Part 2 (1/2)

Webbe's _Discourse of English Poetrie_ (1586), and the e Puttenha without Sidney's fire, reveal equally the poverty, as a whole, of what had been as yet produced in England as poetry, in spite of the widespread passion for poetry The specirotesque to the last degree Webbe i lines of Spenser's into the most portentous Sapphics; and Puttenhas, and pilasters Gabriel Harvey is accused by his tor writ verse in all kinds, as in forloves, a dozen of points, a pair of spectacles, a two-hand sword, a poynado, a colossus, a pyramid, a painter's easel, a market cross, a trumpet, an anchor, a pair of pot-hooks” Puttenham's Art of Poetry, with its books, one on Proportion, the other on Ornaht be compared to an Art of War, of which one book treated of barrack drill, and the other of busbies, sabretasches, and different forood sense or the power to ood criticis and deep poetry, which makes such criticisms as theirs seee was at hand; and the suddenness of it is one of the s in literary history The ten years fro a picture of English poetry of which, though there are gleams of a better hope, and praise is specially bestowed on a ”new poet,” the general character is feebleness, fantastic absurdity, affectation and bad taste Force, and passion, and sihts of the world andabout lish hexameters and sapphics What was to be looked for fro under it all? But the daas come

The next ten years, from 1590 to 1600, not only saw the _Faery Queen_, but they were the years of the birth of the English Dralish poetry from Philip Sidney's Defense in 1581, and Puttenham's treatise in 1589, I do not say with Shakespere, but with Lamb's selections from the Dramatic Poets, many of them unknown names to the majority of lish poetry hastiht has opened; new and original forrandeur, seriousness, and nificence From the poor and rude play-houses, with their troops of actors ate and disreputable, their coarse excitements, their buffoonery, license, and taste for the monstrous and horrible,--denounced not without reason as corruptors of public ainst at Paul's Cross, expelled the city by the Corporation, classed by the laith rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy beggars, and patronized by the great and unscrupulous nobles in defiance of it--there burst forth suddenly a new poetry, which with its reality, depth, sweetness and nobleness took the world captive The poetical ideas and aspirations of the Englishmen of the time had found at last adequate interpreters, and their own national and unrivalled expression

And in this great n But he was only the harbinger What he did was to reveal to English ears as it never had been revealed before, at least, since the days of Chaucer, the sweet race, the inexhaustible versatility of the English tongue But his own efforts were in a different direction fro after the real, in thought and character, in representation and expression, which reat in proportion as they approached hienius continued to the end under the influences which were so powerful when it first unfolded itself To the last it allied itself, in form, at least, with the artificial To the last it moved in a world which was not real, which never had existed, which, any hoas only a world of memory and sentiment He never threw himself frankly on huh a veil of reatly altered its true colours, and often distorted its proportions And thus while more than any one he prepared the instrureat triuhest exercise of poetic power; he hest honours of that in which he led the way

Yet, curiously enough, it see strea the compositions of his first period, besides _The Shepherd's Calendar_, are _Nine Comedies_,--clearly real plays, which his friend Gabriel Harvey praised with enthusiasm As early as 1579 Spenser had laid before Gabriel Harvey for his judgement and advice, a portion of the _Fairy Queen_ in so at the parting of the ways The allegory, with all its teenuities and pictures, and boundless license to vagueness and to fancy, was on one side; and on the other, the drama, with its _prima facie_ and superficially prosaic aspects, and its kinshi+p to as customary and commonplace and unromantic in human life Of the nine comedies, composed on the model of those of Ariosto and Machiavelli and other Italians, every trace has perished But this was Gabriel Harvey's opinion of the respective value of the two specimens of work submitted to him, and this was his counsel to their author In April, 1580, he thus writes to Spenser

In good faith I had once again nigh forgotten your _Faerie Queene_; howbeit, by good chance, I have now sent her home at the last neither in better or worse case than I found her And eement, if your _Nine Coive the names of the Nine Muses (and in one man's fancy not unworthily), come not nearer Ariosto's comedies, either for the fineness of plausible elocution, or the rareness of poetical invention, than that _Elvish Queen_ doth to his _Orlando Furioso_, which notwithstanding you will needs seeo, as you flatly professed yourself in one of your last letters

