Cornell Aniversity Library FROM THE INCOME OF THE FISKE ENDOWMENT FUND THE BEQUEST OF = Willard Fiske Librarian of the University 1868-1883 1905 Date Due ee iT ClOAN Nyse past E “Tina COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY STUDIES IN ENGLISH AND COMPARATIVE LITERATURE SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS SALES AGENTS New Yor«: LEMCKE & BUECHNER 30-32 Wesr 271TH Street Lonpon: HENRY FROWDE Amen Corner, E.C. Toronto: HENRY FROWDE 25 Ricumonp Street, W. SPENSER’S SHEPHERD'S CALENDER IN RELATION TO CONTEMPORARY AFFAIRS BY JAMES JACKSON HIGGINSON, Pu.D. Qew Bork COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS 1912 All rights reserved N28 aoe Copyright, 1912 By Cotumsra University§PRess Printed from type September, 1912 PRESS OF THE NEW ERA PRINTING COMPANY LANCASTER, Pa. This Monograph has been approved by the Department of Eng- lish and Comparative Literature in Columbia University as a con- tribution to knowledge worthy of publication. A. H. THORNDIKE, Secretary. To My MorHer MARGARET GRACIE HIGGINSON FOREWORD My reasons for the use of the rather unusual spelling— Shepherd’s Calender—of Spenser’s poem are much the same as those advanced by Mr. Walter W. Greg in his his- tory of Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama (London, A. H. Bullen, 1906). I quote his remarks on the title of this poem: ‘‘the title of the collection as originally published? is obviously ambiguous—is ‘Shepheardes’ to be considered as singular or plural? There is a tendency among modern critics to evade the difficulty in such cases by quoting titles in the original spelling. I confess that this practice seems to me both clumsy and pedantic. In the present case there can be little doubt that the title of Spenser’s work was suggested by the Calender of Shepherds. On the other hand, I think it is likewise clear that the poet, in adopting it, was thinking particularly of Colin Clout that he in- tended, that is, to call his poems ‘the calender of the shep- herd’ (see first line of postscript?), rather than ‘the cal- ender for shepherds.’ I have therefore adopted the sing- ular form. ‘Calender’ is, I think, a defensible spelling.’’® » Although it has seemed unnecessary to append a bibli- ography to this work, chiefly for two reasons—the more or less complete citation of titles in the notes, and the inad- visability of enlarging the bulk of this volume,—it may be as well to mention the works of those writers from whom I have derived my chief assistance. Of these, the following short list contains the most important: * Shepheardes Calender. 71. e. the Epilogue. * Op. cit., p. 82, note 1. ix x SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER The Calendars of State Papers, Domestic, Foreign, Span- ish, Irish, relating to the reign of Elizabeth, published under the supervision of the Public Record Office (par- ticularly the Domestic Series, 1547-1580, edited in 1856 by Robert Lemon, and the Addenda to the foregoing, 1566- 1579, edited in 1871 by Mary Anne Everett Green). The Publications of the Royal Historical Manuscript Commission, containing catalogues and abstracts of the historical archives existing in the principal public and pri- vate repositories throughout Great Britain. Froude, James Anthony. The History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth, 12 vols., Chas. Scribner & Co., New York, 1870. Strype, John. Annals of the Reformation and Estab- lishment of Religion ... in the Church of England, dur- ing Queen Elizabeth’s happy reign, first published in 1708- 37; new edition, 4 vols., divided into 7 parts, Oxford, 1824. Strype, John. Historical Collections of the Life and Acts of John Aylmer, etc., first published in 1701; new edition, Oxford, 1821. Strype, John. History of the Life and Acts of Edmund Grindal, etc., first published in 1710; new edition, Oxford, 1821, Strype, John. Life and Acts of Matthew Parker, etc., first published in 1711; new edition, 3 vols., Oxford, 1821. Strype, John. Life and Acts of John Whitg#ft, etc., first published in 1718; new edition, 3 vols., Oxford, 1822. Cooper, Charles H. and Thompson. Athenae Cantabrigi- enses, 2 vols., Cambridge, 1858-61. Cooper, Charles H. Annals of Cambridge, 4 vols., Cam- bridge, 1842-52. Mullinger, James Bass. The University of Cambridge from the Royal Injunctions of 1535 to the Accession of Charles the First (vol. I of his complete history), Cam- bridge, 1884. IN RELATION TO CONTEMPORARY AFFAIRS xi Ely Episcopal Records, edited by A. Gibbons, Lincoln, 1891, Campbell, Douglas. The Puritan in Holland, England, and America, 2 vols., New York, 1892. Collection of State Papers relating to Affairs in the reigns of King Henry VIII, King Edward VI, Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth . . . transcribed from original letters by William Cecill Lord Burghley, 2 vols.; vol. I, referring to the years 1542-70, edited by Samuel Haynes, London, 1740; vol. II, referring to the years 1571-96, edited by William Murdin, London, 1759. Letters and Memorials of State in the Reigns of Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth, King James . . . written and col- lected by Sir Henry Sydney ... Sir Philip Sydney and ... Sir Robert Sydney, ete., 2 vols. in one, edited by Arthur Collins, London, 1746. Burnet, Gilbert. The History of the Reformation, etc., a new edition by Nicholas Pocock, 7 vols., Oxford, 1865. Hallam, Henry. The Constitutional History of England, ete., 3 vols., London, 1867. The works of Strype are especially valuable, not on account of his peculiar methods of writing history, of course, but because of the large number of original papers which he has printed from MSS. contained in the British Museum and other repositories. It is perhaps necessary to point out that the division of the second chapter of my work into separate articles has oceasioned a certain small amount of repetition in some places, noticeable, for instance, in the sections on the Areo- pagus and the Biography of Spenser (1576-1580). The importance of the subjects discussed will form my apology, if any is deemed necessary. In conclusion, I take this opportunity of recording my deep appreciation of the assistance which has been rendered xii SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER me in the composition of my work by various ‘gentlemen. To Dr. G. Howard Maynadier of Harvard I am indebted for the beginning of my interest in the poetry of Spenser, and to Professor Harry M. Ayres of Columbia I am under obligations for generous and unstinted advice given at all times, and for the final reading and correction of my com- pleted dissertation before it was sent to the press. To Professor Jefferson B. Fletcher, whose attainments as a scholar are too well known to make it necessary for me to dwell on them, and under whose direction I have pursued the work which has culminated in this study, it lies without my power to pay a higher compliment than to. say that, except for his stimulating influence, the book would never have been written. Finally, I wish to extend my sincere thanks to Mr. F. W. Erb, the superintendent of the loan department of the Columbia University library, to his brother, Mr. F. C. Erb, and to his sister, Miss A. M. Erb, whose kindly readiness to do everything in their power for the accommodation of scholars and readers goes far to make the Columbia library what it is to-day, the best regulated public library in the United States. To the Messrs. Charles F. Claar, the principal assistant at the loan desk, and Mitchell Wechsler, the attendant in charge of Room 306, in which I have pursued the bulk of my work, as well as to other employés of the library, I acknowledge with thanks the pleasant attention which they have always given me in the matter of securing books. CONTENTS PAGE Cuapter I. The Political and Ecclesiastical Satire of the Shepherd’s Calender a i. Historical Background. (1) The Ecclesiastical Policy of Elizabeth and the Conditions to which it gave rise............ 1 (2) The Puritans and their Relation to the Eccles- iastical Policy of Elizabeth .............. 16 (3) Academie Disputes in Cambridge (1569-76).. 30 ii. The Political and Ecclesiastical Eclogues of the Shepherd’s Calender. (1) Introduction to the Present Theory .......... 38 (2) The February Eclogue ................666- 45 (3) The May Eelogue ...............c cee eee 71 (4) The July Eclogue ............... eee ee eeee 99 (5) The September Eclogue ............ceeeeeee 112° (6) Conclusion: Relation to the Puritanism of the Faerie Queene ...... ccc cc cece cece neceeee 150 CHAPTER Il. The Biographical Relations of the Shep- herd’s Calender i, Edward Kirke: E. K.; Cuddie .............. 165 ii, The Interlocutors of the Ecclesiastical Eclogues: Palinode, Piers, Diggon Davie, Thomalin .... 181 THs ROBALIIG, op cissals.«. sisretesaud es wcstececausie 64 ai eumisne,@ 0 wince cans 203 iv. The Poet and his Patrons: Lobbin, Dido, and ‘‘Maister Philip Sidney’? ................ 231 v. The Shepherd’s Calender and the Areopagus... 257 vi. The Biography of Spenser (1576-1580) ...... 286 Appenpix A. Mr. Greenlaw’s Theory .............. 339 INDEX ook. diene gine Ge eee wa eas 349 Dum vivimus vivamus SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER IN RELATION TO CONTEMPORARY AFFAIRS CHAPTER I THE POLITICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL SATIRE OF THE SHEPHERD’S CALENDER i. HuisrortcaL BacKGROUND The February, May, July, and September eclogues of the Shepherd’s Calender contain attacks on ecclesiastical and political conditions which existed during the first half of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and describe, under an ob- scure allegory, transactions connected with the policy pur- sued by herself and her chief adviser, Lord Burghley. The full significance of this satire has never been satisfactorily explained, and, in order to understand its relation to the history of Spenser’s own times, it will be necessary to consider in some detail the following subjects: the ecclesias- tical policy of Elizabeth and the conditions which it created in the Anglican Church; the activities of the Puritans and their relation to this policy; and the academic conflicts in Cambridge during the period of Spenser’s ‘connection with the University. First of all I shall take up the Church pol- icy of Elizabeth. (1) The Ecclesiastical Policy of Elizabeth and the Condi- tions to which it gave rise It is evident to students of Elizabethan history that political motives, rather than any deep-seated religious con- 2 a 1 2 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER viction, forced Elizabeth at the beginning of her reign into the arms of the Protestant party. Mary Stuart, the widow of the short-lived Francis TI, stood next in succession to the English crown and was supported by the Catholic power of France. If Elizabeth had openly declared in favor of the Catholic religion, her life would not have been safe from the machinations of the Catholic party, who had been taught by the Pope to regard her as illegitimate. On the other hand, she could not at first commit herself to a strong Protestant policy, for the Catholics not only numbered a majority of the nobility, but also a greater part of the population of England. Some intermediary scheme, there- fore, was necessary which would conciliate both the Catho- lies and the ultra-Protestants, the followers of Calvin, and it was upon this policy that the doctrine and government of her Church were formed. In conformity with this design Elizabeth’s first Parlia- ment (1559), which was strongly Protestant, enacted three important ecclesiastical measures: the First Fruits Act, which allotted to the crown the first year’s income of all benefices to which a new incumbent had been appointed, and also a tenth part of their total annual revenues; the Act of Supremacy, which acknowledged the Queen the supreme head of the Church, empowering her to nominate all bishops and to control the ecclesiastical state, and re- quiring a subscription to its provisions on the part of all holders of livings and offices in Church and State; and the Act of Uniformity, which revived in a slightly altered form the Common Prayer Book drawn up in the reign of Ed- ward VI. To the two latter acts diverse severe penalties * Distresses of the Commonwealth, quoted by Froude, VII, p. 21: *¢the Catholics were in the majority in every county in England except Middlesex and Kent.’’ Cf. also ibid., p. 11, for numbers of Protestants and numbers of those opposed to theological controversy. POLICY OF ELIZABETH 3 involving forfeiture of office and imprisonment were attached. ‘‘The object had been so to frame the constitu- tion of the Church of England that disloyalty alone should exclude a single English subject from its communion who in any true sense could be called a Christian; so to frame its formulas that they might be patient of a Catholic or Protestant interpretation ... that the Church should pro- fess and teach a uniform doctrine in essentials . . . while in non-essentials it should contain ambiguous phrases. . and thus enable Catholic, Lutheran, Calvinist, and Zwing- lian to insist each that the Church of England was theirs.’’? In this way the final power to direct the policy of the Church lay in the hands of the Queen and her advisers, and the strictness or leniency with which the ecclesiastical stat- utes should be enforced was subject to varying motives of political expediency. Whatever Elizabeth’s religious con- victions may have been, if indeed she had any, they were always made secondary to her political position as head of the Church and the State. When the Protestant party, from whom she derived her chief support at her accession, required conciliation, she deprived her sister’s Catholic prelates of their sees and filled their places with men of the opposite party, many of whom had been exiles for the sake of religion.2 When the Queen’s life was in danger at the time of a threatened war with Spain (1563), Elizabeth directed the enactment of a Penal Bill aimed at the Catho- lies, which provided that ‘‘all persons who maintained the Pope’s authority or refused the oath of allegiance to the Queen, for the first offense should incur a premunire, for * Ibid., pp. 81-2. *Ibid., p. 76. Scory, Grindal, Cox, Whitehead, Aylmer, Horne, Guest, and Jewel were the most distinguished of the exiled Reformers during Mary’s reign. Whitehead was offered the Arch- bishopric of Canterbury, which he refused. The others, except Aylmer, were among Elizabeth’s first appointees to bishoprics. 4 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER the second the pains of treason ’’.* When, on the other hand, Elizabeth wished to conciliate the Catholic powers and to create the belief that she would eventually establish the older religion, she restored the crucifix in the Chapel Royal (1559), or listened to a sermon from the High Church Bishop of Rochester who preached the Catholic doctrine that the Eucharist contained the real presence of Christ. Or, at another time, when she wished to silence the increasing clamors of the Puritans, she insisted upon a strict adherence to the Act of Uniformity ‘‘in all its parts’’,5 and openly rebuked Nowell, the Dean of St. Paul’s, for attacking the use of images. In the same way the statutes were strictly enforced against the Catholics at the time of the insurrec- tion of the northern Earls (1569). Elizabeth, in short, despised all controversies, and she was never tired of de- claring that no one should be troubled for conscience’s sake as long as he outwardly conducted himself in a manner un- repugnant to the laws of the realm. This fluctuating policy, however, whatever its political benefits to Elizabeth and to the national importance of England may have been, did not conduce to a godliness of life and a strict adherence to the dictates of conscience among the clergy. The cloudiness of the political horizon at her accession made it necessary for Elizabeth to appoint to the higher ecclesiastical dignities men whom she could control and who would be worldly enough to carry out her capricious commands. She had no use for the Cranmers Tee and the Latimers of Protestantism, men who would suffer ‘TIbid., p. 501. The statute of premunire, an ordinance of 1305, subsequently revived from time to time with modifications, ‘‘condemned to outlawry, forfeiture, and imprisonment all persons who, having prosecuted in foreign courts suits cognizable by the law of England, should not appear in obedience to summons, and answer for their contempt’’ (Stubbs, Constitutional History, III, p. 330). ° Froude, VIII, pp. 137, 140. POLICY OF ELIZABETH 5 martyrdom for the truth. Her prelates were made of weaker fibre. They had seen the established religion change too often not to expect that it might change again, and their actions were in most cases governed by this con- tingency. Their day might be a short one, and they deter- mined to make the most of their opportunities. ‘‘ Within two years of its (the Church of England’s) establishment, the prelates were alienating the estates in which they pos- sessed but a life-interest—granting long leases and taking fines for their own advantage’’,° and the men who did these things were intended to be examples of righteous dealing and godly living. Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury, who attempted to refuse this see, because ‘‘he did not seek his own private gain or ease’’, and because ‘‘he had but two or three years more of life before him, and did not intend to heap up for his children’’,’ at his death, seventeen years later, left behind him an enormous sum, which had been accumulated by the most flagrant practices of corruption.® He sold his own patronage and his interest with others, and he made use of a graduated scale of payments, which allowed even children under fourteen years to be inducted into a benefice. Scory, Bishop of Hereford, was notorious for simony. Here is what an eminent contemporary says of him: ‘‘so as what with pulling down houses and selling the lead, and such loose endes; what with setting up good husbandries; what with leases to his tennants, ... he heaped together a great masse of wealth’’.® After his death *.Froude, VII, p. 475. The system of fines, which ruined the property of the sees, consisted in the grant or the renewal of a lease at a rent lower than usual in consideration of a cash payment, a fine, levied at the time of the said grant or renewal. The benefice-holder, therefore, obtained a sum of money, and the benefice obtained a lower rent, which depleted its income. * Burnet-Pocock, II, p. 626. * Froude, XI, p. 100. ® Harington, Nugae Antiquae, II, p. 176. 6 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER a long suit took place about the dilapidations of his diocese. The same authority speaks of Young, Archbishop of York (1560-8), who pulled down ‘‘a goodly hall, only for greedi- ness of the lead that covered it’’.?° On the 4th of December, 1577, the Lords of the Council summoned Pilkington, the Dean of Durham, being ‘‘adver- tised that he hathe entermedled with the leavieng of a cer- ten somme of money upon the clergie of that Church which dothe not appertaine unto him’’.1t This Pilkington, the brother of the Bishop of Durham, lent strongly towards the Puritans. Upon the death of his more distinguished brother a suit was instituted by his successor against the Dean for having converted to his own use a certain ‘‘over rent’’ upon a lease of land which had formerly been allotted to the school at Rivington.’ In 1578, Freake, the new Bishop of Norwich, had to be admonished by the Council to forbear from seizing certain legacies which his predecessor had made ad pios usus in an endeavor to recover money for dilapidations.1? Even the most honorable members of the clergy were not above suspicion. Jn 1575, upon his translation from York to Canterbury, Grindal was sued by Sandys, the new Archbishop of York, because ‘‘he had used him hardly many ways, especially in matter of dilapida- tion’’. This suit, which was accompanied by another over the lease of the demesnes of Battersea,1* belonging to the see of York, caused friction between these two bishops, who are generally regarded as the most saintly Church dignitaries of that age. Aylmer, Bishop of London, was notorious for the despoil- ing of Church property. In the year 1579 he was called 0 Tbid., p. 231. 4 Acts of the Privy Council, 1577-8, pp. 107-8. 2 Ibid., p. 163. * Ibid., pp. 369, 390. “Strype, Life of Grindal, p. 285. POLICY OF ELIZABETH 7 before the Council to answer to the charges of making ‘‘a great spoil of the timber and wood”’ at Fulham, of selling ‘a great number of acres of wood’’, and of wasting the revenues of his bishopric in general.1* When he succeeded to this see, which his predecessor, Sandys, vacated on March 8, 1576, Aylmer instituted a suit against the latter to obtain the revenues of the bishopric from the previous Michaelmas (September 29), alleging that Sandys had received large monetary favors on his appointment to York. This so stirred the wrath of the latter that he wrote to Burghley: ‘coloured covetousness, an envious heart, covered with the coat of dissimulation, will, when opportunity serveth, shew itself’. The whole proceeding illustrates the reluctance of the one to part with his possessions, as much as it does the avarice of the other to add to his store. In 1573 Dr. William Hughes succeeded to the bishopric of St. Asaph’s. After fourteen years’ incumbency charges were preferred against him for maladministration of his see. ‘‘ Wherein was discovered that most of the great liv- ings within the diocese, some with cure of souls, and some without, were either holden by the bishop himself in com- mendam or else were in the possession of such men as dwelt out of the country. That there were held by him sixteen livings . . . that there was never a preacher within the diocese that kept ordinary hospitality, but only three. Whereby it came to pass, that the former accustomed good and charitable housekeeping was quite decayed in the diocese and particularly one, that had two of the greatest livings in the diocese, was so far from keeping hospitality, that he boarded himself in an ale-house. That divers par- cels of the bishopric were leased out, and confirmed by him, to the hinderance of his successors . .. that he had got all the keys of the chapter seal within the keeping of his own * Strype, Life of Aylmer, pp. 46-7. 8 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER chaplains, that he might confirm what he would himself, that in his visitation he caused the clergy of his diocese to pay for his diet, and of the rest of his train, over and above the ‘procurations’, appointed by the law for that pur- pose.’ Such allegations rather under-state than magnify the prevalent state of ecclesiastical corruption. ‘‘Scan- dalous dilapidation, destruction of woods, waste of the property of the see by beneficial lease, the incumbent en- riching himself and his family at the expense of his suc- cessors—this is the substantial history of the Anglican hierarchy, with a few honourable exceptions, for the first twenty years of its existence.’’!” It is probable that the greed of courtiers, which Eliza- beth openly countenanced and which exerted a vicious in- fiuence on her Church policy, greatly contributed to the degradation of the morals of the clergy. The abolition of the monasteries by Henry the Eighth opened a door to the easy attainment of wealth at the expense of the Church, and, although times were somewhat changed when Eliza- beth came to the throne, courtiers still looked with the greatest avidity upon ecclesiastical property, and were often rewarded with lucrative grants. From the position of a poverty-stricken nobleman, whose inheritance had been for- feited for his part in the Lady Jane Grey conspiracy, Lord Robert Dudley became the wealthiest peer of the realm through the lavish and illegal grants of Church leases and lands.1* Lord Burghley himself was not above such prac- tices,® although his enemies exaggerated his seizures of Church property.2° Unquestionably, however, it was an *Strype, Annals, II, pt. 1, pp. 435-6. "Froude, XI, p. 100. %* Harington, Nugae Antiquae, II, p. 268; Froude, XI, p. 21. Hallam, I, p. 206; Harington, ibid., p. 206; Camden, Annals, p. 607; Strype, Annals, II, pt. 1, pp. 285 ff. Froude, XII, pp. 148-49. POLICY OF ELIZABETH 9 easy matter for a favorite, such as-Hatton, Raleigh, or Essex, to obtain grants of episcopal lands from their royal mistress, who treated her prelates in the most high-handed manner. If the courtier found the bishop refractory, he slandered him to the Queen. Lord North, to whom the Bishop of Ely had refused to grant the leases of two rich manors, drew up a series of complaints, and also preferred the charges of others, which alleged that the bishop had been guilty of gross misconduct in the administration of his office. Of these the more important were: lack of hos- pitality, covetousness, collecting illegal taxes and tolls from his clergy, uncharitableness towards his neighbors, the sav- ing of money out of episcopal property for his children, the taking of large fines, the selling of advowsons, the cut- ting down of woods, and the making of all manner of illegal leases.?1. The fact that these accusations were greatly exaggerated, if not wholly untrue, illustrates the ease with which courtiers could despoil the Church and the certainty with which they counted upon the Queen’s support. To allegations of maintaining poor hospitality Elizabeth always listened favorably, for she hated the illiberality of the clergy as much as their marriages. The impropriation” of the benefices opened a wide field for this species of preying upon Church lands. It was customary for a lay patron to compound with a clergyman for a certain portion of the revenue of the benefice to which he was about to appoint him. Even bishops had to pay large subsidies out of their revenues to royal favorites.23 ™Strype, Annals, II, pt. 2, pp. 570-95. "The act of granting ecclesiastical property or revenues to laymen. * The see of Winchester was the second richest in the kingdom. In 1583 its income was £2800, of which the queen received £1900 in first- fruits, subsidies, tenths, and benevolences. £318 additional went to courtiers in the form of annuities. When the bishop had paid salaries and alms to the poor, he found little left to keep up his position. (Campbell, I, pp. 456-7.) 10 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER Not only were Church livings bought and sold continually, but the very advowsons”* were subject to the same species of corruption. ‘‘Besides the impropriations of benefices, there are also advowsons, by which, while the place is yet occupied, the next vacancies of the livings are gratuitously presented to others by the patrons, or else sold by them at a price agireed upon.”*> The extreme prevalance of this abuse is illustrated by two cases which came under the juris- diction of the Bishop of Norwich in 1571, both of which concerned statesmen whose integrity few people doubted. Nicolas Bacon had granted an advowson to a kinsman, John Bacon. The latter kept the benefice vacant for half a year, leaving its congregation without a clergyman, in order ‘‘to make the better bargain for himself with him who should get the presentation; that is, who should bid most’’.2* The other case concerned an advowson of the Earl of Sussex, which ‘‘was passed to and fro, from one person to another’’.27 The bishop finally felt compelled to call the attention of the patrons to these proceedings, and Sussex, at least, attempted to foist the charge of simony upon the former. The extent to which the corrupt practices of royalty had preyed upon Church property is curiously illustrated in Strype’s account of the houses or inns in London which once belonged to the various sees. Originally each bishopric possessed one of these for the accommodation of its prelate when he came to Court or to Convocation. ‘‘But now (1572) there was scarce one (except the Bishop of Ely)2* had any, but what he borrowed or hired, their *% The right of presentation, present or future. ** Zurich Letters, 2nd s., p. 360. *Strype, Annals, II, pt. 1, pp. 172-3. 7 Toid. He was soon forced to part with Ely-palace in Holborn to Sir Christopher Hatton. POLICY OF ELIZABETH 11 houses having been, either by the latter kings and princes, or the importunity of courtiers, obtained from them.’’®® Although many of these deprivations occurred before Elizabeth came to the throne, it never appears that she was backward in such practices. In 1573 Pilkington, the Puritan Bishop of Durham, obtained after long efforts cer- tain lands in Yorkshire belonging to his bishopric which had been unlawfully detained. In return for the affected graciousness of the Queen in granting his suit, however, he had to pay her the enormous yearly rent of £1020 on these lands. ‘‘But how these lands of this wealthy bishopric were looked upon with an envious and greedy eye... may appear from the large and long leases made by bishop Pilkington ... to the queen, for the gratifying of some gentlemen.’”®° By the terms of a statute passed in the first year of her reign the Queen alone was allowed to make leases of property belonging to corporations for a term of more than twenty-one years or three lives,** and in this way she could make more beneficial leases than her subjects. There were other devices of a questionable nature, how- ever, to which she could resort in order to extract money from the Church. Of these the most notorious and the most profitable was to keep a bishopric vacant after the de- cease of its last incumbent, a situation in which its revenues reverted to the Crown. After the death of Bishop Cox in 1581 the see of Ely remained vacant for eighteen years.*? For the same period the Queen withheld the bishopric of Coventry and Lichfield from presentation.** On the death of Archbishop Parker (1575) a catalogue entitled A note, how the bishoprics in England may be transferred without ™Strype, Annals, II, pt. 1, pp. 358-9. »” Tbid., p. 441. ™ Hallam, Constitutional History of England, I, p. 244. ™ Harington, II, p. 108. *Tbid., p. 117. Examples of this practice might be multiplied. 12 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER any just cause of much offence to the bishops is said by Strype to have been presented to Burghley ;** more prob- ably that nobleman drew it up himself in accordance with his usual methodical habits. In this document a plan was proposed to transfer each bishop from a less wealthy to a richer see. The Queen would receive a large number of first fruits, and the bishops might be reasonably satisfied by the acquisition of larger incomes. This scheme, more- over, advocated the keeping vacant of the bishoprics of Chester and Rochester. To the Universities Elizabeth acted in a no less arbitrary manner. Peremptory orders to the Heads and fellows of colleges she constantly despatched, bidding them prefer certain individuals. In 1578 a summary order came to the Master and fellows of Queens’ College, Cambridge, com- manding them to admit some Welshman to a fellowship, a proceeding unlawful under one of their statutes, ‘‘for that her Majesty may dispence with all such statutes’’.> To the authorities of Trinity Hall a similar message arrived soon afterwards.** Such proceedings as these, however, became matters of course.*7 The extent to which the Uni- versities were subjected to the corrupt practices of the Court may be judged from the fact that the Queen, on the advice of Burghley, refused her assent to a bill passed in the Parliament of 1575 ‘‘for maintenance of Colledges, and against buying and selling of rooms and places in Schools’’.*8 Another abuse which caused great trouble to the clergy and to the colleges, and which long received the secret sanction of the Queen, arose from the commissions ap- pointed to search out ‘‘concealed’’ or ‘‘suppressed’’ lands. * Annals, II, pt. 1, pp. 575-6. Acts of the Privy Council, 1575-77, p. 161. * Ibid., 1577-78, p. 125. * Mullinger, II, p. 71. = D’Ewes, Journal of the House of Commons, p. 252. POLICY OF ELIZABETH 13 Strype’s description of the whole subject is expressive :*° ‘‘When monasteries were dissolved, and the lands thereof, and afterwards colleges, etc. were all given to the crown, some demeans here and there pertaining thereunto were still privily retained and possessed by certain private per- sons, or corporations, or churches. This caused the queen . . . to grant commissions to some persons to search after these concealments, and to retrieve them to the crown. But it was a world to consider what unjust oppressions of the people and the poor this occasioned by some griping men’’ . who unlawfully ‘‘did intermeddle and challenge lands of long times possessed by church wardens, ete... . and certain stocks of money, plate, cattle,’’ etc. ‘‘They made pretense to the bells, lead,’’ ete., belonging to churches, and ‘further they attempted to make titles to lands, posses- sions, plate and goods belonging to hospitals and such like places.’’ On February 13, 1572, the Queen issued a proc- lamation which revoked all these commissions on account of the frauds which they had fostered. This act, how- ever, did not put a stop to them, for we find that the bishopric of Norwich lost nearly all its revenues through the doings of these ‘‘concealment’’ commissioners, and it was necessary for the Parliament of 1597 to pass a law for the restitution of its property.*° If such were the conditions which prevailed among the prelates, subjected as they were to the greediness of the Court, it is not strange to find a miserable state of affairs in existence among the lower clergy. Of the ‘‘9400 per- sons holding cures of souls in various forms’’, less than two hundred of whom ‘‘refused to the last to comply’’ with the statutes of Elizabeth’s first Parliament and were accord- ingly deprived of their livings, many began later to fall away from conformity.*t Especially was this true in the » Annals, II, pt. 1, pp. 510-11. © Tbid., p. 312. * Froude, VII, p. 90. 14 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER north, where many of the benefice-holders, who with little attempt at secrecy professed the older religion, were sup- ported by powerful Catholic noblemen. The Earl of Sus- sex, writing in 1562 to Cecil, complains that ‘‘the people without discipline, utterly devoid of religion, come to divine service as to a May-game; the ministers, for disability and greediness, be had in contempt; and the wise fear more the impiety of the licentious professors than the superstition of the erroneous Papists’’.*? The wretched condition of the parish churches was notorious. ‘‘In 1561 there were in the Archdeaconry of Norwich eighty parishes where there was no resident incumbent; in the Archdeaconry of Norfolk, a hundred and eighty parishes; in the Archdeaconry of Suffolk a hundred and thirty parishes were almost or en- tirely in the same condition. ...In most of them the voices of the priests were silent in the desolate aisles. The children grew up unbaptized,’’ and the dead were buried without the services of a minister.** The following account of the Disorders in the Diocese of Chichester, December, 1569 is typical of the sees which were not in the imme- diate vicinity of London. ‘‘In many churches they have no sermons, not one in seven years, and some not one in twelve years, as the parishes have declared to the preachers that lately came thither to preach. Few churches have their quarter sermons according to the Queen Majesty’s injunctions.’’ Then follows an enumeration of the ‘‘Popish practices’? in various churches, the circulation of Popish books,. the preservation of images, chalices, and other Catholic ornaments. ‘‘In many places the people cannot yet say their commandments, and in some not the articles of their belief. In the Cathedral Church of Chichester “Trish MSS., Rolls House, Sussex to Cecil, July 22, 1562, dated at Chester; quoted by Froude, VI, p. 479. * Froude, VII, p. 417. POLICY OF ELIZABETH 15 there be very few preachers resident—of thirty-one pre- bendaries scarcely four or five.’’4* The ignorance of the clergy at large and their inability to preach was another reproach to the Church of which the Puritans never ceased to complain. If we except those ° who were Puritanically inclined, few parish-clergymen possessed learning enough to compose sermons. This de- ficiency arose from the loose manner in which unqualified men gained entrance into the Church through corrupt prac- tices. To remedy the evil scholars composed books for the assistance of these ignorant ministers. In 1569 a book entitled A Postil, or an exposition of the gospels that are usually read in the churches of God upon Sundays and feast-days of saints was translated from the Danish by Arthur Golding.*® ‘‘These postils, which were practical sermons upon the epistles and gospels ... were now of very good use, for the help of the unlearned clergy in the countries about; who skilled not to compose discreet and profitable discourses to be preached to their people for their edification.’’** This ignorance of the lower clergy the bishops attempted to overcome ‘‘in requiring competent learning, and study at one of the universities, in those that hereafter were to be admitted into the ministry; as well as for their morals’’.*7 Accordingly, we find the Bishop of Norwich (1573) refusing to admit into a living an old husbandman, who had been preferred by an influential country gentleman.*® Action of this kind, however, was unusual. In 1585 Burghley could write that ‘‘in many places the people have no services at all, but are driven to resort to other churches; or else they choose some one that “ MSS. Domestic, printed in Froude, IX, pp. 512-3. “The translator of Ovid. ““Strype, Annals, I, pt. 2, p. 304. " Ibid., II, pt. 1, p. 429. * Tbid., pp. 429-30. 16 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER can read meanly, and that office lighteth upon base con- ditioned men of occupation, as a tailor, a shoemaker, a smith or such like’’.4® At a time when ‘‘it was the custom of ... patrons to bestow advowsons of benefices upon their ‘bakers, butlers, cookes, good archers, falconers, and horsekeepers’ ’’,°° and when the greatest immorality among the parish-clergy was rife, efforts to ameliorate the intel- lectual and moral conditions of the great majority of min- isters accomplished little. The determined efforts which arose on the part of the Puritans to change this policy of Elizabeth and to purify the condition of the Church will be discussed in what follows. (2) The Puritans and their Relation to the Ecclesiastical Policy of Elizabeth. In order to comprehend the true intent of Spenser’s ecclesiastical satire it is necessary to know something about the religious and political opinions of the Puritans and their attitude towards Elizabeth’s Church policy. Although the presence of men who held the ultra-Protestant views of Calvin had been recognized in Church. and State since __Blizabeth’ S accession, it _Was not until 15638 or thereabouts _that 1 the ¥ an came into use.5t It was applied to those who professed the religio purissima, who wished to restore the Church to its original purity in the time of the Apostles. ‘In doctrine no difference existed between Anglican and Puritan ;°? each accepted the Reformed opin- * MSS. Domestic, November 28, 1585. °N. Drake, Shakespeare and His Times, pp. 44-5. He quotes from Holinshed and the Talbot Papers. Fuller, Church History (bk. ix), IV, pp. 327-8. ? Throughout this chapter I use the words Anglican and Puritan in the broad sense in which they were understood in Elizabeth’s time. The Anglican was the upholder of the government’s Church policy, the Puritan its opponent. ‘The Puritan considered the ‘Anglican half a Catholic on questions of Church government at any rate. THE PURITANS AND ELIZABETH 17 ions of Calvin. The question of Church discipline marked the dividing line. The Puritan believed that the scrip- tures afforded an accurate pattern in matters of gov- ernment as well as in matters of faith, while the Angli- can ‘‘maintained that the practice of the primitive Church for the first four or five centuries was a proper standard of... discipline’’®* The Anglican therefore ‘‘pared off only the later corruptions of the papacy’’,®** otherwise acknowledging the authority of the Catholic Church in earlier times, while the Puritan believed in ‘‘the authority of reason’’ and would retain nothing in the Church which savored of ‘‘Popery’’. During the first twenty years of Elizabeth’s reign the word Puritan came to have a wide application. From the violent partisan who fulminated curses at the ‘‘Pope of Lambeth’’ to the tried and trusted Privy Councillor of upright life its significance extended. Chief among those prominent in the State who favored the Puritans for per- sonal convictions or political reasons, and who gradually came to be recognized as their patrons, were the Earls of Huntingdon, Leicester, Warwick, and Bedford, the first Earl of Essex,®° and the second Earl of Pembroke,®* Lord Hunsdon, the Queen’s cousin, Sir Nicolas Bacon, the Lord Keeper, Sir Francis Knollys, Sir Ralph Sadler, Sir Francis Walsingham, Sir Walter Mildmay, and Sir Henry Sidney.