FOOTNOTES:

INTRODUCTION.

In these volumes I seek to present a true text of theFaerie Queene, founded upon a fresh collation of the Quartos of 1590 and 1596 and the Folio of 1609. I shall call these editions by their dates for short.

The fragmentary Seventh Book appeared first in 1609: for the rest the text is based on 1596. Some typographical peculiarities—long s, &, ô, and superscribed m and n (e.g. frõ, whẽ)—have not been reproduced, but noted only where they first occur. With these exceptions, the readings of 1596 if not adopted in the text are recorded in the notes; so that text and notes together amount, in effect, to a complete reprint of 1596. No such completeness has been attempted in recording variants from 1590 and 1609. But all verbal differences are recorded, and all differences of punctuation that imply a different view of the meaning. Mere changes of spelling that answer to no change of pronunciation are, as a rule, ignored; but I have recorded such differences of spelling as seemed likely to interest students of Elizabethan phonology, grammar, and usage. The evidence of these variants must be used with caution in view of Spenser’s deliberate archaism. Yet I believe that they have some value. I give one instance in each kind:—

1. A fluide-sound is indicated by the variants ‘seeldome’ 1590, ‘seldome’ 1596, ‘sildom’ 1609, at I. iv. 23, l. 5.

2. Syllabic-esin possessives and plurals, which still lingered in the early fifteen-nineties, has grown quite strange to the editor of 1609. To this point I shall return.

3. The conjunctions ‘since’ and ‘sith’ are used indifferently in 1590 and 1596, choice of one or other form being determined by euphony alone. But 1609 makes a deliberate, though not quite consistent, attempt to appropriate ‘since’ to the temporal, ‘sith’ to the causal sense. The attempt unfortunately did not avail to save the more primitive form.

I have departed from the punctuation of 1596 only where it seemed likely to puzzle or mislead a modern reader. These departures, which are all recorded, are not very numerous. Spenser’s punctuation, though by no means sacrosanct, is less arbitrary than might at first appear; but, as Mr. Gregory Smith says of the punctuation of Addison, it has a rhetorical rather than a logical value. We feel its force best when we read the poem aloud. Two peculiarities are so common that the reader may be warned of them here. One is the absence of punctuation with vocatives: the other is the single comma after qualifying phrases. With this warning I leave these peculiarities, as a rule, unchanged.

In the treatment of capitals and in the distribution of roman and italic type I have followed the same principle of adhering, wherever possible, to the original text.

I have regularized the spelling of proper names wherever the variation seemed to be due to the printer rather than the poet. And this is generally the case with double letters. But for many variations in proper names Spenser was himself responsible. He varied them sometimes for the sake of the metre, asSerena,Serene; or of the rhyme, asFlorimell,Florimele. In two instances he seems actually to have wavered or changed his mind.Braggadocchio’sname is generally spelt thus in Book II; in Books III and IV it varies; in V. iii it is regularlyBraggadochio. So we generally findArthegallin Book III, butArtegallregularly in Book V; 1609, however, returns toArthegall.

II.

Aiming not at a reprint but a true text, I have not hesitated to depart from 1596 wherever I believed it to be in error and the error the printer’s. But it is no part of an editor’s duty to correct, though he may indicate, mistakes made by the author himself. There are many such in theFaerie Queene.

(1) There are mistakes of fact, of literary allusion, of quantity in classical names, hardly to be avoided by a poet writing far from libraries.

(2) There are confusions of personages, or of names of personages, within the poem itself. SirGuyonis confused with theRedcrosse Knightin III. ii. 4, and with PrinceArthurin II. viii. 48 (but not in 1609);ÆmyliawithPœanain IV. ix. Arg.;CalepinewithCalidorein VI. vi. 17; while overSerenaSpenser’s confusion becomes comical—he calls herCrispinain VI. iii. 23,[1]andMatildain VI. v. Arg.

