admiration. He was spoken of in the same year with its
appearance as the new laureate.{1} In the spring of
the following year he received a pension from the crown
of 50_l_. per annum. Probably, however, then, as in
later days, the most ardent appreciators of of Spenser
were the men of the same craft with himself--the men
who too, though in a different degree, or in a
different kind, possessed the 'vision and the faculty
divine.'
This great estimation of the _Faerie Queene_ was
due not only to the intrinsic charms of the poem--to
its exquisitely sweet melody, its intense pervading
sense of beauty, its abundant fancifulness, its subtle
spirituality--but also to the time of its appearance.
For then nearly two centuries no great poem had been
written in the English tongue. Chaucer had died
heirless. Occleve's lament over that great spirit's
decease had not been made without occasion:--

Alas my worthie maister honorable
This londis verray tresour and richesse
Deth by thy dethe hathe harm irreperable
Unto us done; hir vengeable duresse
Dispoiled hathe this londe of swetnesse
Of Rethoryk fro us; to Tullius
Was never man so like amonges us.{2}

And the doleful confession this orphaned rhymer makes
for himself, might have been well made by all the men
of his age in England:--