" And barren
and desolate as it was when Raleigh received it, it soon became
known as the best tilled land in all the country-side. For he
brought workers and tenants from his old Devon home to take the
place of the beggared or slain Irish. He introduced new and
better ways of tilling, and also he brought to Ireland a strange
new root. For it is interesting to remember that it was in
Raleigh's Irish estates that potatoes were first grown in our
Islands.
Raleigh took a great interest in these estates, so perhaps it was
not altogether a hardship to him, finding himself out of favor
with his Queen, to go to Ireland for a time. And although they
had known each other before, it was then that his friendship with
Spenser began. Spenser read his Faery Queen to Raleigh, and
perhaps Raleigh read to Spenser his poem Cynthia written in honor
of Queen Elizabeth. But of that poem nearly all has been lost.
Elizabeth was not as yet very angry with Raleigh, still he felt
the loss of her favor, for Spenser tells us:--
"His song was all a lamentable lay,
Of great unkindness and of usage hard,
Of Cynthia, the Lady of the Sea,
Which from her presence faultless him debarred.
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