1580-1589.
In the year 1580 Spenser was removed from the society
and circumstances in which, except for his probable
visit to Ireland, he had lived and moved as we have
seen, for some three years. From that year to near the
close of his life his home was to be in Ireland. He
paid at least two visits to London and its environs in
the course of these eighteen years; but it seems clear
that his home was in Ireland. Perhaps his biographers
have hitherto not truly appreciated this residence in
Ireland. We shall see that a liberal grant of land was
presently bestowed upon him in the county of Cork; and
they have reckoned him a successful man, and wondered
at the querulousness that occasionally makes itself
heard in his works. Towards the very end of this life,
Spenser speaks of himself as one
Whom sullein care
Through discontent of my long fruitlesse stay
In princes court and expectation vayne
Of idle hopes, which still doe fly away
Like empty shaddowes, did afflict my brayne.
Those who marvel at such language perhaps forget what a
dreary exile the poet's life in Ireland must in fact
have been. It is true that it was relieved by several
journeys to England, by his receiving at least one
visit from an English friend, by his finding, during at
any rate the earlier part of his absence, some
congenial English friends residing in the country, by
his meeting at length with that Elizabeth whose
excelling beauty he has sung so sweetly, and whom he
married; it is also true that there was in him--as in
Milton and in Wordsworth--a certain great self-
containedness,{1} that he carried his world with him
wherever he went, that he had great allies and high
company in the very air that flowed around him,
whatever land he inhabited; all this is true, but yet
to be cut off from the fellowship which, however self-
sufficing, he so dearly loved--to look no longer on the
face of Sidney his hero, his ideal embodied, his living
Arthur, to hear but as it were an echo of the splendid
triumphs won by his and our England in those glorious
days, to know of his own high fame but by report, to be
parted from the friendship of Shakspere--surely this
was exile. To live in the Elizabethan age, and to be
severed from those brilliant spirits to which the fame
of that age is due! Further, the grievously unsettled,
insurgent state of Ireland at this time--as at many a
time before and since--must be borne in mind. Living
there was living on the side of a volcanic mountain.
That the perils of so living were not merely imaginary,
we shall presently see. He did not shed tears and
strike his bosom, like the miserable Ovid at Tomi; he
'wore rather in his bonds a cheerful brow, lived, and
took comfort,' finding his pleasure in that high
spiritual communion we have spoken of, playing
pleasantly, like some happy father, with the children
of his brain, joying in their caprices, their
noblenesses, their sweet adolescence; but still it was
exile, and this fact may explain that tone of
discontent which here and there is perceptible in his
writings.{2}
When in 1580 Arthur, Lord Grey of Wilton, was
appointed Lord Deputy of Ireland, he--perhaps through
Lord Leicester's influence, perhaps on account of
Spenser's already knowing something of the country--
made Spenser his Private Secretary. There can be no
doubt that Spenser proceeded with him to Dublin. It
was in Ireland, probably about this time, that he made
or renewed his acquaintance with Sir Walter Raleigh.
In 1581 he was appointed Clerk of Degrees and
Recognizances in the Irish Court of Chancery, a post
which he held for seven years, at the end of which time
he received the appointment of Clerk to the Council of
Munster. In the same year in which he was assigned the·
former clerkship, he received also a lease of the lands
and Abbey of Enniscorthy in Wexford county. It is to
be hoped that his Chancery Court duties permitted him
to reside for a while on that estate. 'Enniscorthy,'
says the _Guide to Ireland_ published by Mr. Murray,
'is one of the prettiest little towns in the Kingdom,
the largest portion of it being on a steep hill on the
right bank of the Slaney, which here becomes a deep and
navigable stream, and is crossed by a bridge of six
arches.' There still stands there 'a single tower of
the old Franciscan monastery.' But Spenser soon parted
with this charming spot, perhaps because of its
inconvenient distance from the scene of his official
work. In December of the year in which the lease was
given, he transferred it to one Richard Synot. In the
following year Lord Grey was recalled. 'The Lord
Deputy,' says Holinshed, 'after long suit for his
revocation, received Her Majesty's letters for the
same.' His rule had been marked by some extreme,
perhaps necessary, severities, and was probably
somewhat curtly concluded on account of loud complaints
made against him on this score. Spenser would seem to
have admired and applauded him, both as a ruler and as
a patron and friend. He mentions him with much respect
in his _View of the Present State of Ireland_. One of
the sonnets prefixed to the _Faerie Queene_ is
addressed 'to the most renowmed and valiant lord the
lord Grey of Wilton,' and speaks of him with profound
gratitude:--
Most noble lord the pillor of my life,
And patrone of my Muses pupillage,
Through whose large bountie poured on me rife,
In the first season of my feeble age,
I now doe live, bound yours by vassalage:
Sith nothing ever may redeeme, nor reave
Out of your endlesse debt so sure a gage,
Vouchsafe in worth this small guift to receave,
Which in your noble hands for pledge I leave,
Of all the rest, that I am tyde t' account.
