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A BIOGRAPHY OF EDMUND SPENSER
By John W. Hales
Revised 1896
From the Macmillan Globe edition of
THE WORKS OF EDMUND SPENSER
Please note:
Accented, etc. characters are shown thus:
{a\} = a + grave accent
{e\} = e + grave accent
{e"} = e + diaeresis mark
{ae} = ae diphthong
{oe} = oe dipthong
Footnotes for each chapter are enclosed in curly
brackets, e.g. {1}
Regions of italic type are defined by underscores
_E D M U N D S P E N S E R_.
Ille velut fidis arcana sodalibus olim
Credebat libris; neque, si male cesserat, unquam
Decurrens alio, neque si bene; quo fit ut omnis
Votiva pateat veluti descripta tabella
Vita senis.
Hither, as to their fountain, other stars
Repairing in their urns draw golden light.
The life of Spenser is wrapt in a similar obscurity to
that which hides from us his great predecessor Chaucer,
and his still greater contemporary Shakspere. As in
the case of Chaucer, our principal external authorities
are a few meagre entries in certain official documents,
and such facts as may be gathered from his works. The
birth-year of each poet is determined by inference.
The circumstances in which each died are a matter of
controversy. What sure information we have of the
intervening events of the life of each one is scanty
and interrupted. So far as our knowledge goes, it
shows some slight positive resemblance between their
lives. They were both connected with the highest
society of their times; both enjoyed court favour, and
enjoyed it in the substantial shape of pensions. They
were both men of remarkable learning. They were both
natives of London. They both died in the close
vicinity of Westminster Abbey, and lie buried near each
other in that splendid cemetery. Their geniuses were
eminently different: that of Chaucer was the active
type, Spenser's of the contemplative; Chaucer was
dramatic, Spenser philosophical; Chaucer objective,
Spenser subjective; but in the external circumstances,
so far as we know them, amidst which these great poets
moved, and in the mist which for the most part enfolds
those circumstances, there is considerable likeness.
Spenser is frequently alluded to by his
contemporaries; they most ardently recognised in him,
as we shall see, a great poet, and one that might
justly be associated with the one supreme poet whom
this country had then produced--with Chaucer, and they
paid him constant tributes of respect and admiration;
but these mentions of him do not generally supply any
biographical details.
The earliest notice of him that may in any sense
be termed biographical occurs in a sort of handbook to
the monuments of Westminster Abbey, published by Camden
in 1606. Amongst the 'Reges, Regin{ae}, Nobiles, et alij
in Ecclesia Collegiata B. Petri Westmonasterii sepulti
usque ad annum 1606' is enrolled the name of Spenser,
with the following brief obituary:
'Edmundus Spencer Londinensis, Anglicorum Poetarum
nostri seculi facile princeps, quod ejus poemata
faventibus Musis et victuro genio conscripta
comprobant. Obijt immatura morte anno salutis 1598, et
prope Galfredum Chaucerum conditur qui felicissime
po{e"}sin Anglicis literis primus illustravit. In quem
h{ae}c scripta sunt epitaphia:--
Hic prope Chaucerum situs est Spenserius, illi
Proximus ingenio proximus ut tumulo.
Hic prope Chaucerum, Spensere poeta, poetam
Conderis, et versu quam tumulo propior.
Anglica, te vivo, vixit plausitque po{e"}sis;
Nunc moritura timet, te moriente, mori.'
'Edmund Spencer of London, far the first of the
English Poets of our age, as his poems prove, written
under the smile of the Muses, and with a genius
destined to live. He died prematurely in the year of
salvation 1598, and is buried near Geoffrey Chaucer,
who was the first most happily to set forth poetry in
English writing: and on him were written these
epitaphs:--
Here nigh to Chaucer Spenser lies; to whom
In genius next he was, as now in tomb.
Here nigh to Chaucer, Spenser, stands thy
hearse,{1}
Still nearer standst thou to him in thy verse.
Whilst thou didst live, lived English poetry;
Now thou art dead, it fears that it shall die.'
The next notice is found in Drummond's account of
Ben Jonson's conversations with him in the year 1618:
'Spencer's stanzas pleased him not, nor his
matter. The meaning of the allegory of his Fairy Queen
he had delivered in writing to Sir Walter Rawleigh,
which was, "that by the Bleating Beast he understood
the Puritans, and by the false Duessa the Queen of
Scots." He told, that Spencer's goods were robbed by
the Irish, and his house and a little child burnt, he
and his wife escaped, and after died for want of bread
in King Street; he refused 20 pieces sent to him by my
lord Essex, and said he was sure he had no time to
spend them.'{2}
The third record occurs in Camden's _History of
Queen Elizabeth (Annales rerum Anglicarum et
Hibernicarum regnante Elizabetha)_, first published in
a complete form in 1628. There the famous antiquary
registering what demises marked the year 1598 (our
March 25, 1598, to March 24, 1599), adds to his list
Edmund Spenser, and thus writes of him: 'Ed. Spenserus,
patria Londinensis, Cantabrigienis autem alumnus, Musis
adeo arridentibus natus ut omnes Anglicos superioris
{ae}vi Poetas, ne Chaucero quidem concive excepto,
superaret. Sed peculiari Poetis fato semper cum
paupertate conflictatus, etsi Greio Hiberni{ae} proregi
fuerit ab epistolis. Vix enim ibi secessum et
scribendi otium nactus, quam a rebellibus {e\} laribus
ejectus et bonis spoliatus, in Angliam inops reversus
statim exspiravit, Westmonasterii prope Chaucerum
impensis comitis Essexi{ae} inhumatus, Po{e"}tis funus
ducentibus flebilibusque carminibus et calamis in
tumulum conjectis.'{3} This is to say: 'Edmund
Spenser, a Londoner by birth, and a scholar also of the
University of Cambridge, born under so favourable an
aspect of the Muses that he surpassed all the English
Poets of former times, not excepting Chaucer himself,
his fellow-citizen. But by a fate which still follows
Poets, he always wrestled with poverty, though he had
been secretary to the Lord Grey, Lord Deputy of
Ireland. For scarce had he there settled himself into
a retired privacy and got leisure to write, when he was
by the rebels thrown out of his dwelling, plundered of
his goods, and returned to England a poor man, where he
shortly after died and was interred at Westminster,
near to Chaucer, at the charge of the Earl of Essex,
his hearse being attended by poets, and mournful
elegies and poems with the pens that wrote them thrown
into his tomb.'{4}
In 1633, Sir James Ware prefaced his edition of
Spenser's prose work on the State of Ireland with these
remarks:--
'How far these collections may conduce to the
knowledge of the antiquities and state of this land,
let the fit reader judge: yet something I may not passe
by touching Mr. Edmund Spenser and the worke it selfe,
lest I should seeme to offer injury to his worth, by
others so much celebrated. Hee was borne in London of
an ancient and noble family, and brought up in the
Universitie of Cambridge, where (as the fruites of his
after labours doe manifest) he mispent not his time.