(3) Some lines are hypermetrical; some are short by a foot; and there are two or three broken lines. One of these last (III. iv. 39, l. 7) is certainly intentional, and all may be so; the supposed example of Virgil may have influenced Spenser in this.

(4) Imperfect rhymes and concords are numerous, especially in Books IV, V, and VI.

(5) There is one form of imperfect rhyme so singular as to deserve a fuller discussion. Its nature will be best seen in an example:—

‘Like two faire marble pillours they were seene,Which doe the temple of the Gods support, (2)Whom all the people decke with girlands greene,And honour in their festiuall resort; (4)Those same with stately grace, and princely port (5)She taught to tread, when she her selfe would grace,But with the wooddie Nymphes when she did play, (7)Or when the flying Libbard she did chace,She could them nimbly moue, and after fly apace.’

‘Like two faire marble pillours they were seene,

Which doe the temple of the Gods support, (2)

Whom all the people decke with girlands greene,

And honour in their festiuall resort; (4)

Those same with stately grace, and princely port (5)

She taught to tread, when she her selfe would grace,

But with the wooddie Nymphes when she did play, (7)

Or when the flying Libbard she did chace,

She could them nimbly moue, and after fly apace.’

(II. iii. 28.)

Here ‘play’ in l. 7 is rhymed to ‘support’, ‘resort’, ‘port’: ‘sport’ is the obvious correction. There are, in all, nine instances of this singularity in theFaerie Queene. I subjoin them all, citing the rhyme-words only: the number following each word shows the line that it ends:—

In every case the correction is obvious: ‘chace’ should be ‘pray’ (i.e. prey); ‘make’, ‘hold’; ‘play’, ‘sport’; ‘vpreare’, ‘vpheaue’; ‘spyde’, ‘saw’; ‘enclose’, ‘containe’; ‘times’, ‘age’; ‘place’, ‘stead’ (as in 1609); ‘meed’, ‘hyre’. The phenomenon may now be described in general terms: in these nine places Spenser substitutes for a rhyming word a metrically equivalent synonym which does not rhyme. Our analysis shows further that, the rhyme-scheme of the Spenserian stanza beingababbcbcc, this substitution occurs only in the first or last of theb-group, or in the first of thec-group. It seems as if, borne along on the swell of hismetre and the easy flow of his imagination, two words identical in sense and metre but different in sound rose to the poet’s mind almost simultaneously; and the one which he meant to reject slipped nevertheless from his pen, having been (we infer) the first to occur. This explains why this phenomenon always occurs either in the first word of a rhyme-group, where the rhyme is still undetermined; or, if in the last, then only in the last of theb-group, where the ear has already been satisfied with as many as three rhymes; and why it never occurs in thea-group, where two rhymeless endings would at once have alarmed the ear. I have dwelt on this phenomenon at some length because it is, so far as I know, peculiar to Spenser.[2]

(6) I must glance at another, though a rare, source of error. Our sage and serious Spenser was a thoughtful, even a philosophic writer; but his thought is large, simple, contemplative, not acute and analytic. When he has to deal with a subtle or complex situation he sometimes involves himself inextricably. If any lover of Spenser resent this judgement, let him apply his devotion to explain or emend II. v. 12, ll. 8 and 9; V. vi. 5, ll. 6 and 7; V. vi. 26, ll. 5 and 6: to me these passages appear incorrigible.

III.

The first mention of theFaerie Queeneoccurs in a letter of Spenser’s to Gabriel Harvey, datedQuarto Nonas Aprilis1580. ‘I wil in hande forthwith,’ he writes, ‘with myFaery Queene, whyche I praye you hartily send me with al expedition: and your frendly Letters, and long expectedJudgement wythal.’ ‘I haue nowe sent hir home at the laste,’ writes Harvey in reply. These phrases show that the parcel of theFaerie Queenehad been in Harvey’s hands for some considerable time. The poem must therefore have been begun not later than 1579. Now in 1579 Spenser was an inmate of Leicester House, and the constant associate of Sir Philip Sidney. There is therefore no reason to doubt the assertion of W. L. in his commendatory verses that by Sidney the poem was originally inspired.

