In 1580 Spenser went over to Ireland as private secretary to Lord Grey of Wilton, the Artegall of the Legend of Justice in the Faerie Queene. After the recall of his patron he remained in that turbulent island in various civil positions for the rest of his life, with the exception of two or three visits and a last sad flight to England. For seven years he was clerk of the Court of Chancery in Dublin, and then was appointed clerk to the Council of Munster. In 1586 he was granted the forfeited estate of the Earl of Desmond in Cork County, and two years later took up his residence in Kilcolman Castle, which was beautifully situated on a lake with a distant view of mountains. In the disturbed political condition of the country, life here seemed a sort of exile to the poet, but its very loneliness and danger gave the stimulus needed for the development of his peculiar genius.
“Here,” says Mr. Stopford Brooke, “at the foot of the Galtees, and bordered to the north by the wild country, the scenery of which is frequently painted in the Faerie Queene and in whose woods and savage places such adventures constantly took place in the service of Elizabeth as are recorded in the Faerie Queene, the first three books of that great poem were finished.” Spenser had spent the first three years of his residence at Kilcolman at work on this masterpiece, which had been begun in England, under the encouragement of Sidney, probably before 1580. The knightly Sidney died heroically at the battle of Zutphen, in 1586, and Spenser voiced the lament of all England in the beautiful pastoral elegy Astrophel which he composed in memory of “the most noble and valorous knight.”
Soon after coming to Ireland, Spenser made the acquaintance of Sir Walter Raleigh, which erelong ripened into intimate friendship. A memorable visit from Raleigh, who was now a neighbor of the poet’s, having also received a part of the forfeited Desmond estate, led to the publication of the Faerie Queene. Sitting under the shade “of the green alders of the Mulla’s shore,” Spenser read to his guest the first books of his poem. So pleased was Raleigh that he persuaded the poet to accompany him to London, and there lay his poem at the feet of the great queen, whose praises he had so gloriously sung. The trip was made, Spenser was presented to Elizabeth, and read to her Majesty the three Legends of Holiness, Temperance, and Chastity. She was delighted with the fragmentary epic in which she heard herself delicately complimented in turn as Gloriana, Belphoebe, and Britomart, conferred upon the poet a pension of £50 yearly, and permitted the Faerie Queene to be published with a dedication to herself. Launched under such auspices, it is no wonder that the poem was received by the court and all England with unprecedented applause.
The next year while still in London, Spenser collected his early poems and issued them under the title of Complaints. In this volume were the Ruins of Time and the Tears of the Muses, two poems on the indifference shown to literature before 1580, and the remarkable Mother Hubberds Tale, a bitter satire on the army, the court, the church, and politics. His Daphnaida was also published about the same time. On his return to Ireland he gave a charming picture of life at Kilcolman Castle, with an account of his visit to the court, in Colin Clout’s Come Home Again. The story of the long and desperate courtship of his second love, Elizabeth, whom he wedded in 1594, is told in the Amoretti, a sonnet sequence full of passion and tenderness. His rapturous wedding ode, the Epithalamion, which is, by general consent, the most glorious bridal song in our language, and the most perfect of all his poems in its freshness, purity, and passion, was also published in 1595. The next year Spenser was back in London and published the Prothalamion, a lovely ode on the marriage of Lord Worcester’s daughters, and his four Hymns on Love and Beauty, Heavenly Love, and Heavenly Beauty. The first two Hymns are early poems, and the two latter maturer work embodying Petrarch’s philosophy, which teaches that earthly love is a ladder that leads men to the love of God. In this year, 1596, also appeared the last three books of the Faerie Queene, containing the Legends of Friendship, Justice, and Courtesy.
At the height of his fame, happiness, and prosperity, Spenser returned for the last time to Ireland in 1597, and was recommended by the queen for the office of Sheriff of Cork. Surrounded by his beloved wife and children, his domestic life was serene and happy, but in gloomy contrast his public life was stormy and full of anxiety and danger. He was the acknowledged prince of living poets, and was planning the completion of his mighty epic of the private virtues in twelve books, to be followed by twelve more on the civic virtues. The native Irish had steadily withstood his claim to the estate, and continually harassed him with lawsuits. They detested their foreign oppressors and awaited a favorable opportunity to rise. Discord and riot increased on all sides. The ever growing murmurs of discontent gave place to cries for vengeance and unrepressed acts of hostility. Finally, in the fall of 1598, there occurred a fearful uprising known as Tyrone’s Rebellion, in which the outraged peasants fiercely attacked the castle, plundering and burning. Spenser and his family barely escaped with their lives. According to one old tradition, an infant child was left behind in the hurried flight and perished in the flames; but this has been shown to be but one of the wild rumors repeated to exaggerate the horror of the uprising. Long after Spenser’s death, it was also rumored that the last six books of the Faerie Queene had been lost in the flight; but the story is now utterly discredited.
Spenser once more arrived in London, but he was now in dire distress and prostrated by the hardships which he had suffered. There on January 16, 1599, at a tavern in King Street, Westminster, the great poet died broken-hearted and in poverty. Drummond of Hawthornden states that Ben Jonson told him that Spenser “died for lack of bread in King Street, and refused 20 pieces sent to him by my Lord of Essex, and said He was sorrie he had no time to spend them.” The story is probably a bit of exaggerated gossip. He was buried close to the tomb of Chaucer in the Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey, his fellow-poets bearing the pall, and the Earl of Essex defraying the expenses of the funeral. Referring to the death of Spenser’s great contemporary, Basse wrote: —
“Renownèd Spenser, lie a thought more nigh
To learnèd Chaucer, and rare Beaumont, lie
A little nearer Spenser, to make room
For Shakespeare in your threefold, fourfold tomb.”