Besides that you know, it hath been the usual practice of the most exquisite and odd wits in all nations, and specially in Italy rather to show, and advance themselves that way than any other: as, na heads, Bibiena, Machiavel, and Aretino did (to let Bereat ad indeed reputed matchable in all points, both for conceit of wit and eloquent deciphering of matters, either with Aristophanes and Menander in Greek, or with Plautus and Terence in Latin, or with any other in any other tongue But I will not stand greatly with you in your own matters If so be the _Faery Queene_ be fairer in your eye than the Nine Muses, and Hobgoblin run aith the garland froht, but there is an end for this once, and fare you well, till God or soel put you in a better ement inclined He had probably written the colish hexameters, out of deference to others, or to try his hand But the current of his own secret thoughts, those thoughts, with their ideals and aims, which tell a man what he is made for, and where his power lies, set another way

The _Fairy Queen was_ 'fairer in his eye than the Nine Muses, and Hobgoblin did run aith the garland from Apollo' What Gabriel Harvey prayed for as the 'better ave us, in the shape which it took at last, the allegory of the _Fairy Queen_

But the _Fairy Queen_, though already planned and perhaps begun, belongs to the last ten years of the century, to the season of fulfil bud The new hopes for poetry which Spenser brought were given in a work, which the _Fairy Queen_ has eclipsed and al star Yet that which -point in the history of our poetry, was the book which came out, ti of 1580, under the borrowed title of the _Shepherd's Calendar_, a name fay and homely receipts from time to time reprinted, which was the Moore's or Zadkiel's almanac of the tih it is inscribed to Philip Sidney in a copy of verses signed with Spenser'snaht have been inconvenient for a youngthe cross currents of Elizabeth's court But it was given to the world by a friend of the author's, signing himself E K, now identified with Spenser's fellow-student at Pe, critical epistle of some interest to the author's friend, Gabriel Harvey, and after the fashi+on of soloss, explaining words, and to a certain extent, allusions Two things are remarkable in Kirke's epistle One is the confidence hich he announces the yet unrecognized excellence of ”this one new poet,” whoood old poet,” Chaucer, the ”loadstar of our language” The other point is the absolute reliance which he places on the powers of the English language, handled by one who has discerned its genius, and is not afraid to use its wealth ”In my opinion, it is one praise of many, that are due to this poet, that he hath laboured to restore, as to their rightful heritage, such good and natural English words, as have been long time out of use, or almost clean disherited, which is the only cause, that our h for prose, and stately enough for verse, hath long time been counted most bare and barren of both” The friends, Kirke and Harvey, were not wrong in their estimate of the importance of Spenser's work The ”new poet,” as he came to be customarily called, had really made one of those distinct steps in his art, which answer to discoveries and inventions in other spheres of human interest--steps which make all behind them seem obsolete and mistaken There was much in the new poetry which was immature and imperfect, not a little that was fantastic and affected

