Amenities of Literature Part 41

In his last days Spenser has not dropped even one "melodious tear;" but he was wept by his brothers the poets, who held his pall and bestrewed his hea.r.s.e with their elegies, and beheld in the fate of their great master their own. And thus truly, though ambiguously, Phineas Fletcher described his destiny--

Poorly, poor man! he lived; poorly, poor man! he died.

So many living details of that golden bondage into which our poet was thrown, from his earliest to his latter days, discover the real source of his "secret sorrows"--his unceasing and vain solicitation at court, the suitor of so many patrons; the _res angusta domi_ perpetually pressed on the morbid imagination of the fortuneless man.

I know of no satire aimed at SPENSER; a singular fate for a great poet: even "satyric Nash" revered the character of the author of "The Faery Queen." I have often thought that among the numerous critics of SPENSER, the truest was his keen and witty contemporary; for this town-wit has stamped all our poet's excellences by one felicitous word--"HEAVENLY SPENSER."

FOOTNOTES:

[1] A strange personage has been fixed on as the commentator. Spenser lodged with a Mrs. Kerke, where his parcels were directed. E. K. has been conjectured to be Mr. Kerke, her husband!

It is a proof of the deficient skill of the modern editors of Spenser, Hughes and Aikin, that they have omitted the curious and valuable Commentary of E. K. It has been judiciously restored to the last and best edition, by Mr. Todd. The woodcuts might also have been preserved.

[2] These complimentary sonnets, evidently composed "for the nonce,"

are not the happiest specimens in our language of these minor poems, no more than they are of the real genius of Spenser. I have seen a German reprint, consisting _only_ of Spenser's Sonnets, by the learned Von Hammer. Foreign critics often startle one by their fancies on English poetry.

[3] We have several printed specimens of her Majesty's poetry, which does not want for elevation of thought; but to compose poetry with the energy of her prose, deprived her Majesty of all the grace and melody of verse. I have been informed, on the best authority, that Elizabeth exercised her poetical pen more voluminously than we have hitherto known, for that there exists a ma.n.u.script volume of her Majesty's poems in that rich repository of State-papers--the Hatfield Collection.

[4] Three thousand acres of dilapidated estates of the Earl of Desmond. The receivers of these grants were called "The Undertakers,"

as they were bound to bring the lands into cultivation, which, after the ravages of fire and sword, consisted of tenantless farms and a wasted soil. Sir Walter Rawleigh had a grant of twelve thousand acres, which he probably found profitless, for he made them over at a low rate to the Boyle family.

[5] I have been favoured with the sight of several ma.n.u.script letters of Burleigh, in the possession of a gentleman in the neighbourhood of Taunton, which relate to this critical period. They remarkably display the eager and remorseless decision of Burleigh. Messengers were sent off three or four times in a day, countermanding the former command, as the mind of Elizabeth vacillated, disconcerting the plans of the minister. The order "to cut off her head" is given with the most revolting minuteness.

[6] This pet.i.tion in rhyme is well known--

"I was promised on a time, To have reason for my rhime; From that time unto this season, I received nor rhime nor reason."

Mr. Todd deems the anecdote apocryphal, because he can only retrace it to Fuller, who published it seventy years after the incident recorded, a.s.signing no authority. Honest Fuller has, however, given a tolerable authority for such a sort of thing, namely, that it was "a story commonly _told_ and _believed_." There could be no motive for any one to invent the circ.u.mstance and the pleasantry, gratuitously to ascribe it to the poet. Mr. Todd is pleased to call "the numbers magical," and decides on this "ridiculous memorial"--a criticism fatal to all the playfulness of genius. Were the "Rhimes" not good enough for the nonce, and "the Reason" amusingly convenient to be remembered?

The anecdote is only deficient in its date, and possibly may relate to some former donation before the pension was fixed. Edward Phillips gives the large sum of five hundred pounds--another version of the same story; and he wrote about the same time. What remains inexplicable is, that this pension to Spenser seems to have been wholly unknown to his contemporaries--to Camden and to others--who wrote subsequently. The grant of this pension was only discovered a few years ago in the Chapel of the Rolls. The pension was only for fifty pounds; but the value of money makes the royal gift more decent than at first it would seem.

