The Faerie Queene — Volume 01

by Edmund Spenser

CHAPTER II.

1580-1589.

In the year 1580 Spenser was removed from the society and circumstances in which, except for his probable visit to Ireland, he had lived and moved as we have seen, for some three years. From that year to near the close of his life his home was to be in Ireland. He paid at least two visits to London and its environs in the course of these eighteen years; but it seems clear that his home was in Ireland. Perhaps his biographers have hitherto not truly appreciated this residence in Ireland. We shall see that a liberal grant of land was presently bestowed upon him in the county of Cork; and they have reckoned him a successful man, and wondered at the querulousness that occasionally makes itself heard in his works. Towards the very end of this life, Spenser speaks of himself as one

Whom sullein care
Through discontent of my long fruitlesse stay
In princes court and expectation vayne
Of idle hopes, which still doe fly away
Like empty shaddowes, did afflict my brayne.

Those who marvel at such language perhaps forget what a dreary exile the poet's life in Ireland must in fact have been. It is true that it was relieved by several journeys to England, by his receiving at least one visit from an English friend, by his finding, during at any rate the earlier part of his absence, some congenial English friends residing in the country, by his meeting at length with that Elizabeth whose excelling beauty he has sung so sweetly, and whom he married; it is also true that there was in him—as in Milton and in Wordsworth—a certain great self- containedness,{1} that he carried his world with him wherever he went, that he had great allies and high company in the very air that flowed around him, whatever land he inhabited; all this is true, but yet to be cut off from the fellowship which, however self- sufficing, he so dearly loved—to look no longer on the face of Sidney his hero, his ideal embodied, his living Arthur, to hear but as it were an echo of the splendid triumphs won by his and our England in those glorious days, to know of his own high fame but by report, to be parted from the friendship of Shakspere—surely this was exile. To live in the Elizabethan age, and to be severed from those brilliant spirits to which the fame of that age is due! Further, the grievously unsettled, insurgent state of Ireland at this time—as at many a time before and since—must be borne in mind. Living there was living on the side of a volcanic mountain. That the perils of so living were not merely imaginary, we shall presently see. He did not shed tears and strike his bosom, like the miserable Ovid at Tomi; he 'wore rather in his bonds a cheerful brow, lived, and took comfort,' finding his pleasure in that high spiritual communion we have spoken of, playing pleasantly, like some happy father, with the children of his brain, joying in their caprices, their noblenesses, their sweet adolescence; but still it was exile, and this fact may explain that tone of discontent which here and there is perceptible in his writings.{2}

When in 1580 Arthur, Lord Grey of Wilton, was appointed Lord Deputy of Ireland, he—perhaps through Lord Leicester's influence, perhaps on account of Spenser's already knowing something of the country— made Spenser his Private Secretary. There can be no doubt that Spenser proceeded with him to Dublin. It was in Ireland, probably about this time, that he made or renewed his acquaintance with Sir Walter Raleigh. In 1581 he was appointed Clerk of Degrees and Recognizances in the Irish Court of Chancery, a post which he held for seven years, at the end of which time he received the appointment of Clerk to the Council of Munster. In the same year in which he was assigned the former clerkship, he received also a lease of the lands and Abbey of Enniscorthy in Wexford county. It is to be hoped that his Chancery Court duties permitted him to reside for a while on that estate. 'Enniscorthy,' says the Guide to Ireland published by Mr. Murray, 'is one of the prettiest little towns in the Kingdom, the largest portion of it being on a steep hill on the right bank of the Slaney, which here becomes a deep and navigable stream, and is crossed by a bridge of six arches.' There still stands there 'a single tower of the old Franciscan monastery.' But Spenser soon parted with this charming spot, perhaps because of its inconvenient distance from the scene of his official work. In December of the year in which the lease was given, he transferred it to one Richard Synot. In the following year Lord Grey was recalled. 'The Lord Deputy,' says Holinshed, 'after long suit for his revocation, received Her Majesty's letters for the same.' His rule had been marked by some extreme, perhaps necessary, severities, and was probably somewhat curtly concluded on account of loud complaints made against him on this score. Spenser would seem to have admired and applauded him, both as a ruler and as a patron and friend. He mentions him with much respect in his View of the Present State of Ireland. One of the sonnets prefixed to the Faerie Queene is addressed 'to the most renowmed and valiant lord the lord Grey of Wilton,' and speaks of him with profound gratitude:—

