a great, indeed an inestimable influence in literature at this juncture, was that of the long-forgotten greek language, greek poetry, and greek philosophy. when erasmus, who then had little greek, arrived in england and visited oxford (1499), he found there grocyn, linacre, and colet, who had acquired greek on the continent; and, with sir thomas more, were already competent classical scholars. but their greek learning was mainly turned into the channel of theology, the study of the sources of christian doctrine, the new testament, the greek fathers; and they were attracted by the philosophy of plato which appeared to "utter a christian voice" much more clearly than do the writings of the idol of the middle ages, aristotle.
greek, however, does not visibly affect the poetic literature of england much, before the date of spenser, about 1580. the violent times of henry viii and mary tudor were not favourable to severe study and exquisite appreciation of the greek genius, a most desirable corrective of the prolixity of mediaevalism, and of the english passion for horrors in stage plays. to most people knowledge of the contents of the greek classics came through translations, and these translations, as in the case of the historian thucydides, were done from french versions, while plato was read through italian commentators, much influenced by plato's disciples in early christian times, the neoplatonists, dreamers of beautiful dreams concerning things that cannot be uttered.
study produced also a very wide acquaintance with greek mythology—shakespeare's humblest characters have heard of many a grecian fable—yet the spirit, the exquisite balance, and the[pg 173] refinement of the greek genius, hardly affected our authors. we may detect it in more's (1478-1535) "utopia," where the adventurers carry with them to "nowhere" a "pretty fardel," or parcel, of the cheap neat greek books printed by aldus. the fancied state of utopia, with its comfortable communism and perfect freedom in religion, is derived from the "republic" of plato, and in religion is more liberal than, in his later work, "the laws," he would have permitted it to be. but the "utopia," written in latin, was meant for the learned.
though the "utopia" was published in 1516, and became famous in europe, it did not reach unlearned english readers till an english translation, by ralph robynson, appeared in 1551. they now had more's eloquent advocacy of communism before them as regulated in his imaginary state, with a six hours' day, universal training of men and women for war, and habit of assassinating the leaders of hostile nations. there is tolerance of all religions which accept a deity and the immortality of the soul: atheists are disqualified for public offices.
in his english works on religious and social controversy, which are little read, more is not only a catholic and a conservative, but in discussion is given to abusive and violent language which would have horrified the courteous plato, the urbane aristotle, and that model of a devout and ardent student, and perfect gentleman, pico della mirandola, whose life more gave in english. on both sides the controversialists of the reformation delighted in violent personal abuse, in some greek orators they found examples of that art. the first effect of greek in england, by producing a new biblical criticism and an attack on the foundations of the mediaeval church, was to "bring not peace but a sword," the wars of religion.
elyot.
no man did more for the intelligence of greek than sir thomas elyot (1499 1546)1 author of "the governour," a long treatise, on the education of a gentleman, and on the nature of forms of government. elyot bubbles over with greek, and translates such passages of homer as he quotes into english verse,[pg 174] the alternate lines rhyming. he is of the greek opinion that a gentleman should be taught, if he has a taste for art, to draw, paint, and execute works in sculpture, not as a base professional artist, but as an amateur.[1] elyot would have a boy, at 7 years old, begin with greek, learning it through latin, which he picks up, with french, in conversation. grammars of greek are now almost innumerable. grammar, he says with much truth, "if it be made too long and exquisite to the learner, in a manner mortifieth his courage. and by that time he cometh to the most sweet and pleasant reading of old authors, the spark of fervent desire of learning is soon quenched with the burden of grammar." elyot would start his pupil as early as possible with what will interest a child, ?sop's fables in greek, and then pass to lucian, who is amusing as well as elegant. "but i fear me to be too long from noble homer, from whom as from a fountain proceeded all eloquence and learning." throughout, elyot wishes first to interest the pupil; but where, he asks, is he to find qualified schoolmasters? they were as cruel as in the days of st. augustine, and while elyot's system of education, in sports as well as in books, is free and joyous, like that of gargantua in rabelais, little boys were suffering the horrors described by agrippa d'aubigné in his memoirs. elyot translated works of isocrates, plutarch, and others, wrote a medical work "the castle of health," was clerk of the privy council, and went on various diplomatic missions. elyot was not a professional instructor of youth: he was, it seems, educated privately, and of neither university; what pleases us in him is his unstaled zest for learning, his fresh enthusiasm.
the best english of the age and the most durable is that of thomas cranmer (1489-1556) as we read it in the liturgy of the church of england, while much of the merit of king james's authorized version of the bible rests on the foundation of miles coverdale's translation (1488-1568). how easy it is to translate the bible into english which is not a marvel of diction and rhythm, we are too frequently reminded by the revised version.
