ON THE LIFE OF EDMUND SPENSER. LAST year I had the gratifica tion, through the medium of Fraser's Magazine, of throwing some light on the life and writings of Henry Fielding.* I will now endeavour to do the same for Edmund Spenser; but at present I can only treat of his biography; and I must reserve what I have to say on his poems-on which I flatter myself I can do something-for a future occasion. I consider myself, in this as in the former case, only as furnishing materials for future biographers and critics; and I will avoid as much as possible repeating anything which may be found in the biographies of Todd and Craik. I will not waste the reader's time with introduction, but proceed at once to inquire and discuss. The first questions, then, to be considered, are the time and the place of the poet's birth, and the family of which he was a member; for the name, as being that of a household office (answering to our present butler), was common to many families. The year of Spenser's birth, much more the month and day, is utterly unknown. On the monumental tablet to his memory placed in Westminster Abbey by his friend and patroness, the Countess of Cumberland, thirty years after his death, his birth is placed in 1510; but as he died at the end of the century, by what is termed by Camden immatura morte, that date is evidently an impossible one. We have also good reason to believe that he went to Cambridge in 1569; and men do not ordinarily enter universities at such a venerable age as this supposes. The plan then adopted in his case, as in that of Lilly the dramatist, and some others, is to calculate backwards from the date of matriculation. Hence assuming that Spenser was sixteen at the time of his entrance, his birth is placed in 1553, and the date on his monument has been altered accordingly. Mr. Payne Collier, how ever, in his Life of Shakspeare (p. cxxiii), thinks this date too late ; for he says that the sonnets written by Spenser, and prefixed to Vandernoodt's Theatre for Worldlings ‘do not read like the productions of a very young man.' I would, however, on this head, refer Mr. Collier to the poem on Sir Isaac Newton by Glover, the author of the toomuch neglected Leonidas, written also at the age of sixteen, to say nothing of Politian and such prodigies. Still I think Mr. Collier is right; and when I come to treat of Spenser's courtship and marriage, I shall, I trust, be able to give good reasons for placing his birth even so far back as 1551; nay, perhaps even in the November of that year, the month in which Milton also was born. There would seem to be no reasonable ground of doubt as to the birth-place of Spenser being London or its immediate vicinity, for in one of his poems he says:— -Merry London, my most kindly nurse, That to me gave this life's first kindly source. Oldys even asserts that he was born in East Smithfield by the Tower. But what could Oidys in the eighteenth century know of such a circumstance in the sixteenth? especially as all the parishregisters have been searched in vain. There is even a possibility that the portion of the borough belonging to Kent may have witnessed the poet's birth; for in the Shepherd's Calendar (Feb. v. 91), Thenot (Spenser) says: But shall I tell thee a tale of truth, Which I conned of Tityrus (Chaucer) in my youth, Keeping his sheep on the hills of Kent? And elsewhere (April v. 21) we meet with Colin (Spenser), thou kenst the southern shepherd's boy. The utmost, however, that all this might seem to prove is, that * Fraser's Magazine, January and February, 1858. In the Postscript to my articles on Fielding there is a curious error. Gives up the house' should be 'Get possession of the house.' It originated in my making use of an expression familiar in Ireland, but, though perfectly correct, not in use in England. Spenser may have spent some of his early days in Kent, possibly at school. The poet's own words had been regarded as conclusive evidence of London's right to claim his birth till Mr. Collier, discovering that there was an Edmund Spenser dwelling at Kingsbury in Warwickshire in 1569, conjectured that, if not the poet himself, it may have been his father, and thus seeks to make Spenser a native of the same shire with Shakspeare and Drayton. But his chief support-the rarity of the name Edmund-is of no strength, as will presently appear. While stating that London was the place of his birth, Spenser adds: - Though from another place I take my name, A house of ancient fame; in the dedication of his Muiopotmos to Lady Carey, one of the daughters of Sir John Spenser of Althorpe, he says, nor for name or kindred's sake by you vouchsafed;' and when about to speak of her and her sisters, in his Colin Clout's come Home again, he says:No less praiseworthy are the sisters three, The honour of the noble family, Of which I meanest boast myself to be, And most that unto them I am so nigh. It is therefore quite plain that the poet regarded himself as being of a branch, however remote, of this distinguished family, and that his claim was admitted. Of late years the right of another family to claim the great poet has been advocated with much plausibility. Mr. F. C. Spenser, of Halifax, gave, in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1842, an account of the Spenser family of Hurstwood, near Burnley, in Lancashire. In this it is remarkable that the names of Edmund and Lawrence (the latter a rather unusual name in England) are of perpetual occurrence; and we shall find it stated by one who probably knew nothing of this family, that Lawrence was the name of the poet's second son; and further, we are informed that near Hurstwood was a