Virgils Gnat, which is illusory, the poem being entirely self-regarding, and referring to the disaster, whatever it was, which had made shipwreck of the author's early prospects. In some way he had offended his patron, the Earl of Leicester, and under an allegory he defends his motives. So far as it is possible to understand it, he had warned the Earl against some proceedings of Lord Burghley, and had incurred the Earl's displeasure for his pains. Leicester is apparently the "Shepheard," Burghley the "Serpent," and the author is the "Gnat." The poem bears evidence of being a youthful production, and it is so described by the author, viz. "Virgils Gnat: long since dedicated to the most noble and excellent lord, the Earle of Leicester, late deceased." The words "late deceased " evidently refer, not to the time of writing, but to the time when the collection of "Complaints" was put together, viz. subsequently to 1588. The dedication is as follows:

Wrong'd yet not daring to expresse my paine,

To you (great Lord) the causer of my care,
In clowdie teares my case I thus complaine
Unto yourselfe, that onely privie are :

But if that any Oedipus unware

Shall chaunce, through power of some divining spright,
To reade the secrete of this riddle rare,

And know the purporte of my evill plight,

Let him rest pleased with his owne insight,
Ne further seeke to glose upon the text;
For griefe enough it is to grieved wight
To feele his fault, and not be further vext.

But what so by my selfe may not be showen,
May by this Gnatts complaint be easily knowen.

It has been suggested that the offence given to Leicester was some officious advocacy on the part of the poet that he should marry the Queen, a match to which Burghley was strenuously opposed, to the extent even of favouring the unpopular French marriage as a means of preventing it (as well as for reasons connected with foreign diplomacy). There is some evidence, to which I shall come, which bears out this suggestion. Another

1 See Chapter IX.

suggestion is that the cause of offence was some advocacy on behalf of Grindal in a case in which he had opposed Leicester's wishes.

My view of the situation is that Leicester took a liking to Francis Bacon as a boy, and that some time in the year 1579, after Bacon's return from France in March of that year, the Earl invited him to form part of his establishment (not necessarily in residence). He would thus definitely become his "patron," and Bacon would gain the advantage of a position in London, which, owing to his father's death, was no longer available for him at York House. But his restless genius would never allow him to be content with a courtier's life, and I suppose he paid court to Burghley at the same time, and thus "fell between two stools." Leicester and Burghley belonged to different worlds, and were not on cordial terms, and the attractions of Leicester House would not be regarded by the minister as a good school for the service of the State. The petulant attacks on Burghley, and the regretful allusions to early days in or about Leicester House, bear out these suggestions. Thus in the Ruines of Time the author refers to Leicester's bounty:

And who so els did goodnes by him gaine,
And who so els his bounteous minde did trie,

and again in the beautiful Prothalamion," written in 1596, when Bacon was at the lowest ebb of his fortunes. The allusion occurs in the eighth stanza, which may be read with the first:

Calme was the day, and through the trembling ayre
Sweete-breathing Zephyrus did softly play

A gentle spirit, that lightly did delay

Hot Titans beames, which then did glyster fayre ;
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,)

1 Cf. Chapter X.

2 For two daughters of the Earl of Worcester.

3 Bacon had at this time been for some years in great pecuniary difficulties, and he was arrested for debt in 1598.

Walkt forth to ease my payne

Along the shoare of silver streaming Themmes;
Whose rutty Bancke, the which his River hemmes,
Was paynted all with variable flowers,

And all the meades adornd with daintie gemmes,
Fit to decke maydens bowres,

And crowne their Paramours,

Against the Brydale day, which is not long :
Sweete Themmes runne softly, tell I end my Song.

At length they all to mery London came,

To mery London, my most kyndly Nurse,

That to me gave this Lifes first native sourse,
Though from another place I take my name,
An house of auncient fame :

There when they came, whereas those bricky towres,
The which on Themmes brode aged backe doe ryde,
Where now the studious Lawyers have their bowers,
There whylome wont the Templer Knights to byde,
Till they decayd through pride:

Next whereunto there standes a stately place,
Where oft I gayned giftes and goodly grace

Of that great Lord, which therein wont to dwell,
Whose want too well now feeles my freendles case;
But ah! here fits not well

Olde woes, but joyes, to tell

Against the bridale daye, which is not long :

Sweete Themmes runne softly, till I end my Song.

These stanzas are utterly unintelligible in the case of Spenser, who is supposed at this time to have been enjoying a second brief visit to London from his exile in Ireland, and had only the year before published, in Colin Clouts Come Home Again, an effusive account of his previous visit in 1590.

