After they had made an end of singing, the shepherd of the ocean Gan to cast great lyking to my lore, And great dislyking to my lucklesse lot That banisht had my selfe, like wight forlure, Into that waste where I was quite forgot, and presently persuaded him to accompany him his Cinthia to see.' It has been seen from one of Harvey's letters that the Faerie Queene was already begun in 1580; and from what Bryskett says, and what Spenser says himself in his sonnets to Lord Grey, and to Lord Ormond, that it was proceeded with after the poet had passed over to Ireland. By the close of the year 1589 at least three books were completely finished. Probably enough parts of other books had been written; but only three were entirely ready for publication. No doubt part of the conversation that passed between Spenser and Raleigh related to Spenser's work. It may be believed that what was finished was submitted to Raleigh's judgment, and certainly concluded that it elicited his warmest approval.* One great object that Spenser proposed to himself when he assented to Raleigh's persuasion to visit England, was the publication of the first three books of his Faerie Queene. CHAPTER III. 1590. THUS after an absence of about nine years, Spenser returned for a time to England; he returned bringing his sheaves with him.' Whatever shadow of misunderstanding had previously come between his introducer and her Majesty seems to have been speedily dissipated. Raleigh presented him to the Queen, who, it would appear, quickly recognised his merits. 'That goddess' To mine oaten pipe enclin'd her eare Al were my notes but rude and roughly dight. In the register of the Stationers Company for 1589 occurs the following entry, quoted here from Mr. Collier's Life of Spenser :— Primo Die Decembris.-Mr. Ponsonbye. Entred for his Copy a booke intytuled the fayrye Queene, dysposed into xii bookes &c. Aucthorised under thandes of the Archb. of Cante & bothe the Wardens, vjd. 'The letter of the authors prefixed to his poem expounding his whole intention in the course of this worke, which for that it giveth great light to the reader, for the better understanding is hereunto annexed,' addressed to 'Sir Walter Kaleigh, Knight, Lord Wardein of the Stanneryes and her Maiesties lifetenaunt of the county of * See Raleigh's lines entitled 'A Vision upon this Conceipt of the Faery Queene,' prefixed to the Fairie Queene. Cornewayll,' is dated January 23, 1589—that is, 1590, according to the new style. Shortly afterwards, in 1590, according to both old and new styles, was published by William Ponsonby THE FAERIE QUEENE, Disposed into twelve books, Fashioning XII Morall vertues.' That day, which we spoke of as beginning to arise in 1579, now fully dawned. The silence of well nigh two centuries was now broken, not again to prevail, by mighty voices. During Spenser's absence in Ireland, William Shakspere had come up from the country to London. When Spenser arrived in London in 1589, this Shakspere was already occupying a notable position in his profession as an actor; his name is found in that year--he was then some twenty-five years of age-amongst the leaders of the company to whom the Blackfriars Theatre belonged; but what is more important, there can be little doubt he was already not only known as an actor, but known and famous as a play-writer. What he had already written was not comparable with what he was to write subsequently; but those early dramas were themselves vastly superior to any English dramatic work that had preceded them, and they gave promise of splendid fruits to be thereafter yielded. In 1593 appeared Venus and Adonis; in the following year Lucrece; in 1595, Spenser's Epithalamium; in 1596, the second three books of the Faerie Queene; in 1597, Bacon's Essays and the first part of Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity. During all these years various plays, of increasing power and beauty, were proceeding from Shakspere's hands; by 1598 about half of his extant plays had certainly been composed. Early in 1599, he, who may be said to have ushered in this illustrious period, he whose radiance first dispersed the darkness and made the day begin to be, our poet Spenser, died. But the day did not die with him; it was then but approaching its noon, when he, one of its brightest suns, set. This day may be said to have fully broken in the year 1590, when the first instalment of the great work of Spenser's life made its appearance. The three books were dedicated to the Queen. They were followed in the original edition- —are preceded in later editions-first, by the letter to Raleigh above mentioned; then by six poetical pieces of a commendatory sort, written by friends of the poetby Raleigh who writes two of the pieces, by Harvey who now praises and well-wishes the poem he had discountenanced some years before, by R. S.,' by 'H. B.,' by ' W. L. ;' lastly, by seventeen sonnets addressed by the poet to various illustrious personages; to Sir Christopher