But ere he ended his melodious song,
An host of angels flew the cloud among,
And rapt this swan from his attentive mates
To make him one of their associates
In heaven's faire choir.
One S. A. Cokain writes:—
If, honour'd Colin, thou hadst lived so long
As to have finished thy Fairy song,
Not only mine but all tongues would confess,
Thou hadst exceeded old M{ae}onides.
He was buried near Chaucer—by his own wish, it is said—in Westminster Abbey, 'poetis funus ducentibus,' with poets following him to the grave—bearing the pall, as we might say—the Earl of Essex furnishing the funeral expenses, according to Camden. It would seem from a passage in Browne's Britannia's Pastorals 'that the Queen ordered a monument to be erected over him, but that the money was otherwise appropriated by one of her agents.' The present monument, restored in 1778, was erected by Anne, Countess of Dorset, in 1620.
His widow married again before 1603, as we learn from a petition presented to the Lord Chancellor of Ireland in that year, in which Sylvanus sues to recover from her and her husband Roger Seckerstone certain documents relating to the paternal estate. She was again a widow in 1606. Till a very recent time there were descendants of Spenser living in the south of Ireland.
1869 JOHN W. HALES.
Revised 1896.
Footnotes
————-
{1} This poem is in this volume reprinted from the
edition of 1591. Mr. Morris thinks that Todd was
not aware of this edition. Mr. Collier reprinted
from the 2nd edition—that of 1593.
{2} Irish Minstrelsy; or, Bardic Remains of Ireland,
by J. Hardiman. London, 1831.
{3} 'The name and occupation of Spenser is handed down
traditionally among them (the Irish); but they seem
to entertain no sentiments of respect or affection
for his memory; the bard came in rather ungracious
times, and the keen recollections of this untutored
people are wonderful.'—Trotter's Walks through
Ireland in the Years 1812, 1814, and 1817.
London, 1819, p. 302.
{4} Cooper's Athen. Cantab.
{5} See Mr. Edwards's Life of Raleigh, vol. i. p.
128.
{6} No doubt he intended to complete his work. See
book vi. canto v. st. 2:
'When time shall be to tell the same;'
but this time never was.