Westmonasterii sepulti usque ad annum 1606' is enrolled the name of Spenser, with the following brief obituary: Edmundus Spencer Londinensis, Anglicorum Poetarum nostri seculi facile princeps, quod ejus poemata faventibus Musis et victuro genio conscripta comprobant. Obijt immatura morte anno salutis 1598, et prope Galfredum Chaucerum conditur qui felicissime poësin Anglicis literis primus illustravit. In quem hæc scripta sunt epitaphia : Hic prope Chaucerum situs est Spenserius, illi Hic prope Chaucerum, Spensere poeta, poetam Nunc moritura timet, te moriente, mori.' Edmund Spencer, of London, far the first of the English Poets of our age, as his poems prove, written under the smile of the Muses, and with a genius destined to live. He died prematurely in the year of salvation 1598, and is buried near Geoffrey Chaucer, who was the first most happily to set forth poetry in English writing: and on him were written these epitaphs:— Here nigh to Chaucer Spenser lies; to whom In genius next he was, as now in tomb. Here nigh to Chaucer, Spenser, stands thy hearse,* Now thou art dead, it fears that it shall die.' The next notice is found in Drummond's account of Ben Jonson's conversations with him in the year 1618: 'Spencer's stanzas pleased him not, nor his matter. The meaning of the allegory of his Fairy Queen he had delivered in writing to Sir Walter Rawleigh, which was, "that by the Bleating Beast he understood the Puritans, and by the false Duessa the Queen of Scots." He told, that Spencer's goods were robbed by the Irish, and his house and a little child burnt, he and his wife escaped, and after died for want of bread in King Street; he refused 20 pieces sent him by my lord Essex, and said he was sure he had no time to spend them.'† The third record occurs in Camden's History of Queen Elizabeth (Annales rerum Anglicarum et Hibernicarum regnante Elizabetha), first published in a complete form in 1628. There the famous antiquary registering what demises marked the year 1598 (our March 25, 1598, to March 24, 1599), adds to his list Edmund Spenser, and thus writes of him: Ed. Spenserus, patria Londinensis, Cantabrigienis autem alumnus, Musis adeo arridentibus natus ut omnes Anglicos superioris ævi Poetas, ne Chaucero quidem concive excepto, superaret. Sed peculiari Poetis fato semper cum paupertate conflictatus, etsi Greio Hiberniæ proregi fuerit ab epistolis. Vix enim ibi secessum et scribendi otium nactus, quam a rebellibus è laribus ejectus et bonis spoliatus, in Angliam inops reversus statim exspiravit, Westmonasterii prope Chaucerum impensis * Compare Underneath this sable hearse, &c.' † Works of William Drummond of Hawthornden. Edinburgh, 1711, p. 225. comitis Essexiæ inhumatus, Poëtis funus ducentibus flebilibusque carminibus et calamis in tumulum conjectis.'* This is to say: Edmund Spenser, a Londoner by birth, and a scholar also of the University of Cambridge, born under so favourable an aspect of the Muses that he surpassed all the English Poets of former times, not excepting Chaucer himself, his fellow-citizen. But by a fate which still follows Poets, he always wrestled with poverty, though he had been secretary to the Lord Grey, Lord Deputy of Ireland. For scarce had he there settled himself into a retired privacy and got leisure to write, when he was by the rebels thrown out of his dwelling, plundered of his goods, and returned into England a poor man, where he shortly after died and was interred at Westminster, near to Chaucer, at the charge of the Earl of Essex, his hearse being attended by poets, and mournful elegies and poems with the pens that wrote them thrown into his tomb.'t In 1633, Sir James Ware prefaced his edition of Spenser's prose work on the State of Ireland with these remarks: How far these collections may conduce to the knowledge of the antiquities and state of this land, let the fit reader judge: yet something I may not passe by touching Mr. Edmund Spenser and the worke it selfe, lest I should seeme to offer injury to his worth, by others so much celebrated. Hee was borne in London of an ancient and noble family, and brought up in the Universitie of Cambridge, where (as the fruites of his after labours doe manifest) he mispent not his time. After this he became secretary to Arthur Lord Grey of Wilton, Lord Deputy of Ireland, a valiant and worthy governour, and shortly after, for his services to the Crowne, he had bestowed upon him by Queene Elizabeth, 3,000 acres of land in the countie of Corke. There he finished the latter part of that excellent poem of his "Faery Queene," which