112

SPENSER.

THOUGH little is circumstantially related, yet frequent outbreakings, scattered throughout the writings of Spenser, commemorate the main incidents of his existence. His emotions become dates, and no poet has more fully confided to us his "secret sorrows.

Spenser in the far north was a love-lorn youth when he composed "The Shepherd's Calendar." This rustic poem, rustic from an affectation of the Chaucerian style, though it bears the divisions of the twelve months, displays not the course of the seasons so much as the course of the poet's thoughts; the themes are plaintive or recreative, amator ial or satirical, and even theological, in dialogues between certain interlocutors. To some are prefixed Italian mottoes; for that language then stamped a classical grace on our poetry. In the eclogue of January we perceive that it was still the season of hope and favor with the amatory poet, for the motto is, Anchora Speme ("yet I hope "); but in the eclogue of June we discover Gia Speme Spenta ("already hope is extinguished"). A positive rejection by Rosalind herself had for ever mingled gall with his honey, and he ungenerously inveighs against the more successful arts of a hated rival. Rosalind was indeed not the Cynthia of a poetic hour; deep was the poet's first love; and that obdurate mistress had called him "her Pegasus," and laughed at his sighs.

It was when the forlorn poet had thus lost himself in the labyrinth of love, and "The Shepherd's Calendar" had not yet closed, that his learned friend Harvey, in his political appellative, Hobbinol, to steal him away from the languor of a country retirement, invited him to southern vales, and with generous warmth introduced

"the unknown" to Sir Philip Sidney. This important incident in the destiny of Spenser has been carefully noted by a person who conceals him under the initials E. K., and who is usually designated as "the old commentator on 'The Shepherd's Calendar.'" This E. K. is a mysterious personage, and will remain undiscovered to this day, unless the reader shall participate in my own conviction.

"The Shepherd's Calendar" was accompanied by a commentary on every separate month; and this singularity of an elaborate commentary in the first edition of the work of a living author was still more remarkable by the intimate acquaintance of the commentator with the author himself. E. K. assures us, and indeed affords ample evidence, that "he was privy to all his [the poet's] designs." He furnishes some domestic details which no one could have told so accurately, except he to whom they relate; and we find our commentator also critically conversant with many of the author's manuscripts which the world has never seen. Rarely has one man known so much of another. The poet and the commentator move together as parts of each other. In the despair of conjecture some ventured to surmise that the poet himself had been his own commentator. But the last editor of Spenser is indignant at a suggestion which would taint with strange egotism the modest nature of our bard. Yet E. K. was no ordinary writer; an excellent scholar he was, whose gloss has preserved much curious knowledge of ancient English terms and phrases. We may be sure that a pen so abundant and so skilfully exercised was not one to have restricted itself to this solitary lucubration of his life and studies. The commentary, moreover, is accompanied by a copious and erudite preface, addressed to Gabriel Harvey, and the style of these pages is too remarkable not to be recognised. At length let me lift the mask from this mysterious personage,

by declaring that E. K. is Spenser's dear and generous friend Gabriel Harvey himself. I have judged by the strong peculiarity of Harvey's style; one cannot long doubt of a portrait marked by such prominent features. Pedantic but energetic, thought pressed on thought, sparkling with imaginary, mottled with learned allusions, and didactic with subtle criticism-this is our Gabriel! The prefacer describes the state of our bardling as that of "young birds that be nearly crept out of their nest, who, by little, first prove their tender wings before they make a greater flight. And yet our new poet flieth as a bird that in time shall be able to keep wing with the best."

*

From this detection, we may infer that the Commentary was an innocent ruse of the zealous friend to overcome the resolute timidity of our poet. His youthful muse, teeming with the fruitful progeny, was, however, morbidly sensible in the hour of parturition. Conscious of her powers, thus closes the address "to his Booke:"

"And when thou art past jeopardie,
Come tell me what was said of me,
And I will send more after thee.”

After several editions, the work still remained anonymous, and the unnamed poet was long referred to by critics of the day only as "the late unknown poet," or "the gentleman who wrote 'The Shepherd's Calendar.'"

In Sir Philip Sidney the youthful poet found a youthful patron. The shades of Penshurst opened to

* A strange personage has been fixed on as the commentator. Spenser lodged with a Mrs. Kerke, where his parcels were directed. E. K. has been conjectured to be Mr. Kerke, her husband!

It is a proof of the deficient skill of the modern editors of Spenser, Hughes and Aikin, that they have omitted the curious and valuable commentary of E. K. It has been judiciously restored to the last and best edition, by Mr. Todd. The wood-cuts might also have been preserved.

leisure and the muse. length concluded, "The Poet's Year" was dedicated to "Maister Philip Sidney, worthy of all titles, both of learning and chivalry." Leicester, the uncle of Sidney, was gained, and from that moment Spenser entered into a golden servitude.

"The Shepherd's Calendar" at

The destiny of Spenser was to be thrown among courtiers, and to wear the silken trammels of noble patrons-a life of honorable dependance among eminent personages. Here a seductive path was opened, not easily scorned by the gentle mind of him whose days were to be counted by its reveries, and the main business of whose life was to be the cantoes of his "Faery Queen."

Of the favors and mortifications during his career of patronage, and of his intercourse with the court, too little is known; though sufficient we shall discover to authenticate the reality of his complaints, the verity of his strictures, and all the flutterings of the sickening heart of him who moves round and round the interminable circle of "hope deferred."

Our poet was now ascending the steps of favoritism; and the business of his life was with the fair and the great. He looked up to the smiles of distinguished ladies, for to such is the greater portion of his poems dedicated. If her majesty gloried in "The Faery Queen," we are surprised to find that the most exquisite of political satires, "Mother Hubbard's Tale," should be addressed to the Lady Compton and Monteagle; that" The Tears of the Muses" were inscribed to Lady Strange; and that " The Ruins of Time" are dedicated to the Countess of Pembroke. For others, their nuptials were graced by the music of his verse, or their sorrows were soothed by its elegiac tenderness.*

These complimentary sonnets, evidently composed "for the nonce," are not the happiest specimens in our language of these minor poems, no

In the Epithalamion on his own marriage, the poet reminds

"The sacred sisters who have often times

Been to the aiding others to adorn,

Whom ye thought worthy of your graceful rymes,
That even the greatest did not greatly scorn

To hear their names sung in your simple lays,
But joyed at their praise."

"The Tears of the Muses," as one of his plaintive poems is called, had possibly been spared had the poet only moved among that bevy of ladies whose names are enshrined in his volumes, around the queen, whose royalty so frequently rises with splendor in his verse. Unawares, perhaps, the gentle bard discovered that personal attachments by cruel circumstances were converted into political connexions; that a favorite must pay the penalty of favoritism; and that in binding himself more closely to his patrons, he was wounded the more deeply by their great adversary; and in gaining Sidney, Leicester, and Essex, Spencer was doomed to feel the potent arm of the scornful and unpoetic Burleigh.

The queen was the earliest and the latest object of our poet's musings. "The Maiden Queen" enters into almost every poem. Shortly after the publication of "The Shepherd's Calendar," where in her majesty occupies the month of April, Spenser, in writing to Harvey, has this remarkable passage: "Your desire to hear of my late being with her majesty must die in itself." By this ambiguous reply, it is, however, evident that Harvey and probably Spenser himself, had looked forward, by the intervention of his great patrons, that "the unknown poet," as he is called by "the old commentator," would have been honored by an interview with the royal

more than they are of the real genius of Spenser. I have seen a German reprint, consisting only of Spenser's Sonnets, by the learned Von Hammer. Foreign critics often startle one by their fancies on English poetry.