Tài liệu A Biography of Edmund Spenser pdf

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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
CHAPTER I. 5
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
CHAPTER I. 6
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
CHAPTER I. 7
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
CHAPTER I. 8
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
CHAPTER I. 9
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,
CHAPTER I. 10
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
CHAPTER I. 11
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,
CHAPTER I. 12
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
CHAPTER I. 13
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.
CHAPTER II.
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.
CHAPTER II. 14