1591-1599.
It is easy to imagine how intensely Spenser enjoyed his
visit to London. It is uncertain to what extent that
visit was prolonged. He dates the dedication of his
_Colin Clouts Come Home Again_ 'from my house at
Kilcolman, the 27 of December, 1591.' On the other
hand, the dedication of his _Daphnaida_ is dated
'London this first of Januarie 1591,' that is 1592
according to our new style. Evidently there is some
mistake here. Prof. Craik 'suspects' that in the
latter instance 'the date January 1591' is used in the
modern meaning; he quotes nothing to justify such a
suspicion; but it would seem to be correct. Todd and
others have proposed to alter the '1591' in the former
instance to 1595, the year in which _Colin Clouts Come
Home Again_ was published, and with which the allusions
made in the poem to contemporary writers agree; but
this proposal is, as we shall see, scarcely tenable.
The manner in which the publisher of the _Complaints_,
1591, of which publication we shall speak presently,
introduces that work to the 'gentle reader,' seems to
show that the poet was not at the time of the
publishing easily accessible. He speaks of having
endeavoured 'by all good meanes (for the better
encrease and accomplishment of your delights) to get
into my hands such small poems of the same authors, as
I heard were disperst abroad in sundrie hands, and not
easie to bee come by by himselfe; some of them having
been diverslie imbeziled and purloyned from him since
his departure ouer sea.' He says he understands
Spenser 'wrote sundrie others' besides those now
collected, 'besides some other Pamphlets looselie
scattered abroad . . . which when I can either by
himselfe or otherwise attaine too I meane likewise for
your fauour sake to set foorth.' It may be supposed
with much probability that Spenser returned to his
Irish castle some time in 1591, in all likelihood after
February, in which month he received the pension
mentioned above, and on the other hand so as to have
time to write the original draught of _Colin Clouts
Come Home Again_ before the close of December.
The reception of the _Faerie Queene_ had been so
favourable that in 1591--it would seem, as has been
shown, after Spenser's departure--the publisher of that
poem determined to put forth what other poems by the
same hand he could gather together. The result was a
volume entitled '_Complaints_, containing sundrie small
Poemes of the Worlds Vanitie, whereof the next page
maketh mention. By Ed. Sp.' 'The next page' contains
'a note of the Sundrie Poemes contained in this
volume:'
1. The Ruines of Time.
2. The Teares of the Muses.
3. Virgils Gnat.
4. Prosopopoia or Mother Hubbards Tale.
5. The Ruines of Rome, by Bellay.
6. Muiopotmos or The Tale of the Butterflie.
7. Visions of the Worlds Vanitie.
8. Bellayes Visions.
9. Petrarches Visions.
In a short notice addressed to the Gentle Reader which
follows--the notice just referred to--the publisher of
the volume mentions other works by Spenser, and
promises to publish them too 'when he can attain to'
them. These works are _Ecclesiastes_, _The Seven
Psalms_, and _Canticum Canticorum_--these three no
doubt translations of parts of the Old Testament--_A
Sennight Slumber_, _The State of Lovers_, the _Dying
Pelican_--doubtless the work mentioned, as has been
seen, in one of Spenser's letters to Harvey--_The
Howers of the Lord_, and _The Sacrifice of a Sinner_.
Many of these works had probably been passing from hand
to hand in manuscript for many years. That old method
of circulation survived the invention of the printing
press for many generations. The perils of it may be
illustrated from the fate of the works just mentioned.
It would seem that the publisher never did attain to
them; and they have all perished. With regard to the
works which were printed and preserved, the _Ruines of
Time_, as the Dedication shows, was written during
Spenser's memorable visit of 1589-91 to England. It is
in fact an elegy dedicated to the Countess of Pembroke,
on the death of Sir Philip Sidney, 'that most brave
Knight, your most noble brother deceased.' 'Sithens my
late cumming into England,' the poet writes in the
Epistle Dedicatorie, 'some friends of mine (which might
much prevaile with me and indeede commaund me) knowing
with howe straight bandes of duetie I was tied to him;
as also bound unto that noble house (of which the
chiefe hope then rested in him) have sought to revive
them by upbraiding me; for that I have not shewed anie
thankefull remembrance towards him or any of them; but
suffer their names to sleepe in silence and
forgetfulnesse. Whome chieflie to satisfie, or els to
avoide that fowle blot of unthankefulnesse, I have
conceived this small Poeme, intituled by a generall
name of the _Worlds Ruines_: yet speciallie intended to
the renowming of that noble race from which both you
and he sprong, and to the eternizing of some of the
chiefe of them late deceased.' This poem is written in
a tone that had been extremely frequent during
Spenser's youth. Its text is that ancient one 'Vanity
of Vanities; all is Vanity'--a very obvious text in all
ages, but perhaps especially so, as has been hinted, in
the sixteenth century, and one very frequently adopted
at that time. This text is treated in a manner
characteristic of the age. It is exemplified by a
series of visions. The poet represents himself as
seeing at Verulam an apparition of a woman weeping over
the decay of that ancient town. This woman stands for
the town itself. Of its whilome glories, she says,·
after a vain recounting of them,
They all are gone and with them is gone,
Ne ought to me remaines, but to lament
My long decay.
