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Her tides have equal times to come and go;
Her loom doth weave the fine and coarsest web:
No joy so great but runneth to an end,
No hap so hard but may in time amend.1

EDMUND SPENCER.

(1553-1598-9.)

EDMUND SPENCER," of all the poets the most poetical," was born in London, which had been the cradle of Chaucer upwards of two centuries before. Spencer was educated at Cambridge; his poetical tendencies were early developed; and his "Shepherd's Calendar" procured for him, on the recommendation of his classical friend Harvey, the Hobbinol of that composition, an introduction to Sir Philip Sydney. The patronage of Sydney and the friendship of the Earl of Leicester, obtained for Spencer the appointment of Secretary to Lord Grey of Wilton, Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. The recal of Lord Grey brought the poet back to England, and shortly afterwards he received from the queen, through the agency of Sydney, a grant in the county of Cork out of the forfeited estates of the rebel Earl of Desmond. The terms of this grant compelled him to return to Ireland, and the romantic scenery of his residence, Kilcolman, the ancient castle of the Earls of Desmond, seems to have been propitious in the inspiration of his muse. The "Faery Queen" was matured on the beautiful banks of his favourite Mulla. The fame that flowed on him from the publication of his great poem drew a small pension from the parsimony of Elizabeth's exchequer. The shadow of Burleigh is said to have darkened the poet's road to preferment and emolument; and "there are passages in the Fairy Queen that unequivocally refer to Burleigh with severity;" but writers on Spencer's life represent variously his relations to the great Lord Chancellor. He visited England frequently for the superintendence of the publication of his works. He complains bitterly of the neglect which malignant influences threw over his fortunes. But a more terrible calamity awaited him. The rebellion of the Earl of Desmond in the south of Ireland, connected with the great insurrection of Tyrone, spread desolation over the poet's domain. His castle was stormed and burnt, and one of his children perished in its flames. He returned to England, impoverished and overpowered with grief, and died at London on the 16th of January 1598-9. His ashes reposed, it is said at his own request, beside those of Chaucer in Westminster Abbey.

Spencer's nature was formed with all the kindly and amiable attributes which we love to associate with a poet's character. Not only did his immeasurable superiority raise him above the envy of his contemporaries, but the attractive qualities of his mind gained him their love. No satire ever breathed on his name. Even the "Satyric Nash" characterizes him as the "heavenly Spencer."-D'Israeli.

Spencer stands alone in the history of English poetical literature; he is a school in himself, for he was never successfully imitated. His language in structure and cadence differs from that of all the writers of his age, as if it had been elaborated for his subject. It is coloured with the antiquity of Chaucer's phraseology; but Jonson's charge against Spencer of corrupting the language by ancient barbarisms applies only to some of the eclogues

1 See Horace, Odes II. 9.

of his earliest production, the "Shepherd's Calendar." The archaism of dialect in the Fairy Queen harmonizes with the supernatural and elfin character of the subject. The voluptuous languor of the antique versification carries the mind along in a dreamy pleasure through varied scenes of luxury or of terror; solitary wilds, forests, caves; castles, with the terrible miracles of enchantment, or with gardens, bowers, the music of life and nature, and the splendours of chivalry. The reader wanders with gorgeous impersonations in a maze of intertwisted allegory, either picturing facts in the nature of man or referable to the events and persons of the times in which Spencer lived, and not unfrequently susceptible of double application. The features of Elizabeth, the Fairy Queen Gloriana, flit before us in the portraits of Belphoebe and Britomart: the false Duessa is at once the faithless Church of Rome and the equally abhorred Mary, Queen of Scots. The interest of the poetry, however, does not depend on the allegory. "If readers do not meddle with the allegory, the allegory will not meddle with them."-Hazlitt. Pictures are the things with which Spencer catches our poetical conscience, and his poems contain a gallery that may furnish forth the studies of ages. He is the poet of pictures as Chaucer is the poet of objects.

