Complete Works of Edmund Spenser

by Edmund Spenser

  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; 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 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.’ 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, 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 s
trange 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 Courtat 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 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 poetryto 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.

  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.

  Those who marvel at such language perhaps forget what a dreary exile the poet’s life in Ireland must in fact have been. It is true that it was relieved by several journeys to England, by his receiving at least one visit from an English friend, by his finding, during at any rate the earlier part of his absence, some congenial English friends residing in the country, by his meeting at length with that Elizabeth whose excelling beauty he has sung so sweetly, and whom he married; it is also true that there was in himas in Milton and in Wordswortha certain great self- containedness, that he carried his world with him wherever he went, that he had great allies and high company in the very air that flowed around him, whatever land he inhabited; all this is true, but yet to be cut off from the fellowship which, however self-sufficing, he so dearly lovedto look no longer on the face of Sidney his hero, his ideal embodied, his living Arthur, to hear but as it were an echo of the splendid triumphs won by his and our England in those glorious days, to know of his own high fame but by report, to be parted from the friendship of Shaksperesurely this was exile. To live in the Elizabethan age, and to be severed from those brilliant spirits to which the fame of that age is due! Further, the grievously unsettled, insurgent state of Ireland at this timeas at many a time before and sincemust be borne in mind. Living there was living on the side of a volcanic mountain. That the perils of so living were not merely imaginary, we shall presently see. He did not shed tears and strike his bosom, like the miserable Ovid at Tomi; he ‘wore rather in his bonds a cheerful brow, lived, and took comfort,’ finding his pleasure in that high spiritual communion we have spoken of, playing pleasantly, like some happy father, with the children of his brain, joying in their caprices, their noblenesses, their sweet adolescence; but still it was exile, and this fact may explain that tone of discontent which here and there is perceptible in his writings.

  When in 1580 Arthur, Lord Grey of Wilton, was appointed Lord Deputy of Ireland, heperhaps through Lord Leicester’s influence, perhaps on account of Spenser’s already knowing something of the country made Spenser his Private Secretary. There can be no doubt that Spenser proceeded with him to Dublin. It was in Ireland, probably about this time, that he made or renewed his acquaintance with Sir Walter Raleigh. In 1581 he was appointed Clerk of Degrees and Recognizances in the Irish Court of Chancery, a post which he held for seven years, at the end of which time he received the appointment of Clerk to the Council of Munster. In the same year in which he was assigned the former clerkship, he received also a lease of the lands and Abbey of Enniscorthy in Wexford county. It is to be hoped that his Chancery Court duties permitted him to reside for a while on that estate. ‘Enniscorthy,’ says the Guide to Ireland published by Mr. Murray, ‘is one of the prettiest little towns in the Kingdom, the largest portion of it being on a steep hill on the right bank of the Slaney, which here becomes a deep and navigable stream, and is crossed by a bridge of six arches.’ There still stands there ‘a single tower of the old Franciscan monastery.’ But Spenser soon parted with this charming spot, perhaps because of its inconvenient distance from the scene of his official work. In December of the year in which the lease was given, he transferred it to one Richard Synot. In the following year Lord Grey was recalled. ‘The Lord Deputy,’ says Holinshed, ‘after long suit for his revocation, received Her Majesty’s letters for the same.’ His rule had been marked by some extreme, perhaps necessary, severities, and was probably somewhat curtly concluded on account of lou
d complaints made against him on this score. Spenser would seem to have admired and applauded him, both as a ruler and as a patron and friend. He mentions him with much respect in his View of the Present State of Ireland. One of the sonnets prefixed to the Faerie Queene is addressed ‘to the most renowmed and valiant lord the lord Grey of Wilton,’ and speaks of him with profound gratitude:

  Most noble lord the pillor of my life,

  And patrone of my Muses pupillage,

  Through whose large bountie poured on me rife,

  In the first season of my feeble age,

  I now doe live, bound yours by vassalage:

  Sith nothing ever may redeeme, nor reave

  Out of your endlesse debt so sure a gage,

  Vouchsafe in worth this small guift to receave,

  Which in your noble hands for pledge I leave,

  Of all the rest, that I am tyde t’ account.

  Lord Grey died in 1593. Spenser may have renewed his friendship with him in 1589, when, as we shall see, he visited England. For the present their connection was broken. It may be considered as fairly certain that when his lordship returned to England in 1582, Spenser did not return with him, but abode still in Ireland.