Rome, by Bellay. 6. Muiopotmos, or the Tale of the Butterflie. 7. Visions of the Worlds Vanitie. 8. Bellayes Visions. 9. Petrarches Visions" to which is prefixed the following address of "The Printer to the Gentle Reader. Since my late setting foorth of the Faerie Queene, finding that it hath found a favourable passage amongst you; I have sithence endevoured, by all good meanes, (for the better encrease and accomplishment of your delights,) to get into my handes such smale Poemes of the same Authors as I heard were disperst abroad in sundrie hands; and not easie to bee come by, by himselfe ; some of them having bene diverslie imbeziled, and purloyned from him, since his departure over sea. Of the which I have, by good meanes, gathered togeather these fewe parcels present, which I have caused to bee imprinted altogeather, for that they al seeme to containe like matter of argument in them; being all complaints and meditations of the worlds vanitie, verie grave and profitable. To which effect I understand that he besides wrote sundrie others, namelie, 'Ecclesiastes, and Canticum Canticorum, translated; A Senights Slumber; The Hell of Lovers; his Purgatorie; being all dedicated to Ladies; so as it may seeme he meant them all to one volume: besides some other Pamphlets looselie scattered abroad; as The Dying 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 to, I meane likewise, for your favour sake, to set foorth; in the meane time praying you gentlie to accept of these, and graciouslie to entertaine the new Poet.

k

i

Of the pieces contained in the Complaints, the Muiopotmos alone is said to be a re-publication. Dr. Birch, and the author of the Life of Spenser prefixed to Mr. Church's edition of the Faerie Queene, assert that it had been published in 1590; and indeed it differs from the rest in bearing on the title the date of that year. For this reason I have given it the precedency, in this edition of Spenser's smaller poems; at the same time not denying that the date may be an errour of the press; inasmuch as in the Visions of the Worlds Vanitie, and in the Visions of Petrarch, there is an address apparently intended to the Lady to whom the Muiopotmos is dedi

The spirit of versifying the Psalms, and other parts of the Bible, at the beginning of the Reformation, was, says Mr. Warton, almost as epidemick as psalm-singing. Hist. of Eng. Poet. vol. iii. p. 180.

Of Ecclesiastes I find Dr. Drant to have been a translator into Latin verse. See Tanner's Bib. Brit. p. 233. And I have seen a laboured poetical paraphrase of this Book in English, by Henry Lok, published in 1597.

In the age of Elizabeth, numerous were the poetical versions of the Canticles. See Warton's Hist. of Eng. Poet. vol. iii. p. 327, &c.

Tasso appears to have employed his pen in a very poetical manner in a Canzone, taken, in some degree, from the Song of Songs. See this beautiful Canzone, first printed from a manuscript in the Barberini Library at Rome, (N° 3009.) in Maty's Review, May 1786. Art. iv.

b See before, p. xiv.

See his Hymne in honour of Love, ver. 265, where he describes the circumstances that "make a lovers life a wretches hell; "and where he adds, in his address to Love, ver. 278.

J See before, p. xx.

"So thou thy folke, through paines of Purgatorie,
"Dost beare unto thy blisse and heavens glorie.”

William Hunnis, a gentleman of the Chapel Royal under Edward the sixth, and afterwards Master of the Chapel under Elizabeth, might suggest to Spenser this employment of his time; for he wrote and published "Seven sobs of a sorrowful soule for sinne, comprehending those seven Psalmes of the princelie prophet David commonlie called Pænitentiall; framed into a forme of familiar praiers, and reduced into meeter, &c." It appears that Camoens, the unfortunate bard of Portugal, had undertaken also a translation of these seven Psalms. The account is related in a nanner so interesting by Lord Strangford, the elegant translator of part of Camoens's poetry, as to require no apology for its introduction here: "A cavalier named Ruy de Camera, having called upon our author [Camoens] to finish a poetical version of the seven penitential Psalms; raising his head from his miserable pallet, and pointing to his faithful slave, he exclaimed, Alas! when I was a poet, I was young, and happy, and blest with the love of ladies; but now I am a forlorn deserted wretch. See! there stands my poor Antonio, vainly supplicating four-pence to purchase a little coals: I have them not to give him!' The cavalier, as Sousa quaintly relates, closed his heart and his purse, and quitted the room. Such were the grandees of Portugal!" Poems &c. from the Portuguese of Luis de Camoens, &c. 12mo. 1803, p. 24.