But it was the first adequate effort of reviving English poetry

The _Shepherd's Calendar_ consists of twelve compositions, with no other internal connexion than that they are assigned respectively to the twelve months of the year They are all different in subject, ues_, according to the whimsical derivation adopted from the Italians of the hich the classical writers called Eclogues: ”_aeglogai_, as it were a???? or a??????? ?????, that is, Goatherd's Tales” The book is in its forhly artificial kind of poetry which the later Italians of the Renaissance had copied froil had copied it froiven the nail, had written Latin Bucolics, as he had written a Latin Epic, his _Africa_ He was followed in the next century by Baptista Mantuanus (1448-1516), the ”old Mantuan,” of Holofernes in _Love's Labour's Lost_, whose Latin ”Eglogues” becaland, and as imitated by a writer who passed for a poet in the time of Henry VIII, Alexander Barclay In the hands of the Sicilians, pastoral poetrycountry life alenuine as some of Wordsworth's poems; but it soon ceased to be that, and in Alexandrian hands it took its place anized departil found and used it But a further step had been enius In the hands of Mantuan and Barclay it was a vehicle for general , and in particular for severe satire on woh he may himself speak under the the names of tityrus and Menalcas, and lament Julius Caesar as Daphnis, did not conceive of the Roman world as peopled by flocks and sheep-cotes, or its emperors and chiefs, its poets, senators, and ladies, as shepherds and shepherdesses, of higher or lower degree But in Spenser's tih undue deference to as supposed to be Italian taste, partly owing to the tardiness of national culture, and because the poetic ih the e art,--the world was turned for the purposes of the poetry of civil life, into a pastoral scene Poetical invention was held to consist in i an environment, a set of outward circumstances, as unlike as possible to the familiar realities of actual life and employment, in which the primary affections and passions had their play A fantastic basis, varying according to the conventions of the fashi+on, was held essential for the representation of the ideal Masquerade and hyperbole were the stage and scenery on which the poet's sweetness, or tenderness, or strength was to be put forth The ed to peace, was one of shepherds: when it was one of war and adventure, it was a ht errantry But a masquerade was necessary, if he was to raise his coarities and trivialities of the street, the fire-side, the canity, the ornahtness, and colour, which belong to poetry The fashi+on had the sanction of the brilliant author of the _Arcadia_, the ”Courtier, Soldier, Scholar,” as the ”ment was law to all men of letters in the middle years of Elizabeth, the all-accomplished Philip Sidney Spenser submitted to this fashi+on from first to last When first he ventured on a considerable poetical enterprise, he spoke his thoughts, not in his own nah the h iinary rustics, to who the sheep-folds, with a background of downs or vales or fields, and the open sky above His shepherds and goatherds bear the hoon Davie, willye, and Piers; Colin Clout, adopted from Skelton, stands for Spenser himself; Hobbinol, for Gabriel Harvey; Cuddie, perhaps for Edward Kirke; nahed at by Pope, when pastorals again caue with the wits of Queen Anne[42:1] With theled classical ones like Menalcas, French ones fronificant ones like Palinode, plain ones like Lettice, and roruity see a beautiful shepherdess named Dido with a Great Shepherd called Lobbin, or when the verse requires it, Lobb And not ue are shepherds; every one is in their view a shepherd Chaucer is the ”God of shepherds,” and Orpheus is a--

”Shepherd that did fetch his dame From Plutoe's baleful boithouten leave”

The ”fair Elisa,” is the Queen of shepherds all; her great father is Pan, the shepherds' God, and Anne Boleyn is Syrinx It is not unnatural that when the clergy are spoken of, as they are in three of the poeure should be kept up But it is curious to find that the shepherd's God, the great Pan, who stands in one connexion for Henry VIII, should in another represent in sober earnest the Redeee of the world[42:2]

The poe, are on many themes, and of various merit, and probably of different dates Some are simply amatory effusions of an ordinary character, full of a lover's despair and complaint Three or four are translations or imitations; translations froil Two of thereat force and humour The story of the Oak and the Briar, related as his friendly coly, as if the thing were set forth in so of ”disdainful younkers,” is a first fruit, and promise of Spenser's skill in vivid narrative The fable of the Fox and the Kid, a curious illustration of the popular discontent at the negligence of the clergy, and the popular suspicions about the arts of Roled hureat queen, as the Goddess of their idolatry to all the wits and all the learned of England, the ”faire Eliza,” and a compliment is paid to Leicester,

The worthy whom she loveth best,-- That first the White Bear to the stake did bring

Two of them are avowedly burlesque imitations of rustic dialect and banter, carried on with much spirit One composition is a funeral tribute to solect of poets by the great In three of the aeglogues he coorous satires on the loose living and greediness of clergy forgetful of their charge, with strong invectives against foreign corruption and against the wiles of the wolves and foxes of Rouerilla ith the sey on the faithfulness and wisdorind, and horace the poet is not afraid to confess deep sympathy

They are, in a poetical forression on the established ecclesiastical order of England, which went through the whole scale from the ”Adht and Travers, to the libels of Martin Mar-prelate: a system of attack which with all its injustice and violence, and with all its mischievous purposes, found but too much justification in the inefficiency and corruption of y, and in the rapacious and selfish policy of the governreat al indulgence of the Queen