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The opinions of critics vary considerably with respect to Spencer, from the cautious coldness of Hume to the enthusiasm of Hazlitt. "This poet," says Hume," contains great beauties, a sweet and harmonious versification, easy elocution, a fine imagination; yet does the perusal of his work become so tedious, that one never finishes it from the mere pleasure it affords; it soon becomes a kind of task reading." "We shall nowhere find," says Campbell," more airy and expansive images of visionary things, a sweeter tone of sentiment, or a finer flush in the colours of language than in this Rubens of English poetry. Though his story grows desultory, the sweetness and grace of his manner still abide by him. He is like a speaker whose tones continue to be pleasing though he speak too long." Ellis writes, "It is scarcely possible to accompany Spencer's allegorical heroes to the end of their excursions. They want flesh and blood; a want for which nothing can compensate. The personification of abstract ideas furnishes the most brilliant images for poetry, but these meteor forms, which startle and delight us when our senses are flurried by passion, must not be submitted to our cool and deliberate examination. Personification protracted into allegory affects a modern reader almost as disagreeably as inspiration continued to madness." "Though much later than Chaucer," says Hazlitt, "his obligations to preceding writers are less. He has in some measure borrowed the plan of his poem from Ariosto; but he has ingrafted upon it an exuberance of fancy and an endless voluptuousness of sentiment not to be found in the Italian writer. * * There is an originality, richness, and variety in his allegorical personages that almost vies with the splendour of ancient mythology. If Ariosto transports us into the regions of romance, all Spencer's poetry is fairy land. The poet lays us in the lap of a lovelier nature, by the sound of softer streams, among greener hills and fairer vallies. He paints nature not as we find it, but as we expected to find it; and fulfils the delightful promise of our youth. He waves his wand of enchantment, and at once embodies airy beings, and throws a delicious veil over all actual objects. The two worlds of reality and fiction are poised on the wings of his imagination. His versification is at once the most smooth and the most sounding in the language. It is a labyrinth of sweet sounds that would cloy by their very sweetness, but that the ear is constantly relieved and enchanted by their continued variety of modulation. It is the perfection of melting harmony dissolving the soul in pleasure or holding it captive in the chains of suspense."

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The Fairy Queen, had we possessed it complete, would have been a monster poem: it was to have extended to twelve books; six only survive,' fortunately, perhaps, as some have said, for the poet's reputation; for the strength of what remains is acknowledged to be concentred in the first three books. It shares the fate of incompletion with Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales," and more than one great epic. The want is all the less felt in the Fairy Queen, as each book constitutes a separate poem, and that of a tolerably gigantic size. Prince Arthur alone, who flits from song to song, acts as a link among the parts of the whole. Each book was to be dedicated to the chivalrous adventures of a certain virtue, the probationary personages uniting at last in the Fairy Court of Gloriana.

The works of Spencer, besides the Fairy Queen, are "The Shepherd's Calendar;" consisting of twelve bucolics; "Colin Clout 's come home again ;" Colin Clout is Spencer's adopted pastoral appellation; Translation of Virgil's "Culex ;""Mother Hubbard's Tale ;"" Hymns and Visions ;""The Tears of the Muses;" Spousal Poems, &c. He was a respectable prose writer; his Memorial on the State of Ireland and its remedy might, it is said, assist the wisdom of statesmen even in the present day. A great portion of his works has been lost.

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ONE day, nigh weary of the irksome way,
From her unhasty beast she did alight;
And on the grass her dainty limbs did lay
In secret shadow, far from all men's sight;
From her fair head her fillet she undight,3
And laid her stole aside: her angel's face,
As the great eye of Heaven, shined bright,
And made a sunshine in the shady place;
Did never mortal eye behold such heavenly grace.

It fortunéd, out of the thickest wood
A ramping lion rushéd suddenly,
Hunting full greedy after salvage blood:
Soon as the royal virgin he did spy,
With gaping mouth at her ran greedily,

To have at once devoured her tender corpse:5
But to the prey when as he drew more nigh,
His bloody rage assuagéd with remorse,

And, with the sight amazed, forgot his furious force.

1 The remainder is said to have been lost during their transmission from Ireland. 2 Truth.

3 Dight;"Ang.-Sax. dihtan, to prepare; to furnish, to set in order; to adorn; Skinner and Lye think from deck."-Richardson. Undight, removed, untied.

"The mind, the music breathing from her face."-Byron. Beauty is associated with sound and light in the minds of the respective poets.

