Edmund Spenser

“ We fall prostrate before the giant genius of Shakspeare; while we become the willing captives of Spenser. He is at once the most picturesque, the most graceful, and the most visionary of our poets. None has ever treated with a more masterly or more delicate handling the graceful characteristics of woman. ”

“ Love most aboundeth there.
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For all the walls and windows there are writ,
All full of love, and love, and love my deare,
And all their talke and studie is of it.
Ne any there doth brave or valiant seeme,
Unlesse that some gay mistresse badge he beares:
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Ne any one himselfe doth ought esteeme,
Unlesse he swim in love up to the eares.
But they of Love, and of his sacred lere,
(As it should be) all otherwise devise,
Then we poore shepheards are accustomd here,
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And him do sue and serve all otherwise.
For with lewd speeches, and licentious deeds,
His mightie mysteries they do prophane, ”

“ There is no despot so absolute as fashion; and, in the days of Elizabeth, the fashion, whether in literature or manners, was derived from Italy, as now from France; and the glowing tales of knight-errantry and magic, which Ariosto had given to the world, had strongly imbued our ancestors with a taste for the chivalric and marvellous. To this passion we are certainly indebted for the structure of the Faerie Queene ”

“ But the “Epithalamion,” written on his marriage with the lady of his love, far transcends everything of the like description. “It is a strain redolent of a Bridegroom’s joy and of a Poet’s fancy.—It is an intoxication of ecstacy, ardent, noble, and pure.” [3] There is no other nuptial song of equal beauty in our language. Spenser has thrown his whole soul into this glorious lay; and it stands confessed the very essence of his imaginative genius. ”

“ To enumerate its imitators would be to recount the names of the most distinguished of our poets; for all have been more or less indebted to the inspiration of Spenser’s genius.
The plot of the Faerie Queene is far more entangled than is at first sight apparent; and too many are disposed, in the more conspicuous attractions of its poetical embellishment, to forget the moral which is conveyed beneath its surface. Besides the moral allegory which is the distinguishing feature of the poem, Spenser has embodied in his story a second and political one. ”

“ It is a period which, of all others, has a peculiar charm for the sympathies of youth; and though in after years reason and experience may in some degree temper the warmth of our imaginations, and dispose us to contemplate the character of Elizabeth in a more just and less romantic light, it must ever retain an especial place in our regards, as the age which produced such men as Spenser, Raleigh, Sidney, and Shakspeare. The life and writings of Spenser, “the fascinating poet of Faerie Land,” and one of the fairest ornaments of this era, the following observations are designed to illustrate. ”

“ And let faire Venus, that is queene of love,
With her heart-quelling sonne upon you smile,
Whose smile, they say, hath vertue to remove
All loves dislike, and friendships faultie guile
For ever to assoile. ”

“ To wash faire Cynthiaes sheep, when they be shorne,
And fold them up, when they have made an end.
Those be the shepheards which my Cynthia serve
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At sea, beside a thousand more at land:
For land and sea my Cynthia doth deserve
To have in her commandëment at hand.”
Thereat I wondred much, till, wondring more
And more, at length we land far off descryde:
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Which sight much gladed me; for much afore
I feard, least land we never should have eyde:
Thereto our ship her course directly bent,
As if the way she perfectly had knowne. ”

“ Ledwich, the learned Irish antiquary, writes:—“Civilization having almost obliterated every vestige of our ancient manners, the remembrance of them is only to be found in Spenser; so that he may be considered at this day as an Irish antiquary.” In the opinion of Ware, “He seems rather to have indulged the fancy and licence of a poet, than the judgment and fidelity requisite for an historian.” ”

“ Preferre, and of their grace us dignifie:
Ne is there shepheard, ne yet shepheards swaine,
What ever feeds in forest or in field,
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That dare with evil deed or leasing vaine
Blaspheme his powre, or termes unworthie yield.”
“Shepheard, it seemes that some celestiall rage
Of Love (quoth Cuddy) is breath’d into thy brest,
That powreth forth these oracles so sage
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Of that high powre, wherewith thou art possest.
But never wist I till this present day,
Albe of Love I alwayes humbly deemed,
That he wus such an one, as thou doest say,
And so religiously to be esteemed. ”

