There was also a rabbit warren in the park, a spot that would have borne good wheat. But it was, like a pigeon-house, a constant appendage to a manorial dwelling. Eighth of James I., a stable near the coney warren was let with the dairy farm; and even in the next year we hear of the warrener's lodge.

One principal reason of the number of warrens formerly was the great use our ancestors made of fur in their clothing. “I judge warrens of coneys," says Harrison, "to be almost innumberable, and daily like to increase, by reason that the black skins of those beasts are thought to countervail the prices of their naked carcases." The latter were worth 2d. a piece., and the former 6d. 17 Henry VIII

Hymn of Heavenly Beauty.

SPENSER.

[THE inscription on his monument designates Edmund Spenser as "the prince of poets." Few have had a better claim to so eminent a title. Mr Craik, in his excellent little work, "Spenser and his Poetry," has truly said, "Our only poets before Shakspeare who have given to the language anything that in its kind has not been surpassed, and in some parts superseded, are Chaucer and Spenser Chaucer in his Canterbury Tales, Spenser in his Faërie Queen." Very little is known accurately of Spenser's life, beyond the facts that he was admitted as a sizer of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, in 1569; in 1580, became Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, Lord Grey of Wilton, and for his services was rewarded by a large grant of land in the county of Cork: in 1598 was driven from Ireland by a savage outbreak, in which his house was burned, with one of his children; and that he died in January 1599, "for lack of bread," as Ben Jonson records. Three books of "The Faerie Queen" were published in 1590; and three others in 1591. The "Two Cantos of Mutability" appeared after his death.

Rapt with the rage of mine own ravished thought,
Through contemplation of those goodly sights
And glorious images in heaven wrought,
Whose wondrous beauty, breathing sweet delights,

Do kindle love in high-conceited sprites,

I fain to tell the things that I behold,
But feel my wits to fail, and tongue to fold.
Vouchsafe then, O thou most Almighty Sprite!
From whom all gifts of wit and knowledge flow,
To shed into my breast some sparkling light
Of Thine eternal truth, that I may show
Some little beams to mortal eyes below
Of that immortal beauty there with Thee,
Which in my weak distraughted mind I see;
That with the glory of so goodly sight

The hearts of men, which fondly here admire
Fair-seeming shows, and feed on vain delight,
Transported with celestial desire

Of those fair forms, may lift themselves up higher.
And learn to love, with zealous, humble duty,

The eternal fountain of that Heavenly Beauty.

[The poet then proceeds to look around "on the frame of this wide universe" the earth, the sky, the stars; and, finally, the spiritual hea:cus He then takes up the more immediate subject of his poem :-]

Cease then, my tongue! and lend unto my mind
Leave to bethink how great that beauty is
Whose utmost parts so beautiful I find;
How much more these essential parts of His,
His truth, His love, His wisdom, and His bliss,
His grace, His doom, His mercy, and His might,
By which He lends us of Himself a sight!

Those unto all He daily does display,
And show Himself in the image of His grace,
As in a looking-glass, through which He may
Be seen of all His creatures vile and base,
That are unable else to see His face,

His glorious face, which glistereth else so bright,
That th' angels' selves cannot endure His sight.

But we, frail wights! whose sight cannot sustain
The sun's bright beams when he on us doth shine,
But that their points rebutted back again

Are dulled, how can we see with feeble eyne
The glory of that Majesty divine

In sight of whom both sun and moon are dark,
Compared to His least resplendent spark?

The means, therefore, which unto us is lent
Him to behold is on His works to look,
Which He hath made in beauty excellent,
And in the same, as in a brazen book,
To read enregistered in every nook

His goodness, which His beauty doth declare;
For all that's good is beautiful and fair.

Thence gathering plumes of perfect speculation,
To imp the wings of Thy high-flying mind,
Mount up aloft through heavenly contemplation
From this dark world, whose damps the soul do blind,
And, like the native brood of eagles' kind,
On that bright Sun of Glory fix thine eyes,
Cleared from gross mists of frail infirmities.

Humbled with fear and awful reverence,
Before the footstool of His Majesty
Throw thyself down with trembling innocence,
Ne dare look up with corruptible eye
On the drad* face of that great Deity,

For fear lest, if He chance to look on thee,
Thou turn to nought and quite confounded be.

But lowly fall before His mercy-seat,
Close-covered with the Lamb's integrity
From the just wrath of this avengeful threat,

* Dread.

That sits upon the righteous throne on high.
His throne is built upon eternity,

Or the hard diamond, which them both doth pass.

His sceptre is the rod of Righteousness,

With which He bruiseth all His foes to dust,
And the great Dragon strongly doth repress
Under the rigour of His judgment just;
His seat is truth, to which the faithful trust,
From whence proceed her beams, so pure and bright,
That all about Him sheddeth glorious light:
Light far exceeding that bright-blazing spark
Which darted is from Titan's flaming head,
That with his beams enlumineth the dark
And dampish air, whereby all things are read
Whose nature yet so much is marvelled
Of mortal wits, that it doth much amaze
The greatest wizards which thereon do gaze.

1

But that immortal light which there doth shine
Is many thousand times more bright, more clear,
More excellent, more glorious, more divine,
Through which to God all mortal actions here,
And even the thoughts of men, do plain appear:
For from the Eternal Truth it doth proceed,
Through heavenly virtue which her beams do breed.
With the great glory of that wondrous light
His throne is all encompassed around,
And hid in His own brightness from the sight
Of all that look thereon with eyes unsound;
And underneath His feet are to be found
Thunder and lightning, and tempestuous fire,
The instruments of His avenging ire.

There in His bosom Sapience doth sit,
The sovereign dearling of the Deity,

Clad like a queen in royal robes, most fit
For so great power and peerless majesty,
And all with gems and jewels gorgeously gam
Adorned, that brighter than the stars appear,
And make her native brightness seem more clear.

And on her head a crown of purest gold
Is set, in sign of highest sovereignty;
And in her hand a sceptre she doth hold
With which she rules the house of God on high,
And manageth the ever-moving sky,

And in the same these lower creatures all
Subjected to her power imperial.

Both heaven and earth obey unto her will,
And all the creatures which they both contain;
For of her fulness, which the world doth fill,
They all partake, and do in state remain.
As their great Maker did at first ordain,
Through observation of her high beheast,

By which they first were made and still increased.

The fairness of her face no tongue can tell,
For she the daughters of all women's race,
And angels eke, in beauty doth excel,
Sparkled on her from God's own glorious face,
And more increased by her own goodly grace,
That it doth far exceed all human thought,
Ne can on earth compared be to aught;

Ne could that painter, had he lived yet,
Which pictured Venus with so curious quill,
That all posterity admired it,

Have pourtrayed this, for all his maistering skill;
Ne she herself, had she remained still,

And were as fair as fabling wits do feign,

Could once come near this beauty sovereign.