was soone after unfortunately lost by the disorder and abuse of his servant, whom he had sent before him into England, being then a rebellibus (as Camden's words are) è laribus ejectus et bonis spoliatus. He deceased at Westminster in the year 1599 (others have it wrongly 1598), soon after his return into England, and was buried according to his own desire in the collegiat church there, neere unto Chaucer whom he worthily imitated (at the costes of Robert Earle of Essex), whereupon this epitaph was framed.' And then are quoted the epigrams already given from Camden. The next passage that can be called an account of Spenser is found in Fuller's Worthies of England, first published in 1662, and runs as follows: Edmond Spencer, born in this city (London), was brought up in Pembroke-hall in Cambridge, where he became an excellent scholar; but especially most happy in English Poetry; as his works do declare, in which the many Chaucerisms used (for I will not say affected by him) are thought by the ignorant to be blemishes, known by the learned to be beauties, to his book; which notwithstanding had been more saleable, if more conformed to our modern language. 'There passeth a story commonly told and believed, that Spencer presenting his poems to queen Elizabeth, she, highly affected therewith, commanded the lord Cecil, * Annales, ed. Hearne, iii. 783. ↑ History of Elizabeth, Queen of England. Ed. 1688, pp. 564, 565. her treasurer, to give him an hundred pound; and when the treasurer (a good steward of the queen's money) alledged that sum was too much; "Then give him," quoth the queen, "What is reason;" to which the lord consented, but was so busied, belike, about matters of higher concernment, that Spencer received no reward, whereupon he presented this petition in a small piece of paper to the queen in her progress: I was promis'd on a time, To have reason for my rhyme; Hereupon the queen gave strict order (not without some check to her treasurer), for the present payment of the hundred pounds the first intended unto him. 'He afterwards went over into Ireland, secretary to the lord Gray, lord deputy thereof; and though that his office under his lord was lucrative, yet got he no estate; but saith my author " peculiari poetis fato semper cum paupertate conflictatus est." So that it fared little better with him than with William Xilander the German (a most excellent linguist, antiquary, philosopher and mathematician), who was so poor, that (as Thuanus saith), he was thought "fami non famæ scribere." 'Returning into England, he was robb'd by the rebels of that little he had; and dying for grief in great want, anno 1598, was honourably buried nigh Chaucer in Westminster, where this distich concludeth his epitaph on his monument Anglica, te vivo, vixit plausitque poesis; Whilst thou didst live, liv'd English poetry Which fears now thou art dead, that she shall die. 'Nor must we forget, that the expence of his funeral and monument was defrayed at the sole charge of Robert, first of that name, earl of Essex.' The next account is given by Edward Phillips in his Theatrum Poëtarum Anglicanorum, first published in 1675. This Phillips was, as is well known, Milton's nephew, and according to Warton, in his edition of Milton's juvenile poems, there is good reason to suppose that Milton threw many additions and corrections into the Theatrum Poëtarum. Phillips' words therefore have an additional interest for us. Edmund Spenser,' he writes, the first of our English poets that brought heroic poesy to any perfection, his "Fairy Queen" being for great invention and poetic heighth, judg'd little inferior, if not equal to the chief of the ancient Greeks and Latins, or modern Italians; but the first poem that brought him into esteem was his " Shepherd's Calendar," which so endeared him to that noble patron of all vertue and learning Sir Philip Sydney, that he made him known to Queen Elizabeth, and by that means got him preferred to be secretary to his brother* Sir Henry Sidney, who was sent deputy into Ireland, where he is said to have written his “Faerie Queen;" but upon the return of Sir Henry, his employment ceasing, he also return'd into England, and having lost his great friend Sir Philip, fell into poverty, yet made his last refuge to the Queen's bounty, and had 500l. ordered him for his support, which nevertheless was abridged to 100%. ⚫ Father. by Cecil, who, hearing of it, and owing him a grudge for some reflections in Mother Hubbard's Tale, cry'd out to the queen, What! all this for a song? This he is said to have