626 



SPENSER 



himself 'of that hour or that place.' There are 

 traces of gome friction )>et\veeii him and the 

 authorities. But it is evident from his works that 

 by the time he quitted the university in 1576 he 

 had obtained a considerable acquaintance with 

 both Latin and Greek literature. And he had made 

 friends of note, who h : ghly appreciated his {genius ; 

 amongst them Gabriel Harvey and Edward Kirke. 



And now what to do ? He seems to have had no 

 definite programme or prospect. He stayed for some 

 months at least perhaps for some two years with 

 his relations near Burnley, probably waiting on for- 

 tune. But this time was not nil wasted ; he had 

 the experience of an unsuccessful love-suit; he 

 pondered many questions of the day ; and he per- 

 fected his metrical skill. The Shepheards Calendar 

 was the result. And its publication in 1579 made 

 an epoch in English literature. It was the first 

 clear note of the great Elizabethan poetry. His 

 contemporaries heard it with delight, and at once 

 acknowledged its freshness and its charm. 



Probably the year before its publication, or even 

 in 1577 i"f, as words of his own seem certainly to 

 prove, he was in Ireland that year Spenser had 

 gone south again, and had won the friendship of 

 Sir Philip Sidney, to whom it was dedicated. How 

 exactly he passed into the Sidney circle and became 

 at home at Penshurst has not yet been made out. 

 Possibly Gabriel Harvey was able to introduce him 

 to the Earl of Leicester, who was Sir Philip's uncle. 

 However this may be, Leicester ami Sidney proved 

 good patrons, and his friendship with the latter was 

 one of the great events of his life (see Astrophel, 

 Ruins of Time, &c. ). And no doubt it was through 

 Leicester's influence that in 1580 Spenser, long 

 anxious for some employment or 'place,' was 

 appointed private secretary to Arthur Lord Grey 

 de Wilton, himself just appointed Lord Deputy of 

 Ireland. 



Ireland was thenceforward to be his home, little 

 probably as such an issue of his secretaryship was 

 expected, and eager as were his hopes and efforts 

 to obtain some preferment in England. We can- 

 not wonder that Spenser was ill content with hia 

 lot. The country was in rebellion when he 

 arrived in it. The special mission of Lord Grey 

 was to suppress the combined insurrection of 

 the O'Neils in the north and the Fitzgeralds in 

 the south, assisted by certain Spaniards who had 

 lately fortified themselves at Smerwick in Kerry, 

 a mission executed with a severity so merciless 

 as to lead to his recall in 1582. Strange and 

 fearful sights were presented to the young poet's 

 eves, of massacre, of desolation, of utter misery. 

 The evil condition of things is vividly illustrated 

 in Spenser's View of the Present State of Ireland 

 a work of ripe, however bitter, experience, and 

 inspired by long and shrewd olwervation, written 

 probably in the second decade of his Irish residence, 

 and largely circulated in MS., though not printed 

 till 1633. He strongly advocated the policy of 

 strict repression and suppression. No wonder 

 the natives loved Spenser as little as Spenser 

 loved them. To this day, it is said, the peasants 

 of Cork county rememlier him with detestation. 

 However, it was in Ireland the unfortunate man 

 wan to pass his life, except for some two visits and 

 a terror-stricken flight to England. Before hia 

 patron's recall he was already forming fresh con- 

 nections with the country. In 1581 he was 

 appointed Clerk of Degrees and Recognisances in 

 the Irish Court of Chancery. In 1588 he became 

 Clerk to the Council in Munster. Probably in 

 thin latter year he took up his aliodc at Kilcofman 

 Castle near Doneraile, County dirk, though the 

 grant of it and adjacent lands is dated October 26, 

 1591. He was certainly settled there in 1589, as 

 we learn from himself in his Colin Clout 'i Come 



Jfome Again. His occupancy of :i part of the 

 forfeited estates of the Karl of Dromond must have 

 stimulated the native hatred towards him; and it 

 was probably already keen. Certainly he did 

 much to further excite it by the rigour with which 

 he pressed his rights or Hiip|>osed rights. In one 

 case at least it would seem that he |n<'--r,l 

 them too far. 'Edmond Spenser of Kilcolinan. 

 gentleman,' was ordered by the Lord Chancellor 

 of Ireland to retire from ' three ploughland'-. 

 parcel of Ballingerath,' which he had 'entered,' 

 disseising Lord Roche, Viscount Fermoy, thereof, 

 and making ' great waste of the wotxl of the said 

 land,' and converting ' a great deal of corn grow- 

 ing thereupon to his proiier use, to the damage of 

 the complainant of two hundred pounds sterling ' 

 (some 900 of our money ). 



But all this time, amidst nil these enmities and 

 horrors, Spenser was going on with his great 

 poem, which, as we know from a letter of Gabriel 

 Harvey's, hail been begun liefore he crossed St 

 George's Channel. The ninth canto of the second 

 book is the first passage that pretty certainly points 

 to his being in Ireland ; and all the rest of it that 

 was written was written in Ireland. In his sonnet 

 to Lord Grey he describes his great work as 



Rude ryines the which a nistick Muw did weave 

 In savadge soil far from Parnaaxo Mount, 

 And roughly wrought in an unlearned looine. 



In an interesting account given by his friend 

 Lodovick Brisket of a party assembled at his 

 cottage near Dublin in or about the year 1586, 

 Spenser is reported as mentioning that he had 

 already undertaken a work of ethical purpose 

 'which is in heroical verse under the title of a 

 Faerie Queene,' and that he has 'already well 

 entered into' it. By the vear 1589 the first three 

 books were finished, mid in that year were shown 

 to Sir Walter Raleigh, whose acquaintance Spcns-er 

 had probably made some years before (they had 

 certainly met at Smerwick in 1580, if not earlier), 

 and who at this time was in some sort a neigh- 

 bour, he too having a share (a large one) in the 

 Desmond forfeiture and residing just then at 

 Vouglml. Of Raleigh's visit to Kilcolnian in l.'iM* 

 and its result in a journey to England and the 

 English court Spenser gives a charming account 

 in his Colin Clout's Come Home Again, written 

 immediately after his return in 1591, though not 

 published till 1595, and then slightly revised that 

 it might be in its allusions more nearly 'up to date.' 

 He and his poem were warmly welcomed. In 1590 

 the three books were published, and there arose a 

 demand for other works of his, which was presently 

 met by the publication of Xutnlnj I'm-mx, nine in 

 number, some probably of early composition (as 

 Pronopopoia or Mother Hubberds Tale, and in 

 the mam Bel/ay's Visiotts and Petrarch's), others 

 written quite recently (as The Ruins of Time and 

 The Tears of the Muses). But no place was found 

 for him at the court or in London. Lord Leicester 

 and Sir Philip Sidney were no longer on the scene 

 to support him ; and so once more to Ireland. 



However, immense fame was his, if nothing of 

 official or pecuniary advantage ; and he devoted 

 himself anew to his great work. Its course was 

 interrupted by another great love-passion, of which 

 he describes the various stages from despair to 

 hope and to triumph in his Amorctti and his 

 I'.iuthalamion. The lady's Christian name was 

 Elizabeth, as we learn from one of the courtship 

 sonnets ; her surname is very plausibly conjectured 

 to have been Boyle. His happiness overflows 

 even into the Faerie Queene, In Irnok vi. canto x. 

 his lady-love is introduced as a fourth Grace, and 

 is described with much rapture. Finishing now 

 the second three books, and perhaps proudly 

 accompanied by his bride, he paid another visit 