No one, she continues, weeps with her, no one remembers
her,
Save one that maugre fortunes injurie
And times decay, and enuies cruell tort
Hath writ my record in true seeming sort.
Cambden the nourice of antiquitie,
And lanterne unto late succeeding age,
To see the light of simple veritie
Buried in ruines, through the great outrage
Of her owne people, led with warlike rage,
Cambden, though time all moniments obscure,
Yet thy just labours ever shall endure.
Then she rebukes herself for these selfish moanings by
calling to mind how far from solitary she is in her
desolation. She recalls to mind the great ones of the
land who have lately fallen--Leicester, and Warwick,
and Sidney--and wonders no longer at her own ruin. Is
not _Transit Gloria_ the lesson taught everywhere?
Then other visions and emblems of instability are seen,
some of them not darkly suggesting that what passes
away from earth and apparently ends may perhaps be
glorified elsewhere. The second of these collected
poems--_The Teares of the Muses_--dedicated, as we have
seen, to one of the poet's fair cousins, the Lady
Strange, deplores the general intellectual condition of
the time. It is doubtful whether Spenser fully
conceived what a brilliant literary age was beginning
about the year 1590. Perhaps his long absence in
Ireland, the death of Sidney who was the great hope of
England Spenser knew, the ecclesiastical controversies
raging when he revisited England, may partly account
for his despondent tone with reference to literature.
He introduces each Muse weeping for the neglect and
contempt suffered by her respective province. He who
describes these tears was himself destined to dry them;
and Shakspere, who, if anyone, was to make the faces of
the Muses blithe and bright, was now rapidly
approaching his prime. There can be little doubt that
at a later time Spenser was acquainted with Shakspere;
for Spenser was an intimate friend of the Earl of
Essex; Shakspere was an intimate friend of the Earl of
Southampton, who was one of the most attached friends
of that Earl of Essex. And a personal acquaintance
with Shakspere may have been one of the most memorable
events of Spenser's visit to London in 1589. We would
gladly think that Thalia in the _Teares of the Muses_
refers in the following passage to Shakspere: the comic
stage, she says, is degraded,
And he the man whom Nature selfe had made
To mock herselfe and Truth to imitate,
With kindly counter under Mimick shade,
Our pleasant Willy, ah! is dead of late;
With whom all joy and jolly meriment
Is also deaded and in dolour drent.
The context shows that by 'dead' is not meant physical
death, but that
That same gentle spirit, from whose pen
Large streames of honnie and sweete nectar flowe,
produces nothing, sits idle-handed and silent, rather
than pander to the grosser tastes of the day. But this
view, attractive as it is, can perhaps hardly be
maintained. Though the _Teares of the Muses_ was not
published, as we have seen, till 1591, it was probably
written some years earlier, and so before the star of
Shakspere had arisen. Possibly by Willy is meant Sir
Philip Sidney, a favourite haunt of whose was his
sister's house at Wilton on the river Wiley or Willey,
and who had exhibited some comic power in his masque,
_The Lady of May_, acted before the Queen in 1578.
Some scholars, however, take 'Willy' to denote John
Lily. Thus the passage at present remains dark. If
written in 1590, it certainly cannot mean Sidney, who
had been dead some years; just possibly, but not
probably, it might in that case mean Shakspere.
