And lest the arbours might their secret love bewray, He doth keep back his forward foot from passing there by day; But when on earth the night her mantle black hath spread, Well armed he walketh forth alone, nor dreadful foes doth dread. What maketh Love not bold-nay, whom makes he not blind? He riveth dangers dread oft times out of the lover's mind. By night he passeth here a week or two in vain, And for the missing of his mark his grief hath nigh him slain. His whetted arrow loosed, so touched her to the quick That through the eye it strake the heart, and then the head did stick. It booted not to strive-for why? she wanted strength; The weaker aye unto the strong of force must yield at length. A prose version of Romeo and Juliet was printed in 1567 in The Palace of Pleasure, a collection of tales, of which a previous volume had appeared in 1565, the editor of which was WILLIAM PAYNTER, clerk of the armoury to Queen Elizabeth. Paynter's novel is greatly inferior to Brooke's poem. GEORGE GASCOIGNE. GEORGE GASCOIGNE, son of Sir John Gascoigne of Essex (circa 1530-1577) is celebrated as one of the earliest contributors to the English drama and one of our first satirists. Among the poets of the beginning of Elizabeth's reign, he deserves to rank next to Lord Buckhurst. Gascoigne's life was full of adventure. He first studied law at Gray's Inn, And Juliet that now doth lack her heart's reliefHer Romeus' pleasant eyes, I mean-is almost dead for but was disinherited by his father for his prodigality. grief. Each day she changeth hours-for lovers keep an hour When they are sure to see their love in passing by their bower. Impatient of her wo, she happed to lean one night He then set out for Holland, and served gallantly under the Prince of Orange. Being, however, on one occasion surprised by the Spanish army, he was taken prisoner, and detained four months. At the expiration of his confinement, he returned to Eng Within her window, and anon the moon did shine so land, and settled at Walthamstow, where he collected bright, That she espied her love: her heart, revived, sprang, And now for joy she claps her hands which erst for wo she wrang. Eke Romeus, when he saw his long desired sight, and published his poems. He experienced a share of royal favour, for he accompanied the Queen to Kenilworth, and supplied part of the poetical and scenic entertainment at Dudley's magnificent seat, and also at Woodstock. His poem of Steel Glass, His morning cloak of moan cast off, hath clad him with 1576, is in blank verse, of which we add a delight. Yet dare I say of both that she rejoiced more; His care was great-hers twice as great was all the time before! Shakspeare found the outline of his character of Mercutio-so marvellously wrought up by the dramatic poet-and also that of the garrulous old nurse, in Brooke's poem. The following lines from the passage between Romeus and the nurse are characteristic: Now for the rest let me and Juliet alone; To get her leave, some feat excuse I will devise anon; Or for in thoughts of love her idle time she spent, A pretty babe, quod she, it was when it was young; A thousand times and more I laid her on my lap, &c. There is great beauty in this figurative passage, which is not unlike the early manner of Shakspeare: He in her sight did seem to pass the rest as far As Phoebus' shining beams do pass the brightness of a star. In wait lay warlike Love, with golden bow and shaft, And to his ear with steady hand the bow-string up he raft. Till now she had escaped his sharp, inflaming dartTill now he listed not assault her young and tender heart. specimen : The gentleman which might in country keep Will break up house and dwell in market-towns But who meanwhile defends the commonwealth? The extravagant court-ladies are satirised with peculiar pungency: The elder sort go stately stalking on, And on their backs they bear both land and fee, With Spanish spangs and ruffles fet out of France, Gascoigne has a long poem in the ottava rima measure, extending to 207 stanzas, in which he describes scenes in the Dutch war, mixed up with his own quaint moral reflections and egotistic revelations. He is seldom wanting in sense or spirit, and uses both rhyme and blank verse with greater freedom and mastery than most of his predecessors. Some of his shorter poems are lively and graceful. The Arraignment of a Lover. At Beauty's bar as I did stand, 'George,' quoth the Judge, 'hold up thy hand, Tell, therefore, how wilt thou be tried, Whose judgment thou wilt here abide?' 