to Gabriel Harvey's judgment; and that among other literary projects, Spenser was intending to proceed with it. But beyond the mere name, we know nothing, at this time, of Spenser's proposed _Faery Queen_. Harvey's criticisms on it tell us nothing of its general plan or its numbers. Whether the first sketch had been decided upon, whether the new stanza, Spenser's original creation, and its peculiar beauty and instrument, had yet been invented by him, while he had been trying experiments in metre in the _Shepherd's Calendar_, we have no means of determining. But he took the idea with him to Ireland; and in Ireland he pursued it and carried it out.