After this he became secretary to Arthur Lord Grey of
Wilton, Lord Deputy of Ireland, a valiant and worthy
governour, and shortly after, for his services to the
Crowne, he had bestowed upon him by Queene Elizabeth,
3,000 acres of land in the countie of Corke. There he
finished the latter part of that excellent poem of his
"Faery Queene," which was soone after unfortunately
lost by the disorder and abuse of his servant, whom he
had sent before him into England, being then _a
rebellibus_ (as Camden's words are) _{e\} laribus ejectus
et bonis spoliatus_. He deceased at Westminster in the
year 1599 (others have it wrongly 1598), soon after his
return into England, and was buried according to his
own desire in the collegiat church there, neere unto
Chaucer whom he worthily imitated (at the costes of
Robert Earle of Essex), whereupon this epitaph was
framed.' And then are quoted the epigrams already
given from Camden.
The next passage that can be called an account of
Spenser is found in Fuller's _Worthies of England_,
first published in 1662, and runs as follows:--
'Edmond Spencer, born in this city (London), was
brought up in Pembroke-hall in Cambridge, where he
became an excellent scholar; but especially most happy
in English Poetry; as his works do declare, in which
the many Chaucerisms used (for I will not say affected
by him) are thought by the ignorant to be blemishes,
known by the learned to be beauties, to his book; which
notwithstanding had been more saleable, if more
conformed to our modern language.
'There passeth a story commonly told and believed,
that Spencer presenting his poems to queen Elizabeth,
she, highly affected therewith, commanded the lord
Cecil, her treasurer, to give him an hundred pound; and
when the treasurer (a good steward of the queen's
money) alledged that the sum was too much; "Then give
him," quoth the queen, "What is reason;" to which the
lord consented, but was so busied, belike, about
matters of higher concernment, that Spencer received no
reward, whereupon he presented this petition in a small
piece of paper to the queen in her progress:--
I was promis'd on a time,
To have reason for my rhyme;
From that time unto this season,
I receiv'd nor rhyme nor reason.
'Hereupon the queen gave strict order (not without some
check to her treasurer), for the present payment of the
hundred pounds the first intended unto him.
'He afterwards went over into Ireland, secretary
to the lord Gray, lord deputy thereof; and though that·
his office under his lord was lucrative, yet he got no
estate; but saith my author "peculiari poetis fato
semper cum paupertate conflictatus est." So that it
fared little better with him than with William Xilander
the German (a most excellent linguist, antiquary,
philosopher and mathematician), who was so poor, that
(as Thuanus saith), he was thought "fami non famae
scribere."
'Returning into England, he was robb'd by the
rebels of what little he had; and dying for grief in
great want, anno 1598, was honourably buried nigh
Chaucer in Westminster, where this distich concludeth
his epitaph on his monument
Anglica, te vivo, vixit plausitque poesis;
Nunc moritura timet, te moriente, mori.'
Whilst thou didst live, liv'd English poetry
Which fears now thou art dead, that she shall die.
'Nor must we forget, that the expence of his funeral
and monument was defrayed at the sole charge of Robert,
first of that name, earl of Essex.'
The next account is given by Edward Phillips in
his _Theatrum Po{e"}tarum Anglicanorum_, first published
in 1675. This Phillips was, as is well known, Milton's
nephew, and according to Warton, in his edition of
Milton's juvenile poems, 'there is good reason to
suppose that Milton threw many additions and
corrections into the _Theatrum Po{e"}tarum_.' Phillips'
words therefore have an additional interest for us.
'Edmund Spenser,' he writes, 'the first of our English
poets that brought heroic poesy to any perfection, his
"Fairy Queen" being for great invention and poetic
heighth, judg'd little inferior, if not equal to the
chief of the ancient Greeks and Latins, or modern
Italians; but the first poem that brought him into
esteem was his "Shepherd's Calendar," which so endeared
him to that noble patron of all vertue and learning Sir
Philip Sydney, that he made him known to Queen
Elizabeth, and by that means got him preferred to be
secretary to his brother{5} Sir Henry Sidney, who was
sent deputy into Ireland, where he is said to have
written his "Faerie Queen;" but upon the return of Sir
Henry, his employment ceasing, he also return'd into
England, and having lost his great friend Sir Philip,
fell into poverty, yet made his last refuge to the
Queen's bounty, and had 500_l_. ordered him for his
support, which nevertheless was abridged to 100_l_. by
Cecil, who, hearing of it, and owing him a grudge for
some reflections in Mother Hubbard's Tale, cry'd out to
the queen, What! all this for a song? This he is said
to have taken so much to heart, that he contracted a
deep melancholy, which soon after brought his life to a
period. So apt is an ingenuous spirit to resent a
slighting, even from the greatest persons; thus much I
must needs say of the merit of so great a poet from so
great a monarch, that as it is incident to the best of
poets sometimes to flatter some royal or noble patron,
never did any do it more to the height, or with greater
art or elegance, if the highest of praises attributed
to so heroic a princess can justly be termed
flattery.'{6}
When Spenser's works were reprinted--the first
three books of the _Faerie Queene_ for the seventh
time--in 1679, there was added an account of his life.
In 1687, Winstanley, in his _Lives of the most famous
English Poets_, wrote a formal biography.
These are the oldest accounts of Spenser that have
been handed down to us. In several of them mythical
features and blunders are clearly discernible. Since
Winstanley's time, it may be added, Hughes in 1715, Dr.
Birch in 1731, Church in 1758, Upton in that same year,
Todd in 1805, Aikin in 1806, Robinson in 1825, Mitford
in 1839, Prof. Craik in 1845, Prof. Child in 1855, Mr.
Collier in 1862, Dr. Grosart in 1884, have re-told what
little there is to tell, with various additions and
subtractions.
Our external sources of information are, then,
extremely scanty. Fortunately our internal sources are
somewhat less meagre. No poet ever more emphatically
lived in his poetry than did Spenser. The Muses were,
so to speak, his own bosom friends, to whom he opened
all his heart. With them he conversed perpetually on
the various events of his life; into their ears he
poured forth constantly the tale of his joys and his
sorrows, of his hopes, his fears, his distresses.
He was not one of those poets who can put off
themselves in their works, who can forego their own
interests and passions, and live for the time an
extraneous life. There is an intense personality about
all his writings, as in those of Milton and of
Wordsworth. In reading them you can never forget the
poet in the poem. They directly and fully reflect the
poet's own nature and his circumstances. They are, as
it were, fine spiritual diaries, refined self-
portraitures. Horace's description of his own famous
fore-runner, quoted at the head of this memoir, applies
excellently to Spenser. On this account the scantiness
of our external means of knowing Spenser is perhaps the
less to be regretted. Of him it is eminently true that
we may know him from his works. His poems are his best
biography. In the sketch of his life to be given here
his poems shall be our one great authority.
Footnotes
---------
{1} Compare 'Underneath this sable _hearse_, &c.'
{2} Works of William Drummond of Hawthornden.
Edinburgh, 1711, p. 225.
{3} _Annales_, ed. _Hearne_, iii. 783.
{4} _History of Elizabeth, Queen of England._ Ed.
