Engraved by J. Thomson.
SPENSER.
From an original Picture in the possession of
The Earl of Kinnoull.
Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.
London. Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street.
Lady Compton and Mounteagle, express affection and bounden duty, on the score of kindred, to the house whence those ladies sprang, who were three sisters, and daughters of Sir John Spencer of Althorpe.
Spenser took the degree of Bachelor in 1572, and that of Master of Arts in 1576, in which year it is said that he was an unsuccessful competitor for a fellowship; but Mr. Church, student of Christ Church in Oxford, who has been more minute in his inquiries than Spenser’s other biographers, thinks that the story has no foundation. It is agreed on all hands that Sir Philip Sidney was the person who drew the poet from obscurity, and introduced him at court. On this subject we are told that Spenser sent a copy of the ninth canto of the first book of the ‘Faery Queene’ to Leicester House; and that Sidney was so transported at the discovery of such astonishing genius, as, after having read a stanza or two, to order his steward to give the author fifty pounds: after the next stanza the sum was doubled. The steward was not so enthusiastic as his master, and therefore in no hurry to make the disbursement; but one stanza more raised the gratuity to two hundred pounds, with a command of immediate payment, lest a further perusal should tempt the gallant knight to give away his whole estate. The obvious drift of this story is to magnify the genius of its subject; but it is rather hard on Sir Philip, that a reputation fully capable of standing by itself should have been unnecessarily propped at the expense of his character for common sense. The plain fact is, that the celebrated Gabriel Harvey, Spenser’s college friend, introduced him to Sidney; that he wrote part of his ‘Shepherd’s Calendar’ at Penshurst, and under the modest name of Immerito, inscribed it to his patron. The general strain of this poem is serious and pensive, but with occasional bursts of amorous complaint. Without the latter it was considered that there could be no pastoral poetry; but in this instance the wailings are thought not to have been altogether fictitious. The name of Rosalinde is said to have shadowed forth a mistress who had deserted him, as that of Colin Clout both there and elsewhere denoted himself. Sidney lost no time in introducing his new friend to the Earl of Leicester, and finally to Queen Elizabeth. On his presenting some poems to her, the Queen ordered him a gratuity of a hundred pounds. Lord Treasurer Burleigh, better qualified to appreciate the useful than the ornamental, said, “What! all this for a song?” The Queen in anger repeated the order; and the minister from that time became the personal enemy of the poet, who alludes to this misfortune in several parts of his works.
The Earl of Leicester seems to have undertaken to provide for Spenser by sending him abroad. A letter to Gabriel Harvey from Leicester House fixes this to the year 1579; but either there is a mistake in the date, or the scheme must have been abandoned; for in 1580 he was appointed secretary to Arthur Lord Grey of Wilton, who was sent as lord-deputy to Ireland. While in that country he wrote his ‘Discourse on the State of Ireland,’ a judicious treatise on the policy then best suited to the condition of that country. His services were rewarded with a grant of 3028 acres in the county of Cork, out of the forfeited lands of Gerald Fitz Gerald Earl of Desmond. Spenser’s residence was at the castle of Kilcolman, near Doneraile. The river Mulla, which he has more than once introduced into his poems, ran through his grounds. Here he contracted an intimacy with Sir Walter Raleigh, who was then a captain under Lord Grey. ‘Colin Clout’s come Home again,’ in which Sir Walter is described as the Shepherd of the Ocean, is a beautiful memorial of this friendship, founded on a similarity of taste for the polite arts, and described with equal delicacy and strength of feeling. The author acknowledges services at court rendered to him by Raleigh; probably the confirmation of the grant of land, which he obtained in 1586. The friends returned to England together, and Spenser wished to have obtained a settlement at home, rather than to have continued in a country at that time little better than barbarous. To mortifications, and ultimate disappointment in his attendance at court, we probably owe the well-known lines in ‘Mother Hubbard’s Tale.’ If his forced return to Ireland was the cause of his writing the ‘Faery Queene,’ his country was benefited, and his fame immeasurably enhanced by the disappointment of his wishes. On the publication of the first three books the Queen rewarded him with a pension of fifty pounds a year; and in him the office of Laureate may be considered to have commenced, although not conferred under that title.
Spenser’s marriage is placed by most biographers in 1593; by Mr. Church in 1596: the year of his death, if we could rest our faith in the monument. All we know of the lady is, that her Christian name was Elizabeth: a name, he says in his 74th sonnet, which has given him three graces, in his mother, his queen, and his mistress. In his ‘Epithalamion’ he says,
“Tell me, ye merchants’ daughters, did ye see
So fair a creature in your town before?
So sweet, so lovely, and so mild as she,
Adorn’d with beauty’s grace and virtue’s store:
Her goodly eyes, like sapphire, shining bright.