Harvey’s long-expected judgement, when it came, was far from favourable. But the poet was not discouraged, and doubtless took the manuscript with him when he went to Ireland with Lord Grey in August, 1580. Though he afterwards spoke of the poem as ‘wilde fruit which salvage soyl hath bred’, there is some reason to think that he had actually written as much as a book and a half before he left England. For though allusions to Ireland are not rare in theFaerie Queene, the first of them occurs in II. ix. 16.[3]Moreover, the industry of commentators has discovered in Book I only one imitation of Tasso’sGierusalemme Liberata,and that doubtful[4](I. vii. 31); undoubted imitations begin to appear in II. v, vi, vii, viii, and II. xii blazes with spoils from the Garden of Armida. Now theGierusalemme Liberatawas published in 1581; an imperfect edition had been issued surreptitiously in 1580.

Our next glimpse of theFaerie Queenewe owe to Lodovick Bryskett, whoseDiscourse of Civill Life, though not published till 1606, purports to record a conversation held in his cottage near Dublin as early, it would seem, as the spring of 1583. Spenser is one of the interlocutors. He is made to say that he has already undertaken a work ‘which is inheroical verseunder the title of aFaerie Queene’; which work he has ‘already well entered into’. The company express an ‘extreme longing’ after thisFaerie Queene, ‘whereof some parcels had been by some of them seene’.

Parcels of theFaerie Queenehad been seen, it appears, not only by Spenser’s friends in Dublin, but by his literary contemporaries in London. I. v. 2 is imitated in Peele’sDavid and Bethsabe(date unknown, but probably before 1590). I. vii. 32 and I. viii. 11 are imitated in Act IV, Sc. 4 and Act IV, Sc. 3 respectively of the second part of Marlowe’sTamburlaine(published 1590, but acted some years earlier). Finally, Abraham Fraunce in hisArcadian Rhetorike(1588) quotes Spenser ‘in hisFairie Queene, 2 booke, cant. 4’. Fraunce’s quotation is the more interesting inasmuch as it shows that by 1588[5]theF. Q.had not only been composed, but disposed into its present arrangement ofbooks and cantos so far at least as II. iv. It is worth remarking that all these imitations of and quotations fromF. Q.before it was published are from that part of the poem which we have seen some reason to think was written before Spenser left England. Allusions in the poem shed no certain light on the progress of its composition.

There is no reason to suppose that Spenser composed the whole of theF. Q.in the order in which he gave it to the world. It is more likely that he worked up many incidents and episodes as they occurred to him, and afterwards placed them in the poem. We know that theWedding of Thames and Medway, which now forms IV. xi, is a redaction of anEpithalamium Thamesiswhich he originally undertook as an experiment in quantitative metre before April, 1580. And it seems probable that theLegendesandCourt of Cupidmentioned by E. K. in his preface to theShepheards Calender, as well as thePageaunts[6]mentioned in the Glosse onJune, were similarly worked over and incorporated in theF. Q.

Combining these pieces of evidence, we receive the impression that for some time after he came to Ireland Spenser worked but intermittently on theF. Q., resuming the regular composition and arrangement of the poem about the time when he ceased to reside in Dublin.[7]By 1588—the date of Fraunce’s quotation—he may have already been settled at Kilcolman. There, at least, Raleigh found him in 1589, and was shown the poem; with the result that in the autumn of that year Spenser accompanied Raleigh to London, and set about the publication of Books I-III.

The volume was licensed to William Ponsonbye on Dec. 1, 1589. Spenser’s explanatory letter to Raleigh bears date Jan. 23, 1589 (i. e. 1590 N. S.). In the course of 1590, but not before March 25, the volume was published. The printing shows some signs of haste; there is a long list of errata or ‘Faults Escaped in the Print’. This list, though not itself faultless, is of paramount authority in determining the text of Books I-III; it is cited in the notes asF. E.

