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knight, representing a particular virtue, brings his quest to a successful issue, and in each Prince Arthur plays a well defined and significant rôle.1 But in the second of them we see signs of a different handling, not only in the more intimate human psychology, but also in the introduction of characters, like Braggadocchio and Belphoebe, who are irrelevant to the main plot. In the third and fourth books this change in the conduct of the poem is so far developed as to break the pattern of the original design. Spenser's canvas becomes more crowded. He realizes that the mere presence of Arthur in each book is not enough to save his poem from falling into twelve separate romances; he feels the need of a closer interdependence; and desires not only to keep in sight those heroes whose mission is already fulfilled, but also to introduce others whose main achievements are to be his subsequent theme. His action, therefore, becomes more complicated. He starts adventures, but keeps the reader in suspense as to their issue, and as far as mere narrative is concerned he seems to be treating his plot with all the daring inconsequence of Ariosto.

But to argue from this impression that Spenser was writing at random, and, grown weary of his allegory, was using his poem as a mere receptacle for any casual and irrelevant thought or incident, is to draw a false conclusion. For this modification of his plan was suggested by the nature of the virtues that he came in these books to interpret; and the allegory only becomes more intricate because, in dealing with Love and Friendship, it must adapt itself to the complex realities of life.

The position of women in society had lately undergone a significant change. At the court of Elizabeth women no longer received an empty homage which excluded them from all the more serious interests of life. Their culture, their education, their artistic accomplishments, enabled them to share in the intellectual life of their time: they were not merely lovers, they had become companions and friends. At the same time, the veneration in which the Middle Ages had professed to hold them, though it was often a transparent cloak for contempt, had received new life from the teaching of the Platonists, whose doctrines, as set forth for example in the Courtier of Castiglione, had a wide vogue among the more thoughtful men of the time. Love was to them the expression of the yearning of the soul after true beauty. They recognized its physical basis, but saw in 'sensuall covetynge the lowermost steppe in the stayers by the whiche a man may ascende to true love'. Beautie, said Bembo in the Courtier, was good, and consequently 'the true love of it is most good, holy, and evermore bringeth forth good frutes in the soules of them, that with the

1 It is worth noticing, as illustrative of the care with which Spenser arranged his plot, that the part played by Arthur, important as it is as a first climax in the general allegorical development, is described in the eighth canto of each book, except in Book III, where, as Britomart is herself invulnerable, Arthur finds no organic place. * This, indeed, begins in Book II, into which the Red Cross Knight enters. $ Castiglione's Courtier, translated by Hoby 1561. Ed. Tudor Translations, PP. 345, 346.

brydle of reason restrayne the yll disposition of sense'. The interaction of Platonic theory and personal experience is responsible for much of the portraiture of woman in Elizabethan literature. Thus the Arcadia differs from earlier romances both in the prominence and the variety of its heroines. And Spenser, the friend of Sidney, had long been an ardent Platonist. His early hymns to Love and Beauty, are the completest expression in our literature of the doctrines of Bembo and Ficino, and in the Shepheardes Calender he had voiced the same conviction. Like all lovers of beauty he was keenly susceptible to the influence of women, and if we may judge by the dedications of his poems he had found in their company both friendship and understanding. The virtue of Chastity, therefore, appears to him in a widely different form from that in which it was celebrated either by the mediaeval saint, or in the knightly conventions of the Courts of Love.

Chastity to Spenser is no monastic virtue, the mere escape from all the temptations of the flesh. This aspect of the matter had already been treated in the triumph of Sir Guyon over the wiles of Acrasia, and could easily have been elaborated by a rigid adherence to the original scheme of the poem. To Spenser it has a far wider significance, it is the key to the intercourse of man and woman in all the relationships of life. It is, in fact, inseparable from some aspects of friendship; and the alteration of the close of Book III, so as to hold in suspense the fates of Scudamour and Amoret, was designed to bring out more clearly the close kinship of these two virtues, based as they both are on physical instinct, and potent alike either for good or evil, according to the spiritual quality of the character in which they worked.

Wonder it is to see, in diuerse minds,
How diuersly loue doth his pageants play,
And shewes his powre in variable kinds. (III. v. 1.)

