Early in 1599, he,
who may be said to have ushered in this illustrious
period, he whose radiance first dispersed the darkness
and made the day begin to be, our poet Spenser, died.
But the day did not die with him; it was then but
approaching its noon, when he, one of its brightest
suns, set. This day may be said to have fully broken
in the year 1590, when the first instalment of the
great work of Spenser's life made its appearance.
The three books were dedicated to the Queen. They
were followed in the original edition--are preceded in
later editions--first, by the letter to Raleigh above
mentioned; then by six poetical pieces of a
commendatory sort, written by friends of the poet--by
Raleigh who writes two of the pieces, by Harvey who now
praises and well-wishes the poem he had discountenanced
some years before, by 'R.S.,' by 'H.B.,' by 'W.L.;'
lastly, by seventeen sonnets addressed by the poet to
various illustrious personages; to Sir Christopher
Hatton, to Lord Burghley, to the Earl of Essex, Lord
Charles Howard, Lord Grey of Wilton, Lord Buckhurst,
Sir Francis Walsingham, Sir John Norris, Knight, lord
president of Munster, Sir Walter Raleigh, the Countess
of Pembroke, and others. The excellence of the poem
was at once generally perceived and acknowledged.
Spenser had already, as we have seen, gained great
applause by his _Shepheardes Calendar_, published some
ten years before the coming out of his greater work.
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