1688, pp. 564, 565.
{5} Father
{6} _Theatrum Poet. Anglic._, ed. Brydges, 1800, pp.
148, 149.
CHAPTER I.
1552-1579.
FROM SPENSER'S BIRTH TO THE PUBLICATION OF THE
SHEPHEARD'S CALENDAR.
Edmund Spenser was born in London in the year 1552, or
possibly 1551. For both these statements we have
directly or indirectly his own authority. In his
_Prothalamion_ he sings of certain swans whom in a
vision he saw floating down the river 'Themmes,' that
At length they all to mery London came,
To mery London, my most kyndly nurse,
That to me gave this lifes first native sourse,
Though from another place I take my name,
An house of auncient fame.
A MS. note by Oldys the antiquary in Winstanley's
_Lives of the most famous English Poets_, states that
the precise locality of his birth was East Smithfield.
East Smithfield lies just to the east of the Tower, and
in the middle of the sixteenth century, when the Tower
was still one of the chief centres of London life and
importance, was of course a neighbourhood of far
different rank and degree from its present social
status. The date of his birth is concluded with
sufficient certainty from one of his sonnets, viz.
sonnet 60; which it is pretty well ascertained was
composed in the year 1593. These sonnets are, as well
shall see, of the amorous wooing sort; in the one of
them just mentioned, the sighing poet declares that it
is but a year since he fell in love, but that the year
has seemed to him longer
Then al those fourty which my life out-went.
Hence it is gathered that he was most probably born in
1552. The inscription, then, over his tomb in
Westminster Abbey errs in assigning his birth to 1553;
though the error is less flagrant than that perpetrated
by the inscription that preceded the present one, which
set down as his natal year 1510.
Of his parents the only fact secured is that his
mother's name was Elizabeth. This appears from sonnet
74, where he apostrophizes those
Most happy letters! fram'd by skilfull trade
With which that happy name was first desynd,
The which three times thrise happy hath me made,
With guifts of body, fortune and of mind.
The first my being to me gave by kind
From mothers womb deriv'd by dew descent.
The second is the Queen, the third 'my love, my lives
last ornament.' A careful examination by Mr. Collier
and others of what parish registers there are extant in
such old churches as stand near East Smithfield--the
Great Fire, it will be remembered, broke out some
distance west of the Tower, and raged mainly westward--
has failed to discover any trace of the infant Spenser
or his parents. An 'Edmund Spenser' who is mentioned
in the Books of the Treasurer of the Queen's Chamber in
1569, as paid for bearing letters from Sir Henry
Norris, her Majesty's ambassador in France, to the
Queen,{1} and who with but slight probability has been
surmised to be the poet himself, is scarcely more
plausibly conjectured by Mr. Collier to be the poet's
father. The utter silence about his parents, with the
single exception quoted, in the works of one who, as
has been said above, made poetry the confidante of all
his joys and sorrows, is remarkable.·
Whoever they were, he was well connected on his
father's side at least. 'The nobility of the
Spensers,' writes Gibbon, 'has been illustrated and
enriched by the trophies of Marlborough; but I exhort
them to consider the "Faerie Queen" as the most
precious jewel of their coronet.' Spenser was
connected with the then not ennobled, but highly
influential family of the Spencers of Althorpe,
Northamptonshire. Theirs was the 'house of auncient
fame,' or perhaps we should rather say they too
belonged to the 'house of auncient fame' alluded to in
the quotation made above from the _Prothalamion_. He
dedicates various poems to the daughters of Sir John
Spencer, who was the head of that family during the
poet's youth and earlier manhood down to 1580, and in
other places mentions these ladies with many
expressions of regard and references to his affinity.
'Most faire and vertuous Ladie,' he writes to the
'Ladie Compton and Mountegle,' the fifth daughter, in
his dedication to her of his _Mother Hubberds Tale_,
'having often sought opportunitie by some good meanes
to make knowen to your Ladiship the humble affection
and faithfull duetie, which I have alwaies professed
and am bound to beare to that house, from whence yee
spring, I have at length found occasion to remember the
same by making a simple present to you of these my idle
labours, &c.' To another daughter, 'the right worthy
and vertuous ladie the Ladie Carey,' he dedicates his
_Muiopotmos_; to another, 'the right honorable the
Ladie Strange,' his _Teares of the Muses_. In the
latter dedication he speaks of 'your particular
bounties, and also some private bands of affinitie,
which it hath pleased your Ladiship to acknowledge.'
It was for this lady Strange, who became subsequently
the wife of Sir Thomas Egerton, that one who came after
Spenser--Milton--wrote the _Arcades_. Of these three
kinswomen, under the names of Phyllis, Charillis, and
sweet Amaryllis, Spenser speaks once more in his _Colin
Clouts Come Home Again_; he speaks of them as
The honour of the noble familie
Of which I meanest boast myself to be.
For the particular branch of the Spencer or Spenser
family--one branch wrote the name with _s_, another
with _c_--to which the poet belonged, it has been well
suggested that it was that settled in East Lancashire
in the neighbourhood of Pendle Forest. It is known on
the authority of his friend Kirke, whom we shall
mention again presently, that Spenser retired to the
North after leaving Cambridge; traces of a Northern
dialect appear in the _Shepheardes Calendar_; the
Christian name Edmund is shown by the parish registers
to have been a favourite with one part of the
Lancashire branch--with that located near Filley Close,
three miles north of Hurstwood, near Burnley.
Spenser then was born in London, probably in East
Smithfield, about a year before those hideous Marian
fires began to blaze in West Smithfield. He had at
least one sister, and probably at least one brother.
His memory would begin to be retentive about the time
of Queen Elizabeth's accession. Of his great
contemporaries, with most of whom he was to be brought
eventually into contact, Raleigh was born at Hayes in
Devonshire in the same year with him, Camden in Old
Bailey in 1551, Hooker near Exeter in or about 1553,
Sidney at Penshurst in 1554, Bacon at York House in the
West Strand, 1561, Shakspere at Stratford-on-Avon in
1564, Robert Devereux, afterwards second earl of Essex,
in 1567.
The next assured fact concerning Spenser is that
he was educated at the Merchant Taylors' School, then
just founded. This we learn from an entry in 'The
Spending of the Money of Robert Nowell, Esq.,' of Reade
Hall, Lancashire, brother of Alexander Nowell, Dean of
St. Paul's. In an accompt of sums 'geven to poor
schollers of dyvers gramare scholles' we find Xs.
given, April 28, 1569, to 'Edmond Spensore Scholler of
the Merchante Tayler Scholl;' and the identification is
established by the occasion being described as 'his
gowinge to Penbrocke Hall in Chambridge,' for we know
that the future poet was admitted a Sizar of Pembroke
College, then styled Hall, Cambridge, in 1569. Thus we
may fairly conclude that Spenser was not only London
born but London bred, though he may have from time to
time sojourned with relatives and connections in
Lancashire{2} before his undergraduateship, as well as
after. Thus a conjecture of Mr. Collier's may
confidently be discarded, who in the muster-book of a
hundred in Warwickshire has noted the record of one
Edmund Spenser as living in 1569 at Kingsbury, and
conjectures that this was the poet's father, and that
perhaps the poet spent his youth in the same county
with Shakspere. It may be much doubted whether it is a
just assumption that every Edmund Spenser that is in
any way or anywhere mentioned in the Elizabethan era
was either the poet or his father. Nor, should it be
allowed that the Spenser of Kingsbury was indeed the
poet's father, could we reasonably indulge in any
pretty picture of a fine friendship between the future
authors of _Hamlet_ and of the _Faerie Queene_.