[pg 175]
ascham.
roger ascham (1515-1568) was a yorkshire man of the middle classes, who lived by his learning, and did not find that it paid him as well as he wished. going early to st. john's college, cambridge, he was a pupil of the famous sir john cheke, who introduced the english way of pronouncing greek. it is certainly wrong—no people pronounce the vowels as we do; but if cheke resisted the pronunciation of the modern greeks, perhaps he is not much to be blamed. ascham obtained a fellowship and a readership in greek, the fellowship he lost when he married: he did not long retain his tutorship to the princess elizabeth; as secretary to an ambassador in germany he continued to teach greek to his chief; and in his letters, latin or english, we find him often in straits for money and begging for assistance. camden, writing under james i, says that he lost money at dicing, and in his attack on gambling, in his "toxophilus," a dialogue on archery (1545), ascham shows a rather unholy knowledge of all the tricks on the dice-board. probably he had paid for his education. he contemplated a work on the noble sport of cock fighting, on which, of course, there was betting, and perhaps ascham was not in all respects so severe a puritan as in his unworthy attacks on that noblest of romances, "the morte d'arthur". sir lancelot is a better gentleman than many who were to be met at a cock fight. ascham had little sympathy with the italian influences that were so potent in elizabethan literature. italy was certainly profligate and luxurious,
an englishman that is italianate
doth quickly prove a devil incarnate,
was an english translation of an italian proverb. ascham, like his contemporaries, was nothing if not patriotic. the bow of yew and the grey goose shaft had won many a victory over scots and french, as in "toxophilus," ascham reminds these peoples; therefore he desired that archery should be universally practised. but the harquebus, a musket lighter than the heavy hand gun of[pg 176] the fifteenth century, was already, in disciplined hands, more than a match for the bow.
"toxophilus," to our age, appears pedantic. we have endless classical examples, and learn that the trojans drew the bow-string only to the breast, not the ear (which is true), while they used iron arrow-heads as against the bronze arrow-heads of the greeks, a fact not so certain. when he does come to practice, ascham's teaching in archery is reckoned sound and good. his ideas are summed up in the prayer that the english
through christ, king henry, the book, and the bow
may all manner of enemies quite overthrow.
in writing english, ascham was all for plain english. foreign words anglicized make such a mixture "as if you put malmsey and sack, red wine and white, ale and beer, all in one pot". yet he advocates in his "school master," published after his death, a yet more unhallowed blend, the use of greek measures in english verse. "our english tongue in avoiding barbarous rhyming may as well receive right quantity of syllables as either greek or latin." (he means "quantity" as opposed to accent, as if one said carpenter.) as an example he quotes mr. watson's rendering of the third line of the "odyssey" into two english hexameters
all travellers do gladly report great praise of ulysses,
for that he knew many men's manners and saw many cities.
obviously if we are to say "men's manners," making "man" in "manners" long, we must not make "vellers" in "travellers" short, as mr. watson does. we are reduced to
gladly report great praise of ulysses do the travellers.
this absurd manner of imitating greek measures in english was upheld, twenty years later, by gabriel harvey, who, for a moment, nearly corrupted the practice of spenser, the most naturally musical of poets. ascham's own prose style is unaffected, not corrupted by eccentricities, but not harmonious. a new perfection, a false perfection, was to be sought later, through the antitheses, alliterations, and pedantic wit of lyly's "euphues!"
[pg 177]
lyly's euphues.
the prose of ascham was clear and was plain, disdaining decoration and far-fetched gorgeous phrases. but for the gorgeous and the exotic, the taste of the elizabethan age was pronounced, as we see in the strange over-gaudy costumes of the period, the various ruffs, the jewelled velvets and silks, worn by men and women. a like dressing for thoughts was demanded, and the supply was provided by john lyly, whose plays are to be mentioned later. lyly was born a kentish man (1554?); magdalen, in oxford, was his college; his plays, acted by the boys of the chapel royal and st. paul's, are of 1584-1594. but he made his mark earlier, as a prose writer, in his "euphues, the anatomy of wit" (1579), and the sequel, "euphues and his england" (1580). the style became a fashion, a fashion which affected even those who, like sidney, were in would-be revolt against it. lyly, like all writers of the periods just before and after him, was copious in classical allusions. he was not the first to hunt in all directions, especially in fictitious natural history, for similes, and needless decorations; but he hunted further and more assiduously: emphatically his style is that of the unresting bird of paradise. every sentence is a thing bristling with points and antitheses and alliterations. the first part of the book was a kind of novel; two friends, at naples, woo the same woman, quarrel, write long letters, and the question of education, in the wide sense in which the renaissance understood education, is always prominent. there is endless conversation and discussion of life, love, and learning, always in the same style of fantastic decoration and allusion: all continued when euphues arrives in england, all conveying general information not verified by experiment. "i have read that the bull, being tied to a fig tree, loseth his strength; that a whole herd of deer stand at the gaze if they smell a sweet apple"; facts on which the cattle-breeder or the hunter would not, if well advised, rely. this was the kind of science against which bacon uprose. but lyly appealed, in his dedication, and with success, "to the ladies and gentlewomen of england," who found in the book a kind of love-story, much philosophizing on that dear theme; and a pleasurable[pg 178] example of a new way of being witty and romantic. lyly was the chief cause of the difficulty in telling a plain tale plainly which besets the minor writers of the age of elizabeth.
