The Faerie Queene — Volume 01

for some three years. From that year to near the close of his life his home was to be in Ireland. He paid at least two visits to London and its environs in the cour

nd they have reckoned him a successful man, and wondered at the querulousness that occasionally ma

sulle

ent of my long

ourt and exp

, which still

ddowes, did af

n the very air that flowed around him, whatever land he inhabited; all this is true, but yet to be cut off from the fellowship which, however self- sufficing, he so dearly loved-to look no longer on the face of Sidney his hero, his ideal embodied, his living Arthur, to hear but as it were an echo of the splendid triumphs won by his and our England in those glorious days, to know of his own high fame but by report, to be parted from the friendship of Shakspere-surely this was exile. To live in the Elizabethan age, and to be severed from those brilliant spirits to which the fame of that age is due! Further, the grievously unsettled, insurgent state of Ireland at this time-as at m

of the lands and Abbey of Enniscorthy in Wexford county. It is to be hoped that his Chancery Court duties permitted him to reside for a while on that estate. 'Enniscorthy,' says the Guide to Ireland published by Mr. Murray, 'is one of the prettiest little towns in the Kingdom, the largest portion of it being on a steep hill on the right bank of the Slaney, which here becomes a deep and navigable stream, and is crossed by a bridge of six arches.' There still stands there 'a single tower of the old Franciscan monastery.' But Spenser soon parted with this charming spot, perhaps because of its inconvenient distance from the scene of his official work. In December of the year in which the lease was given, he transf

ord the pill

of my Muse

arge bountie po

season of m

e, bound your

ever may rede

ndlesse debt

rth this small

oble hands for

t, that I am t

visited England. For the present their connection was broken. It may be considered as fairly certain that

entleman is the same with him of whose postal services mention is found, as we have seen, in 1569. At any rate there is nothing whatever to justify his identification with the poet. On the other hand, there are several circumstances which seem to indicate that Spenser was in Ireland continuo

gether at the author's cottage near Dublin, consisting of 'Dr. Long, Primate of Ardmagh; Sir Robert Dillon, knight; M. Dormer, the Queene's sollicitor; Capt. Christopher Carleil; Capt. Thomas Norreis; Capt. Warham St. Leger; Capt. Nicholas Dawtrey; and M. Edmond Spenser, late your lordship's secretary; and Th. Smith, apothecary.' In the course of conversation Bryskett envies 'the happinesse of the Italians who have in their mother-tongue late writers that have with a singular easie method taught all that which Plato or Aristotle have confusedly or obscurely left written.' The 'late writers' who have performed this highly r

h we shall gather from your speeches, if you shall vouchsafe to open unto vs the goodly cabinet, in which this excellent treasure of vertues lieth locked up from the vulgar sort. And thereof in the behalfe of all as for myselfe, I do most earnestly intreate you not to say vs nay. Vnto which wordes of mine euery man applauding most with like words of request and the rest with gesture and countenances expressing as much, M. Spenser answered in this maner: Though it may seeme hard for me, to refuse the request made by you all, whom euery one alone, I should for many respects be willing to gratifie; yet as the case standeth, I doubt not but with the consent of the most part of you, I shall be excused at this time of this taske which would be laid vpon me, for sure I am, that it is not vnknowne unto you, that I haue already vndertaken a work tending to the same effect, which is in heroical verse under the title of a Faerie Queene to represent all the moral vertues, assigning to every vertue a Knight to be the patron and defender of the same, in whose actions and feates of arms and chiualry the operations of that vertue, whereof he is the protector, are to be expressed, and the vices and unruly appetites that oppose themselves against the same, to be beaten down and overcome. Which work, as I haue already well entred into, if God shall please to spare me life that I may finish it according to my mind, your wish (M. Bryskett) will be in some sort accomplished, though perhaps not so effectually as you could desire. And the may very well serue for my excuse, if at this time I craue to be forborne in this your request, since any discourse, that I might make thus on the sudden in such a subject would be but simple, and little to your satisfactions. For it would require good aduisement and premeditation for any man to vndertake the declaration of these points that you have proposed, containing in effect the Ethicke part of Morall Philosophie. Whereof since I haue taken in hand to discourse at large in my poeme before spoken, I hope the expectation of that work may serue to free me at this time from speaking in that matter, notwithstanding your motion and all your intreaties. But I will tell you how

y in what high estimation his learning and genius were already held, and how, in spite of Harvey's sinister criticisms, he had resumed his great work. It tells us too that he found in Ireland a warmly appreciative friend, if indeed he had not known Bryskett before their going to Ireland. Bryskett too, perhaps, was acquainted with Sir Philip Sidney; for two

the sonnet already quoted from, addressed to Lord Grey-one of the sonnets that in

which a rustic

le, far from P

d to the Right Honourable th

in the course of the decad now under consideration, Spenser received a grant of l

enser remained in Ireland after Lord Grey's recall. How thorough his familiarity with

