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Hubberd, in heat of choller, forgetting the pure sanguine of her sweete Faery Queene, wilfilly 1 overshot her malcontented selfe.2

This was written in reference to the publication of the piece (1591). It is said that it was called in, and the lines at the end of Book VI. of the Faerie Queene (1596) may allude to this incident :

Ne may this homely verse, of many meanest,
Hope to escape his venemous despite,

More then my former writs, all were they cleanest
From blamefull blot, and free from all that wite
With which some wicked tongues did it backebite,
And bring into a mighty Peres displeasure,
That never so deserved to endite.

Therefore do you, my rimes, keep better measure,

And seeke to please; that now is counted wise mens threasure. Or the stanza may allude to the old trouble with Leicester.

Further evidence of the early period of the poem lies in the fact that the hero of it, under the figure of the Lion, is Leicester, and that the author is advocating his cause against Burghley, who is evidently represented in the Fox. They were in opposition on the question of the Alençon marriage, and I shall bring forward reasons in the next chapter for thinking that Bacon's pen was employed in drawing up the letter of protest about the marriage which Sir Philip Sidney presented in January 1580 (probably at the instance of his father and Leicester) to the Queen. In the poem the State is represented as pillaged by the Fox and the Ape (which may possibly be intended for Hatton, but which, in any case, represents some ally of Burghley), and the Lion is represented at the end as rousing himself from sleep and executing judgment on the usurpers of his authority. The piece is very brilliant, and draws a gloomy picture (if literally intended) of the conditions prevailing at Court and in the country, but the wit is so obviously sharpened by interested feelings that the poem fails to carry weight as a serious effort, and is, in fact, from that point of view,

1 I.e. through passion.

2 Foure Letters.

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unpleasant. The lines about the miseries of the suitor, quoted at p. 162 above, are supposed to have been added by Spenser on revision during his visit to London in 1590, but, at whatever period they were written, they are wholly inapplicable, as has already been said, to Spenser's case; and, as regards the London visit, they are in direct conflict with the description of the good reception of the poet in Colin Clout, which is dated the same year as the Complaints, and with the story of the pension granted in that year.

[In point of fact I have no belief in the date "from Kilcolman" for Colin Clout. The internal evidence indicates that the poem was written in 1595, the year when it was published. The theory is that it was "revised" and references to later events inserted; but it purports to have been sent to Ralegh from Ireland in December 1591, and it was published in 1595 when Spenser was still in Ireland, and Ralegh (from February to August) was on the Guinea voyage. The inconsistency between its tone and that of the Complaints is naturally to be explained by lapse of time and change of mood, but perhaps more by its purpose, which, in my belief, was to prepare the way at the Court for the second instalment of the Faerie Queene, which appeared in the following year. The compliments to distinguished people, principally ladies, which it contains can only be described as prodigious, and the flattery of the Queen reaches a point of extravagance which perhaps goes beyond everything else of that kind in Spenser's poems:

Her thoughts are like the fume of Franckincence,
Which from a golden Censer forth doth rise,
And throwing forth sweet odours mounts fro thence
In rolling globes up to the vaulted skies, etc.]

There is apparently a reference in the opening lines of Mother Hubberds Tale to a time when the plague was prevailing in London, and the period of the year alluded to is the hot weather. The poem is, as usual, written from the aristocratic standpoint.

The shipwreck of the author's early hopes through some offence given to Leicester, to which I have alluded, forms the subject of another of the "Complaints," Muiopotmos, or the Fate of the Butterflie, a poem of incomparable delicacy and freshness of invention, and of unique interest autobiographically. To be appreciated it must be read as a whole, but as it is probably little known, and less understood, I will endeavour to give an account of it through extracts. It must be obvious, on the most careless reading, that this poem is an allegory; in other words, that it is intended to convey a hidden meaning; also that in the butterfly, "Clarion," the author is representing himself. Without such an intention the poem (for all its beauty) would be a fantastic and incoherent jumble. Personages and imagery having no natural consistency are mixed up with what appears at first sight to be the most negligent carelessness and lack of fitness, and it is only under the purpose of allegory that they are seen to assume a reasonable relativity. To any one who refuses to admit this contention, from a general survey of the poem, I would point to the use of the personal pronoun "us" in the last stanza but three-one of those sudden and easily overlooked transformations in Spenser's method on which I have already commented.