In 1591 Spenser returned to Ireland, a disappointed man. I fear that Burleigh had taken occasion of the Milesian tone of certain episodes in Book III to stir the ashes of an old resentment: the second part ofF. Q.begins and ends with complaints of misconstruction by that ‘mighty Pere’. But once back at Kilcolman he resumed his task. At first the stream of poetry flows languidly. The fable rambles, dispersing its force in many channels, like a river choked with sand; the verse flags; the play of alliteration is fitful; and Spenser essays a new, but to my ear an unhappy, variation in the form of a feminine ending.[8]But presently he gathers strength again under some new influence, which one would fain associate with his courtship of Elizabeth Boyle. The treatment ofBritomartin Book V has strong, dramatic touches beyond anything in the earlier books; and in the lovely pastoral episodes of Book VI the poet lives once more in Arcadia. But positive indications of date are very rare. Book V Canto xi must be later than July 25, 1593, when Henri IV heard that mass which was the price of Paris: the singular dislocation of the Argument to Canto xii—half of which refers to the incidents of Canto xi—suggests that thisBurbonepisode was an afterthought; that it was inserted after Book V had been disposed into Cantos; and that Spenser meant it to form part of Canto xii. On the ordinary interpretationof theAmoretti,[9]all these books were finished before, but not long before, his wedding on June 11, 1594 (v. Sonnet80); and on any interpretation they must have been finished by 1595, when Sir Robert Needham brought the manuscript of theAmorettito London. Yet Spenser may have added and retouched up to the date of publication. For, in spite ofSonnet80, I have fancied that when he wrote certain descriptions in Books V and VI Spenser was not only a husband but a father. See especially V. v. 53 (simile of the nurse and infant); V. vi. 14 (the child crying in the night); VI. iv. 18, 23, 24 (Calepine’streatment of the foundling, which should be compared withGuyon’sbehaviour in a similar situation, II. ii. 1); also VI. iv. 37, particularly line 8. Now Spenser’s eldest child was born in 1595. This may be fanciful. What is certain is that towards the close of 1595 Spenser followed Needham to London with the manuscript of the second part ofF. Q.It was licensed to Ponsonbye on Jan. 20, 1596, and published by autumn of that year. James VI took offence at the treatment ofDuessa, and had to be appeased by the English Ambassador, whose letter detailing the incident is dated Nov. 12, 1596. The new edition was in two volumes, the first being a reprint, with alterations, of 1590.

Late in 1596, or early in 1597, Spenser returned to Ireland. In 1598 Tyrone’s rebellion broke out. In October the rebels attacked and burned Kilcolman Castle. Spenser fled to Cork, whence in December he made his way to London; and there, on Jan. 16, 1599, he died. Ten years after his death a folio edition ofF. Q.was published by Mathew Lownes, which added to the six books already published two Cantos ofMutabilitie, ‘which, both for Formeand Matter, appeare to be parcell of some following Booke of theFaerie Queene, vnder the Legend ofConstancie.’ These two cantos, with two stanzas of a third, are all that remain of the third part ofF. Q.Whether Spenser wrote more is unknown. But the fact that the two cantos are numbered vi and vii makes it fairly certain that he had at least sketched the whole Seventh Book. I cannot accept the view that these two cantos are an independent poem, in the sense that they were not designed to form part ofF. Q.The lines (VII. vi. 37)—

‘And, were it not ill fitting for this file,To sing of hilles and woods, mongst warres and Knights’—

‘And, were it not ill fitting for this file,

To sing of hilles and woods, mongst warres and Knights’—

show clearly that they were so designed. That they may have been written independently, in the sense in which theWedding of Thames and Medwaywas written independently, I am not concerned to deny. The view that these cantos are spurious is unworthy of serious discussion. If they are spurious, there must have been living in 1609 an unknown poet who could write the Spenserian style and stanza as well as Spenser at his best. For there is nothing of its kind inF. Q.superior to the pageant[10]of the months and seasons; and no one who really knows Spenser can doubt that the two stanzas which alone remain of the ‘vnperfite’ eighth canto came from his heart.

