When we first come upon him, we
find that at the age of twenty-seven, he had not only realized an idea
of English poetry far in advance of anything which his age had yet
conceived or seen; but that, besides what he had executed or planned, he
had already in his mind the outlines of the _Faery Queen_, and, in some
form or other, though perhaps not yet as we have it, had written some
portion of it.

In attempting to revive for his own age Chaucer's suspended art, Spenser
had the tendencies of the time with him. The age was looking out for
some one to do for England what had been grandly done for Italy. The
time in truth was full of poetry. The nation was just in that condition
which is most favourable to an outburst of poetical life or art. It was
highly excited; but it was also in a state of comparative peace and
freedom from external disturbance. "An over-faint quietness," writes
Sidney in 1581, lamenting that there were so few good poets, "should
seem to strew the house for poets." After the first ten years of
Elizabeth's reign, and the establishment of her authority, the country
had begun to breathe freely, and fall into natural and regular ways.
During the first half of the century, it had had before it the most
astonishing changes which the world had seen for centuries. These
changes seemed definitely to have run their course; with the convulsions
which accompanied them, their uprootings and terrors, they were gone;
and the world had become accustomed to their results. The nation still
had before it great events, great issues, great perils, great and
indefinite prospects of adventure and achievement. The old quarrels and
animosities of Europe had altered in character: from being wars between
princes, and disputes of personal ambition, they had attracted into them
all that interests and divides mankind, from high to low. Their
animating principle was a high and a sacred cause: they had become wars
of liberty, and wars of religion. The world had settled down to the
fixed antipathies and steady rivalries of centuries to come. But the
mere shock of transition was over. Yet the remembrance of the great
break-up was still fresh. For fifty years the English people had had
before its eyes the great vicissitudes which make tragedy. They had seen
the most unforeseen and most unexpected revolutions in what had for ages
been held certain and immovable; the overthrow of the strongest
institutions, and most venerable authorities