Of the remaining works published in his
_Complaints_, the only other one of recent composition
is _Muiopotmos_, which, as Prof. Craik suggests, would
seem to be an allegorical narrative of some matter
recently transpired. It is dated 1590, but nothing is
known of any earlier edition than that which appears in
the _Complaints_. Of the other pieces by far the most
interesting is _Prosopopoia, or Mother Hubbards Tale_,
not only because it is in it, as has been said, Spenser
most carefully, though far from successfully, imitates
his great master Chaucer, but for its intrinsic merit--
for its easy style, its various incidents, its social
pictures. In the dedication he speaks of it as 'These
my idle labours; which having _long sithens composed in
the raw conceipt of my youth_, I lately amongst other
papers lighted upon, and was by others, which liked the
same, mooved to set them foorth.' However long before
its publication the poem in the main was written,
possibly some additions were made to it in or about the
year 1590; as for instance, the well-known passage
describing 'a suitor's state,' which reflects too
clearly a bitter personal experience to have been
composed before Spenser had grown so familiar with the
Court as he became during his visit to England under
Raleigh's patronage. But it is conceivable that his
experiences in 1578 and 1579 inspired the lines in
question.
The remaining pieces in the _Complaints_ consist
of translations or imitations, composed probably some
years before, though probably in some cases, as has
been shown, revised or altogether recast.
Probably in the same year with the _Complaints_--
that is in 1591--was published _Daphnaida_,{1} 'an
Elegie upon the death of the noble and vertuous Douglas
Howard, daughter and heire of Henry Lord Howard,
Viscount Byndon, and wife of Arthur Georges, Esquire.'
This elegy was no doubt written before Spenser returned
to Ireland. It is marked by his characteristic
diffuseness, abundance, melody.
Certainly before the close of the year 1591
Spenser found himself once more in his old castle of
Kilcolman. A life at Court could never have suited
him, however irksome at times his isolation in Ireland
may have seemed. When his friends wondered at his
returning unto
This barrein soyle,
Where cold and care and penury do dwell,
Here to keep sheepe with hunger and with toyle,
he made the answer that he,
Whose former dayes
Had in rude fields bene altogether spent,
Durst not adventure such unknowen wayes,
Nor trust the guile of fortunes blandishment;
But rather chose back to my sheepe to tourne,
Whose utmost hardnesse I before had tryde,
Then, having learnd repentance late, to mourne
Emongst those wretches which I there descryde.
That life, with all its intrigues and self-seekings and
scandals, had no charms for him. Once more settled in
his home, he wrote an account of his recent absence
from it, which he entitled _Colin Clouts Come Home
Again_. This poem was not published till 1595; but,
whatever additions were subsequently made to it, there
can be no doubt it was originally written immediately
after his return to Ireland. Sitting in the quiet to
which he was but now restored, he reviewed the splendid
scenes he had lately witnessed; he recounted the famous
wits he had met, and the fair ladies he had seen in the
great London world; and dedicated this exquisite diary
to the friend who had introduced him into that
brilliant circle. It would seem that Raleigh had
accused him of indolence. That ever-restless schemer
could not appreciate the poet's dreaminess. 'That you
may see,' writes Spenser, 'that I am not alwaies ydle
as yee think, though not greatly well occupied, nor
altogither undutifull, though not precisely officious,
I make you present of this simple pastorall, unworthie
of your higher conceipt for the meanesse of the stile,
but agreeing with the truth in circumstance and matter.
The which I humbly beseech you to accept in part of
paiment of the infinite debt in which I acknowledge
myselfe bounden unto you for your singular favours and
sundrie good turnes shewed to me at my late being in
England, &c.'
The conclusion of this poem commemorates, as we
have seen, Spenser's enduring affection for that
Rosalind who so many years before had turned away her
ears from his suit. It must have been some twelve
months after those lines were penned, that the writer
conceived an ardent attachment for one Elizabeth. The
active research of Dr. Grosart has discovered that this
lady belonged to the Boyle family--a family already of
importance and destined to be famous. The family seat
was at Kilcoran, near Youghal, and so we understand
Spenser's singing of 'The sea that neighbours to her
near.' Thus she lived in the same county with her
poet. The whole course of the wooing and the winning
is portrayed in the _Amoretti or Sonnets_ and the
_Epithalamium_. It may be gathered from these
biographically and otherwise interesting pieces, that
it was at the close of the year 1592 that the poet was
made a captive of that beauty he so fondly describes.
The first three sonnets would seem to have been written
in that year. The fourth celebrates the beginning of
the year 1593--the beginning according to our modern
way of reckoning. All through that year 1593 the lover
sighed, beseeched, adored, despaired, prayed again.
