when we consider that Spenser died at the age of forty-five. The inscription as it now stands on the monument in the Abbey, is as follows. HEARE LYES (EXPECTING THE SECOND COMMINGE OF OVR SAVIOVR CHRIST JESVS) THE BODY OF EDMOND SPENCER THE PRINCE OF POETS IN HIS TYME WHOSE DIVINE SPIRRIT NEEDS NOE OTHIR WITNESSE THEN THE WORKS WHICH HE LEFT BEHINDE HIM HE WAS BORNE IN LONDON IN THE YEARE 1553 AND DIED IN THE YEARE 1508. h It should be observed that Camden's treatise just mentioned, does not pretend to give the monumental inscription of the poet; but introduces a suitable eulogium on a man so celebrated, in order to guide the curious, as it has been ingeniously conjectured, to that part of the Abbey in which his remains were deposited; for at that time no monument was erected to him. The whole eulogium in prose is this. "Edmundus Spenser Londinensis, Anglicorum Poetarum nostri seculi facilè princeps, quod eius poemata fauentibus Musis & victuro genio conscripta comprobant. Obiit immatura morte anno salutis 1598, & prope Galfredum Chaucerum conditur ; qui fælicissimè poesin Anglicis literis primus illustravit." Then follow two copies of verses, which I shall have occasion presently to cite. The death of Spenser appears to have been deeply lamented by poets who lived near the time, and probably were acquainted with him; by none, with greater tenderness, than William Browne, the most accomplished disciple in the school of Spenser. Describing him snatched from his admiring audience, in the midst of his sweetest minstrelsy, by the hand of death, he adds: "A dampe of wonder and amazement strooke "A doleful Dirge, and mournefull Elegie, "Flew to the shore." Britannia's Pastorals, edit. 1616. B. ii. p. 27. And in another part of the same work, alluding to the pastoral strains of Spenser, he has thus recorded his affection : "Had Colin Clout yet liv'd, (but he is gone! "Whose sadder tones inforc'd the rocks to weepe, "His truest loves to his fair Rosaline, "Entic'd each shepheards eare to heare him play, &c. "And, as thy workes live here, live there for aye!" The circumstance of his being buried near the grave of Chaucer, which is said to have been observed at his own desire, gave rise also to several encomiastick epitaphs; the first of which, some writers have been hastily led to consider as 'the poet's monumental inscription. Again : "Hic prope Chaucerum, Spensere poeta, poetam " Anglica, te vivo, vixit plausitque Poësis; "Hic prope Chaucerum situs est Spenserius, illi In the note (T.) on Spenser's Life in the Biographia Britannica. See Weever's Mirror of Martyrs, published in 1601. See also a beautiful poem, re-printed in Ellis's Specimens of the early English poets, vol. 2d. p. 255, 1st. edit. See likewise P. Fletcher's Purple Island, published in 1633, B. i. st. 19, 20, 21. * See the Lives of Spenser prefixed to the folio edition of his Works in 1679, and to Church's edition of the Faer. Qu. in 1758. Winstanley, in his Lives of the English Poets; and Sir T. Pope Blount, in his Remarks on Poetry, &c.-This and the two following epitaphs were probably among the verses, which were thrown into the poet's grave.-The two last lines of this epitaph are, as Fenton has remarked, a servile imitation of Cardinal Bembo's epitaph on Sannazarius, and the immortal painter of Urbino.-In the Biographia Britannica, the two epitaphs from Camden's book are printed together as one, without distinction. This and the preceding epitaph are given by Camden in his "Reges, Reginæ, Nobiles, et alii in Eccl. Coll. B. Petri Westmon. sepulti, &c." Mr. Warton has remarked that, after the Faerie Queene, allegory began to decline; and, I may add, that romantick expeditions and adventures found no second Spenser to celebrate them. I am much mistaken, if the prevailing taste for enchantments and "hard assays” did Tot give rise to a publication, soon after the appearance of the second edition of Spenser's great Foem, intended to ridicule the tales of giants, magicians, and dragons; and to expose also the * affected language with which our old romances abound. We therefore precede Cervantes in the rough treatment of knight-errantry, if my conjecture be right for the Knight of the Sea, the publication which I mean, was printed in 1600; and the first edition of Don Quixote was not printed before 1605. In vain, however, shall we look into this English performance for any sparks of the wit and imagination which distinguish the inimitable Spanish burlesque. That the reader may judge of the tendency of this Knight of the Sea, I will select a few passages; as, a description of the sun rising, p. 31. "On the next morrow, so soone as the fyre-breathing palfreys of Apollo, with their horned hooves, had stricken the Hunts up, &c." Again, of an English female warriour, p. 152. "So valourously did the worthy English damozell distribute her iron almes among the thickest of that rabble multitude, as in a moment shee brought more then nineteene of them with crased crownes to their Beso las tierras !” Again, of a lady complaining in prison, p. 44. "Helpe, therefore, oh ye heavenly Governours, "Least, wanting the adjument heavenly, "And sacred auxill of celestiall powers, "Like Biblis, I be turned into showers, "Through the effluction of my watery eyes; "Which, hauing powred forth continually "Dire death shall o'er my soule soon tyrannize!" It has been asserted by criticks of great discernment, that Spenser's Faerie Queene will not to Spenser. See Boswell's Life of Johnson, vol. 2. p. 237. 