EDMUND SPENSER. SPENSER was one of the great men who from age to age mark out the general course of poetry, and who take a place among the few selected from the illustrious of every age whom we look up to as the instructors of all time. He claimed to be descended from a noble family, though the chief evidence of the truth of the assertion is that he took his place in Queen Elizabeth's court as a gentleman of birth. He was born in East Smithfield about the year 1553, in humble circumstances. In his sixteenth year he was entered as a sizar at Cambridge, where he continued seven years, and where he took the degree of A. M. After leaving Cambridge he obtained an introduction to Sir Philip Sidney, to whom he dedicated his first poem, "The Shepherd's Calendar," published in 1579. He seems to have been employed at court, much to his dis taste, on various state missions, and experienced much of the discomfort of a hanger on. In 1580, however, he was appointed secretary to the viceroy of Ireland, and six years afterward he obtained a grant of forfeited land in the county of Cork, where he fixed his residence in the old castle of Kilcolman. Here he brought home his wife, the "Elizabeth" of his sonnets, and here he wrote the greater part of his immortal poem the "Faery Queen." The first part was published in 1589, and met with an enthusiastic reception. Queen Elizabeth at once settled a pension of fifty pounds a year on the In 1596 the second part of the poet. 66 Faery Queen" issued from the press. It was intended to have been continued, but was never completed. But fortune, which had so long befriended him, now changed; the Tyrone rebellion broke out in 1598, his house was burned by the rebels, and his He infant child perished in the flames. had to flee with his wife to England in the greatest destitution, and, dejected and heartbroken, he died in the following year, in the forty-fifth year of his age, in a small lodging in London. His remains were laid beside those of Chaucer in Poet's Corner. "The term 'faery' is used by Spenser to denote something existing in the regions of fancy, and the Faery Queen is the impersonation of glory; the knights of Faeryland are the twelve virtues, who are the champions of the queen. ROBERT INGLIS. WILLIE BAIRD. 'S two and thirty summers of Inverburn. My father was a shepherd doo, Yonder above you? Are you dead, my To school the village lads The clouds above and becks the bonnie birds. old and poor, His tartan plaidie on, and winds The small black bell that stands behind the | Which beat the mathematics. Quærere bite, Then grasped it firm, and as it jingled gave And ran full merry to the door and rang Came Donald trotting, and they homeward I cannot frame in speech the thoughts that To be among the mists, the tracks of rain, Came to me from beyond my father's grave, voys. filled This gray old brow, the feelings dim and warm That soothed the throbbings of this weary heart; But when I placed my hand on Willie's head, Warm sunshine tingled from the yellow hair Through trembling fingers to my blood within ; And when I looked in Willie's stainless eyes, And often when, in his old-fashioned way, sun Is all alone with God among the snow. Who made the stars? and if within his hand He caught and held one, would his fingers burn? If I, the gray-haired dominie, was dug wear Gray homespun hose and clumsy boots like mine And have a house to dwell in all alone,— Thus would he question, seated on my knee, While Donald (wheesht, old man!) stretched lyart limbs Under my chair, contented. Open-mouthed He hearkened to the tales I loved to tell About Sir William Wallace and the Bruce, And the sweet lady on the Scottish throne Whose crown was colder than a band of ice, |