Fifty-eight sonnets chronicle the various hopes and
fears of that year. The object of his passion remained·
as steel and flint, while he wept and wailed and
pleaded. His life was a long torment.
In vaine I seeke and sew to her for grace
And doe myne humbled hart before her poure;
The whiles her foot she in my necke doth place
And tread my life downe in the lowly floure.
In Lent she is his 'sweet saynt,' and he vows to find
some fit service for her.
Her temple fayre is built within my mind
In which her glorious image placed is.
But all his devotion profited nothing, and he thinks it
were better 'at once to die.' He marvels at her
cruelty. He cannot address himself to further
composition of his great poem. The accomplishment of
that great work were
Sufficient werke for one man's simple head,
All were it, as the rest, but rudely writ.
How then should I, without another wit,
Thinck ever to endure so tedious toyle?
Sith that this one is tost with troublous fit
Of a proud love that doth my spirit spoyle.
He falls ill in his body too. When the anniversary of
his being carried into captivity comes round, he
declares, as has already been quoted, that the year
just elapsed has appeared longer than all the forty
years of his life that had preceded it (sonnet 60). In
the beginning of the year 1594,
After long stormes and tempests sad assay
Which hardly I endured hertofore
In dread of death and daungerous dismay
With which my silly bark was tossed sore,
he did 'at length descry the happy shore.' The heart
of his mistress softened towards him. The last twenty-
five sonnets are for the most part the songs of a lover
accepted and happy. It would seem that by this time he
had completed three more books of the _Faerie Queene_,
and he asks leave in sonnet 70,
In pleasant mew
To sport my Muse and sing my loves sweet praise,
The contemplation of whose heavenly hew
My spirit to an higher pitch doth raise.
Probably the Sixth Book was concluded in the first part
of the year 1594, just after his long wooing had been
crowned with success. In the tenth canto of that book
he introduces the lady of his love, and himself
'piping' unto her. In a rarely pleasant place on a
fair wooded hill-top Calidore sees the Graces dancing,
and Colin Clout piping merrily. With these goddesses
is a fourth maid; it is to her alone that Colin
pipes:--
Pype, jolly shepheard, pype thou now apace
Unto thy love that made thee low to lout;
Thy love is present there with thee in place;
Thy love is there advaunst to be another Grace.
Of this fourth maid the poet, after sweetly praising
the daughters of sky-ruling Jove, sings in this wise:--
Who can aread what creature mote she bee;
Whether a creature or a goddesse graced
With heavenly gifts from heven first enraced?
But what so sure she was, she worthy was
To be the fourth with those three other placed,
Yet she was certes but a countrey lasse;
Yet she all other countrey lasses farre did passe.
So farre, as doth the daughter of the day
All other lesser lights in light excell;
So farre doth she in beautyfull array
Above all other lasses beare the bell;
Ne lesse in vertue that beseems her well
Doth she exceede the rest of all her race.
The phrase 'country lass' in this rapturous passage has
been taken to signify that she to whom it applied was
of mean origin; but it scarcely bears this
construction. Probably all that is meant is that her
family was not connected with the Court or the Court
circle. She was not high-born; but she was not low-
born. The final sonnets refer to some malicious
reports circulating about him, and to some local
separation between the sonneteer and his mistress.
This separation was certainly ended in the June
following his acceptance--that is, the June of 1594;
for in that month, on St. Barnabas' day, that is, on
the 11th, Spenser was married. This event Spenser
celebrates in the finest, the most perfect of all his
poems, in the most beautiful of all bridal songs--in
his _Epithalamion_. He had many a time sung for
others; he now bade the Muses crown their heads with
garlands and help him his own love's praises to
resound:--
So I unto my selfe alone will sing,
The woods shall to me answer, and my echo ring.
Then, with the sweetest melody and a refinement and
grace incomparable, he sings with a most happy heart of
various matters of the marriage day--of his love's
waking, of the merry music of the minstrels, of her
coming forth in all the pride of her visible
loveliness, of that 'inward beauty of her lively
spright' which no eyes can see, of her standing before
the altar, her sad eyes still fastened on the ground,
of the bringing her home, of the rising of the evening
star, and the fair face of the moon looking down on his
bliss not unfavourably, as he would hope. The
_Amoretti_ and _Epithalamion_ were registered at the
Stationers' Hall on the 19th of November following the
marriage. They were published in 1595, Spenser--as
appears from the 'Dedication' of them to Sir Robert
Needham, written by the printer Ponsonby--being still
absent from England.