Most noble lord the pillor of my life,
And patrone of my Muses pupillage,
Through whose large bountie poured on me rife,
In the first season of my feeble age,
I now doe live, bound yours by vassalage:
Sith nothing ever may redeeme, nor reave
Out of your endlesse debt so sure a gage,
Vouchsafe in worth this small guift to receave,
Which in your noble hands for pledge I leave,
Of all the rest, that I am tyde t' account.

Lord Grey died in 1593. Spenser may have renewed his friendship with him in 1589, when, as we shall see, he visited England. For the present their connection was broken. It may be considered as fairly certain that when his lordship returned to England in 1582, Spenser did not return with him, but abode still in Ireland.

There is, indeed, a 'Maister Spenser' mentioned in a letter written by James VI. of Scotland from St. Andrews in 1583 to Queen Elizabeth: 'I have staied Maister Spenser upon the letter quhilk is written with my auin hand quhilk sall be readie within tua daies.' It may be presumed that this gentleman is the same with him of whose postal services mention is found, as we have seen, in 1569. At any rate there is nothing whatever to justify his identification with the poet. On the other hand, there are several circumstances which seem to indicate that Spenser was in Ireland continuously from the year of his going there with Lord Grey to the year of his visiting England with Raleigh in 1589, when he presented to her Majesty and published the first three books of the Faerie Queene. Whatever certain glimpses we can catch of Spenser during these ten years, he is in Ireland.

We have seen that he was holding one clerkship or another in Ireland during all this time. In the next place, we find him mentioned as forming one of a company described as gathered together at a cottage near Dublin in a work by his friend Lodovick{3} Bryskett, written, as may be inferred with considerable certainty, some time in or about the year 1582, though not published till 1606. This work, entitled A Discourse of Civill Life; containing the Ethike part of Morall Philosophie, 'written to the right honorable Arthur, late Lord Grey of Wilton'—written before his recall in 1582—describes in the introduction a party met together at the author's cottage near Dublin, consisting of 'Dr. Long, Primate of Ardmagh; Sir Robert Dillon, knight; M. Dormer, the Queene's sollicitor; Capt. Christopher Carleil; Capt. Thomas Norreis; Capt. Warham St. Leger; Capt. Nicholas Dawtrey; and M. Edmond Spenser, late your lordship's secretary; and Th. Smith, apothecary.' In the course of conversation Bryskett envies 'the happinesse of the Italians who have in their mother-tongue late writers that have with a singular easie method taught all that which Plato or Aristotle have confusedly or obscurely left written.' The 'late writers' who have performed this highly remarkable service of clarifying and making intelligible Plato and Aristotle—perhaps the 'confusion' and 'obscurity' Bryskett speaks of mean merely the difficulties of a foreign language for one imperfectly acquainted with it—are Alexander Piccolomini, Gio. Baptista Giraldi, and Guazzo, 'all three having written upon the Ethick part of Morall Philosopie [sic] both exactly and perspicuously.' Bryskett then earnestly wishes—and here perhaps, in spite of those queer words about Plato and Aristotle, we may sympathise with him—that some of our countrymen would promote by English treatises the study of Moral Philosophy in English.