*” Among the Church dignitaries, many openly entertained Puritan views on some questions; chief among these were James Pilkington, Bishop of Durham, and his brother John, Archdeacon of the same, John Parkhurst, Bishop of Neal, History of the Puritans, I, p. 79. 4 Tbid. = The father of Elizabeth’s favorite. The husband of Mary Sidney. * All these men were members of the Privy Council at one time or another during the period 1570-80. 3 18 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER Norwich, Whittingham and Hutton, successive Deans of Durham, Grindal, eventually Archbishop of Canterbury, and Sandys, successively Bishop of Worcester, London, and Archbishop of York. These ecclesiasts had imbibed Cal- vinistic principles from the Swiss divines during their exile in Mary’s reign. In the lives and views of all these men, however, paradoxes appear at every step. Leicester, who with the connivance of Sidney, his brother-in-law, had once proposed to Philip of Spain to re-establish the Catholic religion provided the latter would sanction his marriage with the Queen, and whose habits of life were dissolute, became a leader of those violently opposed to Catholicism and loose morals. Huntingdon, whose claim to the suc- cession the Puritans advocated, was the nephew of Cardinal Pole. The austere Earl of Bedford married his daughter Anne to the Catholic Clifford, Earl of Cumberland. Grin- dal, whom Archbishop Parker considered unduly favor- able to the Puritans in the capacity of Bishop of London,®* strongly recommended in 1573 that Reforming clergymen of a radical bias should not hold preferments,®® and on one occasion at least advocated the torture of religious prison- ers.°° The same name was applied to men whose views ranged from one political or moral extreme to the other. To the heated controversialist men like Grindal appeared persecutors of their brethren; to the orthodox Anglican he seemed a favorer of the government’s opponents. It is expedient, therefore, to remember that the word Puritan was capable of the broadest signification in Elizabeth’s time. The proceedings of Archbishop Parker and his col- leagues, who much against their will had been compelled to ® Strype, Grindal, pp. 154, 234; Life of Parker, I, pp. 420, 547. ® Strype, Parker, II, p. 241. * Froude, VII, p. 429. © Marsden, Early Puritans, p. 122. THE PURITANS AND ELIZABETH 19 enforce the Act of Uniformity, emphasized the first split between Puritan and Anglican. The particular point which caused the break was the objection of the Puritans to the wearing of the surplice and the cap in the conduct of divine service, and from this fact the proceedings which followed were styled the ‘‘vestment controversy’’. The Puritan’s dislike of the ‘‘habits’’ is typical of the light in which he regarded the Established Church. ‘‘He thought to see’’ returning in the train of these garments ‘‘the gorgeous vestments, the lighted candles, the uplifted host, and the whole of that elaborate ritual which in his mind and in his experience stood identified in turn with Roman superstition and priestly tyranny,—the intellect prostrate at the confessional, morality disregarded in minute atten- tion to ceremonial, and the spiritual light within burning only yet more dimly as the tapers on the altar multiplied and blazed with more dazzling brightness. ’’®? In the spirit of this point of view, which regarded the Anglican Church as only one step removed from the Catholic, the Puritan ministers refused to obey the injunc- tions of the bishops. Of more than one hundred ministers in London who were summoned before the Ecclesiastical Commission, thirty-seven, and these the best preachers in the city, declined to wear the vestments, and were there- fore suspended from the performance of their duties for three months. Riots followed in the city, and Parker, according to his own account,** bore the brunt of the anger of the populace. The men, however, who were regarded as the leaders of the Puritans in this struggle were two Oxford divines,—Thomas Sampson, Dean of Christ Church, and Lawrence Humphrey, President of Magdalen College. Upon their refusal to conform the Commission deprived * Mullinger, II, pp. 195-6. “Froude, VIII, p. 142. * Correspondence, p. 237. 20 SPENSER’S ‘‘SHEPHERD’S CALENDER’’ Sampson of his deanery and confined him to a moderate kind of imprisonment at ‘‘the Queen’s special command- ment’’.© Humphrey, after remaining under surveillance for a time, was allowed to return to Oxford. Other promi- nent non-conformists summoned before the Commission were John Fox, the martyrologist, and Miles Coverdale, the translator of the Bible and Bishop of Exeter under Edward VI. Fox was allowed to retain his small prebend in Salisbury Cathedral, but Coverdale lost his preferment in a London church. This controversy, however, continued through the correspondence of the bishops and the non- conformists with the Swiss divines, Bullinger, Gualter, and Beza. Although each side openly claimed their support, it is a curious fact that even several of the bishops who ap- pealed to their decision expressed scruples concerning the use of the vestments.** In the University of Cambridge, at all times during Elizabeth’s reign a hot- bed of Puri- tanism, this controversy is further reflected by the break- ing of painted windows, by objections to the habits even on the part of the masters of colleges, and by open demon- strations against the ritual of the Established Church.** ..-And, finally, the aftermath of these ecclesiastical dissen- sions may be seen in the publication (1566) by the deprived London ministers of a treatise entitled A brief discourse against the outward apparel and ministering garments of the popish church,® and also in the formation of Puritan conventicles for liberty of worship.”° The second act in the religious drama took place in *Strype, Parker, I, p. 371. “Bishops Horne, Jewel, Pilkington, Sandys, Guest, and Grindal expressed objections to the habits at one time or another (Neal, I, p. 93). * The Puritans considered these superstitious. ® Mullinger, I, pp. 196-9. © Strype, Annals, I, pt. 2, pp. 163 ff. Neal, I, p. 104. THE PURITANS AND ELIZABETH 21 Cambridge; its protagonist was Thomas Cartwright, a senior fellow of Trinity, who had been appointed Margaret professor of divinity in 1569. From this chair he proceeded to denounce what seemed to him the corruptions inherent in the Anglican Church. ‘‘The points especially animad- verted ‘upon by Cartwright were, however, those dis- tinctively characteristic of the English Church when com- pared with the other Protestant Churches,—the institution of archbishops and bishops, of archdeacons and deacons; the appointment of preachers without any settled charge; and the practice of appointing those who were selected to minister to certain congregations without admitting the congregation to a voice in the election.’”! It was no longer a question of vestments merely; to Cartwright’s opponents he seemed to be ‘‘assaulting the hierarchy of the church’’.7? Various members of his party, particularly Robert Some and Edmund Chapman, followed his example, attacking pluralities, non-residence, and the ecclesiastical courts.” On June 11, 1569, Dr. William Chaderton, the President of Queens’ College, despatched a letter to Cecil in which he complained that ‘‘suche seditions, contention, and disquietude, such errors and schismes openlie taught and preached, boldlie and without warant are latelie growne amongst us, that the good estate, quietnes, and governance . .. not of Cambridge alone but of the whole church and realme, are for great hazarde unles severlie by authoritie they be punished’’.“* On June 24 Cecil received a letter from Grindal, recently installed as Archbishop of York, who strongly denounced the ‘‘love of contention and liking of novelties’? with which he heard that Cartwright ™ Mullinger, I, p. 207. ™@Strype, Annals, I, pt. 2, pp. 372 ff. 8 Ibid. ™ State Papers, Dom., Eliz., LXXI, no. 11, quoted by Mullinger, I, p. 215. 22 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER had disturbed the University, and advocated his expulsion unless he conformed.”> A correspondence then ensued be- tween Cecil and the University authorities, and a letter of the former assuring the Vice-Chancellor of his support was read before the congregation convened on June 29. Although Cartwright’s party, who numbered a large ma- jority at this meeting, used their powers to veto the ap- pointment to the caput, or governing board, of those whom they disliked, the Vice-Chancellor, Dr. John May, refused to admit Cartwright himself to the degree of doctor of divinity, ‘‘for which his swpplicat was on that day... presented to the senate’’.7* His conduct aroused the resent- ment of Cartwright’s party, and both sides appealed to Cecil, the Chancellor. An elegant Latin letter from Cart- wright, in which he stated that in his lectures he had com- mented upon nothing ‘‘which did not naturally arise from the text’’, caused Cecil to bid the authorities investigate the matter more thoroughly. This order, however, really sanctioned their proceedings. Cartwright’s suspension from the duties of his lectureship followed, and on Decem- ber 11, after the promulgation of the new statutes which greatly augmented the powers of the Anglican authorities, the Vice-Chancellor, Whitgift, Cartwright’s principal op- ponent throughout this struggle, deprived him of his pro- fessorship. In September, 1571, Whitgift as Master of Trinity expelled Cartwright from his fellowship in that college on the ground that he had not taken priest’s orders. ‘‘There is no doubt... that the proceeding, at the time, was regarded as harsh and arbitrary, and did much to render Whitgift unpopular in the college, for the statutory requirement was one which amid the religious *Grindal, Remains, pp. 323-4. This letter is typical of the religi- ous controversies of the age, showing that an ecclesiast might enter- tain Puritan views on one subject and not on another. * Mullinger, I, p. 218. THE PURITANS AND ELIZABETH 23 excitement and doubt that then prevailed few masters of colleges found it expedient or possible to enforce.’’"? After a fruitless remonstrance Cartwright left Cambridge and repaired to Geneva. The struggle between Whitgift and Cartwright, which had assumed a national importance, did not end here. In the next year a book appeared entitled An Admonition to the Parliament, popularly supposed to have been the work of Cartwright, but really composed by Field and Wil- cox, two Puritan divines of London.”* This treatise de- nounced the bishops and the Anglican Church in the strongest terms. The former they stigmatised as ‘‘lordly Lords . . . whose kingdom must down, hold they never so hard : because their tyrannous Lordships cannot stand with Christ his kingdom’’. The state of the Church they called ‘“the reign. of Antichrist’’.” For presenting this treatise to the Parliament Field and Wilcox were committed to Newgate, October 2, 1572.8° Cartwright, at the urgent solicitation of his friends, now returned to England, and took up the eudgels by writing A Second Admonition to the Parliament. His language was no less vigorous than that of the authors of the first Admonition. He attacked the **Popish abuses yet remaining’’ in the Church of Eng- land, and denounced the bishops as a ‘‘remnant of Anti- christ’s brood’’.8t The Anglican dignitaries, who called the Puritans ‘‘precisians’’ and ‘‘disciplinarians’’, and often classed them with Anabaptists, atheists, and Libertines,®? considered some activity necessary on their side, and ac- ™ Ibid., p. 227. ® Neal, I, p. 121. ” Strype, Annals, II, pt. 2, pp. 476 ff.; Life of Whitgift, I, pp. 54 ff. °° Neal, ibid. Strype, Whitgift, I, p. 57. % A religious sect of the time. * Neal, I, p. 123. 24 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER cordingly Whitgift was chosen to reply. His Answer to the Admonition appeared this same year, in which he attempted to defend the Church against the allegations of the Puritans. To this Cartwright addressed a Feply, against which Whitgift returned with a Defense of his Answer. Cartwright, however, had the last word; he issued a lengthy Second Reply, the last part of which did not appear until 1577, after he had again retired to the Continent. The contentions of Cartwright are typical of the objec-. tions of the Puritans to the Anglican Church in the period previous to the Marprelate controversy. He maintained ‘‘that the Holy Scriptures were not only a standard of doc- trine, but of discipline and government; and that the Church of Christ, in all ages, was to be regulated by them’’. His anger was almost entirely directed at the bishops, not at the Queen and her advisers who regulated the policy of the Church. It is curious to notice that the corruptions which he so bitterly denounced related almost entirely to matters of ceremony and regiment, while the more reprehen- sible abuses to which the clergy were subjected, such as the simoniacal practices of lay patrons and the fleecing of Church property by the courtiers, received only a passing notice. The chief matters in the Church which Cartwright and the Puritans disliked were as follows: the whole order of ecclesiastical precedence, archbishops, bishops, arch- deacons, deans, chapters, chancellors, commissaries, and other officials; the authority of the Church to ordain matters not expressly commanded by scripture; the appoint- ment of ministers by bishops, lay patrons, and the Crown; the appointment of ministers without a special pastoral charge; the non-residence of ministers and their holding of a plurality of benefices; the appointment of ministers who could read only and not preach; the use of the clerical vest- THE PURITANS AND ELIZABETH 25 ments; the use of the Communion Book; the observation of holy-days and remembrance of saints; the cathedral mode of worship accompanied with chanting of prayers and music of organs; certain rites and ceremonies relating to com- munion, marriage, burial, baptism, purification of women, confirmation, and many others, which were inveighed against with a bitterness which now seems entirely dispro- portionate to their importance.®* In these treatises, and in all the writings of the Puritans ‘ of this period, it is necessary to emphasize two features which are of the greatest importance in order to understand rightly Spenser’s ecclesiastical satire. The first is that Cartwright and the Puritans not only affirmed that the Anglican Church differed little or not at all from the Catho- lic in many points, but that they constantly spoke of the Anglicans as if they were Catholics. Parker became the ‘‘Pope of Lambeth’’, and the bishops ‘‘that viperous brood’’ of prelates, ‘‘imps of Antichrist’’, ‘‘smelling too much of Antichrist’s stench’’; the Cathedral churches they designated ‘‘dens of loitering lubbers’’; the regiment of the Church they called ‘‘ Antichristian and devilish’’, and they said that they might ‘‘as safely subscribe to allow the dominion of the Pope’’; the Book of Common Prayer they compared to the ‘‘Popish dung-hill, the mass-book, full of all abominations’’. Examples might be indefinitely multi- plied. The second feature concerns the controversial lan- guage of the Puritans, ‘which constantly assumes a | pastoral guise in imitation of the rhetorical “figures | of Ezekiel (chapter 34) and of the parables of Christ. The following are good illustrations in this kind: “ And methinketh you should not have been ignorant of this, that, although there be tares in the flour of the church which are “This list is given, because it will be subsequently seen that Spenser under a pastoral coloring alludes to some of these abuses. 26 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER like the wheat, and therefore, being ground, easily meeteth together in the loaf, yet there are no acorns which are bread for swine: and, although there be goats amongst the flock of the church, because they have some likelihood with the sheep, feeding as they do, giving milk as they do, yet in the church of Christ there are no swine, nor hogs. It pertaineth to God only to sever the tares from the wheat, and the goats from the sheep; but the churches can discern between wheat and acorns, between swine and sheep.” (Cartwright’s Reply) “ And you see that, if I would follow those noble metaphors of watchman and shepherd, which the scripture useth to express the office of a minister with, what a large field is opened unto me. For then I could shew you how that cities besieged, and flocks in danger of wolves, are watched continually night and day; and that there is no city so sore and so continually besieged, nor no flocks subject to so manifold diseases at home, or hurtful and devouring beasts abroad . . . as are the churches, the shepherds and watchmen whereof are pastors or bishops.” (The same) “Upon all which things I conclude that the residence of the pastor is necessary; and to doubt whether the pastor ought to be resident amongst his flock is to doubt whether the watchman should be in his tower ... or the shepherd amongst his flock, especially where the sheep are continually in danger of wolves.” (The same) These quotations are merely examples of the prevailing use of pastoral language in theological disputes. Surely _ the young Spenser, who probably heard this kind of lan- guage every day of his life in Cambridge, must have enjoyed ample opportunity to observe the adaptability of pastoral language to the purposes of ecclesiastical satire. The third step in the struggle between the Puritans and Elizabeth’s government is their attempt to reform the Church from within. Cartwright and his brethren, many of whom had been deprived of their livings, had assailed the corruptions of the Church from without; it remained to see if conforming Puritans, who held scarcely less radical | | THE PURITANS AND ELIZABETH 27 views, could improve its internal conditions. Accordingly, about the year 1571, the conforming Puritans set about the institution of certain exercises, called ‘‘prophesyings’’, which received the approval of several bishops. The in- struction of the lower clergy in the composition of sermons and in the art of preaching was the avowed object of these proceedings. ‘‘The exercise was, that certain ministers within a convenient compass in the diocese assembled in a parish church . . . and there, one after another, gave their judgments briefly of the sense and import of some place or places of scripture, propounded before to be discussed, either by the bishop’s or the archdeacon’s order ... : and then lastly it was determined by a moderator. By which means, the ministers were obliged to study, to prepare for the better acquitting themselves in these exercises: and their knowledge in scripture increased; and the people also present were edified, by hearing of a sermon then preached. ’’®> The institution of these exercises began in the church of Northampton and received the consent of Scambler, Bishop of Peterborough, of the mayor of the town, and of the justice of the peace.** In 1573 they were established at Bury St. Edmund’s in Suffolk with the approbation of Parkhurst, Bishop of Norwich,*? and rapidly spread throughout other parts of this diocese. In 1574 Cooper, Bishop of Lincoln, drew up instructions for the regulation of the ‘‘prophesyings’’ in that part of his diocese which lay in Hertfordshire.** In fact they were instituted in many dioceses, of which these were the principal ones.88 Now the Puritan ministers, according to the government, ‘‘took *Strype, Annals, IT, pt. 1, p. 325. 8 Tbid., p. 133. " Tbid., p. 326. ® Ibid., pp. 472-6. © Ibid; Strype, Parker, II, p. 358. 28 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER occasion here to vent controversies concerning matters of church discipline, and to call in question the establishment of this Church by episcopacy’’.°° The Queen, therefore, who could never bring herself to regard free speech in Parliament or in the pulpit as anything else than imperti- nence, commanded Archbishop Parker to suppress these ‘‘vain prophesyings’’ in the diocese of Norwich. To this order Bishop Parkhurst, who considered them ‘‘a right necessary exercise’’, demurred, and at the same time a letter arrived which tended to confirm him in his decision. This paper, signed by Sir Thomas Smith, Sir Walter Mild- may, Sir Francis Knolly, and Sandys, Bishop of London, strongly recommended the continuance of the ‘‘prophesy- ings’’.°t When Parker got wind of this proceeding, he wrote to Parkhurst again, asking what warrant these Privy Councillors and the Bishop of London had for their letter. The latter, therefore, although he communicated with Sandys, deemed it best to comply with the royal command, and issued an order for the suppression of the exercises. Grindal, who had been confirmed as Archbishop of Canterbury on February 15, 1575-6, strongly favored the “‘prophesyings’’. In spite of their repression in the diocese of Norwich they continued elsewhere, and Grindal drew up fresh directions for their regulation.®? This proceeding he considered necessary, because the more violent Puritans continued to make ‘‘invections against the laws, rites, policies, and discipline of the Church of England’’. The Queen, however, who thought that ‘‘three or four preachers might suffice for a county’’, ordered Grindal to put down these exercises, and to this command he wrote a firm, dignified reply in which he refused to obey.®* After point- © Strype, Parker, II, p. 359. ™ Ibid., pp. 359-61. 2Strype, Grindal, pp. 326-8. * The date of this letter was probably December 8, 1576 (cf. Cooper, Athenae, I, p. 474). THE PURITANS AND ELIZABETH 29 ing out that the ‘‘prophesyings’’ derived their authority from the New Testament, that they improved the moral and intellectual conditions of the clergy, and that the bare reading of the homilies did not suffice for the edification of the congregation, he proceeded to ask the Queen to refer ‘“all these ecclesiastical matters which touch religion .. . unto the bishops’’ and to ‘‘pronounce’’ less ‘‘resolutely and peremptorily’’ when she dealt ‘‘in matters of faith and religion’’. Her high-handed method of procedure he compared to ‘‘the anti-christian voice of the pope’’. He further warned her that she was but ‘‘a mortal creature’’, and bade her humble herself before God.°* Now these were bold words. This letter incensed the Queen; on the 8th of May, 1576, she issued an order to every bishop in England, charging each one to put down the ‘‘prophesyings’’ within his own diocese. The tenor of this document conclusively proves that the Queen and her advisers looked upon them as Puritan devices to disturb the peace of the Church. In the beginning of June the Privy Council confined Grindal to his house and sequestered him from performing the duties of his see for six months. Although he wrote a submission on November 30, 1577, it was not considered satisfactory, and his suspension was not removed until the close of 1582. In these three movements, the ‘‘vestment controversy”’, the Cartwright-Whitgift struggle, and the proceedings relating to the ‘‘prophesyings’’, the wide application of the word Puritan and the relation of the Puritans to the policy of Elizabeth’s government are clearly illustrated. Before taking up Spenser’s satire on Church and State, however, it is expedient to consider what was going on in Cambridge during the period of his connection with the University, “Grindal, Remains, pp. 376-90. *Strype, Grindal, pp. 574-6. 30 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER and how his political opinions may have been colored, like those of many another Englishman, by the stormy scenes which were being enacted under his eyes. (3) Academic Disputes in Cambridge (1569-1576) In view of Spenser’s connection with the University of Cambridge from May 20, 1569, until June 26, 1576, when he left upon the taking of his Master’s degree, it will be well to recapitulate the main events of academic interest during this period illustrative of the religious contro- versies of the age. Next to London this University was, at this time, the chief centre of Puritan agitation, and, in view of the fact that its Chancellor was the first statesman of the realm, to whom its members constantly submitted their causes for judgment, its disputes acquired a national impor- tance. The struggle between Cartwright and Whitgift, which has already been described in the preceding pages, occupied the centre of the academic stage during the first two years of Spenser’s residence. Like all thoughtful young men at Cambridge, he must have been deeply inter- ested in its outcome, and, although he may have declined to accept the whole of Cartwright’s ecclesiastical program, it is impossible to believe that he did not come under the spell of this man of genius. Cartwright’s popularity in Cam- bridge was unbounded. We are told that ‘‘when it was his turn to preach at St. Mary’s, the sexton, on account of the multitudes who flocked to hear him, was obliged, for their accommodation, to take down the windows of the church’’,®* that those outside might listen. The eloquence of the Lady Margaret Professor, who thought that ‘‘the time had come to throw off shams, and denounce the intrinsic falsity as well as the incidental corruption of the religious machinery °° Brook, Lives of the Puritans, II, pp. 137-8. ACADEMIC DISPUTES 31 which he saw around him’’,* won over to his side a large majority of the members of the University.” The expulsion of Cartwright, however, failed to allay the rising tide of Puritan dissatisfaction with the prevailing order of things. On the sixth of May, 1572, a document signed by one hundred and sixty-four members of the senate—that is, graduate students in residence who were either regents or non-regents—and addressed to Burghley, petitioned against the new statutes recently promulgated by the University authorities.°® These statutes, which had been drawn up chiefly by Whitgift, had received the royal assent on September 25, 1570. The decision to reform the statutes had been caused by the behavior of the senate on June 29, 1570, in which Cartwright’s followers possessed a majority and in which they successfully opposed the elec- tion to the caput’ of all those Heads of colleges known to be hostile to their party. The state of affairs at Cam- bridge represented on a smaller scale the state of the Eng- lish Church at large; the authorities were mostly Angli- cans, those who enjoyed positions of minor importance were for the most part Puritans. The large body of voters who filled the senate consisted of men who were studying for higher degrees, many of whom were fellows of colleges, and it was among these younger men that the strength of Cart- wright’s party lay. Without entering upon all the changes * Campbell, I, p. 413. * Notices of Cartwright’s popularity may be found in many places. The following statement well expresses the estimation in which he was held: ‘‘Cartwright was so generally popular that he would, it was believed, have been chosen vice-chancellor, had not statutes altering materially the constitution of the university been obtained in Sep- tember 1570’? (Cooper, Athenae, IT, p. 361). Cf. also Mullinger, II, p. 230. * Cooper, Annals, II, p. 279. %° The administrative board of the University. 82 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER introduced into the statutes, it is enough to remember that the new code greatly augmented the powers of the Heads and consequently greatly diminished the prestige of the Puritan body of voters. They have been characterized as ‘‘innovations upon the ancient constitution of the Univer- sity of the most important and fundamental character’’.1™ Among the signers of this petition were four men who subsequently became bishops; several other petitioners afterwards received important preferments in the Church. To this document the Vice-Chancellor and Heads drew up an answer, to which the complainants replied, and the matter was referred by Burghley to a commission of five bishops, who decided at the end of May (1572) that ‘‘we think that the statutes as they be drawn, maie yet stand, and no greate cause whie to make anie alteration’’.1°? The allegations on each side are characterized by contumelious language and testify to the harsh feeling which existed between the authorities and those generally classed as Puritans.?°* The University proctors, Bacon and Purefoy, who had assumed a leading part in this altercation probably because the powers of their office were greatly diminished by the new code, continued the agitation by baiting Dr. Hawford, the deputy Vice-Chancellor, and on verbal authority which they claimed to have secured from Burghley they prevented the nomination of lecturers at the congregation on June 10, 1572.1°* This last dispute dragged on throughout the summer, and was finally settled in September rather in * Peacock, Observations on the Statutes of Cambridge University, . 47, 7 *? Cooper, Annals, II, p. 304. * Lancelot Browne, fellow of Pembroke and a University proctor in 1573, was one of the four Puritan leaders in this dispute. Spenser’s college was in the thick of the fray. 14 Cooper, Annals, II, pp. 307 ff. ACADEMIC DISPUTES 33 favor of the proctors.°% The unpopularity of the Anglican party was further increased this year by the publication of Whitgift’s Answer to the Admonition, then held to be the work of Cartwright. On the following 3rd of De- cember, William Clark, a fellow of Peterhouse, in a Clerum sermon preached before the University at St. Mary’s defended these two theses: ‘‘that those states of Bishops, Archbishops, Metropolitans, Patriarchs, and lastly of Popes, were introduced into the Church by Satan’’, and ‘‘that among the Ministers of the Church, one ought not to be superior to another’’.1°™ Summoned before the authorities the next day he ‘‘spared not . . . to overthwart divers of the Heads in very unseemly manner, and with taunting words’’. On his refusal to retract his statements, he was expelled in February (1573), and, although Burgh- ley on his appeal at first wrote in his favor, he subsequently upheld the decision of the Heads and confirmed Clark’s expulsion.1% The objections to the constituted authorities receive fur- ther illustration at this time by the actions of two other men, both fellows of Trinity. One of them, John Browning, who had ‘‘uttered in St. Mary’s certain doctrines, tending to the favouring of Novatus’s heresy’’ and touching upon ‘““matters of State’’,?°° was convened before Whitgift, and after subsequently preaching again upon the same subject he was committed to the Tolbooth. Released upon heavy bonds, he was required to subscribe to a confession before Burghley, ‘‘affirming that he was much mistaken in his sermon’’,??° and orders were given to see whether he should 1% Tbid., pp. 309-10. 1 Strype, Whitgift, I, p. 87. 1™ Toid., p. 88. 18 Cooper, Annals, II, pp. 312-3. ” Strype, Parker, II, p. 195. 4° Cooper, Annals, IT, p. 315. 4 34 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER live up to this declaration. The case of the other, Nicolas Browne, illustrates the danger which Spenser ran even in satirizing unlearned priests. This man in a sermon was charged with uttering ‘‘doctrine and reasons tending to the infringing of the order and manner of creating Ministers’”’ and with saying that ‘‘no Priests made in the Popish time ought to have any function in the Church of England’’.* This latter accusation might have been laid at Spenser’s door, for he also had attacked ‘‘Popish’’ ministers who still held preferment in the Church.? Although Browne denied these allegations and therefore at first refused to recant, he was forced to make a formal retraction after an ‘‘ineffectual application’’ to Burghley. In June, 1578, Thomas Aldrich, the Master of Corpus Christi (Bene’t), a leader of the Puritans and a ‘‘great up- holder of Cartwright’’, ‘‘refused to take the degree of Bachelor in Divinity’’,** as required by the statutes in the ease of a Head of a college, and became involved in a struggle with the authorities, who sought the assistance of Burghley and Archbiship Parker. In August the Chan- cellor summoned Aldrich, who had appealed to him, and ‘‘charged him with ingratitude to the Archbishop, his patron, and ordered him to go to the Archbishop, declare his error, and beg his pardon’’. Aldrich, however, refused, and resigned his mastership, thus putting an end to a pro- ceeding which caused a great deal of excitement at Cam- bridge and elsewhere.1"* These troubles were supplemented in October (1573) by the preaching of one Millayn, a fellow of Christ’s College, ™ Strype, Parker, II, pp. 198-9. 4? May eclogue and Mother Hubberd’s Tale, p. 516 (Globe ed.). 8 Strype, Parker, II, pp. 272 ff. 4 This trouble about Aldrich is illustrative of the manner in which academic events assumed a national importance on account of the appeals to the highest authorities in Church and State. ACADEMIC DISPUTES 385 who attacked the orthodox clergy, charging them with ignorance, dissolute living, maintenance of the ‘‘Pope’s law’’ and ‘‘idolatry’’, and other faults. Upon a refusal to retract he also was expelled from the University.> ‘‘The furious and rash zeal’’ of these times, stimulated by the massacre of St. Bartholomew’s, had brought about in the December of the previous year (1572) proceedings against Dr. Caius, the Head and founder of that college which bears his name. Unpopular owing to his severity in official ad- ministration and owing to a suspected Catholic bias, he became the subject of an attack in which Puritans and Anglicans joined. It was found that he ‘‘retained, stored up in the college, a collection of ornaments, books, and vestments, such as were used in the celebration of the Roman religious service’’.** This discovery led to the ‘‘arbitrary destruction of the whole collection’’ by the authorities, who broke to pieces those ornaments which they could not burn. At this time the animosities between Puritan and Angli- can were fanned into a white heat by the writings of Cart- wright and Whitgift, which I have already described. The contentions of Cartwright are reflected by other quarrels in Cambridge which grew out of the same spirit of opposition to authority. In 1574 Dr. Kelk, the Master of Magdalene, became involved in a quarrel with the fellows of his college over the irregular admission of one of their number, a pro- ceeding which required Burghley’s adjudication...” The protracted quarrel between the Master and fellows of St. John’s, the most Puritan of all the colleges, resulted in the expulsion of the former, Dr. Nicolas Shepperd, who was “5 Cooper, Annals, II, p. 318; Strype, Whitgift, I, pp. 98-100, and III, app. xii. 46 Mullinger, I, p. 243. ™ Strype, Whitgift, I, pp. 118-9. 36 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER charged with various delinquencies by the Puritans. Al- though this sentence was confirmed by Bishop Cox, the visitor, through whose influence Dr. John Still was ap- pointed as Shepperd’s successor, July 14, 1574,* the trouble continued. ‘‘One John Cock,’’ a fellow, ‘‘ in a ‘commonplace’ there delivered, openly assailed the master as one, who, while prescribing for others a rigid rule of conduct, was himself a glaring example of greed of lucre and the love of office.’’° Though compelled by Burghley to read a recantation, he added certain comments on this occasion which ‘‘rendered matters even worse than be- fore’’.12° Another fellow, Maurice Fawkner, ‘‘was com- mitted to prison . . . for a sermon preached at St. Mary’s on the 16th of December’’ (1576), in which he attacked the unbrotherly feeling characteristic of the Anglican Heads in their dealings with the Puritans.12? These and similar contentions led to the promulgation of new college statutes at St. John’s, which went into effect only after Still ceased to be master in June, 1577. These instances, however, are only the most prominent of many troubles which disturbed the University. The hand of the fellow was raised against the master. The Anglican party, few in number but powerful in authority, was con- stantly opposed by the large Puritan majority, whose powers had been clipped by the new statutes of 1570. Throughout these years of Spenser’s residence at Cam- bridge, however, many cross-currents were at work, and it is not always possible to draw a hard and fast line between Puritan and Anglican. Many men who were at first violent opponents of the Anglican Church later conformed and “8 Cooper, Athenae, II, p. 467. *° Mullinger, I, p. 265. % Toid. | This point of view appears in the May eclogue. ACADEMIC DISPUTES 37 gained high preferment. Dr. John Still, who signed letters to Burghley in favor of Cartwright in 1570, received two preferments from Archbishop Parker the very next year, became Master of St. John’s in 1574 and of Trinity in 1577, and subsequently in 1593 became Bishop of Bath and Wells. Robert Some, who preached so violently against the Angli- can .Church in 1569,1?? became Vice-President of Queens’ College in 1572 and, several years later, Master of Peter- house. Richard Howland, who also signed the Cartwright letters (1570), preached against the sermons of Millayn in October, 1573, and subsequently became Master first of Magdalene, then of Trinity, and finally Bishop of Peter- borough in 1585. Many of those men who signed the peti- tion of 1572 against the new statutes attained to high offices in the Church, as I have elsewhere related. Exam- ples of such cases might be greatly multiplied. The gen- eral theory seems to be that these men lost a good deal of their earlier Puritan scrupulousness and accepted prefer- ment with the intention of reforming the Church from with- in rather than from without. It is unnecessary to believe that they disavowed all their former views. On some ques- tions they might be considered Anglican, on others Puritan, and the acrimony characteristic of the religious contro- versies during the years 1565-1580 does not necessarily imply that there was a sharp dividing line between members of the two parties on all questions of ecclesiastical govern- ment. In their correspondence various bishops, such as Cox and Horne, expressed views which the Puritans advo- cated ; Lord Burghley in several of his memoranda pointed to the abuses in the Church. What marked a man as a Puritan in the eyes of the government was the open expres- sion of these views by word or deed. From this view of the contentious surroundings in which = Cf. supra, p. 21. 