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THE LIFE OF
OF SPENSER.

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THE authentic materials which history has preserved, concerning Edmund Spenfer, are by no means fufficient to enable us to give a full account of his life, or such a description, either of his person or of his fortune, as will completely gratify the admirer of English Poetry, or of real genius.

He was born in London, and flourished during the illuftrious reign of Queen Elizabeth; but what rank his parents held in fociety is very uncertain: A circumstance which, of itself, renders it proba ble that his defcent was obfcure.

The time, both of his birth and of his death, has been difputed. Concerning the first, we are not in poffeffion of any circumftance which can authorise us to hazard even a conjecture. The latter event, in all probability, happened about the year 1598.

But while the accounts of his birth and family are so obscure and imperfect, and while many of the events of his life are loft in oblivion, Edmund Spenfer is well known by his works, which have been read with admiration and delight ever since their first publication.

He had his education at Pembroke-Hall in Cambridge; where, after he had remained for fome time, ftaring his mind with useful knowledge, he stood for a Fellowship, in competition with a Mr. Andrews, afterwards Bishop of Winchester; but without fuccefs. This disappointment, and the narrowness of his circumstances, obliged him to retire from the college. He took up his refidence with fome friends in the north. And in this retirement he became enamoured of the beautiful Rofalind, whom he celebrates with fo much elegance in his pastoral poems, and of whofe cruelty we find him uttering fo many pathetic complaints.

It was in this retirement that the genius of Spenfer first began to diflinguish itself; and the Shep herd's Calendar was the first fruit of his unfuccefsful paffion. This first effort of his genius he dedica ted to Sir Philip Sydney, who was regarded as the most accomplished and respectable gentleman of the age in which he lived. Sir Philip was himself a poet of no inferior talents, and foon discovered the merit of Spenfer, whom he continued to countenance and protect till the end of his life.

By the advice of his friends, Spenfer in a fhort time quitted this retirement, and went to London, that he might be more in the road of preferment. Here he experienced the judicious and generous patronage of the amiable Sir Philip Sydney, who, on reading a few stanzas of his Fairy Queen, which Spender had at this time begun to write, was fo ftruck with the inimitable defcription of some of the characters, that he ordered his steward to pay the author two hundred pounds; and prepared the way for his being known and received at Court.

Although nothing could have been more aufpicious than this introduction, yet Spenser did not des tive from it any immediate benefit. He was indeed created Poet Laureat to Queen Elizabeth; but for fome time he poffeffed only the place without the penfion. His generous and noble patron was, from the nature of his employments, and the active share he had in the campaigns of the Low Countries, obliged to be much abfent from Court; and the Lord Treasurer Burleigh, who did not bold Spenfer's merit in the fame estimation, inftead of promoting his intereft with the Queen, is aid to have intercepted her favour to this ingenious and unfortunate man.

This misfortune ftruck the elegant mind of the poet fo deeply, that the impreffion feems not to have been effaced during a great part of his life. And, as might have been expected, we find him in many parts of his works, indulging himfelf in the most tender complaints of this ungenerous and undeferved treatment. In his poem called the Ruins of Time, which was written fome time after Sydney's death; in the fpeech of Calliope; in the poem intitled the Tears of the Mafes; in his Mother Hubbard's Tale; and at the end of book 6. of the Fairy Queen; there are feveral lines which carry a most pointed allufion to the repulfe and oppofition of the Lord Treasurer. This conduct, on the part of the poet, naturally widened the breach between him and Burleigh; till what, at first, was perhaps only neglect in the Treafurer, was converted into a fettled hatred.

Notwithstanding this violent and illiberal oppofition of the Treasurer, however, the Queen, upon Spenfer's prefenting her with fome poems, ordered him a gratuity of an hundred pounds; and, fome time after his appearance at Court, his uncommon abilities gained him the esteem and acquaintance of the most eminent men of that time

His first appearance in active life was in the year 1579, when he was fent abroad by the Earl of Leicester; but on what particular fervice he was employed is uncertain.

