Leaves, lines and rymes, seek her to please alone,

Whom if ye please, I care for other none.

Compare Shepheards Calender, eclogue for " December," where (as I said in Chapter I.) I think the writer is speaking of the Queen:

The loser Lasse I cast to please no more;
One if I please, enough is me therefore.

Spenser elsewhere always subordinates his love to his admiration of the Queen (Faerie Queene, VI. x., etc.). These lines, therefore, unless applicable to the Queen, are not in his manner.

Sonnet iii. :

The soverayne beauty which I doo admyre

with her huge brightnesse dazed

I stand amazed

At wondrous sight of so celestiall hew.

Sonnet v.:

And her faire countenance, like a goodly banner,
Spreads in defiaunce of all enemies.

Sonnet ix. :

Long-while I sought to what I might compare
Those powrefull eies, which lighten my dark spright;
Yet find I nought on earth, to which I dare
Resemble th'ymage of their goodly light.

Not to the Sun, etc.

Then to the Maker selfe they likest be,

Whose light doth lighten all that here we see.

The Queen's eyes were said to be clear and lively. (See remarks and footnote under extract from Sonnet i.; and compare Sonnets xxi. and xlix., below.) The deification here is in Spenser's habitual manner when writing of the sovereign.

Sonnet xiii. :

In that proud port, which her so goodly graceth,
Whiles her faire face she reares up to the skie,

And to the ground her eie-lids low embaseth,
Most goodly temperature ye may descry;
Myld humblesse, mixt with awful majesty.

(See footnote under extract from Sonnet i.)
Sonnet xxi. :

With such strange termes her eyes she doth inure,
That with one looke, she doth my life dismay;
And with another doth it streight recure;
Her smile me drawes; her frowne me drives away.
Thus does she traine and teach me with her lookes;
Such art of eyes I never read in bookes.

See remarks under Sonnet ix., and compare with it
Bacon's description in his "Discourse in Praise of the
Queen," which Spedding thinks was written about 1592:

What life, what edge is there in those words and glances, wherewith at pleasure she can give a man long to think, be it that she mean to daunt him, to encourage him, or to amaze him.1

Sonnet xxvii. :

That goodly Idoll, now so gay beseene,

That many now much worship and admire.

(Compare remarks on this in Chapter XVII. p. 501.)
Sonnet xlix. :

Fayre cruell! why are ye so fierce and cruell?
Is it because your eyes have powre to kill?
Then know that mercy is the Mighties jewell:
And greater glory thinke to save then spill.
But if it be your pleasure and proud will,
To shew the powre of your imperious eyes;
Then not on him that never thought you ill,
But bend your force against your enemyes:

But him that at your foot stoole humbled lies,
With mercifull regard, give mercy too.

Sonnet lv.:

For to the heaven her haughty lookes aspire.

1 Spedding, Life, i. 138.

Sonnet lxi. :

The glorious image of the Makers beautie,

The soverayne saynt, the Idoll of my thought,

For being, as she is, divinely wrought,
And of the brood of Angels hevenly borne ;

Such heavenly formes ought rather worshipt be,
Then dare be lov'd by men of meane degree.

Spenser was in a good position in Ireland, and had no reason to adopt this attitude of social humility towards the lady whom he is supposed to have married. But compare with this the lines in the Faerie Queene (III. v.), referred to at p. 371 above, as to Timias and Belphoebe. Still more remarkable in this connection is Sonnet lxvi. :

To all those happy blessings, which ye have
With plenteous hand by heaven upon you thrown;
This one disparagement they to you gave,

That ye your love lent to so meane a one.

Yee, whose high worths surpassing paragon

Could not on earth have found one fit for mate,

Ne but in heaven matchable to none,

Why did ye stoup unto so lowly state?
But ye thereby much greater glory gate,
Then had ye sorted with a princes pere.

And again in Sonnet lxxxii. :

your owne mishap I rew,

That are so much by so meane love embased.

1

Everybody who reads these sonnets must also notice the recurrence of the word "Angel," with a capital "A." Grosart, who observed it, says "it is not to be gainsaid that the Poet's use of 'Angel' is peculiar, and in a way enigmatical." The explanation, however, is provided by Spenser himself, who throughout the Faerie Queene uses it whenever he introduces the various impersonations of Queen Elizabeth, and he connects it with the ancient name for the English, "Angles." It was also evidently

1 Works of Spenser, i. 197.

current at the Court, in the form of "Angelica,” as a name for the Queen. I have made a note of the passages where I have come across it, and it will be sufficient for the purpose to transcribe it.

"ANGEL"

=

- QUEEN ELIZABETH.

FQ. III. iii. 56-58.

Saxon Virgin," etc.:

The Nurse to Britomart: "I saw a

"Ah! read" (quoth Britomart), "how is she hight?”
"Fayre Angela" (quoth she) "men do her call,"

and Britomart dons the armour, "which long'd to Angela, the Saxon Queene." This is the locus classicus.

Of Angels brood. (Of Cambina-obviously Q. Elizabeth.)

IV. v. 13:

The heavenly pourtraict of bright Angels hew.

IV. vi. 19:

(Of Amoret―said also of Belphoebe. See above.)

Her angels face. (Of Britomart.)

V. ix. 29:

She, Angel-like, the heyre of ancient kings

And mightie Conquerors, in royall state,

Whylest kings and kesars at her feet did them prostrate.

(Of Mercilla.)

Colin Clout:

That Angels blessed eie.

Much like an Angell.

(Of the Queen.)

To Cynthia:

Such force her angelic appearance had.

(Poem attributed to Ralegh: Hannah, p. 36.)

Sir W. Ralegh, letter from the Tower:

Singing like an angell. (Of the Queen.)

Sir A. Gorges, letter about Ralegh in the Tower:

If the bright Angelica.

Sir R. Cecil, letter :

(Of the Queen.)

Whose angelical quality. (Of the Queen.)

The following examples occur in the Sonnets:

When ye beholde that Angels blessed looke.

Sonnet i.

Thrugh your bright beams doth not the blinded guest
Shoot out his dart to base affections wound;
But Angels come to lead fraile minds to rest

In chaste desires.

Sonnet viii.

The glorious pourtraict of that Angels face.

Sonnet xvii.

For being, as she is, divinely wrought,
And of the brood of Angels hevenly borne.

Sonnet lxi.

Sonnet xxxiv. deals apparently with some temporary loss of favour. "Helice" is a play on Elizabeth (cf. "Helicon," Sonnet i.):

So I, whose star, that wont with her bright ray
Me to direct, with cloudes is over-cast,

Doe wander now, in darknesse and dismay,
Through hidden perils round about me plast:

1 See letter at p. 426 below.

2 See p. 446, note. 3 Edwards, Life of Ralegh, i. 155.