38 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER Edmund Spenser passed seven years of his youth, and which have left their impress upon his first important poem, we may safely pass to a few general remarks upon the nature of his satire in the February, May, July, and Sep- tember eclogues. ii. Tue PouiticaL AND ECCLESIASTICAL ECLOGUES OF THE Shepherd’s Calender (1) Introduction to the Present Theory The opening section of this work has attempted to give the reader a concise view of the ecclesiastical policy which Queen Elizabeth and Lord Burghley pursued, and for which the latter was held responsible, together with the corruption which it produced in the Church; the two suc- ceeding divisions have attempted to present an idea of the position taken by the Puritans in regard to this policy and in regard to the Anglican Church, and of the particular reflection of the national religious controversies in the University of Cambridge. In order to comprehend justly the true intent of Spenser’s political and ecclesiastical satire in the Shepherd’s Calender, it is necessary to gain this insight into the history of his times and to seek to under- stand the point of view from which he regarded contem- poraneous public questions. The present investigation is the first which has attempted to analyze in detail the contents of Spenser’s controversial eclogues and to give a logical explanation of the allusions therein to historical conditions and events. Instead of examining them in a purely literary way, and thus arriving at haphazard guesses concerning their meaning, I have en- deavored to bring out by historical research and especially by constant comparisons to the contemporaneous writings of the Puritans and others their exact nature as expres- ECCLESIASTICAL ECLOGUES 39 sions of Spenser’s political and religious faith. My con- clusions tend to prove that Spenser, in the years preceding his Irish employment, was an ardent, thorough-going Puri- tan of the controversial type, and therefore make him out ; to be more of a radical than his biographers, for supposed — lack of evidence, have been disposed to believe him. Now the February, May, July, and September eclogues, .as the scope of my previous remarks has tended to show, reflect a spirit of opposition to the policy o: of Elizabeth and Burghley. Furthermore, in the shape of fables they attack specific transactions which are related to this policy, and in places touch upon matters in Burghley’s life of a personal nature. The February eclogue and its fable, under an ob- secure allegory, refers to an event of a political rather than of an ecclesiastical nature ; the three other eclogues and their fables are almost wholly concerned with matters relating to the Church. In Elizabeth’s time, however, political and religious issues were inextricably bound together, and, al- though Spenser does not allude, except once, to ecclesiastical affairs in the February eclogue, they played an important part in the events which he was probably describing. It is expedient, therefore, to classify these four eclogues together as an expression of the poet’s views previous to his depar- ture to Ireland. In the eyes of Elizabeth’s government every opponent of its policy who was not a Catholic was a Puritan, and Spen- ser, even if he had given voice to little which would have connected him with Puritanism in its theological aspect, would still have been considered a Puritan on account of his general opposition to the government expressed in the Calender. Needless to say, however, he frequently ex- presses sentiments which could proceed only from one who may be regarded as an active Puritan. From both points of view, therefore, we are justified in applying to him this 40 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER name. At the same time he possessed none of that Puritan bigotry which in a later age disfigured its cause, and it is evident that a sense of loyalty, gratitude for past favors, and perhaps a hope for future ones, could sometimes alter the prevailing Puritan bias of his opinions. Archbishop Grindal, the patron of the Merchant Taylors’ School, the former Master and the benefactor of the poet’s college (Pembroke), and the advocate of leniency in the dealings of the government with Puritan non-conformists, received Spenser’s outspoken support when he lay under the royal frown ;' yet Grindal belonged to the Anglican hierarchy which Spenser and other Puritans openly assailed. In regard to the interpretation of two of the fables, which I believe allude to events occurring during Spenser’s residence at Cambridge, a general explanation of his meth- ods of composition should be offered. For various reasons it seems probable that the poet composed parts of the Calender while he still remained a member of the Uni- versity.2, This contention may be argued from our knowl- edge of his usual methods of composition. The Faerie Queene, licensed December 1, 1589, we are informed had been begun some little while before April 10, 1580, when the poet desired Harvey’s ‘‘long expected Iudgement’’.® Several of the poems included in the volume of Com- plaints (1591) had been composed many years before their publication. Virgil’s Gnat is described as ‘‘long since dedicated to the most noble and excellent lord, the Earle of Leicester, late deceased’’;* the date to which this refers is generally considered to be before Spenser left for 1In the July eclogue. : *?The late Mr. F. T. Palgrave gave it as his opinion ‘‘that the Calender was, at least in great part, the work of the years between 1573 . . . and 1579’’, ete. (Spenser, ed. Grosart, IV, p. xxvii). ® Harvey, Works (ed. Grosart), I, p. 38. ‘Globe ed., p. 504. ECCLESIASTICAL ECLOGUES 41 Treland as secretary to Lord Grey in the summer of 1580. In the foreword to the Mother Hubberd’s Tale the poet has announced that it was ‘‘long sithens composed in the raw conceipt of my youth’’®> The Hymne in Honour of Love and the Hymne in Honour of Beautie, although first published in 1596, belonged to ‘‘the greener times’’ of his ‘‘youth’’.* Other examples might be cited from various writings mentioned in the Harvey-Spenser corre- spondence of 1579-80 which are generally believed to have been incorporated into the Faerie Queene. In fact the poet seems usually to have allowed an interval of a few years to elapse between the commencement of a work and its publication. It is therefore not improbable that Spen- ser may have begun the Shepherd’s Calender as early as 1573, for instance, and have gradually composed the remainder of it during the years following. Specific rea- sons, moreover, give weight to this general probability. In his comments upon the November eclogue and its gloss Craik has called attention to the fact that ‘‘repeated references ... of E. K. to the opinion of other critics or readers upon passages in a work as yet unpublished are very curious; they would seem to imply that the Shepherd’s Calender had been extensively circulated in manuscript’’.” This remark had been evoked by the glosses on ‘‘the greate shepehearde’’ and Dido (1. 38). The former E. K. described as ‘‘some man of high degree, and not, as some vainely suppose, God Pan’’; the latter he declared was ‘‘not Rosalind, as som imagin’’. In the introductory gloss to the October eclogue on the question of the identification of Cuddie with Colin E. K. remarks ‘‘that some doubt that the persons be different’’. In the ‘‘argument’’ of the * Ibid., p. 512. * Ibid., p. 592. * Spenser and his Poetry (1871), p. 84. 42 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER ‘‘November’”’ the commentator points out that ‘‘the per- sonage (Dido) is secrete, and to me altogether unknowne, albe of him selfe I often required the same’’. As Craik pointed out, the inference to be drawn from these comments is that the Calender had been circulated in manuscript, and furthermore that certain parts of it, on this account, must have been composed some time before E. K. wrote the gloss (4. e. between September, 1578, and April 10, 1579°). Now the four eclogues which we are considering natu- rally fall within the same classification, not only because of their political and ecclesiastical satire and their use of the fable, but also on account of their more elementary metres —i. e. the accentual and the ballad—, their separation from the Romance of Colin, and their lack of allusion, in general, to the people of the Court, such as Queen Elizabeth® and the Earl of Leicester.° The only reference in these to Colin Clout, the shepherd author-poet, occurs in the Sep- tember eclogue, and then in a manner suggestive of inter- polation. In the course of his conversation with Diggon Davie, Hobbinol praises the good shepherd Roffy: “ Colin Clout, I wene, be his selfe boye, (Ah, for Colin, he whilome my ioye!) Shepheards sich, God mought us many send, That doen so carefully theyr flocks tend.” (ll. 176-9) Taken grammatically the last two lines should be descriptive of Colin Clout; in reality they can be applied only to Roffy, for in Spenser’s ecclesiastical eclogues the keeper of ® Cf. below, p. 177. ®°The April and October eclogues contain references to the Queen; of course I believe that she is represented in the February eclogue, but in that case the poet thinks of her as the symbol of English gov- ernment rather than as the goddess of the Court. * Allusion is made to Leicester in the April, October, and November eclogues. ECCLESIASTICAL ECLOGUES 43 a flock always stands for a clergyman." Spenser, of course, was not a minister, neither is Colin Clout (Spenser) here represented as the owner or keeper of a flock. It is clear from the context that the closing lines form a natural con- clusion to Hobbinol’s estimate of Roffy. The sense points in one direction, the grammar in another, and the best ex- planation seems to be that Spenser made a hasty inter- polation in order to connect this eclogue with the general scheme of the Calender through the mention of Colin Clout, as well as to express his gratitude to Roffy. It is evident, therefore, that these four eclogues stand apart from the remainder of Spenser’s poem. =-/ Let us now turn to the events of the poet’s life during the years from 1573 to 1580. We find that the January, April, June, August, October, November, and December eclogues are connected with the Romance of Colin. Now the view which has been usually taken by the biographers of Spenser, and the one which I have substantially adopted, is that Rosalind came into Spenser’s life after his residence at the University had ceased (1576). Of course he may have known her previously, but it was presumably from this date that she began to play a part in his life. Sim- ilarly, it is only among these seven eclogues that references are found to the Earl of Leicester and his relatives, with whom Spenser seems to have also come into contact only after he had departed from the University, a theory for which I argue in a subsequent part of this work. In other words, whether or not we believe that the eclogues in ques- tion were all composed at nearly the same time, they are taken up with subjects and influences in Spenser’s life with which the February, May, July, and September eclogues are not concerned. The first group reflects the in- fluence of courtly refinement, the second the tumultuous * Hobbinol (Harvey) was not a clergyman, but neither is he de- scribed as the possessor of a flock. 44 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER atmosphere of Cambridge. The religious controversies of this community have been already described. That the young poet was keenly interested in them would be extremely probable, even if we did not possess direct evidence to the fact. Such testimony, however, is at hand. Harvey, writ- ing to Spenser on April 7, 1580, communicates the follow- ing piece of news: ‘‘no more adoe aboute Cappes and Sur- plesses: Maister Cartwright nighe forgotten’’.1? A little later he refers to the continuation of academic disputes: ““caetera faere, ut olim: Bellum inter capita, @ membra continuatum’’.® Now the vividness of Spenser’s satire points to the composition of these eclogues at a time when he lived in the midst of a controversial atmosphere, before he had acquired social intercourse with members of the Court,—or at a period shortly afterward. For all these reasons, therefore-—the artistic divisions of the Shep- herd’s Calender, its biographical allusions taken in con- sideration with our knowledge of the life of the poet, and the methods of composition which he usually employed.— it is probable that events described in some of Spenser’s fables occurred while he was still at the University. Another point which I must emphasize before discussing these eclogues in detail is that Spenser’s allegory in the Calender, so far as it is positively known, relates al- most entirely to persons who lived in the world’s eye. In the April and November eclogues he sounds the praises of the shepherdess Elisa, Queen Elizabeth; in the ‘‘Oc- tober’’ he hails Leicester as ‘‘the worthy’’ whom the Queen “‘loveth best’’. To Archbishop Grindal and to Bishop Aylmer* he clearly alludes in the July eclogue. His * Harvey, Works, I, p. 71. * Ibid., p. 73. *¥For the prevailing fashion of anagrammatizing Aylmer’s name I refer the reader to Harington, Nugae Antiquae, II, Life of Aylmer, and to the Marprelate tracts, passim. Spenser may have noticed the THE FEBRUARY ECLOGUE 45 friends Hobbinol, Piers, and Cuddie appear as spokesmen, but the real interest is reserved for distinguished persons who played important parts in the public life of the time. A strong inference remains, therefore, that the unex- plained portions of his allegory also allude to the same kind of persons and to correspondingly important events. } The resolute silence of the commentator, E. K., in regard to Spenser’s fables, indicates that the poet was shooting at big game. In an age when so-called libels against the government, either from Catholics or Puritans, were pun- ished with the fine and imprisonment of their authors, a writer on political or ecclesiastical topics was treading on dangerous ground. A few months previous to the publi- cation of the Calender Spenser beheld a frightful example of the severity of the government in the punish- ment of John Stubbs, who had attacked the Duke of Alengon and the French marriage, and who lost his right hand for his pains. The printer of Stubbs’s book was Hugh Singleton, who also brought out the first edition of the Calender, and who transferred it to another stationer in October, 1580. Perhaps Singleton, who had been con- demned along with Stubbs, but who had received the royal pardon, did not care to place himself in jeopardy again after people had discovered the true bent of Spenser’s satire. Keeping the points in view which I have been emphasiz- ing, I shall proceed to a discussion of these eclogues one by one, and, first of all, of the ‘‘February’’. (2) The February Eclogue At the opening of the argument of Spenser’s second eclogue E. K. writes as follows: ‘‘this Aéglogue is rather morall and generall, then bent to any secrete or particular name Morel in the prologue to the pseudo-Chaucerian Remedie of Love, as Todd points out, I, p. 114. 46 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER purpose’’. Those who trust in E. K.’s sincerity may well accept this statement and never seek to find a hidden mean- ing in the fable of the Oak and the Briar. The discovery of the sources of the Calender, however, has seriously impugned the trustworthiness of E. K.’s dicta. If he can remain entirely silent when Spenser paraphrases Man- tuan and Marot in the July and December eclogues re- spectively, to mention no other points of indebtedness, he is certainly capable of obscuring the sense of an allegory applicable to important contemporaneous events. In the former case he is merely holding up his poet as an original creator instead of as an imitator, in the latter he is attempt- ing to deny responsibility for any dangerous meaning which this poet may have intended to give. Again, cog- nizant as we are of Spenser’s allegorical methods of refer- ring to important personages, not only in the Calender, but in all his subsequent poetry, and considering the fashion of the poets of his time to represent public and private events by allegory, the fable of the Oak and the Briar would present an anomaly if ‘‘more’’ was not ‘““meant than meets the ear’’. But this is not all, There is evidence of a more positive kind which clearly indicates that this fable has something more than a merely ‘‘morall and generall’’ meaning. In the Briar’s description of himself occur the following sig- nificant lines: “Seest how fresh my flowers bene spredde, Dyed in lilly white and Cremsin redde, With Leaves engrained in lusty greene; Colours meete to clothe a mayden Queene.” (Il. 129-32) The reference to Queen Elizabeth is, of course, unmistak- able, and shows at once that Spenser’s attention was not wholly diverted from important persons. Evidence of a THE FEBRUARY ECLOGUE 47 similar nature arises in other places, one of which is the historical description of the Oak prior to his fall: “For it had bene an auncient tree, Sacred with many a mysteree, And often crost with the priestes crewe, And often halowed with holy-water dewe: But sike fancies weren foolerie, And broughten this Oake to this miserye; For nought mought they quitten him from decay,” (ll. 207-213) E. K. in his gloss to 1. 209 writes as follows: ‘‘ the priests crewe, holy water pott, wherewith the popishe priest used to sprinckle and hallowe the trees from mischaunce. Such blindnesse was in those times, which the Poete supposeth to have bene the finall decay of this auncient Oake.’’ This explanation records the fact that the Oak’s decay originated in the sprinkling of water by the priests. But this attri- bution, like so many of Spenser’s allusions to nature, is inaccurate. No tree which is carefully looked after and whose roots are watered is brought to decay by the cause here given. The original object of the watering of trees was to keep them in a state of preservation, and the science of gardening, well known in the times of Elizabeth, con- tradicts any such theory as the one advanced by Spenser and E. K. for the Oak’s decay. The true explanation of this inaccuracy lies in the fact that both Spenser and E. K. are thinking of what the Oak represents, and not of the Oak itself. It is evident that whatever or whoever the Oak stands for was brought to decay or undermined by some ‘‘nopishe’’ practices. In other words, a relation exists be- tween the Oak and the Catholic religion. Another bit of evidence that specific persons and events Burghley’s gardens at Theobalds and the Earl of Arundel’s at Nonsuch were famous (cf. Hentzner’s Travels). 48 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER are alluded to is found in the extremely vivid satire on courtiers represented by the speech and actions of the Briar. After his grovelling supplication (ll. 150-6), his proceedings are thus described : “With painted words tho gan this proude weede, (As most usen Ambitious folke:) His colowred crime with craft to cloke.”’ (Il. 160-2) To the beginning of the Briar’s speech (1. 150) E. K. attaches this comment: ‘‘a maner of supplication, wherein is kindly coloured the affection and speache of Ambitious men’’, The whole speech and conduct of the Briar is clearly designed, when taken in conjunction with the refer- ence to the ‘‘mayden Queene’’ (1. 132), to be an attack upon some courtier, statesman, or favorite of Queen Elizabeth. Convinced as I am that this fable has a reference to con- temporaneous political events, I will now examine the con- tents for the purpose of gaining details which may serve for identification. To begin with, the Oak and the Briar, it is to be noted, belong to the ‘‘Husbandman’’, for they stand upon his land. This owner, as it happens, one day makes a survey of his property: “Yt chaunced after upon a day, The Hus-bandman selfe to come that way, Of custome for to survewe his grownd, And his trees of state in compasse rownd:” (Il. 143-6) He is recognized as the ‘‘lord’’ (1. 149) of this ‘‘grownd”’, —in fact the Briar calls him ‘‘my liege Lord’’ (1. 150) ,— , and the trees are designated ‘‘his trees of state’’. This i last E. K. explains as ‘‘taller trees, fitte for timber wood’’. - The Briar, however, is certainly not a tree of state, a THE FEBRUARY ECLOGUE 49 --; taller tree, in this sense, and yet he must be included in the ‘‘trees of state’’, or else it would be unnatural for the ‘husbandman to pay such quick heed to the plea of an unim- i portant tree. ‘‘Trees of state’’, therefore, do not mean what E. K. says they do. Again the allegorical intention "appears, and it becomes probable that the word ‘‘state’’ is used in its more concrete sense to denote a country or government. If this is true, it implies that the husband- man is the ruler of this country or government, and indeed his appellations, besides those already noticed, justify this view. The Briar is his ‘‘poore Vassall’’ and describes him as “ .. my soveraigne! Lord of creatures all, Thou placer of plants both humble and tall,” (il. 163-4) The husbandman, moreover, has planted the Briar, and the latter declares that his intention in so doing had been to make him ‘‘the primrose of all his land’’. This language evidently means something more than the mere appeal of a servant to a master. It recognizes an absolute authority in the husbandman and a position without rival in the ‘‘erownd’’ which he owns. This position is further inti- mated by a subsequent remark of the Briar in his com- plaint : “Untimely my flowres forced to fall, That bene the honor of your Coronall:” (ll. 177-8) E. K. explains ‘‘Coronall’’ by ‘‘Garlande’’. If we accept this meaning, the question arises: what is a husbandman doing with a garland? The picture of a farmer walking about his land and crowned with a wreath would be some- what ludicrous. If the ‘‘shepheards daughters’’ (1. 120) were intended, the case would be different. Garlands are 5 50 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER the natural property of country lasses, and always have been. Such is not the application, however, and the fact remains that the husbandman has a ‘‘Coronall’’. My explanation of this curious feature lies in the com- bination of this passage with one already quoted, when the Briar calls attention to the beauty of his blossoms: “Seest how fresh my flowers bene spredde, Dyed in Lilly white and Cremsin redde, With Leaves engrained in lusty greene; Colours meete to clothe a mayden Queene.” (ll. 129-32) The Briar’s flowers are ‘‘meete’’ for a ‘‘mayden Queene’’, and they are also the ‘‘honor’’ of the husbandman’s “‘Coronall’’. But this is rather slighting praise for Queen Elizabeth, to be held up in comparison with a husband- man! And a wreath of flowers, moreover, is inappropriate for a mere farmer. Such is the actual case, and the solu- tion seems to be simply this: Elizabeth and the husband- man are one and the same person. The submissive, adula- tory language of the Briar, the absolute authority vested in the husbandman, which is especially marked in the de- struction of the Oak, the significance of the ‘‘trees of state’’, and the propriety of the term ‘‘Coronall’’, which is undoubtedly intended to designate both a garland and a crown,—all these facts become clear in their relation to each other if this view is adopted. When we remember that Spenser’s attention was devoted to important persons, this theory becomes extremely probable. The fact that Eliza- beth appears as a man is not antagonistic.® A woman would fit less easily into this fable. There would be some- thing incongruous in the picture of a woman who wielded an axe and chopped down a large tree. If Spenser had "Cf. the Mother Hubberd’s Tale, in which the Lion represents Elizabeth. THE FEBRUARY ECLOGUE 51 represented Elizabeth as a woman, the satire, which was probably sufficiently clear already, would have become pointed. He evidently wished to leave a loop-hole of escape by which he could disavow any dangerous intention. So far, my view of the Oak and Briar fable carries with it a reasonable degree of probability. From a combina- tion of references I have attempted to establish the identity of the ‘‘Husbandman’’. For the remainder of my theory I can advance no claims of absolute proof. To present a solution which tallies so closely with the known opinions of Spenser and with the incidents of the fable that the like- ness seems more than fortuitous certainly lies within my power, and, since that is my task, I shall state my conclu- sions first. I believe that the fable of the Oak and the Briar refers to the fall and execution of the Duke of Nor- folk, that he it is who is meant by the Oak, and that the Briar stands for Burghley.?” Admitting that the ‘‘Husbandman’’ designates Eliza- beth, it is at once evident that the Oak and the Briar, the ‘“trees of state’’, represent men prominent in the affairs of the kingdom. If important personages were not intended, there would be small need of obscuring the meaning of the fable. Beginning with the description of the Briar, it is clear, from the language placed in his mouth, from his miserable condition after the Oak’s fall, and from the fact that the shepherd Thenot is attacking the ingratitude of youth, which the Briar symbolizes, that the point of the whole fable is primarily a satire upon the Briar and what- ever it represents, rather than a lament over the departed For an illustration of a prevalent method of referring to courtiers and noblemen under the allegory of trees, notice the following curious extract from the State Papers: ‘‘I have wondered at the great sway of the Earl of Leicester at Court, and how so great a tree should suddenly sprout and overshadow all the trees in Court’? (Cal. State Papers, Dom., Add., 1580-1625, p. 136). 52 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER glory of the Oak. If the Briar, therefore, represents Burghley, a motive must be found for Spenser’s attack on this powerful nobleman who guided the ship of state. The poet’s subsequent dislike of Burghley crops out in various places, and, even if he had left no record of his views, it would be unreasonable to believe that his attitude could be anything but cool towards one who was the con- stitutional enemy of his patron, the Earl of Leicester. It is necessary to the success of my theory, however, to prove that Spenser had strong reason to dislike Burghley at the period when he composed this eclogue, which I believe to have been before he received the patronage of Leicester and Philip Sidney. These grounds of dislike, whether or not my solution of the Oak and Briar fable is believed, probably arose from Spenser’s residence at a University where Puritan objec- tions against the Established Church ran high, and where Burghley, as ee symbolized all that was hateful to the Puritans. It was Burghley who supported Whitgift and the Heads of colleges in their measures against Cartwright, whose talents and eloquence had undoubtedly attracted Spenser in much the same way as they did the great majority of undergraduates; it was Burghley who approved of the new statutes against which such a storm of obloquy arose at their promulgation in 1572; it was Burghley to whose authority the Heads constantly applied when individuals publicly attacked their adminis- tration, as we have already seen.t® Even if Spenser was not a thorough-going theological Puritan, he would never have voiced objections to the Established Church in the Calender unless he had been out of sympathy with the views of the one man beyond all others who regulated the policy of its bishops. As far as a motive is concerned, "Cf. supra, i, (3). THE FEBRUARY ECLOGUE 63 therefore, it is evident that Spenser would have had an antagonism towards Burghley during his collegiate days strong enough to induce him to write a satire, as long as he meant to deal with public events in his writings at all. The execution of the Duke of Norfolk was an event which stirred England to its depths, connected as it was with the two vital questions of the day, religion and the succession to the throne. Apart from his opposition to Burghley, and the natural pity of a sensitive nature for an unfortunate wretch, several specific reasons can be brought forward which make it probable that Spenser was interested in the fate of the Duke. In the first place, Norfolk was High- Steward of the town of Cambridge when the poet matricu- lated. In that position he enjoyed the good-will of the University, a feeling which was probably increased in 1569 when he threatened to resign his office. ‘‘On the 7th of August, the Vice chancellor and Heads wrote to Sir Wil- liam Cecil, the Chancellor, that it had been lately signified to them that the Duke of Norfolk intended to withdraw his patronage from the townsmen, in consequence of the contentions in the Corporation, and of his advice having been unworthily neglected in the late election of mayor and bailiffs. They therefore petitioned Sir William Cecil, that he would persuade the Duke to renounce the townsmen, if he had not already done so, and that he would induce him to adhere to his resolution, lest overcome by the solici- tations of the townsmen he should receive them again into his protection.’’!® This petition, it would appear, was suc- cessful, for in January, 1570, an order was passed by the Corporation of Cambridge, supplicating ‘‘the Duke of Norfolk to resume the office of High Steward of the town, which he had resigned’’.2® By his marriage with the * Cooper, Annals, II, p. 242. ” Tbid., p. 269. 54 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER daughter of Thomas, Lord Audley, who founded Magda- lene College, he became its patron and benefactor, and upon the Queen’s visit to the University in 1564 he bestowed on this college a considerable sum of money, and promised ‘‘£40 by year till they had builded the quadrant . . and further promised, ‘that he would endow them with land for the encrease of their number and studys’ ’’.? In addition to these connections with the town and the University of Cambridge, he had other associations which would have made him familiar to Spenser. Owing to his large estates in this part of the country, of which the most important were a country-seat at Audley End, near Saffron Walden, where Harvey lived, and which was distant four- teen miles from Cambridge, and his park at Kenninghall, Norfolk, about forty miles distant, and owing to his posi- tion as a Commissioner of Musters for Cambridge and to his hereditary jurisdiction in the neighboring shires of Nor- folk and Suffolk, which also extended into some parts of Cambridgeshire and Essex, he was regarded with great affection as the feudal lord of that part of England. In particular, however, there were special considerations, besides his hard fate and his commanding position in the neighboring country. John Fox, the martyrologist, and the intimate friend of Archbishop Grindal, was his tutor,?? and retained the Duke’s respect and affection until the end of his life, when he attended him to the scaffold.?* After sen- tence of death had been pronounced upon him, it was for Alexander Nowell, the Dean of St. Paul’s and the brother of Robert Nowell, Spenser’s early benefactor, that he sent. He stated that he desired to end his days with Nowell,?* a wish which was fulfilled, for the latter also accompanied 1 Nichols, Progresses of Elizabeth, I, p. 182. “Cooper, Athenae, I, p. 302. * Strype, Annals, II, pt. 2, p. 461. *Temon, Cal. State Papers, p. 444. THE FEBRUARY ECLOGUE 55 him to the seaffold.25 Now Fox was a Puritan, while Nowell entertained Puritan opinions and always advocated leniency towards the non-conformists. Two famous Puritans, Thomas Sampson and Edward Dering, also enjoyed the Duke’s confidence in a like prominent measure. Sampson, the deprived Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, conducted the burial service of the second Duchess of Norfolk by special request of the Duke’s council. Edward Dering, the celebrated scholar and fellow of Christ’s College, Cam- bridge, who died in 1576, and in whom Spenser could scarcely fail to have been interested as a distinguished member of his University and as a leader of the Puritans, was the Duke’s chaplain.”® Both these men the Duke re- quested to see, after the pronouncement of his sentence.?” It is curious to note that three of these men were Puritans, and that the fourth held many Puritan views, whose opin- ions as leaders of his party Spenser undoubtedly respected. At this point a paradox arises. Is it possible to believe that the Puritan Spenser, in spite of the reasons advanced, could have supported the head of the Catholic family of Howard, the brother-in-law of three powerful Catholic noblemen,”® the aspirant to the hand of the Catholic Queen of Scots, and a leader to whom the Catholics looked for the restoration of their religion? The explanation of this ap- parent difficulty is simple: it has never been proved that Norfolk was a Catholic, and furthermore it is certain that * Strype, ibid. *Dering took an active part in the Cartwright controversy; he wrote several vigorous letters to Burghley on this subject. In 1573 his bold attacks on the Anglican system led to his suspension from his duties as divinity reader at St. Paul’s Cathedral. Cooper (Athenae, I, pp. 354-7) gives a good account of him. ™ Lemon, ibid., pp. 434, 436. The Earl of Westmoreland, who led the rebellion of 1569, Lord Scrope of Bolton, and Lord Berkeley, each of whom married a sister of the Duke. 56 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER many of his contemporaries believed him to be a Protestant, perhaps a Puritan. In addition to his friendship with the four Puritan clergymen mentioned above, he strictly denied more than once that he was a Catholic,?® and in his speech on the scaffold asserted his Protestantism and renounced the Pope.*° Without other testimony, the truth of his own religious professions under these circumstances might be doubtful. In a letter written by Mary Stuart to the Bishop of Ross, February 8, 1571, she stated that ‘‘ Norfolk was to be asked to pledge himself finally to become a Catholic; doubt as to his religion, she says, having been the prin- cipal reason for Philip’s* lukewarmness’’*? towards the plot of Norfolk and Ridolfi for her liberation. Upon the examination of the attainted Earl of Northumberland in June, 1572, just after Norfolk’s execution, he declared that he had sent word to Mary Stuart just previous to the re- bellion in the autumn of 1569 that ‘‘her marriage with the Duke was misliked, he being counted a Protestant’’.2* Here are three of the most prominent people of the time con- nected with the Catholic plots against Elizabeth’s govern- ment who sincerely doubted Norfolk’s Catholicism. In the examination of those who were concerned in the abortive Catholic rebellion in Norfolk in 1570, the Queen’s two attorneys declared that the Duke of Norfolk was ‘‘as good a Protestant as any in England’’.** Strype speaks of him as ‘“‘the favorite now (1565) both of the court and peo- ple’’.25 In fact he was the most popular nobleman in the kingdom, even at the time of his death.2* Sir Robert Mel- * Strype, Annals, I, pt. 2, p. 242; Lemon, p. 302. » Strype, Annals, II, pt. 2, pp. 463-4. * The King of Spain. 2M. A. S. Hume, The Great Lord Burghley, pp. 256-7. * Green, Cal. State Papers, Dom., Add., p. 403. * Strype, Annals, I, pt. 2, p. 366. * Tbid., p. 197. * Hume, Burghley, p. 268. THE FEBRUARY ECLOGUE 57 ville?’ in his Memoirs writes of him: ‘‘the great men, who were papists, were all his near kinsmen; whom he entertained with great wisdom and discretion. And the Protestants had such good proof of his godly life and con- versation, that they loved him entirely.’’** In his dealings with Fox, moreover, he seems to have conducted himself like a Puritan, for at his old tutor’s request he invited Peter Martyr, the celebrated Reforming preacher who had formerly lectured at Oxford, to return to England,®® and he hearkened to the cause of Lawrence Humphrey in 1565 when the latter had been punished for non-conformity.*° After the weight of this testimony has been duly considered, it is clear that matters of religion would not have pre- vented Spenser as a Puritan from lamenting the fall of this great nobleman. Up to this point I have accounted for the motives which may have been supposed to have guided Spenser’s design, provided that he had Lord Burghley and the Duke of Norfolk in mind. It remains to consider the appropriate- ness of the incidents in the Oak and Briar fable to the fall of the Duke of Norfolk and to his relations with Lord Burghley from Spenser’s point of view. Without going into the details of the actions of Cecil and Norfolk from the autumn of 1568 until the latter’s trial in January, 1572, a proceeding which would involve an account of the history of England during that period, it will be enough to point to a few facts. Spenser, like the mass of his countrymen, could have known little of the secret transactions which led to Norfolk’s ruin. All that he could have known was that a struggle had taken place among the advisers of the Queen, * The famous Scotch diplomat of this period, who was constantly employed on political affairs which kept him in England. * Quoted by Strype, Annals, IT, pt. 1, p. 192. ® Tbid., I, pt. 1, p. 381. “Strype, Parker, I, p. 368. 58 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER among whom Norfolk represented the nobility of ancient lineage, and Cecil, the unpopular Chancellor of Spenser’s University, the new order of men, the upstarts of the Reformation. In the autumn of 1568, urged on by the Catholie nobility, who wished to settle once and for all the succession to the Crown, and who were opposed to the foreign policy of Cecil and to the progress of the Reformation, Norfolk took up the scheme of marrying the Queen of Scots. Although his resolution was staggered when he examined the celebrated Casket letters,‘ the authenticity of which he did not deny, he persevered in his determination. In this course of action he received not only the support of the Catholic nobility, headed by the Earls of Arundel, Derby, Northumberland, Cumberland, and Westmoreland, Lord Montagu, and Lord Lumley, but also the assistance of a reactionary Protestant element, represented in the Queen’s Council by the Earls of Leicester, Pembroke, and Sussex, and Sir Nicholas Throgmorton. Many of the first faction consented to the project with the greatest reluctance, for they did not believe that Norfolk was a Catholic, and the northern ones, at least, objected to his claims to the Dacres estates.4? Of the second faction many undoubtedly thought that the mariage of Mary Stuart with Norfolk would be the only security for her good behavior and for the peace of the realm. Nor- folk probably dangled before Leicester’s eyes the bait of an eventual marriage with Elizabeth, and in this way secured his backing. Chiefly through the irresolution of Norfolk and a combination of circumstances which pre- vented the snapping of the strained relations between Eng- “The compromising letters of Mary Stuart to the Earl of Both- well at the time of her husband Darnley’s murder. “Through the marriages of two of his sons to the heiresses of the last Lord Dacres. THE FEBRUARY ECLOGUE 59 land and Spain, and which thus vindicated Cecil’s foreign policy, Norfolk’s plans for the marriage and the overthrow of the government led to his own imprisonment in the Tower. In September, 1569, after Elizabeth had sharply reprimanded him for his negotiations with Mary Stuart, he suddenly left the Court, which was then at Titchfield near Southampton, without permission, and retired first to the Charterhouse, his London residence, and later to his home at Kenninghall in Norfolk. While in London his failing courage instigated him to warn the Earl of Northumber- land against taking the field in the north. ‘‘He believed that the Queen would not venture to send for him among a people who would have given their lives had he required them in his defence,’’** and, even when a message finally arrived ordering him to return, he at first hesitated. A few days later, however, at the beginning of October, his resolution again failed, and he returned to London. On the 8th of October Elizabeth commissioned Sir Francis Knollys to conduct him to the Tower. Here he remained while the insurrection of the northern Earls and the sub- sequent rising of Leonard Dacres were in progress. At the same time Norfolk’s friends in the Council were dis- graced and placed under surveillance.*# From the Tower he wrote penitent letters to the Queen full of fine phrases and disclaiming all intentions of acting contrary to her pleasure. But these availed him little. To Elizabeth he renounced the Scotch marriage, while to Mary Stuart he renewed his promises.*° In March of the next year, how- ever, Leicester, who wished to break Cecil’s influence with the Queen, persuaded her to restore to favor Norfolk’s relations, Arundel and Lumley.*® These noblemen at once “ Froude, IX, p. 488. “ Ibid., p. 486. ““ Tbid., p. 503. “ Ibid., X, pp. 36-8. 60 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER continued their former plotting, which was ‘‘to overthrow Cecil and Bacon’’, now the only defenders of the Protes- tant foreign policy, to ‘‘release the Duke of Norfolk, marry him to the Queen of Scots, and restore the Catholic reli- gion’’.*7 Their influence so far prevailed with the Queen that Cecil was driven to extremities, and Norfolk was so far liberated that he could reside at the Charterhouse under easy surveillance. The failures of the Huguenots in France, the Pope’s bull of excommunication, the closing of the Spanish harbors to English ships, and the internal disturbances of the kingdom, which arose from the uncertain position of the Queen of Scots, were the principal reasons which induced the Queen to conciliate the Catholic party. Although Norfolk had been released from the Tower on the understanding that he would ‘‘deal no more in the matter of the Queen of Scots’’, he immediately pledged himself a second time to her cause.