Page images
PDF
EPUB

devices.

Beautiful metrical effects are produced by various The Spenser stanza gives great scope for the use of reduplication, whether of ideas or words, e.g.—

Born of one mother, in one happie mold,
Born at one burden, in one happie morn.

He, in the first flower of my freshest age,
Betrothed me unto the onely haire
Of a most mighty king, most rich and sage;
Was never prince so faithful and so faire,
Was never prince so meek and debonaire.1

But O vaine judgments and conditions vaine,
The which the prisoner points unto the free!
The whiles I him condemn, and deem his paine,
He where he lists goes loose and laughs at me :
So ever loose so ever happie be,

But whereso loose and happie that thou art,

Know, Marinell, that this is all for thee.2

Another effect is produced by combination and permutation:

Behind him was Reproch, Repentaunce, Shame ;
Reproch the first, Shame next, Repent behind;
Repentaunce feeble, sorrowful, and lame,

Reproch despiteful, careless, and unkind;

Shame most ill-favoured, bestiall, and blind;

Shame lowered, Repentaunce sighed, Reproch did scold;
Reproch sharp stings, Repentaunce whips entwined,
Shame burning brond irons in her hand did hold;

All three to each unlike, yet made all in one mold.3

Experiments are also made in the metrical combinations of proper names, thus preparing the way for those splendid effects of verbal harmony which Milton produces in Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained:

Let Scaldis tell and let tell Hania,
And let the marsh of Esthambruges tell,
What colour were their waters that same day,
And all the moor 'twixt Elvesham and Dell,
With blood of Henalois that therein fell.4

1 Faerie Queene, book i. canto ii. 23.

3 Ibid. book iii. canto xii. 24.

2 Ibid. book iv. canto xii. II.

4 Ibid. book ii. canto x. 24.

From what has been said it will be seen that the place of Spenser in the History of Poetry is a very peculiar one. He cannot be ranked with the great poets whose universal ideas, applicable to human nature in all times and places, raised them to the empyrean of imagination—with Homer and Dante and Shakespeare. He cannot be ranked with that great, though secondary, order of inventors whose penetrating insight pierces through the outward shows surrounding them in their own age to the ideal truth of things with Chaucer, Ariosto, and Cervantes. In most respects his position in the world of imagination is analogous to the position of Sidney in the world of action. Both were inspired by ideals springing out of a decaying order of society; and the same environment of circumstance which prevented Sidney from putting his theories of knighthood into practice gave an appearance of unreality to Spenser's epical conceptions.

Spenser was the poet of chivalry. But the times had confined the practice of chivalry within the area of the Court, and all that it was possible for him to portray in verse was the image either of the "brave knight" presented under the "cloudy allegory" of the Faery Queen, or of the "perfect courtier," as he saw it in the character of Sidney, and idealised it in Mother Hubberd's Tale. Fair and noble is the possibility that he paints for the imagination.

Yet the brave Courtier, in whose beauteous thought
Regard of honour harbours more than ought,
Doth loath such base condition, to backbite
Anie's good name for envie or despite.

He stands on tearmes of honourable minde,

Ne will be carriéd with common winde

Of courts' inconstant mutabilitie,

Ne after everie tattling fable flie;

But heares and sees the follies of the rest,

And thereof gathers for himselfe the best,

He will not creepe, nor crouche with fained face,

But walks upright with comely steadfast pace,

And unto all doth yeeld due curtesie;

But not with kissed hand below the knee,
As that same Apish crew is wont to doo;
For he disdaines himself t'embase theretoo.

He hates fowle leasings, and vile flatterie,
Two filthy blots in noble genterie;
And lotheful idleness he doth detest,
The canker worm of everie gentle brest.

Or lastly when the bodie list to pause,
His minde unto the Muses he withdrawes :
Sweete Ladie Muses, Ladies of delight,
Delights of life, and ornaments of light!
With whom he close confer with wise discourse
Of Nature's workes, of heavens continuall course,
Of forreine lands, of people different,

Of kingdome's change, of divers gouvernment,
Of dreadfull battales, of renowned Knights;
With which he kindleth his ambitious sprights
To like desire and praise of noble fame,
The onely upshot whereto he doth ayme;
For all his minde on honour fixed is,
To which he levels all his purposis,

And in his Prince's service spends his dayes,
Not so much for to gaine, or for to raise
Himself to high degree, as for his grace,
And in his liking to win worthie place,
Through due deserts and comelie carriage.