Lord Grey died in 1593. Spenser may have renewed his
friendship with him in 1589, when, as we shall see, he
visited England. For the present their connection was
broken. It may be considered as fairly certain that
when his lordship returned to England in 1582, Spenser
did not return with him, but abode still in Ireland.
There is, indeed, a 'Maister Spenser' mentioned in
a letter written by James VI. of Scotland from St.
Andrews in 1583 to Queen Elizabeth: 'I have staied
Maister Spenser upon the letter quhilk is written with
my auin hand quhilk sall be readie within tua daies.'
It may be presumed that this gentleman is the same with
him of whose postal services mention is found, as we
have seen, in 1569. At any rate there is nothing
whatever to justify his identification with the poet.
On the other hand, there are several circumstances
which seem to indicate that Spenser was in Ireland
continuously from the year of his going there with Lord
Grey to the year of his visiting England with Raleigh
in 1589, when he presented to her Majesty and published
the first three books of the _Faerie Queene_. Whatever
certain glimpses we can catch of Spenser during these
ten years, he is in Ireland.
We have seen that he was holding one clerkship or
another in Ireland during all this time. In the next
place, we find him mentioned as forming one of a
company described as gathered together at a cottage
near Dublin in a work by his friend Lodovick{3}
Bryskett, written, as may be inferred with considerable
certainty, some time in or about the year 1582, though
not published till 1606. This work, entitled _A
Discourse of Civill Life; containing the Ethike part of
Morall Philosophie_, 'written to the right honorable
Arthur, late Lord Grey of Wilton'--written before his
recall in 1582--describes in the introduction a party
met together at the author's cottage near Dublin,
consisting of 'Dr. Long, Primate of Ardmagh; Sir Robert
Dillon, knight; M. Dormer, the Queene's sollicitor;
Capt. Christopher Carleil; Capt. Thomas Norreis; Capt.
Warham St. Leger; Capt. Nicholas Dawtrey; and M. Edmond
Spenser, late your lordship's secretary; and Th. Smith,
apothecary.' In the course of conversation Bryskett
envies 'the happinesse of the Italians who have in
their mother-tongue late writers that have with a
singular easie method taught all that which Plato or
Aristotle have confusedly or obscurely left written.'
The 'late writers' who have performed this highly
remarkable service of clarifying and making
intelligible Plato and Aristotle--perhaps the
'confusion' and 'obscurity' Bryskett speaks of mean
merely the difficulties of a foreign language for one
imperfectly acquainted with it--are Alexander
Piccolomini, Gio. Baptista Giraldi, and Guazzo, 'all
three having written upon the Ethick part of Morall
Philosopie [sic] both exactly and perspicuously.'
Bryskett then earnestly wishes--and here perhaps, in
spite of those queer words about Plato and Aristotle,
we may sympathise with him--that some of our countrymen
would promote by English treatises the study of Moral
Philosophy in English.
'In the meane while I must struggle with those
bookes which I vnderstand and content myselfe to
plod upon them, in hope that God (who knoweth the
sincerenesse of my desire) will be pleased to open
my vnderstanding, so as I may reape that profit of
my reading, which I trauell for. Yet is there a
gentleman in this company, whom I have had often a
purpose to intreate, that as his leisure might serue
him, he would vouchsafe to spend some time with me
to instruct me in some hard points which I cannot of
myselfe understand; knowing him to be not onely
perfect in the Greek tongue, but also very well read
in Philosophie, both morall and naturall.