before approaching the chief prose writers of elizabeth's time, we must turn aside to her greatest poet, and his friend, to spenser and sir philip sidney, and to the drama.
sidney.
spenser did not more surely attain immortality by his verse than sir philip sidney (1554-1586) by his life, writings, and character. he was one of those who, as plato says, are born good, exemplars of natural charm and excellence. he is the ideal gentleman of the type which spenser professed to educate by the examples of his virtuous knights, brave, pious, courteous, and just. the son of sir henry sidney and nephew of elizabeth's leicester, philip sidney was born into the court, but was not of it; his heart was set on other things than pleasure, splendour, flattery, and promotion. educated at shrewsbury school, he went to christ church at 14, being already the friend of the noble fulke greville, who, however, went from shrewsbury to cambridge. in 1572 he was attached to the english embassy in france, and, on the night of the bartholomew massacre was sheltered in the house of his future father-in-law, walsingham. till 1575 he travelled, chiefly in germany, and made the acquaintance of his constant correspondent and adviser, languet, whom he celebrates as a shepherd of the ister, and as his own religious mentor. in venice his portrait was painted by veronese; at vienna he perfected himself in horsemanship under pugliano, whose enthusiasm he describes so amusingly in his "defence of poesie". for a man so earnest as sidney was, he had a fine sense of humour.
returning to england in 1575, he, like gascoigne, was with elizabeth at the famous pastimes at kenilworth, now best known through scott's novel, "kenilworth". afterwards, at the house of the earl of essex, he met the earl's daughter, penelope, later lady rich, the stella of his sonnets. essex desired their marriage, but fate decided otherwise. in 1577 sidney went, a young diplomatist,[pg 179] to the emperor and the german princes, and later, was obliged to attend the court, while his mind was set on adventures beyond the atlantic; on failing in that, he trifled with the idea of introducing greek metres into english poetry. in 1579, he quarrelled with the earl of oxford in the tennis court. a duel was not permitted, but as sidney also gave elizabeth his opinion about her distasteful flirtation with the odious duc d'anjou, the worst of the bad valois princes, he retired to wilton, the house of his sister, lady pembroke, and there wrote the pastoral romance, "arcadia".
he was recalled to court, sat in parliament for kent, and in 1583 parried a daughter of walsingham. he was forbidden to join drake's american expedition of 1585, in fact he was always thwarted in his desire for action and for such deeds of chivalry as the conditions of his age permitted—they leaned somewhat to piracy and filibustering. at length, as governor of flushing, while leicester commanded the forces engaged against spain in the low countries, he fell in a cavalry charge against a superior force at zutphen. his leg was broken by a musket bullet from the spanish trenches: it was now that he handed the cup of water that was at his lips to the soldier whose need was greater than his. he lingered for some weeks, and died on 17 october, 1586.
the beautiful character of sidney cannot be more strongly attested than by the agony of grief exhibited, at his death, by the handsome and wicked master of gray. he was about to be sent on the scottish embassy to plead for the life of mary stuart, while his desire was to be fighting under sidney's banner. he expresses, in a touching letter, the sudden revulsion of his nature from his wonted treacheries; and, contrary to the falsehood of tradition, he did not betray, but, to his own loss, did his best to save the queen whose cause he had previously deserted.
as a poet, sidney, whose works were all published after his death, is best remembered for the sonnets of astrophel to stella, lady rich. there is a controversy as to whether these are mere exercises in gallant but "platonic" love-verse, or whether they reveal a true passion, as charles lamb maintained. the sonnet[pg 180] in which he says that he has found his fortune too late, and has lost what he had unwittingly won,
o punisht eyes
that i had been more foolish or more wise,
seems to set forth a truly tragic situation. perhaps only poets can be the critics in such a case as this of sidney.
the sonnets vary much in poetic value; some are written in alexandrines, a metre not consonant with the traditions of the english muse.
sidney's "defence of poesie."