This diversity, wherein lies at once the interest and the ethical significance of the study, could not be shown by dwelling exclusively upon the fortunes of one hero and heroine. It calls for a fuller canvas, in which the ideal may be presented in different types of character, and may be seen in relation with characters who illustrate its variable kinds. Britomart, Amoret, Belphoebe, Florimel, are all types of 'Chastity', but are essentially different And no student of life can doubt that Spenser is right in giving prominence to a heroine rather than a hero. He has been blamed because the adventure assigned to Scudamour is in reality achieved by Britomart, who thus becomes the dominant figure in the legend of Chastity. But he had seen enough of life to realize where man, for all his heroism and nobility, was likely to be found the weakest, and where he must turn for aid, not to other men, but to the noblest type of womanhood. And so he conceives of Scudamour as a man of high courage, in many respects a noble knight, and certainly a sincere lover, yet unable, without the help of Britomart, to expel from his nature the evil which makes him unworthy to gain his quest. It is significant, too, of his reading of life, that Belphoebe, the fancy free, has no masculine counterpart. Marinell's avoidance of woman is from fear, not natural instinct, and leads only to his overthrow. For man, at least, it is

A lesson too too hard for liuing clay,

From loue in course of nature to refraine. (III. iv. 26.)

And how love may best be ordered is best taught in the study of its manifestation in different characters in Arthur, who is stirred to a restless desire for noble deeds, and Timias, who allows the strength of a noble passion to confuse his mind and paralyse his whole nature, in Malbecco and Braggadocchio, in whom lust is overmastered by two stronger and baser passions, greed and fear; in the witch's son and the fisherman in whom mere animalism is uncontrolled by higher impulses ; in Sir Paridell, the accomplished seducer, who degrades the nobler qualities of a keen and subtle intellect to pander to his lust; and in the Squire of Dames, the contemptible offspring of a social decadence, who delights in recording

his aduentures vaine,

The which himselfe, then Ladies more defames, (III. viii. 44.) and who is significantly presented as in the clutches of Argante, the Giauntess of prostitution.

The whole book is charged with the subtlest moral significance. It is a mirror of the world that Spenser knew on its ideal and on its sordid sides, a world of which he recognized the temptations as surely as he saw the beauty. And his treatment of friendship follows the same lines. He presents what he feels to be the ideal as seen in contrast with more or less counterfeit imitations of it. As a centre to the book is the perfect friendship of Cambell and Triamond, and parallel to it a perfect friendship of a different kind between two women, Britomart and Amoret. These are founded on virtue, and on absolute devotion of self to the friend. As a contrast to them is the friendship of the baser knights, Paridell and Blandamour, who are only friends as long as it suits their private interests, but are ready to fight directly those interests diverge, and the still baser Braggadocchio, whose nature is incapable of either friendship or enmity. And the second half of the book deals suggestively with that most delicate of problems, the friendship between the sexes, thus bearing a close relationship in theme with the previous book. Timias represents that type of man who lacks the self-restraint demanded by such a friendship. Even in his defence of Amoret he wounds her; and his well-intentioned protection of her only leads him to be faithless to his sworn allegiance to Belphoebe, whose

noble heart with sight thereof was fild
With deepe disdaine, and great indignity. (Iv. vii. 36.)

But Arthur, the stronger and more controlled nature, has no temptations like those of Timias, and his friendship with Amoret and Emilia, to which he is faithful under the inevitable revilings of the basest slander, casts no shadow on the love for Gloriana to which his life is devoted.

So comprehensive a treatment of love and friendship would obviously have been impossible under the original scheme, and the intricate plot, attacked by critics as a series of irrelevant episodes, is fully justified by the deeper purpose of the poet.