IV.

The chief critical problem that confronts an editor ofF. Q.concerns the text of Books I-III. Should the text of these books be based on 1590 or on 1596? I have chosen the latter. And I have done so, in the main, for a quite generalreason. 1596 was produced under Spenser’s eye and by his authority. That authority must be held to cover both volumes, not the second only. Behind this we cannot go. The case is quite different with the later quartos of theShepheards Calender, which were produced in Spenser’s absence.

This general position is confirmed by a minute comparison of 1590 and 1596. To take the more massive changes first: in 1 596 Spenser completely remodelled the conclusion of Book III. Instead of bringingScudamourandAmorettogether, as in 1590, he left them still parted, hoping thus to prolong the interest of their story into Book IV, and so to form a link between the two volumes, which he desired to be read as one continuous poem. For this he sacrificed five glorious stanzas, one of them the most rapturous that he ever wrote. The three stanzas which he substituted are far inferior, as he must have known; but they served his purpose. He also added a new stanza at I. xi. 3. He rewrote single lines, in the interests of sound or sense; he altered single words or phrases; and he made—what is even more significant—several minute changes of order designed to improve the rhythm. Let me add that most of these changes are more happily inspired than the second-thoughts of poets have sometimes been.

I hasten to make two admissions. The first volume of 1596 was not reset afresh from Spenser’s manuscript. It was printed from a copy of 1590. In the nature of the case, while it escapes some of the blunders of its original, it reproduces others, and perpetrates some new. Nor did Spenser do more than glance at the proof. The 1596 volumes, as we have seen, were printed rapidly; the poet was busy,[11]and such time as he had for proof-reading wasgiven to the new books. I infer that the alterations which he made in 1590 were made not on the proof, but on the copy. In no other way can we account for that combination of author’s corrections with printer’s errors which marks the first volume of 1596. And this conclusion is strengthened by another consideration. It is one of the worst faults of 1596 that it so often ignoresF. E.But the significance of the fault has been overlooked. Making corrections on the copy, Spenser did not trouble himself about errors that he had already noted inF. E.; had he made his corrections on the proof, they could not have escaped him.

I believe this to be a true account of the relations of these two texts. But when all is said there remain many places where we cannot pronounce on mere inspection whether an alteration is the author’s or the printer’s, but must be guided by a calculation of probabilities, inclining (e. g.) to the author where there is clear evidence of his hand in the neighbourhood of the vexed passage, to the printer where theductus litterarumin both readings is suspiciously alike. The most important of these places are discussed in the Critical Appendix to Vol. III.

Has 1609 any independent authority? In the main a reprint of 1596, it is certainly a respectable piece of work, in punctuation especially far more logical and consistent than either of the quartos: the editor seldom fails to show exactly how he understands his text. Our respect for 1609 would be enhanced if we could believe that the editor was Gabriel Harvey, as Todd at one time fancied. But that notion is untenable, and Todd himself abandoned it. We may go further: the editor of 1609 did not belong to the generation of Harvey and Spenser. For this conclusion I will adduce only one piece of evidence, but it is decisive. In the last decade of the sixteenth century syllabic-esin possessives and plurals still lingered even in verse not deliberatelyarchaic. But it was strange to the editor of 1609. Sometimes he remarks it, and signalizes his discovery by printing it-ez, as ‘woundez’, ‘beastez’, ‘clothez’. Sometimes he fails to remark it, and fills up the syllable by conjecture: thus ‘Nighteschildren’ becomes ‘Nightsdrad children’ (I. v. 23); ‘th’Earthes gloomy shade’ becomes ‘the Earthes gloomy shade’ (III. x. 46). He seems, moreover, to have made little or no use of 1590. When, as sometimes happens, a word has been dropped in 1596, he emends by conjecture: thus at I. ii. 29:—

‘For the coole shade him thither hastly got’ 1590;

‘For the coole shade thither hastly got’ 1596;

‘For the coole shadow thither hast’ly got’ 1609.