readers who fail to find brilliant merit in english literary poetry between chaucer and spenser may not be ill-pleased to note that sir philip sidney was strong on their side. acquainted as he was with the poetry of greece, rome, italy, and france, he could see nothing to admire in the efforts and experiments of such writers as occleve, lydgate, hawes, googe, churchyard, and turbervile. his "defence of poesie" (or, according to the title of the first edition (1595), his "apologie for poesie") was elicited by the unauthorized dedication to himself of stephen gosson's "school of abuse". gosson was a young oxford man who had tried his hand as a playwright, and been disgusted, he says, by the disorders of the playhouses, where his comedy and morality may have been hooted. he therefore tried to make himself notorious, or he expressed his penitence, by assailing poets who deal in the silly conceits of lyly's "euphues".
"the scarab flies over many a sweet flower and lights in a cow-shard... it is the manner of swine to forsake the fair fields and wallow in the mire: and the whole practice of poets, either with fables to show their abuses, or with plain terms to unfold their mischief, discover their shame, discredit themselves, and disperse their poison through the world". gosson chooses virgil as one of his terrible examples, and whether he is a genuine or a hypocritical puritan, or a mere fribble in search of notoriety, he made a mistake when he thought to find a patron or a butt in sidney, who does not advertise gosson's name in the "defence of poesie".
[pg 181]
after a general defence of poetry furnished with precedents drawn from every quarter, even from the respect paid to their minstrels by the irish, sidney defines the final end of poetry as being "to lead and draw us to as high a perfection as our degenerate souls, made worse by their clay lodgings, can be capable of...." if poetry does not always attain this end, "it is not the fault of the art, but that by few men that art can be accomplished". he quotes aristotle's "poetics" to the effect that poetry is more philosophical and more serious than philosophy. nothing in history is so noble but that "the poet may, if he list, make it his own, beautifying it both for further teaching, and more delighting, as it please him, having all, from dante's heaven to his hell, under the authority of his pen". here sidney seems to differ from scott, who regarded some examples of human fortunes, for example in the case of mary stuart, as beyond the range of the poetic art. but sidney, foreseeing the objection, adds, "i speak of the art, not of the artificer". sidney then discusses the various kinds of poetry. as to the comedy, "naughty play-makers and stage-keepers have made it justly odious,"—so far he sides with the puritans of his time. in speaking of the lyric, he says: "i must confess mine own barbarousness; i never heard the old song of percy and douglas" ("chevy chase"), "that i found not my heart moved more than with a trumpet". indeed the true spirit of poetry did dwell, disregarded by wits and courtiers, in the popular poetry and the ballads. but poetry, he knows not why, finds, in our time, a hard welcome in england: "i think the very earth laments it, and therefore decks our soil with fewer laurels than it was accustomed, for heretofore poets have in england also flourished". if poets are not esteemed it is because they do not deserve esteem, for we are "taking upon us to be poets in despite of pallas," invita minerva. our would-be poets are destitute of genius—which was very true. "chaucer undoubtedly did excellently in his 'troilus and cressida': of whom truly i know not whether to marvel more either that he, in that misty time, could see so clearly, or that we, in this clear age, go so stumblingly after him."
what ailed sidney's age was lack of terseness and clearness.[pg 182] most poets did not know what they would be at; they were confused by the tumult of religion, the loss of old ideals, the language in transition, the tyranny of the misunderstood classics, the constant effort to imitate greece, rome, france, and italy. they could not yet see life and literature steadily, and see them whole. sidney found little that "had poetical sinews," except in chaucer; parts of "the mirror for magistrates," the earl of surrey's lyrics, and spenser's "'shepherd's calendar' hath much poetry in his 'eclogues,' indeed worthy the reading, if. i be not deceived. that same framing of his style to an old rustic language i cannot allow..."
sidney then banters the absurdities of the lawless stage, of the alliterative writers, of the seekers after unnatural history, like lyly in his "euphues," and of the love poets. "if i were a mistress never would they persuade me that they were in love, so coldly they apply fiery speeches," "swelling phrases" learned from books.
it was poetry, not the english poets of his age, that sidney defended, and he might well marvel at our modern zeal which devotes time and scholarship to a chaos of tentative experiments by men who wished to be poets without possessing the poetic genius.
sidney's best poems and his "defence of poesie" retain their freshness; but that book of his which was most popular suffers from the changes of time and taste. at most periods prose fiction is more welcome to human nature than poetry or criticism. sidney's book "the countess of pembroke's arcadia," is a novel, written by the author at wilton, when, as we saw, he was neither in favour at court nor permitted to risk himself in adventures on sea or land. the book was to sidney what "the faery queen" was to spenser, a wilderness of delights of his own creation, a retreat into a world of fantasy. he wrote it in sheets read, or sent as soon as finished, to his sister, the countess of pembroke; the book was meant for her, not for the world. not long after his death, an unauthorized copy was published (1590), and unauthorized edition followed, and the general delight in the romance is attested by its constant reissues.