'In the meane while I must struggle with those bookes which I vnderstand and content myselfe to plod upon them, in hope that God (who knoweth the sincerenesse of my desire) will be pleased to open my vnderstanding, so as I may reape that profit of my reading, which I trauell for. Yet is there a gentleman in this company, whom I have had often a purpose to intreate, that as his leisure might serue him, he would vouchsafe to spend some time with me to instruct me in some hard points which I cannot of myselfe understand; knowing him to be not onely perfect in the Greek tongue, but also very well read in Philosophie, both morall and naturall. Neuertheless such is my bashfulnes, as I neuer yet durst open my mouth to disclose this my desire unto him, though I have not wanted some hartning thereunto from himselfe. For of loue and kindnes to me, he encouraged me long sithens to follow the reading of the Greeke tongue, and offered me his helpe to make me vnderstand it. But now that so good an oportunitie is offered vnto me, to satisfie in some sort my desire; I thinke I should commit a great fault, not to myselfe alone, but to all this company, if I should not enter my request thus farre, as to moue him to spend this time which we have now destined to familiar discourse and conuersation, in declaring unto us the great benefits which men obtaine by knowledge of Morall Philosophie, and in making us to know what the same is, what be the parts thereof, whereby vertues are to be distinguished from vices; and finally that he will be pleased to run ouer in such order as he shall thinke good, such and so many principles and rules thereof, as shall serue not only for my better instruction, but also for the contentment and satisfaction of you al. For I nothing doubt, but that euery one of you will be glad to heare so profitable a discourse and thinke the time very wel spent wherin so excellent a knowledge shal be reuealed unto you, from which euery one may be assured to gather some fruit as wel as myselfe. Therefore (said I) turning myselfe to M. Spenser, It is you, sir, to whom it pertaineth to shew yourselfe courteous now unto us all and to make vs all beholding unto you for the pleasure and profit which we shall gather from your speeches, if you shall vouchsafe to open unto vs the goodly cabinet, in which this excellent treasure of vertues lieth locked up from the vulgar sort. And thereof in the behalfe of all as for myselfe, I do most earnestly intreate you not to say vs nay. Vnto which wordes of mine euery man applauding most with like words of request and the rest with gesture and countenances expressing as much, M. Spenser answered in this maner: Though it may seeme hard for me, to refuse the request made by you all, whom euery one alone, I should for many respects be willing to gratifie; yet as the case standeth, I doubt not but with the consent of the most part of you, I shall be excused at this time of this taske which would be laid vpon me, for sure I am, that it is not vnknowne unto you, that I haue already vndertaken a work tending to the same effect, which is in heroical verse under the title of a Faerie Queene to represent all the moral vertues, assigning to every vertue a Knight to be the patron and defender of the same, in whose actions and feates of arms and chiualry the operations of that vertue, whereof he is the protector, are to be expressed, and the vices and unruly appetites that oppose themselves against the same, to be beaten down and overcome. Which work, as I haue already well entred into, if God shall please to spare me life that I may finish it according to my mind, your wish (M. Bryskett) will be in some sort accomplished, though perhaps not so effectually as you could desire. And the may very well serue for my excuse, if at this time I craue to be forborne in this your request, since any discourse, that I might make thus on the sudden in such a subject would be but simple, and little to your satisfactions. For it would require good aduisement and premeditation for any man to vndertake the declaration of these points that you have proposed, containing in effect the Ethicke part of Morall Philosophie. Whereof since I haue taken in hand to discourse at large in my poeme before spoken, I hope the expectation of that work may serue to free me at this time from speaking in that matter, notwithstanding your motion and all your intreaties. But I will tell you how I thinke by himselfe he may very well excuse my speech, and yet satisfie all you in this matter. I haue seene (as he knoweth) a translation made by himselfe out of the Italian tongue of a dialogue comprehending all the Ethick part of Moral Philosophy, written by one of those three he formerly mentioned, and that is by Giraldi under the title of a dialogue of ciuil life. If it please him to bring us forth that translation to be here read among vs, or otherwise to deliuer to us, as his memory may serue him, the contents of the same; he shal (I warrant you) satisfie you all at the ful, and himselfe wil haue no cause but to thinke the time well spent in reuiewing his labors, especially in the company of so many his friends, who may thereby reape much profit and the translation happily fare the better by some mending it may receiue in the perusing, as all writings else may do by the often examination of the same. Neither let it trouble him that I so turne ouer to him againe the taske he wold have put me to; for it falleth out fit for him to verifie the principall of all this Apologie, euen now made for himselfe; because thereby it will appeare that he hath not withdrawne himselfe from seruice of the state to live idle or wholly priuate to himselfe, but hath spent some time in doing that which may greatly benefit others and hath serued not a little to the bettering of his owne mind, and increasing of his knowledge, though he for modesty pretend much ignorance, and pleade want in wealth, much like some rich beggars, who either of custom, or for couetousnes, go to begge of others those things whereof they haue no want at home. With this answer of M. Spensers it seemed that all the company were wel satisfied, for after some few speeches whereby they had shewed an extreme longing after his worke of the Faerie Queene, whereof some parcels had been by some of them seene, they all began to presse me to produce my translation mentioned by M. Spenser that it might be perused among them; or else that I should (as near as I could) deliuer unto them the contents of the same, supposing that my memory would not much faile me in a thing so studied and advisedly set downe in writing as a translation must be.'

