y, were not enough; there must be added a new delicacy of
conscience, a new appreciation of what is beautiful and worthy of
honour, a new measure of the strength and nobleness of self-control, of
devotion to unselfish interests. This idea of manhood, based not only on
force and courage, but on truth, on refinement, on public spirit, on
soberness and modesty, on consideration for others, was taking
possession of the younger generation of Elizabeth's middle years. Of
course the idea was very imperfectly apprehended, still more imperfectly
realized. But it was something which on the same scale had not been yet,
and which was to be the seed of something greater. It was to grow into
those strong, simple, noble characters, pure in aim and devoted to duty,
the Falklands, the Hampdens, who amid so much evil form such a
remarkable feature in the Civil Wars, both on the Royalist and the
Parliamentary sides. It was to grow into that high type of cultivated
English nature, in the present and the last century, common both to its
monarchical and its democratic embodiments, than which, with all its
faults and defects, our western civilization has produced few things
more admirable.

There were three distinguished men of that time, who one after another
were Spenser's friends and patrons, and who were men in whom he saw
realized his conceptions of human excellence and nobleness. They were
Sir Philip Sidney, Lord Grey of Wilton, and Sir Walter Ralegh: and the
_Faery Queen_ reflects, as in a variety of separate mirrors and
spiritualized forms, the characteristics of these men and of such as
they. It reflects their conflicts, their temptations, their weaknesses,
the evils they fought with, the superiority with which they towered over
meaner and poorer natures. Sir Philip Sidney may be said to have been
the first typical example in English society of the true gentleman. The
charm which attracted men to him in life, the fame which he left behind
him, are not to be accounted for simply by his accomplishments as a
courtier, a poet, a lover of literature, a gallant soldier; above all
this there was something not found in the strong or brilliant men about
him, a union and harmony of all high qualities differing from any of
them separately, which gave a fire of its own to his literary
enthusiasm, and a sweetness of its own to his courtesy. Spenser's
admiration for that bright but short career was strong and lasting.
Sidney was to him a verificat