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His Astrophel is a tender "pastoral elegie" upon
the death of the most noble and valorous knight, Sir Philip Sidney; and is
better known for its subject than for itself. This was a favorite theme of
the friendly and sensitive poet; he has also written several elegies and
aeglogues in honor of Sidney.

SPENSER'S FATE.--The fate of Spenser is a commentary upon courtiership,
even in the reign of Elizabeth, the Faery Queene. Her requital of his
adoration was an annual pension of fifty pounds, and the ruined castle and
unprofitable estate of Kilcolman in Ireland, among a half-savage
population, in a period of insurrections and massacres, with the
requirement that he should reside upon his grant. An occasional visit from
Raleigh, then a captain in the army, a rambler along the banks of the
picturesque Mulla, and the composition and arrangement of the great poem
with the suggestions of his friend, were at once his labors and his only
recreations. He sighed after the court, and considered himself as hardly
used by the queen.


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