Meanwhile the poet had been vexed by other
troubles besides those of a slowly requited passion.
Mr. Hardiman,{2} in his _Irish Minstrelsy_, has
published three petitions presented in 1593 to the Lord
Chancellor of Ireland by Maurice, Lord Roche, Viscount
Fermoy, two against 'one Edmond Spenser, gentleman',
one against one Joan Ny Callaghan--who is said to act
'by supportation and maintenance of Edmond Spenser,
gentleman, a heavy adversary to your suppliant.'
'Where,' runs the first petition, 'one Edmond Spenser,
gentleman, hath lately exhibited suit against your
suppliant for three ploughlands, parcels of
Shanballymore (your suppliant's inheritance) before the
Vice-President and Council of Munster, which land hath
been heretofore decreed for your suppliant against the
said Spenser and others under whom he conveyed; and
nevertheless for that the said Spenser, being Clerk of
the Council in the said province, and did assign his
office unto one Nicholas Curteys among other agreements
with covenant that during his life he should be free in
the said office for his causes, by occasion of which
immunity he doth multiply suits against your suppliant
in the said province upon pretended title of others
&c.' The third petition averred that 'Edmond Spenser of
Kilcolman, gentleman, hath entered into three
ploughlands, parcel of Ballingerath, and disseised your
suppliant thereof, and continueth by countenance and
greatness the possession thereof, and maketh great
waste of the wood of the said land, and converteth a
great deal of corn growing thereupon to his proper use,
to the damage of the complainant of two hundred pounds
sterling. Whereunto,' continues the document, which is
preserved in the Original Rolls Office, 'the said
Edmond Spenser appearing in person had several days
prefixed unto him peremptorily to answer, which he
neglected to do.' Therefore 'after a day of grace
given,' on the 12th of February, 1594, Lord Roche was
decreed the possession. Perhaps the absence from his
lady love referred to in the concluding sonnets was
occasioned by this litigation. Perhaps also the 'false
forged lyes'--the malicious reports circulated about
him--referred to in Sonnet 85, may have been connected
with these appeals against him. It is clear that all
his dreams of Faerie did not make him neglectful of his
earthly estate. Like Shakspere, like Scott, Spenser
did not cease to be a man of the world--we use the
phrase in no unkindly sense--because he was a poet. He
was no mere visionary, helpless in the ordinary affairs
of life. In the present case it would appear that he
was even too keen in looking after his own interests.
Professor Craik charitably suggests that his poverty
'rather than rapacity may be supposed to have urged
whatever of hardness there was in his proceedings.' It
is credible enough that these proceedings made him
highly unpopular with the native inhabitants of the
district, and that they were not forgotten when the day
of reckoning came. 'His name,' says Mr. Hardiman, on
the authority of _Trotter's Walks in Ireland_,{3} 'is
still remembered in the vicinity of Kilcolman; but the
people entertain no sentiments of respect or affection
for his memory.'
In the same year with the _Amoretti_ was published
_Colin Clouts Come Home Again_, several additions
having been made to the original version.
Probably at the close of this year 1595 Spenser a
second time crossed to England, accompanied, it may be
supposed, by his wife, carrying with him in manuscript
the second three books of his _Faerie Queene_, which,
as we have seen, were completed before his marriage,
and also a prose work, _A View of the Present State of
Ireland_. Mr. Collier quotes the following entry from
the Stationers' Register:--
20 die Januarii [1595].--Mr. Ponsonby. Entred
&c. The Second Part of the Faerie Queene, cont.
the 4, 5, and 6 bookes, vj_d_.
This second instalment--which was to be the last--of
his great poem was duly published in that year. The
_View of the Present State of Ireland_ was not
registered till April 1598, and then only
conditionally. It was not actually printed till 1633.
During his stay in England he wrote the _Hymns to
Heavenly Love and Heavenly Beauty_, and the
_Prothalamion_, which were to be his last works.
More than four years had elapsed since Spenser had
last visited London. During that period certain
memorable works had been produced; the intellectual
power of that day had expressed itself in no mean
manner. When he arrived in London towards the close of
the year 1595, he would find Shakspere splendidly
fulfilling the promise of his earlier days; he would
find Ben Jonson just becoming known to fame; he would
find Bacon already drawing to him the eyes of his time.
