Though little is circumstantially related, yet frequent outbreakings,
scattered throughout the writings of Spenser, commemorate the main
incidents of his existence. His emotions become dates, and no poet has
more fully confided to us his "secret sorrows."
Spenser in the far north was a love-lorn youth when he composed "The
Shepherd's Calendar." This rustic poem, rustic from an affectation of
the Chaucerian style, though it bears the divisions of the twelve
months, displays not the course of the seasons so much as the course of
the poet's thoughts; the themes are plaintive or recreative, amatorial
or satirical, and even theological, in dialogues between certain
interlocutors. To some are prefixed Italian mottoes; for that language
then stamped a classical grace on our poetry. In the eclogue of January
we perceive that it was still the season of hope and favour with the
amatory poet, for the motto is, _Anchora Speme_ ("yet I hope"); but in
the eclogue of June we discover _Gia Speme Spenta_ ("already hope is
extinguished"). A positive rejection by Rosalind herself had for ever
mingled gall with his honey, and he ungenerously inveighs against the
more successful arts of a hated rival. Rosalind was indeed not the
Cynthia of a poetic hour: deep was the poet's first love; and that
obdurate mistress had called him "her Pegasus," and laughed at his
sighs.
It was when the forlorn poet had thus lost himself in the labyrinth of
love, and "The Shepherd's Calendar" had not yet closed, that his learned
friend Harvey, or, in his poetical appellative, Hobbinol, to steal him
away from the languor of a country retirement, invited him to southern
vales, and with generous warmth introduced "the unknown" to Sir Philip
Sidney. This important incident in the destiny of Spenser has been
carefully noted by a person who conceals himself under the initials E.
K., and who is usually designated as "the old commentator on 'The
Shepherd's Calendar.'" This E. K. is a mysterious personage, and will
remain undiscovered to this day, unless the reader shall participate in
my own conviction.
"The Shepherd's Calendar" was accompanied by a commentary on every
separate month; and this singularity of an elaborate commentary in the
first edition of the work of a living author was still more remarkable
by the intimate acquaintance of the commentator with the author himself.
E. K. assures us, and indeed affords ample evidence, that "he was privy
to all his (the poet's) designs." He furnishes some domestic details
which no one could have told so accurately, except he to whom they
relate; and we find our commentator also critically conversant with many
of the author's manuscripts which the world has never seen. Rarely has
one man known so much of another. The poet and the commentator move
together as parts of each other. In the despair of conjecture some
ventured to surmise that the poet himself had been his own commentator.
But the last editor of Spenser is indignant at a suggestion which would
taint with strange egotism the modest nature of our bard. Yet E. K. was
no ordinary writer; an excellent scholar he was, whose gloss has
preserved much curious knowledge of ancient English terms and phrases.
We may be sure that a pen so abundant and so skilfully exercised was not
one to have restricted itself to this solitary lucubration of his life
and studies. The commentary, moreover, is accompanied by a copious and
erudite preface, _addressed to Gabriel Harvey_, and the style of these
pages is too remarkable not to be recognised. At length let me lift the
mask from this mysterious personage, by declaring that E. K. is
Spenser's dear and generous friend Gabriel Harvey himself. I have judged
by the strong peculiarity of Harvey's style; one cannot long doubt of a
portrait marked by such prominent features. Pedantic but energetic,
thought pressed on thought, sparkling with imagery, mottled with learned
allusions, and didactic with subtle criticism--this is our Gabriel! The
prefacer describes the state of our bardling as that of "young birds
that be nearly crept out of their nest, who, by little, first prove
their tender wings before they make a greater flight. And yet our new
poet flieth as a bird that in time shall be able to keep wing with the
best."
From this detection, we may infer that the Commentary was an innocent
_ruse_ of the zealous friend to overcome the resolute timidity of our
poet.[1] His youthful muse, teeming with her future progeny, was,
however, morbidly sensible in the hour of parturition. Conscious of her
powers, thus closes the address "To his Booke:"--
And when thou art past jeopardie,
Come tell me what was said of me,
And I will send more after thee.
After several editions, the work still remained anonymous, and the
unnamed poet was long referred to by critics of the day only as "the
late unknown poet," or "the gentleman who wrote 'The Shepherd's
Calendar.'"
In Sir Philip Sidney the youthful poet found a youthful patron. The
shades of Penshurst opened to leisure and the muse. "The Shepherd's
Calendar" at length concluded, "The Poet's Year" was dedicated to
"Maister Philip Sidney, worthy of all titles, both of learning and
chivalry." Leicester, the uncle of Sidney, was gained, and from that
moment Spenser entered into a golden servitude.
