The Faerie Queene - Volume 01

dedication of his Colin Clouts Come Home Again 'from my house at Kilcolman, the 27 of December, 1591.' On the other hand, the dedication of his

speak presently, introduces that work to the 'gentle reader,' seems to show that the poet was not at the time of the publishing easily accessible. He speaks of having endeavoured 'by all good meanes (for the better encrease and accomplishment of your delights) to get into my hands such small poems of the same authors, as I heard were disperst abroad in sundrie hands, and not easie to bee come by by himselfe; some of them having been diverslie imbeziled and purloyned from him since his departure ouer sea.' He says he understands Spenser 'wrot

determined to put forth what other poems by the same hand he could gather together. The result was a volume entitled 'Complaints, containing sundrie small Poe

ther Hubbards Tale. 5. The Ruines of Rome, by Bellay. 6. Muiopotmos or The Tale of the B

rished. With regard to the works which were printed and preserved, the Ruines of Time, as the Dedication shows, was written during Spenser's memorable visit of 1589-91 to England. It is in fact an elegy dedicated to the Countess of Pembroke, on the death of Sir Philip Sidney, 'that most brave Knight, your most noble brother deceased.' 'Sithens my late cumming into England,' the poet writes in the Epistle Dedicatorie, 'some friends of mine (which might much prevaile with me and indeede commaund me) knowing with howe straight bandes of duetie I was tied to him; as also bound unto that noble house (of which the chiefe hope then rested in him) have sought to revive them by upbraiding me; for that I have not shewed anie thankefull remembrance towards him or any of them; but suffer their names to sleepe in silence and forgetfulnesse. Whome chieflie to satisfie, or els to avoide that fowle blot

gone and with

me remaines,

ong

s, weeps with her, n

t maugre for

ay, and enuie

record in tru

nourice of

unto late s

light of si

es, through th

ople, led with

h time all mon

labours ever

y Strange, deplores the general intellectual condition of the time. It is doubtful whether Spenser fully conceived what a brilliant literary age was beginning about the year 1590. Perhaps his long absence in Ireland, the death of Sidney who was the great hope of England Spenser knew, the ecclesiastical controversies raging when he revisited England, may partly account for his despondent tone with reference to literature. He introduces each Muse weeping for the neglect and contempt suffered by her respective province. He who describes these tears was himself destined to dry them; and Shakspere, who, if anyone, was to m

n whom Nature

elfe and Tru

ounter under

Willy, ah! is

l joy and jo

ded and in

by 'dead' is not meant

tle spirit, f

f honnie and swe

years earlier, and so before the star of Shakspere had arisen. Possibly by Willy is meant Sir Philip Sidney, a favourite haunt of whose was his sister's house at Wilton on the river Wiley or Willey, and who had exhibited some comic power in his masque, The Lady of May, acted b

Spenser most carefully, though far from successfully, imitates his great master Chaucer, but for its intrinsic merit- for its easy style, its various incidents, its social pictures. In the dedication he speaks of it as 'These my idle labours; which having long sithens composed in the raw conceipt of my youth, I lately amongst other papers lighted upon, and was by others, which liked the same, mooved to set them foorth.' However long before its publication

r imitations, composed probably some years before, though probab

and vertuous Douglas Howard, daughter and heire of Henry Lord Howard, Viscount Byndon, and wife of Arthur Georges, Esquire.' Thi

stle of Kilcolman. A life at Court could never have suited him, however irksome at times

arrein

d care and pe

eepe with hunge

he answer

former

ields bene al

enture such u

uile of fortune

e back to my sh

ardnesse I bef

arnd repentance

retches which I

the splendid scenes he had lately witnessed; he recounted the famous wits he had met, and the fair ladies he had seen in the great London world; and dedicated this exquisite diary to the friend who had introduced him into that brilliant circle. It would seem that Raleigh had accused him of indolence. That ever-restless schemer could not appreciate the poet's dreaminess. 'That you may see,' writes Spenser, 'that I am not alwaies ydle as yee think, though not grea