Spenser probably spent the whole of the year 1596, and
part of 1597, in England. In 1597 appeared, as has
already been said, the first part of Hooker's
_Ecclesiastical Polity_, and Bacon's _Essays_, and also
Jonson's _Every Man in His Own Humour_.
The reigning favourite at this time was the Earl
of Essex. In 1596 his successful descent upon Cadiz
raised him to the zenith of his fame. With this
nobleman Spenser was on terms of intimacy. At his
London house in the Strand--a house which had
previously been inhabited by Spenser's earlier patron,
the Earl of Leicester--it stood where Essex Street now
is, and is still represented by the two pillars which
stand at the bottom of that street--Spenser no doubt
renewed his friendship with Shakspere. This intimacy
with Essex, with whatever intellectual advantages it
may have been attended, with whatever bright spirits it
may have brought Spenser acquainted, probably impeded
his prospects of preferment. There can be no doubt
that one of the motives that brought him to England was
a desire to advance his fortunes. Camden describes him
as always poor. His distaste for his residence in
Ireland could not but have been aggravated by his
recent legal defeat. But he looked in vain for further
preferment. He had fame, and to spare, and this was to
suffice. It was during this sojourn in England that he
spoke of himself, as we have seen, 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 shaddows, did afflict my brayne.
The publication of the second three books of the
_Faerie Queene_, with a re-impression of the first
three books, placed him on the highest pinnacle of
fame. Its plentiful references to passing events--its
adumbrations of the history of the time--however it
might damage the permanent value of the work from an
artistic point of view, increased its immediate
popularity. How keenly these references were
appreciated appears from the anxiety of the Scotch King
to have the poet prosecuted for his picture of Duessa,
in whom Mary Queen of Scots was generally recognised.
'Robert Bowes, the English ambassador in Scotland,
writing to Lord Burghley from Edinburgh 12th November,
1596, states that great offence was conceived by the
King against Edmund Spenser for publishing in print, in
the second part of the _Faery Queen_, ch. 9, some
dishonourable effects, as the King deemed, against
himself and his mother deceased. Mr. Bowes states that
he had satisfied the King as to the privilege under
which the book was published, yet he still desired that
Edmund Spenser for this fault might be tried and
punished. It further appears, from a letter from
George Nicolson to Sir Robert Cecil, dated Edinburgh,
25 February, 1597-8, that Walter Quin, an Irishman, was
answering Spenser's book, whereat the King was
offended.'{4}
The _View of the Present State of Ireland_,
written dialogue-wise between Eudoxus and Iren{ae}us,
though not printed, as has been said, till 1633, seems
to have enjoyed a considerable circulation in a
manuscript form. There are manuscript copies of this
tractate at Cambridge, at Dublin, at Lambeth, and in
the British Museum. It is partly antiquarian, partly
descriptive, partly political. It exhibits a profound
sense of the unsatisfactory state of the country--a
sense which was presently to be justified in a
frightful manner. Spenser had not been deaf to the
ever-growing murmurs of discontent by which he and his
countrymen had been surrounded. He was not in advance
of his time in the policy he advocates for the
administration of Ireland. He was far from
anticipating that policy of conciliation whose
triumphant application it may perhaps be the signal
honour of our own day to achieve. The measures he
proposes are all of a vigorously repressive kind; they
are such measures as belong to a military occupancy,
not to a statesmanly administration. He urges the
stationing numerous garrisons; he is for the abolishing
native customs. Such proposals won a not unfavourable
hearing at that time. They have been admired many a
time since.
It is to this work of Spenser's that Protector
Cromwell alludes in a letter to his council in Ireland,
in favour of William Spenser, grandson of Edmund
Spenser, from whom an estate of lands in the barony of
Fermoy, in the county of Cork, descended on him. 'His
grandfather,' he writes, 'was that Spenser who, by his
writings touching the reduction of the Irish to
civility, brought on him the odium of that nation; and
for those works and his other good services Queen
Elizabeth conferred on him that estate which the said
William Spenser now claims.'{5} This latter statement
is evidently inaccurate. Spenser, as we have seen, had
already held his estate for some years when he brought
his _View_ to England.
