Then put I in certain bands who straightway fell to execution. There were six hundred slain." Another who was present1 reported "the colonel, captains, secretary, camp-master, and others of the best sort saved, to the number of twenty prisoners, and Dr. Sanders' chief man, an Englishman, Plunkett, a friar, and others kept in store to be executed after examination to be had of them. It is confessed that five hundred more were daily looked for to be sent from the Pope and the King of Spain to land here."

Such was Edmund Spenser's first notable experience of the public service in Ireland. His age was then about twenty-seven, and he had already begun to write the "Faerie Queene;" for his friend Gabriel Harvey's ill opinion of what he had seen of it is in a letter that was published in June, 1580.

In 1581 Spenser was made Clerk of Degrees and Recognisances in the Irish Court of Chancery, and obtained also a grant of the lease of the lands and abbey of Enniscorthy in Wexford, which he transferred, no doubt profitably, at the end of the year to a Richard Synot. In 1582 Lord Grey was recalled, but Spenser remained in Ireland. He was still a Clerk in Chancery till 1588, when he was made Clerk of the Council of Munster. By this time he had received also a grant of land with Kilcolman Castle, in the county of Cork; part of the six hundred thousand acres confiscated from the Earl of Desmond and his followers. Twelve thousand acres in the counties of Cork, Waterford, and Tipperary had been granted to Walter Raleigh, who thus became for a time Spenser's neighbour in Ireland. Raleigh took Spenser to London with him in 1589, when he was ready to present to Queen Elizabeth the first three books of the "Faerie Queene." They were published in London in the year 1590, the next three books not appearing until 1596.

In the year after the publication of the first three books of the "Faerie Queene" Spenser received from Elizabeth a grant of £50 a year. This being equivalent to a pension of £300 under Victoria, was substantial reward for a poem containing much that must have pleased her Majesty, Puritan though it was. She could appreciate in the first three books a profound earnestness in the treatment of their several themes-Religion, Temperance, and Chastity-and she would be ready as any half reader of after times to see only herself in Gloriana. She does also pervade the poem; for the "Faerie Queene" is a great spiritual allegory, moulding what Spenser held to be the simple essence of eternal truth for man, in forms that reproduced the life of his own time. His World of Faerie is the Spiritual world. The Faerie Queene Gloriana is the Glory of God, for which and towards which man strives through all his faculties for good. Every such faculty, presented to the mind's eye in one of the shapes then dear to lovers of romance, achieves that triumph over its opposite for which it ever labours by contending with the trials and temptations to which it is most exposed, these also being typified in romance forms as giants,

1 From an unnamed writer to Walsingham, dated Smerwick, November 12th, 1580, among the Irish State Papers.

dragons, and so forth. But England-the England of his own day-with its actual aspirations and perils, is never absent from the poet's thought, and his fantastic imagery shapes to our minds constantly the substantial struggle of his time, as seen by the light of his own spiritual life. The Glory of God in England was one with the maintenance of the Reformation by Elizabeth. For her, for it, the souls of the best Englishmen were combating with trial and temptation. As Sir Thomas More's "Utopia" has given to our language a word equivalent to unpractical, and yet in its playfulness of fancy deals most earnestly with hard realities in every line; so Spenser's "Faerie Queene," with all exquisite music of its sage and solemn tunes,

"Of tourneys and of trophies hung,

Of forests and enchantments drear,

Where more is meant than meets the ear,"

shows in that "more" always a combatant Elizabethan Englishman who deals most earnestly with all the vital public questions of his day. Spenser is the Elizabethan Milton. Langland had not the condition of England, and what he felt to be the needs of England, more in mind when he wrote the "Vision of Piers Plowman" than had Spenser when in his allegory of the "Faerie Queene " he uttered his "truths severe by fairy fiction drest." The whole plan of the poem, as far as it was written, will be illustrated in the section of this Library reserved for the illustration of our Longer English Poems. But we shall then need to say no more of the first book than is required to explain its relation to the rest of the poem, for its theme is the religion of England, and we have now to dwell on its contents.

From a Monument in Whatton

He

ITH the Red Cross Knight, whom he calls also St. George, Spenser associates his allegory of the heavenward struggle of his country, the adventure of the Reformation, undertaken Church, Northamptonshire. for the glory of God, incomplete in his own day and in ours. The faerie knight is the spiritual quality in any man or any nation by which we seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. first appears clad in the armour described by St. Paul in the sixth chapter of his Epistle to the Ephesians, when he says, "Take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; and your feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God;" and again in the fifth chapter of the first Epistle to the Thessalonians. "Let us, who are of the day, be

Stand

sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and for an helmet the hope of salvation."

