excellent conceit of Cynthia, Cynthia and Phoebe being both
names of Diana.' Ralegh, by the introduction of the name into his
_Cynthia_, at once has dated the canto in which it occurs as not earlier
than 1591, or, perhaps, than 1595, and indicated his desire to link his
own verses to the eventful meeting

among the coolly shade
Of the green alders, by the Mulla's shore.

[Sidenote: _Ralegh's Sonnet._]

Spenser referred again to the poem of _Cynthia_, and to Ralegh's poetic
greatness, in the most beautiful of the sonnets offered to his several
patrons at the end of his surpassing romance and allegory:

To thee, that art the Summer's Nightingale,
Thy Sovereign Goddess's most dear delight,
Why do I send this rustic Madrigal,
That may thy tuneful ear unseason quite?
Thou only fit this argument to write,
In whose high thoughts Pleasure hath built her bower,
And dainty Love learned sweetly to indite.
My rhymes I know unsavoury and sour,
To taste the streams that, like a golden shower,
Flow from the fruitful head of thy Love's praise;
Fitter perhaps to thunder martial stowre,
Whenso thee list thy lofty Muse to raise;
Yet, till that thou thy Poem wilt make known,
Let thy fair Cynthia's praises be thus rudely shown.

It was his return for tribute in kind. By the side of Ralegh's sonnet
its flattery hardly seems extravagant:--

Methought I saw the grave where Laura lay,
Within that temple where the vestal flame
Was wont to burn; and passing by that way,
To see that buried dust of living fame,
Whose tomb fair Love and fairer Virtue kept,
All suddenly I saw the Fairy Queen,
At whose approach the soul of Petrarch wept;
And from thenceforth those graces were not seen,
For they this Queen attended; in whose stead
Oblivion laid him down on Laura's hearse.
Hereat the hardest stones were seen to bleed,
And groans of buried ghosts the heavens did pierce:
Where Homer's spright did tremble all for grief,
And cursed the access of that celestial thief.

[Sidenote: _Poetic Gifts._]

Before this, or Spenser's eulogy on him, was printed, Ralegh had
acquired the reputation at Court of a poet. Puttenham, a critic of high
repute, had, in _The Art of English Poesy_, printed in 1589, pronounced
'for ditty and amorous ode, Sir Walter Ralegh's vein most lofty,
insolent, and passionate.' By 'insolent