3d. edit. And The Looker-on, vol. i. p. 304. But Bunyan, I think, may be traced to another source.-The following curious extract, describing Elysium in an uproar may serve to shew the opinion, which was entertained of those who belonged to the school of Spenser, in the middle of the seventeenth century. "The fire of emulation burnt fiercely in every angle of this paradise: The Brittish Bards (forsooth) were also ingaged in quarrel for superiority; and who, think you, threw the apple of discord amongst them, but Ben Johnson, who had openly vaunted himself the first and best of English Poets: this Brave was resented by all with the highest indignation; for Chaucer (by most there) was esteemed the Father of English Poesie, whose onely unhappines it was, that he was made for the time he lived in, but the time not for him: Chapman was wondrously exasperated at Ben's boldness, and scarce refrained to tell (his own Tale of a Tub) that his Isabel and Mortimer was now compleated by a knighted poet, whose soul remained in flesh; hereupon Spencer (who was very busie in finishing his Fairy Queen) thrust himself amid the throng, and was received with a showt by Chapman, Harrington, Owen, (Constable, Daniel, and Drayton, so that some thought the matter already decided; but behold Shakespear and Fletcher bringing with them a strong party) appeared, as if they meant to water their bayes with blood, rather then part with their proper right, which indeed Apollo and the Muses had (with much justice) conferred upon them, so that now there is like to be a trouble in Triplex; Skelton, Gower, and the Monk of Bury, were at daggers-drawing for Chawcer; Spencer waited upon by a numerous troop of the best bookmen in the world; Shakespear and Fletcher surrounded with their Life-Guard, viz. Goffe, Massinger, Decker, Webster, Sucklin, Cartwright, Carew, &c. O ye Pernassides! what a curse have ye cast upon your Helliconian water-bailiffs! that those, whose names (both Sir and Christian) are filed on Fame's trumpet, and whom Envy cannot wound, shall now perish by intestine discord and homebred dissention!" Don Zara del Fogo, or, Wit and Fancy in a Maze, &c. A Mock Romance, 12mo. Lond. 1656, pp. 101, 102. The affected language, in the time of Elizabeth, is treated with much humour, and at considerable length, in a very curious and scarce pamphlet (in Sion Coll. Lib. Z. 6. 32.) entitled "Questions of profitable and pleasant concernings, talked of by two olde Seniors, the one an ancient retired Gentleman, the other a midling or new upstart Frankeling, under an oake in Kenelworth Parke, where they were met by an accident to defend the partching heate of a hoate day, in grasse or buck-hunting time, called by the reporter The Display of vaine life; together with a panacea or suppling plaister to cure, if it were possible, the principall diseases wherewith this present time is especially vexed. Lond. 1594.” 4to. It is dedicated to Spenser's friend, Robert Earl of Essex. y The reader may see, by the following extract from "A Letter, whearin part of the entertainment vntoo the Queens Maiesty at Killingwoorth Castl, &c. in 1575 is signified," 12mo. bl. 1., what were the romances then read, or at least held in estimation. The writer is speaking of Captain Cox, p. 34. "Great ouersight hath he in matters of storie: For as for king Arthurs book, Huō of Burdeaux, The foour Sons of Aymon, Beuys of Hampton, The squyre of lo degree, The knight of courtesy, and The Lady Faguell, Frederick of Gene, Syr Eglamour, Syr Tryamoour, Syr Lamwell, Syr Isembras, Syr Gawyn, Olyuer of the Castl, Lucres and Eurialus, Virgils Life, The Castl of Ladies, The wido Edyth, The King and the Tanner, Frier Rous, Howleglas, Gargantua, &c." z The title of this mock-romance, (for such I consider it,) is extremely verbose; and not worth the repetition here. Dr. Farmer had a copy of it, which in his Catalogue was said to be unique; and which I believe was purchased for the King, or the late Duke of Roxburgh. The Marquis of Stafford, however, has another copy. - See Hume's Hist. of England, Dr. Drake's Literary Hours, and Dr. Aikin's Life of Spenser. The French criticks e Again : ❝n Spenserus cubat hic, Chaucero ætate priori Nor was the character of Spenser treated without particular respect, while he lived. He was seldom mentioned without the epithet of "great" or "learned." And indeed what poet of that period could pretend to his learning? In the list of all our most eminent poets indeed, an admirable critick has assigned, in