Shakspere was a mere child, not yet passed into the
second of his Seven Ages, when Spenser, being then
about seventeen years old, went up to the University.
However, this matter need not be further considered, as
there is no evidence whatever to connect Spenser with
Warwickshire.
But in picturing to ourselves Spenser's youth we
must not think of London as it now is, or of East
Smithfield as now cut off from the country by
innumerable acres of bricks and mortar. The green
fields at that time were not far away from Spenser's
birthplace. And thus, not without knowledge and
symnpathy, but with appreciative variations, Spenser
could re-echo Marot's 'Eglogue au Roy sous les noms de
Pan et Robin,' and its descriptions of a boy's rural
wanderings and delights. See his _Shepheardes
Calendar_, December:--
Whilome in youth when flowrd my joyfull spring,
Like swallow swift I wandred here and there;
For heate of heedlesse lust me did so sting,
That I oft doubted daunger had no feare:
I went the wastefull woodes and forrest wide
Withouten dread of wolves to bene espide.
I wont to raunge amid the mazie thicket
And gather nuttes to make my Christmas game,
And joyed oft to chace the trembling pricket,
Or hunt the hartlesse hare till she were tame.
What wreaked I of wintrie ages waste?
Tho deemed I my spring would ever last.
How often have I scaled the craggie oke
All to dislodge the raven of her nest?
How have I wearied, with many a stroke,
The stately walnut-tree, the while the rest,
Under the tree fell all for nuttes at strife?
For like to me was libertie and life.
To be sure he is here paraphrasing, and also is writing
in the language of pastoral poetry, that is, the
language of this passage is metaphorical; but it is
equally clear that the writer was intimately and
thoroughly acquainted with that life from which the
metaphors of his original are drawn. He describes a
life he had lived.
It seems probable that he was already an author in
some sort when he went up to Cambridge. In the same
year in which he became an undergraduate there appeared
a work entitled, 'A Theatre wherein be represented as
well the Miseries and Calamities that follow the
Voluptuous Worldlings as also the greate Joyes and
Pleasures which the Faithful do enjoy. An Argument
both Profitable and Delectable to all that sincerely
loue the Word of God. Deuised by S. John Vander
Noodt.' Vander Noodt was a native of Brabant who had
sought refuge in England, 'as well for that I would not
beholde the abominations of the Romyshe Antechrist as
to escape the handes of the bloudthirsty.' 'In the
meane space,' he continues, 'for the avoyding of
idlenesse (the very mother and nourice of all vices) I
have among other my travayles bene occupied aboute thys
little Treatyse, wherein is sette forth the vilenesse
and basenesse of worldely things whiche commonly
withdrawe us from heavenly and spirituall matters.'
This work opens with six pieces in the form of sonnets
styled epigrams, which are in fact identical with the
first six of the _Visions of Petrarch_ subsequently
published among Spenser's works, in which publication
they are said to have been 'formerly translated'.
After these so-called epigrams come fifteen _Sonnets_,
eleven of which are easily recognisable amongst the
_Visions of Bellay_, published along with the _Visions
of Petrarch_. There is indeed as little difference
between the two sets of poems as is compatible with the
fact that the old series is written in blank verse, the
latter in rhyme. The sonnets which appear for the
first time in the _Visions_ are those describing the
Wolf, the River, the Vessel, the City. There are four
pieces of the older series which are not reproduced in
the later. It would seem probable that they too may
have been written by Spenser in the days of his youth,
though at a later period of his life he cancelled and
superseded them. They are therefore reprinted in this
volume. (See pp. 699-701.)
Vander Noodt, it must be said, makes no mention of
Spenser in his volume. It would seem that he did not
know English, and that he wrote his _Declaration_--a
sort of commentary in prose on the _Visions_--in
French. At least we are told that this _Declaration_
is translated out of French into English by Theodore
Roest. All that is stated of the origin of his
_Visions_ is: 'The learned poete M. Francisce
Petrarche, gentleman of Florence, did invent and write
in Tuscan the six firste . . . . which because they
serve wel to our purpose, I have out of the Brabants
speache turned them into the English tongue;' and 'The
other ten visions next ensuing ar described of one
Ioachim du Bellay, gentleman of France, the whiche·
also, because they serve to our purpose I have
translated them out of Dutch into English.' The fact
of the _Visions_ being subsequently ascribed to Spenser
would not by itself carry much weight. But, as Prof.
Craik pertinently asks, 'if this English version was
not the work of Spenser, where did Ponsonby [the
printer who issued that subsequent publication which
has been mentioned] procure the corrections which are
not mere typographical errata, and the additions and
other variations{3} that are found in his edition?'
In a work called _Tragical Tales_, published in
1587, there is a letter in verse, dated 1569, addressed
to 'Spencer' by George Turberville, then resident in
Russia as secretary to the English ambassador, Sir
Thomas Randolph. Anthony {a\} Wood says this Spencer was
the poet; but it can scarcely have been so.
'Turberville himself,' remarks Prof. Craik, 'is
supposed to have been at this time in his twenty-ninth
or thirtieth year, which is not the age at which men
choose boys of sixteen for their friends. Besides, the
verses seem to imply a friendship of some standing, and
also in the person addressed the habits and social
position of manhood. . . . It has not been commonly
noticed that this epistle from Russia is not
Turberville's only poetical address to his friend
Spencer. Among his "Epitaphs and Sonnets" are two
other pieces of verse addressed to the same person.'
To the year 1569 belongs that mention referred to
above of payment made one 'Edmund Spenser' for bearing
letters from France. As has been already remarked, it
is scarcely probable that this can have been the poet,
then a youth of some seventeen years on the verge of
his undergraduateship.
The one certain event of Spenser's life in the
year 1569 is that he was then entered as a sizar at
Pembroke Hall, Cambridge. He 'proceeded B.A.' in 1573,
and 'commenced M.A.' in 1576. There is some reason for
believing that his college life was troubled in much
the same way as was that of Milton some sixty years
later--that there prevailed some misunderstanding
between him and the scholastic authorities. He
mentions his university with respect in the _Faerie
Queene_, in book iv. canto xi. where, setting forth
what various rivers gathered happily together to
celebrate the marriage of the Thames and the Medway, he
tells how
... the plenteous Ouse came far from land
By many a city and by many a towne,
And many rivers taking under hand
Into his waters, as he passeth downe,
The Cle, the Were, the Grant, the Sture, the Rowne.
