s, nor Hobbinol be
greved that so she should be commended to immortalitie
for her rare and singular virtues.' Whoever this
charming lady was, and whatever glen she made bright
with her presence, it appears that she did not
reciprocate the devoted affection of the studious young
Cambridge graduate who, with probably no apparent
occupation, was loitering for a while in her vicinity.
It was some other--he is called Menalacas in one of his
rival's pastorals--who found favour in her eyes. The
poet could only wail and beat his breast. Eclogues I.
and VI. are all sighs and tears. Perhaps in the course
of time a copy of the _Faerie Queene_ might reach the
region where Menalcas and Rosalind were growing old
together; and she, with a certain ruth perhaps mixed
with her anger, might recognise in Mirabella an image
of her fair young disdainful self{4}. The poet's
attachment was no transient flame that flashed and was
gone. When at the instance of his friend he travelled
southward away from the scene of his discomfiture, he
went weeping and inconsolable. In the Fourth Eclogue
Hobbinol is discovered by Thenot deeply mourning, and,
asked the reason, replies that his grief is because

. . . the ladde whome long I loved so deare
Nowe loves a lasse that all his love doth scorne;
He plongd in payne, his tressed locks dooth teare.

Shepheards delights he dooth them all forsweare;
Hys pleasant pipe, whych made us meriment,
He wylfully hath broke, and doth forbeare
His wonted songs, wherein he all outwent.

. . . . .

Colin thou kenst, the Southerne shepheardes boye;
Him Love hath wounded with a deadly darte. &c.

The memory of Rosalind, in spite of her unkindness,
seems to have been fondly cherished by the poet, and
yielded to no rival vision--though there may have been
fleeting fits of passion--till some fourteen years
after he and she had parted--till the year 1592, when,
as we shall see, Spenser, then living in the south of
Ireland, met that Elizabeth who is mentioned in the
sonnet quoted above, and who some year and a half after
that meeting became his wife. On the strength of an
entry found in the register of St. Clement Danes Church
in the Strand--'26 Aug. [1587] Florenc Spenser, the
daughter of Edmond'--it has been conjectured that the
poet was married before 1587. This conjecture seems
entirely unacceptable. There is nothing to justify the