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Those two be those two great calamities,
That long agoe did grieve the noble spright
Of Salomon with great indignities,
Who whilome was alive the wisest wight:
But now his wisedome is disprooved quite ;
For he, that now welds all things at his will,
Scorns th' one and th' other in his deeper skill.

O griefe of griefes! O gall of all good heartes !
To see that vertue should dispised bee
Of him, that first was raisde for vertuous parts,
And now, broad spreading like an aged tree,
Lets none shoot up that nigh him planted bee.
O let the man, of whom the Muse is scorned,
Nor alive nor dead be of the Muse adorned!

There is no known fact in Spenser's life to justify this complaint; on the contrary, as I have said before, he had been singularly fortunate. Grosart mentions a very curious thing about these lines, that in the edition of 1611 two of them were changed to

and

For such as now have most the world at will

O let not those of whom the Muse is scorned.

Robert Cecil was then in power and Solicitor-General.

Bacon was

Even more unintelligible in Spenser's case is the well-known complaint in Mother Hubberds Tale, in the same collection :

Most miserable man, whom wicked fate

Hath brought to Court, to sue for had ywist,
That few have found, and manie one hath mist!
Full little knowest thou, that hast not tride,
What hell it is in suing long to bide:

To loose good dayes, that might be better spent ;
To wast long nights in pensive discontent;
To speed to day, to be put back to morrow;
To feed on hope, to pine with feare and sorrow;
To have thy Princes grace, yet want her Peeres;
To have thy asking, yet waite manie yeeres;
To fret thy soule with crosses and with cares;
To eate thy heart through comfortlesse dispaires ;
To fawne, to crowche, to waite, to ride, to ronne,
To spend, to give, to want, to be undonne.
Unhappie wight, borne to desastrous end,
That doth his life in so long tendance spend !

A similar complaint occurs in the Prothalamion, which was written and published during Spenser's supposed visit to London in 1596:

When I, (whom sullein care,

Through discontent of my long fruitlesse stay
In Princes Court, and expectation vayne
Of idle hopes, which still doe fly away,

Like empty shaddowes, did afflict my brayne,)
Walkt forth to ease my payne

Along the shoare of silver streaming Themmes.

With these may be compared Hamlet's complaints of a precisely similar character, and the story of Bacon's early "suit," and long failure, in his correspondence, where he describes himself, in a letter to Lord Burghley written early in 1595, as "a tired sea-sick suitor."1

The 33rd and 34th stanzas indicate that the author's early patron was Leicester, "his Colin" being Leicester's Colin. At that point the author begins to find difficulty in saying what he has to say through the feigned character of the "woman," and, by one of those almost imperceptible transpositions to which I have already alluded, he appears to put the speech into his own mouth (st. 35). We are surprised, therefore, to find at the end ("Thus having ended all her piteous plaint") that the "woman" is supposed to have been speaking all the time. But the confusion is evidently intentional, and it enables the author to speak his mind without appearing too clearly to be doing so. The burden of the poem is "mutability," and, in particular, the loss by death of a number of people who had been associated with the author's youth: his early patron, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester (d. 1588); Leicester's brother, Ambrose Dudley, Earl of Warwick (d. Feb. 1590); Sir Henry Sidney and his wife (sister of the Earls of Warwick and Leicester), who both died in 1586; Philip Sidney, who died from his wound received at Zutphen later in the same year; Francis Russell, second Earl of Bedford (father of the two sisters, Countess of Warwick

1 Spedding, Life, i. 12, 358-9, etc.

and Countess of Cumberland, to whom the Fowre Hymns are addressed), who died in 1585.

The lines in the stanza following those about Burghley quoted above

Let them behold the piteous fall of mee,
And in my case their owne ensample see

-are presumably self-regarding, and allude to some incident in the author's early career, when, from overconfidence and some offence given, he appears to have lost the favour of Leicester, and, not having won that of Burghley, he had found himself without place or prospects. This incident, whatever it was (evidently a critical one in the author's early career), is more specifically alluded to in Virgils Gnat and Muiopotmos, to which I shall come.