Hatton, to Lord Burghley, to the Earl of Essex, Lord Charles Howard, Lord Grey of Wilton, Lord Buckhurst, Sir Francis Wallingham, Sir John Norris, Knight, lord president of Munster, Sir Walter Raleigh, the Countess of Pembroke, and others. The excellence of the poem was at once generally perceived and acknowledged. Spenser had already, as we have seen, gained great applause by his Shepheardes Calendar, published some ten years before the coming out of his greater work. During these ten years he had resided out of England, as has been seen; but it is not likely his reputation had been languishing during his absence. Webbe in his Discourse of English Poetrie, 1586, had contended 'that Spenser may well wear the garlande, and step before the best of all English poets.' The Shepheardes Calendar had been reprinted in 1581 and in 1586; probably enough, other works of nis had been circulating in manuscript; the hopes of the country had been directed towards him; he was known to be engaged in the composition of a great poem. No doubt he found himself famous when he reached England on the visit suggested by Raleigh; he found a most eager expectant audience; and when at last his Faerie Queene appeared, it was received with the utmost delight and admiration. He was spoken of in the same year with its appearance as the new laureate.* In the spring of the following year he received a pension from the crown of 50l. per annum. Probably, however, then, as in later days, the most ardent appreciators of Spenser were the men of the same craft with himself—the men who too, though in a different degree, or in a different kind, possessed the vision and the faculty divine.' This great estimation of the Faerie Queene was due not only to the intrinsic charms of the poem to its exquisitely sweet melody, its intense pervading sense of beauty, its never stained moral purity, its subtle spiritualness-but also to the time of its appearance. For then nearly two centuries no great poem had been written in the English tongue. Chaucer had died heirless. Occleve's lament over that great spirit's decease had not been made without occasion : Alas my worthie maister honorable This londis verray tresour and richesse Was never man so like amongest us.† And the doleful confession this orphaned rhymer makes for himself, might have been well made by all the men of his age in England :— My dere mayster, God his soule quite, And fader Chaucer fayne would have me taught, But I was dull, and learned lyte or naught. No worthy scholar had succeeded the great master. The fifteenth century in England had abounded in movements of profound social and political interest-in movements which eventually fertilised and enriched and ripened the mind of the nation; but, not unnaturally, the immediate literary results had been of no great value. In the reign of Henry VIII. the condition of literature, for various reasons, had greatly improved. Surrey and Wyatt had heralded the advent of a brighter era. From their time the poetical succession had never failed altogether. The most memorable name in our literature between their time and the Faerie Queene is that of Sackville, Lord Buckhurst-a name of note in the history of both our dramatic and non-dramatic poetry. Sackville was capable of something more than lyrical essays. He it was who designed the Mirror for Magistrates. To that poem, important as compared with the poetry of its day, for its more pretentious conception, he himself contributed the two best pieces that form part of it—the Induction and the Complaint of Buckingham. These pieces are marked by some beauties of the same sort as those which especially characterise Spenser; but they are but fragments; and in spirit *Nash's Supplication of Piers Pennilesse, 1590. + Warton's History of English Poetry, ii. 264, ed. 1840. they belong to an age which happily passed away shortly after the accession of Queen Elizabeth-they are penetrated by that despondent tone which is so strikingly audible in our literature of the middle years of the sixteenth century, not surprisingly, if the general history of the time be considered. Meanwhile, our language had changed much, and Chaucer had grown almost unintelligible to the ordinary reader. Therefore, about the year 1590, the nation was practically without a great poem. At the same time, it then, if ever, truly needed one. Its power of appreciation had been quickened and refined by the study of the poetries of other countries; it had translated and perused the classical writers with enthusiasm; it had ardently pored over the poetical literature of Italy. Then its life had lately been ennobled by deeds of splendid courage crowned with as splendid success. In the year 1590, if ever, this country, in respect of its literary condition and in respect of its general high and noble excitement, was ready for the reception of a great poem. Such a poem undoubtedly was the Faerie Queene, although it may perhaps be admitted that it was a work likely