Bryskett at length assents to Spenser's proposal, and proceeds to read his translation of Giraldi, which is in some sort criticised as he reads, Spenser proposing one or two questions 'arising principally,' as Todd says, 'from the discussion of the doctrines of Plato and Aristotle.' This invaluable picture of a scene in Spenser's Irish life shows manifestly in what high estimation his learning and genius were already held, and how, in spite of Harvey's sinister criticisms, he had resumed his great work. It tells us too that he found in Ireland a warmly appreciative friend, if indeed he had not known Bryskett before their going to Ireland. Bryskett too, perhaps, was acquainted with Sir Philip Sidney; for two of the elegies written on that famous knight's death and printed along with Astrophel in the elegiac collection made by Spenser were probably of Bryskett's composition, viz., The Mourning Muse of Thestylis, where 'Liffey's tumbling stream' is mentioned, and the one entitled A Pastoral Eclogue, where Lycon offers to 'second' Colin's lament for Phillisides.

What is said of the Faerie Queene in the above quotation may be illustrated from the sonnet already quoted from, addressed to Lord Grey—one of the sonnets that in our modern editions are prefixed to the great poem. It speaks of the great poem as

Rude rymes, the which a rustick Muse did weave
In savadge soyle, far from Parnasso mount.

See also the sonnet addressed to the Right Honourable the Earl of Ormond and Ossory.

A sonnet addressed to Harvey, is dated 'Dublin this xviij of July, 1586.' Again, in the course of the decad now under consideration, Spenser received a grant of land in Cork—of 3,028 acres, out of the forefeited estates of the Earl of Desmond.

All these circumstances put together make it probable, and more than probable, that Spenser remained in Ireland after Lord Grey's recall. How thorough his familiarity with the country grew to be, appears from the work concerning it which he at last produced.

The years 1586-7-8 were eventful both for England and for Spenser. In the first Sidney expired of wounds received at Zutphen; in the second, Mary Queen of Scots was executed; in the third, God blew and scattered the Armada, and also Leicester died. Spenser weeps over Sidney—there was never, perhaps, more weeping, poetical and other, over any death than over that of Sidney—in his Astrophel, the poem above mentioned. This poem is scarcely worthy of the sad occasion—the flower of knighthood cut down ere its prime, not yet

In flushing
When blighting was nearest.

Certainly it in no way expresses what Spenser undoubtedly felt when the woeful news came across the Channel to him in his Irish home. Probably his grief was 'too deep for tears.' It was probably one of those 'huge cares' which, in Seneca's phrase, not 'loquuntur,' but 'stupent.' He would fain have been dumb and opened not his mouth; but the fashion of the time called upon him to speak. He was expected to bring his immortelle, so to say, and lay it on his hero's tomb, though his limbs would scarcely support him, and his hand, quivering with the agony of his heart, could with difficulty either weave it or carry it. All the six years they had been parted, the image of that chivalrous form had never been forgotten. It had served for the one model of all that was highest and noblest in his eyes. It had represented for him all true knighthood. Nor all the years that he lived after Sidney's death was it forgotten. It is often before him, as he writes his later poetry, and is greeted always with undying love and sorrow. Thus in the Ruines of Time, he breaks out in a sweet fervour of unextinguished affection:

Most gentle spirite breathed from above,
Out of the bosom of the Makers blis,
In whom all bountie and all vertuous love
Appeared in their native propertis
And did enrich that noble breast of his
With treasure passing all this worldes worth.
Worthie of heaven itselfe, which brought it forth.

