More than once in the course of it, Spenser refers to Tityrus as his great master. The twelfth eclogue opens thus:
The gentle shepheard sat beside a springe
All in the shadow of a bushye brere,
That Colin height, which well could pype and singe,
For hee of Tityrus his songs did lere.
Tityrus, on E.K.'s authority, was Chaucer. It is evident from the language—both the words and verbal forms—used in this poem that Spenser had zealously studied Chaucer, whose greatest work had appeared just about two centuries before Spenser's first important publication. The work, however, in which he imitates Chaucer's manner is not the Shepheardes Calendar, but his Prosopopoia or Mother Hubberds Tale, which he says, writing in a later year, he had 'long sithens composed in the raw conceipt of my youth.' The form and manner of the Shepheardes Calendar reflected not Chaucer's influence upon the writer, but the influence of a vast event which had changed the face of literature since the out-coming of the Canterbury Tales—of the revival of learning. That event had put fresh models before men, had greatly modified old literary forms, had originated new. The classical influence impressed upon Europe was by no means an unmixed good; in some respects it retarded the natural development of the modern mind by overpowering it with its prestige and stupefying it with a sense of inferiority; while it raised the ideal of perfection, it tended to give rise to mere imitations and affectations. Amongst these new forms was the Pastoral. When Virgil, Theocritus, 'Daphnis and Chloe,' and other writers and works of the ancient pastoral literature once more gained the ascendancy, then a modern pastoral poetry began to be. This poetry flourished greatly in Italy in the sixteenth century. It had been cultivated by Sannazaro, Guarini, Tasso. Arcadia had been adopted by the poets for their country. In England numerous Eclogues made their appearance. Amongst the earliest and the best of these were Spenser's. It would perhaps be unjust to treat this modern pastoral literature as altogether an affectation. However unreal, the pastoral world had its charms—a pleasant feeling imparted of emancipation, a deep quietude, a sweet tranquillity. If vulgar men discovered their new worlds, and trafficked and bustled there, why should not the poet discover his Arcadia, and repose at his ease in it, secure from the noises of feet coming and going over the roads of the earth?
That fine melodiousness, which is one of Spenser's signal characteristics, may be perceived in his Eclogues, as also a native gracefulness of style, which is another distinguishing mark of him. Perceivable, too, are his great, perilous fluency of language and his immense fecundity of mind. The work at once secured him a front place in the poetical ranks of the day. Sidney mentions it in his Apologie for Poetrie;{5} Abraham Fraunce draws illustrations from it in his Lawyers Logicke, which appeared in 1588; Meres praises it; 'Maister Edmund Spenser,' says Drayton, 'has done enough for the immortality, had he only given us his Shepheardes Calendar, a masterpiece, if any.' It is easy to discern in Lycidas signs of Milton's study of it.
During Spenser's sojourn in the society of the Sidneys and the Dudleys, letters passed between him and Harvey, some of which are extant. From these, and from the editorial notes of Kirke, we hear of other works written by Spenser, ready to be given to the light. The works thus heard of are Dreames, Legends, Court of Cupide, The English Poet, The Dying Pelican, Stemmata Dudleiana, Slomber, Nine English Comedies, The Epithalamion Thamesis, and also The Faerie Queene commenced. Of these works perhaps the Legends, Court of Cupide, and Epithalamion Thamesis were subsequently with modifications incorporated in the Faerie Queene; the Stemmata Dudleiana, Nine English Comedies, Dying Pelican, are altogether lost. The Faerie Queene had been begun. So far as written, it had been submitted to the criticism of Harvey. On April 10, 1580, Spenser writes to Harvey, wishing him to return it with his 'long expected judgment' upon it. Harvey had already pronounced sentence in a letter dated April 7, and this is the sentence: 'In good faith I had once again nigh forgotten your Faerie Queene; howbeit, by good chaunce I have nowe sent hir home at the laste, neither in a better nor worse case than I founde hir. And must you of necessitie have my judgement of hir indeede? To be plaine, I am voyde of al judgement, if your nine Com{oe}dies, whereunto, in imitation of Herodotus, you give the names of the Nine Muses, and (in one man's fansie not unworthily), come not neerer Ariostoes Com{oe}dies, eyther for the finenesse of plausible elocution, or the rareness of poetical invention, than that Elvish queene doth to his Orlando Furioso, which notwithstanding, you will needes seem to emulate, and hope to overgo, as you flatly professed yourself in one of your last letters. Besides that, you know it hath bene the usual practise of the most exquisite and odde wittes in all nations, and especially in Italie, rather to shewe and advaunce themselves that way than any other; as namely, those three notorious dyscoursing heads Bibiena, Machiavel, and Aretine did (to let Bembo and Ariosto passe), with the great admiration and wonderment of the whole countrey; being indeede reputed matchable in all points, both for conceyt of witte, and eloquent decyphering of matters, either with Aristophanes and Menander in Greek, or with Plautus and Terence in Latin, or with any other in any other tong. But I will not stand greatly with you in your owne matters. If so be the Faery Queen be fairer in your eie than the Nine Muses, and Hobgoblin runne away with the garland from Apollo; marke what I saye, and yet I will not say that I thought; but there is an end for this once, and fare you well, till God or some good Aungell putte you in a better minde.'