respect to their erudition, the first place to Milton, the P second to Spenser. And therefore considering the exquisite taste, as well as the extensive learning of Spenser, the loss of his critical discourse entitled The English Poet, is, as the same author has remarked, much to be regretted. Perhaps he would have there illustrated, by examples drawn from the writings of his countrymen who were distinguished in either school, the manner both of the Provençal and Italian poetry. But if his art of criticism has been lost, his own example as a poet has contributed to the production, in succeeding times, of the sublimest as well as the sweetest strains to which the lyre of English poesy has been tuned. To Dryden Milton acknowledged that Spenser was his original. In Cowley, in Dryden, in the facetious Butler, in Prior, in Pope, in Thomson, in Shenstone, in Gray, and in Akenside obligations of importance to the "oaten reed" and the “trumpet stern" of Spenser may without difficulty be traced. It is indeed a just observation, that more poets have sprung from Spenser than all our other English writers. This occurs in the Book of Cenotaphia, subjoined to Fitzgeffray's Affaniæ, sive Epigrammata, published in 1601. See the Shepheards Content at the end of the Affectionate Shepheard, &c. 1594. 4to. Speaking of love: And in the Lamentation of Troy &c. 1594, he is invoked as "the only Homer living," and intreated to write the story "with his fame-quickninge quill." And Sir John Davies in his Orchestra, 1596, exclaims; In Camden's Remains published "O that I could old Gefferies Muse awake, "Or borrow Colins fayre heroike stile, "Or smooth my rimes with Delias servants file." by Philipot, we are likewise presented with the following proof of the high estimation, William Smith has dedicated his Chloris, or, The Complaint of the passionate despised Shepheard, in 1596, to Spenser, under the title of the most excellent and learned Shepheard, Collin Cloute ;" and, in a concluding Sonnet, considers his friendly patronage as a shield against "raging Envie." Let me not omit the spirited address of bishop Hall, in his first Book of Satires, published in 1597. "But let no rebel satyr dare traduce "Th'eternal legends of thy faerie muse, P Dr. Joseph Warton, Life of Pope, p. xxiv. 4 Dr. Joseph Warton's edit. of Pope, vol. i. p. 175. r See before, p. xi.-" What authority Mr. Wood has for Io: Puttenham's being the author of the Art of English Poesy, I do not know. Mr. Wanley, in his Catalogue of the Harley Library, says he had been told, that Edm : Spencer was the author of that book, which came out anonymous. But Sir John Harington, in his preface to Orlando Furioso P. 2. gives so hard a censure of that book, that Spenser could not possibly be the author." Letter from Tho. Baker to the Hon James West, printed in the Europ. Magazine, April, 1788. 8 Cowley tells us, he was made a poet by the delight he took in the Faerie Queene. "Essay xi. Of myself.” t Bishop Hurd has in his Library, at Hartlebury, a copy of the folio edition of the Faerie Queene, which had been Dryden's and Pope's but there is not a note by either. Manuscript note by Dr. Farmer, prefixed to the sixth vol. of Hughes's Spenser now in the possession of Isaac Reed, Esqr. u See Dr. Sewell's remark cited by Mr. Chalmers, Suppl. Apolog. p. 38. I might add the zealous testimony also of several poetical writers in regard to the fame of Spenser. See Henry More's Preface to his Philosophical Poems. See also his Antidote &c. at the end of his Dissertation on the Seven Churches, in the preface to which Sign O. 3. there is much allusion to Spenser. See likewise the Preface to Dr. Woodford's Paraphrase on the Canticles &c. in the preface to which the highest commendations are bestowed on Spenser, and much sorrow expressed that his version of the Canticles is lost.-Some imagine that Bunyan, in his Pilgrim's Progress, has been indebted Mr. Warton has remarked that, after the Faerie Queene, allegory began to decline; and, I may add, that romantick expeditions and adventures found no second Spenser to celebrate them. I am much mistaken, if the prevailing taste for enchantments and "hard assays" did not give rise to a publication, soon after the appearance of the second edition of Spenser's great Poem, intended to ridicule the tales of giants, magicians, and dragons; and to expose also the * affected language with which our old romances abound. We therefore precede Cervantes in the rough treatment of knight-errantry, if my conjecture be right: for the Knight of the Sea, the publication which I mean, was printed in 1600; and the first edition of Don Quixote was not printed before 1605. In vain, however, shall we look into this English performance for any sparks of the wit and imagination which distinguish the inimitable Spanish burlesque. That the reader may judge of the tendency of this Knight of the Sea, I will select a few passages; as, a description of the sun rising, p. 31. "On the next morrow, so soone as the