Cf. also III. ix. 13, l. 9, III. xi. 26, l. 7, &c. The few instances in which 1590 and 1609 agree as against 1596 may fairly be set down to coincidence.

Yet I am disposed to assign some independent authority to 1609.[12]The grounds for this view are slight, and may be stated in full:—

(1) At I. x. 20, l. 5, 1609 adds the missing line, ‘Dry-shod to passe, she parts the flouds in tway.’(2) At II. viii. 48, l. 8, it corrects ‘SirGuyon’ to ‘PrinceArthur’.(3) At III. iii. 50, l. 9, it completes the imperfect Alexandrine by adding ‘as earst’.(4) At III. vi. 45, l. 4, it adds a broken line, ‘And dearest loue,’ to an eight-line stanza.(5) At IV. xii. 13, ll. 1, 2, 1596 reads:—‘Thus whilst his stony heart with tender ruthWas toucht, and mighty courage mollifide’;

(1) At I. x. 20, l. 5, 1609 adds the missing line, ‘Dry-shod to passe, she parts the flouds in tway.’

(2) At II. viii. 48, l. 8, it corrects ‘SirGuyon’ to ‘PrinceArthur’.

(3) At III. iii. 50, l. 9, it completes the imperfect Alexandrine by adding ‘as earst’.

(4) At III. vi. 45, l. 4, it adds a broken line, ‘And dearest loue,’ to an eight-line stanza.

(5) At IV. xii. 13, ll. 1, 2, 1596 reads:—

‘Thus whilst his stony heart with tender ruthWas toucht, and mighty courage mollifide’;

‘Thus whilst his stony heart with tender ruth

Was toucht, and mighty courage mollifide’;

1609 reads:—‘Thus whilst his stony heart was toucht with tender ruth,And mighty courage something mollifide.’(6) At V. Proem 11, l. 2, it reads ‘stead’ for the non-rhyming ‘place’.

1609 reads:—

‘Thus whilst his stony heart was toucht with tender ruth,And mighty courage something mollifide.’

‘Thus whilst his stony heart was toucht with tender ruth,

And mighty courage something mollifide.’

(6) At V. Proem 11, l. 2, it reads ‘stead’ for the non-rhyming ‘place’.

Of these changes, (2) and (3) are not beyond the capacity of an ordinary editor; yet it is worth noting that 1609 does not correct other confusions of names almost as obvious as (2). Even the missing line (1), Spenserian as it sounds, might conceivably be editorial. But to add abrokenline, like (4), seems to me a touch beyond an editor. And (5) is most easily explained by supposing that Spenser altered the text, meaning to omit ‘tender’, but left that word standing. (6) is an instance of a phenomenon that has already been discussed. The significant point is that this is the only instance of that phenomenon which is corrected in 1609. An editor who corrected one of these mistakes might be expected to correct others; but the author who perpetrated these non-rhymes would more easily overlook them.

The addition of theMutabilitiecantos in 1609 must be allowed to create a prejudice in favour of the view for which I argue. The editor who recovered so much of Spenser’s manuscript may have recovered more: parcels ofF. Q., as we have seen, were handed about in London in Spenser’s absence. Or—and the form of the variants at IV. xii. 13 makes this the more probable hypothesis—the editor of 1609 may have had a copy of 1596 with some corrections by the author. Finally, it is not impossible that these corrections were actually embodied in exemplars of 1596 which no longer survive. Elizabethan writers were in the habit of correcting sheets as they passed through the press: inF. Q.itself I have noted more than a score of places in which the readings of the copies used for thisedition differ from those of other copies in the Bodleian or the British Museum, or of copies used by previous editors; and the notes of Church, Upton, and Todd show that they had seen copies which differ in minute points from any now available. As the sheets were probably bound indiscriminately, it is possible that no two exemplars exactly correspond. The charges of careless collation freely bandied among Spenser’s editors are sometimes due to this cause.