His blessed spirite, full of power divine
And influence of all celestiall grace,
Loathing this sinfull earth and earthlie slime,
Fled backe too soone unto his native place;
Too soone for all that did his love embrace,
Too soone for all this wretched world, whom he
Robd of all right and true nobilitie.

Yet ere this happie soule to heaven went
Out of this fleshie gaole, he did devise
Unto his heavenlie Maker to present
His bodie as a spotles sacrifise,
And chose, that guiltie hands of enemies
Should powre forth th' offring of his guiltles blood,
So life exchanging for his countries good.

O noble spirite, live there ever blessed,
The world's late wonder, and the heaven's new ioy.
Live ever there, and leave me here distressed
With mortall cares and cumbrous worlds anoy;
But where thou dost that happiness enioy,
Bid me, O bid me quicklie come to thee,
That happie there I maie thee alwaies see.

Yet whilest the Fates affoord me vitell breath,
I will it spend in speaking of thy praise,
And sing to thee untill that timelie death
By Heaven's doome doe ende my earthlie daies:
Thereto doo thou my humble spirite raise,
And into me that sacred breath inspire
Which thou there breathest perfect and entire.

It is not quite certain in what part of Ireland the poet was living when the news that Sidney was not reached him. Was he still residing at Dublin, or had he transferred his home to that southern region which is so intimately associated with his name? The sonnet to Harvey mentioned above shows that he was at Dublin in July of the year of his friend's death. It has been said already that he did not resign his Chancery clerkship until 1588. We know that he was settled in Cork county, at Kilcolman castle, in 1589, because Raleigh visited him there that year. He may then have left Dublin in 1588 or 1589. According to Dr. Birch's Life of Spenser, prefixed to the edition of the Faerie Queene in 1751,{4} and the Biographia Britannica, the grant of land made him in Cork is dated June 27, 1586. But the grant, which is extant, is dated October 26, 1591. Yet certainly, as Dr. Grosart points out, in the 'Articles' for the 'Undertakers,' which received the royal assent on June 27, 1586, Spenser is set down for 3,028 acres; and that he was at Kilcolman before 1591 seems certain. As he resigned his clerkship in the Court of Chancery in 1588, and was then appointed, as we have seen, clerk of the Council of Munster, he probably went to live somewhere in the province of Munster that same year. He may have lived at Kilcolman before it and the surrounding grounds were secured to him; he may have entered upon possession on the strength of a promise of them, before the formal grant was issued. He has mentioned the scenery which environed his castle twice in his great poem; but it is worth noticing that both mentions occur, not in the books published, as we shall now very soon see, in 1590, but in the books published six years afterwards. In the famous passage already referred to in the eleventh canto of the fourth book, describing the nuptials of the Thames and the Medway, he recounts in stanzas xl.-xliv. the Irish rivers who were present at that great river-gathering, and amongst them

Swift Awniduff which of the English man
Is cal'de Blacke water, and the Liffar deep,
Sad Trowis, that once his people ouerran,
Strong Allo tombling from Slewlogher steep,
And Mulla mine, whose waues I whilom taught to weep.

The other mention occurs in the former of the two cantos Of Mutability. There the poet sings that the place appointed for the trial of the titles and best rights of both 'heavenly powers' and 'earthly wights' was

. . . vpon the highest hights
Of Arlo-hill (Who knowes not Arlo-hill?)
That is the highest head (in all mens sights)
Of my old father Mole, whom Shepheards quill
Renowmed hath with hymnes fit for a rurall skill.

His poem called Colin Clouts Come Home Again, written in 1591, and dedicated to Sir W. Raleigh 'from my house at Kilcolman the 27 of December, 1591'{5}— written therefore after a lengthy absence in England— exhibits a full familiarity with the country round about Kilcolman. On the whole then we may suppose that his residence at Kilcolman began not later than 1588. It was to be roughly and and terribly ended ten years after.

