"But Shepheards mought be meeke and milde, well-eyed, as Argus was, With fleshly follies undefiled and stout as steede of brasse. Sike one, said Algrin, Moses was that saw his Maker's face." Then follows presently a picture of the pride of Rome, by a shepherd who has travelled thither, which takes its suggestion from Mantuan's ninth eclogue, entitled Falco, de Moribus Curiæ Romanæ. But Spenser does not finish this eclogue without a return to Archbishop Grindal. Who is this Algrind? Morrell asks; and Thomalin replies with a parable from the old tale of the death of Æschylus, of a good man who has been struck from on high. For Grindal suffers innocently from the queen's displeasure. The prudent E. K. in his gloss suggests here no more than an argument in praise of the mean estate, and rather indicates agreement with Morrell's opinion that the chief happiness is in the highest degree: "Much like to that which once I heard alleged in defence of humility, out of a great doctor, Suorum, Christus humillimus': which saying a gentleman in the company taking at the rebound, beat back again with a like saying of another doctor, as he said, 'Suorum, Deus altissimus." E. K. does, in this fashion, what he can to veil his friend's imprudence. But the poet himself was wiser, who made simple music and burnt incense in his April eclogue, to give pleasant assurance of his loyalty and courtesy, and then was not afraid to speak his mind. Love returns in the August eclogue, with a roundelay and a sestina for variety of song. Here there are recollections of the fourth eclogue of Virgil and fifth Idyll of Theocritus. Mantuan's ninth eclogue suggests matter for Spenser's ninth-the eclogue for September. In Mantuan a shepherd who has gone to Rome is kindly received by a Roman comrade, who tells of the evils of the Roman Court. In Spenser the ills are told by a shepherd who has come from Rome. Spenser again writes on the condition of the Church, and he now pays honour to another faithful Churchman, Roffy, the Bishop of Rochester-Roffensis-John Young, who had been Master of Pembroke Hall in Spenser's time. Says Hobbinol, "He is so meeke, wise, and merciable, And with his word his work is convenable, Shepheards sich, God mought us many send That doen so carefully their flocks tend." John Young had been elected Master of Pembroke Hall on the twelfth of July, 1567, upon the recommendation of Edmund Grindal, who had held that office himself and resigned it in May, 1562. . Spenser, it will be remembered, entered Pembroke Hall in May, 1569, so that Colin Clout was at once obedient to Young as "his selfe boy." Dr. Young was elected Bishop of Rochester in February, 1578, and was installed on the first of April, at which time he resigned his office of Master of Pembroke Hall. Thus he had been "Roffy" only for about a year when Spenser found a corner for him in his "Calendar." Dr. Grosart suggests that the dog Lowder was the bishop's chancellor, whose name was Lloyd-easily turned into what then was, and still is in North-east Lancashire, a familiar name for a dog. Roffy is the name, also, of a shepherd in the eclogues of Marot, where he stood for Pierre Roffet, publisher, of Lyons, one of Marot's friends. Spenser, of course, knew the name in Marot before he gave it his own meaning. In this eclogue Spenser continues his complaint against the corrupt clergy, after the manner of Skelton. says 66 Diggon, I pray thee speake not so dirke : and Diggon replies— Hobbinol "Then plainly to speake of Shepheards most what : Their ill haviour garres men mis-say Both of their doctrine and their fay. Thus chatten the people in their steads HOBBINOL: Now, Diggen, I see thou speakest too plaine; Better it were a little to faigne And clenly cover that cannot be cured : Such ill as is forced mought needes be endured." Spenser's October eclogue is based on the fifth of Mantuan, quæ dicitur de consuetudine Divitum erga Poetas. This had been the foundation, also, of the fourth of Barclay's eclogues.* Mantuan opens with the question of Sylvanus to Candidus "Candide, nobiscum pecudes aliquando solebas Pascere, et his gelidis calamos inflare sub umbris, This becomes, in Spenser's opening— "Cuddie, for shame hold up thy heavie headie, "E. W." vii. 105. Spenser, drawing to the close of his Pastorals, already thinks of rising to the higher theme, and takes to himself the counsel of Silvanus in this eclogue— "Dic pugnas, dic gesta virum, dic proelia regum ; which Spenser renders 66 sing of bloody Mars, of wars, of giusts; : So Virgil sang, Maecenas helping him in Mantuan's words "Tityrus, ut fama est, sub Mæcenate vetusto, which became Spenser's words "Indeed the Romish Tityrus, I heare, Through his Maecenas left his oaten reede, And eft did sing of warres and deadly dreede, But, says Candidus of the Rome that he has seen— "Occidit Augustus, nunquam rediturus ab orco"; And, says Spenser's Cuddy "Ah! Mæcenas is yclad in claie, And great Augustus long ygoe is dead." But here, as everywhere, Spenser shapes old forms to his own spirit. His own mind now is on the larger theme to which his heart is rising-on the spiritual battle, in the forms of chivalry, of which the plan is already shaped or shaping in his mind; for "The Shepheardes Calender" was scarcely finished before its author had begun "The Faerie Queene with the words "A gentle knight was pricking on the plain, The two remaining eclogues of "The Shepheardes Calender "-the eleventh and twelfth-were paraphrases of two eclogues by Marot. The November eclogue transformed the lament of Marot for the death of Louise of Savoy, mother of Francis I., into a lament for Dido. Reference to King Francis remained in such lines as, "O thou great Shepherd Lobbin how great is thy grief." Spenser followed his original closely, but with a poet's freedom, to the last, and added chime of his own to the contrasted burdens of Colin's song, with the recurring words in the first burden, "O heavy herse! O careful verse!" and in the second, "O happy herse! O joyful verse!" when the strain changes from lamentation to religious hope. It may even be that Spenser had a double sense in his mind that caused him to repeat literally, towards the close of the song, the phrase, "Frank Shepherd " "O franc Pasteur, combien tes vers sont pleins De grand douceur, et de grand' amertume: ("Aye franck shepheard, how bene thy verses meint Whether reioyce or weepe for great constraint.") And it is to this piece that Spenser appends, as Colin's, Marot's motto, "La Mort ny Mord." Having associated this poem with the death of the year, Spenser closed his work with yet another paraphrase. This |