EDMUND SPENSER was, with one illustrious exception, the greatest of those poets whose genius brightened the reign of Elizabeth. He was the earliest of the poetical stars that rose in that dazzling firmament, and closed his life when Shakespeare was in the midst of his career. Indeed, although the English language had undergone great development as well as great changes during the two centuries after the death of Chau cer, yet the long period gave birth to no great poet. Spenser was, therefore, justified in asserting, that he was the shepherd boy who, after Tityrus, his lay first sang. The spirit of his inventions was caught from the chivalry and minstrelsy of the Middle Ages with its fantastically gorgeous pictures, and its fondness for allegory. His forms were due to Italian studies, which, introduced by Surrey and others, exercised a strong influence upon all the Elizabethan poetry. The events of Spenser's life, though less obscure than that of Shakespeare's, are known imperfectly; and his biographers often resort to conjecture to satisfy the curiosity of their readers. He was born in London, probably in 1553. He was evidently descended of a good family, and some circumstances in his early history suggest that his father belonged to the branch of the Spensers settled at Hurstwood in Lancashire. He was admitted to Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, as a sizar, in 1569, and graduated M. A. in 1576. This is all we know with certainty in regard to his youth. In the north of England he wrote his first considerable work, "The Shepherd's Calender," a series of twelve pastorals named from the months, published in 1579. These pieces exhibit not only the fondness for old words and phrases which always clung to the author, but an excess of rustic familiarity both in sentiment and in expression. Yet passages in all of them justify to the full the reputation they gained for him. As a reward of its merit, the virgin Queen was pleased to make him Poet Laureate. About the same time Spenser was tempted, with other learned men of the time, to endeavor to naturalize in England the dactylic hexameters and other prosodial forms of the classical tongues. He was already engaged in composing his epic; and his correspondence mentions also nine comedies which he had written before 1580. He had become acquainted with Sir Philip Sidney, whose friendship he has commemorated in verse; and he was patronized, in early manhood, by Sidney's uncle, the all-powerful Earl of Lei cester. Spenser went to Ireland in 1580 as secretary to Lord Grey, of Wilton, then appointed viceroy, and immortalized by the poet under the character of Artegal, the personification of justice. Lord Grey's government was very short; but, while it lasted, the poet was made clerk of the Irish Court of Chancery, and received also a lucrative lease of abbey-lands in Wexford. In 1586 he received another grant of 3,000 acres of land in the county of Cork, on which stood his castle of Kilcolman. His residence must have been chiefly in Ireland for several years; and on his Irish domain, by his beloved stream Mulla, his great poem was principally composed. Spenser, without forgetting to emulate the lyrical and meditative effusions of Petrarch and his followers, aimed, in his greatest work, at doing for English literature what Ariosto and Tasso had recently done for the literature of Italy. He designed to construct, from the undigested elements of mediæval song, a polished and elaborate work of art, which should resuscitate the world of chivalry in a shape acceptable to a generation further advanced in knowledge and familiar with models higher than the old romances. The design was executed in his "Faerie Queen," with a marvellous affluence of imagery at once romantic and natural, and with a delicate feeling of the beautiful such as hardly any poet has ever surpassed. If his symbolic meanings sometimes press themselves on us so closely as to cool the poetic mood, they are as often embodied in scenes and figures which, with or without regard to their hidden signification, entrance us by a spell as powerful as those of the enchanters and elves amidst whom we are brought to wander. It was in 1590 that the poet published in England the first Three Books of the "Faerie Queen," which are by universal consent the finest. The allegorical design, explained in an introductory letter to Raleigh, was set forth in the title-page: "The Faerie Queen, disposed into twelve books, fashioning Twelve Moral Virtues." In the Three Legends which first appeared were allegorized Holiness, Temperance, and Chastity. In 1591 appeared a volume of his minor poems, or, as he styled them, "Complaints. Its most noticeable pieces are, "The Ruins of Time," "The Tears of the Muses," and a long satirical fable called "Mother Hubbard's Tale." Spenser was addicted to complaining; and, though he had received so much from his patrons and showed himself attentive and shrewd in matters of business, he was poor in the latter part of his life, probably owing to the disturbed state of Ireland. Queen Elizabeth was glorified in his great poem, but she was frugal in expenditure. After the "Complaints" appeared, she bestowed on him a pension of £50 a year. In 1595 he published "Colin Clout's Come Home Again," a poem interesting for its many allusions to his personal history. In the same year he also brought out a large series of Sonnets, and the exquisite "Epithalamion," in which he celebrates his recent marriage. In 1596 Spenser brought to England and published three more Books of "The Faerie Queen." They are the Legends of Friendship, Justice, and Courtesy. All that we possess beyond these is a fragment containing two cantos "Of Mutability." The six later Books, required for working out the design, are traditionally said to have been lost on a voyage from Ireland; but it is doubtful if the poem was ever in reality completed. Besides these poetical works, large and small, Spenser wrote a treatise, "A View of the State of Ireland,” finished in 1596, but not published till 1633. It is a sagacious investigation of the country in which he had spent many years of his life, and is an excellent and vigorous specimen of old English prose. In September, 1598, he was appointed sheriff of Cork. Perhaps this office caused the tragical catastrophe which hastened his end. The rebellion of Tyrone breaking out immediately, Kilcolman Castle was burned, and Spenser's infant child perished in the flames, though he and his wife escaped and sought shelter in London. He died there on the 16th of January, 1599. According to Ben Jonson he perished of want; but the statement seems improbable. His funeral, at all events, was splendidly celebrated by the Earl of Essex. His grave is in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey, next to that of Chaucer. THE EPITHALAMION. Wake now, my love, awake; for it is time; All ready to her silver coach to climb; And Phoebus 'gins to show his glorious head. The merry lark her matins sings aloft; The thrush replies; the mavis descant plays; To this day's merriment. Ah! my dear love, why do you sleep thus long, For they of joy and pleasance to you sing, That all the woods them answer and their echo ring. My love is now awake out of her dream, And her fair eyes, like stars that dimmed were But first come, ye fair Houris, which were begot, And all, that ever in this world is fair, Do make and still repair; And ye three handmaids of the Cyprian Queen, And, as ye her array, still throw between Some graces to be seen; And as ye use to Venus, to her sing, The whiles the woods shall answer, and your Open the temple gates unto my love, Open them wide that she may enter in, That cometh in to you With trembling steps, and humble reverence, When so ye come into those holy places, Bring her up to the high altar, that she may The choristers the joyous anthem sing, York Public Library, St. Agnes Branch, 2279 BROADWAY, CIRCULATING DEPARTMENT echo ring. That all the woods may answer, and their echo ring. Behold, while she before the altar stands, Hearing the holy priest that to her speaks, VIII-17 |