Part 4 (2/2)

The first great English poeinative power since Chaucer, and like Chaucer so thoroughly and characteristically English, was not written in England Whatever Spenser land with Lord Grey, and whatever portions of earlier composition may have been used and worked up into the poem as it went on, the bulk of the _Faery Queen_, as we have it, was con land--in the conquered and desolated wastes of wild and barbarous Ireland It is a feature of his work on which Spenser himself dwells In the verses which usher in his poereat men of Elizabeth's court, he presents his work to the Earl of Ore soil hath bred; Which being through long wars left almost waste, With brutish barbarism is overspread;--

and in the same strain to Lord Grey, he speaks of his ”rude rie soil” It is idle to speculate what difference of forn had been carried out in the peace of England and in the society of London But it is certain that the scene of trouble and danger in which it grew up greatly affected it This h it is questionable, for the looseness of texture, and the want of accuracy and finish which is sometimes to be seen in it Spenser was a learned poet; and his poe, but without books to verify or correct It cannot be doubted that his life in Ireland added to the force and vividness hich Spenser wrote In Ireland, he had before his eyes continually, the dreary world which the poet of knight errantry ih wildernesses and ”great woods” given over to the outlaw and the ruffian There the avenger of wrong need seldo the oppressor There the arht was but too truly the only substitute for law There ht be found in uises, the treacheries, the deceits and teainst which the fairy chauard In Ireland, Englishht they saw, a universal conspiracy of fraud against righteousness, a universal battle going on between error and religion, between justice and the most insolent selfishness They found there every type of as cruel, brutal, loathsome They saw everywhere men whose business it was to betray and destroy, women whose business it was to teht that they saw too, in those aged the Queen's wars, all forentle strength, of knightly sweetness and courtesy There were those, too, who failed in the hour of trial; ere the victith of evil Besides the open or concealed traitors, the Desmonds, and Kildares, and O'Neales, there were the men ere entrapped and overcome, and the men who disappointed hopes, and became recreants to their faith and loyalty; like Sir William Stanley, who, after a brilliant career in Ireland, turned traitor and apostate, and gave up Deventer and his Irish bands to the King of Spain

The realities of the Irish wars and of Irish social and political life gave a real subject, gave body and forory There in actual flesh and blood were eneood and true

There in visible fact were the vices and falsehoods, which Arthur and his co truth were _Sansfoy_, and _Sansloy_, and _Sansjoy_; there were _Orgoglio_ and _Grantorto_, the witcheries of _Acrasia_ and _Phaedria_, the insolence of _Briana_ and _Crudor_ And there, too, were real Knights of goodness and the Gospel--Grey, and Orer, and Maltby--on a real mission from Gloriana's noble realory bodies forth the trials which beset the life of man in all conditions and at all tiland such a strong and perfect is of its personages, its daily chances of battle and danger, its hairbreadth escapes, its strange encounters, its prevailing anarchy and violence, its normal absence of order and law--as he had continually and custoreat,” writes John Hooker, a contemporary, ”and the land so barren both of man and beast, that whosoever did travel from one end to the other of all Munster, even from Waterford to Smerwick, about six scorein cities or towns, nor yet see any beast, save foxes, wolves or other ravening beasts” It is the desolation through which Spenser's knights pursue their solitary way, or join company as they can Indeed to read the sah's adventures with the Irish chieftains, his challenges and single co bits of the _Faery Queen_ in prose As Spenser chose to write of knight errantry, his picture of it has doubtless gained in truth and strength by his very practical experience of what such life as he describes ht allish wars in Ireland under Elizabeth, as lish virtue and valour at the sa described by Bryskett, some time later than 1584, Spenser had already ”well entered into” his work In 1589, he ca with him the first three books; and early in 1590, they were published Spenser himself has told us the story of this first appearance of the _Faery Queen_ The person who discovered the extraordinary work of genius which was growing up amid the turbulence and ht its author into the centre of English life, was Walter Ralegh Ralegh had served through much of the Munster war He had shown in Ireland some of the characteristic points of his nature, which lish un to take a proed He had shown his audacity, his self-reliance, his resource, and sons of that boundless but prudent ambition which ue, that restless and high-reaching inventiveness, and that tenacity of opinion, which made him a difficult person for others to ith

Like so lish captains, he hated Ormond, and saw in his feud with the Desmonds the real cause of the hopeless disorder of Munster But also he incurred the displeasure and suspicion of Lord Grey, who equally disliked the great Irish Chief, but who saw in the ”plot” which Ralegh sent to Burghley for the pacification of Munster, an adventurer's i scheme ”I e nor his coh had been at Smerwick: he had been in command of one of the bands put in by Lord Grey to do the execution On Lord Grey's departure he had beco the undertakers for the planting of Munster He had secured for hireeh, his associates and tenants, three seignories of 12,000 acres a-piece, and one of 6000, in Cork and Waterford But before Lord Grey's departure, Ralegh had left Ireland, and had found the true field for his alish court From 1582 to 1589, he had shared with Leicester and Hatton and afterwards with Essex, the special favour of the Queen He had become Warden of the Stannaries and Captain of the Guard He had undertaken the adventure of founding a new realrants of ton's forfeited estates His own great shi+p, which he had built, the Ark Ralegh, had carried the flag of the High Adlorious but terrible summer of 1588 He joined in that tremendous sea-chase from Plymouth to the North Sea, when, as Spenser wrote to Lord Howard of Effingha, That vainly threatened kingdo doves, ye did before you chase

In the suh had been busy, as men of the sea were then, half Queen's servants, half buccaneers, in gathering the abundant spoils to be found on the high seas; and he had been with Sir John Norreys and Sir Francis Drake in a bootless but not unprofitable expedition to Lisbon On his return froe Essex, who had long scorned ”that knave Ralegh,” was in the ascendant Ralegh found the Queen, for some reason or another, and reasons were not hard to find, offended and dangerous