"A gentle knight was pricking on the plain,
Yclad in mightie arms and silver shield,
Wherein old dints of deep wounds did remain,
The cruel marks of many a bloodie field;
Yet arms till that time did he never wield:
His angry steed did chide his foaming bit,
As much disdaining to the curb to yield :
Full jolly knight he seem'd, and fair did sit,
As one for knightly jousts and fierce encounters fit.
"But on his breast a bloody cross he bore,

The dear remembrance of his dying Lord,
For whose sweet sake that glorious badge he wore,
And dead (as living) ever him ador'd:
Upon his shield the like was also scor'd,

For sovereign hope, which in his help he had:
Right faithful true he was in deed and word;
But of his cheer did seem too solemn sad;
Yet nothing did he dread, but ever was ydrad.

From the first Edition of the "Faerie Queene" (Books I., II., III.), 1590.

"Upon a great adventure he was bond
That greatest Gloriana to him gave,
That greatest glorious queen of fairy lond,
To win him worship, and her grace to have,
Which of all earthly things he most did crave;
And even as he rode, his heart did earn1
To prove his puissance in battle brave
Upon his foe, and his new force to learn;
Upon his foe, a dragon horrible and stearn."

1 Earn, yearn.

The steed ridden by the knight represents t human passions and desires which carry us well our way when under due restraint; and in th sense skill in horsemanship ranks high among t attainments of a faerie knight. The dragon again which the Red Cross Knight has undertaken th chief enterprise in pursuit of which he meets wit all the others, is called in the twentieth chapter Revelation "the dragon, that old serpent, which the devil." In this enterprise the faerie knight champion of Truth, lowly and pure, patient desire, dispassionate and slow of pace, wherefore sl has a snow-white ass for "palfrey slow." She is th guide and companion of Innocence, typified by milk-white lamb, herself as guileless, and descende from the angels who knew man in Paradise. She not named until a counterfeit image is made to sup plant her, and then (in the 45th stanza) she is firs called, because truth is simple and single, Una :

"A lovely lady rode him fair beside,

Upon a lowly ass more white than snow;
Yet she much whiter, but the same did hide
Under a veil, that wimpled was full low,
And over all a black stole she did throw,
As one that inly mourn'd: so was she sad,
And heavie sat upon her palfrey slow.
Seeméd in heart some hidden care she had,
And by her in a line a milk-white lamb she lad.

"So púre an innocent as that same lamb
She was in life and every virtuous lore,

And by descent from royal lynage came

Of ancient kings and queens, that had of yore
Their sceptres stretcht from east to western shore,
And all the world in their subjection held;

Till that infernal fiend with foul uprore
Forwasted all their land, and them expelled:
Whom to avenge, she had this knight from far com-
pelled."

The dwarf that follows, lagging far behind the spiritual part, represents the flesh and its needs: when the allegory is read as personal, the dwarf represents simply the flesh of man; when it is read as national, the dwarf stands for the body of the people :

wood is in Milton's "Comus." There is a catalogue of trees, typical of the uses of life by sea and land, "the sailing pine, the cedar proud and tall," at all stages of life: infancy that needs support, "the vineprop elm;" youth full of the fresh sap of life, "the poplar never dry;" man in mature strength at home as master in the world, "the builder-oak, sole king of forests all;" age needing a staff until the grave is ready, "the aspen good for staves, the cypress funeral." These lines open the thought, and the trees in the next stanza proceed to suggest glory and tears, arts of war, and arts of peace, healing of wounds, and war again, all uses of life, and that which is for us to mould, and that which we may seek in vain to mould, for it is often rotten at the core. Losing themselves among the pleasant ways of the world, they take the most beaten path, which brings them to the cave of Error. Truth warns the knight of his peril; the dwarf (the flesh) flinches, the knight (the spirit) is eager, and by the light of his spiritual helps (a light the brood of Error cannot bear, nor Error herself, for light she hated as the deadly bale) the knight can see the monster as she is :

"This is the wandring wood, this Error's den,

A monster vile, whom God and man does hate:
Therefore I rede,' beware. Fly, fly,' quoth then
The fearful dwarf, this is no place for living men.'

