1590.
Thus after an absence of about nine years, Spenser
returned for a time to England; he returned 'bringing
his sheaves with him.' Whatever shadow of
misunderstanding had previously come between his
introducer--or perhaps re-introducer--and her Majesty
seems to have been speedily dissipated. Raleigh
presented him to the Queen, who, it would appear,
quickly recognised his merits. 'That goddess'
To mine oaten pipe enclin'd her eare
That she thenceforth therein gan take delight,
And it desir'd at timely houres to heare
Al were my notes but rude and roughly dight.
In the Registers of the Stationers' Company for
1589 occurs to following entry, quoted here from Mr.
Arber's invaluable edition of them:--
Primo Die Decembris.--Master Ponsonbye.
Entered for his Copye a book intituled the fayre
Queene, dyposed into xii bookes &c. Aucthorysed
vnder thandes of the Archb. of Canterbery & bothe
the Wardens, vjd.
The letter of the author's prefixed to his poem
'expounding his whole intention in the course of this
worke, which for that it giveth great light to the
reader, for the better understanding is hereunto
annexed,' addressed to 'Sir Walter Raleigh, Knight,
Lord Wardein of the Stanneryes and her Maiesties
lieftenaunt in the county of Cornewayll,' is dated
January 23, 1589--that is, 1590, according to the New
Style. Shortly afterwards, in 1590, according to both
Old and New Styles, was published by William Ponsonby
'THE FAERIE QUEENE, Disposed into twelve books,
Fashioning XII Morall vertues.' That day, which we
spoke of as beginning to arise in 1579, now fully
dawned. The silence of well nigh two centuries was now
broken, not again to prevail, by mighty voices. During
Spenser's absence in Ireland, William Shakspere had
come up from the country to London. The exact date of
his advent it seems impossible to ascertain. Probably
enough it was 1585; but it may have been a little
later. We may, however, be fairly sure that by the
time of Spenser's arrival in London in 1589, Shakspere
was already occupying a notable position in his
profession as an actor; and what is more important,
there can be little doubt he was already known not only
as an actor, but as a play-writer. What he had already
written was not comparable with what he was to write
subsequently; but even those early dramas gave promise
of splendid fruits to be thereafter yielded. In 1593
appeared _Venus and Adonis_; in the following year
_Lucrece_; in 1595, Spenser's _Epithalamion_; in 1596,
the second three books of the _Faerie Queene_; in 1597
_Romeo and Juliet_, _King Richard the Second_, and
_King Richard the Third_ were printed, and also Bacon's
_Essays_ and the first part of Hooker's _Ecclesiastical
Polity_. During all these years various plays, of
increasing power and beauty, were proceeding from
Shakspere's hands; by 1598 about half of his extant
plays had certainly been composed. Early in 1599, he,
who may be said to have ushered in this illustrious
period, he whose radiance first dispersed the darkness
and made the day begin to be, our poet Spenser, died.
But the day did not die with him; it was then but
approaching its noon, when he, one of its brightest
suns, set. This day may be said to have fully broken
in the year 1590, when the first instalment of the
great work of Spenser's life made its appearance.
The three books were dedicated to the Queen. They
were followed in the original edition--are preceded in
later editions--first, by the letter to Raleigh above
mentioned; then by six poetical pieces of a
commendatory sort, written by friends of the poet--by
Raleigh who writes two of the pieces, by Harvey who now
praises and well-wishes the poem he had discountenanced
some years before, by 'R.S.,' by 'H.B.,' by 'W.L.;'
lastly, by seventeen sonnets addressed by the poet to
various illustrious personages; to Sir Christopher
Hatton, to Lord Burghley, to the Earl of Essex, Lord
Charles Howard, Lord Grey of Wilton, Lord Buckhurst,
Sir Francis Walsingham, Sir John Norris, Knight, lord
president of Munster, Sir Walter Raleigh, the Countess
of Pembroke, and others. The excellence of the poem
was at once generally perceived and acknowledged.
Spenser had already, as we have seen, gained great
applause by his _Shepheardes Calendar_, published some
ten years before the coming out of his greater work.
