, and vigour of the poetical production of the period in
which Spenser is the central figure--the last twenty years of the sixteenth
century--is perhaps proportionally the greatest, and may be said to be
emphatically the most distinguished in purely poetical characteristics of
any period in our history. Every kind of poetical work is represented in
it, and every kind (with the possible exception of the semi-poetical kind
of satire) is well represented. There is, indeed, no second name that
approaches Spenser's, either in respect of importance or in respect of
uniform excellence of work. But in the most incomplete production of this
time there is almost always that poetical spark which is often entirely
wanting in the finished and complete work of other periods. I shall,
therefore, divide the whole mass into four groups, each with certain
distinguished names at its head, and a crowd of hardly undistinguished
names in its rank and file. These four groups are the sonneteers, the
historians, the satirists, and lastly, the miscellaneous lyrists and
poetical miscellanists.

Although it is only recently that its mass and its beauty have been fully
recognised, the extraordinary outburst of sonnet-writing at a certain
period of Elizabeth's reign has always attracted the attention of literary
historians. For many years after Wyatt and Surrey's work appeared the form
attracted but little imitation or practice. About 1580 Spenser himself
probably, Sidney and Thomas Watson certainly, devoted much attention to it;
but it was some dozen years later that the most striking crop of sonnets
appeared. Between 1593 and 1596 there were published more than a dozen
collections, chiefly or wholly of sonnets, and almost all bearing the name
of a single person, in whose honour they were supposed to be composed. So
singular is this coincidence, showing either an intense _engouement_ in
literary society, or a spontaneous determination of energy in individuals,
that the list with dates is worth giving. It runs thus:--In 1593 came
Barnes's _Parthenophil and Parthenophe_, Fletcher's _Licia_, and Lodge's
_Phillis_. In 1594 followed Constable's _Diana_, Daniel's _Delia_,[24] the
anonymous _Zepheria_, Drayton's _Idea_, Percy's _Coelia_, and Willoughby's
_Avisa_; 1595 added the _Alcilia_ of a certain J. C., and Spenser's perfect
_Amoretti_; 1596 gave Griffin's _Fidessa_, Lynch's _Diella_, and Smith's
_Chloris_, while Shakespere's earliest sonnets were proba