aspire, 685
And loath this drosse of sinfull worlds desire.

* * * * *

FOOTNOTES:

Ver. 8.—Verlame. Veralam, or Verulamium, was a British and Roman town, near the present city of St. Alban's in Hertfordshire. Some remains of its walls are still perceptible. H.

Ver. 64.—Th'Assyrian Lyonesse. These types of nations are taken from the seventh chapter of the book of Daniel. H.

Ver. 190.—I saw him die. Leicester died at Cornbury Lodge, in Oxfordshire. Todd suggests that he may have fallen sick at St. Alban's, and that Spenser, hearing the report in Ireland, may havo concluded without inquiry that this was the place of his subsequent death, C.

Ver. 225.—Colin Cloute. Spenser himself, who had been befriended by
Leicester. H.

Ver. 239.—His brother. Ambrose Dudley, Earl of Warwick.

Ver. 245.—His noble spouse. Anne, the eldest daughter of Francis
Russell, Earl of Bedford.

Ver. 260.—His sister. Lady Mary Sidney.

Ver. 261.—That good earle, &c. This Earl of Bedford died in 1585.—
TODD.

Ver. 267.—He, noble bud, &c. Edward Russell, grandson of Francis Earl of Bedford, succeeded in the earldom, his father, Francis, having been slain by the Scots.—OLDYS.

Ver. 275.—That goodly ladie, &c. Lady Mary Sidney, mother of Sir
Philip Sidney and the Countess of Pembroke.

Ver. 281.—Most gentle spirite. Sir Philip Sidney.

Ver. 317.—Thine owne sister, &c. The Countess of Pembroke, to whom this poem is dedicated. "The Dolefull Lay of Clorinda" (Vol. IV. p. 426) appears to have been written by her.

Ver. 436.—Good Melibae. Sir Francis Walsingham, who died April 6,1590. The poet is Thomas Watson.—OLDYS.

Ver. 447-455.—These lines are aimed at Burghley, who was said to have opposed the Queen's intended bounty to the poet. C.

Ver 491.—These allegorical representations of the vanity of exalted position, stately buildings, earthly pleasures, bodily strength, and works of beauty and magnificence, admit of an easy application to the splendid career of the Earl of Leicester,—his favor and influence with the Queen, his enlargement of Kenilworth, his princely style of living, and particularly (IV.) his military command in the Low Countries. The sixth of these "tragick pageants" strongly confirms this interpretation. The two bears are Robert and Ambrose Dudley. While Leicester was lieutenant in the Netherlands, he was in the habit of using the Warwick crest (a bear and ragged staff) instead of his own. Naunton, in his Fragmenta Regalia, calls him Ursa Major. C.

Ver. 497.—The holie brethren, &c. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
Daniel, ch. iii. C.

Ver. 582-586.—A paraphrase of Sir Philip's last words to his brother.
"Above all, govern your will and affection by the will and word of your
Creator, in me beholding the end of this world with all her vanities."
This is pointed out by Zouch, Life of Sidney, p. 263. C.

Ver 590.—This second series of pageants is applicable exclusively to Sir Philip Sidney. The meaning of the third and fourth is hard to make out; but the third seems to have reference to the collection of the scattered sheets of the Arcadia, and the publication of this work by the Countess of Pembroke, after it had been condemned to destruction by the author. The fourth may indeed signify nothing more than Lady Sidney's bereavement by her husband's death; but this interpretation seems too literal for a professed allegory. The sixth obviously alludes to the splendid obsequies to Sidney, performed at the Queen's expense, and to the competition of the States of Holland for the honor of burying his body. C.

L'ENVOY: L'Envoy was a sort of postscript sent with poetical compositions, and serving either to recommend them to the attention of some particular person, or to enforce what we call the moral of them.— TYRWHITT.

* * * * *

THE TEARES OF THE MUSES.

BY ED. SP.

LONDON:

IMPRINTED FOR WILLIAM PONSONBIE, DWELLING IN PAULES CHURCHYARD AT THE SIGNE OF THE BISHOPS HEAD.

1591.

* * * * *

TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE

THE LADIE STRANGE.

Most brave and noble Ladie, the things that make ye so much honored of the world as ye bee are such as (without my simple lines testimonie) are throughlie knowen to all men; namely, your excellent beautie, your vertuous behavior, and your noble match with that most honourable Lord, the verie paterne of right nobilitie. But the causes for which ye have thus deserved of me to be honoured, (if honour it be at all,) are, both your particular bounties, and also some private bands of affinitie*, which it hath pleased your Ladiship to acknowledge. Of which whenas I found my selfe in no part worthie, I devised this last slender meanes, both to intimate my humble affection to your Ladiship, and also to make the same universallie knowen to the world; that by honouring you they might know me, and by knowing me they might honor you. Vouchsafe, noble Lady, to accept this simple remembrance, though not worthy of your self, yet such as perhaps by good acceptance thereof ye may hereafter cull out a more meet and memorable evidence of your own excellent deserts. So recommending the same to your Ladiships good liking, I humbly take leave.

Your La: humbly ever.

ED. SP.

[Footnote: Lady Strange was Alice Spencer, sixth daughter of Sir John
Spencer of Althorpe. C.]

* * * * *

THE TEARES OF THE MUSES.

Rehearse to me, ye sacred Sisters nine,
The golden brood of great Apolloes wit,
Those piteous plaints and sorowfull sad tine
Which late ye powred forth as ye did sit
Beside the silver springs of Helicone, 5
Making your musick of hart-breaking mone!

For since the time that Phoebus foolish sonne,
Ythundered, through loves avengefull wrath,
For traversing the charret of the Sunne
Beyond the compasse of his pointed path, 10
Of you, his mournfull sisters, was lamented,
Such mournfull tunes were never since invented.

Nor since that faire Calliope did lose
Her loved twinnes, the dearlings of her ioy,
Her Palici, whom her unkindly foes, 15
The Fatall Sisters, did for spight destroy,
Whom all the Muses did bewaile long space,
Was ever heard such wayling in this place.

For all their groves, which with the heavenly noyses
Of their sweete instruments were wont to sound, 20
And th'hollow hills, from which their silver voyces
Were wont redoubled echoes to rebound,
Did now rebound with nought but rufull cries,
And yelling shrieks throwne up into the skies.

The trembling streames which wont in chanels cleare 25
To romble gently downe with murmur soft,
And were by them right tunefull taught to beare
A bases part