He was next recommended as fecretary to the Lord Grey of Wilton, upon his being chofen deputy of Ireland. In this fituation he acquitted himself with great skill and ability, as may appear from his difcourfe on the state of Ireland, in which are to be found many folid and judicious remarks, that reflect as much honour on his talents for public bufinefs, as his other productions do on his genius for poetry

Our author feemed now for ever exempted from the difficulties and embarraffments of his former life. His fervices to the Crown were rewarded, by a grant from Queen Elizabeth of 3000 acres of land in the county of Corke. His houfe was in Kilcolman; and the river Mulla, which he has more than once fo beautifully introduced in his poems, ran through his grounds.

About this time, Spenier contracted an intimate friendship with the great and learned Sir Walter Raleigh; and the poem called "Colin Clout's come home again," in which Sir Walter is defcribed, after the paftoral manner, in the character of the Shepherd of the Ocean, is a beautiful memorial of this friendship, which originated at first from congeniality of foul and fimilarity of taite in the polite arts. Sir Walter did Spenfer confiderable services at Court, and rendered the Queen better acquainted with his writings than she had ever been before.

In this delightful retirement he was a more fuccefsful lover, than when he paid his addrefes to Rofalind. The history of the progrefs of his new amour may be traced in the collection of his fonnets; and the excellent epithalamium which we find among his writings, was occafioned by his obtaining the object of his affection in marriage,

It was here too, that he finished his celebrated poem of the Fairy Queen, which was begun and continued at different intervals of time, and of which only the three first books were at first published. In a following edition he added three more: but the last fix books (excepting the two cantos of Mutability) were unfortunately lost by his fervant, whom he had fent before him in hafte to England; a circumftance which the admirers of genuine merit, and of this most admirable poem, must for ever regret.

Spenfer, however, was foon driven from this ferene and tranquil fcene. In the rebellion of the Earl of Delmond he loft his eftate. And upon his return to England, the weight of his misfortunes was doubled, from the want of his best friend the brave Sir Philip Sydney, who, a few years before, had died of the wounds he had received in an action in the Netherlands, univerfally lamented, as the ornament of the English nation.

The remainder of Spenfer's life, were it better known, would probably be little elfe than the mournful detail of affliction. His fortune was now broken; his heart was wounded with calamity; and the evening of a day, in which he had seen but few bright hours, was fpent in the deep gloom of adverüty

He died in the fame year with his powerful enemy the Lord Burleigh, which was in 1598, and about twelve years after his beloved patron Sir Philip Sydney. He was buried, at his own request, in Westminster Abbey, near the famous Geoffrey Chaucer. His obfequies were attended by the poets

of

of that time. Several copies of verfes were thrown into his grave; and a monument to his memory was erected at the charge of the famous Robert Devereux, the unfortunate Earl of Effex.

Befides thofe pieces of Spenfer which have been preferved, we find he had written feveral others, of which the titles only can now be traced. Among these the most confiderable were, nine comedies, infcribed with the names of the Nine Mufes. The reft, which are mentioned in his own letters, and thofe of his friends, are, his Dying Pelicane, his Pageants, Stemmata Dudleyana, the Canticles paraphrafed, Ecclefiaftes, Seven Pfalms, Hours of our Lord, Sacrifice of a Sinner, Purgatory, A Se'nnight's Slumber, The Court of Cupid, and the Hell of Lovers. He is likewife faid to have written a treatise in profe, called the English Poet.

As for the Epithalamion Thamefis, and his Dreams, both mentioned by himself in one of his let ters, it is probable they are ftill preserved, though under different names. His dreams, there is reafon to conclude, have been publifhed under the feveral titles of, Vifions of the World's Vanity, Bellay's Vilions, Petrarch's Visions, &c.; and the fubftance of the Epithalamion hamefis has been preserved in Canto XI. of Book IV. of the Fairy Queen, in that beautiful episode of the marriage of the Thames and Medway, which is fo great an ornament to that book.

We are equally ignorant, what family Spenfer left behind him, as we are concerning many of the events of his own life. The only circumftance that feems to merit any credit is, that a perfon, in the reign of King William, came over from Ireland to folicit the lands which had belonged to his anceftors, and brought along with him letters of recommendation as a defcendant of Spenfer. His claim was allowed to be good, and he obtained his fuit. He could give no account whatever of the works of his illuftrious ancestor which are wanting; and in all probability, therefore, we must con clude, with regret, that they are irrecoverably loft.

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