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.
CHAPTER III.
1590.
Thus after an absence of about nine years, Spenser returned for a time to England; he returned 'bringing his sheaves with him.' Whatever shadow of misunderstanding had previously come between his introducer—or perhaps re-introducer—and her Majesty seems to have been speedily dissipated. Raleigh presented him to the Queen, who, it would appear, quickly recognised his merits. 'That goddess'
To mine oaten pipe enclin'd her eare
That she thenceforth therein gan take delight,
And it desir'd at timely houres to heare
Al were my notes but rude and roughly dight.
In the Registers of the Stationers' Company for 1589 occurs to following entry, quoted here from Mr. Arber's invaluable edition of them:—
Primo Die Decembris.—Master Ponsonbye. Entered for his Copye a book intituled the fayre Queene, dyposed into xii bookes &c. Aucthorysed vnder thandes of the Archb. of Canterbery & bothe the Wardens, vjd.
The letter of the author's prefixed to his poem 'expounding his whole intention in the course of this worke, which for that it giveth great light to the reader, for the better understanding is hereunto annexed,' addressed to 'Sir Walter Raleigh, Knight, Lord Wardein of the Stanneryes and her Maiesties lieftenaunt in the county of Cornewayll,' is dated January 23, 1589—that is, 1590, according to the New Style. Shortly afterwards, in 1590, according to both Old and New Styles, was published by William Ponsonby 'THE FAERIE QUEENE, Disposed into twelve books, Fashioning XII Morall vertues.' That day, which we spoke of as beginning to arise in 1579, now fully dawned. The silence of well nigh two centuries was now broken, not again to prevail, by mighty voices. During Spenser's absence in Ireland, William Shakspere had come up from the country to London. The exact date of his advent it seems impossible to ascertain. Probably enough it was 1585; but it may have been a little later. We may, however, be fairly sure that by the time of Spenser's arrival in London in 1589, Shakspere was already occupying a notable position in his profession as an actor; and what is more important, there can be little doubt he was already known not only as an actor, but as a play-writer. What he had already written was not comparable with what he was to write subsequently; but even those early dramas gave promise of splendid fruits to be thereafter yielded. In 1593 appeared Venus and Adonis; in the following year Lucrece; in 1595, Spenser's Epithalamion; in 1596, the second three books of the Faerie Queene; in 1597 Romeo and Juliet, King Richard the Second, and King Richard the Third were printed, and also Bacon's Essays and the first part of Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity. During all these years various plays, of increasing power and beauty, were proceeding from Shakspere's hands; by 1598 about half of his extant plays had certainly been composed. Early in 1599, he, who may be said to have ushered in this illustrious period, he whose radiance first dispersed the darkness and made the day begin to be, our poet Spenser, died. But the day did not die with him; it was then but approaching its noon, when he, one of its brightest suns, set. This day may be said to have fully broken in the year 1590, when the first instalment of the great work of Spenser's life made its appearance.
The three books were dedicated to the Queen. They were followed in the original edition—are preceded in later editions—first, by the letter to Raleigh above mentioned; then by six poetical pieces of a commendatory sort, written by friends of the poet—by Raleigh who writes two of the pieces, by Harvey who now praises and well-wishes the poem he had discountenanced some years before, by 'R.S.,' by 'H.B.,' by 'W.L.;' lastly, by seventeen sonnets addressed by the poet to various illustrious personages; to Sir Christopher Hatton, to Lord Burghley, to the Earl of Essex, Lord Charles Howard, Lord Grey of Wilton, Lord Buckhurst, Sir Francis Walsingham, Sir John Norris, Knight, lord president of Munster, Sir Walter Raleigh, the Countess of Pembroke, and others. The excellence of the poem was at once generally perceived and acknowledged. Spenser had already, as we have seen, gained great applause by his Shepheardes Calendar, published some ten years before the coming out of his greater work. During these ten years he had resided out of England, as has been seen; but it is not likely his reputation had been languishing during his absence. Webbe in his Discourse of English Poetrie, 1586, had contended 'that Spenser may well wear the garlande, and step before the best of all English poets.' The Shepheardes Calendar had been reprinted in 1581 and in 1586; probably enough, other works of his had been circulating in manuscript; the hopes of the country had been directed towards him; he was known to be engaged in the composition of a great poem. No doubt he found himself famous when he reached England on the visit suggested by Raleigh; he found a most eager expectant audience; and when at last his Faerie Queene appeared, it was received with the utmost delight and admiration. He was spoken of in the same year with its appearance as the new laureate.{1} In the spring of the following year he received a pension from the crown of 50_l_. per annum. Probably, however, then, as in later days, the most ardent appreciators of of Spenser were the men of the same craft with himself—the men who too, though in a different degree, or in a different kind, possessed the 'vision and the faculty divine.'