It remains for me to acknowledge with gratitude the unwearied help that I have received in preparing this edition, first, from my wife, who read 1609 with me twice; next, from my friend Dr. Soutar, of University College, Dundee, who revised the difficult proofs of Books I-III; last, from an unknown coadjutor, Mr. Ostler of the Clarendon Press, to whose skill and vigilance above all I owe whatever measure of accuracy has been secured. An edition like this has little claim to any higher virtue; yet perfect accuracy, even, is too much to hope for in the reproduction, by ordinary typography, of the original spelling and punctuation of a poem which runs to more than 35,000 lines. In the Critical Appendix I have called attention to one or two places in which I have noted what now seem to me to be errors, or on which I have changed my mind since the sheets were printed.

I have also to thank Sir James Murray, Dr. Bradley, and Dr. Craigie for information on points of lexicography; and Mr. Charles Cannan for the protracted loan of his copy of the first folio.

J. C. Smith.

St. Andrews,September, 1909.

FOOTNOTES:[1]But this was corrected as the sheet passed through the press. See notead loc.in the Critical Appendix.[2]The peculiarity consists not in the occasional occurrence of a rhymeless line—a thing that can easily be paralleled from Shelley or any poet of equal fluency—but in the fact that the right word is in every case so obvious that we cannot but believe it to have been in Spenser’s mind.[3]This argument loses some of its weight from the likelihood that Spenser had been in Ireland before 1580. In hisView of the Present State of Ireland, Irenæus, who is Spenser’s mouthpiece, speaks of himself as an eyewitness of the execution of Murrogh O’Brien, which took place at Limerick in July, 1577. The statement, of course, is not conclusive, as it would be if made in Spenser’s own person. Yet Spenser’s account of this hideous incident has the stamp of personal observation, and, taken with the evidence of Phillips’sTheatrum Poetarum Anglicorum, points to the conclusion that in 1577 Spenser had been sent to Ireland by Leicester with letters to Sir Henry Sidney. His visit, however, must have been brief, and may well have left no trace in his poetry.Upton believed that theRuddymaneepisode in II. ii referred to the O’Neills, whose badge was a bloody hand (v.theView of the Present State of Ireland). If there be anything in this, it makes against the view that a book and a half had been written by August, 1580; for Spenser is not likely to have known the O’Neill ‘badge’ till he settled in Ireland.[4]The passage in Tasso (G. L.ix. 25) is itself an imitation of Virgil,Aen.vii. 785. Yet the ‘greedie pawes’ and ‘golden wings’ of Spenser’s picture seem due to Tasso’s ‘Sù le zampe s’inalza, e l’ali spande.’Both these arguments, then, are indecisive; and in the absence of decisive proof I find it hard to believe that Harvey, who though a pedant was no fool, can have seen anything like the whole of Book I without recognizing its superlative merits.[5]Fraunce’s book was licensed on June 11.[6]From thesePageauntsE. K. quotes a line:‘An hundred Graces on her eyelidde sate,’which appears, slightly altered, inF. Q.II. iii. 25.[7]The ‘fennes of Allan’ (II. ix. 16) would be near New Abbey in Co. Kildare, where Spenser seems to have occasionally resided in the years 1582-4.[8]In the whole of Books I-III there is only one feminine ending, viz. in II. ix. 47. In Books IV-VI such endings abound.[9]‘On the ordinary interpretation,’ I say; for an attempt has recently been made (Mod. Lang. Rev.1908) to prove that the lady of theAmorettiand the ‘countrey lasse’ ofF. Q.VI was not Elizabeth Boyle, but Lady Elizabeth Carey.[10]The occurrence of feminine endings makes it very unlikely that this was among thePageauntsmentioned by E. K. The greater part of theMutabilitiecantos was certainly written in Ireland, probably in 1597-8.[11]The scene of the dialogue on thePresent State of Irelandis laid in England; so that, unless this is a mere literary device, the tract must have been written, or at least begun, during this visit in 1596.[12]No such authority, I think, belongs to the ‘Second Folio’, though it sometimes corrects printer’s errors. In the Critical Appendix I have cited some of its characteristic variants in support of this view.

