And he the man whom Nature selfe had made
To mock herselfe and Truth to imitate,
With kindly counter under Mimick shade,
Our pleasant Willy, ah! is dead of late;
With whom all joy and jolly meriment
Is also deaded and in dolour drent.
The context shows that by 'dead' is not meant physical death, but that
That same gentle spirit, from whose pen
Large streames of honnie and sweete nectar flowe,
produces nothing, sits idle-handed and silent, rather than pander to the grosser tastes of the day. But this view, attractive as it is, can perhaps hardly be maintained. Though the Teares of the Muses was not published, as we have seen, till 1591, it was probably written some years earlier, and so before the star of Shakspere had arisen. Possibly by Willy is meant Sir Philip Sidney, a favourite haunt of whose was his sister's house at Wilton on the river Wiley or Willey, and who had exhibited some comic power in his masque, The Lady of May, acted before the Queen in 1578. Some scholars, however, take 'Willy' to denote John Lily. Thus the passage at present remains dark. If written in 1590, it certainly cannot mean Sidney, who had been dead some years; just possibly, but not probably, it might in that case mean Shakspere. Of the remaining works published in his Complaints, the only other one of recent composition is Muiopotmos, which, as Prof. Craik suggests, would seem to be an allegorical narrative of some matter recently transpired. It is dated 1590, but nothing is known of any earlier edition than that which appears in the Complaints. Of the other pieces by far the most interesting is Prosopopoia, or Mother Hubbards Tale, not only because it is in it, as has been said, Spenser most carefully, though far from successfully, imitates his great master Chaucer, but for its intrinsic merit— for its easy style, its various incidents, its social pictures. In the dedication he speaks of it as 'These my idle labours; which having long sithens composed in the raw conceipt of my youth, I lately amongst other papers lighted upon, and was by others, which liked the same, mooved to set them foorth.' However long before its publication the poem in the main was written, possibly some additions were made to it in or about the year 1590; as for instance, the well-known passage describing 'a suitor's state,' which reflects too clearly a bitter personal experience to have been composed before Spenser had grown so familiar with the Court as he became during his visit to England under Raleigh's patronage. But it is conceivable that his experiences in 1578 and 1579 inspired the lines in question. The remaining pieces in the Complaints consist of translations or imitations, composed probably some years before, though probably in some cases, as has been shown, revised or altogether recast. Probably in the same year with the Complaints— that is in 1591—was published Daphnaida,{1} 'an Elegie upon the death of the noble and vertuous Douglas Howard, daughter and heire of Henry Lord Howard, Viscount Byndon, and wife of Arthur Georges, Esquire.' This elegy was no doubt written before Spenser returned to Ireland. It is marked by his characteristic diffuseness, abundance, melody. Certainly before the close of the year 1591 Spenser found himself once more in his old castle of Kilcolman. A life at Court could never have suited him, however irksome at times his isolation in Ireland may have seemed. When his friends wondered at his returning unto
This barrein soyle,
Where cold and care and penury do dwell,
Here to keep sheepe with hunger and with toyle,
he made the answer that he,
Whose former dayes
Had in rude fields bene altogether spent,
Durst not adventure such unknowen wayes,
Nor trust the guile of fortunes blandishment;
But rather chose back to my sheepe to tourne,
Whose utmost hardnesse I before had tryde,
Then, having learnd repentance late, to mourne
Emongst those wretches which I there descryde.
That life, with all its intrigues and self-seekings and scandals, had no charms for him. Once more settled in his home, he wrote an account of his recent absence from it, which he entitled Colin Clouts Come Home Again. This poem was not published till 1595; but, whatever additions were subsequently made to it, there can be no doubt it was originally written immediately after his return to Ireland. Sitting in the quiet to which he was but now restored, he reviewed the splendid scenes he had lately witnessed; he recounted the famous wits he had met, and the fair ladies he had seen in the great London world; and dedicated this exquisite diary to the friend who had introduced him into that brilliant circle. It would seem that Raleigh had accused him of indolence. That ever-restless schemer could not appreciate the poet's dreaminess. 'That you may see,' writes Spenser, 'that I am not alwaies ydle as yee think, though not greatly well occupied, nor altogither undutifull, though not precisely officious, I make you present of this simple pastorall, unworthie of your higher conceipt for the meanesse of the stile, but agreeing with the truth in circumstance and matter. The which I humbly beseech you to accept in part of paiment of the infinite debt in which I acknowledge myselfe bounden unto you for your singular favours and sundrie good turnes shewed to me at my late being in England, &c.' The conclusion of this poem commemorates, as we have seen, Spenser's enduring affection for that Rosalind who so many years before had turned away her ears from his suit. It must have been some twelve months after those lines were penned, that the writer conceived an ardent attachment for one Elizabeth. The active research of Dr. Grosart has discovered that this lady belonged to the Boyle family—a family already of importance and destined to be famous. The family seat was at Kilcoran, near Youghal, and so we understand Spenser's singing of 'The sea that neighbours to her near.' Thus she lived in the same county with her poet. The whole course of the wooing and the winning is portrayed in the Amoretti or Sonnets and the Epithalamium. It may be gathered from these biographically and otherwise interesting pieces, that it was at the close of the year 1592 that the poet was made a captive of that beauty he so fondly describes. The first three sonnets would seem to have been written in that year. The fourth celebrates the beginning of the year 1593—the beginning according to our modern way of reckoning. All through that year 1593 the lover sighed, beseeched, adored, despaired, prayed again. Fifty-eight sonnets chronicle the various hopes and fears of that year. The object of his passion remained· as steel and flint, while he wept and wailed and pleaded. His life was a long torment.
In vaine I seeke and sew to her for grace
And doe myne humbled hart before her poure;
The whiles her foot she in my necke doth place
And tread my life downe in the lowly floure.
In Lent she is his 'sweet saynt,' and he vows to find some fit service for her.