During these ten years he had resided out of England,
as has been seen; but it is not likely his reputation
had been languishing during his absence. Webbe in his
_Discourse of English Poetrie_, 1586, had contended
'that Spenser may well wear the garlande, and step
before the best of all English poets.' The
_Shepheardes Calendar_ had been reprinted in 1581 and
in 1586; probably enough, other works of his had been
circulating in manuscript; the hopes of the country had
been directed towards him; he was known to be engaged
in the composition of a great poem. No doubt he found
himself famous when he reached England on the visit
suggested by Raleigh; he found a most eager expectant
audience; and when at last his _Faerie Queene_
appeared, it was received with the utmost delight and
admiration. He was spoken of in the same year with its
appearance as the new laureate.{1} In the spring of
the following year he received a pension from the crown
of 50_l_. per annum. Probably, however, then, as in
later days, the most ardent appreciators of of Spenser
were the men of the same craft with himself--the men
who too, though in a different degree, or in a
different kind, possessed the 'vision and the faculty
divine.'
This great estimation of the _Faerie Queene_ was
due not only to the intrinsic charms of the poem--to
its exquisitely sweet melody, its intense pervading
sense of beauty, its abundant fancifulness, its subtle
spirituality--but also to the time of its appearance.
For then nearly two centuries no great poem had been
written in the English tongue. Chaucer had died
heirless. Occleve's lament over that great spirit's
decease had not been made without occasion:--
Alas my worthie maister honorable
This londis verray tresour and richesse
Deth by thy dethe hathe harm irreperable
Unto us done; hir vengeable duresse
Dispoiled hathe this londe of swetnesse
Of Rethoryk fro us; to Tullius
Was never man so like amonges us.{2}
And the doleful confession this orphaned rhymer makes
for himself, might have been well made by all the men
of his age in England:--
My dere mayster, God his soule quite,·
And fader Chaucer fayne would have me taught,
But I was dull, and learned lyte or naught.
No worthy scholar had succeeded the great master. The
fifteenth century in England had abounded in movements
of profound social and political interest--in movements
which eventually fertilised and enriched and ripened
the mind of the nation; but, not unnaturally, the
immediate literary results had been of no great value.
In the reign of Henry VIII, the condition of
literature, for various reasons, had greatly improved.
Surrey and Wyatt had heralded the advent of a brighter
era. From their time the poetical succession had never
failed altogether. The most memorable name in our
literature between their time and the _Faerie Queene_
is that of Sackville, Lord Buckhurst--a name of note in
the history of both our dramatic and non-dramatic
poetry. Sackville was capable of something more than
lyrical essays. He it was who designed the _Mirror for
Magistrates_. To that poem, important as compared with
the poetry of its day, for its more pretentious
conception, he himself contributed the two best pieces
that form part of it--the _Induction_ and the
_Complaint of Buckingham_. These pieces are marked by
some beauties of the same sort as those which
especially characterise Spenser; but they are but
fragments; and in spirit they belong to an age which
happily passed away shortly after the accession of
Queen Elizabeth--they are penetrated by that despondent
tone which is so strikingly audible in our literature
in the middle years of the sixteeth century, not
surprisingly, if the general history of the time be
considered. Meanwhile, our language had changed much,
and Chaucer had grown almost unintelligible to the
ordinary reader. Therefore, about the year 1590, the
nation was practically without a great poem. At the
same time, it then, if ever, truly needed one. Its
power of appreciation had been quickened and refined by
the study of the poetries of other countries; it had
translated and perused the classical writers with
enthusiasm; it had ardently pored over the poetical
literature of Italy. Then its life had lately been
ennobled by deeds of splendid courage crowned with as
splendid success. In the year 1590, if ever, this
country, in respect of its literary condition and in
respect of its general high and noble excitement, was
ready for the reception of a great poem.
Such a poem undoubtedly was the _Faerie Queene_,
although it may perhaps be admitted that it was a work
likely to win favour with the refined and cultured
sections of the community rather than with the
community at large. Strongly impressed on it as were
the instant influences of the day, yet in many ways it
was marked by a certain archaic character. It depicted
a world--the world of chivalry and romance--which was
departed; it drew its images, its forms of life, its
scenery, its very language, from the past. Then the
genius of our literature in the latter part of Queen
Elizabeth's reign was emphatically dramatic; in the
intense life of these years men longed for reality.
Now the _Faerie Queene_ is one long idealizing. These
circumstances are to accounted for partly by the
character of Spenser's genius, partly by the fact
already stated that chronologically Spenser is the
earliest of the great spirits of his day. In truth he
stands between two worlds: he belongs partly to the new
time, partly to the old; he is the last of one age, he
is the first of another; he stretches out one hand into
the past to Chaucer, the other rests upon the shoulder
of Milton.
Footnotes
---------
{1} Nash's _Supplication of Pierce Pennilesse_, 1592.
{2} Skeat's _Specimens of English Literature_, p. 14.