ly seat was at Kilcoran, near Youghal, and so we understand Spenser's singing of 'The sea that neighbours to her near.' Thus she lived in the same county with her poet. The whole course of the wooing and the winning is portrayed in the Amoretti or Sonnets and the Epithalamium. It may be gathered from these biographically and otherwise interesting pieces, that it was at the close of the year 1592 that the poet was made a captive of that beauty he so fondly descr

eke and sew t

umbled hart be

foot she in my

ife downe in t

saynt,' and he vows to fin

yre is built

glorious im

ce to die.' He marvels at her cruelty. He cannot address himself to furthe

ke for one man

s the rest, bu

ld I, without

o endure so t

one is tost wit

e that doth my

d, he declares, as has already been quoted, that the year just elapsed has appeared longer than a

ormes and tem

ly I endur

eath and daun

silly bark w

wenty- five sonnets are for the most part the songs of a lover accepted and happy. It would seem that

easan

and sing my lov

tion of whose

an higher pit

th canto of that book he introduces the lady of his love, and himself 'piping' unto her. In a rarely pleasant place on a fair wooded hill-top

epheard, pype

that made th

sent there with

re advaunst to

sweetly praising the daughters of

what creatur

ature or a go

ifts from heven

ure she was,

h with those th

ertes but a c

r countrey lasse

doth the daug

ser lights in

h she in bea

her lasses b

ertue that be

de the rest of

w- born. The final sonnets refer to some malicious reports circulating about him, and to some local separation between the sonneteer and his mistress. This separation was certainly ended in the June following his acceptance-that is, the June of 1594; for in that month, on St. Barnabas' day, that is, on the

y selfe alo

to me answer,

beauty of her lively spright' which no eyes can see, of her standing before the altar, her sad eyes still fastened on the ground, of the bringing her home, of the rising of the evening star, and the fair face of the moon looking down on his bliss not unfavourably, as he would hope.

for his causes, by occasion of which immunity he doth multiply suits against your suppliant in the said province upon pretended title of others &c.' The third petition averred that 'Edmond Spenser of Kilcolman, gentleman, hath entered into three ploughlands, parcel of Ballingerath, and disseised your suppliant thereof, and continueth by countenance and greatness the possession thereof, and maketh great waste of the wood of the said land, and converteth a great deal of corn growing thereupon to his proper use, to the damage of the complainant of two hundred pounds sterling. Whereunto,' continues the document, which is preserved in the Original Rolls Office, 'the said Edmond Spenser appearing in person had several days prefixed unto him peremptorily to answer, which he neglected to do.' Therefore 'after a day of grace given,' on the 12th of February, 1594, Lord Roche was decreed the possession. Perhaps the absence from his lady love referred to in the concluding sonnets was occasioned by this litigation. Perhaps also the 'false forged lyes'-the mal

ed Colin Clouts Come Home Again, several addit

ying with him in manuscript the second three books of his Faerie Queene, which, as we have seen, were completed before his marriage,

red &c. The Second Part of the Faerie Que

e of Ireland was not registered till April 1598, and then only conditionally. It was not actually printed till 1633. During his

owards the close of the year 1595, he would find Shakspere splendidly fulfilling the promise of his earlier days; he would find Ben Jonson just becoming known to fame; he would find Bacon already drawing to him the eyes of his time. Spe

by the two pillars which stand at the bottom of that street-Spenser no doubt renewed his friendship with Shakspere. This intimacy with Essex, with whatever intellectual advantages it may have been attended, with whatever bright spirits it may have brought Spenser acquainted, probably impeded his prospects of preferment. There can be no doubt that one of the motives that brought