I have already alluded to the attack on Burghley in the Ruines of Time. The well-known passage in Mother Hubberds Tale, though less open, is even more daring: But the false Foxe1 most kindly plaid his part; For whatsoever mother-wit or arte

1 The false Foxe. That this was taken to be an allusion to Burghley is shown by a reference to it in a pamphlet entitled "A Declaration of the True Causes," etc. (1592), containing a violent attack on him from the Catholic standpoint. In the course of it the writer states that there is matter enough against Cecil "in plain proof," "which is not extracted out of

Could worke, he put in proofe: no practise slie,
No counterpoint of cunning policie,

No reach, no breach, that might him profit bring,
But he the same did to his purpose wring.
Nought suffered he the Ape to give or graunt,
But through his hand must passe the Fiaunt.
All offices, all leases by him lept,

And of them all whatso he likte he kept.
Justice he solde injustice for to buy,
And for to purchase for his progeny.
Ill might it prosper that ill gotten was;
But, so he got it, little did he pas.

He fed his cubs with fat of all the soyle,
And with the sweete of others sweating toyle ;
He crammed them with crumbs of Benefices,
And fild their mouthes with meeds of malefices :
He cloathed them with all colours, save white,
And loded them with lordships and with might,
So much as they were able well to beare,
That with the weight their backs nigh broken were :
He chaffred Chayres in which Churchmen were set,
And breach of lawes to privie ferme did let :

No statute so established might bee,
Nor ordinaunce so needfull, but that hee
Would violate, though not with violence,

Yet under colour of the confidence

The which the Ape repos'd in him alone,

And reckned him the kingdomes corner stone.

This poem, according to the author's statement in the dedication, was "long sithens composed in the raw conceipt of my youth," and the statement is borne out by the line, "But his late chayne his Liege unmeete esteemeth," which, Grosart observes, evidently points to the Earl of Leicester's marriage in 1578 with Lettice Knollys, widow of the Earl of Essex (Walter Devereux), which drew down upon him the wrath of Queen Elizabeth. The following is the passage in which it

Occurs:

Mother Hubberds tale of the false fox and his crooked cubbes." In the margin is printed, "Prosopopoia or Mother Hubberds tale." The last words in the sentence quoted refer, of course, to Robert Cecil, whom the writer reviles as follows: "He is friendly to none but for his owne profit. He is not welcome to his peeres, nor of affection followed by his inferiors: but resembleth a storme in the aire, which all creatures do feare and shun, and none do love or desyre." For a further account of this pamphlet see Chapter VIII. p. 209.

But tell us (said the Ape) we doo you pray,
Who now in Court doth beare the greatest sway,
That, if such fortune doo to us befall,

We make seeke favour of the best of all?
Marie, (said he) the highest now in grace
Be the wilde beasts, that swiftest are in chase;
For in their speedie course and nimble flight
The Lyon now doth take the most delight;
But chieflie joyes on foote them to beholde,
Enchaste with chaine and circulet of golde:
So wilde a beast so tame ytaught to bee,
And buxome to his bands, is joy to see;
So well his golden Circlet him beseemeth.
But his late chayne his Liege unmeete esteemeth ;
For so brave beasts she loveth best to see
In the wilde forrest raunging fresh and free.
Therefore if fortune thee in Court to live,
In case thou ever there wilt hope to thrive,
To some of these thou must thy selfe apply;
Els as a thistle-downe in th' ayre doth flie,
So vainly shalt thou too and fro be tost,

And loose thy labour and thy fruitles cost.

The poem therefore was presumably written (at any rate in its first state) sometime after the summer of 1579, when the Queen came to hear of Leicester's marriage through Simier.1 But Spenser was then a man of twentyseven or twenty-eight, an age to which the phrase in the dedication is quite inappropriate. Bacon, however, was eighteen or nineteen, when the rawness of youth may, at least without absurdity, be pleaded in extenuation of indiscretions. It is significant that in a book published under the name of Gabriel Harvey in 1592 an admission occurs that the attack was overdone :

Invectives by favour 2 have been too bolde: and satyres by usurpation too presumptuous: I overpasse Archilochus, Aristophanes, Lucian, Julian, Aretine, and that wholly venomous and viperous brood of old and new Raylers: even Tully and Horace otherwhiles over reched and I must needs say, Mother

1 This is said to have occurred in August 1579, but Froude has a note which indicates that it was before July: "Leicester and Hatton are married secretly, which hath so offended this Queen. . . ."-The Queen of Scots to the Archbishop of Glasgow, July 4, 1579. (History of England, xi. 154.)

2 The words "by favour" may refer to the lack of censorship. See Chapter II. p. 51 sq.