In the fifth book, of Justice, Spenser reverts once more to the simpler plan with which he had started; for the interest is never diverted from the adventures of the main actors, Sir Artegall and Prince Arthur, though Britomart, as Artegall's lover, and the central figure of Books III-V, still plays a prominent part. But the peculiar nature of the theme seemed to demand a special treatment; and the allegory, which is to present the character necessary to him who would be his sovereign's 'instrument', and to expound Spenser's whole theory of government, finds its substance not in legend or romance, but in those three great events which led up to the final clash with the power of Spain the suppression of rebellion in Ireland, encouraged and supported by Philip, the execution of Mary Queen of Scots, and the war in the Netherlands. The first of these, of which Spenser had himself personal experience, bulks the largest; and the several adventures which befall Sir Artegall are vivid illustrations of points which he has emphasized in his prose indictment of the present state of Ireland. Before the Knight of Justice can subdue Grandtorto, the great enemy who keeps Irena in subjection, he meets with lawless outrage and deceit in Sir Sanglier, with the venality of Pollente and Munera, by whom justice is bought and sold, with the misunderstandings of a mob ever ready to stir up civil faction at the specious bidding of the Giant of demagogy, with the insolence of Braggadocchio, who takes to himself credit for the deeds done by the knight that he defames. Hardest of all he must subdue Malengin, type of that guile which will cross his path at every turn, and is capable of assuming any form if only it can elude his vigilance. And if for a moment he give way to womanish pity, however noble may seem to be its promptings, his work will be undone, and he will himself be enslaved to the Radegund whom he should destroy. True Justice 'had need have mightie hands':

For vaine it is to deeme of things aright,
And makes wrong doers justice to deride,

Unlesse it be performed with dreadlesse might. (v. vi. 1.)

Sir Artegall must have at his right hand Talus,

made of yron mould,

Immoueable, resistlesse, without end. (v. i. 12.)

Even after rebellion has been crushed and Grandtorto is destroyed, his task is not complete. There is still need of a wise but relentless government; and in the recall of Sir Artegall to the Faerie Court, leaving Irena in heavinesse, and himself pursued by the revilings of the witches Envy and Detraction and by the barkings of the Blatant Beast, Spenser views with passionate regret the fate meted out to his chosen knight of Justice.1

The sixth book, of Courtesy, has for its hero Sir Calidore. He has been enjoined by the Faerie Queen to bind the Blatant Beast, who, as the embodiment of Scandal, is the greatest foe to true Courtesy. In his adventures by the way Sir Calidore has many an opportunity to prove his fitness for the task. Of knightly courage he has the necessary equipment, and with ease he vanquishes the merely brutal tyranny of Maleffort and Crudor, and rescues Pastorella from a band of robbers. But the virtue for which he stands appears less in acts of prowess than in his personal demeanour :

For a man by nothing is so well bewrayd,
As by his manners; (VI. iii. 1)

and the essence of Courtesy is

to beare themselues aright

To all of each degree, as doth behoue. (v1. ii. 1.)

Under the insults of Briana he shows a sweet reasonableness, in his victory over Crudor he thinks more of his foe's reformation than of his own triumph, turning his victory to so good account that Briana is 'wondrously changed'. He encourages young Tristram in the path of knightly honour, and his relations with Sir Calepine and Serena, with Aladine and Priscilla, reveal the true character of a mind that thinks no evil of them, and spares no pains to save them from the wilful misconstruction of others. In the humbler society of the shepherd world, with its refinement and innocent pleasures, he finds such delight that he wellnigh forgets his quest. The churlishness of Corydon he overcomes as easily as the violence of Crudor : in Meliboe and Colin Clout he sees the reflection of his own ideal. Among simple folk he becomes himself simple, and, doffing his armour, wins the heart of Pastorella, who

Had euer learn'd to loue the lowly things. (VI. ix. 35.)

Prince Arthur performs his part in the book by his subjection of Turpine and the defeat of Disdain and Scorn, the sworn allies of the Blatant Beast; and other characters are introduced, in the manner of the third and fourth books, to throw light upon the main theme. The salvage man shows that courtesy, though reaching its perfection in the refinements of social life, is a natural instinct and not an acquired virtue; Timias and Serena illustrate the harm inflicted by the Blatant Beast on those who too rashly court its attack, Mirabella the bitter punishment of a scornful and

1 A masterly exposition of Book V, to which I am much indebted, will be found in E. A. Greenlaw's Spenser and British Imperialism : Modern Philology, January 1912.

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