'My lord,' quod I, 'this lady here, Quoth Beauty: No, it fitteth not If Then Craft the crier called a quest, Jealous the gaoler bound me fast, written directly from that, instead of from his some- 'George,' quoth the Judge, 'now thou are cast, among the most poetical and graceful of his sonnets: Down fell I then upon my knee, 'And though this Judge doth make such haste Quoth Beauty: 'Well; because I guess "Yea, madam,' quoth I, 'that I shall; [Sonnets of Sir Philip Sidney.] Because I oft in dark abstracted guise With how sad steps, O Moon! thou climb'st the skies, Those lovers scorn whom that love doth possess? Come, Sleep, O Sleep, the certain knot of peace, And if these things, as being thine by right, Having this day my horse, my hand, my lance O happy Thames, that didst my Stella bear! Pope said, 'it is easy to mark out the general course of our poetry; Chaucer, Spenser, Milton, and Dryden are the great landmarks for it.' We can now add Cowper and Wordsworth; but in Pope's generation, the list he has given was accurate and complete. Spenser was, like Chaucer, a native of London, and like him, also, he has recorded the circumstance in his poetry: Merry London, my most kindly nurse, class of students) of Pembroke College, Cambridge, in May 1569, and continued to attend college for seven years, taking his degree of M.A. in June 1576. While Spenser was at Pembroke, Gabriel Harvey, the future astrologer, was at Christ's College, and an intimacy was formed between them, which lasted during the poet's life. Harvey was learned and pedantic, full of assumption and conceit, and in his Venetian velvet and pantofles of pride,' formed a peculiarly happy subject for the satire of Nash, who assailed him with every species of coarse and contemptuous ridicule. Harvey, however, was of service to Spenser. The latter, on retiring from the university, lived with some friends in the north of England-probably those Spensers of Hurstwood to whose family he is said to have belonged. Harvey induced the poet to repair to London, and there he introduced him to Sir Philip Sidney, 'one of the very diamonds of her majesty's court.' In 1579, the poet published his Shepherd's Calendar, dedicated to Sidney, who afterwards patronised him, and recommended him to his uncle, the powerful Earl of Leicester. The Shepherd's Calendar is a pastoral poem, in twelve eclogues, one for each month, but without strict keeping as to natural description or rustic character, and deformed by a number of obsolete uncouth phrases (the Chaucerisms of Spenser, as Dryden designated them), yet containing traces of a superior original genius. The fable of the Oak and Brier is finely told; and in verses like the following, we see the germs of that tuneful harmony and pensive reflection in which Spenser excelled: You naked buds, whose shady leaves are lost, All so my lustful life is dry and sere, These lines form part of the first eclogue, in which the shepherd-boy (Colin Clout) laments the issue of his love for a 'country lass,' named Rosalinda happy female name, which Thomas Lodge, and, following him, Shakspeare, subsequently connected with love and poetry. Spenser is here supposed to have depicted a real passion of his own for a lady in the north, who at last preferred a rival, though, as Gabriel Harvey says, 'the gentle Mistress Rosalind' once reported the rejected suitor to have all the intelligences at command, and another time christened him Signior Pegaso.' Spenser makes his shepherds discourse of polemics as well as love, and they draw characters of good and bad pastors, and institute comparisons between Popery and Protestantismi. Some allusions to Archbishop Grindal (Algrind in the poem) and Bishop Aylmer are said to have given offence to Lord Burleigh; but the patronage of Leicester and Essex must have made Burleigh look with distaste on the new poet. For ten years we hear little of Spenser. He is found corresponding with Harvey on a literary innovation contemplated by that learned person, and even by Sir Philip Sidney: this was no less than banishing rhymes, and introducing the Latin prosody into English verse. Spenser seems to have assented to it, fondly overcome with Sidney's charm;' he suspended the Faery Queen, which he had then begun, and tried English hexameters, forgetting, to use the witty words of Nash, that the hexameter, though a gentleman of an ancient house, was not likely to thrive in this clime of ours, the soil being too craggy for him to set his plough in.' Fortunately, he did not persevere in the conceit; he could not have gained over his contemporaries to it for there were then too many poets, and too much real poetry in the land-and if he had made the attempt, Shakspeare would soon have blown the whole away. As a dependent on Leicester, and a suitor for courtfavour, Spenser is supposed to have experienced many reverses. The following lines in Mother Hubbard's Tale, though not printed till 1581, seem to belong to this period of his life: Full little knowest thou that hast not tried, To lose good days that might be better spent ; Strong feeling has here banished all antique and affected expression: there is no fancy in this gloomy painting. It appears from recently discovered documents, that Spenser was sometimes employed in inferior state-missions-a task then often