The destiny of Spenser was to be thrown among courtiers, and to wear the
silken trammels of noble patrons--a life of honourable dependence among
eminent personages. Here a seductive path was opened, not easily scorned
by the gentle mind of him whose days were to be counted by its reveries,
and the main business of whose life was to be the cantos of his "Faery
Queen."
Of the favours and mortifications during his career of patronage, and of
his intercourse with the court, too little is known; though sufficient
we shall discover to authenticate the reality of his complaints, the
verity of his strictures, and all the flutterings of the sickening heart
of him who moves round and round the interminable circle of "hope
deferred."
Our poet was now ascending the steps of favouritism; and the business of
his life was with the fair and the great. He looked up to the smiles of
distinguished ladies, for to such is the greater portion of his poems
dedicated. If her Majesty gloried in "The Faery Queen," we are surprised
to find that the most exquisite of political satires, "Mother Hubbard's
Tale," should be addressed to the Lady Compton and Monteagle; that "The
Tears of the Muses" were inscribed to Lady Strange; and that "The Ruins
of Time" are dedicated to the Countess of Pembroke. For others, their
nuptials were graced by the music of his verse, or their sorrows were
soothed by its elegiac tenderness.[2] In the Epithalamion on his own
marriage, the poet reminds
The sacred sisters who have often times
Been to the aiding others to adorn,
Whom ye thought worthy of your graceful rymes,
That even the greatest did not greatly scorn
To hear their names sung in your simple lays,
But joyed at their praise.
"The Tears of the Muses," as one of his plaintive poems is called, had
possibly been spared had the poet only moved among that bevy of ladies
whose names are enshrined in his volumes, around the Queen, whose
royalty so frequently rises with splendour in his verse. Unawares,
perhaps, the gentle bard discovered that personal attachments by cruel
circumstances were converted into political connexions; that a favourite
must pay the penalty of favouritism; and that in binding himself more
closely to his patrons, he was wounded the more deeply by their great
adversary; and in gaining Sidney, Leicester, and Essex, Spenser was
doomed to feel the potent arm of the scornful and unpoetic Burleigh.
The Queen was the earliest and the latest object of our poet's musings.
"The Maiden Queen" enters into almost every poem. Shortly after the
publication of "The Shepherd's Calendar," wherein her Majesty occupies
the month of April, Spenser, in writing to Harvey, has this remarkable
passage:--"Your desire to hear of my late being with her Majesty must
die in itself." By this ambiguous reply, it is, however, evident that
Harvey, and probably Spenser himself, had looked forwards, by the
intervention of his great patrons, that "the unknown poet," as he is
called by "the old commentator," would have been honoured by an
interview with the royal poetess. Elizabeth, among her princely
infirmities, had the ambition of verse. She was afterwards saluted as
A peerless prince and peerless poetess,
by Spenser, who must, however, have closed his ear at her harsher
numbers.[3] We may regret that we know so little of our Spenser's
intercourse with the Queen. If Sidney made him known to her Majesty, as
Philips has told, the poet might have read to the Queen the earlier
cantos of his romantic epic. The poet himself has only recorded that
"The Shepherd of the Ocean," Sir Walter Raleigh, brought him into the
presence of Cynthia, "The Queen of the Ocean," who
To his oaten pipe inclined her ear,
And it desired, at timely hours, to hear.
The Lord Treasurer Burleigh seems to have marred those "timely hours."
Spenser had lingered before the fountain of court favour; and how often
the dark shadow of the political minister intervened between the poet
and the throne we are reminded by the deep sensitiveness of the victim,
the murmurs, and even the scorn of the indignant bard.
Under the patronage of Leicester, the poet's services were transferred
to Lord Arthur Grey, the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, who appointed
Spenser his secretary. He has vindicated this viceroy's administration
in the "Faery Queen," by shadowing forth his severe justice in Arthegal,
accompanied by his "Iron Man," whose iron flail "threshed out
falsehood" in their quest of Ierne, in that "Land of Ire" where justice
and the executioner were ever erratic.
Of the brief life of the poet, his better years were consumed in
Ireland, where he filled several appointments more honourable than
lucrative. His slender revenue seems not to have flourished under a
grant of land from the crown, on the conditions attached to it in
1585.[4] Cast into active service, the musings of the "Faery Queen" were
assuredly often thrown aside; its fate was still dubious, for Ireland
was not a land of the muses, as he himself declared, when a chance
occurrence, the visit of Rawleigh to that country, gave Spenser another
Sidney. The "Faery Queen" once more opened its mystical leaves on the
banks of the Mulla, before a judge, whose voice was fame.
And when he heard the music that I made,
He found himself full greatly pleased at it;
He gan to cast great liking to my lore,
And great disliking to _my luckless lot,
That banish'd had myself, like wight forlore,
Into that waste where I was quite forgot_.