but the passion, which is the soul of such descriptions (as in Bunyan, who presumably borrowed from it), is lacking. The device by which the writer allays his doubts and satisfies his conscience is very characteristic. He makes the Hermit decide the question for him, and puts into his mouth the advice which accords with the promptings of his own inclinations.

These remarks refer mainly to Canto x., where the knight is brought to the "House of Holinesse." Here he is taught repentance, and being instructed by Charity ("Charissa") "of love and righteousnes and well to donne," he is brought by an ancient matron, "Mercy," to a hill, on the top of which was a little hermitage inhabited by "an aged holy man" whose name was "hevenly Contemplation" (46). He leads the knight to a high mountain from which he shows him far off the heavenly city," the new Hierusalem" (57). Upon which the knight declares that till then he had supposed

That great Cleopolis, where I have beene,
In which that fairest Faery Queene doth dwell,
The fairest citty was that might be seene;

but he now thinks the other far surpassed it. however, bids him return:

ne maist thou yitt

The hermit,

Forgoe that royal maides bequeathed care, (63.)

Cleopolis is, of course, London, e.g.—

Of Gloriane, great Queene of glory bright,

Whose kingdomes seat Cleopolis is red. (I. vii. 46.)

and compare II. x. 72, where London is again referred to under that name.

In the same way the choice between the contemplative and the active life is figured in the final canto of Book I., where after marrying Una and long enjoying her company, the knight remembers his promise

Unto his Faery Queene backe to retourne ;

The which he shortly did, and Una left to mourne. (41.)

It describes a

All this is, to my mind, plain enough. young man of great parts and great aspirations, who has a strong sense of an intellectual mission, but who is also ambitious for an active career in the service of the State. He is represented, in effect, as postponing the prosecution of the one until he has achieved success in the other. This is precisely what occurred, or what he thought had occurred, when he took stock of himself, in Bacon's case, and it becomes in his writings the subject alike of selfreproach and self-justification, according as he was looking inwards or towards the world. The legendary story which is interwoven in these episodes has not, in my view, the importance in the writer's mind which is sometimes attached to it. I think it is wholly subordinate to the purposes of self-expression, being the machinery by which this is attained under forms which appeal to the imagination.

A similar conflict of choice is shown in the "Astrophel and Stella" sonnets, between reason and sense ("wit" and "will"), which is substantially the theme of Book II. of the Faerie Queene, and in the 10th sonnet the state of feeling in which the writer finds himself is contrasted with his early intentions:

Reason, in faith thou art well serv'd, that still

Wouldst brabbling be with Sense and Love in me;

I rather wish'd thee climb the Muses' hill;

Or reach the fruit of Nature's choicest tree;

Or seek heav'n's course or heav'n's inside to see:

Why shouldst thou toil our thorny soil to till?

Leave Sense, and those which Sense's objects be;
Deal thou with powers of thoughts, leave Love to Will.

As the vocabulary of the writer in dealing with this subject is specialised, and his meaning expressed with great economy of language, I make no apology for giving a paraphrase. The writer is addressing his "Reason" as something within, but apart from, himself as a man in the world:

Surely, Reason, you have only yourself to blame that you should be wasting time over problems of love and passion in me,

seeing that I wished you rather to devote yourself to the pursuit of the Arts, or Natural Philosophy, or Divinity. Why should you labour in the thorny soil in which bodily sense is placed? Leave alone sense and the objects to which it is directed: deal rather with the functions of thought, and leave Desire to the natural appetites.

It will be noticed that the fifth line is, in epitome, the substance of the vision-the narrow path and the heavenly city to which it leads-of the Redcrosse knight, referred to above:

From thence, far off he unto him did shew
A little path that was both steepe and long,
Which to a goodly Citty led his vew,

(I. x. 55.)

I referred in Chapter III. to the three posthumous "Mutabilitie" cantos. The last is, or purports to be, a fragment:

THE VIII. CANTO, UNPERFITE

I

When I bethinke me on that speech whyleare
Of Mutabilitie, and well it way!

Me seemes, that though she all unworthy were
Of the Heav'ns Rule; yet, very sooth to say,
In all things else she beares the greatest sway:
Which makes me loath this state of life so tickle,
And love of things so vaine to cast away;
Whose flowring pride, so fading and so fickle,

Short Time shall soon cut down with his consuming sickle.