Neuertheless such is my bashfulnes, as I neuer yet
durst open my mouth to disclose this my desire unto
him, though I have not wanted some hartning
thereunto from himselfe. For of loue and kindnes to
me, he encouraged me long sithens to follow the
reading of the Greeke tongue, and offered me his
helpe to make me vnderstand it. But now that so
good an oportunitie is offered vnto me, to satisfie
in some sort my desire; I thinke I should commit a
great fault, not to myselfe alone, but to all this
company, if I should not enter my request thus
farre, as to moue him to spend this time which we
have now destined to familiar discourse and
conuersation, in declaring unto us the great
benefits which men obtaine by knowledge of Morall
Philosophie, and in making us to know what the same
is, what be the parts thereof, whereby vertues are
to be distinguished from vices; and finally that he
will be pleased to run ouer in such order as he
shall thinke good, such and so many principles and
rules thereof, as shall serue not only for my better
instruction, but also for the contentment and
satisfaction of you al. For I nothing doubt, but
that euery one of you will be glad to heare so
profitable a discourse and thinke the time very wel
spent wherin so excellent a knowledge shal be
reuealed unto you, from which euery one may be
assured to gather some fruit as wel as myselfe.
Therefore (said I) turning myselfe to _M. Spenser_,
It is you, sir, to whom it pertaineth to shew
yourselfe courteous now unto us all and to make vs
all beholding unto you for the pleasure and profit
which we shall gather from your speeches, if you
shall vouchsafe to open unto vs the goodly cabinet,
in which this excellent treasure of vertues lieth
locked up from the vulgar sort. And thereof in the
behalfe of all as for myselfe, I do most earnestly
intreate you not to say vs nay. Vnto which wordes
of mine euery man applauding most with like words of
request and the rest with gesture and countenances
expressing as much, _M. Spenser_ answered in this
maner: Though it may seeme hard for me, to refuse
the request made by you all, whom euery one alone, I
should for many respects be willing to gratifie; yet
as the case standeth, I doubt not but with the
consent of the most part of you, I shall be excused
at this time of this taske which would be laid vpon
me, for sure I am, that it is not vnknowne unto you,
that I haue already vndertaken a work tending to the
same effect, which is in _heroical verse_ under the
title of a _Faerie Queene_ to represent all the
moral vertues, assigning to every vertue a Knight to
be the patron and defender of the same, in whose
actions and feates of arms and chiualry the
operations of that vertue, whereof he is the
protector, are to be expressed, and the vices and
unruly appetites that oppose themselves against the
same, to be beaten down and overcome. Which work,
as I haue already well entred into, if God shall
please to spare me life that I may finish it
according to my mind, your wish (_M. Bryskett_) will
be in some sort accomplished, though perhaps not so
effectually as you could desire. And the may very
well serue for my excuse, if at this time I craue to
be forborne in this your request, since any
discourse, that I might make thus on the sudden in
such a subject would be but simple, and little to
your satisfactions. For it would require good
aduisement and premeditation for any man to
vndertake the declaration of these points that you
have proposed, containing in effect the Ethicke part
of Morall Philosophie. Whereof since I haue taken
in hand to discourse at large in my poeme before
spoken, I hope the expectation of that work may
serue to free me at this time from speaking in that
matter, notwithstanding your motion and all your
intreaties. But I will tell you how I thinke by
himselfe he may very well excuse my speech, and yet
satisfie all you in this matter. I haue seene (as
he knoweth) a translation made by himselfe out of
the Italian tongue of a dialogue comprehending all
the Ethick part of Moral Philosophy, written by one
of those three he formerly mentioned, and that is by
_Giraldi_ under the title of a dialogue of ciuil
life. If it please him to bring us forth that·
translation to be here read among vs, or otherwise
to deliuer to us, as his memory may serue him, the
contents of the same; he shal (I warrant you)
satisfie you all at the ful, and himselfe wil haue
no cause but to thinke the time well spent in
reuiewing his labors, especially in the company of
so many his friends, who may thereby reape much
profit and the translation happily fare the better
by some mending it may receiue in the perusing, as
all writings else may do by the often examination of
the same. Neither let it trouble him that I so
turne ouer to him againe the taske he wold have put
me to; for it falleth out fit for him to verifie the
principall of all this Apologie, euen now made for
himselfe; because thereby it will appeare that he
hath not withdrawne himselfe from seruice of the
state to live idle or wholly priuate to himselfe,
but hath spent some time in doing that which may
greatly benefit others and hath serued not a little
to the bettering of his owne mind, and increasing of
his knowledge, though he for modesty pretend much
ignorance, and pleade want in wealth, much like some
rich beggars, who either of custom, or for
couetousnes, go to begge of others those things
whereof they haue no want at home. With this answer
of _M. Spensers_ it seemed that all the company were
wel satisfied, for after some few speeches whereby
they had shewed an extreme longing after his worke
of the _Faerie Queene_, whereof some parcels had
been by some of them seene, they all began to presse
me to produce my translation mentioned by _M.