devolved on poets and dramatists. At length an important appointment came. Lord Grey of Wilton was sent to Ireland as lord-deputy, and Spenser accompanied him in the capacity of secretary. They remained there two years, when the deputy was recalled, and the poet also returned to England. In June 1586, Spenser obtained from the crown a grant of 3028 acres in the county of Cork, out of the forfeited lands of the Earl of Desmond, of which Sir Walter Raleigh had previously, for his military services in Ireland, obtained 12,000 acres. The poet was obliged to reside on his estate, as this was one of the conditions of the grant; and he accordingly repaired to Ireland, and took up his abode in Kilcolman Castle, near Doneraile, which had been one of the ancient strongholds or appanages of the Earls of Desmond. The poet's castle stood in the midst of a large plain, by the side of a lake; the river Mulla ran through his grounds, and a chain of mountains at a distance seemed to bulwark in the romantic retreat. Here he wrote most of the Faery Queen, and received the visits of Raleigh, whom he fancifully styled 'the Shepherd of the Ocean;' and here he brought home his wife, the 'Elizabeth' of his sonnets, welcoming her with that noble strain of pure and fervent passion which he has styled the Epithalamium, and which forms the most magnificent spousal verse' in the language. Kilcolman Castle is now a ruinits towers almost level with the ground; but the spot Amongst the coolly shade Of the green alders, by the Mulla's shore. We may conceive the transports of delight with which Raleigh perused or listened to those strains of chivalry and gorgeous description, which revealed to him a land still brighter than any he had seen in his distant wanderings, or could have been present even to his romantic imagination! The guest warmly approved of his friend's poem; and he persuaded Spenser, when he had completed the three first books, to accompany him to England, and arrange for their publication. The Faery Queen appeared in January 1589-90, dedicated to her majesty, in that strain of adulation which was then the fashion of the age. To the volume was appended a letter to Raleigh, explaining the nature of the work, which the author said was 'a continued allegory, or dark conceit.' He states his object to be to fashion a gentleman, or noble person, in virtuous and gentle discipline, and that he had chosen Prince Arthur for his hero. He conceives that prince to have beheld the Faery Queen in a dream, and been so enamoured of the vision, that, on awaking, he resolved to set forth and seek her in Faery Land. The poet further 'devises' that the Faery Queen shall keep her annual feast twelve days, twelve several adventures happening in that time, and each of them being undertaken by a knight. The adventures were also Spenser, and he returned to Ireland. His smaller to express the same number of moral virtues. The poems were next published: The Tears of the Muses, first is that of the Redcross Knight, expressing | Mother Hubbard, &c., in 1591; Daphnaida, 1592; and Holiness; the second, Sir Guyon, or Temperance; Amoretti and the Epithalamium (relating his courtand the third, Britomartis, 'a lady knight,' repre- ship and marriage) in 1595. His Elegy of Astrophel, senting Chastity. There was thus a blending of on the death of the lamented Sidney, appeared chivalry and religion in the design of the Faery about this time. In 1596, Spenser was again in Queen. Spenser had imbibed-probably from Sidney London to publish the fourth, fifth, and sixth books -a portion of the Platonic doctrine, which over- of the Faery Queen. These contain the legend of flows in Milton's Comus, and he looked on chivalry Cambel and Triamond, or Friendship; Artegal, or as a sage and serious thing.* Besides his personi- Justice; and Sir Caledore, or Courtesy. The double fication of the abstract virtues, the poet made his allegory is continued in these cantos as in the allegorical personages and their adventures represent previous ones: Artegal is the poet's friend and historical characters and events. The queen patron, Lord Grey; and various historical events Gloriana, and the huntress Belphoebe, are both are related in the knight's adventures. Half of the symbolical of Queen Elizabeth; the adventures of the original design was thus finished; six of the twelve Redcross Knight shadow forth the history of the adventures and moral virtues were produced; but Church of England; the distressed knight is Henri unfortunately the world saw only some fragments IV.; and Envy is intended to glance at the more of the work. It has been said that the remainunfortunate Mary Queen of Scots. The stanza of ing half was lost through the 'disorder and abuse' Spenser is the Italian ottava rima, now familiar in of a servant sent forward with it to England. This English poetry; but he added an Alexandrine, or is highly improbable. Spenser, who