Chief among these were Spenser and Shakspeare.

As the latter has been truly characterized as not for an age, but for all time, the former may be more justly considered as the highest exponent and representative of that period.

The Faerie Queene, considered only as a grand heroic poem, is unrivalled in its pictures of beautiful women, brave men, daring deeds, and Oriental splendor; but in its allegorical character, it is far more instructive, since it enumerates and illustrates the cardinal virtues which should make up the moral character of a gentleman: add to this, that it is teeming with history, and in its manifold completeness we have, if not an oasis in the desert, more truly the rich verge of the fertile country which bounds that desert, and which opens a more beautiful road to the literary traveller as he comes down the great highway: wearied and worn with the factions and barrenness of the fifteenth century, he fairly revels with delight in the fertility and variety of the Elizabethan age.
EDWARD AND MARY .-- In pursuance of our plan, a few preliminary words will present the historic features of that age.

In the year 1547, Henry VIII., the royal Bluebeard, sank, full of crimes and beset with deathbed horrors, into a dishonorable grave.[24] A poor, weak youth, his son, Edward VI., seemed sent by special providence on a short mission of six years, to foster the reformed faith, and to give the land a brief rest after the disorders and crimes of his father's reign.
After Edward came Queen Mary, in 1553--the bloody Mary, who violently overturned the Protestant system, and avenged her mother against her father by restoring the Papal sway and making heresy the unpardonable sin.

It may seem strange, in one breath to denounce Henry and to defend his daughter Mary; but severe justice, untempered with sympathy, has been meted out to her.