Spenser_ that it might be perused among them; or
else that I should (as near as I could) deliuer unto
them the contents of the same, supposing that my
memory would not much faile me in a thing so studied
and advisedly set downe in writing as a translation
must be.'
Bryskett at length assents to Spenser's proposal, and
proceeds to read his translation of Giraldi, which is
in some sort criticised as he reads, Spenser proposing
one or two questions 'arising principally,' as Todd
says, 'from the discussion of the doctrines of Plato
and Aristotle.' This invaluable picture of a scene in
Spenser's Irish life shows manifestly in what high
estimation his learning and genius were already held,
and how, in spite of Harvey's sinister criticisms, he
had resumed his great work. It tells us too that he
found in Ireland a warmly appreciative friend, if
indeed he had not known Bryskett before their going to
Ireland. Bryskett too, perhaps, was acquainted with
Sir Philip Sidney; for two of the elegies written on
that famous knight's death and printed along with
_Astrophel_ in the elegiac collection made by Spenser
were probably of Bryskett's composition, viz., _The
Mourning Muse of Thestylis_, where 'Liffey's tumbling
stream' is mentioned, and the one entitled _A Pastoral
Eclogue_, where Lycon offers to 'second' Colin's lament
for Phillisides.
What is said of the _Faerie Queene_ in the above
quotation may be illustrated from the sonnet already
quoted from, addressed to Lord Grey--one of the sonnets
that in our modern editions are prefixed to the great
poem. It speaks of the great poem as
Rude rymes, the which a rustick Muse did weave
In savadge soyle, far from Parnasso mount.
See also the sonnet addressed to the Right Honourable
the Earl of Ormond and Ossory.
A sonnet addressed to Harvey, is dated 'Dublin
this xviij of July, 1586.' Again, in the course of the
decad now under consideration, Spenser received a grant
of land in Cork--of 3,028 acres, out of the forefeited
estates of the Earl of Desmond.
All these circumstances put together make it
probable, and more than probable, that Spenser remained
in Ireland after Lord Grey's recall. How thorough his
familiarity with the country grew to be, appears from
the work concerning it which he at last produced.
The years 1586-7-8 were eventful both for England
and for Spenser. In the first Sidney expired of wounds
received at Zutphen; in the second, Mary Queen of Scots
was executed; in the third, God blew and scattered the
Armada, and also Leicester died. Spenser weeps over
Sidney--there was never, perhaps, more weeping,
poetical and other, over any death than over that of
Sidney--in his _Astrophel_, the poem above mentioned.
This poem is scarcely worthy of the sad occasion--the
flower of knighthood cut down ere its prime, not yet
In flushing
When blighting was nearest.
Certainly it in no way expresses what Spenser
undoubtedly felt when the woeful news came across the
Channel to him in his Irish home. Probably his grief
was 'too deep for tears.' It was probably one of those
'huge cares' which, in Seneca's phrase, not
'loquuntur,' but 'stupent.' He would fain have been
dumb and opened not his mouth; but the fashion of the
time called upon him to speak. He was expected to
bring his immortelle, so to say, and lay it on his
hero's tomb, though his limbs would scarcely support
him, and his hand, quivering with the agony of his
heart, could with difficulty either weave it or carry
it. All the six years they had been parted, the image
of that chivalrous form had never been forgotten. It
had served for the one model of all that was highest
and noblest in his eyes. It had represented for him
all true knighthood. Nor all the years that he lived
after Sidney's death was it forgotten. It is often
before him, as he writes his later poetry, and is
greeted always with undying love and sorrow. Thus in
the _Ruines of Time_, he breaks out in a sweet fervour
of unextinguished affection:
Most gentle spirite breathed from above,
Out of the bosom of the Makers blis,
In whom all bountie and all vertuous love
Appeared in their native propertis
And did enrich that noble breast of his
With treasure passing all this worldes worth.
