FOOTNOTES:

[1] But this was corrected as the sheet passed through the press. See note ad loc. in the Critical Appendix.

[2] The peculiarity consists not in the occasional occurrence of a rhymeless line—a thing that can easily be paralleled from Shelley or any poet of equal fluency—but in the fact that the right word is in every case so obvious that we cannot but believe it to have been in Spenser’s mind.

[3] This argument loses some of its weight from the likelihood that Spenser had been in Ireland before 1580. In his View of the Present State of Ireland, Irenæus, who is Spenser’s mouthpiece, speaks of himself as an eyewitness of the execution of Murrogh O’Brien, which took place at Limerick in July, 1577. The statement, of course, is not conclusive, as it would be if made in Spenser’s own person. Yet Spenser’s account of this hideous incident has the stamp of personal observation, and, taken with the evidence of Phillips’s Theatrum Poetarum Anglicorum, points to the conclusion that in 1577 Spenser had been sent to Ireland by Leicester with letters to Sir Henry Sidney. His visit, however, must have been brief, and may well have left no trace in his poetry.

Upton believed that the Ruddymane episode in II. ii referred to the O’Neills, whose badge was a bloody hand (v. the View of the Present State of Ireland). If there be anything in this, it makes against the view that a book and a half had been written by August, 1580; for Spenser is not likely to have known the O’Neill ‘badge’ till he settled in Ireland.

[4] The passage in Tasso (G. L. ix. 25) is itself an imitation of Virgil, Aen. vii. 785. Yet the ‘greedie pawes’ and ‘golden wings’ of Spenser’s picture seem due to Tasso’s ‘Sù le zampe s’inalza, e l’ali spande.’

Both these arguments, then, are indecisive; and in the absence of decisive proof I find it hard to believe that Harvey, who though a pedant was no fool, can have seen anything like the whole of Book I without recognizing its superlative merits.

[5] Fraunce’s book was licensed on June 11.

[6] From these Pageaunts E. K. quotes a line:

‘An hundred Graces on her eyelidde sate,’

which appears, slightly altered, in F. Q. II. iii. 25.

[7] The ‘fennes of Allan’ (II. ix. 16) would be near New Abbey in Co. Kildare, where Spenser seems to have occasionally resided in the years 1582-4.

[8] In the whole of Books I-III there is only one feminine ending, viz. in II. ix. 47. In Books IV-VI such endings abound.

[9] ‘On the ordinary interpretation,’ I say; for an attempt has recently been made (Mod. Lang. Rev. 1908) to prove that the lady of the Amoretti and the ‘countrey lasse’ of F. Q. VI was not Elizabeth Boyle, but Lady Elizabeth Carey.

[10] The occurrence of feminine endings makes it very unlikely that this was among the Pageaunts mentioned by E. K. The greater part of the Mutabilitie cantos was certainly written in Ireland, probably in 1597-8.

[11] The scene of the dialogue on the Present State of Ireland is laid in England; so that, unless this is a mere literary device, the tract must have been written, or at least begun, during this visit in 1596.

[12] No such authority, I think, belongs to the ‘Second Folio’, though it sometimes corrects printer’s errors. In the Critical Appendix I have cited some of its characteristic variants in support of this view.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE.

Of the copies collated for this edition, three are in the Bodleian, viz.:—

(1) Malone 615, Books I-III, 1590.
(2) Malone 616, Books IV-VI, 1596.
(3) 4o Art. Seld. S. 22, Books I-VI, 1596 (collated for Books I-III).
For 1609 I have used (4) a copy belonging to Mr. Charles Cannan.

The following copies, though not collated verbatim, have been examined for variants:—

(5)Malone 7, 1609 }
(6)M. 4. 5 Art.{ Books I-III, 1611}
{ Books IV-VII, 1612}in the Bodleian.
(7)Douce S. 817{ Books I-III, 1609}
{ Books IV-VII, 1613}
(8)G. 11535, 6{ Books I-III, 1590}
{ Books IV-VI, 1596}
(9)C. 12. h. 17, 18{ Books I-III, 1590}
{ Books IV-VI, 1596}
(10)686 g. 21, 22, 1596 }
(11)G. 11537, 1596 }in the British Museum.
(12)C. 57. f. 6, 1609 }
(13)78 g. 13{ Books I-III, 1609}
{ Books IV-VII, 1613}
(14)79 h. 23{ Books I-III, 1611}
{ Books IV-VII, 1613}

The bibliographical note on Spenser in the Dictionary of National Biography appears to ignore 4o Art. Seld. S. 22.

The 1590, 1596, 1609 editions of F. Q. have been described already. In 1611 Lownes (the publisher of the 1609 F. Q.) set about a complete edition of Spenser’s poems. But having on hand unsold copies of 1609, he incorporated parts of these under the new title-page.[13] This has happened to (6), the first part of which is identical with 1609, except for the title-page and dedication. The genuine 1611 edition of F. Q. I-III is represented by

the first part of (14). The second part of (6), bearing date 1612, has been reset: it is identical with the second parts of (7), (13), (14), which bear date 1613. No 1611 edition of F. Q. IV-VII is known to me. But in the footnotes I have followed the custom of citing this ‘Second Folio’ as 1611, except where readings not found by me in editions prior to 1612-13 have been attributed to 1609 by previous editors, misled perhaps by the omission from the British Museum catalogue of the second title to (13). In the Critical Appendix on Books IV-VII I cite this Second Folio (for these Books) as 16(11)-12-13.

Subsequent editions of Spenser’s works:—The folios of 1617, 1679 (the latter said to have been overseen by Dryden); ed. J. Hughes, 1715; H. J. Todd, 1805; F. J. Child, 1855; J. P. Collier, 1862; R. Morris, 1869; A. B. Grosart, 1882-4.

Separate editions of Faerie Queene:—ed. J. Upton, 1758; R. Church, 1758-9; Kate M. Warren, 1897-1900.

Commentaries:—Remarks on Spenser’s Poems, by J. Jortin, 1734.
Observations on the Faerie Queene, by T. Warton, 1754.

[For the matter of this note I am largely indebted to Mr. Ostler and Mr. Percy Simpson.]