5 2 January — Spenser, 



reach the limit of their age, in order that we may see 

 both what they are and what they may become ? Every 

 sapling in the forest gains dignity from their imposing 

 presence, and he who has once beheld them in their 

 place may read with better understanding the verse of 

 those great old poets who wrote when such princes of 

 the forest might be met with more frequently in the 

 land. Think what was Spenser's conception of the 

 forest, and what in our own time is too often the un- 

 interesting reality ! He thought of it as a country 

 shaded by a great roof of green foliage, which was car- 

 ried on massive stems always so far apart that one or 

 several knights could ride everywhere without incon- 

 venience ; but we find the reality to be for the most 

 part an impenetrable jungle of young trees, that will be 

 cut down in a year or two for firewood. Ah, let us still 

 preserve some dwelling of sylvan majesty, where the 

 poet may dream and the artist may study, and both may 

 forget the cares and interests of the present ! Are there 

 not still left to us, here and there in the deep woods, such 

 vales of ancient peace that wandering Una may haply 

 meet us there ; or some splendid knight of fairy-land, 

 like him whose glittering crest danced joyously as the 

 rustling foliage of an almond-tree, 



* On top of greene Selinis all alone ? ' 