THE FAERY QUEEN.

SPENSER, the courtly spectator of the tilt, the pageant, and the masque--musing over the tome of old Gothic romances, and striking into the vein of fabling of Italian poesy, whose novelty had nearly supplanted the ancient cla.s.sics--was at once ARIOSTO and Ta.s.sO and OVID.

SPENSER composed with great facility; incessant production seems to have been his true existence. His was one of those minds whose labour diffuses their delight, and whose delight provokes to labour. He seems always to be in earnest, and sometimes in haste, for he had much to work. While composing the "Faery Queen," he had that concurrent poem of the regal Arthur, of no inferior _calibre_, ever in his mind. The "Faery Queen" would have contained, had it been completed, not much under a hundred thousand verses. The "Iliad" does not exceed fifteen. He seems to have been satisfied with his first unblotted thoughts. He has defects which might have proved fatal to an ordinary versifier; but his voluminous vein lies protected by his genius.

The artificial complexity of his nine-lined stanza put him to many s.h.i.+fts; he exercised arbitrary power in shortening words or lengthening syllables, and hardily invented novel terminations to common words, to provide his multiplicity of rhymes; he falsified accentuation, to adapt it to his metre, and violated the orthography, to adjust the rhyme. He dilated his thoughts to fill up the measure of his stanza; and we are too often reminded of the hammering of the chain. The first book of the "Faery Queen," when the difficulties of this novel stanza must have been most arduous, is necessarily composed with most care, and, both for subject and execution, is of itself a complete poem. As Spenser acquired facility and dexterity, his pen winged its flight through the prescribed labyrinth of sweet sounds.

His exquisite ear had felt the melody of the vowelly and voluble stanza of Italy, and to which he even added a grace of his own by a new measure, in the Alexandrine close. This verse had been introduced by Sir Thomas Wyatt with no great effect; it was adroitly adopted by Spenser to give a full cadence to his stanza. Dryden, in its occasional use, professedly derived it from Spenser, and seems to have carried away the honour, when Pope in exemplifying its solemn effect ascribes it to the latter poet, who he tells us had taught--

--------------The full-resounding line, The long majestic march and energy divine.

The inanity of that race--

Of gentlemen who wrote with ease,

and made such free use of "the full-resounding line," void of all thought, only betrayed their barrenness by this additional extension of their weakness. Hence it incurred the partial censure of our great poetical critic, as "a needless Alexandrine,"

That like a wounded snake drags its slow length along.

But the soul of melody lies hidden in the musician's instrument; and the Spenserian stanza, to be felt, must find its echo in the ear of the reader. A master in the art of versification was struck by our poet's modulation, so musical was his ear in the rhythm of his verse. He remarked this in those two delicious pieces, "The Prothalamion," a spousal hymn on the double marriage of two ladies, personated as two swans in these harmonious lines--

-------------Two swans of goodly hue, Came softly swimming down along the Lee;[1]--

and "The Epithalamium" on the poet's own nuptials, or, as the poet notes--

Song made in lieu of many ornaments, With which my Love should duely have been deck'd.

One feature in Spenser's versification seems to have escaped notice, although Warton has expressly written a dissertation on that subject. It is Spenser's discreet use of _alliteration_; never obtrusive, but falling naturally into the verse, it may escape our perception while it is acting on our feeling. Unconsciously or by habit, his ear became the echo of his imagination; sound was the response of thought, and, as much as his epithets, scattered the "orient hues" of his fancy. Alliteration and epithets, which with mechanical versificators are a mere artifice, because only an artifice, and glare and glitter, charm by their consonance when they rise out of the emotions of the true poet.[2]

Some persons have been deterred from venturing on the "Faery Queen" from a notion that the style had rusted with time, and is as obsolete as chivalry itself. This popular prejudice has been fostered by an opinion of Ben Jonson, which probably referred chiefly to "The Shepherd's Calendar," where Spenser had adopted a system of Chaucerian words, which to us is more curious than fortunate, and which on the first publication required a glossary. This system he abandoned in his romantic epic; but he loved to sprinkle some remaining graces of antiquity, some _nave_ expressions, or some picturesque words; and his modern imitators, amid their elaborate pomp, have felt the secret charm, and have mottled their Spenserian stanza with these archaisms.