[pg 183]
the author did not construct any regular plot, he allowed his fancy to wander among the shipwrecks and piratical adventures of the late greek romances; and in an arcadia which never existed, and a laconia most unhistorical. but the high and chivalrous ideals of the author, in his rural prose idylls, as in his battles and combats; the truth and constancy of his lovers; the beauty of his descriptions, made this mixture of the spanish heroic romances that infatuated don quixote with the arcadian pastorals, the delight of four generations. milton blamed the captive charles i for copying the beautiful and appropriate prayer of the captive pamela, long after shakespeare had interwoven with the story of king lear, sidney's tale of the blind king of paphlagonia.
in its new mode "the arcadia" was to four generations what malory's "morte arthur" had been in its day. as late as 1660, we find sir george mackenzie imitating the "arcadia" in his heroic and historic romance, "aretina," where argyll and montrose play their parts. indeed the "arcadia" was a fruitful parent of the interminable heroic french romances which major bellenden laughs at in "old mortality," and from which scott did not disdain to borrow a description in "ivanhoe". it is indeed curious to compare sidney's description of an amazon (book i, chap, xii.) with an actual representation of a genuine amazon by a hittite artist, discovered on the stone work of a gate at boghaz keui. that lady-warrior wears a corslet of scale armour, while sidney's has a doublet of sky-coloured satin, covered with plates of gold. her feet are shod in crimson velvet buskins, while the massive legs of the real amazon are naked. the contrast of fact and fancy are violent, of course, throughout the romance. the style is less conceited than that of "euphues," and is always noble, but the long sentences and overabundance of parentheses are not in accordance with modern taste. the profusion of love-passages and of martial adventures, "with notable images of virtues, vices, or what else," and the poetic if uncurbed fancies, were what the world demanded from a novel, and what sidney gave in the arcadia, with many lyrics, and imitations of the am?bean verse of the shepherds of theocritus.
[pg 184]
spenser.
after two centuries of verse that was tuneless or tentative, the second great english poet came, edmund spenser (1552?-1599). we know from his "prothalamion" that spenser was born in london—
my most kyndly nurse,
that to me gave this lifes first native sourse,
though from another place i take my name,
an house of auncient fame—
that is, the house of the spencers of althorp who are in the ancestry of the duke of marlborough's churchills.
spenser was certainly their kinsman, in what degree is unknown, but his own family must have been poor. he was educated at merchant taylors' school, was aided by the munificent robert nowell, and obtained a sizarship (corresponding to the old oxford servitorship), at pembroke hall, cambridge (1569). here he made two friends, gabriel harvey, a true friend, if a rather pedantic don (the hobbinol of his "shepherd's calendar"), and e. kirke, the e. k. who furnished the notes explanatory of old english words in that poem. spenser also gained the good graces of grindal, then bishop of london, later primate, a puritan, who fell into elizabeth's disgrace, and is applauded as algrind by spenser in the "shepherd's calendar".
spenser's youth was passed in an england disturbed by the claims of the captive mary stuart to the crown; by the rebellion of her adherents in the north; by the papal excommunication of elizabeth, and by the pretensions of the extreme puritan exiles who, driven abroad by the marian persecution, had imbibed at geneva the doctrines of calvin. in their attacks on the english bishops they out-wearied even the successors of calvin in geneva, who regarded them as men not to be satisfied by any concessions; "a sect of perilous consequence who would have no king but a presbytery," said elizabeth. here were all the elements which caused elizabeth's cruel persecution of catholics, the long struggle of the puritans under elizabeth and james i, the wars under charles i, and the strife with spain and catholic ireland. in the words of james vi, it was "a world-wolter," and spenser,[pg 185] as a poor young man, eager to make his fortune, had to swim as best he might in the cross-currents of this troublesome world. he never enjoyed the peaceful leisure of a tennyson or a wordsworth; he had to play an active part in strenuous and most unhappy affairs.
his nature, too, was divided. with all his love of pleasure and of beauty he leaned, though not virulently, towards the puritan party, and, as a good patriot, loathed and detested rome.
it is probable that, when a freshman at the age of 17, he contributed to a miscellany, van der noodt's "theatre of worldlings" (1569), translations in blank verse of certain sonnets of the french poet joachim du bellay, and of petrarch. these, re-cast into the form of sonnets, recur in a volume of spenser's, of 1591.
