In pleasant mew
To sport my Muse and sing my loves sweet praise,
The contemplation of whose heavenly hew
My spirit to an higher pitch doth raise.
Probably the Sixth Book was concluded in the first part of the year 1594, just after his long wooing had been crowned with success. In the tenth canto of that book he introduces the lady of his love, and himself 'piping' unto her. In a rarely pleasant place on a fair wooded hill-top Calidore sees the Graces dancing, and Colin Clout piping merrily. With these goddesses is a fourth maid; it is to her alone that Colin pipes:—
Pype, jolly shepheard, pype thou now apace
Unto thy love that made thee low to lout;
Thy love is present there with thee in place;
Thy love is there advaunst to be another Grace.
Of this fourth maid the poet, after sweetly praising the daughters of sky-ruling Jove, sings in this wise:—
Who can aread what creature mote she bee;
Whether a creature or a goddesse graced
With heavenly gifts from heven first enraced?
But what so sure she was, she worthy was
To be the fourth with those three other placed,
Yet she was certes but a countrey lasse;
Yet she all other countrey lasses farre did passe.
So farre, as doth the daughter of the day
All other lesser lights in light excell;
So farre doth she in beautyfull array
Above all other lasses beare the bell;
Ne lesse in vertue that beseems her well
Doth she exceede the rest of all her race.
The phrase 'country lass' in this rapturous passage has been taken to signify that she to whom it applied was of mean origin; but it scarcely bears this construction. Probably all that is meant is that her family was not connected with the Court or the Court circle. She was not high-born; but she was not low- born. The final sonnets refer to some malicious reports circulating about him, and to some local separation between the sonneteer and his mistress. This separation was certainly ended in the June following his acceptance—that is, the June of 1594; for in that month, on St. Barnabas' day, that is, on the 11th, Spenser was married. This event Spenser celebrates in the finest, the most perfect of all his poems, in the most beautiful of all bridal songs—in his Epithalamion. He had many a time sung for others; he now bade the Muses crown their heads with garlands and help him his own love's praises to resound:—
So I unto my selfe alone will sing,
The woods shall to me answer, and my echo ring.
Then, with the sweetest melody and a refinement and grace incomparable, he sings with a most happy heart of various matters of the marriage day—of his love's waking, of the merry music of the minstrels, of her coming forth in all the pride of her visible loveliness, of that 'inward beauty of her lively spright' which no eyes can see, of her standing before the altar, her sad eyes still fastened on the ground, of the bringing her home, of the rising of the evening star, and the fair face of the moon looking down on his bliss not unfavourably, as he would hope. The Amoretti and Epithalamion were registered at the Stationers' Hall on the 19th of November following the marriage. They were published in 1595, Spenser—as appears from the 'Dedication' of them to Sir Robert Needham, written by the printer Ponsonby—being still absent from England.
Meanwhile the poet had been vexed by other troubles besides those of a slowly requited passion. Mr. Hardiman,{2} in his Irish Minstrelsy, has published three petitions presented in 1593 to the Lord Chancellor of Ireland by Maurice, Lord Roche, Viscount Fermoy, two against 'one Edmond Spenser, gentleman', one against one Joan Ny Callaghan—who is said to act 'by supportation and maintenance of Edmond Spenser, gentleman, a heavy adversary to your suppliant.' 'Where,' runs the first petition, 'one Edmond Spenser, gentleman, hath lately exhibited suit against your suppliant for three ploughlands, parcels of Shanballymore (your suppliant's inheritance) before the Vice-President and Council of Munster, which land hath been heretofore decreed for your suppliant against the said Spenser and others under whom he conveyed; and nevertheless for that the said Spenser, being Clerk of the Council in the said province, and did assign his office unto one Nicholas Curteys among other agreements with covenant that during his life he should be free in the said office for his causes, by occasion of which immunity he doth multiply suits against your suppliant in the said province upon pretended title of others &c.' The third petition averred that 'Edmond Spenser of Kilcolman, gentleman, hath entered into three ploughlands, parcel of Ballingerath, and disseised your suppliant thereof, and continueth by countenance and greatness the possession thereof, and maketh great waste of the wood of the said land, and converteth a great deal of corn growing thereupon to his proper use, to the damage of the complainant of two hundred pounds sterling. Whereunto,' continues the document, which is preserved in the Original Rolls Office, 'the said Edmond Spenser appearing in person had several days prefixed unto him peremptorily to answer, which he neglected to do.' Therefore 'after a day of grace given,' on the 12th of February, 1594, Lord Roche was decreed the possession. Perhaps the absence from his lady love referred to in the concluding sonnets was occasioned by this litigation. Perhaps also the 'false forged lyes'—the malicious reports circulated about him—referred to in Sonnet 85, may have been connected with these appeals against him. It is clear that all his dreams of Faerie did not make him neglectful of his earthly estate. Like Shakspere, like Scott, Spenser did not cease to be a man of the world—we use the phrase in no unkindly sense—because he was a poet. He was no mere visionary, helpless in the ordinary affairs of life. In the present case it would appear that he was even too keen in looking after his own interests. Professor Craik charitably suggests that his poverty 'rather than rapacity may be supposed to have urged whatever of hardness there was in his proceedings.' It is credible enough that these proceedings made him highly unpopular with the native inhabitants of the district, and that they were not forgotten when the day of reckoning came. 'His name,' says Mr. Hardiman, on the authority of Trotter's Walks in Ireland,{3} 'is still remembered in the vicinity of Kilcolman; but the people entertain no sentiments of respect or affection for his memory.'