came to London long line, which gives a full and sweeping close to himself with each of the former portions, would not the verse. The poet's diction is rich and abundant. have ventured the largest part with a careless He introduced, however, a number of obsolete servant. But he had not time to complete his expressions, 'new grafts of old and withered words,' poetical and moral gallery. There was an interval for which he was censured by his contemporaries of six years between his two publications, and he and their successors, and in which he was certainly lived only three years after the second. During that not copied by Shakspeare. His 'Gothic subject period, too, Ireland was convulsed with rebellion. and story' had probably, as Mr Campbell conjec- The English settlers, or undertakers,' of the crowntures, made him lean towards words of the olden lands were unpopular with the conquered natives time,' and his antiquated expression, as the same of Ireland. They were often harsh and oppressive; critic finely remarks, 'is beautiful in its antiquity, and even Spenser is accused, on the authority of and, like the moss and ivy on some majestic building, existing legal documents, of having sought unjustly covers the fabric of his language with romantic to add to his possessions. He was also in office over and venerable associations.' The Faery Queen was the Irish (clerk of the council of Munster); he had enthusiastically received. It could scarcely, indeed, been recommended by the queen (1598) for the be otherwise, considering how well it was adapted office of sheriff of Cork; and he was a strenuous to the court and times of the Virgin Queen, where advocate for arbitrary power, as is proved by a poligallantry and chivalry were so strangely mingled tical treatise on the state of Ireland, written by him with the religious gravity and earnestness induced in 1596 for the government of Elizabeth, but not by the Reformation, and considering the intrinsic printed till the reign of Charles I. The poet was, beauty and excellence of the poem. The few first therefore, a conspicuous object for the fury of the stanzas, descriptive of Una, were of themselves irritated and barbarous natives, with whom 'revenge sufficient to place Spenser above the whole hundred was virtue.' The storm soon burst forth. In poets that then offered incense to Elizabeth. October 1598, an insurrection was organised in Munster, following Tyrone's rebellion, which had raged for some years in the province of Ulster. The insurgents attacked Kilcolman, and having robbed and plundered, set fire to the castle. Spenser and his wife escaped; but either in the confusion incidental to such a calamity, or from inability to render assistance, an infant child of the poet (new-born,' according to Ben Jonson) was left behind, and perished in the flames. The poet, impoverished and broken-hearted, reached London, and died in about three months, in King Street, Westminster, on the 16th January 1599. He was buried near the tomb of Chaucer in Westminster Abbey, the Earl of Essex defraying the expense of the funeral, and his hearse attended-as Camden relates-by his brotherpoets, who threw 'mournful elegies' into his grave. A monument was erected over his remains thirty years afterwards by Anne, Countess of Dorset. His widow, the fair Elizabeth, whose bridal bower at Kilcolman he had decked with such 'gay garlands' of song, probably remained in Ireland, where two sons of the unfortunate poet long resided. The queen settled a pension of £50 per annum on *The Platonism of Spenser is more clearly seen in his hymns on Love and Beauty, which are among the most passionate and exquisite of his productions. His account of the spirit of love is not unlike Ovid's description of the creation of man; the soul just severed from the sky, retains part of its heavenly power: And frames her house, in which she will be placed, But he speculates further: So every spirit, as it is most pure, And hath in it the more of heavenly light, For soul is form, and doth the body make. Spenser afterwards wrote two religious hymns, to counteract the effect of those on love and beauty, but though he spiritualises his passion, he does not abandon his early belief, that the fairest body encloses the fairest mind. He still says: For all that's good is beautiful and fair. The Grecian philosophy was curiously united with puritanism In both Spenser and Milton. Our poet took the fable of his great of beauty which pervades it is of classical origin, elevated and purified by strong religious feeling. poem from the style of the Gothic romance, but the deep sense Spenser is the most luxuriant and melodious of all our descriptive poets. His creation of scenes and objects is infinite, and in free and sonorous versification he has not yet been surpassed. His lofty rhyme' has a swell and cadence, and a continuous sweetness, that we can find nowhere else. |