Worthie of heaven itselfe, which brought it forth.
His blessed spirite, full of power divine
And influence of all celestiall grace,
Loathing this sinfull earth and earthlie slime,
Fled backe too soone unto his native place;
Too soone for all that did his love embrace,
Too soone for all this wretched world, whom he
Robd of all right and true nobilitie.
Yet ere this happie soule to heaven went
Out of this fleshie gaole, he did devise
Unto his heavenlie Maker to present
His bodie as a spotles sacrifise,
And chose, that guiltie hands of enemies
Should powre forth th' offring of his guiltles
blood,
So life exchanging for his countries good.
O noble spirite, live there ever blessed,
The world's late wonder, and the heaven's new ioy.
Live ever there, and leave me here distressed
With mortall cares and cumbrous worlds anoy;
But where thou dost that happiness enioy,
Bid me, O bid me quicklie come to thee,
That happie there I maie thee alwaies see.
Yet whilest the Fates affoord me vitell breath,
I will it spend in speaking of thy praise,
And sing to thee untill that timelie death
By Heaven's doome doe ende my earthlie daies:
Thereto doo thou my humble spirite raise,
And into me that sacred breath inspire
Which thou there breathest perfect and entire.
It is not quite certain in what part of Ireland
the poet was living when the news that Sidney was not
reached him. Was he still residing at Dublin, or had
he transferred his home to that southern region which
is so intimately associated with his name? The sonnet
to Harvey mentioned above shows that he was at Dublin
in July of the year of his friend's death. It has been
said already that he did not resign his Chancery
clerkship until 1588. We know that he was settled in
Cork county, at Kilcolman castle, in 1589, because
Raleigh visited him there that year. He may then have
left Dublin in 1588 or 1589. According to Dr. Birch's
Life of Spenser, prefixed to the edition of the _Faerie
Queene_ in 1751,{4} and the _Biographia Britannica_,
the grant of land made him in Cork is dated June 27,
1586. But the grant, which is extant, is dated October
26, 1591. Yet certainly, as Dr. Grosart points out, in
the 'Articles' for the 'Undertakers,' which received
the royal assent on June 27, 1586, Spenser is set down
for 3,028 acres; and that he was at Kilcolman before
1591 seems certain. As he resigned his clerkship in
the Court of Chancery in 1588, and was then appointed,
as we have seen, clerk of the Council of Munster, he
probably went to live somewhere in the province of
Munster that same year. He may have lived at Kilcolman
before it and the surrounding grounds were secured to
him; he may have entered upon possession on the
strength of a promise of them, before the formal grant
was issued. He has mentioned the scenery which
environed his castle twice in his great poem; but it is
worth noticing that both mentions occur, not in the
books published, as we shall now very soon see, in
1590, but in the books published six years afterwards.
In the famous passage already referred to in the
eleventh canto of the fourth book, describing the
nuptials of the Thames and the Medway, he recounts in
stanzas xl.-xliv. the Irish rivers who were present at
that great river-gathering, and amongst them
Swift Awniduff which of the English man
Is cal'de Blacke water, and the Liffar deep,
Sad Trowis, that once his people ouerran,·
Strong _Allo_ tombling from Slewlogher steep,
And _Mulla_ mine, whose waues I whilom taught to
weep.
The other mention occurs in the former of the two
cantos _Of Mutability_. There the poet sings that the
place appointed for the trial of the titles and best
rights of both 'heavenly powers' and 'earthly wights'
was
. . . vpon the highest hights
Of _Arlo-hill_ (Who knowes not _Arlo-hill?_)
That is the highest head (in all mens sights)
Of my old father _Mole_, whom Shepheards quill
Renowmed hath with hymnes fit for a rurall skill.
His poem called _Colin Clouts Come Home Again_,
written in 1591, and dedicated to Sir W. Raleigh 'from
my house at Kilcolman the 27 of December, 1591'{5}--
written therefore after a lengthy absence in England--
exhibits a full familiarity with the country round
about Kilcolman. On the whole then we may suppose that
his residence at Kilcolman began not later than 1588.
It was to be roughly and and terribly ended ten years
after.