after taking his master's degree (1576) spenser visited lancashire, and if his words as colin clout in the "shepherd's calendar" be autobiographical, lost his heart to a lady whom he calls rosalind, "the widow's daughter of the glen". according to gabriel harvey she "christened him her signior pegaso," though neither his poetry nor his wooing won her from her cruelty. many years later he still writes of her with chivalrous affection, so, like scott, he had his heart broken and cleverly pieced again.
by 1579 spenser was in london, a literary retainer or protégé of elizabeth's favourite, the earl of leicester; while he also enjoyed the friendship of leicester's nephew, sir philip sidney, the flower of chivalry, himself a poet, and the best beloved man of his time. now (1579) spenser published, and dedicated to sidney, his "shepherd's calendar," a set of twelve eclogues or pastoral poems, one for each month. the pastoral had wandered far from the rural beauty of theocritus, and, in the hands of mantuan and clement marot, had become a vehicle for allegory, and even of protestant argumentation. spenser does not stray far into party and puritanic politics, but they are not unknown to his shepherds. in january, as colin clout, he bewails the coldness of rosalind,
she laughs the songs that colin clout doth make,
which is carrying cruelty very far. february is occupied with a[pg 186] rustic dispute between youth and age: the metre is one of the measures of the "lay of the last minstrel":—
who will not suffer the stormy time,
where will he live tyll the lustry prime?
(shepherd's calendar, feb., 11. 15, 16.)
they burn'd the chapel for very rage
and cursed lord cranstoun's goblin-page.
(lay of the last minstrel, c. ii., stanza, 33).
march, with the dialogue of willie and thomalin about the strange bird, love, is adapted from the greek of bion in a most pleasant manner, and april contains a melodious song of fair eliza, a maiden queen; which probably procured spenser's presentation to elizabeth. the great variety of melodious verse of which spenser was already a perfect master is, for us, perhaps the chief merit of his pastorals. through life spenser keeps up the shepherd's mask, and raleigh, in his verse, is "the shepherd of ocean". the rival protestant and catholic clergy also appear as shepherds, good or bad, while in another eclogue the perfect poet, cuddie, complains, like theocritus, of public indifference, and is advised to sing of redoubted knights: and, indeed, spenser had already conceived the idea of his knightly romantic poem "the faery queen," and was ambitious to excel his model, ariosto. in this harvey discouraged him; "hobgoblin" must not "run away with the garland from apollo".
fortunately spenser followed his own genius, and, though he dallied with the fashion for wedding greek measures to english words, as in the english hexameters of watson and harvey, he dropped many projects at which he had glanced, and was constant to his "faery queen".
the manuscript of that great poem must have been the companion of spenser in many strange wanderings,
in savage soil far from parnassus mount,
as he says. he was attached, as we have seen, in 1578, to the household of leicester, and may have gone on a mission of his to france. to be patronized by leicester was to risk incurring the enmity of burleigh. the long rivalry between elizabeth's brilliant and wavering favourite—who once so nearly brought her into a plight almost as bad as that of mary stuart—and her[pg 187] sagacious counsellor, sir william cecil (lord burleigh)—who now and again saved his queen "as by fire"—might have furnished spenser with a high theme for a poetic allegory. but chance had made him leicester's man, not burleigh's man, so that he never won the fortune for which he sought. who, indeed, would seek fortune in ireland? spenser did, accompanying lord grey of wilton to an isle more than commonly distressful.
to the natural hatred between the irish and their english invaders was now added the fury of religious rancour. rebellion after rebellion was punished by horrible reprisals. lord grey is notorious for his massacre of six hundred disarmed italian and spanish filibusters at smerwick (november, 1580), and the poet of the "faery queen" was present at this abominable deed. it was neither without precedent nor imitation. seventy years later david leslie, urged on by a preacher, massacred the remnant of montrose's irish contingent at dunaverty. spenser himself in his most interesting "view of the present state of ireland" says concerning the foreign prisoners, "there was no other way but to make that short way with them which was made". he defends grey's ruthless policy; he had made ireland "ready for reformation" when he was recalled, on the charge of being "a bloody man" who had left the country in ashes (1582). grey was pursued by the clamour of a horrified people, that is, he was spenser's sir arthegal, molested by the blatant beast, the public. the idea of the public is a blatant beast is borrowed from plato.
it was in the service of grey, and in a land laid waste, that spenser, acting as grey's secretary during the horrors of the war in munster, wrote part of the "faery queen". he held public posts, was clerk of decrees, and clerk of the council of munster, he received 3000 acres of land, and a ruinous castle of the desmond family, kilcolman, between mallow and limerick (1586).
