WRITTEN by Spenser on his marriage in Ireland, in 1594, with Elizabeth Boyle of Kilcoran, who survived him, married one Roger Seckerstone, and was again a widow. Dr. Grosart seems to have finally decided the identity of the heroine of this great poem. It is worth while to explain, once for all, that I do not use the accented _e_ for the longer pronunciation of the past participle. The accent is not an English sign, and, to my mind, disfigures the verse; neither do I think it necessary to cut off the _e_ with an apostrophe when the participle is shortened. The reader knows at a glance how the word is to be numbered; besides, he may have his preferences where choice is allowed. In reading such a line as Tennyson’s ‘Dear as remembered kisses after death,’ one man likes the familiar sound of the word ‘remembered’ as we all speak it now; another takes pleasure in the four light syllables filling the line so full. Tennyson uses the apostrophe as a rule, but neither he nor any other author is quite consistent. ROSALYND’S MADRIGAL.—Page 21. It may please the reader to think that this frolic, rich, and delicate singer was Shakespeare’s very Rosalind. From Dr. Thomas Lodge’s novel, _Euphues’ Golden Legacy_, was taken much of the story, with some of the characters, and some few of the passages, of _As You Like It_. ROSALINE.—Page 22. This splendid poem (from the same romance), written on the poet’s voyage to the Islands of Terceras and the Canaries, has the fire and freshness of the south and the sea; all its colours are clear. The reader’s ear will at once teach him to read the sigh ‘heigh ho’ so as to give the first syllable the time of two (long and short). FAREWELL TO ARMS.—Page 25. George Peele’s four fine stanzas (which must be mentioned as dedicated to Queen Elizabeth, but are better without that dedication) exist in another form, in the first person, and with some archaisms smoothed. But the third person seems to be far more touching, the old man himself having done with verse. THE PASSIONATE SHEPHERD.—Page 28. The sixth stanza is perhaps by Izaak Walton. TAKE, O TAKE THOSE LIPS AWAY.—Page 44. The author of this exquisite song is by no means certain. The second stanza is not with the first in Shakespeare, but it is in Beaumont and Fletcher. KIND ARE HER ANSWERS.—Page 46. These verses are a more subtle experiment in metre by the musician and poet, Campion, than even the following, _Laura_, which he himself sweetly commended as ‘voluble, and fit to express any amorous conceit.’ In _Kind are her Answers_ the long syllables and the trochaic movement of the short lines meet the contrary movement of the rest, with an exquisite effect of flux and reflux. The ‘dancers’ whose time they sang must have danced (with Perdita) like ‘a wave of the sea.’ DIRGE.—Page 44. I have followed the usual practice in omitting the last and less beautiful stanza. FOLLOW.—Page 49.