Like Virgils Gnat, the poem takes its origin from some error or fault committed by the author, owing, as he represents, to incaution or over-confidence, which has brought him into disfavour. Under the allegory of the Butterfly he describes how he set out with high hopes and innocent confidence, flying at will over the "champain" and taking his pleasure in "gay gardins," till he was entrapped by an envious and accursed spider, who, after watching his prey like "a wily Foxe," rushes upon him, when caught, "like a grimme Lyon,” and

with fell spight, Under his left wing stroke his weapon slie

1 "For loe! the drerie stownd is now arrived,
That of all happines hath us deprived."

Into his heart, that his deepe-groning spright
In bloodie streames foorth fled into the aire,
His bodie left the spectacle of care.

To work up to this conclusion, "Arachne," who is a feminine personality, has to be changed into " Aragnoll," a male creation. The "Lyon" is presumably an allusion to Leicester, and the "Foxe" is probably brought in in order to indicate that the trouble came from an enemy in the household of Cecil. This is rendered practically certain from the indication in the first stanza that Clarion's "sad decline" had its origin in the strife "betwixt two mightie ones of great estate," which I take to mean Leicester and Burghley. Though outwardly they appear, as a rule, to have kept on good terms, Leicester was a thorn in Burghley's side, a state of things which suited the peculiar methods of the Queen, who perhaps knew instinctively that the character of a man, even the best, is liable to deteriorate as soon as he finds no check on his power.

Under the veil of allegory the poet describes his early promise:

Of all the race of silver-winged Flies

Which doo possesse the Empire of the aire,
Betwixt the centred earth and azure skies,
Was none more favourable, nor more faire,
Whilst heaven did favour his felicities,
Then Clarion, the eldest sonne and haire
Of Muscaroll; and in his fathers sight
Of all alive did seeme the fairest wight.

With fruitfull hope his aged breast he fed
Of future good, which his yong toward yeares,
Full of brave courage and bold hardyhed,
Above th' ensample of his equall peares,
Did largely promise, and to him fore-red,
(Whilst oft his heart did melt in tender teares)
That he in time would sure prove such an one,
As should be worthie of his fathers throne.

1 Compare:

"Between the pass and fell incensed points
Of mighty opposites."

Hamlet, v. 2.

The fresh yong flie, in whom the kindly fire
Of lustfull yongth began to kindle fast,
Did much disdaine to subject his desire
To loathsome sloth, or houres in ease to wast,
But joy'd to range abroad in fresh attire,
Through the wide compas of the ayrie coast;
And, with unwearied wings, each part t' inquire
Of the wide rule of his renowmed sire.

For he so swift and nimble was of flight,
That from this lower tract he dared to stie

Up to the clowdes, and thence with pineons light
To mount aloft unto the Cristall skie,

To view the workmanship of heavens hight:
Whence, down descending, he along would flie |
Upon the streaming rivers, sport to finde;
And oft would dare to tempt the troublous winde.

So on a Summers day, when season milde
With gentle calme the world had quieted,
And high in heaven Hyperions fierie childe
Ascending did his beames abroad dispred,
Whiles all the heavens on lower creatures smilde,
Yong Clarion, with vauntfull lustie-head,

After his guize did cast abroad to fare:

And theretoo gan his furnitures prepare.

This description corresponds in every particular to the circumstances and character of Francis Bacon in his early youth. "Muscaroll" would stand for his father, Sir Nicolas Bacon, who was the Lord Keeper; hence "his fathers throne," "the wide rule of his renowmed sire." The son was the younger child of a second marriage, hence "his aged breast." The precocity, quickness of mind, and industry of Francis Bacon as a child are recorded, and further unsuspected evidence of this is, I believe, to be found in some writings to which I shall come in due course. The delicacy of his perceptions, his self-esteem, and insatiable ambition are matters of common knowledge, and they are all described in this passage; also the working of the young mind, which gave his face in those days the look of gravity and absorption which is to be seen in the bust made when

1 From musca, a fly, and perhaps some of the letters in "Nicolas."

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