For him the Father of all formes they call;
Therefore needs mote he live, that living gives to all.”
(III. vi. 46, 47.)
The attraction which this doctrine of the indestructibility of matter had for Spenser lay in the comforting assurance which it brought him of an eternity when things should be at rest. Throughout Spenser is heard a note of world weariness.
“Nothing is sure, that growes on earthly ground.”
These words placed in the mouth of Arthur (I. ix. 11) are essentially characteristic of Spenser’s outlook on the things of this world: they are his lacrimæ rerum. The “Cantos of Mutabilitie” is the best instance in point. These two cantos celebrate the overthrow of Mutability by Nature. To the claim of preëminence among the gods which Mutability lays before Nature, and which she bases upon the fact that everything in the wide universe is subject to constant change, Dame Nature replies that though they be subject to change, they change only their outward state, each change working their perfection; and she further remarks that the time will come when there shall be no more change. At the end of Mutability’s plea Dame Nature thus answers the charge:
“I well consider all that ye have sayd,
And find that all things stedfastnes doe hate
And changed be: yet being rightly wayd
They are not changed from their first estate;