to win favour with the refined and cultured sections of the community rather than with the community at large. Strongly impressed on it as were the instant influences of the day, yet in many ways it was marked by a certain archaic character. It depicted a world-the world of chivalry and romance— which was departed; it drew its images, its forms of life, its scenery, its very language, from the past. Then the genius of our literature in the latter part of Queen Elizabeth's reign was emphatically dramatic; in the intense life of these years men longed for reality. Now the Faerie Queene is one long idealizing. These circumstances are to be accounted for partly by the character of Spenser's genius, partly by the fact already stated that chronologically Spenser is the earliest of the great spirits of his day. In truth he stands between two worlds: he belongs partly to the new time, partly to the old; he is the last of one age, he is the first of another; he stretches out one hand into the past to Chaucer, the other rests upon the shoulder of Milton. CHAPTER IV. It is easy to imagine how intensely Spenser enjoyed his visit to London. It is uncertain to what extent that visit was prolonged. He dates the dedication of his Colin Clouts Come Home Again 'from my house at Kilcolman, the 27 of December, 1591. On the other hand, the dedication of his Daphnaida is dated London this first of Januarie 1591,' that is 1592 according to our new style. Evidently there is some mistake here. Prof. Craik suspects' that in the latter instance the date | January 1591' is used in the modern meaning; he quotes nothing to justify such a suspicion; but it would seem to be correct. Todd and others have proposed to alter the '1591' in the former instance to 1595, the year in which Colin Clouts Come Home Again was published, and with which the allusions made in the poem to contemporary writers agree; but this proposal is, as we shall see, scarcely tenable. The manner in which the publisher of the Complaints, 1591, of which publication we shall speak presently, introduces that work to the gentle reader,' seems to show that the poet was not at the time of the publishing easily accessible. He speaks of having endeavoured by all good meanes (for the better encrease and accomplishment of your delights) to get into my hands such small poems 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 been diverslie imbeziled and purloyned from him since his departure ouer sea.' He says he understands Spenser wrote sundrie others' besides those now collected, ¦¦besides some other Pamphlets looselie scattered abroad . . . which when I can either by himselfe or otherwise attaine too I meane likewise for your fauour sake to set foorth.' It may be supposed with much probability that Spenser returned to his Irish castle some time in 1591, in all likelihood after February, in which month he received the pension mentioned above, and on the other hand so as to have time to write the original draught of Colin Clouts Come Home Again before the close of December. The reception of the Faerie Queene had been so favourable that in 1591—it would seem, as has been shown, after Spenser's departure—the publisher of that poem determined to put forth what other poems by the same hand he could gather together. The result was a volume entitled Complaints, containing sundrie small Poemes of the Worlds Vanitie, whereof the next page maketh mention. By Ed. Sp.' 'The next page' contains a note of the Sundrie Poemes contained in this volume:' 1. The Ruines of Time. 2. The Teares of the Muses. 3. Virgils Gnat. 4. Prosopopoia or Mother Hubbards Tale. 5. The Ruines of Rome, by Bellay. 6. Muiopotmos or The Tale of the Butterflie. 7. Visions of the Worlds Vanitie. 8. Bellayes Visions. 9. Petrarches Visions. In a short notice addressed to the Gentle Reader which follows-the notice just referred to the publisher of the volume mentions other works by Spenser, and promises to publish them too when he can attain to' them. These works are Ecclesiastes, The Seven Psalms, and Canticum Canticorum-these three translations no doubt of parts of the Old Testament-A Sennight Slumber, The State of Lovers, the Dying Pelican-doubtless the work mentioned, as has been seen, in one of Spenser's letters to Harvey-The Howers of the Lord, and The Sacrifice of a Sinner. Many of these works had probably been passing from hand to hand in manuscript for many years. That old method of circulation survived the invention of the printing press for many generations. The perils of it may be illustrated from the fate of the works just mentioned. It would seem that the publisher never did attain to them; and they have all perished. With regard to the works which were printed and preserved, the Ruines of Time, as the Dedication shows, was written during Spenser's memorable visit of 1589-91 to England. It is in fact an elegy dedicated to the Countess of Pembroke, on the death of Sir Philip Sidney, that most brave Knight, your most |