But for all this picture of noble independence to what shifts of flattery is he not himself reduced? "In that Faery Queen I mean glory in my general intention : but in my particular I conceive the most excellent and gracious person of our Sovereign the Queen, and her kingdom in Faery Land. And yet in some places I do otherwise shadow her. For considering she beareth two persons the one of a most royal Queen or Empress, the other of a most virtuous and beautiful lady, this latter part in some places I do express in Belphoebe, fashioning her according to your own excellent conceit of Cynthia." Gloriana, Tanaquil, Belphœbe, everything noble is Elizabeth; everything that is opposed to Elizabeth-Duessa, the false Flonmel, Mary Queen of Scots-is false and wicked. Nevertheless the man who could exalt his Sovereign with such resplendent imagery was forced sometimes to tell the truth out of the bitterness of his heart :

So pitifull a thing is Suter's state!

Most miserable man whom wicked fate

Hath brought to Court, to sue for had-ywist,
That few have found, and manie one hath mist!
Full little knowest thou that hast not tried
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 back to-morrow;
To feed on hope, to pine with feare and sorrow;
To have thy Prince's grace, yet want her Peeres;
To have thy asking, yet waite manie yeeres;
To fret thy soule with crosses and with cares ;
To eat thy heart through comfortless dispaires ;
To fawne, to crowche, to waite, to ride, to ronne,
To spend, to give, to want, to be undonne.
Unhappie wight, born to disastrous end,
That doth his life in so long tendance spend !
Who ever leaves sweete home, where meane estate
In safe assurance, without strife or hate,

Findes all things needfull for contentment meeke,
And will to Court for shadows vaine to seeke,
Or hope to gaine, himself will a daw trie:
That curse God send unto mine enemie!

Again, Spenser was the poet of Medieval Allegory. He is treading the same poetical path that Dante and Langland had trodden long before him. All that is learned, and much that is beautiful, in the Faery Queen -the idea of Holy Church, the loathsomeness of Error, the excellence of the Cardinal and Christian Virtues, the Seven Deadly Sins, the Temptations of the Flesh, and many images of the same kind-is drawn from the rich treasure-house of Scholastic Theology. But, mixed up as these things are with the action of a romantic fable, they have lost that spirit of universal truth which animates them in the verse of the older poets. The ancient simple sincerity of Catholic feeling evaporates in the abstractions of Protestant Platonism, or strikes hard and harsh notes in the bitterness of religious party spirit; in the satirical picture of "Corceca and Abessa slow"; in the mutual recriminations of Piers and Palinode. The Reformation has brought into England a new mode of scriptural interpretation, and with its arrival the old genius of allegorical interpretation has departed.

In truth, whatever virtue there is in the subject-matter of Spenser's poetry proceeds not from the ideas themselves so much as from the mind of the poet. At whatever point the reader penetrates Spenser's artistic motiveswhether he has regard to the exquisite sweetness of his lyric verse, as shown in his Prothalamion and Epithalamion; or to the graceful dignity of his personal compliments, as illustrated in his pastoral episodes; or to the moral grandeur of his sentiments in the second book of the Faery Queen, and in the two cantos of Mutability— there he will find the working of an almost incomparable poetical intelligence. Spenser composed his poems in the spirit of a great painter, a great musician. He "writ no language," because he wrote about things that had no longer any existence except in his imagination. Yet so beautiful was his imagination that he has secured for the offspring of his fancy an enduring life, illustrating the truth of his own doctrine that

Wise words taught in numbers for to run,
Recorded by the Muses, live for ay.

His ideas dwell in a kind of Limbo between the mediæval and the modern world, invested with a mild, harmonious atmosphere, which imparts a certain effect of unity to the most incongruous objects. A sense of beauty, rarely equalled, enabled him to reconcile, as far as mere form is concerned, Catholic doctrine with Pagan philosophy, mediæval romance with classical mythology. What can be more beautiful than the abrupt opening of the eighth canto of the second book after the fall of Sir Guyon, the Knight of Temperance?—

And is there care in heaven? And is there love
In heavenly spirits to these creatures bace,

That may compassion of their spirits move?

:

There is else much more wretched were the cace
Of men than beasts: But O! the exceeding grace,
Of Highest God that loves his creatures so,
And all his workes with mercy doth embrace,
That blessed Angels he sends to and fro,
To serve to wicked man, to serve his wicked foe!

« PreviousContinue »