in the third, God blew and scattered the Armada, and also Leicester died. Spenser weeps over Sidney-there was never, perhaps, more weeping, poetical and other, over any deat

flu

hting was

on him to speak. He was expected to bring his immortelle, so to say, and lay it on his hero's tomb, though his limbs would scarcely support him, and his hand, quivering with the agony of his heart, could with difficulty either weave it or carry it. All the six years they had been parted, the image of that chivalrous form had never been forgotten. It had served for the o

pirite breath

osom of the

ountie and al

their nati

h that noble

assing all this

n itselfe, which

pirite, full

e of all cel

infull earth an

soone unto hi

all that did h

ll this wretche

right and tr

happie soule

leshie gaole,

avenlie Mak

s a spotles

at guiltie ha

h th' offring of

ging for his c

te, live ther

wonder, and the

, and leave me

ares and cumbr

u dost that h

me quicklie

ere I maie the

Fates affoord

d in speaking

ee untill that

me doe ende my

hou my humble

that sacred

e breathest per

edition of the Faerie Queene in 1751,{4} and the Biographia Britannica, the grant of land made him in Cork is dated June 27, 1586. But the grant, which is extant, is dated October 26, 1591. Yet certainly, as Dr. Grosart points out, in the 'Articles' for the 'Undertakers,' which received the royal assent on June 27, 1586, Spenser is set down for 3,028 acres; and that he was at Kilcolman before 1591 seems certain. As he resigned his clerkship in the Court of Chancery in 1588, and was then appointed, as we have seen, clerk of the Council of Munster, he probably went to live somewhere in the province of Munster that same year. He may have lived at Kilcolman befo

f which of th

ke water, and

hat once his

mbling from Sl

hose waues I whil

. There the poet sings that the place appointed for the trial of the t

n the hig

(Who knowes n

hest head (in a

er Mole, whom

th hymnes fit fo

1591'{5}- written therefore after a lengthy absence in England- exhibits a full familiarity with the country round about Kilcolman. On the wh

nation, by ill-concealed sympathies with the Spanish invaders amongst the native population, when the Armada came and went. The old castle in which he had lived had been one of

em The Faerie Queene. The castle is now almost level with the ground, and was situated on the north side of a fine lake, in the midst of a vast plain, terminated to the east by the county of Waterford mountains; Bally- howra hills to the north, or, as Spenser terms them, the mountains of Mole, Nagl

epted, lived Spenser still singing sweetly, still, as he might say, piping, with the woods answerin

ne or mo

to praise hi

mutual passions. It must have sounded strangely to hear the notes of his sweet voice welling forth from his

waines that did

greedie lis

onisht at his

are, dismayed wit

e of genius, who has already been mentioned as of affinity with him-by Wordsworth. Wordsworth too sang in a certain sense from the shade, far away from the vanity of courts, and the uproar of cities; sang 'from a still plac

ps quote those exquisite lines written by one of them of a som

ds for si

or higher

de the fa

rested wi

lord of l

wn to pay

.

rocks which

mountains

nned them

ves where F

tered; and

how men li

alluded to-that paid to him in 1589 by Sir Walter Raleigh, with whom it will be remembered he had become acquainted some nine years before. Raleigh, too, had received a grant from the same huge forfeited estate, a fragment of which had been given to Spenser. The granting of these, and other shares of the Desmond estates, formed part of a policy th

gh, 'there are not many scenes more full of horror that those which the historians of that period rapidly sketch when sh

undesirable, brought Raleigh into Cork County in 1589. A full account of this visit and its important results is given us in Colin Clouts Come Home Again, which gives us at the same time a charming picture of the poe

of Mole, that

eepe amongst

alders by the

o styled himself the S

red with my

g sound yshri

by chaunce, I k

him ou

o plaie some

Mole's daughter, and of another river called Br

s all a lam

ndnesse and o

the ladie

presence faultl

anon, with

, to make hi

ueene and godd

ttie when thou

n end of singing, the

great lyking

lyking to my

d my selfe, lik

te where I wa

d him to accompany him

year 1589 at least three books were completely finished. Probably enough parts of other books had been written; but only three were entirely ready for publication. No doubt part of the conversation that passed between Spenser and Raleigh related to Spenser's work. It may be believed that wha

otes

s lines on 'the Characteristics of a Child three years old,' for in the res

sparkles o

unattended

oung and old sit

light in it

happy creat

icient; Sol

ciety, who f

s and involu

outs Come Home A

ed b

'Lodovick' menti

was from him a

ser obtained by

the office of

il of Munster. S

i. p.

ers in his note t

the County and

vol. i. book i.

50, 8vo. And Fi

y, part

to regard this d

95, quite un

dwards, 1868, I.

ome Home Again

sex hath chased Mr

ed him in Irelan

, from Captain

q.-Quoted by Tod

n Elizabeth.-Se

aleigh, I

lines entitled '

Faery Queene,'

ie Q