Corpse is often applied to the living body.

1 Know.

Instead thereof he kissed her weary feet,
And licked her lily hands with fawning tongue;
As he her wrongéd innocence did weet.1
O how can beauty master the most strong,
And simple truth subdue avenging wrong!
Whose yielded pride and proud submission,
Still dreading death, when she had marked long,
Her heart 'gan melt in great compassion;
And drizzling tears did shed for pure affection.

“The lion, lord of every beast in field,”
Quoth she, "his princely puissance doth abate,
And mighty proud to humble weak does yield,
Forgetful of the hungry rage, which late
Him pricked, in pity of my sad estate :-
But he, my lion, and my noble lord,
How does he find in cruel heart to hate
Her, that him lov'd, and ever most adored

As the god of my life? why hath he me abhorred?"

Redounding tears did choke th' end of her plaint,
Which softly echoed from the neighbour wood;
And, sad to see her sorrowful constraint,
The kingly beast upon her gazing stood;
With pity calmed, down fell his angry mood.
At last, in close heart shutting up her pain,
Arose the virgin born of heavenly brood,
And to her snowy palfrey got again,

To seek her strayed champion if she might attain.

The lion would not leave her desolate,

But with her went along, as a strong guard

Of her chaste person, and a faithful mate

Of her sad troubles and misfortunes hard:

Still, when she slept, he kept both watch and ward;
And, when she waked, he waited diligent,
With humble service to her will prepared:
From her fair eyes he took commandément,
And ever by her looks conceived her intent.

PRINCE ARTHUR.

BOOK I. CANTO VII.

AT last she chancéd by good hap to meet
A goodly knight, fair marching by the way,
Together with his squire, arrayed meet:
His glittering armour shinéd far away,
Like glancing light of Phœbus brightest ray;

2 Comp. Anacreon, ii. 12.

The Red Cross Knight (Holiness) had been seduced from her side by the witch Duessa (Falsehood). 4 From re, back, and unda, a wave; Lat.

5 Una.

From top to toe no place appeared bare,

That deadly dint of steel endanger may:

Athwart his breast a bauldrick brave he ware,

That shined, like twinkling stars, with stones most precious rare:

And, in the midst thereof, one precious stone

Of wondrous worth, and eke of wondrous mights,1
Shaped like a lady's head, exceeding shone,
Like Hesperus amongst the lesser lights,
And strove for to amaze the weaker sights:
Thereby his mortal blade full comely hung
In ivory sheath, ycarv'd with curious slights,
Whose hilts were burnished gold, and handle strong
Of mother pearl, and buckled with a golden tongue.

His haughty helmet, horrid3 all with gold,
Both glorious brightness and great terror bred :
For all the crest a dragon did enfold
With greedy paws, and over all did spread
His golden wings; his dreadful hideous head,
Close couchéd on the beaver, seemed to throw
From flaming mouth bright sparkles fiery red,
That sudden horror to faint hearts did show;
And scaly tail was stretched adown his back full low.

Upon the top of all his lofty crest,

A bunch of hairs discoloured diversely,

With sprinkled pearl and gold full richly dressed,

Did shake, and seemed to dance for jollity;

Like to an almond tree ymounted high

On top of green Selinis all alone,

With blossoms brave bedeckéd daintily;
Whose tender locks do tremble every one

At every little breath, that under heaven is blown.

His warlike shield all closely cover'd was,

Ne might of mortal eye be ever seen;

1 The supposed magical virtues of jewels are familiar in the romances; they were much prized by the alchymists. See Bulwer's "Last of the Barons." The idea is evidently oriental.

2 Arthur's sword was named Caliburn, or Excalibur.-See Scott's Bridal of Triermain. 3 D'Israeli has noticed that alliteration is a favourite ornament with Spencer. The following are some of his examples:

"In woods, in waves, in wars, she wonts to dwell,
And will be found with peril and with pain."

"Or as the moon clothed with cloudy night."

"They cheerly chaunt, and rhymes at random flung."

"He used to slug, to sleep, in slothful shade."

Pope has satirized-" Apt alliteration's artful aid."
"The part of a helmet that covers the face."
• Selinus in Sicily, En. iii. 705.

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