*® During the winter of 1571 he entered into what is known as the Ridolfi conspir- acy, designed to overthrow the existing government and to re-establish Catholicism with the co-operation of the Pope and Philip of Spain. Norfolk had wavered at the time of the northern insurrection and again in the year 1570, when the Earl of Derby and his sons were prepared to rebel, but he now set his hand to a paper which Ridolfi was to show in turn to the Duke of Alva, the Pope, and Philip, and which sanctioned the entrance of a Spanish army into England.* The disaffection of the nobility, moreover, was increased by the negotiations pending for the marriage of Elizabeth with the Duke of Anjou, for they were violently opposed to an alliance with England’s ancient enemy. It is unneces- sary to enumerate the subsequent details of the conspiracy. " Tbid., IX, p. 38. * Ibid., X, p. 118. Ibid., X, p. 156. THE FEBRUARY ECLOGUE 61 Through the watchfulness of Burghley, through the inter- ception of letters from Alva to the Bishop of Ross, through the pretended desertion of Sir John Hawkins to the King of Spain, and through the co-operation of the Florentine ambassador at Antwerp, the government discovered that a Catholic invasion of England was being hatched, sanctioned by an agent who professed to represent three-quarters of the English nobility.°° Norfolk’s complicity, which Cecil had suspected, came out when a bag of gold and a letter in cipher, intended for Mary Stuart’s supporters, fell into Cecil’s hands through the discovery of a Shropshire mer- chant to whose charge they had been committed by the Duke’s servants.** The separate examination of these two men and the Duke, whose stories contradicted each other, brought out the truth. On September 7 the latter was again committed to the Tower, where he broke down and acted in an abject manner. Gradually Cecil unravelled the mystery of the whole conspiracy. When Mary Stuart’s agent, the Bishop of Ross, confessed, Norfolk’s fate was sealed. On the tenth of November he wrote his confession,®? and on the sixteenth of January he was condemned to death by a jury of twenty-six noblemen in Westminster Hall. His end came, after the Queen had many times changed her mind, on Tower Hill, June 2, 1572. Such in brief are the main events which led up to the execution of the Duke of Norkfolk. Although Spenser could never have known the history of his secret conduct, like the vast majority of his countrymen he probably regretted his fate and cast the blame on Burghley. The Duke’s popularity caused indignation in many quarters at the proceedings against him. During the period of his © Ibid., X, p. 287. Ibid., p. 291. = Lemon, p. 428, 62 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER first imprisonment disturbances arose in Norfolk and Suf- folk, and among others arrested in connection with these for uttering seditious words was one Thomas Cecil, a rela- tive of Burghley. The charge laid against him was that he had said ‘‘that his cousin Cecil was the Queen’s darling, who was the cause of the Duke of Norfolk’s imprisonment’’. Don Guerau, the Spanish ambassador, writing to King Philip in September, 1569, after Arundel and the other allies of Norfolk had been placed under arrest, remarks that ‘‘everyone casts the blame on Secretary Cecil, who con- ducts these affairs with great astuteness’’.°? In the winter of 1570 Leicester, who wished to injure Cecil’s standing with the Queen, circulated through his agents a story ‘‘that Cecil and Bacon had proposed to murder Norfolk in the Tower, and would have done it but for his own interfer- ence’’..4 Such reports were everywhere current,®> even in Cambridge. One John Bonyfelowe, a scholar of Cam- bridge, was examined February 2, 1572, ‘‘before the Chan- cellor and others, relative to slanderous words spoken of Leicester and Burghley; and that if the Duke was executed there would be a rising in Norfolk’’.®* Even as late as 1580 these stories were rife, for in that year certain ser- vants of the Earl of Arundel and his brother, the Duke’s sons, who resided at Audley End, charged Burghley ‘‘ with being the cause of the Duke of Norfolk’s death’’.57 In short, it is clear that the feeling prevailed in England that Burghley was responsible for the death of Norfolk, and = Hume, Burghley, p. 239. “Froude, X, p. 37. * Cf. especially Lemon, pp. 365, 467; Green, pp. 358, 384; Cal. Hatfield MSS., ii, pp. 3, 24, 38; Nares, Burghley, II, p. 595. Lemon, p. 435, Lemon, p. 665. Sir Walter Raleigh, writing in 1601 to Robert Cecil, also remarked that the latter’s father ‘‘was esteemed to be the contriver of Norfolk’s ruin’? (Murdin, p. 811). THE FEBRUARY ECLOGUE 63 that these reports were constantly circulated against him as late as the time when the Calender appeared. Nor- folk’s cause remained a live issue,®** and gave Burghley’s opponents a convenient weapon for attacking him. After this illustration of the popular point of view in regard to the relations between Norfolk and Burghley, it will be well to return to the contents of the Oak and Briar fable. For the reasons previously advanced it seems reasonable to believe that by the husbandman Spenser intended Elizabeth, and that the ‘‘trees of state’’, there- fore, must refer to men who stood high in the affairs of the kingdom. What we know of Spenser’s political views and methods of satire, as revealed elsewhere in the Calender, indicates that he was interested in great people and impor- tant events. That he was opposed to Burghley’s ecclesias- tical policy at this time is certain, and it is also extremely probable, though not susceptible of absolute proof, that he was interested in the fate of the Duke of Norfolk. From another point of view, the argument may be advanced that no other political event of importance occurred between 1570 and 1580 which satisfies to an equal degree the inci- dents described in the fable of the Oak and the Briar. A detailed examination, however, will show the further appli- cability of my theory. The description of the Oak (ll. 102-114) contains several elements which peculiarly fit the condition of the Duke of Norfolk. Emphasis is laid upon the change of its appear- ance: “A goodly Oake sometime had it bene, With armes full strong and largely displayd, But of their leaves they were disarayde: ” (il. 103-5) * Cf. Strype’s account (Life of Aylmer, p. 30) of a book which re-appeared in 1579, attacking Burghley for Norfolk’s execution. 64 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER Previous to his disgrace the Duke of Norfolk’s position had been prosperous. Like the Oak he had been “the King of the field,” (1. 108) in other words the Earl Marshal, the first peer of the realm. The descriptive touch, “ And mochell mast to the husband did yielde,” (1. 109) may refer to Norfolk’s services to the Queen, chief of which had been his command of the northern forces at Berwick in the war of 1560 against the French and his services as a Privy Councillor, while the succeeding line, “And with his nuts larded many swine: ” (1. 110) may be easily applied to his keeping many retainers and to his hospitality in Norfolk as a great feudal lord. The reference to the ‘‘stormes’’ which beset the Oak and to ‘‘his honor decayed’’ (the latter is hardly appropriate for a tree) are easily applicable to the change in the fortunes of the Duke. The poet’s attention is then directed to the ‘‘bragging Brere’’. In the description of it (ll. 115-26) emphasis is laid upon its pride, largely occasioned by the favor shown towards it by the ‘‘shepheards daughters’’ and the night- ingale. The general meaning may be that Burghley (the ‘‘Brere’’) has become puffed up with the attentions paid him by courtiers and politicians, and ventures to compete with Norfolk (the Oak), the head of the nobility. With this intention of satirizing Burghley, it would have been dangerous to enter into too many details. Jealousy arouses the anger of the Briar, and it is a matter of fact that Spen- ser at about this time attributed Burghley’s hatred of the THE FEBRUARY ECLOGUE 65 nobility to the same motive.®® The first attack of the Briar (ll. 127-42) and the accompanying discomfiture of the Oak may be easily applied to the first imprisonment of Norfolk in September, 1569. Here the Briar’s reference to the ‘‘mayden Queene’’ becomes intelligible, when we realize that everyone knew that Burghley had the Queen’s sup- port. It should be noticed that the Oak makes no reply to this attack, but he yields “with shame and greefe adawed, That of a weede he was overcrawed.” (1. 141-2) Norfolk’s submission was sufficiently tame, especially after his flight to Kenninghall, and his subsequent denials and retractions in the Tower were abject enough. Like the Oak he made no resistance. The fact that the Briar is called a ‘‘weede’’ (1. 142), an epithet scarcely true in a botanical sense, acquires significance if we remember that Burghley had just recently been raised to the peerage (February 25, 1571), that in spite of the greatest efforts he could never satisfactorily trace his pedigree beyond his own grand- father, and that the Howards and the ancient nobility looked upon him as an upstart. Spenser’s desire to be recognized as a kinsman by the Spencers of Althorpe indi- cates the actual importance which he attributed to an honorable lineage. The Briar’s second attack occurs after the appearance of the ‘‘Husbandman’’, This complaint is based upon the alleged machinations of his enemy: “And, but your goodnes the same recure, Am like for desperate doole to dye, Through felonous force of mine enemie.” (Il. 154-6) 3 Mother Hubberd’s Tale (Globe ed.), p. 524. 6 66 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER To the supporters of Norfolk, as the rumors of the time attest, Burghley’s conduct seemed to be dictated by the fear of his opponents’ activities, and, since he sat on the jury of peers who condemned Norfolk, it was known to everyone that he advocated the execution. Several times the Queen revoked the writs signed for Norfolk’s death, and it was due to Burghley that she finally allowed the law to take its course. The Briar, whom the poet presents as the deviser of a false charge (1. 162), then continues his appeal with a jus- tification of his conduct: “Was not I planted of thine owne hand, To be the primrose of all thy land?” (Il. 165-6) Although Burghley had served as secretary in the Councils of Edward VI and of Mary, he became the real director of the policy of the realm only after Elizabeth’s accession, or in other words he was raised by her to be “the primrose of all her land.” (1. 166) The Briar proceeds to charge the Oak with ‘‘tyrannie”’ (1. 172), because the latter seeks to oppose him. While Norfolk, the representative of the ancient nobility, had attempted the overthrow of Burghley, he had led no insur- rection like the Earl of Northumberland, and his treason was not therefore palpable to the nation at large. To the Duke’s sympathizers who knew nothing of the secret history of the Ridolfi conspiracy, Burghley’s proceedings un- doubtedly seemed to be actuated by jealousy and by the fear that the Duke would displace him in directing the policy of the realm. This appeal of the Briar, therefore, ® Hume, Burghley, pp. 267-8. THE FEBRUARY ECLOGUE 67 in which he dwells upon his own excellences, and prefers charges against the Oak which the poet infers are untrue, is Spenser’s allegorical rendering of the arguments which he imagined that Burghley might have advanced to the Queen. At the conclusion of the Briar’s speech the Oak attempts to make a reply, to which the husbandman refuses to listen on account of the rage into which this accusation has thrown him. This may be applied to Norfolk’s trial, which was conducted before a jury of twenty-six peers, the majority of whom were under special obligations to Eliza- beth or her father for their rank.** To Norfolk’s sympa- thizers this trial must have appeared unfair, as indeed it really was in so far as its arbitrary methods of procedure are considered. The husbandman soon returns with his ‘‘harmefull Hatchet’’ (1. 195), a proceeding closely par- allel to the sentence of death by the axe of the executioner, issued at the trial on January 16, 1572. The remark that “ Anger nould let him speake to the tree,” (1. 199) seems to me peculiarly appropriate to the present theory. In spite of the most pitiful appeals written to the Queen from the Tower after sentence of death had been pro- nounced, including a confession which he intended that she should see, Elizabeth refused to allow the Duke an interview, or even to communicate with him personally.*? Again, the description of the final overthrow of the Oak (11. 201-21), in which considerable delay occurred, is singu- larly appropriate to the hesitation of the Queen. On the 9th of February, and again on the 9th of April, Elizabeth signed warrants for the execution, which she revoked " Froude, X, p. 320. * Murdin, pp. 166, 168, 172. 68 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER within a day or two afterwards.” Conditions reached such a point that Leicester could write to Walsingham on May 21 that he saw ‘‘no likelihood”’ of the Duke’s execu- tion.** The reasons which Spenser advances for the delay in cutting down the Oak, the reasons why “The Axes edge did oft turne againe,” (1. 203) resolve into unwillingness and fear to destroy an ‘‘auncient tree’. Elizabeth seriously objected to public executions, and in Norfolk’s case the particular causes which urged her to ‘‘forbeare’’ (1. 206) arose from his position as the first peer of the realm, the head of the ancient family of Howard. This account continues: “For it had bene an auncient tree, Sacred with many a mysteree, And often crost with the priestes crewe, And often halowed with holy-water dewe: But sike fancies weren foolerie, And broughten this Oake to this miserye;” (ll. 207-12) This passage forms a fitting apology for the overthrow of the Oak and, allegorically, for that of the Duke of Norfolk. The poet disclaims the ‘‘Popishe’’* practices characteristic alike of the tree, on account of the priests’ rites, and ‘of. Norfolk, the general fact of whose dealings with Mary Stuart had become matters of common knowledge after his trial. These ‘‘fancies’’ the poet acknowledges were ‘*foolerie’’; he does not seek to palliate the Oak’s conduct, and he admits that injudicious proceedings led to its “‘overthrow’’. In this way the cause of Norfolk’s fall is * Froude, X, pp. 332, 334. “ Tbid., p. 363. = Cf. gloss to 1. 209. THE FEBRUARY ECLOGUE 69 to my mind clearly intimated, and, although the poet sympathizes with him, he does not seek to extenuate his actions, for such a defence would have been dangerous were the riddle of the fable guessed. ‘While the ‘‘goodman’’ wields his axe, the Oak sighs “to see his neare overthrow.” (1. 216) and here is another reference to the appeals of Norfolk from the Tower. Finally the end comes: “Tho downe to the earth he fell forthwith, His wonderous weight made the ground to quake, Thearth shronke under him, and seemed to shake :” (ll. 218-220) This ending undoubtedly points to some event of tremen- dous importance, for the fact that the earth shrinks beneath the weight of the Oak can be applied to no small matter. The execution of the Duke of Norfolk, the first peer of the realm, seemed to Englishmen of that age an event of the greatest import. So far reaching in its consequences was it supposed to be that no less a person than Leicester, as we have seen, thought that the Queen would refuse her consent, and, when she finally acquiesced, all England was _ thunder-struck at the magnitude of the event. The conclusion of the fable (ll. 222-238) is devoted to an attack upon the Briar in the form of a moral. From the point of view of my theory its allegory need not be con- sidered absolutely true. Libels were scattered broad-cast charging Burghley with the death of Norfolk, but it does not appear that he ever regretted his conduct, and he cer- tainly did not lose the Queen’s favor, although she outwardly placed the blame on his shoulders in accordance with her customary methods of avoiding responsibility for unpopu- 70 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER lar proceedings. If the allegory is rigidly interpreted, however, the date of composition of this eclogue could be assigned to the year 1572, shortly after the Duke’s inglori- ous death, when Burghley appeared to be in disgrace, and when pamphlets which attacked him were rife. But it is not necessary to accept this last view; I merely wish to show that my theory is susceptible of the most strict appli- cation. In order to carry out his purpose, and in order to point Thenot’s moral, the poet was obliged to represent the. Briar in a repentant mood, “naked left and disconsolate,” (1. 230) and otherwise miserably situated. Such is my theory of the allegory of the Oak and Briar fable. Unfortunately, like other theories which can be advanced concerning the meaning of the fables in the Calender, it is not susceptible of absolute proof. For the principal reasons advanced above,—1. e. Spenser’s in- terest in important personages and events, his opposition to the policy of Burghley, which probably originated during his residence at Cambridge and which is covertly betrayed elsewhere in the Calender, the reasonable probability that he was interested in the fate of the Duke of Norfolk, even if he was not personally acquainted with him, the Spenser shows a peculiar knowledge of the Howard family. One of the prefatory sonnets to the Faerie Queene is addressed to the Lord High Admiral of England, Lord Charles Howard of Effingham, the first cousin of the Earl of Surrey, the poet, the father of the Duke of Norfolk. The Daphnaida, dated January, 1591, is an elegy on the death of Douglas Howard, the grand-daughter of the first Lord Howard of Bindon, a younger brother of the Earl of Surrey. In the preface to this poem he refers to the lineage of the Howards and to the cognizance of the family, the ‘‘ White Lyon’’, which was the dexter supporter of the Duke of Norfolk’s armorial bearings (Doyle, Official Baronage). The certain amount of intimacy indi- THE MAY ECLOGUE 71 peculiar appropriateness of the events relating to the Duke’s fall to the contents of the fable, many details of which become clear only in the light of this allegorical in- terpretation,—I hope that my theory will not be entirely useless to other laborers in the vineyard of Spenser’s poetry. (8) The May Eclogue The February eclogue, according to my theory, contains an attack upon the political policy of Elizabeth and Burgh- ley in regard to a State event of the greatest importance; the May eclogue, I believe, strikes a blow at their ecclesias- tical policy and at the conditions which it produced in the Church. In the ‘‘argument’’ E. K. with characteristic Palinode, represent ‘‘two formes of pastoures or Ministers, or the Protestant and the Catholique’. The purpose of their conversation is to hold up to ridicule the party repre- sented by Palinode: ‘‘with whom having shewed, that it is daungerous to mainteine any felowship, or give too much credit to their colourable and feyned good will, he (Piers) telleth him a tale of the foxe, that, by such a counterpoynt of craftiness, deceived and devoured the credulous kidde’’. With this broad explanation E. K. rests his case and main- tains a resolute silence concerning the details of the eccle- siastical discussion and this same ‘‘tale of the foxe’’, except in a few places,® where he has attempted to lull the un- suspicious reader into a belief that Spenser was attacking the Catholics only. Otherwise his attention is directed to cated by these relations points to a familiarity with the affairs of that family which probably originated before 1589, when the dedi- catory sonnet to the Lord Admiral appeared, and which may very possibly hark back to some connection with the unfortunate Duke of Norfolk. * Glosses to Il. 121, 240, 244, 247, 302, 309, and introduction to the fable. 72 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER the illustration of rhetorical beauties and to linguistic elu- cidation. The very pointedness of E. K.’s convenient dis- avowals of any ulterior purpose on the part of the poet, however, produces on further consideration the impression that there is really something to conceal. That this is true and that Spenser is again shooting at big game seems un- deniable. The poet who had lived in a community where objections to Elizabeth’s ecclesiastical policy were freely and violently uttered upon all sides had material from the life at his disposal which fitted naturally into the vehicle of pastoral poetry. What this material was and how Spen- ser made use of it I shall now attempt to explain. According to E. K. the two interlocutors are types of the Protestant minister and the Catholic priest. I have at- tempted in other places to identify Piers with Thomas Preston and Palinode with Dr. Andrew Perne.** The former identification is unimportant as far as this eclogue is concerned, for Piers manifestly expresses Spenser’s own views; the latter is more important, for Dr. Perne’s flexi- bility in matters of religion had become a bye-word, not only in Cambridge, but wherever Puritan voices were raised against the Anglican Church. In fact he combined, as no other contemporary of Spenser was able to do, the unpopu- larity of a University authority, the pedantry of a scholar who over-estimated his ability,-and the Catholicism which still lurked in the Anglican Church, waiting only for a change in the government of the realm to appear in its true colors. These characteristics, added to personal grounds of dislike, have given a peculiar acrimony to Spenser’s satire. This theological discussion reflects the spirit of the con- troversies which disturbed Cambridge during the poet’s connection with the University, and consists of the same *= Cf. pp. 181-8. THE MAY ECLOGUE 73 kind of language which he must have heard every day. Its most important features I will briefiy indicate. In the first place, Piers, who begins the fray, is attacking a set of pastors who have charge of flocks, or, in other words, who enjoy livings in the Church: “Those faytours little regarden their charge.” (1. 39) They are something more than the Catholic priests who possessed no benefices and who wandered about the country seeking the protection of influential Catholics. In the second place, it is important to remember that Piers’s sys- tem of attack, which pretends to denounce the Catholics, is precisely the method pursued by the Puritans in their assaults on the Anglican Church. To them the Church of England, especially in its government and ceremonies, retained a large mixture of ‘‘Popishness’’, and they ac- cordingly applied to the bishops the hated attributes of Catholicism. At the distance of more than three centuries their prevailing language might easily lead the inexperi- enced to believe that they were assailing the Catholic hier- archy. It is clear that this method came conveniently to Spenser’s hand, for he could attack the Anglican clergy in the most approved Puritan fashion and then allow E. K. to disavow his purpose by means of Catholic references. In his opening remarks Piers censures the carelessness of those pastors who do not regard the welfare of their flocks (Il. 39-40) and who lead licentious lives (ll. 41-42). From their behavior it is plain, he says, that “theyr sheepe bene not their owne,” (1. 45) and then he proceeds to the heart of the matter by striking at the owners of the sheep, the patrons who sell the livings in their right of presentation to the highest bidder: 74 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER “But they bene hyred for little pay Of other, that caren as little as they What fallen the flocke, so they han the fleece, And get all the gayne, paying but a peece.” (Il. 49-50) This species of corruption, as we have seen, was prevalent in the Church, and the chief offenders were the men highest in power. Archbishop Parker flagrantly abused the dis- pensation system by admitting children to cures provided adequate fees were paid ;*° much of Leicester’s wealth was made through the practice of muleting benefices; and even Burghley was not above such dealings.” Of the irregu- larities in the lives of the orthodox clergy the Puritans never ceased to complain; of the equally reprehensible fleecing of Church property they had. less to say.71 This curious fact arose from their peculiar point of view of making the bishops responsible for all manner of Church corruption, and probably also from the knowledge that their patrons at Court, Leicester, for instance, often lay open to such charges. At a little later period Spenser did not hesitate to speak out even more plainly: “These be the wayes by which without reward Livings in Court be gotten, though full hard; For nothing there is done without a fee: The Courtier needes must recompenced bee With a Benevolence, or have in gage The Primitias of your Parsonage: Searse can a Bishoprick forpas them by, But that it must be gelt in privitie.” (M.H.T., ll. 513-20) ° Froude, XI, p. 100. ™Strype, Parker, II, p. 431; Annals, II, pt. 1, p. 85, and pt. 2, appendix xxi. ™ This is condemned by Edward Dering in a letter to Burghley (1570), in Strype, Parker, III, pp. 219-25; and by Cartwright in the Second Reply, pp. 133, 147, 297-8, 371-2. THE MAY ECLOGUE 75 The meaning of Piers is the same; it is merely less explicit. The answer of Palinode (ll. 55-72) embodies the usual carpe diem reasons for present enjoyment. It is a spe- cious defence of the lives and actions of the Anglican ecclesiastics, and, judging from the manner in which they despoiled the Church property committed to their charge, probably represents their philosophy : “What shoulden shepheards other things tend, Then, sith their God his good does them send, Reapen the fruite thereof, that is pleasure, The while they here liven at ease and leasure? ” (i. 63-6) Bishop Aylmer, who said that he would never deprive a clergyman merely for adultery, could have been actuated by no other philosophy. Piers then enters upon a more detailed condemnation (ll. 73-131) of the lives of the Anglican clergy, quoting Grindal as his authority (1.75). The first abuse which he attacks (ll. 78-102) is the avaricious agglomeration of riches by the ‘‘shepheards”’ for the benefit of their families. The gist of the argument is as follows: clergymen should not regulate their lives by the same principles as laymen (Il. 75-6), who feel compelled to provide for the material welfare of their heirs that the latter may not suffer an impaired social position (ll. 77-80) ; a minister must pur- sue less worldly aims (ll. 81-2) ; if his son leads a pure life, God will ‘‘cherish’’ him, and the father therefore has no need to bequeath him an inheritance (Il. 83-6); if, on the other hand, the son falls into wicked courses, his patrimony will avail him little, for he will soon dissipate it (ll. 87- 90) ; the present day Churchmen seek only to amass riches, =The word ‘‘spard’’ was a technical term constantly applied to the prelates’ heaping up of riches for their children, cf. Froude, XIT, p. 22. 76 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER proceedings which in the end produce misfortune (ll. 91- 4); their doings may be compared to the ‘‘foolish care’’ of the Ape™® who encompasses the destruction of her offspring through misplaced zeal for its welfare (Il. 95-102). This clerical abuse, only too common at the time when Spenser wrote, lay open to the bitter taunts of the Puri- tans, and was sadly acknowledged by bishops and states- men, even by some of the very men who were the worst offenders. A few quotations from Puritan and other writers will illustrate this point: “As yet it is not lawfull for her Maiestie to allot any lands unto the maintenaunce of the minister, or the minister to live upon lands for this purpose allotted unto him, but is to content him selfe with a smal pention, and so small, as he have nothing to leave for his wife and children after him (for whom he is not to be careful but to rest on god’s providence) and is to require no more but foode and raiment, that in poverty he might be answer- able unto our Saviour Christ and his apostles.” (Hay any Worke for Cooper, a Marprelate tract written about 1588”) “The whole Clergy wold be restrayned from alienation of their lands, and from unreasonable lessees:75 wastes of woods, and grants of reversions, and advowsons, ‘to any persons; and namely, to their wives and children.” (Extract from a paper drawn up by Lord Burghley in 15727¢) “The clergy being now married and having wives, did overmuch alienate their minds from the honest and careful duty to which they were bound to attend. The poor were left in their poverty. The ancient hospitality was no longer maintained. The ministers of the Church accepted and reserved the most part and portion of the yearly revenues of their dignities unto themselves, to the 7 Lyly in Pappe with an Hatchet, an answer to Marprelate, uses the same simile, cf. Marprelate Tracts (ed. Petheram), p. 39. “kd. Petheram, p. 12. 5 Leases. *Strype, Parker, II, p. 206. THE MAY ECLOGUE 77 slander of the whole estate of the clergy.” (Extract from a Bill proposed in the Puritan Parliament of 157177) Archbishop Parker, who heaped benefices and lucrative leases upon his sons and who presented his wife with the ‘*Duke’s house’’, a valuable piece of Church property near Lambeth Palace,”* is only the most prominent example of this abuse. The Puritanism of the passage in question (ll. 73-102) arises from the fact that Spenser openly attacked this species of corruption and that he used certain stock controversial words and phrases, such as ‘‘spard’’ and ‘‘heaping up waves of welth’’. Statesmen and even bish- ops lamented, and Parliament legislated against, these practices, but it remained for the Puritans to denounce them from the house-tops.” The second division of Piers’s speech (ll. 103-131) is devoted to a brief history of the Church, and contains a comparison between the clergy of the Apostolic Church and their degenerate successors of the present day. This device had already been used by Petrarch and Mantuan, and had become conventional in the pastoral. In Spenser, however, the appeal of Piers to the authority of history is especially appropriate, for Cartwright and the early Puritan contro- versialists were never tired of insisting on the excellence of the early Church and its freedom from the abuses of later times. In the description of these first ‘‘shepheards’’ Piers points out that they enjoyed no incomes except what arose from the sheep,—i. e. except what their congregations might give them; that they possessed no lands and no reve- nues (‘‘fee in sufferaunce,’’ 1. 106). The result was that the Church was not filled with place-seekers: ™ Froude, X, p. 196. % Strype, Parker, II, pp. 28, 387. ” Notice the accusations made against Bishop Sandys and the Dean and Chapter of Worcester, in Strype, Annals, I, pt. 2, especially pp. 38-40. 78 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER “Nought having, nought feared they to forgoe;” (1. 110) The simplicity of their tastes enabled them to live at a small expense. This praise of the Biblical shepherds serves naturally as a foil to the poet’s bitter censure of the im- moral clergy of the present day. The language in which this attack is couched emphasizes an important point: “But tract of time, and long prosperitie, That nource of vice, this of insolencie, Lulled the shepheards in such securitie, That, not content with loyall obeysaunce, Some gan to gape for greedie governaunce, And match them selfe with mighty potentates, Lovers of Lordship, and troublers of states.” (IL. 117-123) The phrase in the last line, ‘‘lovers of Lordship’’, contains the key to the situation, and could emanate from no one but a Puritan. One of the objections which the Puritans urged most vehemently against the Anglican Church was the use by the bishops of the temporal title lord. In almost every Puritan writing of the time this feature appears. A few quotations will illustrate my point: “Touching their names and titles, he (Christ) putteth a differ- ence in these words: ‘ And they are called gracious lords; but it shall not be so with you.’ And so the argument may be framed as before, that, forasmuch as they are severed in titles, and that to the civil minister doth agree the title of gracious lords, there- fore to the ecclesiastical minister the same doth not agree. For, as it is fit that they whose offices carry an outward majesty and pomp should have names agreeable to their magnificence, so is it meet that those that God hath removed from that pomp and out- ward shew should likewise be removed from such swelling and lofty titles, as do not agree with the simplicity of the ministry which they exercise.” (Extract from Cartwright’s Reply (1573) to Whitgift’s Answer to the Admonition, p. 11.) THE MAY ECLOGUE 79 “And first, your titles of dignity, as ‘lord’s grace’, ‘lord bishop’, ‘ honour’, etc., how repugnant they are to the scripture, everyone, that is not willingly blind, seeth.” (Extract from An Answer to certain pieces of a sermon made at Paul’s Cross, etc., by Dr. Cooper, Bishop of Lincoln, 1572)” “That rule and lordship shall not be among you, which God hath given in the kingdoms of this world. . . . You shall not ex- ercise any lordships over ‘ the heritage of God’. . . . Christ doth forbid that which in the commonwealth is lawful, but ambition and tyranny is lawful no where. ... Christ forbiddeth to be called in title of honour, etepyyris, ‘a good and gracious lord’; a name so far from ambition and tyranny, as the office of a bishop should be from a ‘lordship’. . . . For the lordship of a bishop hath ever been a plague-sore in the state of a kingdom. . . . But now I have to answer many thoughts, which very easily will rise within you. You will muse first of the state of the primitive church; and think that Augustine, Ambrose, etc. were all bishops. . . . True it is they were bishops; but this is as true, they were no lords, neither agreed with our bishops almost in any thing, save only names.” (Extracts from a letter of Edward Dering to Lord Burghley, 1573)®* “They (the Puritans) are marvellously offended that Bishops are called ‘lords’ and ‘honourable’, and think that those high titles are usurped against God’s word”. . . . (Archbishop Parker to Lord Burghley, 1573) *®? Anyone who will take the trouble to read almost any Puritan writing before 1580 will notice that the objection to the title of ‘lord’ is always urged sooner or later. Indeed the whole of the passage quoted (ll. 117-23) is so pointed that E. K. feels called on to venture a lame ex- planation. In the gloss to ‘‘some gan’’ he remarks that this passage is ‘‘meant of the Pope, and his Antichristian * Strype, Annals, II, pt. 1, p. 295. = Ibid., pp. 400-413. This letter is devoted almost entirely to an attack upon the pomp and titles of the bishops. “Strype, Parker, II, p. 285. 80 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER prelates, which usurpe a tyrannical dominion in the Churche, and with Peters couterfet keyes open a wide gate to al wickednesse and insolent government. Nought here spoken, as of purpose to deny fatherly rule and governaunce (as some maliciously of late have done, to the great unreste and hinderaunce of the Churche) but to displaye the pride and disorder of such, as, in steede of feeding their sheepe, indeede, feede of theyr sheepe.’’ This remark, in accord- ance with the aim of Spenser professed in the ‘‘argument”’ of the eclogue, may be partly true, but it expresses less than half the truth. The concluding phrase, which is directed at the unworthy ministers who fleece their benefices instead of preaching to their flocks, does not easily lend itself to a Catholic interpretation; if E. K. had really thought that Spenser was denouncing the Pope and his prelates, he would have expressed himself more vigorously. It is merely necessary to refresh our minds on the Puritan vocabulary to see whom Spenser was stigmatizing. The following is an extract from a Puritan protestation drawn up in 1573, to which every member of the congregation had to sub- scribe: ‘‘for in the church of the traditioners (Anglicans), there is no other discipline than that which hath been main- tained by the Antichristian Pope of Rome’’.** In a work entitled A view of Antichrist, his laws, and ceremonies in our English Church,** the Archbishop of Canterbury’s descent is traced from Ambition, Simony, and the Pope, he is called the ‘‘Pope of Lambeth’’, and detailed parallels are drawn between him and the ‘‘Pope of Rome’’. The author also proceeds to draw up ‘‘an hundred points of popery remaining’’ in the Anglican Church. To the Puritan this Church of Elizabeth and Burghley savored of 8 Ibid., p. 283. It was composed by the celebrated Puritan divine, Anthony Gilby, and was published about 1578, though written before 1575. THE MAY ECLOGUE 81 ‘* Antichrist’s stench’’.®* It is therefore not surprising to find that both Spenser and E. K. are here thinking of the Anglicans. The latter’s disclaimer of those who ‘‘mali- ciously of late’? have denied ‘‘fatherly rule and govern- aunce’’ probably refers to the Anabaptists, with whom the Puritans disclaimed any connection. This sect, which was composed principally of German and Dutch exiles, held, among other doctrines, that ‘‘no Christian man ought to be a magistrate’’ and that it was ‘‘not lawful for a Christian man to take an oath’’.®* In other words, they denied the authority of the Queen and the bishops. For holding these and similar opinions two Anabaptists were burned at Smithfield on the 22nd of July, 1575, and nine others suf- fered perpetual banishment.’? As the opponents of the Puritans often imputed such beliefs to them,®* E. K. was compelled to deny any support of views which enemies might stretch into professions of Anabaptism. The conclusion of Piers’s diatribe (ll. 124-31) contains an application of the parable found in the tenth chapter of St. John, a favorite pastoral device of the Humanists: “ Tho, under colour of shepheards, somewhile There crept in Wolves, ful of fraude, and guile, That often devoured their owne sheepe, And often the shepheards that did hem keepe:” (ll. 126-9) Although the poet is inaccurate, the general drift of his satire is evident. The ‘‘ Wolves’’ who enter into the sheep- fold disguised as shepherds devour ‘‘their owne’’ sheep. ® Strype, Annals, II, pt. 1, p. 290. “Neal, I, pp. 137-138; Campbell, I, p. 469. 8 Blizabeth at this time wanted to propitiate Philip and to show him that she was extirpating heresy. 3° Neal, I, pp. 122, 124; Whitgift’s Answer and Defence of the Answer, passim. 7 82 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER But they also make away with the shepherds in charge of these sheep. If the ‘‘Wolves’’ were not disguised as shepherds, we might consider them the lay patrons of benefices who sold their advowsons. On the other hand, if Spenser is interpreted strictly, the ‘‘Wolves’’ cannot be those corrupt ministers who neglect the welfare of their flocks, for these flocks already have pastors whom the ‘Wolves’? devour. It seems impossible, therefore, to ex- tract anything more than a general meaning from this passage. The word wolf was applied to any enemy of the Church in the controversial language of the day. By this term the Puritans designated the false teachers of the Anglican Church,® the ‘‘ papists’’,°° and those who preyed upon ecclesiastical property.*t Owing to the grammatical inconsistencies in Spenser’s description it is probable that he was thinking of all these meanings. Palinode’s angry reply to the strictures of Piers is further proof, if such were needed, that he is meant to represent the Anglican clergy. The opening sixteen lines of his retort require no comment; they are merely a per- sonal answer. The remainder is a development of his earlier philosophy (ll. 63-7): let me and my brother Churchmen enjoy our livings, now that political conditions are settled; the evil day, when we shall be cast out, may come at any time,®? and let us therefore make hay while the sun shines and lay by something for our use out of our livings: “While times enduren of tranquillitie, Usen we freely our felicitie; *° Cartwright, Second Reply, p. 373; Strype, Parker, I, p. 435. Cf. writings of Wm. Turner, cited below, p. 127. "The ‘‘concealers’’ are often called wolves; cf. Zurich Letters (1), p. 299. @The succession of a Catholic sovereign in the person of Mary Stuart. THE MAY ECLOGUE 83 For, when approachen the stormie stowres, We mought with our shoulders beare of the sharpe showres; ” (11. 