nd part of the _Faerie Queen_, _pub._ in 1596. In 1598
he was made Sheriff of Cork, and in the same year his fortunes suffered a
final eclipse. The rebellion of Tyrone broke out, his castle was burned,
and in the conflagration his youngest child, an infant, perished, he
himself with his wife and remaining children escaping with difficulty. He
joined the President, Sir T. Norris, who sent him with despatches to
London, where he suddenly _d._ on January 16, 1599, as was long believed
in extreme destitution. This, however, happily appears to be at least
doubtful. He was buried in Westminster Abbey near Chaucer, and a monument
was erected to his memory in 1620 by the Countess of Dorset.

The position of S. in English poetry is below Chaucer, Shakespeare, and
Milton only. The first far excels him in narrative and constructive power
and in humour, and the last in austere grandeur of conception; but for
richness and beauty of imagination and exquisite sweetness of music he is
unsurpassed except by Shakespeare. He has been called the poets' poet, a
title which he well merits, not only by virtue of the homage which all
the more imaginative poets have yielded him, but because of the almost
unequalled influence he has exercised upon the whole subsequent course
and expression of English poetry, which he enriched with the stanza which
bears his name, and which none since him have used with more perfect
mastery. His faults are prolixity, indirectness, and want of constructive
power, and consequently the sustained sweetness and sumptuousness of his
verse are apt to cloy. His great work, the _Faerie Queen_, is but a
gorgeous fragment, six books out of a projected twelve; but probably few
or none of its readers have regretted its incompleteness. In it
Protestantism and Puritanism receive their most poetic and imaginative
presentation and vindication.

SUMMARY.--_B._ 1552, _ed._ Merchant Taylor's School and Camb., became
known to Leicester and Sir P. Sidney 1578, _pub._ _Shepheard's Calendar_
1579, appointed sec. to Lord Deputy of Ireland 1580, and began _Faerie
Queen_, receives various appointments and grants 1581-6, _pub._
_Astrophel_ in memory of Sidney 1586, visited by Raleigh and by him
presented to Queen Elizabeth, who pensioned him 1590, and in same year
_pub._ first three books of _Faerie Queen_, _Teares of Muses_, etc., writes
_Colin Clout_, _pub._ 1595, and in 1596 _pub._ _Four Hymns_ and
_Prothalamion_, _m._ E. Boyle 1594, who