Thence doth by Huntingdon and Cambridge flit,
My mother Cambridge, whom as with a Crowne
He doth adorne, and is adorn'd of it
With many a gentle Muse, and many a learned wit.
But he makes no mention of his college. The notorious
Gabriel Harvey, an intimate friend of Spenser, who was
elected a Fellow of Pembroke Hall the year after the
future poet was admitted as a sizar, in a letter
written in 1580, asks: 'And wil you needes have my
testimoniall of youre old Controllers new behaviour?'
and then proceeds to heap abusive words on some person
not mentioned by name but evidently only too well known
to both the sender and the receiver of the epistle.
Having compiled a list of scurrilities worthy of
Falstaff, and attacked another matter which was an
abomination to him, Harvey vents his wrath in sundry
Latin charges, one of which runs: 'C{ae}tera fer{e\}, ut
olim: Bellum inter capita et membra continuatum.'
'Other matters are much as they were: war kept up
between the heads [the dons] and the members [the
men].' Spenser was not elected to a fellowship; he
quitted his college, with all its miserable bickerings,
after he had taken his master's degree. There can be
little doubt, however, that he was most diligent and
earnest student during his residence at Cambridge;
during that period, for example, he must have gained
that knowledge of Plato's works which so distinctly
marks his poems, and found in that immortal writer a
spirit most truly congenial. But it is conceivable
that he pursued his studies after his own manner, and
probably enough excited by his independence the strong
disapprobation of the master and tutor of the college
of his day.
Among his contemporaries in his own college were
Lancelot Andrews, afterwards Master, and eventually
Bishop of Winchester, the famous preacher; Gabriel
Harvey, mentioned above, with whom he formed a fast
friendship, and Edward Kirke, the 'E.K.' who, as will
be seen, introduced to the world Spenser's first work
of any pretence. Amongst his contemporaries in the
university were Preston, author of _Cambyses_, and
Still, author of _Gammer Gurtons Needle_, with each of
whom he was acquainted. The friend who would seem to
have exercised the most influence over him was Gabriel
Harvey; but this influence, at least in literary
matters, was by no means for the best. Harvey was some
three or four years the senior, and of some academic
distinction. Probably he may be taken as something
more than a fair specimen of the average scholarship
and culture given by the universities at that time. He
was an extreme classicist; all his admiration was for
classical models and works that savoured of them; he it
was who headed the attempt made in England to force
upon a modern language the metrical system of the
Greeks and Latins. What baneful influence he exercised
over Spenser in this last respect will be shown
presently. Kirke was Spenser's other close friend; he
was one year junior academically to the poet. He too,
as we shall see, was a profound admirer of Harvey.
After leaving the university in 1576, Spenser,
then, about twenty-four years of age, returned to his
own people in the North. This fact is learnt from his
friend 'E.K.'s' glosses to certain lines in the sixth
book of the _Shepheardes Calendar_. E.K. speaks 'of
the North countrye where he dwelt,' and 'of his
removing out of the North parts and coming into the
South.' As E.K. writes in the spring of 1579, and as
his writing is evidently some little time subsequent to
the migration he speaks of, it may be believed that
Spenser quitted his Northern home in 1577, and, as we
shall see, there is other evidence for this
supposition. About a year then was passed in the North
after he left the University.
These years were not spent idly. The poetical
fruits of them shall be mentioned presently. What made
it otherwise a memorable year to the poet was his
falling deeply in love with some fair Northern
neighbour. Who she was is not known. He who adored
her names her Rosalind, 'a feigned name,' notes E.K.,
'which being well ordered will bewray the very name of
hys love and mistresse, whom by that name he
coloureth.' Many solutions of this anagram have been
essayed, mostly on the supposition that the lady lived
in Kent; but Professor Craik is certainly right in
insisting that she was of the North. Dr. Grosart and
Mr. Fleay, both authorities of importance, agree in
discovering the name Rose Dinle or Dinley; but of a
person so Christian-named no record has yet been found,
though the surname Dyneley or Dinley occurs in the
Whalley registers and elsewhere. In the Eclogue of the
_Shepheardes Calendar_, to which this note is appended,
Colin Clout--so the poet designates himself--complains
to Hobbinol--that is, Harvey--of the ill success of his
passion. Harvey, we may suppose, is paying him a visit
in the North; or perhaps the pastoral is merely a
versifying of what passed between them in letters.
However this may be, Colin is bewailing his hapless
fate. His friend, in reply, advises him to
Forsake the soyle that so doth thee bewitch, &c.
Surely E.K.'s gloss is scarcely necessary to tell us
what these words mean. 'Come down,' they say, 'from
your bleak North country hills where she dwells who
binds you with her spell, and be at peace far away from
her in the genial South land.' In another Eclogue
(April) the subduing beauty is described as 'the
Widdowes daughter of the Glen,' surely a Northern
address. On these words the well-informed E.K.
remarks: 'He calleth Rosalind the Widowes daughter of
the glenne, that is, of a country hamlet or borough,
which I thinke is rather sayde to coloure and concele
the person, than simply spoken. For it is well known,
even in spighte of Colin and Hobbinol, that she is a
gentlewoman of no meane house, nor endowed with anye
vulgare and common gifts, both of nature and manners:
but suche indeede, as neede neither Colin be ashamed to
have her made known by his verses, nor Hobbinol be
greved that so she should be commended to immortalitie
for her rare and singular virtues.' Whoever this
charming lady was, and whatever glen she made bright
with her presence, it appears that she did not
reciprocate the devoted affection of the studious young
Cambridge graduate who, with probably no apparent
occupation, was loitering for a while in her vicinity.
It was some other--he is called Menalacas in one of his
rival's pastorals--who found favour in her eyes. The
poet could only wail and beat his breast. Eclogues I.
and VI. are all sighs and tears. Perhaps in the course
of time a copy of the _Faerie Queene_ might reach the
region where Menalcas and Rosalind were growing old
together; and she, with a certain ruth perhaps mixed
with her anger, might recognise in Mirabella an image
of her fair young disdainful self{4}. The poet's
attachment was no transient flame that flashed and was
gone. When at the instance of his friend he travelled
southward away from the scene of his discomfiture, he
went weeping and inconsolable. In the Fourth Eclogue
Hobbinol is discovered by Thenot deeply mourning, and,
asked the reason, replies that his grief is because
. . . the ladde whome long I loved so deare
Nowe loves a lasse that all his love doth scorne;
He plongd in payne, his tressed locks dooth teare.
Shepheards delights he dooth them all forsweare;
Hys pleasant pipe, whych made us meriment,·
He wylfully hath broke, and doth forbeare
His wonted songs, wherein he all outwent.
. . . . .
Colin thou kenst, the Southerne shepheardes boye;
Him Love hath wounded with a deadly darte. &c.