154-7) If the Anglican clergy did not openly declare these motives of conduct from the pulpit, their actions announced what their thoughts concealed. ‘‘The Bishops . . . lived as if they knew their day to be a short one, and made the most of their opportunities while they lasted. Scandalous dilapidation, destruction of woods, waste of the property of the see by beneficial lease, the incumbent enriching him- self and his family at the expense of his successors—this is the substantial history of the Anglican hierarchy, with a few honorable exceptions, for the first twenty years of its existence.’ The older Churchmen who had weathered the changes of religion in the reign of Henry VIII, Edward VI, and Mary had seen the pendulum swing too often from one side to the other not to suppose it would never swing again.** Elizabeth’s friendliness towards Spain in 1576 was felt even by her most intimate advisers to be actuated by a genuine desire to return within the Catholic fold. What concerns us here, however, is that Palinode is utter- ing conventional Anglican views. His remarks could under no circumstances be applied to the Catholics, for, although avowed Catholies still held livings, they could have scarcely looked upon a Protestant usurpation as a time of ‘‘tran- quillitie.’ Palinode concludes his speech with an argument for peace (ll. 158-63). He pleads for what the newspapers now call ‘‘harmony’’ when they refer to political conven- tions. The split in the Protestant ranks between Anglicans * Froude, XI, p. 100, cited above. “Cf. the remark of Provost Baker of King’s College: ‘‘that which hath bin may be againe’’ (Leigh, History of King’s College, p. 61). 84 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER and Puritans serves only to ‘‘layen her faults the world beforne’’, with the result that their enemies, the Catholics (1. 160), laugh at both of them and foster this spirit of dissension. This plea appears constantly in the Anglican writings of the time. Listen to Whitgift: ‘‘It is very true and sufficiently proved in that Answer to the Admonition, that the authors thereof (7. e. of the Admonition) be con- tentious, and ‘give occasion to the papists of slandering the religion’ professed. . . . For whosoever troubleth the peace of the Church, or divide themselves from the church for external things, they be contentious.’’®* This philos- ophy runs through many of the letters of the Anglican divines written to their friends in Switzerland, Gualter, Bullinger, and Beza. Piers, however, repudiates Palinode’s advances; his way he considers ‘‘the right way’’ (1. 165), and he would rather have Palinode and his party as enemies than as luke-warm friends who do not share his convictions (1. 166-7). To the Puritans, who looked upon the present Church régime as ‘‘the reign of Antichrist’’, the ortho- dox clergy appeared little less than Romanists, with whom they could have no ‘‘concord’’ (1. 168). This bitter reply, however, is brushed aside by Palinode, whose curiosity is aroused by the reference to the ‘‘Foxe’’ and the ‘‘Kidde’’, and upon his eager request Piers recites this enigmatical fable. So far as I am aware, although solutions must have arisen in the minds of various students of Spenser, no careful attempt to elucidate the meaning of this fable has up to this time appeared in print. Perhaps no satisfactory solu- tion is possible, and yet in view of Spenser’s evident dis- content with the Anglican Church, nurtured by his resi- dence at Cambridge, at that time one of the greatest hot- beds of Puritanism in the kingdom, some adequate solution * Answer to the Reply of Cartwright, in Whitgift, Works, I, p. 40. THE MAY ECLOGUE 85 ought not to be impossible. E. K. indeed points the way; he feels compelled to offer a harmless explanation of his friend’s fable, forseeing that Spenser had laid himself open to the charge of circulating dangerous opinions. This is his interpretation: ‘‘This tale is much like to that in Asops fables, but the Catastrophe and end is farre differ- ent. By the Kidde may be understood the simple sorte of the faythfull and true Christians. By hys dame Christe, that hath alreadie with careful watche-words (as heer doth the gote) warned her little ones, to beware of such doubling deceit. By the Foxe, the false and faithless Papistes, to whom is no credit®® to be given, nor felowshippe®® to be used.’’ I do not intend to enter upon the relations of this tale with earlier fable literature. Such a fable as Spenser’s may be found not only in Aesop” to be sure, but in almost any collection, such as The Seven Sages and the Fables of Bidpai. The influence of the Renard cycle of poems, more striking in the Mother Hubberd’s Tale, is also apparent, especially in the description of the Fox’s disguise. The ex- ample of this kind of poetry with which Spenser was prob- ably best“acquainted must have been Chaucer’s Nonnes Preeste’s Tale. The catastrophe, however, in these parallels is ‘‘farre different’’, for unlike Spenser’s their ending is usually happy. The realistic element becomes so strong in Chaucer that the poor widow, her daughters, various men, and several domestic animals join in pursuit of the fox. In Spenser, on the other hand, we can never forget that the Fox, the Goat, and the Kid are not animals. As little at- tempt is made to preserve natural truth as in the Renard poems, and the veil which seeks to disguise human beings or institutions is of the thinnest texture. The interest of *®The ‘‘credit’’? and ‘‘felowshippe’’ are repetitions taken from the ‘‘argument’’. "Fable 9, bk. 2, reprint of Caxton’s edition. 86 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER this fable lies chiefly in its application as an illustration of the ecclesiastical opinions of Piers and his party. Assuming EK. K.’s interpretation of the allegory to be true, the Goat becomes Christ, the Kid ‘‘the faythfull and true Christians’’, and the Fox the ‘‘false Papistes’’. Although no difficulty is experienced in accepting the allegory of Christ in the person of the female Goat, for this proceeding finds parallels elsewhere in Spenser,®® the real obstacle to E. K.’s explanation arises at once. If the Goat represents Christ, who is the husband whom she describes at length (ll. 193-206)? H. K. does not throw any light upon this point. Either his interpretation was hurriedly made, or else it is a ‘‘blind’’. In each case it is clumsy, for it seems impossible to overcome the difficulty which arises in the shape of the Kid’s father. In view of the controversy be- tween Piers and Palinode the first opinion is more apt to be correct, and that neither E. K. nor Spenser nor Harvey thought it worth while to change this interpretation is equally apparent. The fact is, however, that E. K.’s inter- pretation requires to be interpreted itself. If we make Christ the father of the Kid, and if we adopt the true Church of Christ as the Goat, our path becomes clearer. Precedents for this proceeding occur frequently in the Bible, where Christ appears as the Bridegroom of the Church. From the introductory statement of Piers (ll. 170-1) we know that the Kid represents his party and the Fox the party of Palinode. Upon translation E. K.’s language means that the Kid stands for the Puritans, ‘‘the faythful and true Christians’’ who sought a return to the simplicity of the Church in the time of the Apostles, and that the Fox symbolizes the Anglican Church and clergy, which retained so large an admixture of Romanism in the * The best known example is in the Mother Hubberd’s Tale, p. 521, where Queen Elizabeth is represented by the ‘‘Lyon’’. THE MA¥ ECLOGUE 87 eyes of Protestant enthusiasts. This explanation, it seems to me, arises naturally from the trend of the controversy between the two shepherds and from the conventional in- terpretation which E. K. offers. Spenser, the member of a University whose academic calm was constantly disturbed by active resistance to authority, by bitter denunciations, and by tumultuous expulsions, has taken up the cudgels in behalf of his party, and has treated the Anglicans to a thinly disguised attack in this, the most Puritan of all his eclogues. Although Spenser’s interest in his art, especially notice- able in the detailed description of the Fox, and his wish to emulate Chaucer probably outweighed other motives in the composition of this fable, a desire to warn the Puritan party against trusting in the promises of the Anglicans also actuated him. The Puritans considered themselves the legitimate offspring of Christ and the Apostolic Church, and Spenser’s allegory of the Kid’s parentage is therefore in keeping with Puritan beliefs. Taking up the contents of the fable in some detail, the departure of the Goat to the ‘‘ereene wood’’, “To brouze, or play, or what shee thought good :” (1. 179) indicates a possible or threatened withdrawal of the Puri- tans from the sound principles upon which they based their disapproval of the Anglican Church. So long as we Puri- tans, says the poet, preserve in our minds the image of the Apostolic Church, we will be exposed to no danger, for God will protect us; if we lose sight of this ideal, however, we will be in danger of falling a prey to the Antichristian dealings of the Anglicans. To the advice which the Goat gives to her ‘‘young son’’ before she leaves him (ll. 215- 228), the Kid pays scant attention, and therefore falls an 88 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER easy victim to the wiles of the Fox. By this catastrophe Spenser probably intended to warn the Puritans against submission to the injunctions of the bishops, which had been strongly enforced during the last years of Archbishop Parker’s life (1571-75). In the year 1572 ‘‘one hundred clergymen were deprived .. . for refusing to subscribe’’®? the Thirty-Nine Articles. On October 2 of that year Field and Wilcox, the authors of the Admonition, had been imprisoned. In the next few years many other prominent Puritan divines were suspended from their livings and imprisoned. Puritan pamphlets were confiscated, and orders were issued for the apprehension of Cartwright, which precipitated his departure from the realm in Decem- ber, 1573.1° In 1574 the Queen commanded the cessation of the ‘‘prophesyings’’, as we have already seen. These proceedings are reflected in Cambridge by the vigorous actions of the Anglican authorities, whose power was so much augmented by the new statutes. On the accession of Grindal to the archbishopric in February, 1576, however, a perceptible lull occurred in the prosecution of the Puritans. Now Spenser, who was cognizant of these proceedings and conditions, writing about 1575-6, is exhorting the Puri- tans to resist and to remain outside the Anglican Church system, which was trying to engulf them, and which would not reward them for submission. I believe that the poet here, as elsewhere, points to specific abuses. The unfortu- nate interest which the Kid shows for the ‘‘glasse’’ (1. 274) and the ‘‘bell’’ (1. 288), classified by E. K. among the Fox-Pedler’s ‘‘reliques and ragges of popish supersti- tion’’,*°! is intended to warn the Puritans against the * Neal, I, pp. 1217. »° Cooper, Athenae, II, p. 361. *1 Gloss to 1. 240. THE MAY ECLOGUE 89 acceptance of vestments, organs, crucifixes, fonts, painted windows, and other articles retained in the Anglican Church which savoured of Catholicism.‘ After the man- ner of Cartwright and his supporters at Cambridge he bids the members of his party to present an unbroken phalanx to the Church policy of the Queen and Burghley, and to distrust any promises of conciliation which may be held out to them. Such, it seems to me, in view of the points discussed by Piers and Palinode, and in view of the identity of the latter’s party with the Fox, is the correct solution of Spenser’s fable. And when we remember that by Palinode Spenser means Dr. Perne, the Anglo-Catholic Cambridge official, the utility of Catholic terms for de- nouncing Anglicans is brilliantly illustrated. This purpose of Spenser is so apparent that the question arises whether he had any further intention. To his con- temporaries who were accustomed to the language of the Puritans E. K.’s attempts to divert the satire to the Catho- lics must have appeared feeble. In that controversial period no one would have believed that the writer was not attacking the Anglicans. At the same time one must feel that his satire is pretty general, and that therefore it forms an exception to his other fables, if he failed to represent anything more than classes of people. The question there- fore arises: is there anything either in the fable or in E. K.’s gloss which indicates that Spenser is thinking of indi- viduals? It seems to me that there are two places which remain unsatisfactorily explained either by the actual inci- dents of the narrative or by the satire on the Anglicans. The first is in 1. 191, containing the word ‘‘Orphane’’, to which E. K. attaches the following meaning: ‘‘Orphane, a youngling or pupill, that needeth a tutour or governour’’. The second is in the speech of the Fox: *? One has only to read Cartwright to see the importance which the thorough-going Puritans attached to these objects. 90 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER “ And, if that my Grandsire me sayd be true, Sicker, I am very sybbe to you:” (Il. 268-9) The commentator explains ‘‘sybbe’’ as ‘‘of kinne’’. Per- haps E. K., in an attempt to parade his knowledge, extends the meaning of the word ‘‘Orphane’’; perhaps Spenser is filling up the conversation of the Fox with colloquial bits of chit-chat. In view of the poet’s prevailing tendency to satirize particular persons, and especially in view of the same kind of comments in the February eclogue, where they are more numerous, I believe that Spenser and E. K. are throwing out hints. To what these may point it is almost impossible to discover for certain, but I think that an explanation is demanded by the circumstances, and I therefore am prepared to advance one. Turning our attention to the Fox, we know that Spenser elsewhere satirizes Burghley under the figure of this animal. The view that Burghley is the Fox of the second episode of the Mother Hubberd’s Tale has been long con- sidered true’? and has received fresh illustration in a newly published article. In The Ruines of Time, towards the conclusion of the vindication of Leicester, the same application occurs: ‘ “He now is gone, the whiles the Foxe is crept Into the hole, the. which the Badger swept.” (Il. 216-7) The former poem was not composed before the summer of 1579 probably, on account of its reference to Leicester’s marriage with the Countess of Essex (1. 628) of which the Queen remained ignorant until that time; that portion of the latter poem with which we are concerned could not 1% Grosart, Spenser, I, pp. 84-9. “FE, A. Greenlaw, Publ. Mod. Lang. Ass. (September, 1910), XXV, pp. 535-61. THE MAY ECLOGUE 91 have been written until some time after September, 1588, when Leicester died. After a lapse of over ten years Spenser still clung to his original figure for Burghley, and there is nothing to indicate that he so used it for the first time in the Mother Hubberd’s Tale On account of this later use and on account of the strong Puritan bias of Spenser’s satire, which attacks the Anglican Church and, therefore, Burghley as the chief regulator of its policy after the Queen, it is reasonable to believe that the Fox in this eclogue designates that statesman. This view also has probably been held by many people, and it may be thought surprising that I did not present it at once in my discussion of this fable My answer is not far to seek. As long as the other chief actor of this miniature drama, the Kid, is held to represent a class of men or an institution, it is better to treat the other principal figure, the Fox, in the same man- ner, and not to attempt to distinguish between the Anglican Church and the individual who symbolized its power. As soon as this distinction is made, we must grapple with per- sonalities and must identify the Kid and also the Goat with particular individuals, a task weighted with difficulty. However, as I believe that Spenser is using that kind of allegory with a double meaning so characteristic of the Facrie Queene, I shall attempt these identifications. On September 22, 1576, Walter Devereux, first Earl of Essex of that name, died in Ireland, after his ill-starred efforts to colonize Ulster had met with nothing but failure. Although Burghley in his capacity as Master of the Court of Wards could have laid claim to the wardship of this Tn August, 1571, the Spanish Ambassador wrote: ‘‘tell his Majesty that Cecil is a fox cunning as sin’’ (Froude, X, p. 258). In the portraits of Burghley, especially in the one contained in Lodge’s Portraits, one can trace a certain fox-like resemblance in his counte- nance. Both from his actions and his appearance Burghley must have offered an excellent comparison to a fox. 92 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER nobleman’s young heir, Robert Devereux, subsequently the favorite of Elizabeth, he was not obliged to resort to such a proceeding. The late Earl had more than once expressed a desire that his son might be educated in Burghley’s household. On November 1, 1573, he had written from Ireland to the Lord Treasurer, proposing a marriage be- tween the young Robert, then nearly six years of age, and the Lady Elizabeth Cecil, Burghley’s younger daughter, and in return for 100 or 200 marks Burghley was to have ‘‘the direction’’, and superintend the education, of the boy.t%* This marriage proposal fell through, for there is no future reference to it either in the Hatfield correspond- ence or in the State Papers. In another letter, however, written the day before he died, the Earl repeated his re- quest that Robert might be brought up in Burghley’s household.” On January 11, 1577, accordingly, young Essex left Chartley in Staffordshire, the family seat, where he had been living with his mother, the former Lettice Knollys and the future Countess of Leicester, and took up his residence with Burghley.*°? By May 13 of that year he had been sent to Trinity College, Cambridge, although he did not matriculate until July 1, 1579.1°° The Christmas. vacation of 1577 he spent at the Court in London, subse- quently visiting the Earl of Leicester at Wanstead (Essex) on his return to the University.1°° In October, 1578, after he had spent the summer vacation at Chartley, his tutor, Robert Wright, informed Burghley that he had removed the young Earl to Newington on account of the plague in 26 'W. B. Devereux, Lives and Letters of the Devereuaz, I, pp. 43-4. ” Tbid., p. 144. +8 Thid., p. 166. * Cooper, Athenae, II, p. 296. ° Leicester married the mother of Essex in the summer of 1578 at Kenilworth; the marriage was solemnized again on September 21, 1578, at Wanstead in the presence of witnesses. THE MAY ECLOGUE 93 Cambridge." ‘‘The letters of Essex at this period seldom consist of more than a few lines: those to Lord Burghley are usually in Latin.’ Finally, on July 6, 1581, he re- ceived the honorary degree of Master of Arts, commonly bestowed on noblemen without the requirement of the usual course of study, and soon afterwards withdrew to his resi- dence at Lanfey in Pembrokeshire."4? These are the main incidents in the early life of Essex of which we possess any knowledge. The points which I wish to emphasize are that Burghley became the guardian of the young Earl and that a match had been proposed between him and Elizabeth Cecil. This lady became the wife of Thomas Wentworth in February, 1582, and was unfortunate enough to lose her husband the same year.’** What I have to suggest is that the May fable may also refer to these relations between Burghley and Essex, the circumstances of which fit the incidents of the poem. The Goat, a widow who is about to be separated from her ‘‘youngling’’, imparts to him the following advice: “¢ Kiddie, (quoth shee) thou kenst the great care I have of thy health and thy welfare, , Which many wyld beastes liggen in waite For to entrap in thy tender state: But most the Foxe, maister of collusion :’ ” (ll. 215-19) As we have seen, Walter Devereux died on September 22, 1576, and his son remained at Chartley with his mother until January 11, 1577, when he left to become a member of Burghley’s household. At this parting his mother must have cautioned him to beware of Court sycophants and 4 Cal, Hatfield MSS., ii, pp. 207-8, 215. u2 Lives of the Devereua, I, p. 170. 12 Tbid., p. 171. “4 Nares, Burghley, III, pp. 178-79. 94 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER parasites, and especially of any noblemen or other persons who should attempt to marry him to their daughters. The description of the Goat’s husband, whose days had been ‘‘eutte of’? ‘‘with untimely woe’’ (1. 199) and who had been betrayed ‘‘into the traines of hys foe’’ (1. 200), ex- actly fits the case of Lord Essex, who died in Ireland sur- rounded by enemies. The chivalrous character of this nobleman, who was unsatisfied to pass his days idly at home, who spent the bulk of his fortune in the service of his ungrateful mistress, and in whose Irish camp no oaths were heard, may well have aroused the interest of the young poet. Among the noblemen and politicians of the day Spenser could have found no nobler ideal for all that he held best in life. The disastrous end of the Kid, as I have already pointed out, is evidently a warning. In the present connection the poet may have intended to show the perils which would beset the young Earl from an intimacy with Burghley, through the latter’s conjectured desire either to snatch him up for his daughter or to enrich himself from the adminis- tration of his property. The motive for such a satire may be found in Burghley’s unpopularity, especially at Cam- bridge, and in the fact that libels upon his affairs, private as well as public, were scattered broad-cast over England.’ In the University, matters relating to his private life must have furnished as much food for idle speculation and vul- gar gossip as the lives of some academic officials afford at the present day. Although I believe that Spenser composed the eyenten part of his ecclesiastical eclogues during his connection with the University, and although Essex did not become an ™5 Anyone who cares to look through the State Paper Calendars of Elizabeth’s reign will see to what an extent these libels were circu- lated. Froude, XII, p. 149, gives a sort of epitome of the prevailing reports. THE MAY ECLOGUE 95 orphan until September, 1576, when the poet had left col- lege, it is possible that he re-touched this fable about 1579 when EH. K. added the commentary, wishing to attach a secondary meaning to his satire. That he knew the young Essex at this time it is impossible to say, yet he may have heard a great deal about him, even if he did not remain near Cambridge after graduation. Judging from those letters of his which we possess, Gabriel Harvey would not have failed to inform his friend of the residence of this young nobleman in Cambridge, who must have aroused great interest owing to his relationship with the Queen,"*® to the sad fate of his father, and, last but not least, to the sumptuous kind of living thought necessary for his wel- fare.” At any rate, in view of the poet’s connection with Leicester, which probably originated in the summer of 1578, Spenser had a good point on which to attack Burgh- ley and which he could weld into his already written fable by a few dexterous turns. The wardship of his own step- son, lying as it did in the hands of his enemy, must have been a thorn in Leicester’s side. This solution of the fable solves the certain amount of obscurity which is attached to E. K.’s comment on the word “‘Orphane, a youngling or pupill, that needeth a tutour or governour’’. Young Robert certainly did need a tutor, and he had several, the principal one being Robert Wright..* The very fact that E. K. connects the words “©The mother of Essex was Lettice Knollys, daughter of Sir Francis Knollys by Catherine Carey, the daughter of William Carey and Mary, sister of Anne, Boleyn. Lady Knollys and Queen Eliza- beth were therefore first cousins, and the young Earl of Essex was the Queen’s first cousin twice removed. “" Notice the accounts of his household expenses in Cooper, Annals, II, pp. 352-6. “8 Wright matriculated as a sizar at Trinity College on May 2, 1567. He proceeded B.A. in 1570-71, was elected a fellow, and commenced _ M.A. in 1574 (Cooper, Athenae, II, p. 223). He was therefore a con- temporary of Harvey, Kirke, and Spenser at Cambridge. 96 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER ‘‘tutour’’? and Orphane is strong evidence that the Kid, who is represented by the latter, is meant to stand for an individual person. From his position as the ward of a man whom Spenser disliked, as a student at Cambridge while Harvey was still there and while Spenser’s interest in Uni- versity affairs remained unabated, and as the son of one celebrated nobleman, who had suffered a pitiable fate, and the stepson of another, the poet’s patron and the enemy of Burghley, the young Robert satisfies the allegorical descrip- tion of the Kid. As for the other remark (besides the one attaching to the word Orphane) which appears obscure without a further explanation than E. K. vouchsafes, and which pro- ceeds from the Fox, “And, if that my Grandsire me sayd be true, Sicker, I am very sybbe to you:” (Il. 268-9) this acquires significance if attributed to Burghley. The great Cecil, in spite of the laborious researches of anti- quaries aided by his own efforts, one of whom was no less a person than William Camden, could never clearly estab- lish his genealogy beyond his grandfather, David Cecil. This David, who emigrated from Herefordshire, first settled in the county of Lincoln, and subsequently removed to Stamford in Northamptonshire.*® Descent was claimed for him from the Sitsilts, Sicelts, or Seycils, a name vari- ously spelled, of Alterennes, near Ewyas Harold in Here- fordshire.?° In the archives of Hatfield there are no less than nineteen genealogical tables in which Burghley’s pedi- gree is connected with the names of many great families, chiefly of Herefordshire and the adjacent counties. Among these the most illustrious are the Herberts, Percies, Wood- “9 Nares, Burghley, I, pp. 12-13. 1» Tbid., pp. 8-9. THE MAY ECLOGUE 97 villes, Baskervilles, Nevilles, Somersets, Howards, and Vaughans.2* Burghley’s pretensions to a distinguished lineage were ridiculed by his enemies, who said that his grandfather was an inn-keeper."** Whatever the truth of these allegations may have been, it is sufficient to remem- ber that they were freely made; likewise we have proof in these papers that Burghley claimed kinship with families of noble extraction. Now the young Earl of Essex was descended from Anne Woodville, sister of the Queen of Edward IV, through her daughter who married John Devereux, Lord Ferrers, his great-great-grandfather. Is it not reasonable to suppose that Burghley, when the young boy entered his household, may have pointed to this asserted relationship through the Woodvilles in a polite endeavor to make him feel at home? At any rate, it is known that Burghley professed to be related in this way to the Devereux, and his enemies would not have been slow to circulate the report that he claimed this ‘‘kinred’’ (1. 271), especially when the young Earl became his ward and when suggestions had been made that he might marry Elizabeth Cecil.1?4 In this light the remark of the Fox? that his ™ Cal. Hatfield MSS., viii, pp. 287-8, 553; Cal. State Papers, Dom., Add., ed. Green, p. 47. Even his latest biographer, Hume, is obliged to admit that David Cecil probably owned an inn (p. 7). %3In Elizabeth’s reign people used to purchase the custody of minors, the richer they were the better, whom they wished to marry to their children, and whom they often brought up in an ignorant con- dition in order that they might not look elsewhere for husbands or wives (H. Ellis, Original Letters, II, 2d s., pp. 320-1). The Duke of Norfolk acquired the wardship of the heiresses of Lord Dacres and married two of his sons to them. The Earl of Bedford secured the wardship of the young Earl of Cumberland and married him to his daughter. Burghley made a brilliant match from a worldly point of view for his daughter Anne, when he married her to his ward, Edward Vere, Earl of Oxford. *T do not wish to press arguments too far and therefore have 8 98 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER grandfather told him that he was related to the Kid be- comes intelligible. David Cecil died in 1536,??> when Wil- liam was sixteen years of age, and the grandfather in the full pride of his success as a self-made man may have boasted to his grandson of a connection with the distin- guished Devereux family of Hereford. The remark of the Fox, at any rate, requires an explanation, and this is the way in which I have undertaken to provide one. To sum up Spenser’s treatment of political and eccle- siastical topics in the May eclogue, it is necessary to repeat the fact that this poem undoubtedly expresses his dissatis- faction with the Anglican Church, its constitution, and attendant corruptions, and with the policy of those who ruled it, and that this feeling arose from his residence in Cambridge and his association with men of Puritan opinions during a tumultuous period of revolt against academic and State authority. The particular persons whom he singled out for attack were Burghley and Perne, men whose lives had rendered them peculiarly suited to the pretended Romanist object of his satire, for they had both professed Catholicism in Mary’s reign. Although this latter method now seems to have enjoyed the additional excellence of allowing Spenser to cover his tracks by openly pointing out through E. K. that he was attacking the Catholics, he could have deceived few contemporary readers, for all writers who used the methods and the language that he did were considered Puritans. This theory, which has perhaps occurred to other students of Spenser, may be advanced with a strong degree of certainty. The further attempt to relegated this comment to a foot-note. The Fox has the gout (ll. 243-4), a description for which there is no particular reason in this tale. But Burghley was constantly a victim to this painful disease in his later years (cf. especially Hume, Burghley, pp. 293-4), and his affliction was everywhere known. > Hume, Burghley, p. 7. THE JULY ECLOGUE 99 connect the poet’s satire with incidents in the lives of indi- viduals is sanctioned by his practice elsewhere in the Calender, which is vouched for by E. K.1?° In view of this fact and in view of certain obscurities in the text and the gloss, it seemed advisable to offer a further explanation of the fable. Whether the solution here advanced, resting as it does on a slight basis of fact, will be acceptable to stu- dents of Spenser would be hazardous to say. That it satisfies the contents of the fable and that no lack of motive for the satire existed is all that may be safely claimed. (4) The July Eclogue The ‘‘July’’ is the only one of Spenser’s ecclesiastical eclogues which has been satisfactorily explained even in part, although I believe that no one writer has offered a complete explanation of its contents. The two main points which have been clearly established is that Spenser’s satire is directed against Bishop Aylmer in the person of the shepherd Morrell, while his praise is bestowed upon Arch- bishop Grindal, to whose sequestration he makes pointed reference in the fable of the Eagle and the Shell-fish. The importance of these explanations for the solution of the other fables lies in the fact that his satire is aimed at persons high in power, and that friendship or a sense of loyalty can at times outweigh the Puritan bias of his reli- gious opinions. The fable of the July eclogue, at any rate, could not have been composed before June, 1577, when Grindal was punished, and the main body of the eclogue not before March 22 of the same year, when Aylmer became Bishop of London,}*’ for his unpopularity among the Puritans dates »8 Cf. the glosses to the September eclogue (1. 176) and to the ‘‘tale of Roffy’’ immediately following. *” A curious misprint occurs in Herford’s notes to this eclogue, where Aylmer is called Bishop of Cardon, an evident mistake for London. 100 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER only from his accession to this dignity. The cautious manner in which Spenser and E. K. refer to Grindal makes it probable that the eclogue was completed soon after the Archbishop’s disgrace, when the Queen’s anger was greatest. Turning to the form of the eclogue, it is evident from our knowledge of Spenser’s sources that he is using the motif of the debate between a lowland and an upland shepherd. In Boceaccio’s Ameto this method is pur- sued without allegorical intention; in Mantuan it is em- ployed as a medium of satire against the corruption of the higher Catholic clergy. It is the latter from whom Spen- ser has borrowed a large portion of his material, and under this form he has continued his attack upon the An- glican Church, and particularly upon those of its repre- sentatives entitled to be called ‘‘proude and ambitious Pastours’’. Bishop Aylmer was selected as that particular ecclesiast in whom the abuses of the Anglican Church most glaringly appeared. John Aylmer, Aelmer, Ailemer, Elmer, or Elmore, for his name is variously spelled, attained to a height of un- enviable notoriety in the ecclesiastical annals of his time. ‘Certain it is,’’ says Sir John Harington,'?* ‘‘no bishop was more persecuted and taunted by the Puritans of all sorts than he was, by lybells, by scoffs, by open rayling, and privie backbiting.’’ He was one of the principal marks at which Martin Marprelate directed the shafts of his wit, and ‘‘Dumb John of London’’ was his favorite epithet for the bishop. In early life Aylmer belonged to the ranks of the advanced Reformers. He had the honor of being tutor to Lady Jane Grey, the patronage of whose father he received, and was eventually appointed to the archdeaconry of Stow in 1553. Although he proceeded ™ Nugae Antiquae, II, p. 35. THE JULY ECLOGUE 101 B.A. in 1540-1, and M.A. in 1545, at Cambridge, it is uncertain to which college he belonged.1?® Owing to his opinions he was deprived by Mary in 1553, and fled to the Continent. While abroad in Strasburg and Ziirich he assisted Fox in his compilation of the Acts and Monu- ments. Unfortunately for him, he also published an an- swer to A Blast against the Government of Women by John Knox (this was aimed at Queen Mary), in which he advanced some Puritanical views which he could never entirely explain away in after-life, and with which his en- emies never ceased to taunt him. At the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign, through the influence of Burghley,?*° he was advanced to the archdeaconry of Lincoln, a post in which he had an altercation with his superior, Bishop Cooper, over the temporalities of his office. Archbishop Parker, with the help of the Bishop of Winchester, ad- judicated the dispute in 1572 decidedly in Cooper’s favor. Aylmer’s grasping nature is further attested by Arch- bishop Sandys, who spoke of him to Burghley in this way: ‘*coloured covetousness, an envious heart, covered with the coat of dissimulation, will, when opportunity serveth, shew itself’’.484_ This scathing comment was called forth by Aylmer’s attempt to possess himself of the rents of the see of London from Michaelmas, 1576, on account of alleged dilapidations, although he had not been appointed until March 22, 1577. A suit arose between the two bishops which dragged along until 1584. Aylmer’s notorious cor- ruption in regard to the administration of his see, espe- cially the felling of his woods at Fulham in 1577-79, which he was forced to acknowledge in the presence of the Privy ” Cooper in the Athenae mentions Queens’ and King’s. Strype in his Life of Aylmer, p. 2, mentions conjecturally Gonville, Corpus, and Trinity Hall. Cooper, Athenae, II, p. 169. ™ Strype, Annals, II, pt. 2, p. 48. This was cited above. 102 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER Council in May, 1579, rendered him an object of further aversion to his opponents.?*? Immediately following his appointment he entered upon a campaign against the Puri- tans, depriving many of them of their livings,!** and on account of this policy, accounted additionally harsh in view of his former Puritan bias, he excited a general feeling of disgust among the inhabitants of London. Such was the man whom Spenser marked out for his . satire in the person of the shepherd Morrell. The question of the identity of the other interlocutor, Thomalin, I have discussed in another place, arriving at the conclusion that he represents Thomas Wilcox. Whether or not this view happens to be correct makes little difference as far as the satire of this eclogue is concerned. The Thomalin who acts as the mouth-piece of the poet’s views is, at any rate, a thorough-going Puritan, and he has been selected as a striking representative of the ‘‘good shepeheardes”’ in con- trast to the ‘‘proude and ambitious Pastours: Such as Morrell is here imagined to bee’’.2*4 The contents of this eclogue do not seem to me to be as important as those of the ‘‘February’’, ‘‘May’’, or ‘‘September’’. Its form, the debate between an upland and a lowland shepherd, and its close imitation of Man- tuan require more or less conventional following of well- beaten tracks. The attack on Morrell is made the more severe because he is called a ‘‘goteheard’’, E. K. tritely pointing out the allusion that ‘‘by Gotes, in scrypture, be represented the wicked and reprobate’’, and transferring the same qualities to their master. That there may be no mistake in regard to Spenser’s meaning, KE. K. proceeds to explain the word ‘‘banck’’ as ‘‘the seate of honor’’ or, in . * Strype, Aylmer, pp. 46-8. 18 Tbid., pp. 21-2, %4Tn the ‘‘argument’’ of the eclogue. THE JULY ECLOGUE ‘ 103 plain English, the bishop’s throne. Two succeeding com- ments (ll. 3 and 9) emphasize the attack on Aylmer through references to the false teaching given to his flock and to his ‘‘ambition’’. With the point of the satire clearly estab- lished, Spenser then leaves Church matters, and allows Morrell to expatiate upon the merits of the hills in close imi- tation of Mantuan (ll. 33-92). Thomalin’s reply offers nothing previously unknown to the pastoral. His speech falls naturally into three parts: the first division is a rustic defense of the ‘‘lowly dales’’ (ll. 93-112), the second is an epitome of pre-Christian Church history (Jl. 112-168), still without active satirical purpose, which leads naturally, by an inferred comparison, to the corruption of the ‘‘pas- tours’’ of the present time (Il. 169-204). Although Spenser is paraphrasing Mantuan in the second division of Thomalin’s speech, the use of such a model is especially appropriate when we remember that he is transferring the original meaning to Aylmer and his Anglican colleagues. The full import of Thomalin’s method appears in the last division of his speech, when he attacks the corruption of the present clergy. Owing to the con- tinued imitation of Mantuan, anyone unacquainted with the Puritan literature of the time would imagine that Spenser was deriding only ‘‘the Popes and Cardinalles’’ of the Holy Catholic Church, as E. K. remarks. If this were true, Morrell, the Anglican Bishop of London, would have scant reason to grow angry. It is, of course, evident that Spenser is again shooting his darts at the Anglican hierarchy. Thomalin’s opposition is based, in the_first place, upon the lack of simplicity of these shepherds, espe- cially in matters of dress: | “Their weedes bene not so nighly wore; Such simplesse mought them shend :135 4% Disgrace, put to shame (Herford). . 104 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER They bene yelad in purple and pall, So hath theyr god them blist.” (ll. 171-4). The dissatisfaction of the Puritans with the Church of England was brought to a head in 1565 by the enforcement of the Act of Uniformity, which led to the ‘‘vestment con- troversy’’ and to the deprivation of many clergymen, espe- cially in London. Their objections at this time, as we have seen, arose from their hatred of the habits which the clergy were commanded to wear. This feature appears in prac- tically all contemporaneous Puritan writings, and is speci- fied by Harvey in his epistolary remark on Cartwright,'** while Spenser himself had witnessed the controversy at Cambridge between Cartwright and Whitgift, in which opposition to the habits played so important a part. A few quotations of the language of Puritan writers on this point will be interesting: “ Copes, caps, surplices, tippets, and such like baggage, the preaching signs of popish priesthood, the pope’s creatures.” . (Cartwright’s Reply)337 “But they are as the garments of the idol, to which we should say, Avaunt, and get thee hence. They are as the garments of Balaamites, of popish priests, enemies to God and all Christians.” (The same) 188 In a letter written by Coverdale, Humphrey, and Samp- son (July, 1566) to the Swiss divines the habits are stig- matized as ‘‘the relics of the Amorites’’ and ‘‘the distinc- tive marks of Antichrist’’.