“Thus,” says Mr. Stopford Brooke, appropriately, “London, ‘his most kindly nurse,’ takes care also of his dust, and England keeps him in her love.”
Spenser’s influence on English poetry can hardly be overestimated. Keats called him “the poets’ poet,” a title which has been universally approved. “He is the poet of all others,” says Mr. Saintsbury, “for those who seek in poetry only poetical qualities.” His work has appealed most strongly to those who have been poets themselves, for with him the poetical attraction is supreme. Many of the greatest poets have delighted to call him master, and have shown him the same loving reverence which he gave to Chaucer. Minor poets like Sidney, Drayton, and Daniel paid tribute to his inspiration; Milton was deeply indebted to him, especially in Lycidas; and many of the pensive poets of the seventeenth century show traces of his influence. “Spenser delighted Shakespeare,” says Mr. Church; “he was the poetical master of Cowley, and then of Milton, and in a sense of Dryden, and even Pope.” Giles and Phineas Fletcher, William Browne, Sir William Alexander, Shenstone, Collins, Cowley, Gray, and James Thomson were all direct followers of Spenser. His influence upon the poets of the romantic revival of the nineteenth century is even more marked. “Spenser begot Keats,” says Mr. Saintsbury, “and Keats begot Tennyson, and Tennyson begot all the rest.” Among this notable company of disciples should be mentioned especially Rossetti, Morris, and Swinburne. If we include within the sphere of Spenser’s influence also those who have made use of the stanza which he invented, we must add the names of Burns, Shelley, Byron, Beattie, Campbell, Scott, and Wordsworth. When we consider the large number of poets in whom Spenser awakened the poetic gift, or those to whose powers he gave direction, we may safely pronounce him the most seminal poet in the language.
The Lif
e of Edmund Spenser by John W. Hales
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER I. 1552-1579. FROM SPENSER’S BIRTH TO THE PUBLICATION OF THE SHEPHEARD’S CALENDAR.
CHAPTER II. 1580-1589.
CHAPTER III. 1590.
CHAPTER IV. 1591-1599.
E D M U N D S P E N S E R.
Ille velut fidis arcana sodalibus olim
Credebat libris; neque, si male cesserat, unquam
Decurrens alio, neque si bene; quo fit ut omnis
Votiva pateat veluti descripta tabella
Vita senis.
Hither, as to their fountain, other stars
Repairing in their urns draw golden light.
INTRODUCTION
The life of Spenser is wrapt in a similar obscurity to that which hides from us his great predecessor Chaucer, and his still greater contemporary Shakspere. As in the case of Chaucer, our principal external authorities are a few meagre entries in certain official documents, and such facts as may be gathered from his works. The birth-year of each poet is determined by inference. The circumstances in which each died are a matter of controversy. What sure information we have of the intervening events of the life of each one is scanty and interrupted. So far as our knowledge goes, it shows some slight positive resemblance between their lives. They were both connected with the highest society of their times; both enjoyed court favour, and enjoyed it in the substantial shape of pensions. They were both men of remarkable learning. They were both natives of London. They both died in the close vicinity of Westminster Abbey, and lie buried near each other in that splendid cemetery. Their geniuses were eminently different: that of Chaucer was the active type, Spenser’s of the contemplative; Chaucer was dramatic, Spenser philosophical; Chaucer objective, Spenser subjective; but in the external circumstances, so far as we know them, amidst which these great poets moved, and in the mist which for the most part enfolds those circumstances, there is considerable likeness.
Spenser is frequently alluded to by his contemporaries; they most ardently recognised in him, as we shall see, a great poet, and one that might justly be associated with the one supreme poet whom this country had then producedwith Chaucer, and they paid him constant tributes of respect and admiration; but these mentions of him do not generally supply any biographical details.
The earliest notice of him that may in any sense be termed biographical occurs in a sort of handbook to the monuments of Westminster Abbey, published by Camden in 1606. Amongst the ‘Reges, Regin{ae}, Nobiles, et alij in Ecclesia Collegiata B. Petri 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 po{e”}sin Anglicis literis primus illustravit. In quem h{ae}c scripta sunt epitaphia:
Hic prope Chaucerum situs est Spenserius, illi
Proximus ingenio proximus ut tumulo.
Hic prope Chaucerum, Spensere poeta, poetam
Conderis, et versu quam tumulo propior.
Anglica, te vivo, vixit plausitque po{e”}sis;
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,
Still nearer standst thou to him in thy verse.
Whilst thou didst live, lived English poetry;
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 to 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 {ae}vi Poetas, ne Chaucero quidem concive excepto, superaret. Sed peculiari Poetis fato semper cum paupertate conflictatus, etsi Greio Hiberni{ae} proregi fuerit ab epistolis. Vix enim ibi secessum et scribendi otium nactus, quam a rebellibus {e} laribus ejectus et bonis spoliatus, in Angliam inops reversus statim exspiravit, Westmonasterii prope
Chaucerum impensis comitis Essexi{ae} inhumatus, Po{e”}tis 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 to 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.’
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) {e} 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, her treasurer, to give him an hundred pound; and when the treasurer (a good steward of the queen’s money) alledged that the 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;
From that time unto this season,
I receiv’d nor rhyme nor reason.
‘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 he got 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 famae scribere.
Complete Works of Edmund Spenser Page 184