habit of imitating the Italian poets; and this habit influenced Spenser and
other Elizabethans even more than Chaucer had been influenced by Dante and
Petrarch. It was the fashion at that time for Italian gentlemen to write
poetry; they practiced the art as they practiced riding or fencing; and
presently scores of Englishmen followed Sidney's example in taking up this
phase of foreign education. It was also an Italian custom to publish the
works of amateur poets in the form of anthologies, and soon there appeared
in England _The Paradise of Dainty Devices, A Gorgeous Gallery of Gallant
Inventions_ and other such collections, the best of which was
_England's Helicon_ (1600). Still another foreign fashion was that of
writing a series of sonnets to some real or imaginary mistress; and that
the fashion was followed in England is evident from Spenser's
_Amoretti_, Sidney's _Astrophel and Stella_, Shakespeare's
_Sonnets_, and other less-famous effusions.

* * * * *

SPENSER AND THE LYRIC POETS

[Illustration: MICHAEL DRAYTON]

LYRICS OF LOVE. Love was the subject of a very large part of the minor
poems of the period, the monotony being relieved by an occasional ballad,
such as Drayton's "Battle of Agincourt" and his "Ode to the Virginian
Voyage," the latter being one of the first poems inspired by the New World.
Since love was still subject to literary rules, as in the metrical
romances, it is not strange that most Elizabethan lyrics seem to the modern
reader artificial. They deal largely with goddesses and airy shepherd folk;
they contain many references to classic characters and scenes, to Venus,
Olympus and the rest; they are nearly all characterized by extravagance of