“ One god is god of both, as poets feign,
One knight loves both, and both in thee remain.”
Writers on English Literature are unanimous in assigning to the reign of Elizabeth, the title of the Augustan age; an application in every way just, as, to her encouragement and example may be attributed the revival of letters in this country. From the death of Chaucer to the birth of Spenser, a period of nearly two centuries, but few, and those not important names had been added to the records of our literary history. ”

“ Soyle their fayre plumes with water not so fayre, ⁠50
And marre their beauties bright,
That shone as heavens light,
Against their brydale day, which was not long:
Sweete Themmes! runne softly, till I end my song.
Eftsoones the nymphes, which now had Flowers their fill,
Ran all in haste, to see that silver brood,
As they came floating on the cristal flood; ⁠57
Whom when they sawe, they stood amazed still,
Their wondering eyes to fill ”

“ Them seem'd they never saw a sight so fayre, ⁠60
Of fowles, so lovely, that they sure did deeme
Them heavenly borne, or to be that same payre
Which through the skie draw Venus silver teeme;
For sure they did not seeme
To be begot of any earthly seede, ⁠65
But rather angels, or of angels breede;
Yet were they bred of somers-heat, they say,
In sweetest season, when each flower and weede
The earth did fresh aray ”

“ In reference to this office, Gibbon (in the 12th volume of his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire) remarks, “From Augustus to Louis, the Muse has too often been false and venal; but I much doubt whether any age or court can produce a similar establishment of a stipendiary poet, who, in every reign, and at all events, is bound to furnish, twice a year, a measure of praise and verse, such as may be sung in the chapel, and, I believe, in the presence of the sovereign.” ”

“ The shepheards there abroad may safely lie,
On hills and downes, withouten dread or daunger:
No ravenous wolves the good mans hope destroy,
Nor outlawes fell affray the forest raunger.
There learned arts do florish in great honor,
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And poets wits are had in peerlesse price:
Religion hath lay powre to rest upon her,
Advancing vertue and suppressing vice. ”

“ Poure out the wine without restraint or stay,
Poure not by cups, but by the belly full,
Poure out to all that wull,
And sprinkle all the postes and wals with wine,
That they may sweat, and drunken be withall. ”

“ Of the Pierian streames, faire naiades,
Go too; and dauncing all in companie,
Adorne that god: and thou holie Pales,
To whome the honest care of husbandrie
Returneth by continuall successe,
Have care for to pursue his footing light
Through the wide woods, and groves, with green leaves dight. ”

“ His sense to seeke for ease turnes every way:
And he, that in avengement of his pride
For scorning to the sacred gods to pray,
Against a mountaine rolls a mightie stone,
Calling in vaine for rest, and can have none.
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“Go ye with them, go, cursed damosells,
Whose bridale torches foule Erynnis tynde;
And Hymen, at your spousalls sad, foretells
Tydings of death and massacre unkinde:
With them that cruell Colchid mother dwells,
The which conceiv’d in her revengefull minde
With bitter woundes her owne deere babes to slay,
And murdred troupes upon great heapes to lay. ”

“ The streames of Hebrus with his songs, I weene,
As that faire troupe of woodie goddesses
Staied thee, O Peneus, powring foorth to thee,
From cheereful lookes, great mirth and gladsome glee.
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The verie nature of the place, resounding
With gentle murmure of the breathing ayre,
A pleasant bowre with all delight abounding
In the fresh shadowe did for them prepayre,
To rest their limbs with wearines redounding.
For first the high palme-trees with braunches faire,
Out of the lowly vallies did arise,
And high shoote up their heads into the skyes. ”

“ He drew her beauties and her virtues in colours not more glowing than true, while her foibles are so lightly touched, and with so much apparent sympathy, that he makes even her failings lean to Virtue’s side. ”

“ We always rise from perusing him with melody in the mind’s ear, and with pictures of romantic beauty impressed on the imagination.” That the Faerie Queene has faults, every one unblinded by prejudice, must be ready to allow; for though teeming with passages of grandeur, beauty, pathos, and sublimity,yet, as a whole, it is wanting in uniformity and compactness. Each of the books might have been published as a separate poem, without injury to the remainder. Indeed, the first, esteemed as by far the best of the six, is a complete work in itself ”