The memory of Rosalind, in spite of her unkindness,
seems to have been fondly cherished by the poet, and
yielded to no rival vision--though there may have been
fleeting fits of passion--till some fourteen years
after he and she had parted--till the year 1592, when,
as we shall see, Spenser, then living in the south of
Ireland, met that Elizabeth who is mentioned in the
sonnet quoted above, and who some year and a half after
that meeting became his wife. On the strength of an
entry found in the register of St. Clement Danes Church
in the Strand--'26 Aug. [1587] Florenc Spenser, the
daughter of Edmond'--it has been conjectured that the
poet was married before 1587. This conjecture seems
entirely unacceptable. There is nothing to justify the
theory that the Edmund Spenser of the register was the
poet. It is simply incredible that Spenser, one who,
as has been said, poured out all his soul in his poems,
should have wooed and won some fair lady to his wife,
without ever a poetical allusion to his courtship and
his triumph. It is not at all likely, as far as one
can judge from their titles, that any one of his lost
works was devoted to the celebration of any such
successful passion. Lastly, besides this important
negative evidence, there is distinct positive testimony
that long after 1587 the image of Rosalind had not been
displaced in his fancy by any other loveliness. In
_Colin Clouts Come Home Again_, written, as will be
seen, in 1591, though not published until 1595, after
the poet has 'full deeply divined of love and beauty,'
one Melissa in admiration avers that all true lovers
are greatly bound to him--most especially women. The
faithful Hobbinol says that women have but ill requited
their poet:--
'He is repayd with scorne and foule despite,
That yrkes each gentle heart which it doth heare.'
'Indeed,' says Lucid, 'I have often heard
Faire Rosalind of divers fowly blamed
For being to that swaine too cruell hard.
Lucid however would defend her on the ground that love
may not be compelled:--
'Beware therefore, ye groomes, I read betimes
How rashly blame of Rosalind ye raise.'
This caution Colin eagerly and ardently reinforces, and
with additions. His heart was still all tender towards
her, and he would not have one harsh word thrown at
her:--
Ah! Shepheards, then said Colin, ye ne weet
How great a guilt upon your heads ye draw
To make so bold a doome, with words unmeet,
Of thing celestiall which ye never saw.
For she is not like as the other crew
Of shepheards daughters which emongst you bee,
But of divine regard and heavenly hew,
Excelling all that ever ye did see;
Not then to her that scorned thing so base,
But to myselfe the blame that lookt so hie,
So hie her thoughts as she herselfe have place
And loath each lowly thing with lofty eie;
Yet so much grace let her vouchsafe to grant
To simple swaine, sith her I may not love,
Yet that I may her honour paravant
And praise her worth, though far my wit above.
Such grace shall be some guerdon for the griefe
And long affliction which I have endured;
Such grace sometimes shall give me some reliefe
And ease of paine which cannot be recured.
And ye my fellow shepheards, which do see
And heare the languors of my too long dying,
Unto the world for ever witnesse bee
That hers I die, nought to the world denying
This simple trophe of her great conquest.
This residence of Spenser in the North, which
corresponds with that period of Milton's life spent at
his father's house at Horton in Buckinghamshire, ended,
as there has been occasion to state, in the year 1577.
What was the precise cause of Spenser's coming South,
is not known for certain. 'E.K.' says in one of his
glosses, already quoted in part, that the poet 'for
speciall occasion of private affayres (as I have bene
partly of himselfe informed) and for his more
preferment, removing out of the North parts, came into
the South, as Hobbinoll indeede advised him privately.'
It is clear from his being admitted at his college as a
sizar, that his private means were not good. Perhaps
during his residence in the North he may have been
dependent on the bounty of his friends. It was then in
the hope of some advancement of his fortunes that,
bearing with him no doubt in manuscript certain results
of all his life's previous labour, he turned away from
his cold love and her glen, and all her country, and
set his face Town-ward.
It is said that his friend Harvey introduced him
to that famous accomplished gentleman--that mirror of
true knighthood--Sir Philip Sidney, and it would seem
that Penshurst became for some time his home. There
has already been quoted a line describing Spenser as
'the southern shepheardes boye.' This southern
shepherd is probably Sidney. Sidney, it would seem,
introduced him to his father and to his uncle, the Earl
of Leicester. If we are to take Iren{ae}us' words
literally--and there seems no reason why we should
not--Spenser was for a time at least in Ireland, when
Sidney's father was Lord Deputy. Iren{ae}us, in _A View
of the Present State of Ireland_, certainly represents
Spenser himself; and he speaks of what he _said_ at the
execution of a notable traitor at Limerick, called
Murrogh O'Brien; see p. 636 of this volume. However,
he was certainly back in England and in London in 1579,
residing at the Earl of Leicester's house in the
Strand, where Essex Street now stands. He dates one of
his letters to Harvey, 'Leycester House, this 5
October, 1579.' Perhaps at this time he commenced, or
renewed, or continued his acquaintance with his
distinguished relatives at Althorpe. During the time
he spent now at Penshurst and in London, he mixed
probably with the most brilliant intellectual society
of his time. Sidney was himself endowed with no mean
genius. He, Lord Leicester, Lord Strange, and others,
with whom Spenser was certainly, or in all probability,
acquainted, were all eminent patrons and protectors of
genius.
This passage of Spenser's life is of high
interest, because in the course of it that splendid era
of our literature commonly called the Elizabethan
Period may be said to have begun. Spenser is the
foremost chronologically of those great spirits who
towards the close of the sixteenth century lifted up
their immortal voices, and spoke words to be heard for
all time. In the course of this present passage of his
life, he published his first important work--a work
which secured him at once the hearty recognition of his
contemporaries as a true poet risen up amongst them.
This work was the _Shepheardes Calendar_, to which so
many references have already been made.
It consists of twelve eclogues, one for each month
of the year. Of these, three (i., vi., and xii.), as
we have seen, treat specially of his own disappointment
in love. Three (ii., viii., and x.) are of a more
general character, having old age, a poetry combat,
'the perfect pattern of a poet' for their subjects.
One other (iii.) deals with love-matters. One (iv.)
celebrates the Queen, three (v., vii, and ix.) discuss
'Protestant and Catholic,' Anglican and Puritan
questions. One (xi.) is an elegy upon 'the death of
some maiden of great blood, whom he calleth Dido.'
These poems were ushered into the world by Spenser's
college friend Edward Kirke, for such no doubt is the
true interpretation of the initials E.K. This
gentleman performed his duty in a somewhat copious
manner. He addressed 'to the most excellent and
learned both orator and poet Mayster Gabriell Harvey' a
letter warmly commending 'the new poet' to his
patronage, and defending the antique verbiage of the
eclogues; he prefixed to the whole work a general
argument, a particular one to each part; he appended to
every poem a 'glosse' explaining words and allusions.
The work is dedicated to Sir Philip Sidney. It was
published in the winter of 1579-80.
More than once in the course of it, Spenser refers
to Tityrus as his great master. The twelfth eclogue
opens thus:
The gentle shepheard sat beside a springe
All in the shadow of a bushye brere,
That Colin height, which well could pype and singe,
For hee of Tityrus his songs did lere.
