Part 1 (1/2)

Spenser

by R W Church

NOTICE

As the plan of these volue footnotes, I wish to say that, besides the biographies prefixed to the various editions of Spenser, there are two series of publications, which have been very useful to me One is the series of Calendars of State Papers, especially the State Papers on Ireland and the Carew MSS at Lambeth, with the prefaces of Mr Hans Claude Hamilton and the late Professor Brewer The other is Mr E Arber's series of reprints of old English books, and his Transcript of the Stationers' Registers, a work, I suppose, without parallel in its information about the early literature of a country, and edited by him with admirable care and public spirit I wish also to say that I am much indebted to Mr Craik's excellent little book on _Spenser and his Poetry_

R W C

_March, 1879_

SPENSER

CHAPTER I

SPENSER'S EARLY LIFE

[1552-1579]

Spenser lishreat division of our history which dates from the Reforhest order Born about the same time as Hooker (1552-1554), in the an with Henry VIII, and ended with Elizabeth, he was the earliest of our great reat lish literature, which, after Chaucer's wonderful proress, first by the Wars of the Roses, and then by the religious troubles of the Reforlishuely filled th to grasp and exhibit thee comparison hat had been accomplished by the poetry and prose of Greece, Roland since Chaucer, and prose writers since Wycliffe had translated the Bible

Surrey and Wyatt have deserved to live, while a crowd of poets, as ambitious as they, and not incapable of occasional force and sweetness, have been forgotten Sir Thoer Ascham, Tyndale, the translator of the New Testament, Bishop Latimer, the writers of many state documents, and the framers, either by translation or colish Prayer Book, showed that they understood the power of the English language over ht, and were alive to the music of its cadences

Sohest of all possible associations, have remained, permanent monu English speech But the verse of Surrey, Wyatt, and Sackville, and the prose of More and Aschae was not ripe for their success; perhaps the craftsth and experience were not equal to the novelty of their attelish styles of the first half of the sixteenth century with the contemporary styles of Italy, with Ariosto, Machiavelli, Guicciardini, without feeling the iap in point of culture, practice, and skill--the immense distance at which the Italians were ahead, in the finish and reach of their instruments, in their power to handle them, in co thelish could not yet, like the Italians, say what they would; the strength of English was, doubtless, there in gerrowth and developne was more mature But in Spenser, as in Hooker, all these tentative essays of vigorous but unpractisedworks

We have forgotten all these preliminary attempts, crude and i with race There is no reason why they should be remembered, except by professed inquirers into the antiquities of our literature; they were usually clurotesque, often affected, always hopelessly wanting in the finish, breadth, ive per They were the necessary exercises by which English to write; and exercises, though indispensably necessary, are not ordinarily in the and adh, then arose the original and powerful ained by all the practising, and to concentrate and bring to a focus all the hints and lessons of art which had been gradually accuth and richness of the _Faery Queen_ becarandeur and force of English prose began in Hooker's _Ecclesiastical Polity_; and then, in the splendid Elizabethan Drahest powers of poetic iland or in the world, to the real facts of huhts and passions

More is known about the circumstances of Spenser's life than about the lives of e is often ienerally accepted as the year of his birth The date is inferred froe in one of his Sonnets,[4:1] and this probably is near the truth That is to say that Spenser was born in one of the last two years of Edward VI; that his infancy was passed during the dark days of Mary; and that he was about six years old when Elizabeth cah, and, a year or two later (1554), Hooker and Philip Sidney Bacon (1561), and Shakespere (1564), belong to the next decade of the century

He was certainly a Londoner by birth, and early training This also we learn from himself, in the latest poem published in his life-time It is a bridal ode (_Prothalahters of the Earl of Worcester, written late in 1596 It was a time in his life of disappointment and trouble, when he was only a rare visitor to London In the poereat river, and the bridal procession arriving at Lord Essex's house; and he takes occasion to record the affection hich he still regarded ”the most kindly nurse” of his boyhood

Cal Zephyrus did softly play, A gentle spirit, that lightly did delay Hot titan's bealister fair: When I, (who fruitless stay In Princes Court, and expectation vain Of idle hopes, which still do fly away, Like empty shadows, did afflictthe shore of silver-strea Thames; Whose rutty bank, the which his river hems, Was painted all with variable flowers, And all the eainst the bridal day, which is not long: Sweet Thath they all _to merry London caave this life's first native source, Though from another place I take my name, A house of ancient fame_

There, when they caed back do ride, Where now the studious lawyers have their bowers, There whiloh pride: Next whereunto there stands a stately place, _Where oft I gained gifts and goodly grace[5:2]

Of that great Lord, which therein wont to dwell; Whose want too well now feels my friendless case; But ah! here fits not well Old woes, but joys, to tell_ Against the bridal day, which is not long: Sweet Thae a noble peer,[5:3]

Great England's glory and the orld's wonder, Whose dreadful nah all Spain did thunder, And Hercules two pillars, standing near, Did make to quake and fear

Fair branch of honour, flower of chivalry!

That fillest England with thy triumph's fame, Joy have thou of thy noble victory,[5:4]

And endless happiness of thine own nah thy prowess, and victorious arreat Elisa's glorious nah all the world, filled with thy wide alarms

Who his father was, and as his employment we know not From one of the poems of his later years we learn that his mother bore the famous name of Elizabeth, which was also the cherished one of Spenser's wife

My love, my life's best ornament, By whom my spirit out of dust was raised[6:5]

But his family, whatever was his father's condition, certainly clai of the na into fame and importance, the Spencers of Althorpe, the ancestors of the Spencers and Churchills of hters, three of whoes

Elizabeth was the wife of Sir George Carey, afterwards the second Lord Hunsdon, the son of Elizabeth's cousin and Counsellor Anne, first, Lady Compton, afterwards married Thomas Sackville, the son of the poet, Lord Buckhurst, and then Earl of Dorset Alice, the youngest, whose first husband, Lord Strange, becaerton, Lord Keeper, Baron Ellesmere, and then Viscount Brackley These three sisters are celebrated by hiallery of the noble ladies of the Court,[6:6] under poetical names--”Phyllis, the flower of rare perfection,” ”Charillis, the pride and priest but the highest in degree”