The collection of poems is thus a very miscellaneous one, and cannot be said to be in its subjects inviting The poet's systereat degree unreal, forced and unnatural Departing froil and the Italians, but perhaps copying the artificial Doric of the Alexandrians, he professes to ed and rustical”

rudeness of the shepherds who it both archaic and provincial He found in Chaucer a store of forms and words sufficiently well known to be with a little help intelligible, and sufficiently out of coive the character of antiquity to a poetry which employed them And from his sojourn in the North he is said to have imported a certain number of local peculiarities which would seey for this use of ”ancient sole; it is an early instance of what is supposed to be not yet common, a sense of pleasure in that wildness which we call picturesque

And first for the words to speak: I grant they be solish, and also used of most excellent Authors and most famous Poets In whohly read, how could it be, (as that worthy Orator said,) but that 'walking in the sun, although for other cause he walked, yet needs hethe sound of those ancient poets still ringing in his ears, he , hit out some of their tunes But whether he useth them by such casualty and custo them fittest for such rustical rudeness of shepherds, either for that their rough sound would ed and rustical, or else because such old and obsolete words are most used of country folks, sure I think, and I think not arace, and, as one would say, authority, to the verseYet neither everywhere must old words be stuffed in, nor the co so corrupted thereby, that, as in old buildings, it seem disorderly and ruinous But as in most exquisite pictures they use to blaze and portrait not only the dainty lineaments of beauty, but also round about it to shadow the rude thickets and craggy cliffs, that by the baseness of such parts, more excellency may accrue to the principal--for ofttihted with the show of such natural rudeness, and take great pleasure in that disorderly order:--even so do these rough and harsh terhtness of brave and glorious words So oftentimes a discord in music maketh a comely concordance

But when allowance is y, and for e teant use of alliteration, or, as they called it, ”hunting the letter,” the _Shepherd's Calendar_ is, for its tireat interest

Spenser's force, and sustained poetical power, and singularly enius In the poets before hile pieces itive pieces, chiefly arace, or tenderness The stanzas which Sackville, afterwards, Lord Buckhurst, contributed to the collection called the _Mirror of Magistrates_,[46:3]

are enuine syreatness, which seements were ainly, the uncouth, the obscure or the grotesque

But in the _Shepherd's Calendar_ we have for the first ti, the command, the varied resources of the real poet, who is not driven by failing language or thought into frigid or tumid absurdities Spenser is master over himself and his instrument even when he uses it in a hich offends our taste There are passages in the _Shepherd's Calendar_ of poetical eloquence, of refined vigour, and of e had never attained to, since the days of hie of Spenser, what Shakespere and Milton are to ours, the pattern and fount of poetry, Chaucer Dryden is not afraid to class Spenser with Theocritus and Virgil, and to write that the _Shepherd's Calendar_ is not to be nized The authorshi+p of it, as has been said, was not fored Indeed, Mr

Collier remarks that seven years after its publication, and after it had gone through three or four separate editions, it was praised by a contee Whetstone, himself a friend of Spenser's, as the ”reputed work of Sir Philip Sidney” But if it was officially a secret, it was an open secret, known to every one who cared to be well infore used in it about ecclesiastical abuses was toofierceness and insolence of Puritan invective to be safely used by a poet who gave his nahley's dislike to Spenser is the praise bestowed in the _Shepherd's Calendar_ on Archbishop Grindal, then in deep disgrace for resisting the suppression of the puritan prophesyings But anonymous as it was, it had been placed under Sidney's protection; and it was at once waret evidence of the immediate effect of a book; but we have this evidence in Spenser's case In this year, probably, after it was published, we find it spoken of by Philip Sidney, not without discri criticism, but as one of the few recent examples of poetry worthy to be naistrates_ meetly furnished of beautiful parts; and in the Earl of Surrey's _Lyrics_of birth, and worthy of a noble ues: indeed worthy the reading if I be not deceived That sae I dare not allow, sith neither Theocritus in Greek, Virgil in Latin, nor Sanazar in Italian, did affect it Besides these do I not remember to have seen but few (to speak boldly) printed that have poetical sinews in theeneral approval of the work doubtless had so Spenser's nament which no one else takes, till the next decade of the century In 1586, Webbe published his _Discourse of English Poetrie_ In this, the author of the _Shepherd's Calendar_ is spoken of by the naiven him by its Editor, E K----, as the ”new poet,” just as earlier in the century, the _Orlando Furioso_ was styled the ”nuova poesia;” and his work is copiously used to supply examples and illustrations of the critic's rules and observations