discussing with Spenser the stanzas of the "Shepherds Calender" or the scheme of the "Faerie Queene." For when Spenser returned to London after his sojourn in the north of England on the completion of his college days at Cambridge, and was casting about for an occupation in life, he was the guest of Sidney at Penshurst, and there saw in tangible flesh the high-souled man who became for him the ideal of a perfect knight and gentleman. It was at Penshurst, there is every reason for believing, that Spenser prepared his "Shepherds Calender" for the press, and his companionship with Sidney there accounts for his issuing that work under the shelter of a dedication to his "noble and virtuous" host. It accounts, too, for Sidney figuring so largely in the little poem with which he prefaced the book. "Goe, little booke! thy selfe present, |