Clearly the Faerie Queene was but little to Harvey's taste. It was too alien from the cherished exemplars of his heart. Happily Spenser was true to himself, and went on with his darling work in spite of the strictures of pedantry. This is not the only instance in which the dubious character of Harvey's influence is noticeable. The letters, from one of which the above doom is quoted, enlighten us also as to a grand scheme entertained at this time for forcing the English tongue to conform to the metrical rules of the classical languages. Already in a certain circle rime was discredited as being, to use Milton's words nearly a century afterwards, 'no necessary adjunct or true ornament of poem or good verse, in longer works especially, but the invention of a barbarous age to set off wretched matter and lame metre.' A similar attempt was made in the course of the sixteenth century in other parts of Europe, and with the same final issue. Gabriel Harvey was an active leader in this deluded movement. When Sidney too, and Dyer, another poet of the time, proclaimed a 'general surceasing and silence of bald rhymes, and also of the very best too, instead whereof they have by authority of their whole senate, prescribed certain laws and rules of quantity of English syllables for English verse, having had already thereof great practice,' Spenser was drawn 'to their faction.'
'I am of late,' he writes to Harvey, 'more in love wyth my Englishe versifying than with ryming; whyche I should have done long since if I would then have followed your councell.' In allying himself with these Latin prosody bigots Spenser sinned grievously against his better taste. 'I like your late Englishe hexameters so exceedingly well,' he writes to Harvey, 'that I also enure my pen sometime in that kinde, whyche I find in deed, as I have heard you often defende in word, neither so harde nor so harsh [but] that it will easily and fairly yield itself to our mother tongue. For the onely or chiefest hardnesse whyche seemeth is in the accente; whyche sometimes gapeth and as it were yawneth il-favouredly, comming shorte of that it should, and sometimes exceeding the measure of the number; as in carpenter the middle sillable being used short in speache, when it shall be read long in verse, seemeth like a lame gosling that draweth one legge after hir. And heaven being used shorte as one syllable, when it is in verse stretched with a Diastole is like a lame dogge, that holdes up one legge.'{6} His ear was far too fine and sensitive to endure the fearful sounds uttered by the poets of this Procrust{ae}an creed. The language seemed to groan and shriek at the agonies and contortions to which it was subjected; and Spenser could not but hear its outcries. But he made himself as deaf as might be. 'It is to be wonne with custom,' he proceeds, in the letter just quoted from, 'and rough words must be studied with use. For why, a God's name, may not we, as the Greekes, have the kingdom of oure owne language, and measure our accentes by the sounde, reserving the quantitie to the verse? . . . I would hartily wish you would either send me the rules or precepts of arte which you observe in quantities; or else follow mine that Mr. Philip Sidney gave me, being the very same which Mr. Drant devised, but enlarged with Mr. Sidney's own judgement, and augmented with my observations, that we might both accorde and agree in one, leaste we overthrowe one another and be overthrown of the rest.' He himself produced the following lines in accordance, as he fondly hoped, with the instructions of the new school:—
IAMBICUM TRIMETRUM.
Unhappie verse! the witnesse of my unhappie state,
[as indeed it was in a sense not meant]
Make thy selfe fluttring winge of thy fast flying
thought,
And fly forth unto my love whersoever she be.
Whether lying reastlesse in heavy bedde, or else
Sitting so cheerelesse at the cheerefull boorde, or
else
Playing alone carelesse on hir heavenlie virginals.