We may suppose he was living there in peace and quiet, not perhaps undisturbed by growing murmurs of discontent, by signs of unrepressed and irrepressible hostility towards his nation, by ill-concealed sympathies with the Spanish invaders amongst the native population, when the Armada came and went. The old castle in which he had lived had been one of the residences of the Earls of Desmond. It stood some two miles from Doneraile, on the north side of a lake which was fed by the river Awbeg or Mulla, as the poet christened it.

'Two miles north-west of Doneraile,' writes Charles Smith in his Natural and Civil History of the County and City of Cork, 1774, (i. 340, 341)—'is Kilcoleman, a ruined castle of the Earls of Desmond, but more celebrated for being the residence of the immortal Spenser, when he composed his divine poem The Faerie Queene. The castle is now almost level with the ground, and was situated on the north side of a fine lake, in the midst of a vast plain, terminated to the east by the county of Waterford mountains; Bally- howra hills to the north, or, as Spenser terms them, the mountains of Mole, Nagle mountains to the south, and the mountains of Kerry to the west. It commanded a view of above half the breadth of Ireland; and must have been, when the adjacent uplands were wooded, a most pleasant and romantic situation; from whence, no doubt, Spenser drew several parts of the scenery of his poem.'

Here, then, as in some cool sequestered vale of life, for some ten years, his visits to England excepted, lived Spenser still singing sweetly, still, as he might say, piping, with the woods answering him and his echo ringing. Sitting in the shade he would play many a 'pleasant fit;' he would sing

Some hymne or morall laie,
Or carol made to praise his loved lasse;

he would see in the rivers that flowed around his tower beings who lived and loved, and would sing of their mutual passions. It must have sounded strangely to hear the notes of his sweet voice welling forth from his old ruin—to hear music so subtle and refined issuing from that scarred and broken relic of past turbulencies —

The shepheard swaines that did about him play
. . . with greedie listfull eares
Did stand astonisht at his curious skill
Like hartlesse deare, dismayed with thunders sound.

He presents a picture such as would have delighted his own fancy, though perhaps the actual experience may not have been unalloyed with pain. It is a picture which in many ways resembles that presented by one of kindred type of genius, who has already been mentioned as of affinity with him—by Wordsworth. Wordsworth too sang in a certain sense from the shade, far away from the vanity of courts, and the uproar of cities; sang 'from a still place, remote from men;' sang, like his own Highland girl, all alone with the 'vale profound' 'overflowing with the sound;' finding, too, objects of friendship and love in the forms of nature which surrounded his tranquil home.

Of these two poets in their various lonelinesses one may perhaps quote those exquisite lines written by one of them of a somewhat differently caused isolation: each one of them too lacked

Not friends for simple glee
Nor yet for higher sympathy.
To his side the fallow-deer
Came and rested without fear;
The eagle, lord of land and sea,
Stooped down to pay him fealty.

. . . . .

He knew the rocks which angels haunt
Upon the mountains visitant;
He hath kenned them taking wing;
And into caves where Faeries sing
He hath entered; and been told
By voices how men lived of old.

Here now and then he was visited, it may be supposed, by old friends. Perhaps that distinguished son of the University of Cambridge, Gabriel Harvey, may for a while have been his guest; he is introduced under his pastoral name of Hobbinol, as present at the poet's house on his return to Ireland. The most memorable of these visits was that already alluded to—that paid to him in 1589 by Sir Walter Raleigh, with whom it will be remembered he had become acquainted some nine years before. Raleigh, too, had received a grant from the same huge forfeited estate, a fragment of which had been given to Spenser. The granting of these, and other shares of the Desmond estates, formed part of a policy then vigorously entertained by the English Government—the colonising of the so lately disordered and still restless districts of Southern Ireland. The recipients were termed 'undertakers;' it was one of their duties to repair the ravages inflicted during the recent tumults and bring the lands committed to them into some state of cultivation and order.