With respect to the translation of several select Psalms into English verse, I think it not foreign to the subject of this note, and I conceive it due to the history of our Poetry, to mention that, among the numerous invaluable manuscripts which belonged to the late Duke of Bridgewater, and now belong to the Marquis of Stafford, there is a volume entitled, The Soules Banquet, made up of divers divine Rarities;" in which are "Divers selected Psalmes of David, in verse, of a different composure from those used in the Church, by Fra: Davison esq, deceased, and other Gent." Of these translations, some are remarkably beautiful. The Poetical Rapsodie of Davison, already mentioned, (p. xv.) was published in 1602, and in 1611.

Ponsonby, the bookseller, has adopted the name which is applied to Spenser on the publication of the Shepheards Calender: See the title to the Epistle of E. K. to Master Gabriel Harvey; to whom E. K. commends "the patronage f the new Poet."

cated; no separate title being affixed to the collection of Visions which immediately follow the Muiopotmos; of which circumstance the biographers have taken no notice.

P

The Muiopotmos is dedicated to Lady Carey ; and is worthy of particular attention, on account of Spenser's elegant compliment to the Lady, connected with the avowal of his own honourable descent. "The faithfull minde and humble zeale, which I bear unto your Ladyship, may perhaps be more of price, as may please you to account and use the poor service thereof; which taketh glory to advance your excellent partes and noble vertues, and to spend it selfe in honouring you; not so much for your great bounty to myself, which yet may not be unminded; nor " FOR NAME OR KINDREDS SAKE BY YOU VOUCHSAFED being also regardable; as for that honorable name which yee have by your brave deserts purchast to yourselfe, and spred in the mouths of all men." Lady Carey is also the poet's Phillis in Colin Clouts come home again; to whom he "repeats the declaration of his alliance. This Lady was Elizabeth, one of the six daughters of Sir John Spenser or Spencer of Althorpe in Northamptonshire; and was married to Sir George Carey, who became Lord Hunsdon on the death of his father in 1596. She was the second daughter. Her issue was an only daughter. Whether Lady Elizabeth Carew, to whom one of the dedicatory Sonnets accompanying the first edition of the Faerie Queene is inscribed, be the same person, has been a matter of doubt. Yet Nash's Dedication of his Christs Tears over Jerusalem "to the most honored and vertuous the Lady Elizabeth Carey," seems to over-rule the doubt. "Divers wel-deserving poets have consecrated their endevours to your praise. Fames eldest favourite, MAISTER SPENCER, in all his writings hie prizeth you." This Lady, as it appears in the Dedication of another curious and very scarce publication by Nash to her daughter, was also a poetess of Spenser's School. The testimony to the merits of a mother and a daughter peculiarly accomplished, is too interesting to be omitted. "To the new kindled cleare Lampe of Virginitie, and the excellent adored high Wonder of sharpe Wit and sweete Beautie, Mistres Elizabeth Carey, sole Daughter and Heire to the thrise noble and renowmed Sir George Carey, Knight Marshall, &c.-Against your perfections no tung can except. Miraculous is your wit; and so is acknowledged by the wittiest poets of our age, who have vowed to enshrine you as their second Delia. Temperance her selfe hath not temperater behaviour than you ; religious Pietie hath no humble hand-maide that she more delights in. A worthie Daughter are you of so worthie a Mother; borrowing, as another Phoebe, from her bright sunne-like resplendaunce, the orient beames of your radiaunce. Into the Muses societie her selfe she hath lately adopted, and purchast divine Petrarch another monument in England.”

The Ruines of Time, which follow the Muiopotmos, Spenser dedicates to the Countess of Pembroke, the amiable and learned sister of Sir Philip Sidney. In this poem he deeply laments the loss of his early friend, Sir Philip; while he embalms, in a very interesting as well as grateful manner, the memory" of his stocke and famous familie." The poem is remarkable also for the judicious and honourable commendation which it gives of Camden.