fyre-breathing palfreys of Apollo, with their horned hooves, had stricken the Hunts up, &c.” Again, of an English female warriour, p. 152. "So valourously did the worthy English damozell distribute her iron almes among the thickest of that rabble multitude, as in a moment shee brought more then nineteene of them with crased crownes to their Beso las tierras!" Again, of a lady complaining in prison, p. 44. "Helpe, therefore, oh ye heavenly Governours, "Least, wanting the adjument heavenly, "And sacred auxill of celestiall powers, "Like Biblis, I be turned into showers, "Through the effluction of my watery eyes; "Which, hauing powred forth continually "Dire death shall o'er my soule soon tyrannize!" It has been asserted by criticks of great discernment, that Spenser's Faerie Queene will not to Spenser. See Boswell's Life of Johnson, vol. 2. p. 237. 3d. edit. And The Looker-on, vol. i. p. 304. But Bunyan, I think, may be traced to another source.-The following curious extract, describing Elysium in an uproar may serve to shew the opinion, which was entertained of those who belonged to the school of Spenser, in the middle of the seventeenth century. "The fire of emulation burnt fiercely in every angle of this paradise: The Brittish Bards (forsooth) were also ingaged in quarrel for superiority; and who, think you, threw the apple of discord amongst them, but Ben Johnson, who had openly vaunted himself the first and best of English Poets: this Brave was resented by all with the highest indignation; for Chaucer (by most there) was esteemed the Father of English Poesie, whose onely unhappines it was, that he was made for the time he lived in, but the time not for him: Chapman was wondrously exasperated at Ben's boldness, and scarce refrained to tell (his own Tale of a Tub) that his Isabel and Mortimer was now compleated by a knighted poet, whose soul remained in flesh; hereupon Spencer (who was very busie in finishing his Fairy Queen) thrust himself amid the throng, and was received with a showt by Chapman, Harrington, Owen, (Constable, Daniel, and Drayton, so that some thought the matter already decided; but behold Shakespear and Fletcher bringing with them a strong party) appeared, as if they meant to water their bayes with blood, rather then part with their proper right, which indeed Apollo and the Muses had (with much justice) conferred upon them, so that now there is like to be a trouble in Triplex; Skelton, Gower, and the Monk of Bury, were at daggers-drawing for Chaucer; Spencer waited upon by a numerous troop of the best bookmen in the world; Shakespear and Fletcher surrounded with their Life-Guard, viz. Goffe, Massinger, Decker, Webster, Sucklin, Cartwright, Carew,&c. O ye Pernassides! what a curse have ye cast upon your Helliconian water-bailiffs! that those, whose names (both Sir and Christian) are filed on Fame's trumpet, and whom Envy cannot wound, shall now perish by intestine discord and homebred dissention!" Don Zara del Fogo, or, Wit and Fancy in a Maze, &c. A Mock Romance, 12mo. Lond. 1656, pp. 101, 102. * The affected language, in the time of Elizabeth, is treated with much humour, and at considerable length, in a very curious and scarce pamphlet (in Sion Coll. Lib. Z. 6. 32.) entitled "Questions of profitable and pleasant concernings, talked of by two olde Seniors, the one an ancient retired Gentleman, the other a midling or new upstart Frankeling, under an oake in Kenelworth Parke, where they were met by an accident to defend the partching heate of a hoate day, in grasse or buck-hunting time, called by the reporter The Display of vaine life; together with a panacea or suppling plaister to cure, if it were possible, the principall diseases wherewith this present time is especially vexed. Lond. 1594.” 4to. It is dedicated to Spenser's friend, Robert Earl of Essex. y The reader may see, by the following extract from "A Letter, whearin part of the entertainment vntoo the Queens Maiesty at Killingwoorth Castl, &c. in 1575 is signified," 12mo. bl. 1., what were the romances then read, or at least held in estimation. The writer is speaking of Captain Cox, p. 34. "Great ouersight hath he in matters of storie: For as for king Arthurs book, Huð of Burdeaux, The foour Sons of Aymon, Beuys of Hampton, The squyre of lo degree, The knight of courtesy, and The Lady Faguell, Frederick of Gene, Syr Eglamour, Syr Tryamoour, Syr Lamwell, Syr Isembras, Syr Gawyn, Olyuer of the Castl, Lucres and Eurialus, Virgils Life, The Castl of Ladies, The wido Edyth, The King and the Tanner, Frier Rous, Howleglas, Gargantua, &c." z The title of this mock-romance, (for such I consider it,) is extremely verbose; and not worth the repetition here. Dr. Farmer had a copy of it, which in his Catalogue was said to be unique; and which I believe was purchased for the King, or the late Duke of Roxburgh. The Marquis of Stafford, however, has another copy. * See Hume's Hist. of England, Dr. Drake's Literary Hours, and Dr. Aikin's Life of Spenser. The French criticks e |