Tityrus, on E.K.'s authority, was Chaucer. It is
evident from the language--both the words and verbal
forms--used in this poem that Spenser had zealously
studied Chaucer, whose greatest work had appeared just
about two centuries before Spenser's first important
publication. The work, however, in which he imitates
Chaucer's manner is not the _Shepheardes Calendar_, but
his _Prosopopoia or Mother Hubberds Tale_, which he
says, writing in a later year, he had 'long sithens
composed in the raw conceipt of my youth.' The form
and manner of the _Shepheardes Calendar_ reflected not
Chaucer's influence upon the writer, but the influence
of a vast event which had changed the face of
literature since the out-coming of the _Canterbury
Tales_--of the revival of learning. That event had put
fresh models before men, had greatly modified old
literary forms, had originated new. The classical
influence impressed upon Europe was by no means an
unmixed good; in some respects it retarded the natural·
development of the modern mind by overpowering it with
its prestige and stupefying it with a sense of
inferiority; while it raised the ideal of perfection,
it tended to give rise to mere imitations and
affectations. Amongst these new forms was the
Pastoral. When Virgil, Theocritus, 'Daphnis and
Chloe,' and other writers and works of the ancient
pastoral literature once more gained the ascendancy,
then a modern pastoral poetry began to be. This poetry
flourished greatly in Italy in the sixteenth century.
It had been cultivated by Sannazaro, Guarini, Tasso.
Arcadia had been adopted by the poets for their
country. In England numerous _Eclogues_ made their
appearance. Amongst the earliest and the best of these
were Spenser's. It would perhaps be unjust to treat
this modern pastoral literature as altogether an
affectation. However unreal, the pastoral world had
its charms--a pleasant feeling imparted of
emancipation, a deep quietude, a sweet tranquillity.
If vulgar men discovered their new worlds, and
trafficked and bustled there, why should not the poet
discover his Arcadia, and repose at his ease in it,
secure from the noises of feet coming and going over
the roads of the earth?
That fine melodiousness, which is one of Spenser's
signal characteristics, may be perceived in his
_Eclogues_, as also a native gracefulness of style,
which is another distinguishing mark of him.
Perceivable, too, are his great, perilous fluency of
language and his immense fecundity of mind. The work
at once secured him a front place in the poetical ranks
of the day. Sidney mentions it in his _Apologie for
Poetrie_;{5} Abraham Fraunce draws illustrations from
it in his _Lawyers Logicke_, which appeared in 1588;
Meres praises it; 'Maister Edmund Spenser,' says
Drayton, 'has done enough for the immortality, had he
only given us his _Shepheardes Calendar_, a
masterpiece, if any.' It is easy to discern in
_Lycidas_ signs of Milton's study of it.
During Spenser's sojourn in the society of the
Sidneys and the Dudleys, letters passed between him and
Harvey, some of which are extant. From these, and from
the editorial notes of Kirke, we hear of other works
written by Spenser, ready to be given to the light.
The works thus heard of are _Dreames_, _Legends_,
_Court of Cupide_, _The English Poet_, _The Dying
Pelican_, _Stemmata Dudleiana_, _Slomber_, _Nine
English Comedies_, _The Epithalamion Thamesis_, and
also _The Faerie Queene_ commenced. Of these works
perhaps the _Legends_, _Court of Cupide_, and
_Epithalamion Thamesis_ were subsequently with
modifications incorporated in the _Faerie Queene_; the
_Stemmata Dudleiana_, _Nine English Comedies_, _Dying
Pelican_, are altogether lost. The _Faerie Queene_ had
been begun. So far as written, it had been submitted
to the criticism of Harvey. On April 10, 1580, Spenser
writes to Harvey, wishing him to return it with his
'long expected judgment' upon it. Harvey had already
pronounced sentence in a letter dated April 7, and this
is the sentence: 'In good faith I had once again nigh
forgotten your _Faerie Queene_; howbeit, by good
chaunce I have nowe sent hir home at the laste, neither
in a better nor worse case than I founde hir. And must
you of necessitie have my judgement of hir indeede? To
be plaine, I am voyde of al judgement, if your nine
Com{oe}dies, whereunto, in imitation of Herodotus, you
give the names of the Nine Muses, and (in one man's
fansie not unworthily), come not neerer Ariostoes
Com{oe}dies, eyther for the finenesse of plausible
elocution, or the rareness of poetical invention, than
that Elvish queene doth to his Orlando Furioso, which
notwithstanding, you will needes seem to emulate, and
hope to overgo, as you flatly professed yourself in one
of your last letters. Besides that, you know it hath
bene the usual practise of the most exquisite and odde
wittes in all nations, and especially in Italie, rather
to shewe and advaunce themselves that way than any
other; as namely, those three notorious dyscoursing
heads Bibiena, Machiavel, and Aretine did (to let Bembo
and Ariosto passe), with the great admiration and
wonderment of the whole countrey; being indeede reputed
matchable in all points, both for conceyt of witte, and
eloquent decyphering of matters, either with
Aristophanes and Menander in Greek, or with Plautus and
Terence in Latin, or with any other in any other tong.
But I will not stand greatly with you in your owne
matters. If so be the Faery Queen be fairer in your
eie than the Nine Muses, and Hobgoblin runne away with
the garland from Apollo; marke what I saye, and yet I
will not say that I thought; but there is an end for
this once, and fare you well, till God or some good
Aungell putte you in a better minde.'
Clearly the _Faerie Queene_ was but little to
Harvey's taste. It was too alien from the cherished
exemplars of his heart. Happily Spenser was true to
himself, and went on with his darling work in spite of
the strictures of pedantry. This is not the only
instance in which the dubious character of Harvey's
influence is noticeable. The letters, from one of
which the above doom is quoted, enlighten us also as to
a grand scheme entertained at this time for forcing the
English tongue to conform to the metrical rules of the
classical languages. Already in a certain circle rime
was discredited as being, to use Milton's words nearly
a century afterwards, 'no necessary adjunct or true
ornament of poem or good verse, in longer works
especially, but the invention of a barbarous age to set
off wretched matter and lame metre.' A similar attempt
was made in the course of the sixteenth century in
other parts of Europe, and with the same final issue.
Gabriel Harvey was an active leader in this deluded
movement. When Sidney too, and Dyer, another poet of
the time, proclaimed a 'general surceasing and silence
of bald rhymes, and also of the very best too, instead
whereof they have by authority of their whole senate,
prescribed certain laws and rules of quantity of
English syllables for English verse, having had already
thereof great practice,' Spenser was drawn 'to their
faction.'
'I am of late,' he writes to Harvey, 'more in love
wyth my Englishe versifying than with ryming; whyche I
should have done long since if I would then have
followed your councell.' In allying himself with these
Latin prosody bigots Spenser sinned grievously against
his better taste. 'I like your late Englishe
hexameters so exceedingly well,' he writes to Harvey,
'that I also enure my pen sometime in that kinde,
whyche I find in deed, as I have heard you often
defende in word, neither so harde nor so harsh [but]
that it will easily and fairly yield itself to our
mother tongue. For the onely or chiefest hardnesse
whyche seemeth is in the accente; whyche sometimes
gapeth and as it were yawneth il-favouredly, comming
shorte of that it should, and sometimes exceeding the
measure of the number; as in carpenter the middle
sillable being used short in speache, when it shall be
read long in verse, seemeth like a lame gosling that
draweth one legge after hir. And heaven being used
shorte as one syllable, when it is in verse stretched
with a Diastole is like a lame dogge, that holdes up
one legge.'{6} His ear was far too fine and sensitive
to endure the fearful sounds uttered by the poets of
this Procrust{ae}an creed. The language seemed to groan
and shriek at the agonies and contortions to which it
was subjected; and Spenser could not but hear its
outcries. But he made himself as deaf as might be.