Spenser dates the dedication of his _Hymns_ from
Greenwich, September 1, 1596. Of these four hymns, two
had been in circulation for some years, though now for
the first time printed; the other two now first
appeared. 'Having in the greener times of my youth,'
he writes, 'composed these former two hymnes in the
praise of love and beautie, and finding that the same
too much pleased those of like age and disposition,
which being too vehemently caried with that kind of
affection, do rather sucke out poyson to their strong
passion than hony to their honest delight, I was moved
by one of you two most excellent ladies [the ladies
Margaret, Countess of Cumberland, Mary, Countess of
Warwick] to call in the same; but unable so to doe, by
reason that many copies thereof were formerly scattered
abroad, I resolved at least to amend, and by way of
retraction to reforme them, making (instead of those
two hymnes of earthly or naturall love and beautie) two
others of heavenly and celestiall.' This passage is
interesting for the illustration it provides of
Spenser's popularity. It is also highly interesting,
if the poems themselves be read in the light of it, as
showing the sensitive purity of the poet's nature. It
is difficult to conceive how those 'former hymns'
should in any moral respect need amending. The
moralising and corrective purpose with which the two
latter were written perhaps diminished their poetical
beauty; but the themes they celebrate are such as
Spenser could not but ever descant upon with delight;
they were such as were entirely congenial to his
spirit. He here set forth special teachings of his
great master Plato, and abandoned himself to the high
spiritual contemplations he loved. But perhaps the
finest of these four hymns is the second--that in
honour of Beauty. Beauty was indeed the one worship of
Spenser's life--not mere material beauty--not 'the
goodly hew of white and red with which the cheekes are
sprinkled,' or 'the sweete rosy leaves so fairly spred
upon the lips,' or 'that golden wyre,' or 'those
sparckling stars so bright,' but that inner spiritual
beauty, of which fair hair and bright eyes are but
external expressions.
So every spirit, as it is most pure
And hath in it the more of heavenly light,
So it the fairer bodie doth procure
To habit in, and it more fairely dight
With chearfull grace and amiable sight;
For of the soule the bodie forme doth take,
For soule is forme and doth the bodie make.
This hymn is one of high refined rapture.
Before the close of the year 1596 Spenser wrote
and published the _Prothalamion_ or 'A spousall verse
made in honour of the double marriage of the two
honourable and vertuous ladies, the ladie Elizabeth,
and the ladie Katherine Somerset, daughters to the
right honourable the Earle of Worcester, and espoused
to the two worthie gentlemen, M. Henry Gilford and M.
William Peter Esquyers.' It was composed after the
return of Essex from Spain, for he is introduced in the
poem as then residing at his house in the Strand. It
is a poem full of grace and beauty, and of matchless
melodiousness.
This is the last complete poem Spenser wrote. No
doubt he entertained the idea of completing his _Faerie
Queene_; and perhaps it was after 1596 that he composed
the two additional cantos, which are all, so far as is
known, that he actually wrote. But the last poem
completed and published in his lifetime was the
_Prothalamion_.
This second visit to England at last came to an
end. It was probably in 1597 that he returned once
more to Kilcolman. In the following year he was
recommended by her Majesty for Sheriff of Cork. But
his residence in Ireland was now to be rudely
terminated.
The Irishry had, ever since the suppression of
Desmond's rebellion in 1582, been but waiting for
another opportunity to rise, that suppression not
having brought pacification in its train. In the
autumn of 1598 broke out another of these fearful
insurrections, of which the history of English rule in·
Ireland is mainly composed.
In the September of that year Spenser was at the
zenith of his prosperity. In that month arrived the
letter recommending his appointment to be Sheriff of
Cork. It seems legitimate to connect this mark of
royal favour with the fact that at the beginning of the
preceding month Lord Burghley had deceased. The great
obstructor of the Queen's bounty was removed, and
Spenser might hope that now, at last, the hour of his
prosperity was come. So far as is known, his domestic
life was serene and happy. The joys of the husband had
been crowned with those of the father. Two sons, as
may be gathered from the names given to them--they were
christened Sylvanus and Peregrine--had been by this
time born to him; according to Sir William Betham, who
drew up a pedigree of Spenser's family, another son and
a daughter had been born between the birth of Sylvanus
and that of Peregrine. Then he was at this time the
recognised prince of living poets. The early autumn of
1598 saw him in the culminating enjoyment of all these
happinesses.
In October the insurgents burst roughly in upon
his peace. No doubt his occupation of the old castle
of Desmond had ever been regarded with fierce jealousy.