little property, named Spenser's; to which it would appear to have been imagined that the poet referred in say ing though from another place I 411 take my name.' But Spenser was never very accurate in his use of language, and it is most likely that place' here is equivalent to 'house' in the following line, the family and its residence being confounded. In fine, the claim of the Spensers of Hurstwood seems to depend very much on the hypothesis of the poet's residence in the North, which I shall presently show not to rest on any very solid foundation. We have no means of ascertaining whether Spenser was, or was not, connected with Sir John Spenser, Lord Mayor of London, and owner of Canonbury-house, at Islington, whose only daughter and heiress was married to William Lord Compton; which lady's modest demands on her noble spouse, in the way of equipage, &c., may be seen in Gifford's notes on Massinger's City Madam, and still more fully in Chambers's Journal. On the 20th of May, 1569, Edmund Spenser, beyond doubt our poet, was admitted as a sizar of Pembroke Hall, in Cambridge; whence, by the way, it is plain that his parents must have been in rather straitened circumstances, notwithstanding their high connexions. According to the usual account, he was then sixteen years of age, while according to my computation he was in his nineteenth year. We are to recollect that sizars, owing to the difficulties they usually have to encounter in the acquisition of the necessary quantity of knowledge, are mostly older at the time of entrance than pensioners. In my own Alma Mater, which is a colony of Cambridge, I never knew a sizar that was not a young man; and a friend, who was a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, informs me that the usual age of entrance for sizars there is between eighteen and nineteen. Dr. Johnson was past nineteen when he went to Oxford; and Milton, who had every advantage, was in his seventeenth year when he was entered as a pensioner at Cambridge. Spenser took his degrees at the regular periods; that of Bachelor of Arts, January 10th, 1572-3; that of Master, June 26th, 1576. He probably became one of the scholars on the foundation; and with this, tuition, and other college aids, he was able to support himself: his talents must have procured him consideration. One of his fellowstudents was Gabriel Harvey, who became a man of much note, and with whom he formed an intimate friendship. It may be assumed that he remained at the University until he had taken his Master's degree, but it is a question whither he first Then if by me thou list advised be, Such peerless pleasures The interlocutors in this eclogue are Colin, i.e., the poet himself, and Hobbinol, i.e., his friend Gabriel Harvey, and it is the latter who speaks as above. The note of E. K. on Forsake the soil, is-This is no poetical fiction, but unfeignedly spoken of the poet himself, who for special occasion of private affairs (as I have been partly of himself informed), and for his more preferment, removed out of the North parts and came into the South, as Hobbinol indeed advised him privately; on those hills, he says That is in the north country, where he dwelt; and on the dales-The south parts where he now abideth, which though they be full of hills and woods (for Kent is very hilly and woody...), yet in respect of the north parts they be called dales. For indeed the North is counted the higher country.' This, then, is all the evidence there is in proof of Spenser's residence in the North; and surely, as E.K. calls Kent the South, he might have regarded Cambridge as the North, both being viewed with respect to London. The North, in fact, is a very indefinite term. Ask where's the North; in York 'tis at the Tweed, &c. 'Leave me those hills,' says Harvey, who resided at Cambridge; but the me may be only the ethical dative. Again he says-Such peerless pleasures have we in these places,' i.e., in Kent, where Harvey did not live; so that the we only means shepherds, i.e., poets in general. From the language of the have we in these places. poem, it is plain, then, little is to be learned; but E. K. says that he came to Kent for private affairs,' and for his more preferment.' Now in the ninth eclogue we hear of an eminent shepherd in Kent, named Roffin (evidently a bishop of Rochester), of whom Hobbinol (Harvey) says: He is so meek, wise, and merciable, Colin Clout I ween be his self boy; It has never, I believe, been observed that in January, 1577, John Young, a native of London, Master of Pembroke Hall (Spenser's college), and whose patron was Archbishop Grindal, was appointed Bishop of Rochester. Is it not then very possible that he may have invited Spenser, who, we see, was a favourite of his, to go thither with him, and whom Harvey may have advised privately' to accept the invitation, and that it may have been the bishop who promised him more preferment,' by introducing him to Sir Philip Sidney? If this hypothesis be correct, we can only suppose him to have been for a few months, if at all, in Lancashire. But the sixth eclogue would appear to contradict such a supposition, for it speaks of such permanent residence as could only apply to Cambridge, and would rather seem to intimate that the poet, having taken his Master's degree, had nothing more to do at Cambridge, however it might bewitch' him, and must now seek a more profitable soil. 1859.] 