SPENSER SPERMACETI. 



353 



their faults, and alleviating their afflictions. He 

 was violently opposed by the clergy, who reproached 

 him with not makiiig any difference between prac- 

 tical and theoretical theology. But posterity ac- 

 knowledges his services in the restoration of cate- 

 chetical instruction, which had been almost entirely 

 forgotten. From 1686 to 1691, he was preacher 

 to the court in Dresden, and even then occupied 

 himself with the religious teaching of children. A 

 representation which he made to the elector in 

 writing, respecting his faults, brought him into dis- 

 grace. He went, in 1691, to Berlin, where he took 

 an active part in the foundation of the university 

 of Halle. In 1698, the court of Dresden invited 

 him to return; but he preferred to remain in Berlin, 

 where he was in the possession of high appoint- 

 ments. He died in that city, in 1705. In his let- 

 ters, reports, opinions, &c., a truly Christian bene- 

 volence and zeal for the cause of goodness is per- 

 ceptible. Spener may be compared with Fenelon. 

 SPENSER, EDMUND, a celebrated English poet, 

 was born in London, near the Tower, about 1553. 

 It is not known where he received his early educa- 

 tion, but he was admitted as a sizar of Pembroke 

 hall, Cambridge, in 1569, and graduated M. A. in 

 15,76. On leaving the university, he took up his 

 residence with some relations in the north of Eng- 

 land, probably as a tutor, where he unsuccessfully 

 wooed a lady, whom he records in his Shepherd's 

 Calendar, under the name of Rosaline, which was 

 his first publication, and appeared in 1576. The 

 year preceding, he had been advised by his friend 

 Gabriel Harvey to remove to London, where he 

 was introduced to Sir Philip Sidney, to whom he 

 dedicated the Shepherd's Calendar. In 1580, he 

 accompanied lord Grey de Wilton, lord lieutenant 

 of Ireland, as his secretary. He returned, in 1582, 

 with lord Grey, who, in conjunction with the earl 

 of Leicester and Sir Philip Sidney, procured for 

 him, in 1586, a grant of 3028 acres in the county 

 of Cork, out of the forfeited lands of the earl of 

 Desmond; on which, however, by the terms of the 

 gift, he was obliged to become resident. He accord- 

 ingly fixed his residence at Kilcolman, in the county 

 of Cork, where he was visited by Sir Walter Ra- 

 leigh, who became his patron in lieu of Sir Philip 

 Sidney, then deceased, and whom he celebrates 

 under the title of the Shepherd of the Ocean. He 

 was then engaged in the composition of the Faery 

 Queen, of which he had written the first three 

 books. With these he accompanied Raleigh, the 

 next year, to England, where they were published, 

 with a dedication to queen Elizabeth, and an intro- 

 ductory letter to Raleigh, explaining the nature of 

 the poem. Raleigh also gained him the favour of 

 the queen, who rewarded his poetry and dedication 

 with a pension of fifty pounds per annum. In 

 1591, he returned to Ireland; and, the succeeding 

 year, his rising reputation induced his bookseller to 

 collect and print his smaller pieces. He then passed 

 an interval of two or three years in Ireland, where, 

 in 1594, he married, being then in his forty-first year. 

 His happiness was disquieted by the disturbances 

 excited by the earl of Tyrone, which were pro- 

 bably the cause of his revisiting England the fol- 

 lowing year. Here he printed some poems, and 

 drew up his View of the State of Ireland; which, 

 in consequence, it is supposed, of the severity of 

 some of its suggestions, lay in MS. until printed, 

 in 1633, by Sir James Ware, who bestows much 

 applause on the information and judgment displayed 

 in it. In 1596, he published a new edition of his 



Faery Queen, with three additional books. Of the 

 remaining six, which were to complete the original 

 design, two imperfect cantos of Mutabilitie only 

 have been recovered, which were introduced into 

 the folio edition of 1609, as a part of the lost book, 

 entitled the Legend of Constancy. There has 

 been much controversy in respect to the presumed 

 loss of the remainder of these six books on the 

 poet's flight from Ireland : the most probable con- 

 clusion, from the investigation, is, that they were 

 never finished, but that some parts of them were 

 lost on that melancholy occasion. In 1597, he re- 

 turned to Ireland, and, in September, 1598, was 

 recommended to be sheriff of Cork. The rebellion 

 of Tyrone, however, took place in October, and 

 with such fury as to compel Spenser and his family 

 to quit Kilcolman in so much confusion that an 

 infant child was left behind, and burnt with his 

 house. The unfortunate poet arrived in England 

 with a heart broken by these misfortunes, and died 

 the 16th of the following January, 1599, in the 

 forty-sixth year of his age. It is asserted that he 

 terminated his life in great distress ; but it has been 

 contended that the poverty referred to by Camden 

 and several of his poetical contemporaries, applies 

 rather to his loss of property generally than to 

 absolute personal suffering. This inference seems 

 the more probable, as he was interred in West- 

 minster abbey at the expense of the earl of Essex, 

 who would scarcely have allowed the man to starve 

 whom he thus honoured. A monument was after- 

 wards erected over his remains by the celebrated 

 Anne, countess of Dorset. Of the personal cha- 

 racter of Spenser there is no direct testimony ; but 

 the friendships which he formed are favourable to 

 its respectability, which is also to be implied from 

 the purity, devotion, and exalted morality of his 

 writings. Neither, although he paid assiduous 

 court to the great, was he guilty of the mean 

 adulation so common in his time, except, indeed, 

 to queen Elizabeth, by whom, both as a sovereign 

 and a woman, it was levied as a kind of tax. As 

 a poet, although his minor works contain many 

 beauties, Spenser will be judged chiefly from the 

 Faery Queen, the predominant excellencies of which 

 are imagery, feeling, and melody of versification. 

 With all its defects, it furnishes admirable examples 

 of the noblest graces of poety, sublimity, pathos, 

 unrivalled fertility of conception, and exquisite 

 vividness of description. Its great length and 

 want of interest, as a fable, added to the real and 

 affected obsoleteness of the language, may, indeed, 

 deter readers in general from a complete perusal ; 

 but it will always be resorted to by the genuine 

 lovers of poetry as a rich store-house of invention. 

 The stanza which Spenser has adopted in the Faery 

 Queen, is usually called the Spenserian, either 

 because he invented it, or was the first to apply it 

 to extensive use. It consists of a strophe of eight 

 decasyllabic verses, and an Alexandrine, and has a 

 three-fold rhyme the first and third verses forming 

 one, the second, fourth, fifth, and seventh another, 

 and the sixth, eighth, and ninth the third. It is 

 susceptible of great variety of expression, and 

 admits equally of the most different kinds of com- 

 position the droll or pathetic, descriptive or senti- 

 mental, tender or satirical. The best editions of 

 Spenser's works ae those of Hughes and Todd (8 

 vols., 8vo., 1805, with notes and a life). See 

 Warton's Observations on the Faery Queen. 



SPERMACETI, SPERM OIL. Se Fat, and 

 Whale. 



