his book. It was through
him, and his friendship, probably, that the poet Spenser was gifted by
the Queen with a fine farm of three thousand acres among the Bally-Howra
hills of Ireland.

And it was here that Sir Walter Raleigh, that "shepherd of the sea,"
visited the poet, and found him seated

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

Did the gallant privateer possibly talk with the farmer about the
introduction of that new esculent, the potato? Did they talk tobacco?
Did Colin Clout have any observations to make upon the rot in sheep, or
upon the probable "clip" of the year?

Nothing of this; but

"He pip'd, I sung; and when he sung, I pip'd:
By chaunge of tunes each making other merry."

The lines would make a fair argument of the poet's bucolic life. I have
a strong faith that his farming was of the higgledy-piggledy order; I do
not believe that he could have set a plough into the sod, or have made a
good "cast" of barley. It is certain, that, when the Tyrone rebels
burned him out of Kilcolman Castle, he took no treasure with him but his
Elizabeth and the two babes; and the only treasures he left were the
ashes of the dear child whose face shone on him there for the last
time,--

"bright with many a curl
That clustered round her head."

I wish I could love his "Shepherd's Calendar"; but I cannot. Abounding
art of language, exquisite fancies, delicacies innumerable there may be;
but there is no exhilarating air from the mountains, no crisp breezes,
no songs that make the welkin ring, no river that champs the bit, no
sky-piercing falcon.

And as for the "Faery Queene," if I must confess it, I can never read
far without a sense of suffocation from the affluence of its beauties.
It is a marvellously fair sea and broad,--with tender winds blowing over
it, and all the ripples are iris-hued; but you long for some brave blast
that shall scoop great hollows in it, and shake out the briny beads from
its lifted waters, and drive wild scuds of spray among the screaming
curlew.

In short, I can never read far in Spenser without taking a rest--as we
farmers lean upon our spades, when the digging is in unctuous fat soil
that lifts heavily.

And so I leave the matter,--with the "Faery Queene" in my thought, and
leaning on my spade.

* * * * *

CIVIC BANQUETS.

It has often perplexed me to imagine h