It is true that it was relieved by several
journeys to England, by his receiving at least one
visit from an English friend, by his finding, during at
any rate the earlier part of his absence, some
congenial English friends residing in the country, by
his meeting at length with that Elizabeth whose
excelling beauty he has sung so sweetly, and whom he
married; it is also true that there was in him--as in
Milton and in Wordsworth--a certain great self-
containedness,{1} that he carried his world with him
wherever he went, that he had great allies and high
company in the very air that flowed around him,
whatever land he inhabited; all this is true, but yet
to be cut off from the fellowship which, however self-
sufficing, he so dearly loved--to look no longer on the
face of Sidney his hero, his ideal embodied, his living
Arthur, to hear but as it were an echo of the splendid
triumphs won by his and our England in those glorious
days, to know of his own high fame but by report, to be
parted from the friendship of Shakspere--surely this
was exile. To live in the Elizabethan age, and to be
severed from those brilliant spirits to which the fame
of that age is due! Further, the grievously unsettled,
insurgent state of Ireland at this time--as at many a
time before and since--must be borne in mind. Living
there was living on the side of a volcanic mountain.
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