The wars had been followed by a famine. 'Even in the history of Ireland,' writes a recent biographer of Sir Walter Raleigh, 'there are not many scenes more full of horror that those which the historians of that period rapidly sketch when showing us the condition of almost the whole province of Munster in the year 1584, and the years immediately succeeding.'{6}

The claims of his duties as an 'undertaker,' in addition perhaps to certain troubles at court, where his rival Essex was at this time somewhat superseding him in the royal favour,{7} and making a temporary absence not undesirable, brought Raleigh into Cork County in 1589. A full account of this visit and its important results is given us in Colin Clouts Come Home Again, which gives us at the same time a charming picture of the poet's life at Kilcolman. Colin himself, lately returned home from England, tells his brother shepherds, at their urgent request, of his 'passed fortunes.' He begins with Raleigh's visit. One day, he tells them, as he sat

Under the foote of Mole, that mountaine hore,
Keeping my sheepe amongst the cooly shade
Of the greene alders by the Mullaes shore,

a strange shepherd, who styled himself the Shepherd of the Ocean —

Whether allured with my pipes delight,
Whose pleasing sound yshrilled far about,
Or thither led by chaunce, I know not right —

found him out, and

Provoked me to plaie some pleasant fit.

He sang, he tells us, a song of Mulla old father Mole's daughter, and of another river called Bregog who loved her. Then his guest sang in turn:—

His song was all a lamentable lay
Of great unkindnesse and of usage hard,
Of Cynthia the ladie of the sea,
Which from her presence faultlesse him debard,
And ever and anon, with singults rife,
He cryed out, to make his undersong:
Ah! my loves queene and goddesse of my life,
Who shall me pittie when thou doest me wrong?

After they had made an end of singing, the shepherd of the ocean

Gan to cast great lyking to my lore,
And great dislyking to my lucklesse lot
That banisht had my selfe, like wight forlore,
Into that waste where I was quite forgot,

and presently persuaded him to accompany him 'his Cinthia to see.'

It has been seen from one of Harvey's letters that the Faerie Queene was already begun in 1580; and from what Bryskett says, and what Spenser says himself in his sonnets to Lord Grey, and to Lord Ormond, that it was proceeded with after the poet had passed over to Ireland. By the close of the year 1589 at least three books were completely finished. Probably enough parts of other books had been written; but only three were entirely ready for publication. No doubt part of the conversation that passed between Spenser and Raleigh related to Spenser's work. It may be believed that what was finished was submitted to Raleigh's judgment, and certainly concluded that it elicited his warmest approval.{8} One great object that Spenser proposed to himself when he assented to Raleigh's persuasion to visit England, was the publication of the first three books of his Faerie Queene.

Footnotes ————-

{1} One might quote of these poets, and those of a like spirit, Wordsworth's lines on 'the Characteristics of a Child three years old,' for in the respect therein mentioned, as in others, these poets are 'as little children:'

As a faggot sparkles on the hearth,
Not less if unattended and alone,
Than when both young and old sit gathered round,
And take delight in its activity;
Even so this happy creature of herself
Is all-sufficient; Solitude to her
Is blithe society, who fills the air
With gladness and involuntary songs.

{2} See Colin Clouts Come Home Again, vv. 180-184,
quoted below.
{3} This is the 'Lodovick' mentioned in Sonnet 33,
quoted below. It was from him a little later, in
1588, that Spenser obtained by 'purchase' the
succession to the office of the Clerk of the
Government Council of Munster. See Dr. Grosart's
vol. i. p. 151.
{4} Dr. Birch refers in his note to The Ancient and
Present State of the County and City of Cork, by
Charles Smith, vol. i. book i. c. i. p. 58-63.
Edit. Dublin 1750, 8vo. And Fiennes Moryson's
Itinerary, part ii. p. 4.
{5} Todd proposes to regard this date as a printer's
error for 1595, quite unnecessarily.
{6} Mr. Edward Edwards, 1868, I. c. vi.; see also
Colin Clouts Come Home Again, vv. 312-319.
{7} 'My lord of Essex hath chased Mr. Raleigh from the
court and confined him in Ireland.'—Letter, dated
August 17, 1589, from Captain Francis Allen to
Antony Bacon, Esq.—Quoted by Todd from Dr. Birch's
Memoirs of Queen Elizabeth.—See Mr. Edwards's
Life of Raleigh, I. c. viii.
{8} See Raleigh's lines entitled 'A Vision upon this
Conceipt of the Faery Queene,' prefixed to the
Faerie Queene.