unhappy was his fortune, but, in absence from london, he had the advantage of being beyond the influences of the critical literary society of the capital with its reviews in form of pamphlets, its satires, jealousies, and quarrels. there is a record of a conversation of 1584 (published in 1606) in which spenser described to his friends the aim and scope of the "faery queen". each virtue[pg 188] was to be incarnate in a knight, whose adventures should teach it by example. in a letter to raleigh, whom he met in ireland, spenser says that prince arthur (as in the first canto) is to be a perfect exemplar of "the twelve private virtues". the faery queen herself is, first, glory in general and next gloriana, the royal and "most virtuous and beautiful" queen elizabeth, who also appears as belph?be. he is to begin in the middle, before telling how knights, ladies, dwarfs, and a palmer bearing an infant with bloody hands came seeking adventures to a festival of the faery queen. "many other adventures are intermeddled."
the "faery queen" is not, and does not aim at being an epic. it is without beginning, middle, or end, for the last six books were not written, or the manuscript perished when spenser was driven from kilcolman.
the original scheme is that of the "morte d'arthur," moralized, and intermingled with allegory. the poem is an allegorical romance adapted to the state of england, ireland, and the continent under elizabeth, and to the war of the reformation against the dragon of rome and the scarlet woman of the seven hills, the seeming fair and inwardly filthy duessa, who is occasionally meant for mary stuart. such unity as the poem possesses is given by the conflict of good, as spenser understood it, against evil, private and public, the vices, and the church of rome. the red cross knight wears the armour which st. paul describes, and in which bunyan equipped christian and greatheart.
there are people, says spenser, who prefer to have virtue "sermoned at large, as they use". but while spenser insists on being taken as a moral preacher in his way, his true ideal is beauty, and it is the gleam of beauty that he follows as he wanders with knights and ladies through enchanted forests, and "awtres dire". like the knights in the "morte d'arthur" he "rides at adventure"; in every page a new adventure opens, and leads to others endlessly, through conflicts with saracens,—sansfoy, sansloy, sansjoy,—with the wily magician, archimage, and his glamour; with despair, in a wonderful passage; with dragons and dragonettes, with acrasia and all the charms of her abode of wanton bliss, which is depicted with great enthusiasm (book ii, canto xii).[pg 189] this canto is remote indeed from the puritan taste, despite its moral ending
let gryll be gryll, and have his hoggish mind,
but let us hence depart, whilst weather serves and wind.
the whole is derived, in the last resort, from the palace of circe in the tenth book of the "odyssey," and it is curious to compare the severe and classic charm of the greek with the boundless luxury of the italian renaissance in spenser.
the "faery queen," indeed, despite the moral intention, which is perfectly sincere, is the very lotusland of poetry. it is a garden of endless varieties of delight, endless but not prolix, for there is a perpetual change of scene and of characters and nothing is constant but the long and ever-varying music of the verse, spenser's own measure, in which each stanza is a poem, while the strong stream of melody carries the half-dreaming reader down the enchanted river, and forth into the fairy seas.
the spenserian measure with the alexandrine that ends the stanza may not be the best vehicle for narrative. but spenser's stream does flow from the mountains of lotusland, and the air of lotusland occasionally lulls the vigilance of the poet as well as of the the reader. the stanza (book vi, canto x) which opens
one day, as they all three together went
to the greene wood to gather strawberries,
there chaunst to them'a dangerous accident:
a tigre forth out of the wood did rise,
narrates an accident as unexpected as dangerous! we cannot but be reminded of the "swiss family robinson," and when spenser makes sir calidore kill the tiger and cut off its head with a shepherd's crook, he is plainly overcome by "drowsihead".[2]
it is true that spenser soon lost hold of his main allegory, and allegorized the moving events and some of the personages of his time. the gods, in euripides, make a false helen of clouds and sunbeams and for her the trojans and ach?ans war and die. so, in spenser's poem, the witch makes a false florimel of snow,[pg 190] informed by "a wicked spright" with burning eyes for the destruction of mankind, and the false florimel is another form of the white witch, mary stuart. the affairs of ireland, france, "belge," and spain appear in knightly or magical disguise in the procession of dissolving views; a pageant of the rivers of ireland and england anticipates drayton's "polyolbion": the romance becomes, like "piers plowman," a farrago of all that is in the poet's mind.
of spenser, ben jonson might have said, as of shakespeare, sufflaminandus erat, "he needed to have the drag put on". like pindar in youth, "he sowed from the sack, not from the hand". his archaic words and unsuccessful imitations of archaic words annoyed the critics of his time more than they vex us. if he "writ no language," "writ the language of no time," as ben jonson said, the "iliad" and "odyssey," too, are in the language of no time, represent no one dialect that ever was actually spoken. but spenser was writing about no actual time: his own age is confused with the fairy age of chivalry, and the ages of the "morte d'arthur," and of greek mythology. with spenser we are "out of space, out of time," and of his adoration of chaucer, his ancient words keep us in mind. that great and noble effort towards perfection, the spirit of chivalry, was his ideal; and in sir philip he saw the last of the gentle and perfect knights. to the flattery of elizabeth we must submit: she needed it all if to her subjects she was to, stand for england and their love of england.