sulle

ent of my long

ourt and exp

s which stil

ddows, did aff

of the Scotch King to have the poet prosecuted for his picture of Duessa, in whom Mary Queen of Scots was generally recognised. 'Robert Bowes, the English ambassador in Scotland, writing to Lord Burghley from Edinburgh 12th November, 1596, states that great offence was conceived by the King against Edmund Spenser for publishing in print, in the second part of the Faery Queen, ch. 9, some dishonourable effects, as the King deemed, ag

ense of the unsatisfactory state of the country-a sense which was presently to be justified in a frightful manner. Spenser had not been deaf to the ever-growing murmurs of discontent by which he and his countrymen had been surrounded. He was not in advance of his time in the policy he advocates for the administration of Ireland. He was far from anticipating that policy of conciliation whose triumphant applicat

k, descended on him. 'His grandfather,' he writes, 'was that Spenser who, by his writings touching the reduction of the Irish to civility, brought on him the odium of that nation; and for those works and his other good services Queen E

so to doe, by reason that many copies thereof were formerly scattered abroad, I resolved at least to amend, and by way of retraction to reforme them, making (instead of those two hymnes of earthly or naturall love and beautie) two others of heavenly and celestiall.' This passage is interesting for the illustration it provides of Spenser's popularity. It is also highly interesting, if the poems themselves be read in the light of it, as showing the sensitive purity of the poet's nature. It is difficult to conceive how those 'former hymns' should in any moral respect need amending. The moralising and corrective purpose with which the two latter were written perhaps diminished their poetical beauty; but the themes th

irit, as it

the more of h

airer bodie

and it more

l grace and a

le the bodie f

orme and doth

one of high r

beth, and the ladie Katherine Somerset, daughters to the right honourable the Earle of Worcester, and espoused to the two worthie gentlemen, M. Henry Gilford and M. William Peter Esquyers.' It was

ne; and perhaps it was after 1596 that he composed the two additional cantos, which are all, so far as is kn

returned once more to Kilcolman. In the following year he was recommended by her Maje

rtunity to rise, that suppression not having brought pacification in its train. In the autumn of 1598 broke o

ounty was removed, and Spenser might hope that now, at last, the hour of his prosperity was come. So far as is known, his domestic life was serene and happy. The joys of the husband had been crowned with those of the father. Two sons, as may be gathered from the names given to them-they were christened Sylvanus and Peregrine-had been by th

Munster, to the Secretary of State, and of course himself full of direct and precise information as to the Irish tumult, having also drawn up an address to the Queen on the subject. Probably, the hardships and horrors he had undergone completely prostrated him. On January 16, 1599, he died in Westminster. As to the exact place, a manuscript note found by Brand, the well-known antiquary, on the title-page of a copy of the second edition of the Faerie Queene, though not of indisputable value, may probably enough be accepted, and it names King Street. Ben Jonson says, 'he died for lack of bread;' but this must certainly be an exaggeration. No doubt he returned to England 'inops'-in a state of poverty-as Camden says; but it is impossible to believe that he died of starvation. His friend

e books were ever completed.{6} Perhaps some fragments of them may have perished in the flames at Kilcolman-certainly only two cantos have reached us. These were first printed in 1611, whe

nded his mel

gels flew the

swan from his

one of the

n's fair

. Cokain

olin, thou had

finished th

but all tongue

xceeded old

the Earl of Essex furnishing the funeral expenses, according to Camden. It would seem from a passage in Browne's Britannia's Pastorals 'that the Queen ordered a monument to be

in which Sylvanus sues to recover from her and her husband Roger Seckerstone certain documents relating to the paternal est

OHN W.

sed

tno

-

in this volume

Mr. Morris thin

s edition. Mr. C

d edition-t

lsy; or, Bardic R

diman. Lo

occupation of Spen

ng them (the Iris

sentiments of re

the bard came in

en recollections

erful.'-Trotter

Years 1812, 1

1819,

r's Athen

rds's Life of Ra

2

intended to comp

canto v

hall be to t

time ne