%® In a letter of Whittingham, the Puritan Dean of Durham, they are called ‘‘Pope-like ornaments’’, ‘‘the defiled robes of Antichrist’’, and ‘‘ Anti- 8 Harvey, Works (Grosart), I, p. 71. *1 Whitgift, Works, II, p. 50. 8 Thid., p. 52. * Zurich Letters, 24 8., p. 123. THE JULY ECLOGUE 105 christian pollution’’. ‘‘Surely ... it may seem to be a very poor policy to think by this means (viz. by the vest- ments) to change the nature of superstition, or to deck the spouse of Christ with the ornaments of the Babylonian strumpet, or to force the true preachers to be like in out- ward shew to the Papists, Christ’s enemies.’’"*° In view of the Puritan conventionality of attributing ‘‘Popish’’ names to the Anglicans and their ceremonies, no doubt con- cerning Spenser’s purpose can exist. After the attack on their apparel, Thomalin proceeds to censure the princely living of the prelates: “They reigne and rulen over all, And lord it as they list:” (Il. 175-6) He lashes the corrupt methods which they use in buying their sheep, viz. in gaining their bishoprics: “Theyr Pan theyr sheepe to them has sold, I saye as some have seene.” (IL. 179-180) We have seen that corrupt presentations had become a matter of course in Elizabeth’s day; not only the courtiers, but even the Queen herself, continually practiced such dealings. Witness the vacancy created in the see of Ely after the death of Bishop Cox, because Elizabeth could get no cleric of note to accept it on the conditions which she imposed, involving as they did the alienation of a part of its lands. Thomalin here refers to the authority of one Palinode**? (1. 181), who has visited a place which he apoc- ryphally calls Rome. That Rome is not really intended is “0 Strype, Parker, III, p. 79 ff. 1 This Palinode cannot be identical with the Palinode of the ““May’’; there, he is the object of Spenser’s satire, here, he is the friend of Spenser’s representative, Thomalin. 106 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER made clear by the parenthetical phrase immediately fol- lowing: ‘‘if such be Rome’’ (1. 183). There would be no point to this insertion unless it were meant to warn the reader against a verbal interpretation. London is the city which Thomalin has in mind, the head-quarters of ecclesias- tical authority, and in London Palinode has witnessed the sale of Church livings.1*? There, he reported, the higher ecclesiastics lived as ‘‘Lordes done other where’’. The Puritans were never tired, as we have seen,"** of attacking the ‘‘lordship’’ of the bishops: ‘‘Wee mean the lordly lords, archbishops, bishops, suffragans, deans, doctors, archdeacons, chancellors, and the rest of that proud generation: whose kingdom must down; hold they never so hard. Because their tyrannous lordships cannot stand with Christ his kingdom.’’!#4 The following is a curious attack on one of the Anglican bishops on account of his ‘‘lordly state and title :’’ ‘‘That living and revenue wherewith your state and the state of churchmen is maintained, is by some writers and good preachers of our time called patrimonium cruct- fizi. You do know that Christ his patrimony ought not to be bestowed on a sort and company of idle serving men, which do only serve the pomp of one person... this number and multitude of serving men is unprofitable and unmeet for a minister of Christ . . . it doth bewray in you a desire and liking of lordly state: which is one of the great stains which Popery hath left behind in this Church of England.’’*® And here is still another attack of the same kind, especially interesting because of its references 1 Cf. Mother Hubberd’s Tale (Globe ed.), p. 517. *Cf., pp. 78-9. I offer quotations on this point again owing to its importance in the political doctrines of the Puritans. 4 Admonition to the Parliament, extracts given by Strype, Annals, II, pt. 2, p. 476. “© Letter of Thomas Sampson to the Archbishop of York, in Strype, Parker, III, pp. 319-23. THE JULY ECLOGUE 107 to Biblical history similar to Thomalin’s: ‘‘For that you went about to prove these Antichristian titles, ‘archbishop’, ‘lord bishop’, ‘honour’, ‘grace’, ‘metropolitan’, ‘primate’, etc., in ministers and preachers of the gospel, lawful, which indeed are altogether contrary to God’s word. . . . As for your joining civil offices to your ecclesiastical functions, how wicked that is, none that hath any taste or feeling of godliness can without horror and grief of conscience, con- sider. .. . And what an absurd thing is this too, to con- found those two several callings, which in all common- wealths, either of Gentiles or Jews (unless there hath been a very great disorder among them) have been sundered; and to appropriate them both to one person, which have been severally allotted to two! You see that Moses was God’s magistrate, appointed to bear hard matters among the people, and to give sentence therein. And Aaron was the Lord’s priest. . . . So Joshua was the Lord’s captain. ... And Eleazer executed the charge and function of a priest. ... And this much be generally spoken at this present, concerning those proud titles and unlawful offices.’ ’!46 The third objection which Thomalin lodges against the shepherds of ‘‘Rome’’, and which is closely related to their use of pompous titles, is their heaping up of money at the expense of their flocks: “Theyr sheepe han erustes, and they the bread; The chippes, and they the chere: They han the fleece, and eke the flesh, (O, seely sheepe, the while!) 147 The corne is theyrs, let other thresh, Their handes they may not file.” (Il. 187-92) “3 An Answer... toasermon... by Dr. Cooper (1572), in Strype, Annals, II, pt. 1, p. 295. “'That the words ‘‘seely sheepe’’ are constantly applied to the 108 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER All this is clear enough. The abuses which existed among the higher clergy were so notorious that even the sup- porters of the Anglican Church had to acknowledge them. Sandys, Bishop of London, writes to Burghley in this strain (1573): ‘‘I lament with your lordship, from the bottom of my heart, that such as should be feeders of the flock only feed themselves, and turn teaching into com- manding, sua quaerentes, et non quae sunt Jesu Christi. Such I wish to be removed, and more faithful pastors in their rooms placed.’’*® The following is taken from a letter of Thomas Lever, a famous non-conformist divine, addressed to Leicester and Cecil jointly in 1565: “The armie of the Israelites, polluted with the coviteous spoile of Achan, cold neither use sufficient power nor good policie against thar and Gods ennemies, until that offence was confessed, and such corruption utterlie abolished from among Gods people. And then did God give unto his people the use of power and police,#® to prevaile against their ennemies. So England, being polluted with mich coviteous spoil, especialli of impropriations, grammar scoles, and other provision for the pore, cannot use power and policie, to prevaile against the ennemies of God and godli religion, if it sink stil into such corruption, as causeth more sclander and danger daili to ineresse unto the cheife pro- fessors and promoters of good religion. And certenli the neces- sari revenues of the Prince, the Bishops, other estates, and the Universities, do as yet rather sinke into the corruption, then stand upon the profits of improperations.”15° The two lines which soon follow, “These wisards welter in welths waves, Pampred in pleasures deepe:” (ll. 197-8) Puritans both by themselves and others points to more than a coinci- dence, (cf. Strype, Annals, IT, pt. 1, p. 303). “8 Strype, Parker, II, p. 287. Policy. Strype, Parker, III, p. 139. THE JULY ECLOGUE 109 are particularly Puritan, and, when taken with EH. K.’s comment upon the word ‘‘wisards’’, ‘‘greate learned heads’’, savour distinctly of Cambridge and the Puritan discontent with the Heads of colleges. In a complaint against the Provost of King’s College in 1569, the follow- ing charges occur in articles preferred against him by the Puritan fellows: ‘‘that the said Provost never preached, neither at home nor abroad, weltering in idleness, and wholly serving mammon;”’ ‘‘that he privily took bribes in letting the college leases;’’ ‘‘that he was grown to great wealth by hiring others to purchase Privy Counsellors’ letters for the college leases’’.151 Here is what another Puritan has to say of the Anglican authorities in Cam- bridge: ‘‘while they are clothed in scarlet, their flockes perishe for cold; and while they fare deliciouslie, ther people faint with a most miserable hunger’’.°? This fur- ther quotation illustrates in a nut-shell Spenser’s thesis: “‘take away the lordship, the loitering, the pomp, the idle- ness, and livings of bishops, but yet employ them to such ends as they were in the old church appointed for’’.15* These are indeed the ‘‘great stores and thriftye stockes’’ of the Anglican ecclesiastics which Thomalin is denouncing. The fourth charge which Thomalin brings against the Anglican hierarchy is involved in the previous one. It arises from the idleness and lordly living of the bishops, who do not administer to the welfare of their parishioners, but corruptly appoint and maintain an unlearned minis- try. This objection crops out in the following passages: “The corne is theyrs, let other thresh, Their handes they may not file. 41 8trype, Grindal, pp. 213-4. *Strype, Parker, III, p. 222, a letter of Edward Dering to Burghley on the new statutes at Cambridge. *® Admonition to the Parliament, in Whitgift, Works, III, p. 8. 110 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER They han great stores and thriftye stockes, Great freendes and feeble foes: What neede hem caren for their flocks, Theyr boyes can looke to those. They han fatte kernes, and leany knaves, Their fasting flockes to keepe.” (Il. 191-200) This was another of the most flagrant abuses in the Church. At the request of courtiers, at the instigation of the Queen, who did not object to unlearned ministers (because they could not preach), and in return for fees or other favors, the bishops continually admitted into the cure of souls persons of no education, ‘‘bakers, butchers, cooks, and stablemen, wholly illiterate, drunken and licentious’’.**4 To the Puritans, who, as far as intellectual ability and up- right living are concerned, were the flower of the ministry, such proceedings seemed abominable. In their writings they waxed vehement against this species of Church cor- ruption. The practices of Archbishop Parker, who in- ducted ‘‘boyes’’ (1. 196) into benefices provided the ade- quate fees were forthcoming, gave only too much sanction to their indignation. Listen to Cartwright: ‘‘for, whereas in the old church a trial was had both of their ability to instruct, and of their godly conversation also; now by the letters commendatory of some one man, noble or other, tag and rag, learned and unlearned, of the basest sort of the people (to the slander of the gospel in the mouths of the adversaries) are freely received ;’’> ‘‘then (viz. in the Apostolic Church) election (of ministers) was made by the common consent of the whole church: now every one picketh out for himself some notable good benefice, he 14 Campbell, I, p. 459. *6 Cartwright’s Reply, in Whitgift, Works, I, p. 296. THE JULY ECLOGUE 111 obtaineth the next advowson by money or by favour, and so thinketh himself sufficiently chosen ;’’5* ‘‘then the con- gregation had authority to call ministers: instead thereof now they run, they ride, and by unlawful suit and buying prevent other suitors also’’.17 In this manner Thomalin closes his scathing denunciation of the ‘‘ambitious Pastours’’ of the present day. Morrell’s reply is a common enough Anglican retort: “When folke bene fat, and riches rancke, It is a signe of helth.” (Il. 211-12) Aylmer and his brother prelates professed to believe that the Puritans were seeking the spoil of their sees,°* and that the prosperity of the Church could not long remain after they had been deprived of their temporalities. The concluding section of the eclogue (ll. 215-228), which refers to Grindal’s sequestration under the allegory of the Eagle and the Shell-fish, has been explained many times. I shall content myself with quoting Herford’s elu- cidation: ‘‘Elizabeth (the she-eagle) desiring to crush the Puritans (the shell-fish), sought to make Grindal, the newly-appointed archbishop, the instrument of the blow. But Grindal, not being ‘chalk’, declined to be used thus; whereupon the blow intended for the Puritans spent itself upon him.’’5° It should be remembered that ‘‘the blow intended for the Puritans’’ actually fell on them, for the ““prophesyings’’ received a set-back throughout the realm. Otherwise this explanation covers the facts and is satis- factory. % Tbid., p. 339. 7 Tbid., p. 340. ™ Cf. Whitgift in his Works, I, p. 11; Strype, Annals, II, pt. 1, p. 288; Parker’s letters in his Correspondence, passim. *”° Notes to the July eclogue, ll. 221 ff. 112 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER This brings my discussion of the eclogue to a close. In view of the conventional acceptation of the identifications of Morrell and Algrind, more has hitherto been known about the purpose of Spenser’s satire here than in the other ‘‘morall’’ eclogues. Chiefly owing to the pastoral motif of the debate, a relatively small portion of the poem is devoted to satire upon ecclesiastical abuses. The defence of Grindal, however, has additional importance in view of Spenser’s biography, and will be discussed with some detail in a subsequent portion of this work. (5) The September Eclogue For the September eclogue, Spenser has reserved his fiercest satire, and that no one may doubt the truth of his indignation he introduces his most intimate friend, Harvey, as an interlocutor, not indeed as the mouth-piece of his satire, for that might have been dangerous, but as the tacit supporter of the views therein expressed. Spenser’s pur- pose is again explained by E. K.: ‘‘Herein Diggon Davie is devised to be a shepheard that, in hope of more gayne, drove his sheepe into a farre country. The abuses whereof, and loose living of Popish prelates, by occasion of Hob- binol’s demand, he discourseth at large.’’ In the gloss EH. K. is even more reticent than in the February, May, and July eclogues, for he offers only two comments in explana- tion of the allegory.*°° In view of its vehemence he per- haps thought that comment would be thrown away. The form of this satire differs from that of the May and July -eclogues in that the interlocutors do not take opposite sides; on the other hand, the fact that one speaker up- holds by far the greater part of the conversation draws it nearer to the ‘‘February’’ than to the other two. *° The glosses to ‘‘marrie that’’ (1. 96) and ‘‘ great hunt’’ (1. 159). THE SEPTEMBER ECLOGUE 1138 Whoever Diggon Davie may be,’* he is evidently a clergyman who has once had a ‘‘fayre flocke’’, but who has now lost it, and who returns to Hobbinol after an ab- sence of nine months. Although it is not altogether safe to trust to an identification of localities in the Calender through what we know of the persons therein represented, it seems reasonable to suppose that Spenser intended Cambridge or its vicinity as the scene of this dialogue. The place is stated to be Hobbinol’s home (1. 254), at any rate, which, if interpreted strictly, would be either Cam- bridge or Saffron Walden. The April and June eclogues, in which Hobbinol also appears, offer nothing contradic- tory, and, although Hobbinol re-appears in Ireland in Colin Clout’s, his presence is required on account of Spen- ser’s residence in that country, and it is not represented as his home. From this point it is an easy step to imag- ine that Diggon Davie has returned to Cambridge or Saf- fron Walden after a journey to London of an unsuccess- ful or disagreeable nature. The ‘‘farre country’’ which E. K. mentions in the ‘‘argument’’ is evidently a thinly veiled allusion to London, for Diggon is referring to the head-quarters of ecclesiastical authority. In the eclogue of Mantuan from which Spenser has here borrowed material, Rome is the city designated as the source of Church cor- ruption, and it is clear that Spenser also had the metrop- olis of his own country in mind. The actual satire, which is aimed at both Churchmen and courtiers, begins at 1. 32. In this first attack (ll. 32-46) Diggon enumerates four specific abuses, which he sub- sequently assails at greater length: (1) the traffic in Church livings and licenses (ll. 36-7), (2) the system of J have elsewhere identified him with Richard Greenham. As, unlike Palinode (May), he is not the object of the satire, his identi- fication makes little difference as far as the general nature of the poet’s aim is concerned, for he merely utters the latter’s views. 9 114 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER fines (ll. 38-40), (8) the unfair oppression of the lower clergy by the higher, viz. the Puritans by the Anglicans (ll. 40-1), and (4) the pride of the ecclesiasts (ll. 42-46). The first charge seems to include both lay and ecclesias- tical patrons of benefices, but the peculiar allusion, “They setten to sale their shops of shame,” (1. 36) suggests the corruption of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s courts.’°? The abuses pertaining to these courts were so notorious that Archbishop Parker in 1573, after the publi- cation of Cartwright’s Reply, felt compelled to draw up a paper in defence of the loose condition of the court of Faculties, from which licenses and dispensations were issued.1®® The following extract is characteristic of the Puritan objections to these: ““ What should we speak of the archbishop’s court, sith all men know it, and your wisdom cannot but see what it is. As all other courts are subject to this by the pope’s prerogative, yea, and by statute of this realm yet unrepealed, so is it the filthy quavemire and poisoned plash of all the abominations that do infect the whole realm. We speak not of licenses granted out of this court to marry in forbidden times, as in Lent, in Advent, in the gang- week, when banners and bells, with the priest in his surplice singing gospels, and making crosses, rangeth about in many places, upon the ember days, and to forbidden persons, and in exempt places. We make no mention of licenses to eat white meat and flesh in Lent, and that with a safe conscience, for rich men that can buy them with money; nor we say nothing how dearly men pay for them. As for dispensations with beneficed boys, tolerations for non-residents, bulls to have two benefices, ** Of these there were four, viz. the courts of Faculties, Arches, Audience, and Prerogative. For Cartwright’s view of their corrup- tions, cf. Whitgift, Works, III, pp. 265 ff. 18 Strype, Parker, II, pp. 258-64. THE SEPTEMBER ECLOGUE 115 to have three, to have more, and as many as they list or can get; these are so common that all godly and good men are compelled with grief of heart to ery out upon such abominations. . . . To conclude, this filthy court hath full power, together with the | authority of this petty pope, metropolitan and primate of all England, to dispense in all causes wherein the pope was wont to dispense; under which are contained more cases and causes than we are able to reckon.’”164 Ecclesiastical abuses such as these were so notorious that a mere hint from Spenser would have been enough to show that he had them in mind. The next two sources of corruption which Diggon Davie assails are closely related to each other. When his lan- guage has been translated, they are undoubtedly the system of taking unjust fines'® and the general oppression of the lower clergy by the bishops: “The shepheards there robben one another, And layen baytes to beguile her brother; Or they will buy his sheepe out of the cote, Or they will carven the shepheards throte.” (Il. 38-41) The Queen was accustomed to demand peremptorily the appointment of her nominees to lucrative benefices, and the bishops were therefore constantly compelled either to eject incumbents or to transfer them from a rich living to a poorer one. This seems to be what the poet intends when he speaks of buying ‘‘his sheepe out of the cote’’, with the alternative of a figurative throat-cutting resulting in ruin- ation. The abuses of the fines system were so deep-rooted that they remained a source of evil throughout Elizabeth’s reign in spite of reformatory legislation. 14 Cartwright’s Reply, in Whitgift, Works, III, pp. 276-7. + Mullinger, I, pp. 376 #f., gives a good account of the abuses of the system of fines. 116 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER The last malpractice to which Diggon refers is the pride and arrogance of the clergy: “The shepheardes swayne you cannot well ken, But it be by his pryde, from other men :” (IL. 42-3) It is the same objection which Piers and Thomalin have already urged against the lordship and pomp of ambitious prelates. From a report drawn up in 15631 against the Dean and Chapter of Worcester, quoted by Froude,’*’ we read: ‘‘ ‘They (the Church dignitaries) decked their wives so finely for the stuff and fashion of their garments as none were so fine and trim.’ By her dress and ‘her gait’ in the street ‘the priest’s wife was known from a hundred other women’; while in the congregations and in the cathedrals they were distinguished ‘by placing themselves above all others the most ancient and honorable in their cities’.’’ After some remarks on his miserable condition, Diggon Davie again takes up the burden of his attack on the cor- rupt clergy (1. 80). In this speech (ll. 80-101), which Hobbinol considers ‘‘dirke’”’, Diggon continues to assail the more prominent abuses in the Church government. The pastors whom he has seen in London are either ‘‘ydle’’ (il. 80-1), or ‘‘false and full of covetise’’ (ll. 82-3), or else spightful and contentious (ll. 84-9). The maintenance of an idle and corrupt ministry by the bishops was, of course, one of the standing grievances of the Puritans. It seemed to them absurd and cruel that unlearned men, even Papists, should be kept in place because they subscribed the articles, when learned and godly men were deprived of their livings owing to their advocation of a return to purer + Lemon, p. 223. *7 Froude, VII, pp. 476-7. THE SEPTEMBER ECLOGUE 117 methods of Church government.‘ Even Burghley and the bishops themselves acknowledged that many unlearned and corrupt men got into the Church. While Diggon’s first two categories are therefore easy to explain, it might appear at first sight that his third division was aimed at the contentious Puritans. Even though Spenser may not have altogether sympathized with some of the dogmatic tendencies of Puritanism, it would be inconsistent of him to classify these Reformers with the corrupt and ignorant place-holders. The peculiar use of the word ‘‘holy water’’ (1. 89), however, precludes such an interpretation. The Catholic rite of sprinkling ‘‘holy water’’ was not retained in the Anglican Church, and it is therefore possible that Spenser was striking at the recusant Papists who were trying to subvert the Church. More probably, however, he referred by familiar Puritan methods to the Popish char- acter of the Anglican clergy, who ‘‘kindle coales of conteck and yre’’ by enforcing the ecclesiastical statutes,** and then attempt to evade responsibility for their proceedings by a reference to a higher authority. The word holy water was frequently applied to anything used to deceive people. In a letter written by Sir Francis Englefield at this time we read: ‘‘ Arundel has sat in the Council since Pembroke’s death, and methinks will have the staff?” again, for much holy water of Court is sprinkled on him, and small things suffice to blear the eyes of them that be purblind already.’’27+ +8¢«He spake at large of the abuses of the Church of England; at first, that known Papists are admitted to have Ecclesiastical Govern- ment, and great livings; that godly, honest and learned Protestants have little or nothing’’ (Extract from the speech of Mr. Strickland, a Puritan, in the Parliament of 1571, cf. D’Ewes, p. 157). * Cartwright attacked the Anglicans for fomenting ‘‘ contention’? (cf. Second Reply, p. 227). “9 The office of Lord Chamberlain is meant. 1 Green, Cal. State Papers, p. 279. 118 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER The rest of this speech of Diggon’s (ll. 90-101) is merely a general attack on this ignorant and corrupt clergy, whose souls are ‘‘paund’’ to the Devil and ‘‘which by popish Exorcismes and practices they damne to hell’’ (E. K.). Without hinting at any particular abuses, he prepares the reader for the severe arraignment which occurs in his next speech (ll. 104-35). Here Diggon’s satire is aimed not only at the corruption of the bishops, but at the rapacity of the courtiers who preyed upon the lands of the Church. At the beginning he speaks out clearly: “Then, playnely to speake of shepheards most what, Badde is the best; ” (IL. 104-5) Nothing can be plainer than this; all attempts on the part either of Spenser or E. K. to disguise the true intent of the satire by pretending that it is meant for the Catholics is here dropped. To leave a loop-hole for a convenient disa- vowal, Diggon is not made to advance these charges on his own responsibility; he recites merely what he has heard. His authorities he divides into four classes of critics,” in whose mouths he places remarks prevalent in regard to Church corruption. All, however, are agreed in censuring the doctrine and the faith of the clergy, whose lives accord so ill with what they profess (ll. 106-7). The first set attack the ignorance of the ministry: “They sayne the world is much war then it wont, All for her shepheards bene beastly and blont.” (IL. 108-9) This is merely a repetition of what Spenser has stated before,’ and voices an objection which was only too %? Herford comments upon this division. ™8 May eclogue, Il. 39-44, THE SEPTEMBER ECLOGUE 119 notorious in his day, as we have already seen.’ It was Archbishop Grindal’s attempt to reform this glaring de- ficiency by the institution of the ‘‘prophesyings’’ which cost him his place. The distinctive Puritanism of Spenser’s remark lies chiefly in the fact that he had advanced it openly. Bishop Cox, writing to Burghley in vindication of Grindal, says: ‘‘and when the great ignorance, idleness, and lewdness of the great number of poor and blind priests in the clergy, shall be deeply weighed and considered of, it will be thought most necessary to call them, and to drive them, to some travel and exercise of God’s holy word: whereby they may be the better able to discharge their bounden duty towards their flock’’.17* The ignorance of the clergy had become a bye-word of reproach. The second set of critics maintain the following ob- jection : “ Other sayne, but how truely I note, All for they holden shame of theyr cote:” (Il. 110-1) This means, of course, that the pastors are ashamed of their flocks, not on account of their profession, but probably because of the wretchedness of their livings.17 At a time when less than one third of the benefices were served in the diocese of Ely, in which he had resided for seven years, it may well have seemed to Spenser that the ‘‘shepheards’’ really were ashamed of ‘‘theyr cote’’.177 Cartwright spe- cifically alluded to this condition: ‘‘I know myself that within seven miles of Cambridge there have bene parishes ™ Cf. especially the Answer to a Sermon by Bishop Cooper, in Strype, Annals, II, pt. 1, pp. 287 ff. 15 Thid., pt. 2, p. 611. *° Herford says that this is ‘‘their scorn for the laity’’. Such an interpretation is so broad that it is well nigh meaningless. 7 Strype, Parker, I, p. 144. 120 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER where one of these sermons was not in four whole years. Which if yt be so neere Cambridge, where the greatest numbers of those preachers be, what is it to be thought of other places of the Realme.’’!7* With the objection of the third set of critics, however, Spenser begins to attack those who are more nearly respon- sible for the wretched condition of the Church. Here he is once more assailing the corruption of the Church digni- taries who alienate their sees and hoard up money for their families. It is the same argument which Piers has lodged in the ‘‘May’’ (ll. 77-94) : “Some sticke not to say, (whote cole on her tongue!) 79 That sike mischiefe graseth hem emong, All for they casten too much of worlds care, To deck her1®° Dame, and enrich her heyre; For such encheason, if you goe nye, Fewe chymneis reeking you shall espye; The fatte Oxe, that wont ligge in the stal, Is nowe fast stalled in her crumenall.”** (IL. 111-19) For the ministers’ decking of their ‘‘dames’’ I have only to refer to the extracts made from Froude a few pages back, and for their aggrandizing of riches for their children I would merely have to repeat what I have said in my remarks on the May eclogue. The doings of Archbishop Parker, who loaded his children with rich grants and leases, fur- nished the most prominent example of this abuse. In addition to four benefices which his father granted him a dispensation to hold, John Parker was possessed of six estates or manor-houses, one of which he purchased from 8 Second Reply, p. 364. * This is a case in question where Diggon seeks to avoid responsi- bility for his utterances. 18° Their, 181 Purse. THE SEPTEMBER ECLOGUE 121 the Marquis of Winchester for £1992! But this was not all; at least six other lucrative grants of offices or leases he also received at his father’s hands, and how much more he was given it is impossible to say.18? These abuses, con- sidered in regard to the welfare of the Church, are well summarized as follows: ‘‘the Churchmen heaped up many benefices upon themselves, and resided upon none, neglect- ing their cures; many of them alienated their lands, made unreasonable leases and wastes of their woods, granted re- versions and advowsons to their wives and children, or to others for their use’’.18? To this alienation of Church property Spenser refers in the last two lines of the passage quoted above under the figure of the ‘‘fatte Oxe’’ which has been sold, the proceeds thereof being transferred to the purse of the clergyman. Incidentally, this description seems also to hint at the decrease of liberality among the clergy. Their chimneys no longer smoke, for they do not keep up the ancient hospitality. Negligence in this respect Elizabeth was never tired of imputing to her bishops, and it was the cause of considerable legislation in Parliament. Under an ‘‘Act concerning good hospitality among the clergy’’ in the Parliament of 1575 we read: ‘‘ample reve- nues were granted the clergy that they might show hospi- tality, but many, being now married, neglect it, keep fewer servants, and reserve their incomes for their children’’.1%4 The lack of liberality was indeed the result of the clergy’s alienation of their property in favor of themselves and their families, and it was Elizabeth’s profound dislike of their marriages, as much as her willingness to have every- one except herself spend money for the honor of the realm, which drew down her constant censure upon the bishops * Strype, Parker, especially I, pp. 467-70. *8 Tbid., p. 204. * Quoted by Froude, X, p. 195. 122 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER for their niggardliness. But, although she and her advisers could condemn these corrupt practices, anyone else who raised his voice was considered a Puritan ‘‘precisian’’. To give emphasis to the objection of the fourth set of critics Spenser not only reserves it for the last place, but treats it at greater length than the others. This piece of satire (ll. 122-135) is a vehement attack on the rapacity of the courtiers who traffic in Church property, and its posi- tion after the others is especially noticeable, because it pre- pares the way for the fable of Roffy and Lowder. The opening lines are expressive : “But they that shooten neerest the pricke Sayne, other the fat from their beards doen lick; ” (Il. 122-3) This kind of language Spenser probably heard every day in Cambridge. In the midst of the Cartwright-Whitgift controversy charges—‘‘libels’’ according to the Anglicans —‘‘were publicly scattered in the schools, viz. that poor men toil and travel, but the prince and the doctors, they licked up all’’.18° Spenser echoes the spirit of these, and it is evident that he is quoting from the stock vocabulary of the Puritans. This passage presents a concrete illustra- tion of the influences which the disputes at Cambridge ex- erted on Spenser’s ecclesiastical satire. The poet continues in the same vein: “For bigge Bulles of Basan brace hem about, That with theyr hornes butten the more stoute; But the leane soules treaden under foote,” (il. 124-6) Although I have not run across the use of the term ‘‘ Bulles of Basan’’ by the Puritans to denote courtiers and lay patrons of benefices, this is clearly the meaning here in- % Strype, Annals, I, pt. 2, p. 374. THE SEPTEMBER ECLOGUE 123 tended. These corrupt patrons mulcted the benefices before they bestowed them upon the highest bidder; in the case of those ministers who are ‘‘more stoute’’, who are blessed with some means, this process injures but does not ruin them; in the case of the ‘‘leane soules’’, however, who are poor and needy, this subsidy system makes them practically bankrupt. This is an allegorical and earlier version of the outspoken satire of the Mother Hubberd’s Tale (ll. 302- 44), and perhaps, as Herford intimates in his notes to the September eclogue, Spenser may have had Burghley in mind as one of the ‘‘Bulles’’. Certain it is that Archbishop Parker on his death-bed charged that statesman and his brother-in-law, Sir Nicolas Bacon, with procuring the spoil of the Church,1** and no one could have been better informed on that matter except Burghley himself. Of the latter’s views on the subject of presentations Spenser could scarcely have been ignorant, for it was by his advice that Elizabeth refused to sign the bill for repressing ‘‘the buy- ing and selling of fellowships, scholarships, and all offices of emolument in the two universities’, a measure passed by the Parliament of 1576—7.1°7 Diggon’s satire continues as follows: “ And to seeke redresse mought little boote; For liker bene they to pluck away more, Then ought of the gotten good to restore: For they bene like foule wagmoires overgrast, That, if thy galage once sticketh fast, The more to wind it out thou doest swinck, Thou mought ay deeper and deeper sinck. Yet better leave of with a little losse, Then by much wrestling to leese the grosse.” (Il. 127-35) 18 Strype, Parker, II, p. 431. 1st Mullinger, I, pp. 268-9. 124 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER The purpose of the Puritans was to discredit the Anglican clergy and their methods of Church administration. They were less interested in the abuse of corrupt presentations by lay patrons, except in so far as these contributed to the maintenance of an idle and ignorant ministry. Even then, however, they were apt to lay the blame on the bishops who connived at these doings, and consequently only a few attacks may be found from the Puritan controversialists of Spenser’s day on the corrupt practices of the courtier- patrons. The Puritan point of view on this subject may be gathered from the Admonition to the Parltament: ‘‘The way therefore to avoid these inconveniences'® . . . is this: your wisdoms have to remove advowsons, patron- ages, impropriations, and bishops’ authority, claiming to themselves thereby right to ordain ministers, and to bring in that old and true election which was accustomed to be made by the congregation. ... Take away the lordship, the loitering, the pomp, the idleness, and livings of bishops.’’!8® Now from this the point of view of Spenser differs. He sympathizes with the clergy whose benefices are mulcted by greedy patrons, and he therefore takes the side of those Churchmen who protested against this abuse. Archbishop Parker writes of the condition of the diocese of Norwich in 1568: ‘‘ Whereof I heard, of credible and of worshipful persons, that Gehazi and Judas had a wonder- ful haunt in the country, that Quid vultis mihi dare? had so much prevailed there among the Simonians,’* that now to sell and to buy benefices, to fleece parsonages and vicar- ages, that omnia erant venalia. And I was informed the best of the country, not under the degree of knights, were infected with this sore, so that some one knight had four or +8 << The abuses yet remaining in the ministry.’’ *° In Whitgift, Works, III, p. 8. + Persons guilty of simony. THE SEPTEMBER ECLOGUE 125 five, some other seven or eight benefices clouted together, fleecing them all, defrauding the crown’s subjects of their duty of prayers, somewhere setting boys and their serving men to bear the names of such livings.’’*t Spenser would probably have agreed with his friend, Archbishop Grindal, who wrote that ‘‘it is found now, that this Church of Eng- land hath been by ‘appropriations’, and that not without sacrilege, spoiled of the livings. ... Which ‘appropria- tions’ were first annexed to abbies; . . . and now are dis- persed to private men’s possessions, without hope to reduce the same to the original institution. So as at this day, in mine opinion, where one Church is able to yield sufficient living for a learned preacher, there are at least seven churches unable to do the same ;#°? and in many parishes of your realm, where there be seven or eight hundred souls, . . . there are not eight pounds a year reserved for a Min- ister.’’°° In this satire on the corrupt practices of the courtiers who trafficked in Church livings Spenser is voic- ing a grievance of which the regular clergy complained even more than the Puritans. Upon the conclusion of Diggon’s speech, Hobbinol asks him of the condition of the flocks which are kept by these idle and corrupt pastors. In an answer which resembles the Biblical language of St. John (chap. 10), Diggon refers to the wretched moral condition of the people: “They wander at wil and stay at pleasure, And to theyr foldes yeed at their owne leasure.” (ll. 143-5) The irreverence and blasphemy of the people, especially marked in parishes whose ministers were ignorant or dis- ™ Parker, Correspondence, p. 311. This is the view which Cartwright held. “*Grindal to the Queen, Dec. 20 (8), 1576, quoted by Strype, Grindal, p. 565. 126 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER solute, had become proverbial. Grindal, in the injunctions which he drew up for a visitation in 1571, directs the atten- tion of his clergy to the reformation of morality among the laity: ‘‘Ye shall openly every Sunday ... warn the churchwardens and sworn-men of your parish to look to their oaths . . .and to observe who, contrary to the law, do that day offend either in absenting themselves negli- gently or wilfully from their parish church . . . or unrev- erently use themselves in the time of divine service ;’’ ‘‘ that the churchwardens, etc. shall not suffer any person to walk, talk, or otherwise unreverently to behave themselves in any church or chapel, nor to use any gaming, or to sit abroad in the streets or church-yards, or in any tavern or alehouse upon the Sundays or other holy days, in the time of divine service;’’ ‘‘that the minister and churchwardens shall not suffer any lords of misrule, or summer lords or ladies, or any disguised persons or others in Christmas or at May games,)** or any minstrels, morrice-dancers, etc. to come un- reverently into any church or church-yard, and there dance or play any unseemly parts with scoffs, jests, wanton gestures, or ribald talk, namely in the time of divine service’’.1* These he subsequently repeated in 1576, after his trans- ference to Canterbury. The very fact that he has noticed these customs attests the irreverence and ignorance of the common people. Diggon’s succeeding reference to ‘‘ravenous Wolves”’ (1. 