Shakespeare himself, as may be seen in numerous Sonnets, 18, 19, 55, 60, 63, 65, 74, 81, 100, 101, 107. The reader may find the same prediction of immortality in Spenser's Sonnets, 27, 69, and 75.

The poets, writing in the belief that their inspiration is from an eternal fountain, readily fall into the delusion that their poems will live forever, Ovid himself making this prediction for his own poems. Hence Colin, that is, Spenser, says (line 640):

Long while after I am dead and rotten,

Amongst the shepherds' daughters dancing round,
My lays MADE OF HER shall not be forgotten,
But sung by them with flowery garlands crowned.

The lays made of her signify the poems made of nature, or under the direct inspiration of nature, as seen in the poet's Arcadia, where there is one principle of truth and beauty recognized and honored as the Queen under the name of Cynthia.

This is the Queen whom Drayton goes in "quest of," amidst trees and flowers, with melodious birds to lead him on, until he finally discovers her, and finds himself accepted, when he concludes:

"By Cynthia thus do I subsist,

On earth heaven's only pride,

Let her be mine, and let who list

Take all the world beside."

This is, in truth, the burthen of Spenser's first Amoretti Sonnet, addressed, not to any particular lady, but to the Queen of Arcadia, the mystical object of the entire series.

"Leaves, lines and rhymes [says he] seek her to please alone, Whom if ye please, I care for others none."

Happy rhymes! said the poet, "bathed in the sacred brook of Helicon, whence she derived is," -the lady addressed being the poetic queencalled in Shakespeare's Sonnets the "beautiful mother" (Sonnet 3) of a "lovely boy" (Sonnet 108), whose approbation alone he sought (Sonnet 112), absolutely insensible to "critic and to flatterer."

But this sort of study is called by Colin (line 703) the "arts of school," which are said to have, in the world,

and are

small countenance,

counted as but toys to busy idle brains.

This has resulted perhaps not so much from the

study itself, as from the meagre results manifested in so many, who have wasted their lives in fruitless efforts, where the Strange Shepherd has not been fallen in with; or, when discovered-and this is far worse-has not been duly obeyed.

The chief causes, however, of the low estim...e in the world of what Spenser calls the Arts of School, meaning true learning, are, first, the absence of a taste for it; as, in the case of music, a taste being wanting, all effort at learning is necessarily a labor without commensurate progress; and, secondly, arts are valued in the world chiefly for their material products, as instruments of gain (line 706); or, as the poet tells us (line 711), the worth of man is measured by his "weed," that is, by his outside.

As harts by horns and asses by their ears.

But the true poet, or artist, sees the value of his art principally in the art itself, very much as a devotee regards his faith, and prizes it far beyond anything which money can purchase, or which, what is contemptuously called worldly dross can measure; while we see it intimated that true art is accessible to its true "Lover" without money and

without price, but under the condition of acknowledging it as the gift of God.

We must not omit to say, in this notice, that whereas Shakespeare, in his 20th Sonnet, has indicated the object of his love as of a double nature, or two natures in one, in Colin Clouts we encounter the same description in lines from 799, where the object is said to have been

Born without sire, or couples of one kind;

For, Venus self' doth soly couples seeme,

Both male and female through commixture joined:

So pure and spotless Cupid forth she brought,

And in the gardens of Adonis nurst:
Where growing he his own perfection wrought,
And shortly was of all the gods the first.

This high power the poets are careful never to blaspheme (line 822); and we see this doctrine in Shakespeare's Sonnets 57, 58, 88, 89, 95, 96, 150, &c.

A still more exalted character is given to the object by Colin (line 839), where we read:

And this is only another name for the Arcadian Queen Cynthia.

Long before the world he was ybore,

And bred above in Venus' bosom dear :

and then, as if to leave the reader in no doubt as to his meaning, the poet adds:

For by his power the world was made of yore;

and is not this what John says of the Word ?—the same John who tells us that God is Love, a word which thence became a synonym for religion with a large class of mystical writers, especially poets, including Spenser, whose Amoretti Sonnets were not addressed to a lady of flesh and blood, whatever the critics may say to the contrary.

At length Melissa breaks in (line 896), exclaiming :

Colin, thou now full deeply hast divined

Of Love and Beauty; and with wondrous skill
Hast Cupid self depainted in his kind.

But enough has been said to show the purpose of this poem of Colin Clouts Come Home Again. It signifies, first, a visit by the poet to the poet's ideal land, the poetic Arcadia, or nature as seen in the spirit, or in what Swedenborg calls a celestial idea,