6 Who was Rosalind? The next question I have to examine is the poet's love for Rosalind; and here, too, I fear I must be rather sceptical. In the first eclogue Colin Clout tells us that having gone to the neighbour town' he saw there and fell in love with a lass named Rosalind; that to her he gave all the presents made him by Hobbinol, who sought his love, i.e. friendship, but that she treated his suit with disdain. In the fourth eclogue Hobbinol informs us that Rosalind is the widow's daughter of the glen;' in the sixth, Colin tells Hobbinol that Rosalind had proved faithless, in favour, as it would appear, of one Menalcas. We then hear no more of her till we come to the last eclogue, which ends with Adieu, good Hobbinol, that was so true, The note of E. K. on the first eclogue is, Rosalinde is also (like Hobbinol) a feigned name, which being well ordered will bewray the very name of his love and mistress, whom by that name he coloureth.' Hence it has been assumed that Rosalind is a form or an anagram of the lady's real name. One biographer says that as Rose is a common Christian name, and there was a family in Kent named Lynde, her name was probably Rose Lynde; in which case the poet was at very little pains indeed to conceal the true name. Malone says, that as Horden was a name in Kent, her name may have been Eliza Horden, of which dropping the h Rosalinde is the anagram. But,' observes Mr. Craik, 'it must have been in the North of England that Spenser saw and fell in love with Rosalind;' and Mr. F. G. Spenser locates her at Halifax. After all, E. K. meant no anagram, for he gives the Corinna of Ovid, who, he says, was Julia, and some other poetic_names, as parallels. Rosa linda, I may, in fine, observe, is pure Italian and Spanish, signifying beautiful rose. The note of E. K. on the fourth eclogue is more precise and important. He calleth,' says he, Rosalind the widow's daughter of the 413 glen, that is, a country hamlet or borough, which I think is rather said to colour and conceal the person than simply spoken. For it is well known, even in spite of Colin and Hobbinol, that she is a gentlewoman of no mean house, nor endowed with any vulgar and common gifts both of nature and manners; but such, indeed, as need neither Colin be ashamed to have her made known by his verses, nor Hobbinol be grieved that so she should be commended to immortality for her rare and singular virtues." This is altogether very ambiguous. Why should Spenser be ashamed,__or Harvey be jealous of her? The latter's being personally acquainted with her, would seem to prove that she resided in Cambridge or its vicinity, and not in the North, where, indeed, it is only the later biographers that place her. Harvey, in one of his letters to Spenser, has the following remarkable passage:-'It will advance the wings of your imagination a degree higher, at the least, if anything can be added to the loftiness of his conceit whom gentle mistress Rosalind once reported to have all the intelligences at commandment, and at another time christened him Segnior Pegaso.' This seems certainly to prove the actual bodily existence of the fair Rosalind, and yet I cannot help suspecting that she was a purely ideal being like the aforesaid Corinna, like Beatrice, Laura, and others, like Drayton's Idea, Daniel's Delia. In fine, I suspect that she may have been the Muse that inspired the two friends; that they combined to hoax E. K., and that those expressions of gentle Mistress Rosalind,' may have occurred in some compositions of Harvey's, dictated by the Muse. We hear no more of Rosalind till 1591 (as I think, 1595, as Todd asserts), that is, when Spenser was courting another woman, or had been for some years a married man. In Colin Clout's come Home again, we meet with the following lines. Melissa having said how much women were Colin's debtors, Then ill, said Hobbinol, they him requite, Indeed, said Lucid, I have often heard Or who with blame can justly her upbraid For demigods they be, and first did spring * * Beware therefore, ye grooms, I read betimes Ah! shepherds, then said Colin, ye ne weet Of shepherds' daughters which amongst you be, Not then to her, that scorned thing so base, And praise her worth, though far my suit above. Surely never was a jilted and discarded swain so placable and so humble as to use such language as this. It increases the marvel, perhaps, to recollect that more than a dozen years had elapsed since Rosalind had deserted him (for in such cases time usually produces contempt), and that he himself was either courting or was actually married to another woman. But suppose Rosalind, as some of those verses intimate, to have been ideal -a being of a higher order and most of the difficulties vanish or become explicable. The Shepherd's Calendar was the first product of Spenser's genius which saw the light. It was published by a person named E. K., at the end of 1579 or beginning of 1580. The poet dedicated it to Sir Philip Sidney, at whose suggestion it had probably been undertaken. But we must not suppose that his muse had been hitherto idle and unproductive. On the contrary, we have a goodly list of poems, none of which were ever published, belonging to this period. Of these I hope to give some elucidations on a future occasion. But what is most interesting to us is, that we learn that the Faerie Queen was already planned and commenced. In his letter to Harvey of April 10th, 1580, Spenser requests that he would send him back his Faerie Queen, as he intended going on with it forthwith. Harvey in reply speaks rather slightingly of it, intimating that in his opinion it would come far short of the Orlando, which, says he, you will needs seem to emulate and hope to overgo, as you flatly professed yourself in one of your last letters.' How much of the poem Spenser may have written at this time it is impossible to say; perhaps not more than a few cantos of the first book, |