148) is directed at corrupt ministers, probably with especial reference to those who are really Catholic at heart. In the controversial language of the time the word wolf was used by each religious party to denote its adversaries. The Anglicans applied the term to the Papists, and the Papists to the Anglicans, while the Puritans used it of both. Cart- ™ Cf. Stubbes, Anatomie of Abuses, pp. 141-5 (reprint by Collier). * Grindal, Remains, pp. 129, 139, 141-2. THE SEPTEMBER ECLOGUE 127 wright, speaking of the idle ‘‘reading ministers’’ instituted by the bishops, remarks: ‘‘the sheep are not only committed to an idle shepherd, I might say a wolf’’, etc. In fact any minister who did not regard the welfare of his flock was considered a wolf.1°* Diggon, therefore, is referring in gen- eral to corrupt ministers infected with Papistical opinions, who are distinguished by Hobbinol from ‘‘Foxes’’ in his attempt to bring the reader back to the realm of pastoral poetry : “But the fewer Woolves (the soth to sayne) The more bene the Foxes that here remaine.” (ll. 154-5) The term fox was also used to designate both Catholics and Anglicans. William Turner, a celebrated Puritan, Dean of Wells under Edward and Elizabeth, wrote a book entitled The Huntyng and Fynding out of the Romish Foz.1*" Another work he called The Huntyng of the Romishe Wolfe, and still another, The Huntyng of the Fox and Wolfe, because they did make havoc of the Sheep of Jesus Christ. Here the terms wolves and foxes are both applied to the Catholics. The latter seems to have been generally used in a broad sense for enemies of the Church,?** and the Puritans therefore fastened it upon the Anglicans. Bishop Cooper’s unknown opponent stigmatizes the Anglican hier- archy as ‘‘crafty michers’’ and ‘‘subtile foxes’’. If Spenser, therefore, meant to make a difference between the wolves and the foxes, he probably intended the Catho- 1 Strype, Parker, II, p. 335. 1” The Hunting of the Hare with curres and bandogs is the title of a Catholic reply to this (Camden Society, 77, Ist s., p. 61). 18 Sandys, Sermons, etc. (Parker Society), pp. 62 ff. The use of this term eventually harks back to the Song of Solomon, II, 15: ‘‘take us the foxes, the little foxes that destroy our vines; for our vines have small grapes’’. 128 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER lies by the former and the Anglicans by the latter.1°® Dig- gon’s further remark upon the wolves, “They walke not widely as they were wont, For feare of raungers and the great hunt,” (Il. 158-9) coupled with the explanation of E. K. that ‘‘the great hunt’’ means the ‘‘execution of lawes and iustice’’, bears out this interpretation, for after the massacre of St. Bar- tholomew’s day?°® (1572) the laws against the Catholics were more strictly enforced for a short time. A reference at this point to the Papists, moreover, would provide the poet with a loop-hole of escape in case that he were prose- cuted for libel in the tale of Roffy. With this, we are brought face to face with the fable of Roffy, Lowder, and the Wolf, of which no satisfactory ex- planation has ever been offered in print. In the gloss E. K. remarks: ‘‘This tale of Roffy seemeth to coloure some par- ticular Action of his. But what, I certainly know not.”’ This statement, coming as it does immediately after the acknowledgment that the poet ‘‘by the name of other shep- heardes, covereth the persons of divers other his familiar freendes and best acquayntaunce’’, has seemed to Spenser’s editors to indicate clearly that he is dealing with a matter of no small interest. Herford remarked that ‘‘Roffynn and Lowder were, however, doubtless actual persons’’, while Grosart has offered the one explanation of their identity set forth in print.?° Briefly speaking, he identifies Roffy, or Roffynn, as the name once occurs (1. 171), with Dr. John Young, Master of Pembroke during Spenser’s entire col- legiate residence and nominated Bishop of Rochester on Cf. Strype, Annals, II, pt. 1, p. 8, where Gilby calls the Papists wolves and the Anglican bishops foxes. °° HR. K. refers to this in the ‘‘May’’ gloss to 1. 302. 21 Spenser, Works, I, pp. 62-4. THE SEPTEMBER ECLOGUE 129 January 31, 1577-8, a dignity in which he was finally in- stalled on the following first day of April. The ground of identification is the practical coincidence of Roffynn with Roffen, the abridged form of the Bishop of Rochester’s offi- cial name. Lowder, Grosart thinks, is intended to repre- sent Young’s chancellor, Lloyd, owing to the similarity in sound between the two names. So far, his means of identi- fication are good, but when he declares that Lloyd ‘‘had made himself obnoxious to his bishop by taking sides with the ‘wolves’, envious people at court who complained of Young’s niggardly hospitality’’,?°? he destroys the whole force of his theory. Lowder helps Roffy kill the Wolf in Spenser’s fable, and certainly acts throughout as his co- operator. Grosart must have seen this obvious absurdity, for he has carefully avoided any attempt to reconcile his hypothesis with the actual contents of the ‘‘tale’’. Even if this difficulty could be overcome, it is extremely unlikely that Spenser was thinking of Young, in spite of the coinci- dence of names. The laborious researches of the inde- fatigable Strype, the thorough-going supporter of the Anglican bishops, have unearthed nothing but the barest information concerning Young. Beyond noting the facts that he succeeded Whitgift as Master of Pembroke Hall, and that he preached four sermons at various times, Strype has no information to give about him previous to his appointment as bishop. Even on that occasion, when he attempted to collect all the available facts of his life, he could present no fresh material except that he ‘‘ wrote notes upon H. N.’s?** book, called Evangelium Regni’’, and. that Aylmer warmly recommended him in 1581 for the see of 2 Grosart’s information is singularly inaccurate. There is not a shred of evidence to show that Young got into trouble with the cour- tiers until 1595. *8 Henry Nicholas, founder of the sect of the Family of Love. 10 130 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER Norwich,?" ‘‘who for his quickness in government, and his readiness in learning, is the fittest man for that country that I know’’.2°> Although the latter fact—that he was a friend of Aylmer—would probably have been enough to condemn him in Spenser’s eyes, this is not the main point. From the meagre details which Strype was able to scrape together, less than in the case of almost any bishop of the time, the fact remains that Young was a painfully unim- portant man. So far from his being a ‘‘Puritan-bishop’’, as Grosart asserts, he subscribed the Roman Catholic articles in 1555, attempted to frustrate the search for ‘‘Popish’’ books in 1568 at Cambridge,?°* and was evidently considered a thorough-going Anglican, as Aylmer testi- fied.2°7 Spenser was not interested in persons of Young’s calibre, who forsook their principles and who led colorless existences. Young was too small a man to have been the subject of his glowing tribute in the tale of Roffy. With Grosart’s concluding remark, however, that ‘‘the reference (in the tale) is too realistic not to have had a basis of fact,”’ I can heartily agree. After a careful reading of the fable of Roffy, weighing it in the light of Spenser’s known interest in important per- sonages and of E. K.’s pretence of ignorance of its pur- port, the impression remains that Spenser was dealing with an important contemporaneous transaction with which his readers must have been familiar. It seems clear that this fable refers to an act of depredation on Church property by a courtier or politician. Diggon’s fierce satire on the “‘bigge Bulles of Basan’’ naturally calls for a story with *™ Strype, Annals, II, pt. 2, p. 184. 25 Strype, Aylmer, p. 59. 6 Mullinger, I, pp. 202-3; Cooper, Annals, II, pp. 235-8. ** The see of Rochester, whose possessor had to fulfill the duties of a Court bishop, was always occupied during Elizabeth’s reign by Anglo-Catholic High Churchmen. THE SEPTEMBER ECLOGUE 1381 some such intention, just as the ‘‘May’’ discussion between Puritan and Anglican calls for an arraignment of the gov- ernment’s Church policy. Although the fable is divided into two parts (ll. 180-207 and Il. 212-25), the subject in each, the depredations of a wolf disguised as a sheep upon a shepherd’s flock, remains the same. By wolves, as we have seen, Spenser intended the enemies of the Church, that is, either Catholics, corrupt ministers, or avaricious laymen, and, owing to the previous tenor of Diggon’s invective, it seems certain that in the tale he is laying weight on this last meaning. The shepherd Roffy, moreover, whose name is introduced as some one perfectly well known to Harvey (1. 171), is evidently a man residing in the neighborhood of Cambridge, some important person in that part of the coun- try, in whose doings Harvey would have been greatly interested. Now, about the time that Spenser’s academic career was drawing to a close, a couple of flagrant acts of Church robbery were in progress of transaction, both of which were directed at the same person, who resided in the county of Cambridge. The explanation of the tale of Roffy which I now ad- vance is one which may have occurred to other students of Spenser, but which must have been in every case laid aside for lack of a connecting-link. Dr. Richard Cox, the aged Bishop of Ely, was the object of two of the most shameful attempts at Church spoliation in the whole reign of Eliza- beth, one on the part of Sir Christopher Hatton, the other on the part of Roger, Lord North, each countenanced by the Queen. Both of these were in progress during the last year of Spenser’s residence at Cambridge, and, as they have been often poorly described, or confounded with each other, once by no less an authority than the historian Froude,”** it may be well to state briefly the principal ™8 History, XI, pp. 21-3, note. 132 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER events of each. In the year 1574 Elizabeth, who disliked the Bishop of Ely for various reasons,? and who had given ear to reports industriously circulated by his enemies at Court that he was rich, covetous, niggardly, and a spoiler of his see, ordered him to grant a lease of Ely-palace in Holborn to her favorite, Hatton.2*° The bishop, who ‘‘had had some experience what inconvenience had fallen by lending of an house’’,?4? was obliged to yield a lease of his palace to Hatton for twenty-one years at a nominal rent. The following year Hatton sought a lease of the house in perpetuity, to which the bishop strenuously objected to the Queen in an elegant Latin letter.?1?, Hatton, it seems, had bought up an old lease of Ely-palace which had been made by Cox’s predecessor in the see, Goodrich, and under color of this he instituted a suit against the bishop, for which he obtained Elizabeth’s special permission to cause to be heard in the court of Chancery.?4* This case, however, had never been settled owing to the demise of the Lord Keeper, Bacon, who died February 20, 1578/9. The upshot of the whole matter was that Cox was forced to convey a mortgage of Ely-house to the Queen, who in turn conveyed it to Hatton. The amount of this mortgage was £1800, the sum which Hatton said that he had expended upon the place.2** In this manner the venerable bishop was literally robbed of one of the most valuable possessions of his see. The other attempted fleecing of Cox’s bishopric was even more shameful. Roger, second Lord North, dwelt at his family seat of Kirtling, situated at about five miles’ distance »° The chief of these seem to have been that he advised her to marry ~ and that he himself married a second time at the age of sixty-eight. *° Strype, Annals, II, pt. 1, pp. 501-2; Nicolas, Life of Hatton, p. 36. * Letter to Burghley, Feb. 3, 1574-5 (Strype). *? Strype, Annals, II, pt. 1, pp. 533-4. 78 Tbid., pt. 2, p. 259. ™ Bentham, Antiquities of Ely, I, p. 206, note. THE SEPTEMBER ECLOGUE 133 from Newmarket in a south-easterly direction,?** and was prominent in the affairs of the county, succeeding the Duke of Norfolk as High-Steward of the town of Cambridge in June, 1572. In May, 1575, he obtained letters from Eliza- beth directing Cox to alienate the manor and lands of Somersham,?1* while a few months later he bought up an old lease of Downham-park, another of the chief possessions of the see, and attempted to enter upon this property forcibly. These letters, which Cox received on the 18th of June, he answered, humbly refusing to assent to this aliena- tion, which was urged while Hatton’s suit was in prog- ress.217_ North, it appears, had spread allegations against the bishop, charging him with all sorts of corruption in the administration of his see, and Cox was therefore obliged to apply to friends at Court in order to defend his case. In a letter dated November 20, 1575,218 North wrote to Cox, bitterly upbraiding him with ‘‘stubbornness’’, with lack of hospitality, with covetousness, with spoliation of his see, and with other corrupt practices, and to this Cox returned a reply containing answers to each allegation.?® The trouble remained at its height during the months of No- vember, December, and January. In November Cox re- moved to Downham, in order to keep North from seizing it, and from there he wrote to Burghley asking for his support, which the lafér does not seem to have vouchsafed freely. In December North drew up a longer list of charges, and also preferred to the Council complaints of sundry =° Newmarket is about thirteen miles from Cambridge, and Kirtling is about fourteen due east of Cambridge, as the crow flies. 7€ About thirteen miles north-west of Cambridge, lying just across the border in Huntingdonshire. =" Strype, Annals, II, pt. 2, pp. 567-9. 8 Cal. Hatfield MSS., ii, pp. 120-2. Froude misdates this a whole year, and confuses it with the Hatton controversy. 2° Lemon, p. 507. 134 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER other persons who had transacted business with Cox.”*° Under date of December 11 there are two letters of Cox among the State Papers, one petitioning the Council not to allow North to prefer these charges, and the other contain- ing specific answers to them. Although Burghley professed to be helping him,?** the slanders against the bishop still continued, which were fomented by North’s interception of a letter of Cox to a friend at Court in which North made out that Cox ‘‘had called her majesty an harpy and plun- derer of the church’’.???, Upon this the bishop was obliged to repair to London and make his submission to the Queen, which she was pleased to accept probably on account of the great notoriety attracted by this scandal of fleecing a patriarch of the Church who had faithfully served her father and brother. Although for the time the storm blew over, the bishop became engaged in a suit with North over the manor of Downham, owing to the old lease which the latter had bought up.*?? This matter lingered on, but the ‘“‘hawking after his manors’’ by North and Hatton caused Cox so much trouble that he was fain to resign his see, a proceeding which was forestalled by his death, July 22, 1581. Though North’s proceedings were ‘‘vindictive and vexatious to the last degree’’,?** they appear to have been unsuccessful, for no record remains of the alienations of either Somersham or Downham mafors. Such are the two most flagrant cases of the spoliation of the Church in the whole reign of Elizabeth; others were perhaps equally bad, none so notorious. It is my belief that Spenser, who must have heard constant talk of these *°The whole list is long and may be found im toto in Strype, Annals, II, pt. 2, pp. 270-95. 21 Ibid., pt. 1, pp. 542 ff. * Thid., p. 544. = Tbid., pp. 548-9. ™ Cooper, Athenae, I, p. 441. THE SEPTEMBER ECLOGUE 135 proceedings during the last year of his collegiate course, was defending the Bishop of Ely in the person of Roffy. That the Wolf is meant to represent Lord North and not Hatton, I also fully believe for the following reasons: (1) North’s quarrel was concerned with lands in the neighbor- hood of Cambridge, Hatton’s with a piece of property in London; (2) North lived near Cambridge and, for reasons which I shall give, was unpopular with the University, whereas Hatton had no connection at all with the Univer- sity or the town of Cambridge; (3) North, unlike Hatton, failed to secure the coveted Church property, and therefore the description of the Wolf, whom Roffy finally overcomes, fits his case to the exclusion of Hatton’s, for the latter got what he wanted.”> The name Roffy, is borrowed, not from Marot’s E'glogue au Roy, as HE. K. remarks, but from his elegy De Mme. Loyse (1. 42), where it is applied to a friend of the author.2?° Spenser, as Grosart has noticed, once spells the name Roffynn (1. 171), but this seems to be as much due to the next word which begins with an ‘‘n’’ as it is to Spenser’s variability in the spelling of proper names. At any rate, the word Roffy bears a near enough resemblance to R. Cox, judging by the poet’s methods previously noted, to make us understand why he adopted it. He chose that pastoral name in the works of his more immediate masters?2” which bore the nearest resemblance to the name of the person whom he wished to represent, and which also sanctioned, #5 This last reason, it seems to me, would be conclusive even without the others. ™In the French the name appears as Raffy, the original of whom was Pierre Roffet, the publisher of Lyons who brought out some of Marot’s poems. Prof. Henry Morley, as well as Spenser and E. K,, has rendered the name in English as Roffy (Clément Marot, I, p. 259). =" Such as the poets whom E. K. mentions in the Epistle, ‘‘ whose foting this Author everywhere followeth.’’ 136 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER by its original application, the allusion to a friend. This, however, is not my reason for the connection of the fable with the Bishop of Ely on the score of names. The name of Roffy’s dog, Lowder, which Grosart claims ‘‘was then, as to-day, a common name for a shepherd’s dog,’”?® is en- countered neither in Chaucer, Langland, Lydgate, Skel- ton, Barclay, Googe, The Mirror for Magistrates, or Tot- tel’s Miscellany, in fact in none of the English poetry with which Spenser was probably most familiar, and there- fore, although it may have been a common enough name for a dog, it does not appear that it enjoyed a literary usage before Spenser.22® As everyone knows, Spenser bor- rows little from rustic naturalism,?® and it is therefore probable that if he really did adopt this name from the life, he did so only because it bore a resemblance to the name of the person whom he wished to represent. Now Bishop Cox had a brother-in-law whom he had appointed to the auditorship of his bishopric, and who was mixed up in the controversy with North and was specifically named by the latter in his allegations.?*4 The name of this man was Auder or Awder, the son of George Auder or Awder, once alderman of Cambridge,?*? and his sister Jane, the * Spenser, Works, I, p. 63. © According to Murray (N. HZ. D.) lowder is a Scottish and Northern word, which means (1) the stand or foundation on which a mill rests, (2) the wooden lever or hand-spoke for lifting the millstone, and (3) any long, stout, rough stick. Wright (Z. D. D.) gives a few other dialectal significations. The word was also used (e.An., e.Suf.) as meaning to call out loudly or angrily (Eng. Dial. Soc., XXIII, p. 71). This meaning would have been local for Spenser as a resident of Cambridge, and he probably had it in mind, with some special refer- ence to the loud barking of the dog. »° Cf. Herford, Introduction, pp. xlvi—viii, for instance. ™ Strype, Annals, II, pt. 2, p. 577. 2 Cooper, Athenae, I, p. 442; Musgrave, Obituary (Harleian Soc. Publ.), II, p. 90. THE SEPTEMBER ECLOGUE 137 widow of Dr. William Turner, Dean of Wells, had become the second wife of the bishop in 1568.2** The first name of this person, although of no great importance, was probably Thomas, for we find that a certain Thomas Awder, gentle- man, who died in 1599, resided at Somersham.?** As we shall presently see, Bishop Cox’s brother-in-law also lived in Somersham, and therefore, on account of the compara- tive rarity of the name Awder, this Thomas was probably the same person. The main point, however, is that the names Awder and Lowder bear a close relation to each other both in spelling and in sound. I, for one, am willing to believe that this likeness is something more than chance, and that in this coincidence, in view of Spenser’s known methods in the use of allegorical names, we have the key to the solution of the fable. The poet chose that dog-name which happened to bear the closest resemblance to the name of the person whom he wished to represent. The result is that this similarity between the dog’s name Lowder, un- known in the literature of the time but no doubt frequently encountered in rustic life, and the surname Auder or Awder, then in use but by no means common,”** is some- thing more than mere chance. 8 Anthony 4 Wood in his Athenae Oxonienses misspells this name Ander and Inder; Strype also inaccurately writes it Ander. Both are evident misreadings of MSS., for elsewhere the name always appears as Auder or Awder, generally the latter. 24 Index of Wills Proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury (1383-1604), IV, p. 20 (Brit. Rec. Soc., no. 25). *° In my researches through all the State Papers of the time which are catalogued either in the Calendars of the Record Office or in the Hist. Mss. Commission reports, through parish registers, church records, wills, inquisitions, and other contemporaneous documents, I have encountered eight persons of this name, exclusive of those living in Cambridge. Five of these evidently belong to the same family (London), that of William Awder, probably another son of Alderman George Awder of Cambridge (cf. letter of William Turner, Camden 138 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER To support this theory, however, it might be considered advisable to discover motives for this satire on the part of Spenser beyond a mere dislike of the corrupt practices of Elizabeth and her courtiers. Owing to the notoriety of Lord North’s shameful attempt at Church pillage and to the residence of the bishop near Cambridge, where the poet resided, this might not be thought necessary. Addi- tional testimony, however, hurts no theory, and I will therefore present further evidence. Dr. Richard Cox might be called one of the fathers of the Church of Eng- land. Born about 1500 he entered King’s College, Cam- bridge, proceeding B.A. in 1523-4. Subsequently he went to Oxford, where he was created M.A. in 1526, but was obliged to withdraw soon after on suspicion of holding Reformed opinions on religion. Several years later he became chaplain to King Henry and also to Cranmer, and in 1541 received the archdeaconry of Ely. Other colla- tions soon followed, and about 1544 he became tutor to Prince Edward. In 1546 he was appointed Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, and in 1547 almoner to King Edward, Chancellor of Oxford University, and a member of the Privy Council. He was one of the most prominent Re- formers of the time, and took an important part in the compilation of the Book of Common Prayer, published in June, 1548. Among other preferments he received the deanery of Westminster in 1549. Upon the accession of Mary he lost all his offices and was imprisoned in the Tower. Soc. Publ., 2d s., pp. 3-4). George Awder died probably before June, 1549 (ef. ibid.), and his widow, if she took up her residence in London as Dr. Turner intimates, may have been the ‘‘olde Wydowe’’, Agnes Awder, who was buried April 26, 1576 (Harl. Soc. Publ., XXX, p. 128). A second George Awder, who held the vicarage of Foxton, near Cambridge, and who died before February 10, 1592 (Ely Epis. Rec., p. 451), was probably another brother of Thomas Awder and Mrs, Cox. THE SEPTEMBER ECLOGUE 139 His confinement lasted only a short time, and in 1554 he escaped from the realm. During his exile he resided prin- cipally at Strasburg and Frankfort; at the latter place he opposed John Knox on the proposal for discarding the Prayer Book. On the accession of Elizabeth he returned to England, and was elected to the rich see of Ely in 1559. In spite of his age and his great services to the advance- ment of the Protestant religion, however, Elizabeth seems to have always treated him inconsiderately. In the begin- ning of her reign she forced him to alienate some lands from his see, and during most of the time from 1574 until his death in 1581 he was persecuted by Hatton and North, as we have seen.?2@ The reasons for the Queen’s dislike of Cox, even before the beginning of his troubles with Hatton and North, seem to have been chiefly these: in 1559 he wrote to the Queen, along with Parker, Grindal, and others, ask- ing her not to alienate certain Episcopal lands in exchange for gifts of impropriate rectories and remission of tenths; about the same time he wrote to her, objecting to the use of the crucifix in the Chapel Royal; in 1560 he, along with Parker and Grindal, wrote a letter to her, urging her to marry; he married a second time at the advanced age of sixty-eight. Froude, indeed, attributes Elizabeth’s deci- sion not to help the Hollanders in January, 1569, to her anger at the news of Cox’s marriage.”*7 At any rate, it is evident that many incidents in the case of Cox tended to arouse the peculiar and unjust motives which so often actu- ated her conduct towards ecclesiastics. Such is the man whom I believe that Spenser defends in the person of Roffy. Owing to the Queen’s treatment of him in his old age, especially the alleged ‘‘proud prelate’’ =§ These incidents in Cox’s life are taken chiefly from the memoir in Cooper, Athenae, I, pp. 437-45, although other sources of information have also been used. 2" History, IX, p. 383. 140 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER letter, in which she is made to say that she would unfrock him, and which is nothing but an ‘‘absurd fiction’’,?** Cox has been reproached as ‘‘a sordid, worldly-minded pre- late’’. ‘‘For this imputation we are convinced there is no solid foundation. It is to be regretted that Queen Eliza- beth’s conduct towards this prelate was by no means such as an old and faithful servant of her father and her brother, who had suffered exile for conscience’ sake, could have anticipated.’’*® Finally, it may be said that he was a warm friend of Spenser’s patron, Archbishop Grindal,?*° and that he maintained a close friendship and correspon- dence with the prominent Continental divines of the Re- formed Churches, Peter Martyr, Bullinger, Gualter, and Cassander, to all of whom the Puritans so greatly de- ferred.?* Bishop Cox, however, had special connections with the University of Cambridge which would have ensured him the affectionate interest and respect of the poet. Over the colleges of St. John’s and Peterhouse he possessed, as 8 The story of this letter is encountered wherever the name of Cox oceurs. Even the historians, Hallam and Froude, lightly treat it as unvarnished truth. Cooper (Athenae, I, pp. 441-2) has traced it to its origin and has clearly proved it absolutely unfounded. *° Tbid., p. 444. * Cf. Strype, Annals, II, pt. 2, pp. 611-2, for the strong letter which Cox wrote to Burghley in vindication of Grindal at the time of the latter’s sequestration. *1 The recent examination of the MSS. of the see of Ely has thrown new light upon the character of Cox. Dr. Jessopp, appointed for this purpose by the Hist. MSS. Commission, speaks of the care exer- eised by Cox in the admission of worthy men to the ministry of the Church. ‘‘The generally received belief that during Queen Eliza- beth’s reign the ordination examination was 4 mere form, and that admission to the ministry of the Church of England was easily to be obtained by very incompetent persons, receives no support from this register as far as the diocese of Ely is concerned’’ (quoted by Gib- bons, Ely Epis. Records, p. 143). THE SEPTEMBER ECLOGUE 141 Bishop of Ely, the jurisdiction of visitor, and in this capacity he seems to have acted with moderation through- out the stormy scenes which were constantly enacted in Cambridge. In regard to his dealings with the University during Spenser’s residence, he served on the special com- mission which in 1569 expelled Philip Baker, the unpopular Catholic Provost of King’s College. Although he also occupied a seat on the commission of 1572, which passed unfavorably on the petition of the Puritan element against the new statutes,?*? he had Grindal for colleague,?** and both must have been equally unpopular with the peti- tioners.*** In his capacity as visitor Cox was likewise called upon to settle certain disputes in St. John’s College. In the year 1573 the fellows preferred to the bishop articles which they had drawn up against their master, Dr. Nic- olas Shepherd, charging him with ‘‘protracted absence from the college, beyond the statutable limits’’,24* and with maladministration of the college property. Mullinger, ibid. * Strype, Annals, II, pt. 1, pp. 450-4. 2 Tbid., pp. 552-3. *° Mullinger, I, p. 267. *4 Strype, Parker, I, pp. 156-7. THE SEPTEMBER ECLOGUE 143 this salient example, therefore, I shall conclude my remarks on Spenser’s motives for defending Cox.** In some way, the knowledge of which is now lost, Cox, like Grindal, may have befriended Spenser, and, although the poet’s religious opinions at this time were Puritan, his sense of loyalty and justice impelled him to defend two Anglican bishops who were deserving of a fairer treatment from their Queen on account of their services to religion. Although Spenser’s hatred of the traffic of the courtiers in Church livings might be held sufficient cause for his supposed attack on Lord North, even if his conjectured friendship with Bishop Cox is not taken into account, additional reasons of dislike are not far to seek. In the first place, this baron was a bigotted Catholic, the son of a noted trafficker in Church livings.”* As that nobleman in Cambridgeshire next in rank and prominence to the Duke of Norfolk, he held positions which rendered him unpopu- lar in the University. On May 31, 1569, the college authorities wrote to Cecil, complaining that North in his capacity as a Commissioner of Musters ‘‘had in the pre- ceding week threatened to muster the servants of scholars’ servants, contrary to the privileges of the University’’.?*7 As a freeman of the town he was said by these authorities to be opposed to the University. The result of this petition brought down a sharp reprimand from the Council to North, by which he was forbidden ‘‘to moleste any maner of waies at this tyme contrary to ther Charters’’.2°* In December of the same year Lord North committed some scholar to the pillory for ‘‘evyll and fowlle wordes’’ spoken against the Mayor of Cambridge, intimating that he should 5 Cox was also the patron of at least three churches in the town of Cambridge, viz. St. Peter’s-on-the-Hill, St. Giles’s and Trinity. 8 Camden Soc. Publ., 77, 1st s., pp. 264-5. =" Cooper, Annals, II, pp. 240-1. 25 Toid. 144 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER have lost his ears and paid a fine of £100.® At this same time the academic authorities alleged that North had con- ducted himself with severity towards the University in various matters,?®° especially in regard to the musters, which they preferred to see levied directly by Burghley or the Queen, and not by Lord North. In the January fol- lowing, a disagreement arose between North and the Vice- Chancellor in regard to a matter of jurisdiction.2** Finally, in June, 1572, he succeeded the popular Duke of Norfolk as High-Steward of the town, and the contrast between the sentiments entertained by the members of the University for these two noblemen is remarkable.?®2 The most impor- tant testimony in regard to the present issue, however, is contained in a letter which Lord North despatched to the Vice-Chancellor on August 3, 1580. In this he bitterly complains that ‘‘your scholars do dayly and most out- ragiously rail against me’’, by whom he himself and his servants had been ‘‘vilely used’’. This state of affairs had long been in existence, for North had formerly ‘‘com- plained’’ without redress ‘‘of outragious deedes and words despitefully and villanously ministred against’’ him. Furthermore, he mentioned by name particular scholars who had vituperated him, and he threatened to carry the matter before the Privy Council unless the University authorities at once adopted measures to punish his assail- ants.?*° The extremely bitter tone adopted by North in 2° Thid., p. 249. 20° Thid. *1 Tbid., p. 250. *?In Norfolk’s case it will be remembered that the University authorities petitioned Burghley to urge the Duke to remain firm in the matter of his resignation from the High-Stewardship of the town, an action which he had taken because of his serious displeasure with the townsmen. ™ Heywood and Wright, Cambridge University Transactions, I, pp. 292-5. THE SEPTEMBER ECLOGUE 145 this letter is the best proof which we could desire of the profound dislike with which the members of the University had long regarded him. In his attack upon this nobleman Spenser was therefore expressing the general sentiment of a large body of men. It remains to consider the appropriateness of the inci- dents which occurred in North’s persecution of Cox to the fable of Roffy and Lowder. Diggon Davie, it should be noted, divides his account of the dealings of Roffy and Lowder with the Wolf into two parts, the last of which (Il. 212-225) refers to a proceeding of earlier date than the one first described. Now Lord North had at first tried to obtain the manor and park of Somersham, for the keepership of which Cox had once granted him a patent.?** In this proceeding he was unsuccessful, probably because the utter shamelessness of the whole transaction compelled the Queen to realize that she would seriously undermine the prestige of the Anglican hierarchy if she countenanced open robbery of the most important possessions of the sees. The fact that North’s attempt to gain Somersham preceded his attempt on Downham is clearly established by two letters of Cox, one written to the Queen shortly after June 18, 1575, the other to Burghley, November 21, 1575, in each of which Somersham forms the ‘‘bone of contention’’ to the exclusion of any reference to Downham.?** Now, in Spen- ser’s description of this second incident, Roffy is repre- sented as absent when the Wolf makes his raid. The latter deceives Lowder by imitating Roffy’s voice, and, when he has enticed him out-of-doors, he attacks him: “And, had not Roffy renne to the steven, Lowder had be slaine thilke same even.” (il. 224-5) ** Strype, Annals, II, pt. 2, pp. 575-6. * Toid., pt. 1, pp. 539-42, pt. 2, pp. 567-9. Cf. also Cox’s letter to Dr. Masters, ibid., pt. 1, p. 539. 11 146 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER I interpret this as meaning that Awder, in his capacity as one of Cox’s higher officials, attempted to restrain North from entering into possession of Somersham, but that he would have been unsuccessful had not Cox come to his rescue and vigorously opposed North. This is entirely probable, because Awder resided in the township of Somersham, where his brother-in-law had granted him a lease of twenty acres of land.?*° Further evidence is not accessible con- cerning Awder’s connection with Somersham, and, owing to the fact that the laborious researches of Cooper and Strype have unearthed so little about him, it probably does not exist outside of the archives of the diocese of Ely. As I have said, however, it may be fairly imagined that Awder as brother-in-law and as auditor to Cox resisted North’s attempt to enter into the property. The first incident described by Spenser (ll. 180-207), on the other hand, I believe relates to North’s later and more violent attempt to secure the manor and park of Downham. This place was situated at about three miles distance north of Ely and at about sixteen from Cambridge. The bishop, writing to Burghley, December 29, 1575, states ‘‘ that he (North) had lately bought a title of one Austen Styward; and on that pretence had made entry upon his park at Downham, by colour of a lease; and that if he were not by and by, by some means stayed, he feared he would enter ampetuose’’2%* This attempt at forcible entry, however, was frustrated, for in November and December of 1575 the bishop was living at Downham, ‘‘there, it seems, to keep possession against his foresaid enemy that pretended 6 Tbid., pt. 2, p. 595. This fact, taken in connection with the reference previously cited from the Calendar of Canterbury Wills, makes it practically certain that Thomas was the first name of Bishop Cox’s brother-in-law. 20" Ibid., pt. 1, pp. 542-3. THE SEPTEMBER ECLOGUE 147 to his park there’’.2*° This man Styward, who had been keeper of the bishop’s park at Downham, seems to have been guilty of many delinquencies in this office. Although he did not at first hold the lease of this manor, he bought the residue of it from one Meggs, and shortly afterwards sold his interest to North. The latter, according to the bishop in a letter of December 11, 1573,? ‘‘strait upon the sale hath made an entry in great hast, not only on the farm, but also upon my park, wherein my dwelling house doth stand : which the farmer, unto whom the lease was first made by bishop West, in the fourteenth year of King Henry VIII, never enjoyed’’. Now Cox had ‘‘made a re-entry for lack of payment of rent’’?’° into the farm of Downham; in other words, he had quite fairly declared the lease for- feited. North, however, who had bought up this lease, attempted not only to keep the farm but to seize the park and house also.?"1_ The matter, as already stated, was tried in court, but, although it hung fire for some time, North never succeeded. The point of the whole transaction is that the bishop forestalled North’s effort to lay hold of Down- ham park by taking up his residence there in November, 1575, and forced him to disgorge the property to which he had laid title, just as Roffy ‘‘let out the sheepes bloud’’ at the Wolf’s throat. Now the proceedings for the forfeiture of this lease, before the bishop made a re-entry upon the farm, must have taken place in the bishop’s court of Audi- ence, in which judicial causes touching local episcopal property were heard, and which was presided over by his brother-in-law, Awder. It is not improbable that Awder himself may have made the actual re-entry after he had declared the lease forfeited. At any rate, he certainly must *8 Tbid., p. 539. 7° Lemon, p. 507. °° Strype, Annals, II, pt. 2, pp. 588-9. *™ Ibid. 148 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER have assisted Cox in his opposition to this suit brought by North, for he is spitefully attacked in the various allega- tions preferred by that nobleman.?*? This is the whole of the account of this disgraceful pro- ceeding which has come down to us in accessible form. It accurately fits the details of the first incident in the tale of Roffy. The strong praise of Lowder (ll. 180-3) may have perhaps been due to an acquaintance between Spenser and Awder, who probably often visited Cambridge, the former home of his father. The description of the ‘‘ wicked Wolfe,’’ which follows (ll. 184-92), is a device common to the fable and to the pastoral, and in this case it is espe- cially applicable to North, who ‘‘had glutted his gulfe’’ with his father’s ill-gotten gains of Church property. The fact that North was a Catholic illustrates the further pro- priety of applying the word wolf to him. To push this theory further, it might be said that the disguising of the Wolf in sheep’s clothing excellently represents the actions of North in hiding himself behind a suit preferred by an- other (Styward), and then in covertly buying the latter’s lease. In the light of my theory, moreover, the lines, “Long time he used this slippery pranck, Ere Roffy could for his laboure him thanck.” (I. 200-1) find a peculiar significance, for the continuance of North’s corrupt practices are testified to by Cox himself, who declared in his letter to Burghley of December 29, 1575, ‘‘that he had done more for him than any nobleman in Eng- land.’’?73 Another point is also striking; emphasis is twice placed on the fact that the Wolf could imitate the voices of both 2 Ibid., pp. 577-84. "8 Tbid., pt. 1, p. 542. THE SEPTEMBER ECLOGUE 149 Lowder and Roffy (ll. 190-1 and 215-8). In or before 1575 Cox had appointed North High-Steward of the isle of Ely,?