[58:2] Calendar of State Papers Ireland, 1574-1585. Mr. H. C. Hamilton's Pref. p. lxxi-lxxiii. Nov. 12, 1580.
[62:3] Cox, Hist. of Ireland, 354.
[63:4] Irish Papers, March 29, 1587.
[79:5] Carew MSS. Calendar, 1587, p. 449. Cf. Irish Papers; Calendar, 1587, p. 309, 450.
CHAPTER IV.
THE FAERY QUEEN—THE FIRST PART.
[1580-1590.]
The Faery Queen is heard of very early in Spenser's literary course. We know that in the beginning of 1580, the year in which Spenser went to Ireland, something under that title had been already begun and submitted to Gabriel Harvey's judgment; and that among other literary projects, Spenser was intending to proceed with it. But beyond the mere name, we know nothing, at this time, of Spenser's proposed Faery Queen. Harvey's criticisms on it tell us nothing of its general plan or its numbers. Whether the first sketch had been decided upon, whether the new stanza, Spenser's original creation, and its peculiar beauty and instrument, had yet been invented by him, while he had been trying experiments in metre in the Shepherd's Calendar, we have no means of determining. But he took the idea with him to Ireland; and in Ireland he pursued it and carried it out.