The next poem is the Teares of the Muses, which Spenser inscribes to Lady Strange, who is Alice, the sixth daughter of Sir John Spenser; distinguished likewise in Colin Clouts come home again by the pastoral name of Amarillis. And it is observable that, in this Dedication also, the

The nobility of the Spencers has been illustrated and enriched by the trophies of Marlborough ; but I exhort them to consider the Fairy Queen as the most precious jewel of their coronet. Gibbon's Memoirs of his own Life and writings. "Colin Clouts come home again, ver. 539.

• The name is spelt both ways, as well in the various publications of the poet which appeared while he lived, as in ancient deeds relating to the honourable family from which he is descended. I have followed that orthography, to which we have been accustomed in respect to the poet's name, and which is copied from both his own editions of the Faerie Queene. Sir John Spencer died in 1580, and left five sons as well as six daughters. The family was soon after ennobled. At the present period, the family of Spencer is also rendered more particularly interesting in the literary history of this country, by the noble possessor of Althorpe's well-known and judicious accumulation of rare and valuable books, and by the tenderness of the old poet again awakened in the strains of a learned nephew of the Duko of Marlborough.

See Brydges's edition of Phillips's Theatrum Poetarum Anglicanorum, 8vo. 1800, p. 154.

Entitled "The Terrors of the Night, or, A Discourse of Apparitions. Post tenebras dies. Tho. Nashe. London, printed by John Danter for William Iones, &c. 1594." 4to. Of this work no other copy at present is known to exist, except that which belonged to the late Duke of Bridgewater, and now belongs to the Marquis of Stafford.

▾ Ruines of Time, ver. 276.

poet introduces his connection with the family. "The causes, for which ye have thus deserved of me to be honoured, (if honour it be at all,) are, both your particular bounties, and also some private bands of affinitie which it hath pleased your Ladiship to acknowledge." This Lady married Ferdinando, Lord Strange, who, by his father's death, became Earl of Derby in 1592. He died of poison April 16. 1594. He is lamented under the name of Amyntas in Colin Clouts come home again; in the subsequent account of which poem I shall notice his accomplishments and his misfortune. He left by this Lady three daughters his coheirs. Spenser, speaking of her widowhood, represents her as

W

■ freed from Cupids yoke by fate;

"Since which she doth new bands adventure dread: "

She conquered these poetical fears, however; and became in 1600 the third wife to Sir Thomas Egerton, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, afterwards Baron of Ellesmere, and Viscount Brackley; by whom she had no issue. John, the only surviving son of the Lord Keeper by his first wife, married the Lady Frances, the second daughter of the Lady then his step-mother; and, almost immediately after the death of his father, was advanced to the Earldom of Bridgewater; an honour, which at the distance of about a century was elevated in his descendants to a Dukedom; but, in consequence of the late Duke dying unmarried, has returned to its original rank in the person of the Right Hon. John William Egerton, the present Earl; the amiableness of whose disposition, and the moral influence of whose publick and private character, will still further endear to society the honourable names of those who are thus connected with the history of Spenser, and whose family also has been celebrated by the muse of Milton. The mask or poem written by Milton, entitled Arcades, further illustrates the account of the Lady, to whose patronage Spenser acknowledges his obligations. The Lord Keeper and the Lady jointly purchased the seat, called Harefield place, in Middlesex. Here, in the autumn of 1602, they were honoured with a visit by the Queen; who was received with all the accustomed pageantry of elder days; and, on her departure, was addressed with a farevell speech, and with the present of an anchor jewell, by “the place of Harvile personified, attired in black." And here the Arcades was performed, long after the death of her husband, by persons of her own family, the children (it is conjectured) of the Earl of Bridgewater; on whose account the inimitable mask of Comus also was composed, and by some of them represented.

A

Before I pass to the consideration of Virgils Gnat, which follows the Teares of the Muses; it is necessary to observe that these tears or declamations, however elegant, present a melancholy picture of fancied or real discouragements to learning as then existing; which circumstance 1 shall further notice in the account of Mother Hubberds Tale.

b

To the Teares of the Muses succeeds the translation of Virgils Gnat, LONG SINCE dedicated, as Spenser tells us, to the Earl of Leicester. The Dedication mentions an enigmatical wrong, which Spenser pretends to have received; and of which I do not consider myself the Oedipus, whom the poet challenges, to unfold the meaning. Mr. Upton conjectures this wrong, resulting from the Earl of Leicester's displeasure, to have been❝owing to some kind of officious sedulity in Spenser, who much desired to see his patron married to the queen of England. The historians are full of the Queen's particular attachments to the Earl. She expressed, says Camden, such an inclination towards him, that some have imputed her regard to the influence of the stars. Melvil says, in his Memoirs, that queen Elizabeth freely declared that, had she ever designed to have married, her inclinations would have led her to make choice of him for a husband.

