of unsettled life
followed, but were fruitful in the production of the "Shepheards'
Calendar" (1579), which at once placed him at the head of the English
poets of his day; had already taken his place in the best London literary
and political circles as the friend of Sir Philip Sidney and Leicester,
and in 1580 was appointed private secretary to Lord Grey, then proceeding
to Ireland as the Lord Deputy, and although his master soon returned to
England Spencer continued to make his home in Ireland, where he obtained
some civil appointments, and in 1591 entered into possession of a
considerable portion of the forfeited estates of the Earl of Desmond,
adjacent to his house, Kilcolman Castle, co. Cork; seems to have been a
pretty stern landlord, and, as expounded in his admirable tract, "A View
of the Present State of Ireland," the advocate of a policy of
"suppression and repression"; consequently was little loved by the Irish,
and on the outbreak of Tyrone's rebellion in 1598 his house was sacked
and burned, and he himself forced to flee to London, where he died a few
weeks later "a ruined and heart-broken man"; the rich promise of the
"Shepheards' Calendar" had been amply fulfilled in the "Complaints,"
"Amoretti," "Colin Clout's Come Home Again," the "Epithalamium" the
finest bridal song in any language, and above all in the six published
books of "The Faerie Queene" (1589 and 1596), in which all his gifts and
graces as a poet are at their best; "He may be read," says Professor
Saintsbury, "in childhood, chiefly for his adventure; in later youth, for
his display of voluptuous beauty; in manhood, for his historical and
ethical weight; in age, for all combined" (1552-1599).

SPERMACETI, a white waxy matter obtained in an oily state from the
head of the sperm-whale inhabiting the Pacific and Indian Oceans; candles
made of it yield a particularly steady and bright light.

SPEY, a river in the N. of Scotland which, rising in Badenoch, flows
NE. through Inverness, Elgin, and Banffshire, falls into the Moray Firth
after a course of 107 miles; the salmon-fisheries are valuable; it is the
swiftest of the rivers of Great Britain.

SPEZIA (20), the chief naval station, "the Portsmouth," of Italy;
occupies a strongly fortified site at the head of a bay on the W. side of
Italy, 56 m. SE. of Genoa; here are the naval shipbuilding yards,
national arsenal, navy store-houses, besides schools of navigation,
manufactures of cables, s