EDMUND SPENSER. (From an original picture in the collection of the Right Honorable the Earl of Kinnoul.) EDMUND SPENSER. 1553-1599. -OUR sage and serious Spenser, whom I dare be known to think a better teacher than Scotus or Aquinas.-MILTON. Nor shall my verse that elder bard forget, O'er all the mazes of enchanted ground.-THOMSON. Of the childhood and youth of Chaucer, Spenser, and Shakespeare, the three great masters of English poetry previous to Milton, we know almost nothing. A few facts, however, in regard to Spenser's early life, have come down to us. He was born in East Smithfield, hard by the Tower of London, about the year 1553. In his poems he repeatedly refers to his connection with the noble house of Spencer in Lancashire. Thus in his Prothalamium: "At length they all to merry London came- His parents were probably poor, for, in May, 1569, we find him a sizar, or poor student," in Pembroke Hall, Cambridge University. There he became intimate with Gabriel Harvey, a pedantic scholar, who afterwards introduced him to Sir Philip Sidney, and otherwise befriended him. Spenser received the degree of A. B. in 1573, and of A. M. in 1576. Leaving the university, he went to the north of England, where he is supposed to have been employed as a teacher. There he fell in love. "Rosalind" did not reciprocate the attachment. Of course his sorrow found vent in poetry. His first important production was The Shepherd's Calendar, published in 1579. The name suggests pastoral poetry; but a great part of the work is a discussion of ecclesiastical matters by shepherds, whom Campbell very appropriately calls "parsons in disguise," and who certainly ought to have confined their discourse to matters in which their four-footed sheep were more immediately interested. Passages of considerable beauty, however, abound in the poem. It is divided into twelve parts, or eclogues, each corresponding to some month and named after it. Five editions of the work, during his lifetime, attest its popularity. Induced by Harvey, he had already come to London, and a warm friendship had sprung up between him and Sidney. Indeed, the Shepherd's Calendar is said to have been completed at Sidney's lordly mansion among the noble oaks of Penshurst, once the residence of the Saxon kings of Kent. The work was dedicated to Sidney, who introduced the young poet to his uncle, the powerful Earl of Leicester. The latter in 1580, employed Spenser to write out the Stemmata Dudleiana, a statement, probably in poetry, of the earl's genealogy and ties of kindred. In August, 1580, Spenser was secretary to Arthur Grey de Wilton, Lord Deputy to Ireland. During two years of Grey's energetic administration of Irish affairs, Spenser was with him in that country. Fourteen years later, Spenser ably vindicated Lord Grey's course by his well-written treatise, the only prose work of the poet, entitled, A View of the State of Ireland. For several years he now figured in the unenviable character of office-hunter and hanger-on at court, where he appears to have acquired that habit of gross flattery which is the greatest blemish in his writings. He made extraordinary efforts to secure the favor of Elizabeth's chief counsellor, Burleigh, who, with dogged obstinacy, sat on the lid of the treasury box whenever the queen was inclined to open it for the nice young man. It is related that she promised Spenser a hundred pounds, but that Burleigh pronounced the sum "beyond all reason." "Give him reason, then," replied the queen. Spenser, in a moment of boldness, sharply reminded the queen It pleased your grace, upon a time, We pity the gentle poet for his ill success in obtaining position and pension; but doubtless it was best that the fulsome praise with which he larded the stingy treasurer and the conceited queen should meet with disappointment. Perhaps we owe The Faerie Queene and some of his other poems to the stimulus of poverty. At all events, it is a satisfaction to know that he became thoroughly disgusted with the business of office-seeking. In Mother Hubbard's Tale, a poem of about 1,400 lines, composed soon afterwards, and containing some satire on the court and the clergy, he speaks with warmth of this bitter experience : Full little knowest thou, that hast not tried, To lose good days, that might be better spent; Through the influence of Grey, Leicester, and Sidney, he received in 1586, for his services as secretary, a grant of 3,028 acres in the county of Cork, it being a portion of the forfeited estate of the rebel earls of Desmond. As this grant was coupled with the condition that he should actually reside on the land and till it, there is reason to suspect that the shrewd lord-treasurer contrived, by this operation, to consign to honorable exile the protegé of his rival Leicester, in order that the poet might not become politically formidable with the