taken so much to heart, that he contracted a deep melancholy, which soon after brought his life to a period. So apt is an ingenuous spirit to resent a slighting, even from the greatest persons; and thus much I must needs say of the merit of so great a poet from so great a monarch, that as it is incident to the best of poets sometimes to flatter some royal or noble patron, never did any do it more to the height, or with greater art or elegance, if the highest of praises attributed to so heroic a princess can justly be termed flattery.' * When Spenser's works were reprinted-the first three books of the Faerie Queene for the seventh time-in 1679, there was added an account of his life. In 1687, Winstanley, in his Lives of the most famous English Poets, wrote a formal biography. These are the oldest accounts of Spenser that have been handed down to us. In several of them mythical features and blunders are clearly discernible. Since Winstanley's time, it may be added, Hughes in 1715, Dr. Birch in 1731, Church in 1758, Upton in that same year, Todd in 1805, Aikin in 1806, Robinson in 1825, Mitford in 1839, Prof. Craik in 1845, Prof. Child in 1855, Mr. Collier in 1862 Dr. Grosart in 1884, have re-told what little there is to tell, with various additions and subtractions. Our external sources of information are, then, extremely scanty. Fortunately our internal sources are somewhat less meagre. No poet ever more emphatically lived in his poetry than did Spenser. The Muses were, so to speak, his own bosom friends, to whom he opened all his heart. With them he conversed perpetually on the various events of his life; into their ears he poured forth constantly the tale of his joys and his sorrows, of his hopes, his fears, his distresses. He was not one of those poets who can put off themselves in their works, who can forego their own interests and passions, and live for the time an extraneous life. There is an intense personality about all his writings, as in those of Milton and of Wordsworth. In reading them you can never forget the poet in the poem. They directly and fully reflect the poet's own nature and his circumstances. They are, as it were, fine spiritual diaries, refined self-portraitures. Horace's description of his own famous fore-runner, quoted at the head of this memoir, applies excellently to Spenser. On this account the scantiness of our external means of knowing Spenser is perhaps the less to be regretted. Of him it is eminently true that we may know him from his works. His poems are his best biography. In the sketch of his life to be given here his poems shall be our one great authority. Theatrum Poet. Anglic., ed. Brydges, 1800, pp. 148, 149, CHAPTER I. FROM SPENSER'S BIRTH TO THE PUBLICATION OF THE SHEPHEARD'S CALENDAR. EDMUND SPENSER was born in London in the year 1552, or possibly 1551. For both these statements we have directly or indirectly his own authority. In his Prothalamion he sings of certain swans whom in a vision he saw floating down the river 'Themmes,' that At length they all to mery London came, A MS. note by Oldys the antiquary in Winstanley's Lives of the most famous English Poets, states that the precise locality of his birth was East Smithfield. East Smithfield lies just to the east of the Tower, and in the middle of the sixteenth century, when the Tower was still one of the chief centres of London life and importance, was of course a neighbourhood of far different rank and degree from its present social status. The date of his birth is concluded with sufficient certainty from one of his sonnets, viz. sonnet 60; which it is pretty well ascertained was composed in the year 1593. These sonnets are, as we shall see, of the amorous wooing sort; in the one of them just mentioned, the sighing poet declares that it is but a year since he fell in love, but that that year has seemed to him longer Then al those fourty which my life out-went. Hence it is gathered that he was most probably born in 1552. The inscription, then, over his tomb in Westminster Abbey errs in assigning his birth to 1553; though the error is less flagrant than that perpetrated by the inscription that preceded the present one, which set down as his natal year 1510. Of his parents the only fact secured is that his mother's name was Elizabeth. This appears from sonnet 74, where he apostrophizes those Most happy letters! fram'd by skilfull trade The which three times thrise happy hath me made, With guifts of body, fortune and of mind. The first my being to me gave by kind From mothers womb deriv'd by dew descent. |