om that time.'

'Why do you sigh as you say that, Philip? Come, man, let us have no
melancholy remembrances, when all ought to be bright and gay.'

'The past time has ever somewhat of sadness as we live in it again. Have
you never heard, Fulke, of the hope deferred that maketh a sick heart, nor
of the hunger of the soul for the tree of life, which is to be ever
denied?'

'I am in no mood for such melancholy,' was the answer. 'Let us hear what
Spenser saith of that time of which you speak. I'll warrant we shall find
it hard to pick out faults in what he writes therein.

Then Philip read,--

'Eftsoones they heard a most melodious sound
Of all that mote delight a daintie eare,
Such as att once might not on living ground,
Save in this paradise, be heard elsewhere:
Right hard it was for wight which did it heare,
To read what manner musicke that mote bee,
For all that pleasing is to living eare
Was there consorted in one harmonee--
Birdes, voices, instruments, windes, waters, all agree.

'The joyous birdes, shrouded in cheerefull shade,
Their notes unto the voyce attempred sweet,
Th' angelicall soft trembling voyces made
To th' instruments divine respondence meet;
The silver-sounding instruments did meet
With the base murmure of the waters' fall,
The waters' fall with difference discreet,
Now soft, now loud, unto the wind did call,
The gentle warbling wind low answered to all.'

We may well think that these stanzas, which form a part of the 12th canto
of the Second Book of the _Faerie Queene_ have seldom been read to a more
appreciative audience, nor by a more musical voice. After a moment's
silence, Edward Dyer said,--

'I find nought to complain of in all these lines. They flow like the stream
rippling adown from the mountain side--a stream as pure as the fountain
whence it springs.'

'Ay,' Fulke Greville said; 'that is true. Methinks the hypercritic might
say there should not be two words of the same spelling and sound and
meaning, to make the rhyme, as in the lines ending with meet.'

'A truce to such comment, Fulke,' Philip said. 'Rhyme is not of necessity
poetry, nor poetry rhyme. There be many true poets who never strung a
rhyme, and rhymers who know nought of poetry.'

'But, hearken; Edmund has wrote more verses on the further side of this
sheet. I will e'en read them, if it pleases you to hear.'

Fulke Greville