he _Shepherd's Calendar_. "You have to know my new poet, he
says in effect: and when you have learned his ways, you will find how
much you have to honour and love him." "I doubt not," he says, with a
boldness of prediction, manifestly sincere, which is remarkable about an
unknown man, "that so soon as his name shall come into the knowledge of
men, and his worthiness be sounded in the trump of fame, but that he
shall be not only kissed, but also beloved of all, embraced of the most,
and wondered at of the best." Never was prophecy more rapidly and more
signally verified, probably beyond the prophet's largest expectation.
But he goes on to explain and indeed apologize for certain features of
the new poet's work, which even to readers of that day might seem open
to exception. And to readers of to-day, the phrase, _uncouth, unkist_,
certainly expresses what many have to confess, if they are honest, as to
their first acquaintance with the _Faery Queen_. Its place in
literature is established beyond controversy. Yet its first and
unfamiliar aspect inspires respect, perhaps interest, rather than
attracts and satisfies. It is not the remoteness of the subject alone,
nor the distance of three centuries which raises a bar between it and
those to whom it is new. Shakespere becomes familiar to us from the
first moment. The impossible legends of Arthur have been made in the
language of to-day once more to touch our sympathies, and have lent
themselves to express our thoughts. But at first acquaintance the _Faery
Queen_ to many of us has been disappointing. It has seemed not only
antique, but artificial. It has seemed fantastic. It has seemed, we
cannot help avowing, tiresome. It is not till the early appearances have
worn off, and we have learned to make many allowances and to surrender
ourselves to the feelings and the standards by which it claims to affect
and govern us, that we really find under what noble guidance we are
proceeding, and what subtle and varied spells are ever round us.

I. The _Faery Queen_ is the work of an unformed literature, the product
of an unperfected art. English poetry, English language, in Spenser's,
nay in Shakespere's day, had much to learn, much to unlearn. They never,
perhaps, have been stronger or richer, than in that marvellous burst of
youth, with all its freedom of invention, of observation, of reflection.
But they had not that which only the experience and practice of eventful
centuries could gi