We may suppose he was living there in peace and
quiet, not perhaps undisturbed by growing murmurs of
discontent, by signs of unrepressed and irrepressible
hostility towards his nation, by ill-concealed
sympathies with the Spanish invaders amongst the native
population, when the Armada came and went. The old
castle in which he had lived had been one of the
residences of the Earls of Desmond. It stood some two
miles from Doneraile, on the north side of a lake which
was fed by the river Awbeg or Mulla, as the poet
christened it.
'Two miles north-west of Doneraile,' writes
Charles Smith in his _Natural and Civil History of the
County and City of Cork_, 1774, (i. 340, 341)--'is
Kilcoleman, a ruined castle of the Earls of Desmond,
but more celebrated for being the residence of the
immortal Spenser, when he composed his divine poem _The
Faerie Queene_. The castle is now almost level with
the ground, and was situated on the north side of a
fine lake, in the midst of a vast plain, terminated to
the east by the county of Waterford mountains; Bally-
howra hills to the north, or, as Spenser terms them,
the mountains of Mole, Nagle mountains to the south,
and the mountains of Kerry to the west. It commanded a
view of above half the breadth of Ireland; and must
have been, when the adjacent uplands were wooded, a
most pleasant and romantic situation; from whence, no
doubt, Spenser drew several parts of the scenery of his
poem.'
Here, then, as in some cool sequestered vale of
life, for some ten years, his visits to England
excepted, lived Spenser still singing sweetly, still,
as he might say, piping, with the woods answering him
and his echo ringing. Sitting in the shade he would
play many a 'pleasant fit;' he would sing
Some hymne or morall laie,
Or carol made to praise his loved lasse;
he would see in the rivers that flowed around his tower
beings who lived and loved, and would sing of their
mutual passions. It must have sounded strangely to
hear the notes of his sweet voice welling forth from
his old ruin--to hear music so subtle and refined
issuing from that scarred and broken relic of past
turbulencies --
The shepheard swaines that did about him play
. . . with greedie listfull eares
Did stand astonisht at his curious skill
Like hartlesse deare, dismayed with thunders sound.
He presents a picture such as would have delighted his
own fancy, though perhaps the actual experience may not
have been unalloyed with pain. It is a picture which
in many ways resembles that presented by one of kindred
type of genius, who has already been mentioned as of
affinity with him--by Wordsworth. Wordsworth too sang
in a certain sense from the shade, far away from the
vanity of courts, and the uproar of cities; sang 'from
a still place, remote from men;' sang, like his own
Highland girl, all alone with the 'vale profound'
'overflowing with the sound;' finding, too, objects of
friendship and love in the forms of nature which
surrounded his tranquil home.
Of these two poets in their various lonelinesses
one may perhaps quote those exquisite lines written by
one of them of a somewhat differently caused isolation:
each one of them too lacked
Not friends for simple glee
Nor yet for higher sympathy.
To his side the fallow-deer
Came and rested without fear;
The eagle, lord of land and sea,
Stooped down to pay him fealty.
. . . . .
_He knew the rocks which angels haunt
Upon the mountains visitant;
He hath kenned them taking wing;
And into caves where Faeries sing
He hath entered; and been told
By voices how men lived of old._
Here now and then he was visited, it may be
supposed, by old friends. Perhaps that distinguished
son of the University of Cambridge, Gabriel Harvey, may
for a while have been his guest; he is introduced under
his pastoral name of Hobbinol, as present at the poet's
house on his return to Ireland. The most memorable of
these visits was that already alluded to--that paid to
him in 1589 by Sir Walter Raleigh, with whom it will be
remembered he had become acquainted some nine years
before. Raleigh, too, had received a grant from the
same huge forfeited estate, a fragment of which had
been given to Spenser. The granting of these, and
other shares of the Desmond estates, formed part of a
policy then vigorously entertained by the English
Government--the colonising of the so lately disordered
and still restless districts of Southern Ireland. The
recipients were termed 'undertakers;' it was one of
their duties to repair the ravages inflicted during the
recent tumults and bring the lands committed to them
into some state of cultivation and order.