"But full of fire and greedy hardiment,

The youthful knight could not for aught be stayed, But forth unto the darksome hole he went, And looked in: his glistring armour made A little glooming light, much like a shade, By which he saw the ugly monster plain, Half like a serpent horribly displayed, But th' other half did woman's shape retain, Most loathsome, filthy, foul, and full of vile disdain.

"And as she lay upon the dirty ground,

Her huge long tail her den all overspred,
Yet was in knots and many boughts 2 upwound,
Pointed with mortal sting. Of her there bred
A thousand young ones, which she daily fed,
Sucking upon her poisonous dugs, each one
Of sundry shapes, yet all ill favoured:

Soon as that uncouth 3 light upon them shone,
Into her mouth they crept, and sudden all were gone."

The battle with this monster is the typical adventure that in each book opens its subject. In his combat with the monster, and encircled by her huge train-"God help the man so wrapt in Error's endless train!"-Truth cries to the knight, " Add faith upon your force, and be not faint," and this represents what is a main feature in the larger allegory, need of the help of God through which alone the strength of man can finally prevail. Prince Arthur represents this in the plan of the whole poem. It is he who bears the irresistible shield of the grace of God.

1 Rede, counsel.

2 Boughts, bends, folds, from "bugan," to bend; whence also the geographical term "bight."

Uncouth, unknown, unaccustomed.

"Arrivéd there, the little house they fill,

Ne look for entertainment where none was: Rest is their feast, and all things at their will: The noblest mind the best contentment has. With fair discourse the evening so they pass; For that old man of pleasing words had store, And well could file his tongue as smooth as glass; He told of saints and popes, and evermore He strowed an Ave-Mary after and before."

During the night, Archimago sent a lying spirit to bring from Morpheus-god of the unsubstantial life of dreams-" a fit false dream, that can delude the sleeper's sent." Another lying spirit Archimago fashioned in the shape of Una, to be a deceiving semblance of pure truth. Both appealed coarsely to the senses; and the Devil, Archimago, is thus made the author of a false and sensuous show of religion. The Red Cross Knight was dismayed, misdoubted the corrupt lady that yet feigned to be his, and missed the firm voice of his guide and comforter:

Truth was with Sansfoy, who "cared not for God or man a point;" he was in danger of being overpowered by want of faith: and in that day of trial it was only through the death of Christ that Christianity was able to outlive the peril :

"Curse on that cross,' quoth then the Sarazin, 'That keeps thy body from the bitter fit; 2

Dead long ago I wote thou haddest been

Had not that charm from thee forwarned 3 it.' "

Infidelity was, indeed, overthrown, but the Christian Knight put Infidelity's companion in the place of Una. Of Sansfoy it was said:

"He had a fair companion of his way,
A goodly lady clad in scarlet red,
Purfled with gold and pearl of rich assay,
And like a Persian, mitre on her head
She wore, with crowns and owches garnished,
The which her lavish lovers to her gave;
Her wanton palfrey all was overspred
With tinsel trappings, woven like a wave,
Whose bridle rung with golden bells and bosses brave."

In the "wanton palfrey" and other touches of this description there is still Puritan reference to what Spenser regarded as the sensuous pomp of the Church of Rome. Yielding herself to the Red Cross Knight, this lady derives herself clearly from Rome, as

"Born the sole daughter of an Emperor,

He that the wide west under his rule has,
And high hath set his throne where Tiberis doth pass."

St. George, parted from Una (Truth), thus puts into her place Duessa (Doubleness), calling herself Fidessa (the Faith); a Fidessa who appeals to his senses rather than to his mind, as type of a church in which there was more pomp than preaching :

"He in great passion all this while did dwell, More busying his quick eyes her face to view Than his dull ears to hear what she did tell.”

It was not for her to bear in the Lord's vineyard the burden and heat of the day. As the Red Cross Knight went onward, the sun

"Hurled his beams so scorching cruel hot That living creature mote it not abide; And his new lady it enduréd not."

They dismount for rest in the shade of trees.

"And in his falsed fancy he her takes To be the fairest wight that livéd yet."

2 Fit, thrust, from the Italian "fitta," a thrust or stab; probably formed from "figgere," to pierce. A fit in disease is from another root, Old French "fiede," intermittent; a fit or fytte, meaning song, is from First-English "fyttian," to sing. Fit in the sense of fit of clothes, fit and proper, is from the Latin "factus."

3 Forwarned, completely defended ("for," intensive prefix, as in "forlorn "); "wæ'ran," to defend.