• Collins's Peerage, Art. Earls of Derby, vol. 2. p. 470. edit. 1768.

Colin Clouts come home again. ver. 566.

• Ibid.

Collins, ut supr. p. 471. And MS. Pedigree of the Egerton family in the possession of the present Earl of Bridgewater.
Ibid.
Lysons's Middlesex, p. 108, &c.

Lodge's Illustr. of Brit. Hist. vol. 3. p. 132. Talbot Papers, vol. 4. p. 43

Ibid. p 194-204.

e Preface to his edition of the Faerie Queene, pp. xvi. xvii.

See the edition of Milton published in 1801, vol. 5. p. 146, &c.
See the Dedication to the Poem.

For onely worthy you, through prowess priefe,

(Yf living man mote worthie be,) to be her liefe.-Faer. Qu. i. ix. 17.

And, according to my plan, with respect to the historical allusions in the Faerie Queene, Prince Arthur means the Earl of Leicester."-Possibly the Earl's displeasure might have been excited, in consequence of Spenser's pleading in behalf of archbishop Grindal, who is a believed to have incurred the Earl's enmity on account of his determination to prosecute an Italian physician, whom Leicester wished to protect, as a bigamist.

e

The next composition, in the Complaints, is Mother Hubberds Tale; which is dedicated to the Lady Compton and Mountegle. This Lady was Anne, the fifth daughter of Sir John Spenser, distinguished also, in the Pastoral of Colin Clouts come home again, by the name of Charillis. She was married first to Sir William Stanley, Lord Mountegle; next to Henry Compton, Lord Compton; and lastly to Robert Sackville, Lord Buckhurst, afterwards Earl of Dorset; whom the author of the Life of Spenser, prefixed to Mr. Church's edition of the Faerie Queene, has confounded with his father, Thomas Lord Buckhurst. I cannot agree with Mr. Malone,' that this Lady was the widow of Lord Compton at the time of Spenser's inscribing this Poem to her; because Spenser tells us, in the Dedication, that "he had long sithens composed this Poem in the raw conceipt of his youth;" and Lord Compton died in 1589. But in the Poem there is an allusion to Sir Philip Sidney, under the description of the brave Courtier, as then living; and he died in 1586. There seems also an allusion in it, by the expressions applied to the coxcomical Ape at Court, to the same person whom Harvey represents, in his answer to Spenser's Letter of April 7, 1580, as the mirrour of Tuscanism, as a Magnifico, &c. The Lady therefore was now the wife of Lord Compton. But, in Colin Clouts come home again, she is the wife of Sackville. To this Lady, as to her Sisters, the Poem is inscribed, with "the humble affection and faithfull duetie, which," the poet urges, "I have alwaies professed, and am bound to beare to THAT HOUSE from whence yee spring.”

In this satirical Poem, reflections on the general instability of Court-favour have often been cited as a proof of Lord Burleigh's opposition to Spenser :

1

"Most miserable man, whom wicked fate
"Hath brought to Court, to sue for had-ywist,
"That few have found, and manie one hath mist!
"Full little knowest thou, that hast not tride,
"What hell it is, in suing long to bide:
“To lose good dayes, that might be better spent ;
"To wast long nights in pensive discontent;
"To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow;
"To feed on hope, to pine with feare and sorrow;
"To have thy Princes grace, yet want her Peeres;
"To have thy asking, yet waite manie yeeres;
"To fret thy soule with crosses and with cares;
"To eate thy heart through comfortlesse dispaires;
"To fawne, to crowche, to waite, to ride, to ronue,
"To spend, to give, to want, to be undonne.
"Unhappie wight, borne to desastrous end,
"That doth his life in so long tendance spend!"

This passage is supposed to have been represented to Lord Burleigh as a censure upon him. But, at the close of the sixth Book of his Faerie Queene, Spenser denies that it was his intention, in any of his writings, to reflect on this "mighty peer." And, alluding to the monster Detraction who even "spares not the gentle Poet's rime," he proceeds ;

* See Strype's Life of Archbishop Grindal, p. 224. And more particularly Harington's Briefe View of the State of the Church, &c. 1653, p. 5.

