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HISTORY OF PRINTING.
1699. A special licence gave Thomas Wright, or Wight, the exclusive right of printing all law books for thirty years. T. R. apud Westm. 10 Martii, pat 4Ist Eliz. p. 4. Dugdale's Oriy. p. 61. [^wiei, p. 307.]
1699. The printers of Scotland had no Hebrew or Greek types until this year, for all the places where these were to have been, were left blank, and filled up with the pen.
1698, Jan. 16. Died, Edmund Spencer, an eminent English poet, and . author of the Fairy Qu«en. He was born in London, in 1663. His lirst production was the Shepherd's Calender, which he dedicated to sir Philip Sidney, who became his patron, and introduced him to court. In 1678, he was sent abroad on some mission by the earl of Leicester; and on the 27th of June, 1686, queen Elizabeth granted to Spencer Kilcolman castle, distant three English miles from Doneraile, in Ireland, where he attended Lord Grey, as secretarv. Ealcolman castle, with 3,028 acres of land, at the rate of £17 3s. 6d. was granted to our poet, on the same condition with the other undertakers (as they were termed) between whom the forfeited Desmond estate was divided. These conditions implied a residence on the ground, and their chief object seems to have been the peopling Munster with English families; a favourite project of Elizabeth's for strengthening the English influence in Ireland, by creating ^e tie of consanguinity between the two countries.
It is supposed that this castle was the princi-
Sal residence of Spencer for about ten years, uring which time he composed the works that have chiefly contributed to his fame. But the turbulent and indignant spirit of the Irish regarded not the haunts of the muse as sacred, and wrapped the poet's dwelling in flames. An infant child of Spencer's, together with his most valuablepropertv, were consumed, and he return- ed into England; — where, dgected, and broken- hearted, he died soon after, at an inn in King- street, Westminster.
The visits of sir Walter Raleigh to Spencer, at Kilcolman, increase the interest attached to the place, and ate not in the slightest degree questionable. To the advice of Raleigh, the
Eublication of the first book of the Fairy Queen as been ascribed ; and the existence of a poeti- cal intercourse between such minds and in such distracting scenes, is a delightful recollection that almost warms the heart mto romance.
Raleigh, it will be recollected, became Spen- cer's patron upon the death of sir Philip Sidney, whom he celebrates under the title of The Shepherd oj the Ocean. Raleigh also ensured Spencer the favour of Elizabeth, a pension of £60 per annum, and the distinction of her laureate.
Besides the Shepherd's Calender and the Fairy Queen, Spencer wrote several other poems of considerable extent, and also some works in prose, the chief of which was a View of the State of Ireland, in which he endeavoured to point out a way for the settlement of that country.
It is said lord Burleigh withheld the baanty Elizabeth intended for Spencer. But he is more stigmatized in these remarkable lines, where the misery of dependence on court favour is painted in fine colours :
Full little know'st tbon, that has not tried. What hell it is, in sning: lonsr to bide; To lose gooil days, tlint might be tietter spent ; To waste longf nights in pensive discontcDt; To speed to-day, to he put baclc to-morrow. To feed on hope, to pine with fear and sorronr ; To have thy princess' griace, yet want her peer«; To have thy aslcing, yet wait many years; To fret tliy soul with crosses and with cares j To eat thy heart thro' comforUess despair; To lawn, to cropch, to wiit, to ride, to run ; To spend, to give, to want, to be undone.
Uolher HuUard'l Tale.
These lines exasperated still more the inele- gant, Burleigh. So true is the observation of Mr. Hughes, that even the sighs of a miserable man are sometimes resented as an aflront by him who is the occasion of them.
Perhaps there never was a more panegyrical rhymer than Spencer, and yet so fine and ethe- real is his incense, that the breath of morning is not more cool and salutary :
It falls me here to write of Chastity That fayrcst viitue far above the rest. For which what needs me fetch from Paerjr, Forreine eosarapies it to have cxprest, Sith it is shrined in my soveraine's hrest And form'd so lively on each perfect part. That to ail ladies, who have it profest. Needs bnt behold the poarlraict of her part^ If ponrtray'd it might be by any living art; But living art may not least part expressc. Nor life-resembling pencil it can paint. All it were Zeuxis or Praxiteles — His dsedale hand would faile and greatly faynt. And her perfections with bis error taynt ; Ne poet's wit that passetb painter farre — In picturing the parts of beauty daynt, &c.
Mr. Todd, in his Life of Spencer,* has made many ingenious remarks on the false taste of some of our poets of that period, and particu- larly on that absurd propensity which dis- tinguished many of them, to accommodate the English language to the metres of the ancients. The absurdity, however, did not escape the animadversions of the critics and satirists of those times. Bishop Hall terms such efl'usions " rhymeless numbers." In his sixth Satire he thus speaks of them :
Whoever saw a colt wanton end wUd, Yoked with a slow-foot ox on fallow field. Can right areed how handsomely besets Dull spondees witii the English dactylets. If Jove speai; English in a thund'ring cloud, Tkwick, thwack, and riff raff roars he out aloud. Fie on the forged mint that did create New coin of words never articulate.
Strange as it may seem, there was not long since an attempt to revive this foolery ; but the very happy ridicule of the writers of the poetry in the periodical work of the AntijacoHn, ex- tinguished it, it may be hoped for ever. Few can forget the humorous efl'usions of the Needy Knife Grinder. — Beloe.
- The best edition of Spencer's worlts is that of Todd,
with notes, of 180S, 8 vols. Svo.
Spencer's Poetiod works, 5 vols, crown Svo. William Pickering, London, 1834.