The wars had been followed by a famine. 'Even in
the history of Ireland,' writes a recent biographer of
Sir Walter Raleigh, 'there are not many scenes more
full of horror that those which the historians of that
period rapidly sketch when showing us the condition of
almost the whole province of Munster in the year 1584,
and the years immediately succeeding.'{6}
The claims of his duties as an 'undertaker,' in
addition perhaps to certain troubles at court, where
his rival Essex was at this time somewhat superseding
him in the royal favour,{7} and making a temporary
absence not undesirable, brought Raleigh into Cork
County in 1589. A full account of this visit and its
important results is given us in _Colin Clouts Come
Home Again_, which gives us at the same time a charming
picture of the poet's life at Kilcolman. Colin
himself, lately returned home from England, tells his
brother shepherds, at their urgent request, of his
'passed fortunes.' He begins with Raleigh's visit.
One day, he tells them, as he sat
Under the foote of Mole, that mountaine hore,
Keeping my sheepe amongst the cooly shade
Of the greene alders by the Mullaes shore,
a strange shepherd, who styled himself the Shepherd of
the Ocean --
Whether allured with my pipes delight,
Whose pleasing sound yshrilled far about,
Or thither led by chaunce, I know not right --
found him out, and
Provoked me to plaie some pleasant fit.
He sang, he tells us, a song of Mulla old father Mole's
daughter, and of another river called Bregog who loved
her. Then his guest sang in turn:--
His song was all a lamentable lay
Of great unkindnesse and of usage hard,
Of Cynthia the ladie of the sea,
Which from her presence faultlesse him debard,
And ever and anon, with singults rife,
He cryed out, to make his undersong:
Ah! my loves queene and goddesse of my life,
Who shall me pittie when thou doest me wrong?
After they had made an end of singing, the shepherd of
the ocean
Gan to cast great lyking to my lore,
And great dislyking to my lucklesse lot
That banisht had my selfe, like wight forlore,
Into that waste where I was quite forgot,
and presently persuaded him to accompany him 'his
Cinthia to see.'
It has been seen from one of Harvey's letters that
the _Faerie Queene_ was already begun in 1580; and from
what Bryskett says, and what Spenser says himself in
his sonnets to Lord Grey, and to Lord Ormond, that it
was proceeded with after the poet had passed over to
Ireland. By the close of the year 1589 at least three
books were completely finished. Probably enough parts
of other books had been written; but only three were
entirely ready for publication. No doubt part of the
conversation that passed between Spenser and Raleigh·
related to Spenser's work. It may be believed that
what was finished was submitted to Raleigh's judgment,
and certainly concluded that it elicited his warmest
approval.{8} One great object that Spenser proposed to
himself when he assented to Raleigh's persuasion to
visit England, was the publication of the first three
books of his _Faerie Queene_.
Footnotes
---------
{1} One might quote of these poets, and those of a like
spirit, Wordsworth's lines on 'the Characteristics
of a Child three years old,' for in the respect
therein mentioned, as in others, these poets are
'as little children:'
As a faggot sparkles on the hearth,
Not less if unattended and alone,
Than when both young and old sit gathered round,
And take delight in its activity;
_Even so this happy creature of herself
Is all-sufficient; Solitude to her
Is blithe society, who fills the air
With gladness and involuntary songs.
{2} See _Colin Clouts Come Home Again_, vv. 180-184,
quoted below.
{3} This is the 'Lodovick' mentioned in Sonnet 33,
quoted below. It was from him a little later, in
1588, that Spenser obtained by 'purchase' the
succession to the office of the Clerk of the
Government Council of Munster. _See_ Dr. Grosart's
vol. i. p. 151.
{4} Dr. Birch refers in his note to _The Ancient and
Present State of the County and City of Cork_, by
Charles Smith, vol. i. book i. c. i. p. 58-63.
Edit. Dublin 1750, 8vo. And Fiennes Moryson's
_Itinerary_, part ii. p. 4.
{5} Todd proposes to regard this date as a printer's
error for 1595, quite unnecessarily.
{6} Mr. Edward Edwards, 1868, I. c. vi.; see also
_Colin Clouts Come Home Again_, vv. 312-319.
{7} 'My lord of Essex hath chased Mr. Raleigh from the
court and confined him in Ireland.'--Letter, dated
August 17, 1589, from Captain Francis Allen to
Antony Bacon, Esq.--Quoted by Todd from Dr. Birch's
_Memoirs of Queen Elizabeth_.--See Mr. Edwards's
_Life of Raleigh_, I. c. viii.
{8} See Raleigh's lines entitled 'A Vision upon this
Conceipt of the _Faery Queene_,' prefixed to the
_Faerie Queene_.