ther-in-law, Philip Sidney. The next
year, 1579, saw the publication of _The Shepheard's Calendar_ in 12
eclogues. It was dedicated to Sidney, who had become his friend and
patron, and was received with acclamation, all who had ears for poetry
perceiving that a new and great singer had arisen. The following year S.
was appointed sec. to Lord Grey of Wilton, Deputy for Ireland, a strict
Puritan, and accompanied him to Ireland. At the same time he appears to
have begun the _Faerie Queen_. In 1581 he was appointed Registrar of
Chancery, and received a grant of the Abbey and Castle of Enniscorthy,
which was followed in 1586 by a grant of the Castle of Kilcolman in
County Cork, a former possession of the Earls of Desmond with 3000 acres
attached. Simultaneously, however, a heavy blow fell upon him in the
death of Sidney at the Battle of Zutphen. The loss of this dear friend he
commemorated in his lament of _Astrophel_. In 1590 he was visited by Sir
Walter Raleigh, who persuaded him to come to England, and presented him
to the Queen, from whom he received a pension of L50, which does not,
however, appear to have been regularly paid, and on the whole his
experiences of the Court did not yield him much satisfaction. In the same
year his reputation as a poet was vastly augmented by the publication of
the first three books of the _Faerie Queen_, dedicated to Elizabeth. The
enthusiasm with which they were received led the publisher to bring out a
collection of other writings of S. under the general title of
_Complaints_, and including _Mother Hubbard's Tale_ (a satire on the
Court and on the conflict then being waged between the old faith and the
new), _Teares of the Muses_, and _The Ruins of Time_. Having seen these
ventures launched, S. returned to Kilcolman and wrote _Colin Clout's come
Home Again_, one of the brightest and most vigorous of his poems, not,
however, _pub._ until 1595. In the following year appeared his _Four
Hymns_, two on _Love and Beauty_ and two on _Heavenly Love and Beauty_,
and the _Prothalamion_ on the marriage of two daughters of the Earl of
Worcester. He also _pub._ in prose his _View of Ireland_, a work full of
shrewd observation and practical statesmanship. In 1594 he was _m._ to
Elizabeth Boyle, whom he had courted in _Amoretti_, and his union with
whom he now celebrated in the magnificent _Epithalamion_, by many
regarded as his most perfect poem. In 1595 he returned to England, taking
with him the seco