EDWARD VI. AND QUEEN MARY.

EDWARD VI and Queen Mary, who succeeded Henry VIII, and preceded Elizabeth, must be included in the list of British authors. The young king died at the age of sixteen. He was educated by two scholars of the time, John Cheke and Anthony Cooke, and he likewise received instructions from Cardan. Edward left a journal written in his own hand, which is useful for the illustration of history. The young sovereign, whose life was spent in privacy, and as it were in exile, enjoyed the leisure which other princes find only when banished to foreign lands.

Edward was a zealous reformer, and his sister Mary was a violent catholic. She brought back the nation by force to the Roman communion. Gardiner and others, who burned catholics for the reformation, burned for catholicism the protestants whom they had made such: thus we see in political revolutions, old men, who have uniformly adhered to the ruling power, rallying their

energies to recount their own baseness. The commons prostituted themselves to the will of Mary, as they paid obedience to the commands of her father. People changed their faith oftener than their garments. They swore to one thing, and presently afterwards swore to directly the contrary; and at length, in the reign of Elizabeth, they returned to their first oaths. How many perjuries are required to make one fidelity!

Mary left behind her some Latin and French letters. Erasmus praised the former, but they are absolutely worthless; as to the latter, they are illegible.

THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH.

SPENSER.

FROM the time of Spenser the modern English poetry takes its date. The "Faerie Queene," is, as every one knows, an allegorical poem. The author has represented twelve private virtues, which are classed as in Ariosto. These virtues are transformed into knights, and King Arthur is at the head of the party. Gloriana, Queen of the Fairies, is Queen Elizabeth, and King Arthur is Sir Philip Sydney. Lord Buckhurst, in his "Mirrour for Magistrates," appears to have suggested the first idea of the "Faerie Queene." The form of Spenser's poem is modelled on that of the Orlando and Gerusalemme. Each canto consists of stanzas of nine lines. The six last cantos are wanting, excepting two frag

ments.

Allegory was in vogue in what was considered the elegant poetry of the middle ages. In the productions of that school we find Ladies' Loyalty,

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Q

Reason, and Prowess; Squire Desire, Sir Love, and the Chatelaine his mother; Emperor Pride, &c. What suggested these fancies to the poets of the thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries? Their classical education. They were trained up among the deities of antiquity, in a bygone world. The colleges sent forth men of subtile genius, who had no relation with the living world. Being christians, and therefore unable to avail themselves of the pagan divinities, they invented moral divinities. They invested these fanciful creations with the manners of chivalry, and mingled them with the inhabitants of fairy land; they introduced them to tournaments, to the castles of dukes and barons, and the courts of princes, always taking care to conduct them to Lisseux and Pontoise, where le beau françois was spoken.

The poetry of Spenser is remarkable for brilliant imagination, fertile invention, and flowing rhythm; yet with all these recommendations, it is cold and tedious. To the English reader the Faerie Queene presents the charm of antiquated style, which never fails to please us in our own language, but which we cannot appreciate in a foreign tongue.

Spenser commenced his poem in Ireland, in the castle of Kilcolman, situated in a grant of