Part 5 (2/2)

Thou lov'st to hear the sweet melodious sound That Phoebus' lute, the queen of ht a he betakes

One God is God of both, as poets feign; One knight loves both, and both in thee rerim_, 1599)

Even the fierce pae and torment of poor Gabriel Harvey, addresses Harvey's friend as heavenly Spenser, and extols ”the Faery Singers' stately tuned verse” Spenser's title to be the ”Poet of poets,” was at once acknowledged as by accla his position In some lines on the death of a friend's wife, whoreat queenhis lays on meaner persons; and he puts into his friend's mouth a deprecation of her possible jealousy The lines are characteristic, both in their beauty and eness, in our eyes, of the excuse made for the poet

Ne let Eliza, royall Shepheardesse, The praises of my parted love envy, For she hath praises in all plenteousnesse Powr'd upon her, like showers of Castaly, By her own Shepheard, Colin, her owne Shepheard, That her with heavenly hymnes doth deifie, Of rustick lorie of the day, And mine the Primrose in the lowly shade: Mine, ah! not mine; amisse I mine did say: Not mine, but His, which mine awhile her made; Mine to be His, with him to live for ay

O that so faire a flower so soone should fade, And through unties spring, Whil'st yet her leafe was greene, and fresh her rinde, And whilst her braunch faire blossoainst all course of kinde

For age to dye is right, but youth is wrong; She fel away like fruit blowne doinde

Weepe, Shepheard! weepe, to

Thus in both his literary enterprises, Spenser had been signally successful The _Shepherd's Calendar_ in 1580 had ih hopes of his powers The _Faery Queen_ in 1590 had e had happened in English cultivation Shakespere had coh the world did not yet know all that he was Sidney had published his _Defense of Poesie_, and had written the _Arcadia_, though it was not yet published

Marlowe had begun to write, and others beside hilish Drama Two scholars who had shared with Spenser in the bounty of Robert Neere beginning, in different lines, to raise the level of thought and style Hooker was beginning to give dignity to controversy, and to shohat English prose ht rise to Lancelot Andrewes, Spenser's junior at school and college, was training hiher kind of preaching than the English clergy had yet reached

The change of scene frolish interests, land was alive with aspiration and effort; iinations were inflamed and hearts stirred by the deeds of y hich they acted Ah, Spenser may naturally have been teh's soul was full There is strong probability, froed such hopes, and that they were disappointed A year after the entry in the Stationers' Register of the _Faery Queen_ (29 Dec, 1590), Ponsonby, his publisher, entered a volu sundry small poe notice

THE PRINTER TO THE GENTLE READER

SINCEthat it hath found a favourable passage aood meanes (for the better encrease and accoet into my handes such smale Poemes of the same Authors, as I heard were disperst abroad in sundrie hands, and not easie to bee co bene diverslie imbeziled and purloyned froood eather these fewe parcels present, which I have caused to bee ieather, for that they al see all corave and profitable To which effect I understand that he besides wrote sundrie others, namelie _Ecclesiastes_ and _Canticuhts slu all dedicated to Ladies; so as it may seeme he ment them all to one volume Besides so Pellican_, _The howers of the Lord_, _The sacrifice of a sinner_, _The seven Psalmes_, &c, which when I can, either by himselfe or otherwise, attaine too, I meane likewise for your favour sake to set foorth In the raciouslie to entertaine the new Poet, _I take leave_

The collection is a miscellaneous one, both as to subjects and date: it contains as, the translations from Petrarch and Du Bellay, which had appeared in Vander Noodt's _Theatre of Worldlings_, in 1569 But there are also some pieces of later date; and they disclose not only personal sorrows and griefs, but also an experience which had ended in disgust and disappointh's friendshi+p, he had found that in the Court he was not likely to thrive The terful men who had been his earliest friends had disappeared Philip Sidney had died in 1586; Leicester, soon after the destruction of the Armada, in 1588 And they had been followed (April, 1590) by Sidney's powerful father-in-law, Francis Walsingham The death of Leicester, untended, unlamented, powerfully impressed Spenser, always keenly alive to the pathetic vicissitudes of hureatness In one of these pieces, _The Ruins of Time_, addressed to Sidney's sister, the Countess of Peines the death of Leicester,--

It is not long, since these two eyes beheld A h in count of honour held, And greatest ones did sue to gaine his grace; Of greatest ones he, greatest in his place, Sate in the bosoht and loyall_ did his word maintaine

I saw hiht foorth on beare; I saw him die, and no man left to mone His dolefull fate, that late him loved deare: Scarse anie left to close his eylids neare; Scarse anie left upon his lips to laie The sacred sod, or Requiem to saie

O! trustless state of , And vainlie thinke your selves halfe happie then, When painted faces with s; And, when the courting masker louteth lowe, Him true in heart and trustie to you trow

For Sidney, the darling of the time, who had been to him not merely a cordial friend, but the realized type of all that was glorious inwasinstance of the frailty of greatness It was the poet's sorrow for the poet, who had aler Both now, and in later years, his affection for one as becoenuine expression, through the affectations which crowned the ”herse” of Astrophel and Philisides He was persuaded that Sidney's death had been a grave blow to literature and learning

The _Ruins of Time_, and still more the _Tears of the Muses_, are full of lanorance, and the slight account ifts and the arts of the writer, the poet, and the draht the crabbed and parsihley, and with the churlishness of the Puritans, whom he was supposed to foster, it see away in chill discouragement

The effect is described in lines which, asnaturally suppose, and Dryden also thought, can refer to no one but Shakespere But it seems doubtful whether all this could have been said of Shakespere in 1590 It seeant co performances He was lamented elsewhere under the poetical name of _willy_ If it refers to hih not published till after it; for the lines imply, not that he is literally dead, but that he is in retirement The expression that he is ”dead of late,” is explained in four lines below, as ”choosing to sit in idle cell,” and is one of Spenser's coures for inactivity or sorrow[107:1]

The verses are the lamentations of the Muse of Cohts of learning's treasure That ith Comick sock to beautefie The painted Theaters, and fill with pleasure The listners eyes and eares with melodie; In which I late ont to raine as Queene, And one; and all that goodly glee, Which wont to be the glorie of gay wits, Is layed abed, and no where now to see; And in her rooreisly countenaunce, Marring ly Barbarisnorance, ycrept of late Out of dredd darknes of the deepe Abysht and heaven does hate: They in the mindes of uize

All places they with follie have possest, And with vaine toyes the vulgare entertaine; But me have banished, with all the rest That whilome wont to wait upon ht, and Laughter, deckt in seee With seasoned wit and goodly pleasance graced, By which e Was limned forth, are wholly now defaced; And those sweete wits, which wont the like to fraame

And he, the man whom Nature selfe had made To mock her selfe, and truth to imitate, With kindly counter under Mimick shade, Our pleasant willy, ah! _is dead of late_; With whom all joy and jolly merriment Is also deaded, and in dolour drent

But that sae strea the boldnes of such base-borne men, Which dare their follies forth so rashlie throwe, Doth rather choose to sit in idle Cell, Than so himselfe to mockerie to sell