spenser's blemishes are of his age; no pure and perfect work of immaculate art could arise in a poetry which was only emerging from a kind of chaos, too much learning being the successor of too much ignorance, and a divine genius being left at large with no control from sane and temperate criticism.
somewhat eclipsed by the new star of elizabeth's fresh favourite, essex, raleigh visited his irish lands in 1589, met spenser, read the "faery queen" in manuscript, and brought "colin clout home again". the poem of that name (1591) while full of sugared compliments to elizabeth, is also touched with satire of her new courtiers. sidney was dead, leicester was dead, burleigh "hated poetry and painting". the first part of the "faery queen"[pg 191] (1590) had made spenser famous, but had won him no prize of court favour save a small pension.
his "mother hubberd's tale of the ape and the fox" may have been written earlier and now was published; in this the satire is much more keen; the poet finds even "the comic stage defaced and vulgarized, in his 'tears of the muses,' where "our pleasant willy that is dead of late," cannot conceivably be shakespeare—the silence of john lyly may be intended.
when spenser returned to ireland a collection of his miscellaneous poems was published, containing, among other things, "mother hubberd's tale," "the tears of the muses," "the ruines of rome" (sonnets from the french of joachim du bellay).
the "ruines of time," dedicated to "sidney's sister, pembroke's mother," lady pembroke, begins with a vision of the genius of the ruined roman city, verulam, and in a far-off way reminds us of the anglo-saxon poem on the ruined city. there is a lament for the fall of ancient empires, and the sorrows of the house of dudley.
spenser's mood was that of melancholy and disappointment, presently cheered by his marriage with elizabeth boyle. from his love came his sonnets, and his matchless "epithalamion," his "love-learned song". if the "faery queen," and all else that spenser did were lost, the "epithalamion" and the "prothalamion" would win for him the crown of the chief of english poets before shakespeare. the marriage occurred in june, 1594: then troubles with the irish whom he had supplanted, or some other cause, sent him to england, with the last three books of his romance. the affair of duessa's treatment caused james vi to remonstrate through bower, the english ambassador to holyrood, and though the poet was not punished, his designs may not have been advanced. he now published his hymns to love and beauty, earthly and heavenly, the latter under the influence of plato, and his "prothalamion" for the ladies elizabeth and katherine somerset. these splendid poems were his swan-song; ireland called him, and in october, 1598, the natives whom he had despoiled drove him from kilcolman, which they burned.[pg 192] spenser died, a ruined man, in westminster (16 january, 1599), essex paid for his funeral, he lies in westminster abbey.
as heph?stus, when he fashioned the arms of achilles, melted bronze and gold and silver in his furnace, so spenser combined the wealth of greece and italy, france, rome, and england in the great crucible of his genius. in the "epithalamium," for example, we find a translation of four lines from a sonnet of ronsard, mingling with notes from theocritus and the song of songs, with all the beautiful things of all the creeds. it would, perhaps, be unfair to call the style of spenser, as it appears in the "faery queen," "corinthian". yet the metal in which he works is like that "corinthian bronze" formed, at the conflagration of the city, from the molten gold and silver and copper of the sacred vessels and images of the gods. the spoils of all old poetry are mingled with his own. he has been called "the poets' poet"; his successors have taken from him his very tones. as has been said well, when spenser writes—
scarcely had ph?bus in the glowing east
yet harness?d his fiery-footed team,
that is shakespeare, the shakespeare of "romeo and juliet".
and taking usury of time forepast
fit for such ladies and such lovely knights,
that is shakespeare again, the shakespeare of the sonnets.
many an angel's voice
singing before the eternal majesty
for their triune triplicities on high:
that is the younger voice of milton.
and ever and anon the rosy red
flasht thro' her face,
one might fancy the unmistakable note and accent of tennyson.[3]
english poetry fell with the neglect of spenser, who was buried and forgotten from the middle of the seventeenth century till thomson revived his measures in the middle of the eighteenth, and english poetry came fully to her own again when the magic book of spenser was opened by keats.
[1] a well-known diplomatist of queen elizabeth, harry killigrew, is said to have been "a holbein in oils".
[2] on this and on the more than mediaeval size of "the faery queen," see mr. mackail's "springs of helicon," pp. 132-28.
[3] mackail, "springs of helicon," pp. 90, 91.
