for October, on the subject of poetry, which he calls a “worthie and commendable art: or rather no art, but a divine gift and heavenly instinct not to be gotten by labour and learning, but adorned with both; and poured into the witte by a certain enthousiasmos and celestiall inspiration, as the author hereof elsewhere at large discourseth in his booke called The English Poete, which booke being lately come to my hands, I minde also by Gods grace, upon further advisement, to publish.” This advisement the worthy commentator never fulfilled, and the world is thus deprived of one of the most interesting treatises on his art by him, whom Camden justly calls Poetarum nostri seculi facilè princeps. In the Nine Comedies,[1] Spenser would have appeared before us in a new character, rivalling Shakspeare on his own ground, while in the Pageants we might have traced some of the first shadowings of the curious productions of “rare Ben.” That our loss is great, all must feelingly confess who can appreciate the manner in which Spenser would have treated these various subjects, shrining them in the graceful beauty of his Faerie numbers.
In this cursory review of his life, it has been our delight, while culling the flowers of his sweet poesy, to contemplate the career of Spenser still brightened by success, unclouded by sorrow and unembittered by misfortune. The discontents occasioned by the capriciousness of court favour, the vexations of—
“expectation vayne
Of idle hopes, which still doe fly away,
Like empty shadows,”
were of brief duration, and up to this period of his history, the Poet’s life had been bright as a summer holiday. We have seen his name by slow but sure degrees assume that proud pre-eminence in our literature which it will for ever retain. We have beheld him “shining like a starre” among his brilliant contemporaries, claiming alike their admiration and regard—and we have lingered over the details of his domestic life sympathising in the poet’s affection for his Elizabeth in whose fair heart
“Their dwells sweet love, and constant chastity,
Unspotted fayth, and comely womanhood,
Regard of honour and mild modesty,”
and envying those “celestial threasures, and unrevealed pleasures,” which shed a radiance round his Bower of Bliss.
“O Fortuna, ut nunquàm perpetuò es bona!”—
In 1597 Spenser had been recommended to the Irish government by the queen, to be sheriff of Cork. His tenure of this office was soon ended. In October, the storm which was to crush at once his prosperity and his life burst forth with resistless fury. Tyrone having gained that signal victory over Sir Henry Bagnal, long remembered as the defeat of Blackwater, incited his confederates to aid him in expelling the English settlers from
- ↑ In the opinion of Harvey they were superior to the Faerie Queene. In one of his letters to Spenser, he says, “to be plain, I am voyde of all judgement, if your nine Comedies, whereunto, in imitation of Herodotus, you give the names of the nine muses, (and in one mans fansie not unworthily) come not nearer Ariostoes Comædies, eyther for the finenesse of plausible eloqution, or the rareness of poetical invention, than that Elvish Queene doth to his Orlando Furioso.”