Of all poets SPENSER excelled in the pictorial faculty. His circ.u.mstantial descriptions are minute yet vivid. They are, indeed, exuberant, for he loved not to quit his work while he could bring the object closer to the eye. This diffusion, flowing with the melody of his verse, often raises the illusion of reverie till we seem startled by reality, and we appear to have beheld what only we have been told.[3]

Poet of poets! SPENSER made a poet at once of COWLEY, and once lent an elegant simplicity to THOMSON. GRAY was accustomed to open Spenser when he would frame

Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn;

and MILTON, who owned Spenser to have been his master as well as his predecessor, lingered amid his musings, and with many a Spenserian image touched into perfection his own sublimity.

In a.s.sociating the name of SPENSER with MILTON and GRAY, we are reminded of the distinctness of his poetic faculty, and the difference of his personal character. Spenser, tender, elegant, and fanciful, rarely partic.i.p.ated in their condensed energies or the severity of their greatness; the personal character of our courtly poet was moulded by his position in society.

When we float along the stream of his melodious song, conscious only of its beauty, we do not often pause at elevations which raise the feeling of the sublime. Such daring visions, when they do rise on us, rather indicate the power of his genius than the habit of his mind. Our gentle Spenser was often satisfied with rivalling without surpa.s.sing his originals, which Milton and Gray ever did when they copied. It seems, therefore, unreasonable to a.s.sert that Spenser has combined the daring sternness of Dante with the wild fantasy of Goethe. Yet their lofty creations have not gone beyond those of Spenser's personifications of Despair--of Fear--of Confusion--of Astonishment--of laborious Care, that workman in his smithy, living amid the unceasing strokes of his perpetual hammers--or of Jealousy, from a mortal man metamorphosed with Ovidean fancy: his single eye, for he had long worn out the other, never could be closed; no slumber could press down those restless lids; tenant of a cavern, listening day and night to the roaring billows incessantly beating his abode, threatening with its huge ruins to fall on the wretch wasting in self-torments, till, nothing left of him, he vanished into a flitting aery sprite--

Forgot he was a Man, and JEALOUSY is hight.[4]

There are two sublime descriptions of NIGHT which may be read together.

In the one she is the

Sister of heavie Death, and nurse of Woes!

and elsewhere she appears as

That most ancient Grandmother of all, Older than Jove----

NIGHT befriending Deceit and Shame, takes one of their daughters, the witch Duessa, in her "pitchy mantle;" yoking her coal-black steeds to her iron waggon, they penetrate to the inferior regions, bearing a mortal caitiff to be _restored_ to this wicked life--"the messenger of death" pa.s.sing over the earth, the screeching owl, the baying dogs, the howling wolf, warn of the witch's presence; and in h.e.l.l the trembling ghosts stand

Chattering with iron teeth, and staring wide With stonie eyes--and flock'd on every side To gaze on EARTHLY WIGHT that with the NIGHT durst ride.[5]

The sublime fragment on "Mutability," where Nature is viewed seated mysteriously amid the creation, has not been excelled by the most philosophical poets.

Great Nature ever young, yet full of eld, Still moving, yet immoved from her sted; Unseen of any, yet of all beheld, Thus sitting on her throne----

If such n.o.ble inventions appear rare, it perhaps is owing to the wide extent of the "faery land," as well as to the poet's p.r.o.neness to luxuriance of diction. If from that voluminous inspiration the poet has sometimes trespa.s.sed on the critic's bourn, or the romantic eulogist of chast.i.ty itself has sometimes violated his own virgin page, for Spenser, always imitative, caught a slight infection from his old romancers and his Italian favourites, all this exuberance bears fruit; freedom and force will ever interest the artists of poetry.