most eminent of later poets. Dryden says that Milton was the poetical son of Spenser, and that Milton had told him that Spenser was his original-Dryden studied Spenser for his beautiful turns of words and thoughts, in which he could not improve himself by the study of Milton and Cowley, highly as he appreciated those poets in other respects. Dryden says of himself—"I acknowledge that Virgil in Latin, and Spenser in English, have been my masters." Pope says, that he read the Faery Queen with vast delight when he was twelve years of age, and that it gave him the same pleasure when he perused it in later life.

One of Spenser's most beautiful descriptions is that of the Bower of Bliss; his knight, Sir Guyon, vows to destroy the enchantress of the bower, in consequence of her having poisoned another knight which occasioned his lady to stab herself. Sir Guyon's attention was directed to this matter by the shrieks of the dying lady; he finds her baby bathing its hands in its mother's blood. He afterwards tries in vain to wash the blood of the baby's hands; so takes it as a signal from heaven that the baby is to go about with bloody hands till its mother's death is avenged by the destruction of the enchantress.

Pitiful spectacle of deadly smart,

Beside a lovely fountain low she lay,

Which she increased with her bleeding heart,
And the clear waves with purple gore did ray,

Also in her lap a lovely Babe did play
His cruel sport, instead of sorrow dew,
For in her streaming blood he did embay
His little hands, and tender joints embrew,
Pitiful spectacle, as ever eie did view.

Thus when Sir Guyon with his faithful guyde
Had with dew rites and dolorous lament

H

The end of their sad tragedie uptyde,

The little Babe up in his arms he pent,

Who with sweet pleasaunce, and bold blandishment,
Gan smyle on them, that rather ought to weepe,

As careless of his woe, or innocent

Of that was doen; that ruth emperced deepe

In that Knight's heart, and words with bitter tears did steep.

Ah! lucklesse babe, born under cruel starre,

And in dead parent's baleful ashes bred,
Full little weenest thou what sorrows are
Left thee for portion of thy livelyhed;
Poor orphan! in the wide world scattered,
As budding branch rent from the native tree,
And throwen forth, till it be withered!

Such is the state of men! thus enter we
Into this life with woe, and end with misery!

Then soft himself inclining on his knee,
Down to that well did in the water weene

(So love does loath disdainful nicetie)

His guiltless hands from bloody gore to cleene.
lle washt them oft and oft, yet nought they beene
For all his washing cleaner; still he strove,

Yet still the little hands were bloody seene.

With Spenser's Babe's bloody hands may be noticed the Elfin Page in the Lay of the Last Minstrel that personated the young Heir of Buccleugh. His exclamations of Lost! lost! lost and Found! found! found! must be familiar to every reader. The young Heir had been enticed away from Branksome Castle by this supernatural page; his meeting with the blood-hound is described with animation.

And hark! and hark! the deep mouthed bark

Comes nigher still, and nigher;

Bursts on the path a dark blood-hound,
His tawny muzzle tracked the ground,
And his red eye shot fire.

Soon as the wildered child saw he,

He flew at him right furiouslie.

I ween you would have seen with joy
The bearing of the gallant boy.

When, worthy of his noble sire,

His wet cheek glowed 'twixt fear and ire!
He faced the blood-hound manfully,

And held his little bat on high;

So fierce he struck, the dog, afraid,
At cautious distance hoarsely bayed,
And still in act to spring;

When dashed an archer through the glade,
And when he saw the hound was stayed;
He drew his tough bow-string;

But a rough voice cried "shoot not, hoy!
Ho! shoot not, Edward 'tis a boy."

With these memorable children of Poetry, may be coupled, in regard to the interest excited by their story, (though they have more important claims on our notice) the Children in the Tower. Their ages were thirteen and eleven. One of the best accounts we have of them is from Sir Thomas More; he is by many considered the first good English prose writer ; he stands among the earliest of our writers in the sixteenth century. The story of these young princes becomes more interesting from the personations of them by Simnel and Perkin Warbeck, (the Duchess of Burgundy's White Rose of England ;) and in modern times a controversy has been raised by Horace Walpole, (after Carte) in his Historic Doubts," as to whether the princes were killed in the Tower, or whether it be not a calumny on Richard invented by the historians under a king of the House of Lancaster. Hume, in the appendix to his History, has replied to Walpole's arguments. Sir James Macintosh yields his assent to the generally received opinion; and he notices that Comines, who wrote without English prejudices, makes no doubt of the princes

having been murdered in the Tower. Sir J. Macintosh observes, that it is an important fact with regard to the controversy, that Sir T. More's narrative is confirmed by lucrative places having been given to all the persons whom he mentions as participating in the murder. This argument, however, would have much greater weight, if they had been promoted subsequently to the period when More wrote his history. Another circumstance mentioned by Mackintosh, is, no doubt, very material. It is, that, in the reign of Charles II, the bones of two young persons, corresponding to the ages given by More, were dug up in the very place where More says their bodies were deposited. An extract from Sir T. More's history as to this point may be interesting:

"I shall rehearse you the dolorous end of those babes, not after every way that I have heard, but after that way that I have so heard by such men and such means as me thinketh it were hard but it should be true.

Sir James Tyrrel caused those murtherers to bury them at the stayre foote, metely depe in the grounde under a great heape of stones."

The Tower of London and the murder of the young princes is thus noticed in Gray's "Bard:"

Ye towers of Julius! London's lasting shame,
With many a foul and midnight murder fed!
Revere his consort's faith, his father's fame,
And spare the meek Usurper's holy head.

Above, below, the rose of snow

Twined with her blushing foe we spread,
The bristled Boar in infant gore

Wallows beneath the thorny shade.

There is a curious coincidence of ideas and language be

tween Lord Bacon's account of Perkin Warbeck (who per

sonated the Duke of York) and Shakspeare-Lord Bacon, in his History of Henry VII, says of Perkin Warbeck—“ Nay, himself, with long and continued counterfeiting, and with oft telling a lie, was turned, by habit, almost into the thing he seemed to be, and from a liar to be a believer"—and, in the play of the Tempest, Prospero says—

Like one

Who having unto truth, by telling of it,
Made such a truant of his memory,

To credit his own lie; he did believe

He was indeed the Duke.

The general gossip of an excited populace is admirably described by Shakspeare in his relation of the effect of the news of young Prince Arthur's murder on the citizens of London. The whole of King John's conversations with Hubert concerning Arthur raise a higher idea of Shakspeare, in regard to his deep knowledge of the human heart, than almost any thing he has written.

Old men and beldames in the streets

Do prophecy upon it dangerously;

Young Arthur's death is common in their mouths;
And when they talk of him, they shake their heads,
And whisper one another in the ear;

And he that speaks doth gripe the hearer's wrist

Whilst he that hears makes fearful action,

With wrinkled brows, with nods, with rolling eyes.
I saw a smith stand with his hammer, thus,
The whilst his iron did on the anvil cool,
With open mouth swallowing a tailor's news;
Who, with his shears and measure in his hand,
Standing on slippers (which his nimble haste
Had falsely thrust upon contrary feet)
Told of a many thousand warlike French,
That were embattled and rank'd in Kent:

Another lean unwashed artificer

Cuts off the tale, and talks of Arthur's death.