Page:Works of Edmund Spenser - 1857.djvu/27

Rh In the above, tlie trepidation and anxiety of the robber are admirably drawn. In “The Ruines of Time,” in which he adverts to the untimely death of the Earl of Leicester, are many noble passages; and Mr. Ellis has selected one of the most spirited, for insertion in his valuable Specimens. “Muiopotmos” is one of the most elegant of all Spenser’s minor poems, and possesses much of the lavishness of imagery and description so conspicuous in his more polished works. “The Teares of the Muses” comprise their lament for the decay of learning. “DaphnaidaDaphnaïda [sic],” an Elegy on Douglas Howard, daughter of Henry Lord Howard, appeared Jan. 1, 1591–2; and in 1595, was published “Colin Clouts Come Home Againe,” in which the Poet gives an account of his visit to England and his introduction to the queen, with familiar sketches of his contemporaries under feigned names. Attached to “Colin Clout” was “Astrophel,” a collection of elegiac poems on the death of Sir Philip Sydney, supposed to have been written on the immediate occasion of his death. The characteristics of this work are conceit and pedantry, but often redeemed by tender sentiments and noble expressions. The best of the poems is “The Mourning Muse of Thestylis;” and in the Elegy, “A Friends Passion for his Astrophel,” we have an atoning charm in the following graceful portrait of Sidney:—