The Teares of the Muses is written in the same pessimistic vein, and seems to belong to the same period, but perhaps about a year earlier. The dedication, which, from its terms, is evidently written with a view to the publication of the poem, refers to it as "this last slender meanes," etc., and the theme of the poem is the contrast, in the author's mind, between the present and the past. It is, in fact, the theme of disillusionment which comes with the passing of youth, especially for those whose imagination is strong. The picture of the age which the writer draws will hardly be recognised by those who have their ideas of it solely from biographical romances, but it was probably not so bad as he painted it by contrast with the ideal of his imagination. The general features described are perhaps most in evidence in periods of new material prosperity. The poem contains several notable instances of Spenser's aristocratic standpoint to which I have already alluded.

The poem is best known for the lines about the theatre, containing the description which every one would like to think was intended for Shakespeare. It seems, however, to be generally agreed that he (ie. Shakespeare

of Stratford) must be ruled out, as he is not supposed to have come to London till 1587 at the earliest, and would not therefore have had time to justify this eulogy before 1591, when the piece was published. The lines to which I refer are the lament of the Muse Thalia :

Where be the sweete delights of learnings treasure
That wont with Comick sock to beautefie
The painted Theaters, and fill with pleasure
The listners eyes and eares with melodie;
In which I late was wont to raine as Queene,
And maske in mirth with Graces well beseene?

O! all is gone; and all that goodly glee,
Which wont to be the glorie of gay wits,

Is layd abed, and no where now to see;
And in her roome unseemly Sorrow sits,
With hollow browes and greisly countenaunce,
Marring my joyous gentle dalliaunce.

And him beside sits ugly Barbarisme,

And brutish Ignorance, ycrept of late

Out of dredd darknes of the deepe Abysme,

Where being bredd, he light and heaven does hate :
They in the mindes of men now tyrannize,

And the faire Scene with rudenes foule disguize.

All places they with follie have possest,
And with vaine toyes the vulgare entertaine;
But me have banished, with all the rest
That whilome wont to wait upon my traine,
Fine Counterfesaunce, and unhurtfull Sport,
Delight, and Laughter, deckt in seemly sort.

All these, and all that els the Comick Stage
With seasoned wit and goodly pleasance graced,
By which mans life in his likest image

Was limned forth, are wholly now defaced;

And those sweete wits, which wont the like to frame,
Are now despizd, and made a laughing game.

And he, the man whom Nature selfe had made
To mock her selfe, and Truth to imitate,
With kindly counter under Mimick shade,
Our pleasant Willy, ah! is dead of late :
With whom all joy and jolly meriment
Is also deaded, and in dolour drent.

In stead thereof scoffing Scurrilitie,
And scornfull Follie with Contempt is crept,
Rolling in rymes of shameles ribaudrie
Without regard, or due Decorum kept ;
Each idle wit at will presumes to make,
And doth the Learneds taske upon him take.

But that same gentle Spirit, from whose pen
Large streames of honnie and sweete Nectar flowe,
Scorning the boldnes of such base-borne men,
Which dare their follies forth so rashlie throwe,

Doth rather choose to sit in idle Cell,
Than so himselfe to mockerie to sell.

So am I made the servant of the manie,

And laughing stocke of all that list to scorne;
Not honored nor cared for of anie,

But loath'd of losels as a thing forlorne :
Therefore I mourne and sorrow with the rest,

Untill my cause of sorrow be redrest.

It seems to be supposed by some writers that these lines refer to one and the same person, and they explain that "dead of late" is metaphorical (a strained interpretation at best), because in the following stanza but one retirement only from the world is indicated. But this is to read "that same" in the sense of "the aforesaid," which I feel sure is wrong. I consider that same" is redundant, put in for the metre, and strengthening the demonstrative "that." The sense then is "the gentle spirit, from whose pen," etc., namely, a different personage to "our pleasant Willy," who "is dead of late." I agree with those who think that the first person alluded to,

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our pleasant Willy," is Tarlton. The second, the "gentle spirit," who from the language used might well be "Shakespeare," is, in my opinion, the author himself. The self-praise which the lines involve under such an interpretation is one of the peculiar characteristics of this writer, as I have already said.

In the line "So am I made the servant of the manie," the writer identifies the "Muse," as he does more or less throughout, with himself, and the description tallies exactly with the circumstances and state of mind of

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