He bent before the storm In the end of the sunories, his law-suits with the old proprietors, his castle at Lis to account his woods for the manufacture of pipe staves for the French and Spanish wine trade

He visited Spenser, as his neighbour, at Kilcolman, and the visit led to important consequences The record of it and of the events which followed, is preserved in a curious poem of Spenser's written two or three years later, and ofup the old pastoral form of the _Shepherd's Calendar_, with the faues,--Hobbinol, Cuddie, Rosalind, and his own Colin Clout,--he described under the usual poetical disguise, the circumstances which once more took him back from Ireland to the court The court was the place to which all persons wishi+ng to push their way in the world were attracted It was not only the centre of all power, the source of favours and honours, the seat of all that swayed the destiny of the nation It was the home of refinement, and wit, and cultivation, the place where eminence of all kinds was supposed to be collected, and to which all ambitions, literary as much as political, aspired It was not only a royal court; it was also a great club Spenser's poem shows us how he had sped there, and the impressions made on his mind by a closer view of the persons and the ways of that awful and dazzling scene, which exercised such a spell upon Englishmen, and which seeoodness of heaven, and all the baseness and nity of earth The occasion deserved a full celebration; it was indeed a turning-point in his life, for it led to the publication of the _Faery Queen_, and to the ilishmen of the time of his unrivalled pre-eminence as a poet In this poetical record, _Colin Clout's co in it history, criticises, we have the picture of his recollections of the flush and excitement of those months which saw the first appearance of the _Faery Queen_ He describes the interruption of his retired and, as he paints it, peaceful and pastoral life in his Irish hoh, the ”Shepherd of the Ocean,” froether before Both had been patronized by Leicester Both had been together at Ses of the Munster war; both had served under Lord Grey, Spenser's h In their different degrees, Ralegh with his two or three Seignories of half a county, and Spenser with his more modest estate, they were embarked in the sah now appeared before Spenser in all the glory of a brilliant favourite, the soldier, the explorer, the daring sea-captain, the founder of plantations across the ocean, and withal, the poet, the ready and eloquent discourser, the true judge and reat or beautiful

The time, too, was one at once of excitereat peril, a great effort, a great relief; as the Greeks did after Salamis and Plataea, as our fathers did after Waterloo

In the struggle in the Channel with the nized its force and its prospects One of those solemn moments had just passed when men see before theht have been turned another All the world had been looking out to see ould coerly than in Ireland Every one, English and Irish alike, stood agaze to ”see how the gareat fleet, as it drew near, ”worked wonderfully uncertain yet cal to disclose their real intention” When all was decided, and the distressed shi+ps were cast away on the western coast, the Irish showed asthe orders of the Irish council, to ”apprehend and execute all Spaniards found there of what quality soever” These were the ih, at the moment, was under a cloud In the poetical fancy picture set before us--

His song was all a lae hard, Of Cynthia the Ladie of the Sea, Which from her presence faultlesse hiults rife, He cryed out, to ; Ah! my loves queene, and Goddesse of ?

At Kilcolh became acquainted hat Spenser had done of the _Faery Queen_ His rapid and clear judgment showed him how immeasurably it rose above all that had yet been produced under the naland That alone is sufficient to account for his eager desire that it should be known in England But Ralegh always had an eye to his own affairs, marred as they so often were by ill-fortune and his ownhis peace with Cynthia, by reintroducing at Court the friend of Philip Sidney, now ripened into a poet not unworthy of Gloriana's greatness This is Colin Clout's account:--

When thus our pipes we both had wearied well, (Quoth he) and each an end of singing reat dislyking to ht forlore, Into that waste, where I was quite forgot

The which to leave, thenceforth he counseld ardfull, And ith hireat, and bountywell, And all the ornaments of wondrous wit, Such as all womankynd did far excell, Such as the world adood, and hate of ill, He ht tooke I with me, but mine oaten quill: Small needments else need shepheard to prepare

So to the sea we came; the sea, that is A world of waters heaped up on hie, Rolling likewith hoarse crie

This is followed by a spirited description of a sea-voyage, and of that empire of the seas in which, since the overthrow of the Ar to be supreuished officers:--

And yet as ghastly dreadfull, as it seeaine to sell, Dare te stre down to hell

For, as we stood there waiting on the strond, Behold! an huge great vessell to us ca upon the waters back to lond, As if it scornd the daunger of the saither with sos, and head and taile, And life to ! how bold and swift the monster was, That neither car'd for wind, nor haile, nor raine, Nor swelling waves, but thorough theaine

The saently did receave, And without harme us farre away did beare, So farre that land, our ht but sea and heaven to us appeare

Then hartlesse quite, and full of inward feare, That shepheard I besought to me to tell, Under what skie, or in orld ere, In which I saw no living people dwell

Who, ht, Told reat Shepheardesse, that Cynthia hight, His liege, his Ladie, and his lifes Regent

This is the poetical version of Ralegh's appreciation of the treasure which he had lighted on in Ireland, and of what he did to land He returned to the Court, and Spenser with hiain, for what reason we know not, he was received into favour The poet, who accoht to the presence of the lady, who saw herself in ”various mirrors,”--Cynthia, Gloriana, Belphoebe, as she heard hilory to her reign

”The Shepheard of the Ocean (quoth he) Unto that Goddesse grace me first enhanced, And to mine oaten pipe enclin'd her eare, That she thenceforth therein gan take delight; And it desir'd at tihly dight; For not by reat , But joyd that country shepheard ought could fynd Worth harkening to, e”