r 7, and Lord Grey,
who had brought the newly famous poet, Edmund Spenser, with him as his
secretary, marched into Munster. With his exploits we have nothing to
do, save to notice that it must have been in the camp at Rakele, if not
on the battle-field of Glenmalure, that Raleigh began his momentous
friendship with Spenser, whose _Shepherd's Calender_ had inaugurated a
new epoch in English poetry just a month before Raleigh's departure for
Ireland. It is scarcely too fanciful to believe that this tiny anonymous
volume of delicious song may have lightened the weariness of that winter
voyage of 1580, which was to prove so momentous in the career of 'the
Shepherd of the Ocean.' Lodovick Bryskett, Fulke Greville, Barnabee
Googe, and Geoffrey Fenton were minor songsters of the copious
Elizabethan age who were now in Munster as agents or soldiers, and we
may suppose that the tedious guerilla warfare, in the woods had its
hours of literary recreation for Raleigh.

The fortress on the peninsula of Dingle was now occupied by a fresh body
of Catholic invaders, mainly Italians, and Smerwick Bay again attracted
general interest. Grey, as Deputy, and Ormond, as governor of Munster,
united their forces and marched towards this extremity of Kerry;
Raleigh, with his infantry, joined them at Rakele; and we may take
September 30, 1580, which is the date when his first 'reckoning'
closes, as that on which he took some fresh kind of service under Lord
Grey. Hooker, who was an eye-witness, supplies us with some very
interesting glimpses of Raleigh in his _Supply of the Irish Chronicles_,
a supplement to Holinshed. We learn from him that when Lord Grey broke
into the camp at Rakele, Raleigh stayed behind, having observed that the
kerns had the habit of swooping down upon any deserted encampment to rob
and murder the camp followers. This expectation was fulfilled; the
hungry Irish poured into Rakele as soon as the Deputy's back was turned.
Raleigh had the satisfaction of capturing a large body of these poor
creatures. One of them carried a great bundle of withies, and Raleigh
asked him what they were for. 'To have hung up the English churls with,'
was the bold reply. 'Well,' said Raleigh, 'but now they shall serve for
an Irish kern,' and commanded him 'to be immediately tucked up in one of
his own neck-bands.' The rest were served in a similar way, and then the
young Englishman rode on after the army.

Towards the end of October they came in