[1]But this was corrected as the sheet passed through the press. See notead loc.in the Critical Appendix.

[2]The peculiarity consists not in the occasional occurrence of a rhymeless line—a thing that can easily be paralleled from Shelley or any poet of equal fluency—but in the fact that the right word is in every case so obvious that we cannot but believe it to have been in Spenser’s mind.

[3]This argument loses some of its weight from the likelihood that Spenser had been in Ireland before 1580. In hisView of the Present State of Ireland, Irenæus, who is Spenser’s mouthpiece, speaks of himself as an eyewitness of the execution of Murrogh O’Brien, which took place at Limerick in July, 1577. The statement, of course, is not conclusive, as it would be if made in Spenser’s own person. Yet Spenser’s account of this hideous incident has the stamp of personal observation, and, taken with the evidence of Phillips’sTheatrum Poetarum Anglicorum, points to the conclusion that in 1577 Spenser had been sent to Ireland by Leicester with letters to Sir Henry Sidney. His visit, however, must have been brief, and may well have left no trace in his poetry.Upton believed that theRuddymaneepisode in II. ii referred to the O’Neills, whose badge was a bloody hand (v.theView of the Present State of Ireland). If there be anything in this, it makes against the view that a book and a half had been written by August, 1580; for Spenser is not likely to have known the O’Neill ‘badge’ till he settled in Ireland.

Upton believed that theRuddymaneepisode in II. ii referred to the O’Neills, whose badge was a bloody hand (v.theView of the Present State of Ireland). If there be anything in this, it makes against the view that a book and a half had been written by August, 1580; for Spenser is not likely to have known the O’Neill ‘badge’ till he settled in Ireland.

[4]The passage in Tasso (G. L.ix. 25) is itself an imitation of Virgil,Aen.vii. 785. Yet the ‘greedie pawes’ and ‘golden wings’ of Spenser’s picture seem due to Tasso’s ‘Sù le zampe s’inalza, e l’ali spande.’Both these arguments, then, are indecisive; and in the absence of decisive proof I find it hard to believe that Harvey, who though a pedant was no fool, can have seen anything like the whole of Book I without recognizing its superlative merits.

Both these arguments, then, are indecisive; and in the absence of decisive proof I find it hard to believe that Harvey, who though a pedant was no fool, can have seen anything like the whole of Book I without recognizing its superlative merits.

[5]Fraunce’s book was licensed on June 11.

[6]From thesePageauntsE. K. quotes a line:‘An hundred Graces on her eyelidde sate,’which appears, slightly altered, inF. Q.II. iii. 25.

[6]From thesePageauntsE. K. quotes a line:

‘An hundred Graces on her eyelidde sate,’

which appears, slightly altered, inF. Q.II. iii. 25.

[7]The ‘fennes of Allan’ (II. ix. 16) would be near New Abbey in Co. Kildare, where Spenser seems to have occasionally resided in the years 1582-4.

[8]In the whole of Books I-III there is only one feminine ending, viz. in II. ix. 47. In Books IV-VI such endings abound.

[9]‘On the ordinary interpretation,’ I say; for an attempt has recently been made (Mod. Lang. Rev.1908) to prove that the lady of theAmorettiand the ‘countrey lasse’ ofF. Q.VI was not Elizabeth Boyle, but Lady Elizabeth Carey.

[10]The occurrence of feminine endings makes it very unlikely that this was among thePageauntsmentioned by E. K. The greater part of theMutabilitiecantos was certainly written in Ireland, probably in 1597-8.

[11]The scene of the dialogue on thePresent State of Irelandis laid in England; so that, unless this is a mere literary device, the tract must have been written, or at least begun, during this visit in 1596.

[12]No such authority, I think, belongs to the ‘Second Folio’, though it sometimes corrects printer’s errors. In the Critical Appendix I have cited some of its characteristic variants in support of this view.

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