pen. Thenceforward Spenser lived, most of the time, on his estate in Ireland, making his home at Kilcolman Castle, two miles from Doneraile. It is still a beautiful and romantic spot; and when the country abounded with woodland, it may well have been a favorite residence for such a man. Looking southward from the ruined castle, one sees a lake like a mirror in a wide green frame of grassy land. On every side are distant mountains. The silver thread of the river Mulla winds through this region, which the poet's genius has made enchanted ground. Hardly had it become his home, when a great sorrow befell him. His best friend and patron, the high-born Sidney, poet, scholar, warrior, prince of gentlemen,—“my Philip," as the queen loved to call him,-was mortally wounded in fighting the Spaniards near Zutphen. Three weeks he lingered, and then died. Spenser, who was almost of the same age, bewails his untimely death in several elegaic poems, written to console the mourning relatives. These pieces are characterized by childish conceits, but they contain passages of exquisite melody. We may say of them as he says of Sidney Witness the following: 66 Did never love so sweetly breathe In any mortal breast before; When he descended from the mount, "A sweet attractive kind of grace- The lineaments of gospel books. "Was never eye did see that face, Was never ear did hear that tongue, The following lines tenderly express his faith in Sidney's immortality: With all the dowries of celestial grace, By sovereign choice from th' heavenly quires select, O! what is now of it become aread? Ah me, can so divine a thing be dead? Ah! no: it is not dead, ne can it die, But lives for aye, in blissful Paradise: Where like a new-born babe it soft doth lie, There thousand birds, all of celestial brood, To him do sweetly carol day and night; But he them sees, and takes exceeding pleasure There liveth he in everlasting bliss, Sweet spirit, never fearing more to die : But live thou there, still happy, happy spirit ! But our own selves, that here in dole are drent. Soon Sir Walter Raleigh, who had received twelve thousand acres of the same forfeited estate, visited Spenser, and, "under the green alders by the Mulla's shore," heard from his lips portions of the first three books of The Faerie Queene. Raleigh was charmed with the man and the poem, and seems to have thenceforward occupied the place which Sidney had filled, as the poet's most useful friend. He took Spenser to England to publish these three books. He also urged Spenser's claims upon Queen Elizabeth's bounty; not in vain, for, in February, 1591, she rewarded him with a pension of £50. He is styled poet-laureate, but was not officially appointed. In December, 1591, after his return to Ireland, he dedicates, "To the Right Worthy and Noble Knight, Sir Walter Raleigh, Captain of Her Majesty's Guard,” a poem of about a thousand lines, entitled Colin Clout's Come Home Again. It is a pastoral, in which he sings of "the Shepherd of the Ocean," as he styles Raleigh; of Queen Elizabeth, whom he calls "the Goddess Cynthia;" of love, of beauty, and of the ocean. Resuming his labor on his great poem, he completed the fourth, fifth, and sixth books of The Faerie Queene, the noblest allegorical poem in the English language. It was designed to consist of twelve books, each describing the adventures of a particular hero, who represents some one virtue. The first book relates the adventures of the Knight of the Red Cross, who typifies holiness. The second illustrates temperance, personified in Sir Guyon; the third, chastity, represented by Britomartis, a lady knight; the fourth, friendship, seen in Cambell and Triamond; the fifth, justice, embodied in Artegal; the sixth, courtesy, in Sir Calidore. It is doubtful whether Spenser developed the story beyond these six books. Perhaps it is well that the last half has not come down to us; for there is a decided falling off in power after the first book; and, although 'art is long,' as this poem in its present state abundantly testifies, yet life is short. In this busy age few have time to read more of Spenser than the 35,000 lines which it contains. We may compare The Faerie Queene to the palace of the Vatican, with its thousands of apartments, its labyrinthian windings, its endless staircases and colonnades, its frescoes, statues, paintings, and beauties innumerable. The pure light of religion is over all. I shall not exhibit a chip of marble from this vast structure, and call the fragment a specimen. But I may quote enough to give a faint glimpse of the spirit and genius of the poet. Take these two stanzas on the ministry of angels, as two strains from a grand symphony. I. And is there care in heaven? And is there love In heavenly spirits to these creatures base, That may compassion of their evils move? There is :-else much more wretched were the case |