• Dr. Birch's Life of Spenser, Upton's Pref. ut supr. Biograph. Brit. &c.

'Inquiry into the authenticity of the pretended Shakspeare papers, &c. p. 63.

See ver. 665. The precise expression also of Harvey, Three Letters, &c. 1580. p. 36. "For life Magnificoes, &c." already cited in p. xxii.

Harvey appears not to have approved of this poetical satire. For he writes; "I must needs say, Mother Hubbard in heat of choler, forgetting the pure sanguine of her sweete Faery Queene, wilfully overshott her malcontented selfe: Is elsewhere I have specified at large, with the good leave of unspotted friendshipp."

See Dr. Birch's Life of Spenser.

"Ne may this homely Verse, of many meanest,

Hope to escape his venemous despite,

"More than MY FORMER WRITS, all were they cleanest
"From b'amefull blot, and free from all that wite

"With which some wicked tongues did it backebite,
"And bring into a mighty Peres displeasure,

"That never so deserved to endile."

These "former Writs" are conjectured by Mr. Upton, to be the Pastorals; in which the poet's commendations of archbishop Grindal, and his reflections on bishop Aylmer, are the topicks that were offensive to Burleigh. Grindal, whom Spenser reverenced, had certainly experienced some opposition from Burleigh, long before the publication of the Pastorals. In a very spirited letter to that nobleman, dated June 26. 1574, the prelate vindicates the attack made upon his character, to which Burleigh, it seems, had given credit; and demands, in consequence of his good name being thus unjustly blotted, and his office slandered, an immediate trial. Three years afterwards, being then archbishop of Canterbury, he was confined to his house and sequestered. And to this disgrace, after describing the merits of Grindal, Spenser alludes in the seventh Eclogue of the Shepheards Calender :

Mor. But say mee, what is Algrind, hee

That is so oft bynempt?

Tho. Hee is a shepheard great in gree,
But hath bene long ypent, &c."

The interference of the poet we must therefore suppose displeasing to the policy of the

statesman.

But what can we say of the lines in the Ruines of Time, which evidently point at Burleigh?

"For he, that now welds all things at his will,
"Scorns th' one and th' other in his deeper skill.
"O griefe of griefes! O gall of all good heartes!
"To see that vertue should despised bee
"Of him, that first was raisde for vertuous parts,
"And now, broad spreading like an aged tree,
"Lets none shoot up that nigh him planted bee:
"O let the man, of whom the Muse is scorned,
"Nor alive nor dead be of the Muse adorned!"

I consider the Ruines of Time to have been written almost immediately after the publication of the first edition of the Faerie Queene; for it could not have been written till "after the death of Sir Francis Walsingham, who died in April 1590; and Spenser's Letter to Sir Walter Raleigh, at the end of this edition, is dated in January 1589-90. With the Faerie Queene a Sonnet had been transmitted to Burleigh, in which Spenser endeavours to sooth the lord treasurer to an acceptance of his "idle rimes." But in vain. The Introduction to the fourth Book of the Faerie Queene, the continuation of the former edition, published in 1596, bears testimony to the coldness of Burleigh:

"The rugged forhead, that with grave foresight
"Weldes kingdomes causes and affaires of state,
My looser rimes, I wote, doth sharply wite
"For praising love, &c."

Burleigh's disapprobation was probably shewn at the first appearance of the Faerie Queene; and, to this disdain of his labours, I ascribe the honest indignation of the poet in the Ruines of

State-Papers, by Murdin, p. 275.

Strype's Life of Grindal. p 231.

in These lines are inaccurately printed in many editions. But the first, and most flagrant, departure from the original is in the folio of 1611. In consequence of the alteration, the reader would look in vain for this allusion to a particular person; for the application is rendered general:

"For such as now have most the world at will,
"Scorn th' one and th' other &c."

And, in the remainder of the allusion, the singular number is discarded for the plural; which Hughes and others follow. The editor of the first folio thought the passage perhaps, thus generalised, a happy touch at the times; or was anxious, by the removal of particulars, to appease the shade of Burleigh!

See the note on the Ruines of Time, ver. 436.