While he had dreamed his dreams and sung his songs in
the valley, there had been curses muttered against him
from the hills around. At last the day of vengeance
came. The outraged natives rushed down upon Kilcolman;
the poet and his family barely made their escape; his
home was plundered and burned. According to Ben
Jonson, in the conversation with Drummond, quoted
above, not all his family escaped; one little child,
new born, perished in the flames. But, indeed, the
fearfulness of this event needs no exaggeration. In
profound distress Spenser arrived once more in London,
bearing a despatch from Sir Thomas Norreys, President
of Munster, to the Secretary of State, and of course
himself full of direct and precise information as to
the Irish tumult, having also drawn up an address to
the Queen on the subject. Probably, the hardships and
horrors he had undergone completely prostrated him. On
January 16, 1599, he died in Westminster. As to the
exact place, a manuscript note found by Brand, the
well-known antiquary, on the title-page of a copy of
the second edition of the _Faerie Queene_, though not
of indisputable value, may probably enough be accepted,
and it names King Street. Ben Jonson says, 'he died
for lack of bread;' but this must certainly be an
exaggeration. No doubt he returned to England
'inops'--in a state of poverty--as Camden says; but it
is impossible to believe that he died of starvation.
His friend Essex and many another were ready to
minister to his necessities if he needed their
ministry. Jonson's story is that he 'refused twenty
pieces sent him by my lord Essex, and said he was sure
he had no time to spend them.' This story, if it is
anything more than a mere vulgar rumour, so far as it
shows anything, shows that he was in no such very
extreme need of succour. Had his destitution been so
complete, he would have accepted the pieces for his
family, even though 'he had no time to spend them
himself.' It must be remembered that he was still in
receipt of a pension from the crown; a pension of no
very considerable amount, perhaps, but still large
enough to satisfy the pangs of hunger. But numerous
passages might be quoted to show that he died in
somewhat straitened circumstances.
It was said, some thirty-four years after
Spenser's death, that in his hurried flight from
Ireland the remaining six books of the _Faerie Queene_
were lost. But it is very unlikely that those books
were ever completed.{6} Perhaps some fragments of them
may have perished in the flames at Kilcolman--certainly
only two cantos have reached us. These were first
printed in 1611, when the first six books were
republished. The general testimony of his
contemporaries is that his song was broken off in the
midst. Says Browne in his _Britannia's Pastorals_
(Book ii. s. 1):--
But ere he ended his melodious song,
An host of angels flew the cloud among,
And rapt this swan from his attentive mates
To make him one of their associates
In heaven's faire choir.
One S. A. Cokain writes:--
If, honour'd Colin, thou hadst lived so long
As to have finished thy Fairy song,
Not only mine but all tongues would confess,
Thou hadst exceeded old M{ae}onides.
He was buried near Chaucer--by his own wish, it is
said--in Westminster Abbey, 'poetis funus ducentibus,'
with poets following him to the grave--bearing the
pall, as we might say--the Earl of Essex furnishing the
funeral expenses, according to Camden. It would seem
from a passage in Browne's _Britannia's Pastorals_
'that the Queen ordered a monument to be erected over
him, but that the money was otherwise appropriated by
one of her agents.' The present monument, restored in
1778, was erected by Anne, Countess of Dorset, in 1620.
His widow married again before 1603, as we learn
from a petition presented to the Lord Chancellor of
Ireland in that year, in which Sylvanus sues to recover
from her and her husband Roger Seckerstone certain
documents relating to the paternal estate. She was
again a widow in 1606. Till a very recent time there
were descendants of Spenser living in the south of
Ireland.
1869 JOHN W. HALES.
Revised 1896.
Footnotes
---------
{1} This poem is in this volume reprinted from the
edition of 1591. Mr. Morris thinks that Todd was
not aware of this edition. Mr. Collier reprinted
from the 2nd edition--that of 1593.
{2} _Irish Minstrelsy; or, Bardic Remains of Ireland_,
by J. Hardiman. London, 1831.
{3} 'The name and occupation of Spenser is handed down
traditionally among them (the Irish); but they seem
to entertain no sentiments of respect or affection
for his memory; the bard came in rather ungracious
times, and the keen recollections of this untutored
people are wonderful.'--Trotter's _Walks through
Ireland in the Years 1812, 1814, and 1817_.
London, 1819, p. 302.
{4} Cooper's _Athen. Cantab._
{5} See Mr. Edwards's _Life of Raleigh_, vol. i. p.
128.
{6} No doubt he intended to complete his work. See
book vi. canto v. st. 2:
'When time shall be to tell the same;'
but this time never was.
End of Project Gutenberg's A Biography of Edmund Spenser, by John W. Hales