This is the latter half of the lecture on Chaucer and Spenser from the
"English Poets."
P. 21. _Spenser flourished_, etc. Edmund Spenser (1552?-1599), served as
secretary to Sir Henry Sidney in Ireland in 1577, and went again in 1580
as secretary to Lord Grey of Wilton, the Queen's new deputy to Ireland. He
was driven out by a revolt of the Irish in 1598. "A View of the State of
Ireland, written dialogue-wise between Eudoxus and Irenaeus ... in 1596"
was first printed in 1633.
_description of the bog of Allan_. "Faerie Queene," II, ix, 16.
_Treatment he received from Burleigh_. Hazlitt refers to this treatment
specifically in the essay "On Respectable People" (XI, 435): "Spenser,
kept waiting for the hundred pounds which Burleigh grudged him 'for a
song,' might feel the mortification of his situation; but the statesman
never felt any diminution of his sovereign's favour in consequence of it."
The facts, as they are recorded in the "Dictionary of National Biography,"
are as follows: "The queen gave proof of her appreciation by bestowing a
pension on the poet. According to an anecdote, partly reported by
Manningham, the diarist (Diary, p. 43), and told at length by Fuller, Lord
Burghley, in his capacity of treasurer, protested against the largeness of
the sum which the queen suggested, and was directed by her to give the
poet what was reasonable. He received the formal grant of L50 a year in
February 1590-1." Cf. Spenser's lines in "Mother Hubbard's Tale," 895 ff.
_Though much later than Chaucer_. The rest of this paragraph and most of
the points elaborated in this lecture appeared in Hazlitt's review of
Sismondi's "Literature of the South" in 1815 (X, 73 ff.).
_Spenser's poetry is all fairyland._ In a lecture delivered in February,
1818, three years after Hazlitt's remarks had appeared in the Edinburgh
Review, Coleridge spoke as follows: "You will take especial note of the
marvellous independence and true imaginative absence of all particular
space or time in the Faery Queene. It is in the domains neither of history
or geography; it is ignorant of all artificial boundary, all material
obstacles; it is truly in the land of Faery, that is, of mental space. The
poet has placed you in a dream, a charmed sleep, and you neither wish, nor
have the power, to inquire where you are, or how you got there." Works,
IV, 250.
P. 22. _clap on high_. "Faerie Queene," III, xii, 23.
_In green vine leaves_. I, iv, 22.
_Upon the top_. I, vii, 32.
P. 23. _In reading the Faerie Queene_, etc. See III, ix, 10; I, vii; II,
vi, 5; III, xii.
_and mask_. "L'Allegro."
_And more to lull_. I, i, 41.
_honey-heavy dew of slumber_. "Julius Caesar," ii, 1, 230.
_Eftsoons they heard_. II, xii, 70.
P. 25. _House of Pride_. I, iv, 4.
_Cave of Mammon_. II, vii, 28.
_Cave of Despair_. I, ix, 33.
_the account of Memory_. II, ix, 54.
_description of Belphoebe_. II, iii, 21.
_story of Florimel_. III, vii, 12.
_Gardens of Adonis_. III, vi, 29.
_Bower of Bliss_. II, xii, 42.
_Mask of Cupid_. III, xii.
_Colin Clout's Vision_. VI, x, 10-27.
P. 26. _Poussin_, Nicolas (1594-1665), French painter. See Hazlitt's
delightful essay in "Table Talk" "On a Landscape by Nicholas Poussin."
_And eke_. III, ix, 20.
_the cold icicles_. III, viii, 35.
_That was Arion_. IV, xi, 23-24.
_Procession of the Passions_. I, iv, 16 ff.
P. 28. _Yet not more sweet_. Southey's "Carmen Nuptiale: Lay of the
Laureate." In the "Character of Milton's Eve" in the "Round Table,"
Hazlitt remarks that Spenser "has an eye to the consequences, and steeps
everything in pleasure, often not of the purest kind."
P. 30. _Rubens_, Peter Paul (1577-1640), Flemish painter. See the paper on
"The Pictures at Oxford and Blenheim" (Works, IX, 71): "Rubens was the
only artist that could have embodied some of our countryman Spenser's
splendid and voluptuous allegories. If a painter among ourselves were to
attempt a Spenser Gallery, (perhaps the finest subject for the pencil in
the world after Heathen mythology and Scripture history), he ought to go
and study the principles of his design at Blenheim."
_the account of Satyrane_. I, vi, 24.
_by the help_. III, x, 47.
_the change of Malbecco_. III, x, 56-60.
P. 31, n. _That all with one consent_. "Troilus and Cressida," iii, 3,
176.
P. 32. _High over hills_. III, x, 55.
_Pope who used to ask_. Pope is also quoted in Spence's "Anecdotes"
(Section viii, 1743-4) as saying that "there is something in Spenser that
pleases one as strongly in one's old age, as it did in one's youth. I
read the 'Faerie Queene,' when I was about twelve, with infinite delight,
and I think it gave me as much, when I read it over about a year or two
ago." Waller-Glover.
_the account of Talus_. V, i, 12.
_episode of Pastorella_. VI, ix, 12.