'It is to be wonne with custom,' he proceeds, in the
letter just quoted from, 'and rough words must be
studied with use. For why, a God's name, may not we,
as the Greekes, have the kingdom of oure owne language,
and measure our accentes by the sounde, reserving the
quantitie to the verse? . . . I would hartily wish you
would either send me the rules or precepts of arte
which you observe in quantities; or else follow mine
that Mr. Philip Sidney gave me, being the very same
which Mr. Drant devised, but enlarged with Mr. Sidney's
own judgement, and augmented with my observations, that
we might both accorde and agree in one, leaste we
overthrowe one another and be overthrown of the rest.'
He himself produced the following lines in accordance,
as he fondly hoped, with the instructions of the new
school:--
IAMBICUM TRIMETRUM.
Unhappie verse! the witnesse of my unhappie state,
[as indeed it was in a sense not meant]
Make thy selfe fluttring winge of thy fast flying
thought,
And fly forth unto my love whersoever she be.
Whether lying reastlesse in heavy bedde, or else
Sitting so cheerelesse at the cheerefull boorde, or
else
Playing alone carelesse on hir heavenlie virginals.
If in bed, tell hir that my eyes can take no reste;
If at boorde, tell hir that my mouth can eat no
meete;
If at hir virginals, tell her I can beare no mirth.
Asked why? Waking love suffereth no sleepe;
Say that raging love doth appall the weake stomacke,
Say that lamenting love marreth the musicall.
Tell hir that hir pleasures were wonte to lull me
asleepe,
Tell her that hir beauty was wonte to feede mine
eyes,
Tell hir that hir sweete tongue was wonte to make me
mirth.
Now doe I nightly waste, wanting my kindlie rest,
Now doe I dayly starve, wanting my daily food,
Now doe I always dye wanting my timely mirth.
And if I waste who will bewaile my heavy chance?
And if I starve, who will record my cursed end?
And if I dye, who will saye, This was Immerito?
Spenser of the sensitive ear wrote these lines. When
the pedantic phantasy which had for a while seduced and
corrupted him had gone from him, with what remorse he
must have remembered these strange monsters of his
creation! Let us conclude our glance at this sad fall
from harmony by quoting the excellent words of one who
was a bitter opponent of Harvey in this as in other
matters. 'The hexameter verse,' says Nash in his
_Fowre Letters Confuted_, 1592, 'I graunt to be a
gentleman of an auncient house (so is many an English
beggar), yet this clyme of ours hee cannot thrive in;
our speech is too craggy for him to set his plough in;
hee goes twitching and hopping in our language like a
man running upon quagmiers up the hill in one syllable
and down the dale in another; retaining no part of that
stately smooth gate, which he vaunts himselfe with
amongst the Greeks and Latins.'
Some three years were spent by Spenser in the
enjoyment of Sidney's friendship and the patronage of
Sidney's father and uncle. During this time he would
seem to have been constantly hoping for some
preferment. According to a tradition, first recorded
by Fuller, the obstructor of the success of his suit
was the Treasurer, Lord Burghley. It is clear that he
had enemies at Court--at least at a later time. In
1591, in his dedication of _Colin Clouts Come Home
Again_, he entreats Raleigh, to 'with your good
countenance protest against the malice of evil mouthes,
which are always wide open to carpe at and misconstrue
my simple meaning.' A passage in the _Ruines of Time_
(see the lines beginning 'O grief of griefs! O full of
all good hearts!') points to the same conclusion; and
so the concluding lines of the Sixth Book of the
_Faerie Queene_, when, having told how the Blatant
Beast (not killed as Lord Macaulay says in his essay on
Bunyan, but 'supprest and tamed' for a while by Sir
Calidore) at last broke his iron chain and ranged again
through the world, and raged sore in each degree and
state, he adds:--
Ne may this homely verse, of many meanest,
Hope to escape his venemous despite,
More then my former writs, all were they clearest
From blamefull blot, and from all that wite,
With which some wicked tongues did it backebite,
And bring into a mighty Peres displeasure,
That never so deserved to endite.
Therfore do you my rimes keep better measure,
And seek to please, that now is counted wisemens
threasure.
In the _Tears of the Muses_ Calliope says of certain
persons of eminent rank:--
Their great revenues all in sumptuous pride
They spend that nought to learning they may spare;
And the rich fee which Poets wont divide
Now Parasites and Sycophants do share.
Several causes have been suggested to account for this
disfavour. The popular tradition was pleased to
explain it by making Burghley the ideal dullard who has
no soul for poetry--to whom one copy of verses is very
much as good as another, and no copy good for anything.
It delighted to bring this commonplace gross-minded
person into opposition with one of the most spiritual
of geniuses. In this myth Spenser represents mind,
Burghley matter. But there is no justification in
facts for this tradition. It may be that the Lord
Treasurer was not endowed with a high intellectual
nature; but he was far too wise in his generation not
to pretend a virtue if he had it not, when
circumstances called for anything of the sort. When
the Queen patronized literature, we may be sure Lord
Burghley was too discreet to disparage and oppress it.
Another solution refers to Burghley's Puritanism as the
cause of the misunderstanding; but, as Spenser too
inclined that way, this is inadequate. Probably, as
Todd and others have thought, what alienated his
Lordship at first was Spenser's connection with
Leicester; what subsequently aggravated the
estrangement was his friendship with Essex.
Footnotes
---------
{1} See Peter Cunningham's _Introduction to Extracts
from Accounts of the Revels at Court_. (Shakspeare
Society.)
{2} It may be suggested that what are called the
archaisms of Spenser's style may be _in part_ due
to the author's long residence in the country with
one of the older forms of the language spoken all
round him and spoken by him, in fact his
vernacular. I say _in part_, because of course his
much study of Chaucer must be taken into account.
But, as Mr. Richard Morris has remarked to me, he
could not have drawn from Chaucer those forms and
words of a _northern_ dialect which appear in the
_Calendar_.
{3} These are given in the Appendix to the present
work.
{4} This supposed description of his first love was
written probably during the courtship, which ended,
as we shall see, in his marriage. The First Love
is said to be portrayed in cant. vii., the Last in
cant. x. of book vi. of the _Faerie Queene_. But
this identification of Rosalind and Mirabilla is,
after all, but a conjecture, and is not be accepted
as gospel.
{5} See this work amongst Mr. Arber's excellent
_English Reprints_.
{6} _Ancient Critical Essays_, ed. Hazlewood, 1815, pp.
259, 260.