II

Then gin I thinke on that which Nature sayd,

Of that same time when no more Change shall be,

But stedfast rest of all things, firmely stayd

Upon the pillours of Eternity,

That is contrayr to Mutabilitie;

For all that moveth doth in Change delight:

But thence-forth all shall rest eternally

With Him that is the God of Sabaoth hight:

O that great Sabaoth God, grant me that Sabaoths sight.

This canto, with the other two, was published, as previously noted, in 1609, at a time when Bacon was working

at the Novum Organum, and in the closing sentences (couched in the form of a prayer) of the "Plan of the Work" (Distributio Operis) the following passage occurs:

Tu postquam conversus es ad spectandum opera quae fecerunt manus tuae, vidisti quod omnia essent bona valde; et requievisti. At homo conversus ad opera quae fecerunt manus suae, vidit quod omnia essent vanitas et vexatio spiritus; nec ullo modo requievit. Quare si in operibus tuis sudabimus, facies nos visionis tuae et sabbati tui participes.

[Thou when thou turnedst to look upon the works which thy hands had made, sawest that all was very good, and didst rest from thy labours. But man, when he turned to look upon his work which his hands had made, saw that all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and could find no rest therein. Wherefore if we labour in thy works with the sweat of our brows, thou wilt make us partakers of thy vision and thy sabbath.]

In a footnote Spedding compares this with St. Augustine's prayer at the close of the Confessions, and adds "Compare also the line with which the Faerie Queene breaks off."

The sentence ("Wherefore if we labour," etc.) with which this passage concludes occurs also, in English, in the prayer composed by Bacon which he called "The Writer's Prayer." The same thought occurs in the very selfregarding Essay "Of Great Place":

But power to do good is the true and lawful end of aspiring. For good thoughts, though God accept them, yet towards men are little better than good dreams, except they be put in act; and that cannot be without power and place, as the vantage and commanding ground. Merit and good works is the end of man's motion, and conscience of the same is the accomplishment of man's rest. For if a man can be a partaker of God's theatre, he shall likewise be partaker of God's rest. Et conversus Deus, ut aspiceret opera, quae fecerunt manus suae, vidit quod omnia essent bona nimis; and then the Sabbath.

The "Writer's Prayer" furnishes us also with further evidence of a most striking character in the similarity of thought and expression between its opening words and the second stanza of Spenser's "Hymne of Heavenly Beautie." The Prayer begins:

Thou, O Father! who gavest the Visible Light as the firstborn of thy Creatures, and didst pour into man the Intellectual Light as the top and consummation of thy workmanship, be pleased to protect and govern this work, which coming from thy Goodness returneth to thy Glory.

The lines in Spenser's "Hymne" are as follow:

Vouchsafe then, O thou most Almightie Spright!
From whom all guifts of wit and knowledge flow
To shed into my breast some sparkling light
Of thine eternall Truth, that I may show
Some litle beames to mortall eyes below

Of that immortall beautie, there with thee,
Which in my weake distraughted mynd I see.

A few parallels (in treatment as well as subject) of an interesting character between Spenser and Shakespeare, which occur in the Faerie Queene, may be noted:

Book II. iv.-Phaon in the hands of "Furor" and "Occasion." His story presents a close parallel with that of Othello; see stanzas 18-31.

Book II. x. In the relation of the Briton kings, taken from Geoffrey's "History," the story of Lear is told (27-32), with certain similar deviations.

Book III. i.-Venus and Adonis on the tapestry (34-38).

Book III. ii.-Britomart discovers her passion for the knight, whom she has seen in the magic mirror, to her nurse, Glaucè. The character of the nurse here and in Romeo and Juliet is identical, and her talk gives the grave Muse of Spenser one of the few occasions which it takes for the revelation of a sense of humour. I have no doubt in my own mind that the character is drawn from the old "Gentlewoman " mentioned by the supposed "Puttenham" ["My mother had an old woman in her nurserie. ... The good Gentlewoman," etc.]. The remarks of Haslewood on this point are worthy of attention.1 This parallel is so striking that I quote some of the stanzas.

1 Ancient Critical Essays (edited by Joseph Haslewood, 1811), which includes a reprint of Puttenham's treatise. In the course of his preface the editor writes: "One passage in his work introduces him in the nursery,