“ He was buried in the abbey, near the tomb of Chaucer, with a splendid funeral, at the expense of the Earl of Essex. The pall was borne by poets; and with a true poetic feeling, tributary verses by the most illustrious of his contemporaries, with the pens that wrote them, were thrown into his grave. ”

“ What hell it is, in suing long to bide:
To loose good dayes, that might be better spent;
To wast long nights in pensive discontent;
To speed to-day, to be put buck to-morrow;
To feede on hope, to pine with feare and sorrow; ”

“ And arbors sweet, in which the shepheards swaines
Were wont so oft their pastoralls to sing, 280
They have cut downe, and all their pleasaunce mard,
That now no pastorall is to bee hard.
In stead of them, fowle goblins and shriek-owles
With fearfull howling do all places fill ;
And feeble Eccho now laments, and howles,
‘The dreadful accents of their outeries shrill.
So all is turned into wildernesse,
Whilest Ignorance the muses doth oppresse. ”

“ “A sweet attractive kinds of grace,
A full assurance given by lookes,
Continuall comfort in a face,
The lineaments of Gospel bookes; ”

“ O flocks, O faunes, and O ye pleasaunt springs
Of Tempe, where the countrey nymphs are rife,
Through whose not costly care each shepheard sings,
As merrie notes upon his rusticke fife,
As that Ascræan bard, whose fame now rings
Through the wide world, and leads as ioyfull life;
Free from all troubles and from worldly toyle,
In which fond men doe all their dayes turmoyle. ”

“ The great Argoan ships brave ornament,
Whom golden fleece did make an heavenly signe;
Which coveting, with his high tops extent,
To make the mountaines touch the starres divine,
Decks all the forrest with embellishment ”

“ The forty-five years of her reign must be regarded as the brightest epoch of our national history, and may challenge the annals of Europe to rival the galaxy of men, so illustrious in arms and arts, who flourished under her auspices. ”

“ Enamoured of its “dark conceit,” he seems to have placed his whole hopes of fame on his Faerie Queene, and to have considered the labour bestowed on any other production, as so much stolen from his great work; and this may perhaps account for the vast abyss which in general separates it from the offspring of his less disciplined muse. But though thus dissenting from the judgment of those who assert that he has no faults, we reverentially concur in the dictum of Warton, that, “in reading Spenser, if the critic is not satisfied, yet the reader is transported.” ”

“ When Teucrian soyle with bloodie rivers swelde,
And wide Sigæan shores were spread with corses,
And Simois and Xanthus blood outwelde;
Whilst Hector raged, with outragious minde,
Flames, weapons, wounds, in Greeks fleete to have tynde. ”

“ Entitled to the noble and vertuous Gentleman, most worthie of all titles both of learning and chivalry,
MAISTER PHILIP SIDNEY.
TO HIS BOOKE.
Goe, little Booke! thy selfe present,
As childe whose parent is unkent,
To him that is the president
Of noblenesse and chevalree:
And if that Envie barke at thee,
As sure it will, for succour flee
Under the shadow of his wing,
And, asked who thee forth did bring,
A shepheards swaine, say, did thee sing,⁠
All as his straying flocke he fedde:
And, when his honour has thee redde,
Crave pardon for thy hardy-hedde. ”

“ Much greater then that frame, which us did beare;
There did our ship her fruitfull wombe unlade,
And put us all ashore on Cynthias land.
“What land is that thou meanst, (then Cuddy sayd)
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And is there other then whereon we stand?”
“All! Cuddy (then quoth Colin) thous a fen,
That hast not seene least part of natures worke:
Much more there is unkend then thou doest kon,
And much more that does from mens knowledge lurke. ”

“ In th' ocean billowes he hath bathed fayre, ⁠165
Descended to the rivers open vewing,
With a great traine ensuing.
Above the rest were goodly to bee scene
Two gentle knights of lovely face and feature,
Beseeming well the bower of any queene, ⁠170
With gifts of wit, and ornaments of nature,
Fit for so goodly stature,
That like the twins of love they seem'd in sight,
Which decke the bauldricke of the heavens bright ”