* and this nobleman characteristically used this position for his own emolument and to the injury of the bishop.?75 The Wolf masquerades in sheep’s clothing and imitates shepherds and dogs, in order to work havoe among the sheep; North masquerades in an ecclesiastical office given him by the bishop, and pretends a zeal for righteous- ness in imitation of the latter, although secretly aiming only at his own gain. Finally, the vigorous feeling which pervades the satire throughout this fable breaks forth into a righteous delight in retribution which could scarcely be called forth by any event with which Spenser was not familiar: “ At end, the shepheard his practise spyed, (For Roffy is wise, and as Argus eyed,) And when at even he came to the flocke, Fast in theyr folds he did them locke, And took out the Woolfe in his counterfect cote, And let out the sheepes bloud at his throte.” (Il. 202-7) This, and Diggon’s outbreak at the Wolf, “Mischiefe light on him, and Gods great curse! Too good for him had bene a great deale worse; ” (IL. 212-3) are the strongest evidences of personal feeling, I believe, which are to be found throughout the entire Calender, and I know of no other incident of Church corruption with which it is probable that Spenser could have been more familiar than with the controversy between the Bishop of Ely and Lord North. ™4 Cooper, Athenae, II, pp. 290-1. 5 Strype, Annals, pt. 2, pp. 573-4. 150 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER And so I have come to the conclusion that Roffy, the “‘wise’’, ‘‘Argus eyed’’ ‘‘old man’’, whom Spenser so affectionately described (ll. 172-9), and with whom he was connected in some unknown way, was Dr. Richard Cox, one of the fathers of the English Church, who suffered exile for religion’s sake, and who deserved a better treatment in his old age at the hands of his sovereign. In defence of his Anglicanism it may be said that, although he served con- tinually on the Ecclesiastical Commission, and although his letters are sometimes characterized by sharp criticisms of the Puritans, he seems always to have acted leniently to- wards them, and to have lived up to his own statement (1575) that he had ‘‘forgiven more (ecclesiastical offend- ers) these sixteen years, than I can presently tell of’’, and that he doubted not but that he could ‘‘make a book of a great sum”’ of these.?7* Although Thomas Sampson, the prominent non-conformist Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, wrote a sharp letter to Grindal charging him with a lordly and pompous life,?"* no such Puritan attacks on Cox are to be found. In the cases of both these venerable ecclesiasts, Spenser’s sense of loyalty for past favors and his genuine indignation at their unjust treatment outweighed the in- creasing and less worthy tendency of Puritanism to lay all faults at the bishops’ doors. (6) Conclusion: Relation to the Puritanism of the ““Faerie Queene’’ This solution of the September eclogue brings the dis- cussion of Spenser’s political and ecclesiastical satire to a close. Though summaries are tedious, and though I have no desire to weary the chance reader of this volume, I must briefly condense the results of the preceding investigation. 20 Tbid., p. 573. "7 Strype, Parker, III, pp. 319-23. SPENSER’S PURITANISM 151 Starting from a basis of historical fact, and using the information thus gained in connection with the known facts of Spenser’s life, I have endeavored to give a consistent and logical explanation of the contents of these polemical ec- logues. The ‘‘February’’ is a political attack on the policy of Queen Elizabeth’s government and on its chief director, Lord Burghley. The poet has here laid hold of the most important domestic event of the decade (1570-80)—the execution of Norfolk—upon which this policy lay open to attack. In the May eclogue he has indulged in a long Puritan satire on specific abuses in the Church of England, in which he touched upon the irreligion of the lower clergy, the corruption of the patrons, the spoil of Church property made by the ecclesiasts for the benefit of their families, the political ambition of the higher dignitaries and the Epicurean philosophy by which they regulated their lives, and the departure from the pattern of the Apos- tolic Church. As a symbol of this inherent corruption, which he believed due to the remnants of Catholicism still lurking in the Church, he set up a notorious Anglo-Catholic, Dr. Andrew Perne, with whom he had come into opposition at Cambridge. To give weight to these charges, he warned his party to beware of the corrupt and unfair dealings of the Anglicans, and again singled out for particular denun- ciation the chief exponent of their policy, emphasizing his hatred by an attack of a personal nature. In the July eclogue he has concentrated his satire on the ‘‘lordship’’ and pomp of the bishops, symbolized by Aylmer, instead of at the lower orders, and has boldly spoken out in favor of a former benefactor who had been disgraced on account of his favorable inclination to Puritan innovations. In the September eclogue he renewed his vituperation of various ecclesiastical corrupt practices, such as the traffic in Church livings, the system of fines, the unfair oppression of the 152 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER lower orders by the higher, the pride and pomp of the ecclesiasts, and, finally, the depredations of courtiers on Church property. This last abuse is the underlying idea of the eclogue, and provokes the fiercest satire in the whole Calender. Here the poet again boldly defended a friend and benefactor, who had been persecuted by a Cambridge- shire nobleman, Lord North, whom the members of the Uni- versity regarded with deep aversion. The notoriety of this proceeding, its transaction in the neighborhood of Cam- bridge, and its singular appropriateness to the incidents of the fable, render Spenser’s meaning almost certain. Finally, in these two last eclogues, although the poet has dropped specific allusions, the same current of hostility to Burghley and his policy is apparent. Of this great noble- man Spenser has given us his opinion at this time, which does not seem to have undergone any change during the remainder of his life.?“* This may be found in the descrip- tion of the all-powerful ‘‘false Foxe’’ of the Mother Hub- berd’s Tale (ll. 11387-1208) 27° The idea that Spenser was reckoned by his contempo- raries an out-and-out Puritan at this time of his life seems to me incontrovertible. The very fact that he wrote these polemical eclogues at all, that he attacked Aylmer and defended Grindal, for instance, is proof that the govern- ment must have regarded him in that light. On the other 78 The Ruines of Time (Globe ed., p. 494); Faerie Queene, VI, xii, 41, a The following lines in this passage form an interesting parallel to my interpretation of the February fable, for they evidently allude to the fall of the Duke of Norfolk: ‘‘But he no count made of Nobilitie, Nor the wilde beasts whom armes did glorifie, The Realmes chiefe strength and girlond of the crowne. All these through fained crimes he thrust adowne, Or made them dwell in darknes of disgrace; For none, but whom he list, might come in place.’’ SPENSER’S PURITANISM 153 hand, such epithets as ‘‘lovers of Lordship’’ (ecl. vi, 1. 123), ‘‘these wisards welter in welths waves’’ (ecl. vii, 1, 197), and ‘‘they setten to sale their shops of shame’’ (ecl. ix, 1. 36), for instance, in addition to the tone and point of view throughout, are unmistakably part and parcel of the weapons of the controversial Puritan. Similarly, the familiarity of the poet with specific ecclesiastical abuses which the Puritans always condemned is another mark by which he may be known. From his point of view, the beauty of the satirical pastoral was that tradition had sanctioned its use as a means of attacking a dominant ecclesiastical hierarchy, a proceeding which dovetailed with the Puritans’ use of pastoral language. It is interesting to discover to what extent this early attitude varied from that which he assumed in 1590 and later, and to account for the reasons which produced changes in his views. To answer the question properly, a few different opinions from persons whose knowledge has entitled them to speak with authority must be presented, out of which a digested judgment may be formed of the Puritanism of the Faerie Queene.28° James Russell Lowell (1875), after remarking that in his youth ‘‘Spenser was certainly a Puritan, and probably so by conviction’’, re- corded the following opinion: “Tt is very likely that years and widened experience of men may have produced in him their natural result of tolerant wisdom 78° Of these writers, one is a woman who has devoted a considerable amount of time to the study of Spenser’s philosophy. Of the others, one was a celebrated American poet and man of letters, another u Church of England ecclesiastic, another an American professor of literature, while the last is a rising scholar of the present generation connected with one of our growing universities. Each one is entitled to speak with some authority on Spenser, and their selection has been based partly on account of this qualification, partly because of the difference in their occupations, interests, surroundings, etc. Their composite view is therefore likely to be near the truth. 154 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER which revolts at the hasty destructiveness of inconsiderate zeal. But with the more generous side of Puritanism I think he sym- pathized to the last. His rebukes of clerical worldiness are in the Puritan tone, and as severe a one as any is in ‘ Mother Hub- berd’s Tale’, published in 1591. There is an iconoclastic relish in his account of Sir Guyon’s demolishing the Bower of Bliss that makes us think he would not have regretted the plundered abbeys.” .. 2 This view represents the early and later Puritanism of Spenser as almost identical. Dean Church (1879) pre- sents another aspect of the question. After remarking in ‘the early part of his biography that Spenser’s ‘‘puritanism was political and national, rather than religious’’—a prop- “osition which is, of course, true not only of Spenser but of .practically all active, thorough-going Puritans of that age,?8? because political questions were largely concerned with religion—, that he ‘‘had the Puritan hatred of Rome’’, and that he ‘‘agreed with the Puritans in denouncing’’ the ‘““ionorance, laziness, and corruption ... in the Church system’’, Dean Church concludes that ‘‘he had a sense of the poetical impressiveness of the old ceremonial, and the ideas which clung to it, its pomp, its beauty, its suggestive- ness, very far removed from the iconoclastic temper of the Puritans’’. In support of this view of Spenser’s later %1 Prose Works, IV, pp. 314-5. #2 The remarks of Church on ‘‘the stern austerities of Calvinism, its fierce and eager scholasticism . . . , the internal characteristics of the puritans, their distinguishing theology, their peculiarities of thought and habits, their protests . . . against the fashions and amusements of the world’’ (pp. 16-17) apply to a later period of English history, and hold true only of a few bigots or fanatics in Spenser’s age, whose opinions the great body of English Puritans did not share. At the time when they appeared (before 1580) the Puritan treatises against the stage, among other matters, of Northbrooke and Gosson were by no means unmerited, and were directed at prevalent social abuses, not at habits and customs which were free from taint in themselves. SPENSER’S PURITANISM 155 drifting apart from Puritanism, he quotes the following sentence from the View of the Present State of Ireland concerning the ruined condition of the churches: ‘‘the out- ward form (assure yourself) doth greatly draw the rude people to the reverencing and frequenting thereof, what- ever some of our late too nice fools may say, that there is nothing in the seemly form and comely order of the church’’.?8? Furthermore, Church, believing the quotation aimed at the Puritans, declares that Spenser ‘‘had not much .. . love for “That ungracious crew which feigns demurest grace.’284 (F.Q., VII, vii, 35) Professor Theodore W. Hunt, in a short article entitled Edmund Spenser and the English Reformation (1900) ,28° has briefly discussed the poet’s ‘‘attitude, inside the sphere of Protestantism, toward the Calvinism and Puritanism of the time as distinct from Anglicanism’’.28® His general idea is that ‘‘Spenser assumed a rational and moderate position midway between the extremes of a bigoted Puritan- ism and an equally bigoted Anglicanism’’,?*7 and that “‘be- tween an intolerant Anglicanism and an intolerant Puritan- ism and Calvinism he preferred the former’’.2°* In oppo- sition to the statement of Church based on the preceding quotations from the View, Hunt has remarked that Spen- ser insisted ‘‘that an unduly elaborate ceremonial would in the end react on the usefulness and very existence of the organization’’. Finally, he concluded that Spenser was *§ Church, op. cit., p. 113. + Op. cit., p. 115. * Bibliotheca Sacra, LVII, pp. 39-53. *° Op. cit., p. 49. 7 Op. cit., p. 50. =° Op. cit., p. 51. 156 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER not a Dissenter and ‘‘that he favored a modified Anglican- ism’’,289 The following theory emanates from Miss Lillian Win- - stanley in an article upon Spenser and Puritanism.*° The opening portion of her essay is taken up with the doc- trines of Calvinism, which, in the time of Elizabeth, fur- nished the belief not only of the Puritans but of the Anglicans themselves. The ground upon which the two parties split, as we have seen more than once before, related to matters of Church government. In regard to the earlier work of Spenser, Miss Winstanley has concluded that he ‘‘threw himself heart and soul into the cause of Cart- wright’’,?* and that on the main question of Church dis- cipline he ‘‘sided as strongly as possible with the Puri- tans’’.2°?, From this conception of the poet’s attitude in youth she proceeded to consider his later Puritanism in respect to the fashions of the day, showing that ‘‘he pro- tests vehemently against extravagance in dress’’,?®* that he ‘‘hates dancing and fortune-telling’’,2** also ‘‘masquing, dice, cards and ‘billiards farre unfit’ ’’,?*° and ‘‘the frivo- lous love-making so characteristic of the courtier of his day’’.2°* On the question whether his Puritan convictions 789 Op. cit., p. 50. Unfortunately, this last clause is so vague as to lose much of its intended weight. The great body of English Puritans under Elizabeth were endeavoring to eradicate what they considered abuses in the Church, and hoped to accomplish their aims by modify- ing the Anglican system, not by breaking away altogether, as they did later. They, therefore, in general ‘‘favored a modified Anglican- ism’’, at least up to the last years of Spenser’s life. 20 Mod. Lang. Quarterly (1900), III, pp. 6-16, 103-10. = Tbid., p. 13. 2% Ibid., p. 16. *8 Tbid., p. 103; Faerie Queene, I, x, 39, and I, iv, 14. 4 Tbid., p. 103; Faerie Queene, I, iv, 25. *% Mother Hubberd’s Tale, Globe ed., p. 520. 26 Op. cit., p. 104. SPENSER’S PURITANISM 157 ‘‘weakened in later life’’, the author found this to some extent true, attributing the alteration to the ‘‘infiuence of Elizabeth Boyle’’ which was reflected in the lighter tone of the three later books of the Faerie Queene.2** The con- clusion of the whole matter is that in the three earlier books of the Faerie Queene, as well as in the Shepherd’s Calender, Spenser ‘‘is Puritan in every sense that the word admitted of in his time, in doctrine, in his theory of church discipline, and in the severe tendency of his morals’’.?% The writer most recently to discuss this subject is Mr. F. M. Padelford, who in a most interesting and suggestive study, The Political and Ecclesiastical Allegory of the First Book of the ‘‘ Faerie Queene’’ (1911), has presented a slightly different theory of the poet’s attitude toward the Puritans. After pointing out that there were various shades of Puritanism, as well as many degrees of Protes- tantism,”°*® he has identified the poet’s religious attitude with that of Archbishop Grindal. ‘‘In the parlance of to- day, Grindal was not a dissenter, but a Low Churchman, and the presumption is that Spenser, who expressed such warm admiration for him, was of the same school.’°°° Hig theory of Spenser’s later attitude toward Puritanism is, like Church’s, influenced by the conjectured reference in the line beginning ‘‘like that ungracious crew’’ and by the Jonsonian supposition that the Blatant Beast stands for the Puritans.*** Padelford, however, who has emphasized the poet’s ‘‘preference for the golden mean’’, does not dis- associate the latter’s position in the Calender from that in the first books of the Faerie Queene. The preceding series of views represents the mature, * Tbid., p. 109. *8 Tbid., p. 110. 9 Op. cit., p. 6. ™ Tbid., p. 8. In Faerie Queene, VI, xii, 23-5. 158 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER scholarly opinion of writers qualified to judge. Each one of these opinions is influenced by the temperament, voca- tion, and habits of life of their respective exponents, and they accordingly differ somewhat from one another. The result of the selection, however, is that the student of Spenser cannot go far wrong in his conception of the poet’s later attitude to Puritanism if he forms a judgment based on a composite photograph of this series.°°? Now all these writers acknowledge that Spenser’s senti- ments toward the Puritans changed in his later work, the Faerie Queene; they differ only in regard to the extent of this change. Lowell and Miss Winstanley maintain that the alteration from the radical tendencies of his early point of view is small, while Hunt and Padelford find that his later ecclesiastical views mediate between orthodox Angli- canism and Puritan fanaticism. The other writer, Dean Church, infers, on quotations from works composed in the last years of his life, that he even developed a spirit of opposition to the Puritans. The preponderance of opinion, as far as these writers are concerned, considers the Puritanism of the Faerie Queene as the expression of a Low Churchman who no longer sympathized with the violent trend of fanatical Calvin- ism. Padelford’s theory that Spenser was a Low Church- man even when he composed the Calender, and Hunt’s idea that he took sides in the Cambridge controversy with Whitgift rather than with Cartwright, are controverted by his attacks on the lordship, pride, and pomp of the bishops, which could proceed from no one who supported methods of compromise. The defence of Grindal is the defence of a friend who ran counter to the policy of *? Their general views on the nature of the Puritan satire in the Calender have been quoted in order to show what influence these might have had on their opinions of the same aspect of the Faerie Queene. SPENSER’S PURITANISM 159 Elizabeth and Burghley, the subject of Spenser’s satire, and carries a warning to the Puritans against seeking ele- vation to the Anglican hierarchy. The theories of these two writers, as well as that of Church, also require modi- fication on another point,—i. e. the identification of the Blatant Beast with the Puritans. This remarkable crea- tion, which represents the spirit of envious detraction, especially against the innocent, and which in its specific applications becomes at various times identified with differ- ent matters and movements, is connected in the last canto of the sixth book of the Faerie Queene (st. 23-5) with the Church. Although it is hazardous to depend too much upon historical chronology in Spenser, it is improbable that the attack of the Beast on the churches here represents ‘‘the suppression of the monasteries’ under Henry VIII, as one writer has endeavored to make out,®°* because of the identification of Calidore either with Essex or Sidney. In combination with the references in the View to ‘‘our late too nice fools’’ and their objections to the beauty of church architecture, and to “That ungracious erew which faines demurest grace,” this attack by the Blatant Beast on the ornaments of the service (st. 25) may be regarded as a fling at the Puritan fanatics, the pamphleteers of the Martin Marprelate con- troversy. But to maintain that this feeling indicates an antagonism to the Puritans is to show a profound ignor- ance of later Elizabethan history. The great body of Eng- lish Puritans did not support the Martinists; in fact they repudiated them as bringing a taint on their religion.?%* Even Cartwright declared ‘‘that from the first beginning of Martin unto this day I have continually, upon any oc- 5S Winstanley, op. cit., p. 110. Padelford has clearly identified this transaction with an incident in F. Q., I, iii (cf. op. cit., p. 19). *4 Neal, I, p. 193. 160 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER casion, testified both my dislike and sorrow for such kind of disorderly proceeding’’.2°° Spenser’s friend Harvey, whose controversy with Nashe touched upon topics connected with the Marprelate libels, sufficiently recorded his opposition to the Martinists.2°* Accordingly, the poet’s rebuke to the latter offers no inconsistency with his Puritan ideas, polit- ical or religious. The last part of this division must occupy itself with the causes for the change in Spenser’s Puritanism from the fierce, searching radicalism exhibited in the ecclesiastical eclogues of the Shepherd’s Calender, to the Low Church position of the Faerie Queene. In partial explanation of this alteration in his religious views the following four reasons may be offered. The first is the more mature and tolerant point of view produced in him by the mild infiu- ence of years and by what Lowell calls his ‘‘widened ex- perience of men’’. These tended to temper the extremity of the Reformed opinions of many a hot-headed Cambridge undergraduate. John Still, the friend of Harvey,?% who in his youth had espoused the side of Cartwright at Cam- bridge,** considerably departed from his earlier tenets, and received a series of preferments which culminated in the bishopric of Bath and Wells. Dr. Richard Howland, who likewise at first upheld the Puritan attacks of Cart- wright against the ecclesiastical hierarchy, was advanced to the see of Peterborough fifteen years later, when he had apparently softened the Puritan severity of his early opin- *° Letter dated October 4, 1591, given in Strype, Annals, IV, appendix xxxix. Cf. also Neal, I, p. 195. °° Pierce’s Supererogation (1593), in Works (Grosart), II, pp. 197 ff., 204-5, ete. Cf. also Maskell, History of the Martin Marprelate Controversy, p. 216. ** Works (Grosart), I, p. 9. 8 Mullinger, I, p. 219; Cooper, Athenae, II, p. 467. SPENSER’S PURITANISM 161 ions.*°® Many other instances of this change from radical- ism to conformity might be cited. The second reason may be found in the residence of the poet in Ireland, far off from the struggles of religious factions. Here, the common cause which the small body of the Protestant English had to make against the vast major- ity of the Catholie Irish contributed to deflect his Puri- tanism from attacks against the Anglican system to the common enemy of both, the Church of Rome. Amid the fierce and cruel conflicts between Saxon and Hibernian there existed scant incentive to call in question the lordship of prelates or the internal corruptions of the Church system. The main aim of both Anglican and Puritan in Ireland lay in protecting the Protestant Church from the encroachments of the Pope. The third reason results from Spenser’s employment by the government, which served to bring out all his latent patriotism. The great changes produced in the external aspect of his life on his transference to Ireland became the natural cause of an alteration in the radical trend of his Puritanism. Perhaps he retained for a long time after his residence in this strange land the intensity of his earlier convictions, but he no longer made his writings a vehicle in which to convey them.*!° In the extremely interesting theory of Padelford on the first book of the Faerie Queene we accordingly find that Spenser’s spirit of patriotism had caused him to defend the progress of the Reformed religion against the efforts of domestic foes in its purely historical aspect, while, in the latter books, his Puritan sentiments found utterance in the description of the defence of Bel- gium and of the overthrow of Philip of Spain. For patri- * Mullinger, op. cit., pp. 219, 272; Cooper, op. cit., pp. 287-8. 3° The Mother Hubberd’s Tale, in its general cast of thought, must be regarded as the expression of Spenser’s early views, before he left England. 12 162 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER otic reasons, his interest has been transferred from censure of the internal policy of the realm to an historical repre- sentation of his sovereign’s position as the ‘‘Defender’’ of his country’s ‘‘Faith’’ against those who would subvert it. The last reason relates to the private life of the poet; it is the influence produced by the power of his love for Elizabeth Boyle.*** The later books of the Faerie Queene contain the love-makings of his knights, Artegal, Calidore, Timias. The sweet charm of Spenser’s beautiful, ennobling, and absorbing passion tended to withdraw his interest from the religious controversies of the day. To the rapturous lover of the Epithalamion the crooked and corrupt meth- ods pursued in the Anglican system of Church government no longer assumed that paramount importance in his esti- mation which they had previously attained. Such is a rational explanation of the connection of Spen- ser’s early religious convictions with his later Puritan ideals, together with an account of various causes which contributed to soften the radical trend of this early Puritan opposition to the policy of the government, until he finally adopted the point of view of a Low Churchman. *4 Lilian Winstanley, op. cit., p. 109, has presented this theory. CHAPTER II THE BIOGRAPHICAL RELATIONS OF THE SHEPHERD’S CALENDER The aim of the present chapter is to discuss the Shep- herd’s Calender as a poem closely connected with the life, the literary opinions and aspirations, and the friends, of its author, to assess accurately the value of previous views upon these subjects, and, in several cases, to put forth ex- planations hitherto unoffered, which, it is hoped, may afford: suggestions to other writers upon Spenser. Accordingly, the topics here treated have been divided into separate tracts, which in turn have been ranged in groups wherever their nature permits. On this plan the articles on E. K. and Cuddie come under one division, those on Palinode, Piers, Diggon Davie, and Thomalin under another. The first of these groups relates to Edward Kirke, the second to men who, in one way or another, were connected with the academic or ecclesiastical struggles of the time, and the third to the poet’s patron, the Earl of Leicester, and his relatives. The tracts upon Rosalind and upon the Areo- pagus obviously require separate discussion. Finally, the article upon Spenser’s biography stands naturally at the conclusion, as an attempt to give a logical account of his actions during the years 1576-1580, the course of which was so profoundly influenced by the Puritan satire of the political eclogues. Of the methods pursued in regard to the identification of persons who are represented under pastoral names, brief mention should be made at the outset. In the use of proper names which were intended to refer to living persons, 163 164 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER Spenser’s practice throughout the whole course of his alle- gorical poetry varies considerably, and exhibits consistency at any one time only in variation. Nevertheless, it is pos- sible to find five well-defined varieties of these names. The first class is composed of anagrams, of which the following may be given as examples: Algrind for Grindal = Edmund Grindal, Archbishop of Canterbury; Morrell for Elmore = variant for the name of John Aylmer,! Bishop of London; Philisides? for Philip Sidney; Charillis® for Elis. Carey = Lady Elizabeth Carey, the second daughter of Sir John Spencer of Althorpe. In the second class may be placed names which are only partial anagrams, or which bear an obvious likeness in spelling or sound to the names of the persons intended: Artegal or Arthegall* for Arthur Grey = Arthur, Lord Grey de Wilton; Britomart for Britain =the warlike (due to the -mart= Mars, Martis) spirit of Eng- land;> Burbon for Henry of Bourbon=Henry IV of France; Irena’ for Ireland. The next class is divided rather in degree than in kind from the preceding, where the like- ness is less apparent and often exists only in one syllable of the invented name: Wrenock for Pembroke’ = Pembroke Hall, Cambridge; Theana for Anne= Anne, Countess of Warwick; Marian for Margaret ==Margaret, Countess of Cumberland; Mansilia for Marchioness= Helena, Mar- chioness of Northampton.’ The fourth class is composed of names which have only a very slight likeness to those of the + His name was pronounced as if spelled Elmer. 2In The Ruines of Time. 3In Colin Clout’s Come Home Again. ‘This is the less usual spelling (cf. Globe ed., p. 257, ete.). This spirit, of course, becomes at times identified with Queen Elizabeth. * Globe ed., p. 297. "Cf. Grosart, I, p. 46, note. With this identification I agree. *For these three names, cf. Todd, I, pp. ciii-iv. They occur in Colin Clout’s Come Home Again. E, K. 165 persons whom they denominate, often no more than an identity in the first letters, but nevertheless do possess that likeness, which the numerous examples found in Spenser prove to be not fortuitous: Hobbinol = Harvey, Daphne = Douglas Howard, Aleyon= Arthur Gorges, Palin = Peele,® andsoforth. The fifth classis based on a different principle, and is composed of names which have a literary association with their originals, or which Spenser applied to some pecu- liar quality of the person intended: Corydon =the literary appellation of the poet, Thomas Watson; Meliboe (Melibee) for Melibeus—=the name applied to Walsing- ham by Watson; Urania for the Countess of Pembroke = used by Spenser as a compliment to her poetical attain- ments and to her patronage of poets; Tityrus for a famous predecessor in poetry==formerly used by the pastoral poets to designate Virgil, but adapted by Spenser to signify Chaucer. The efforts to unravel the names of persons represented in the Shepherd’s Calender have been accord- ingly directed in conformity with these varieties of denomi- nations. Merely a short introduction has been deemed necessary for the explanation of what is to follow in this chapter, and the reader may therefore now turn to the successive articles which attempt to throw light upon the life of Edmund Spenser through a study of this early poem. i. Epwarp Kirke Concerning the identity of the mysterious commentator of the Calender there have been four well-defined theories. Todd, writing in 1805, summarizes the view of his time, when referring to Spenser’s letter to Harvey of October 5 (16), 1579: ‘‘By the mention of Mystresse Kerkes . ° Malone, II, p. 248. “Cf. his eclogue on the death of Walsingham, 166 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER some have been led to assign the name of Edward Kerke to the old scholiast. Some also have not failed to suppose that King might be the name; and, that the force of guess- ing might no further go, to imagine even the poet and the commentator the same person!’’!1_ The first theory received strong support when the Messrs. C. H. and T. Cooper, in the course of their antiquarian researches for Cambridge, discovered that an Edward Kirke had been a fellow-student at Pembroke Hall with Spenser.1? At the same time their investigations showed that the first Edward King to be connected with Cambridge matriculated over twenty years after Spenser’s departure. The principal exponents of the last theory mentioned by Todd have been two German scholars, viz. Dr. Uhlemann, who published an article in 1888 entitled Der Verfasser des Kommentars zu Spensers Shepherd’s Calender, and Dr. H. O. Sommer, who pre- fixed to a reprint of the first edition of the Calender in 1890 a reproduction of Uhlemann’s chief arguments. This theory received the support of Mr. Ernest Rhys, who con- fidently asserted in The Prelude to Poetry that ‘‘E. K., there is no doubt now, was simply Spenser himself’’.* Although Herford** has briefly replied to these views, no adequate answer has yet been given, and it therefore seems advisable to explode once and for all this theory which bobs up like a bottle in the ocean after each attempt to sink it. Of the principal points in the Uhlemann-Sommer theory, the convenient inaccuracy of E. K. in regard to the sources of the poem in certain places, especially where Mantuan and Marot are concerned, as these theorists contend, has arisen because the poet himself wrote these notes from “Spenser, Works, I, p. xxi, note. * Notes and Queries (2d s.), IX, p. 42. * Page 3. “Tntrod., pp. xxii—-xxv. E. K. 167 memory. ‘‘Spenser thought it necessary to here and there point out to his readers the very passages he imitated, and this he did from memory, not having his models at hand, and thus we can explain why his quotations are not always correct and complete.’’® This view assumes that the com- mentator is endeavoring to give the correct sources. But in the December eclogue, which is closely modelled upon Marot,?* the commentator has nothing to say of this imita- tion, whereas he has already noted the relation between Spenser and Marot in the previous eclogue. Another com- mentator, as well as the poet, moreover, might cite from memory sometimes inaccurately and sometimes accurately.** The second point deals with the somewhat intimate knowledge of Plato shown by the commentator in the notes to the January, October, and November eclogues.. Here the contention is that it is ‘‘more reasonable to suppose that Spenser’’, who ‘‘devoted himself with zeal and pleasure to the study of Plato’’, and who composed two Platonic Hymnes about the time that the Calender appeared, “‘wrote the Commentary than to attribute it to an ‘E. K.’ about whom and about whose knowledge of Plato we have no knowledge whatever’’.1* Plato, however, was well known at Cambridge. Ascham, writing from there in 1547, bears witness that Plato and Aristotle were the most studied of the philosophers,’® both of whom were prescribed as text- books in philosophy by the new code of Edward VI (1549).?° There is nothing remarkable in Spenser’s knowl- * Sommer, p. 20; Uhlemann, pp. 5-6. * His Eglogue au Roy, to which E. K. refers in the gloss to 1. 171 of the ‘‘September’’. Sommer remarks that ‘‘‘E. K.’ is generally accurate to the detail’’. This is untrue; E. K. makes errors continually, as any one who studies the gloss may see. * Sommer, p. 21. »” Mullinger, I, p. 89. * Ibid., p. 110. 168 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER edge of Plato,?* even though the study of Greek had begun to wane when he entered the University. Harvey, we know, was well acquainted with Plato,?? and it is at least probable that any third person who shared the tastes of these two enough to be made a partner in their literary enterprises must have been also well versed in the writings of that philosopher.”° The third argument arises from the remark which E. K. makes in the Generall Argument at the conclusion of his comments on the etymology of ‘‘ Aiglogai’’: ‘‘other curious discourses hereof I reserve to greater occasion’’. This ‘‘ereater occasion’? Uhlemann and Sommer find fulfilled in Spenser’s lost work, The English Poete (October ‘‘argu- ment’’). Such an identification, however, leaps at the wildest conclusions. Even if E. K. is not speaking as many writers do who wish to avoid profuseness by cutting short their remarks, a place might easily be found for this half-promised treatise in the commentary which he is known to have composed for Spenser’s Dreames.”4 Another argument is concerned with the appearance of an English translation of a Latin distich of Cicero’s, made in imitation of the Greek epitaph of Sardanapalus, in the gloss to the May eclogue. This distich practically coin- cides with two lines which Spenser had ‘‘translated’’ ex tempore for Harvey,”® and which appeared in his letter of April 10, 1580. It is noticeable, however, that E. K. does 2 That is, knowledge as considered apart from appreciation. “Cf. his Rhetor, and Works (Grosart), I, p. 69. Sommer is not very accurate. He remarks that ‘‘ ‘E. K.’ refers often to the writings of Plato’’ (p. 21). These references are limited to four, three of which (glosses to ecl. i, 1. 59; x, 1. 27; xi, 1. 186) might have come from a second-hand knowledge of the philosopher. The fourth (x, 1. 21) refers to the origin of poetry, which would be the first thing which anyone would know in Plato’s writings. * Harvey, Works, I, p. 38. 5 Tbid., p. 36. Be Ks 169 not introduce these lines as his own, but merely by the statement, ‘‘which may thus be turned into English’, In another place, moreover, E. K. quotes unpublished lines of the poet’s.2° If Harvey was familiar with this translation, as Spenser certifies in his letter, there is no reason why a third person who was as intimately acquainted with the works of the poet as the commentator shows himself to have been should not have known these verses also. Still another argument, based on a quotation of Petrarch found both in the April gloss (to 1. 104) and in a letter of Harvey to Spenser,?” is propounded to show that the poet and E. K. are identical. But this proves nothing. In Har- vey’s letter of April 7, 1580, he says of Cambridge that “Petrarch, and Boccace’’ are ‘‘in euery mans mouth’’.?® This quotation, “ Arbor vittoriosa triomphale, Honor @ Imperadori et di Poeti:” would have been entirely too well known in Cambridge to limit its quotation merely to Harvey and Spenser. As the former says, it must have been ‘‘in euery mans mouth’’. These are the principal reasons used to concoct the theory that E. K. is Spenser himself. Uhlemann put for- ward a few others, but their nature is more trivial than the ones already presented. An unprejudiced judgment upon the arguments of these men must be that they are not only advanced with over-confidence, but that they depend upon a distortion of the known facts. As I have already inti- mated, the likeness between the gloss of EH. K. and the known work or opinions of Spenser, so far as they exist at all, may be explained by the degree of intimacy which must * Cf. gloss to the October eclogue, 1. 90. * Harvey, Works, I, p. 81. * Tbid., p. 69. 170 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER have existed between the poet and any friend qualified to edit his work. After a careful consideration of the Epistle, the several ‘‘arguments’’, and the glosses of the Calender, on the other hand, it becomes evident that E. K. cannot be identical with the poet.?® The difference in personality depends upon two classes of reasons, the one dealing with literary taste, the other with knowledge of the contents and text of the:€alender. Regarding the first division, it is evident that E. K. employs methods of praising the poet which it is im- possible to believe that Spenser himself could have used. In the ‘‘argument’’ to the November eclogue he remarks: “‘this Aiglogue is made in imitation of Marot his song, which he made upon the death of Loys the French Queene; but farre passing his reache’’. At the very beginning of the Calender®° E. K. had doubted ‘‘if he (Marot) be worthy of the name of a Poete’’, with whose work he elsewhere shows a familiarity.*4 Although Spenser allowed these comments to appear with his poetry, it is hard to believe from what we know of him that he would have thus dis- paraged from his own lips a poet whom he had thought worthy of imitation. Other comments, such as the pointed reference to the poet’s humility in the Epistle,?? where E. K. has the poor taste to quote a line (June ecl., 1. 65) in proof of this which immediately follows a passage full of Hobbi- nol’s ‘‘vaunted titles and glorious showes’’ in behalf of the poet, and such as the remark appended to 1. 153 of the ”The following proof is presented at some length, in so much as the arguments of such writers as Grosart (Spenser, I, pp. 118-20) are assertive, inconclusive, and caleulated to injure the theory which they seek to vindicate. * Introductory gloss to the January eclogue on ‘‘Colin Cloute’’. *™Glosses to the February eclogue on the name Thenot, and to the September eclogue, 1. 171. “Ed. Herford, p. 7, 1, 8-17. E. K. 171 “‘November’’, which not only swells, but inflates, ‘‘the note of praise’’, could not have proceeded from Spenser. It is a far ery from the young poet’s open acceptance of praise which exploited his unfledged work, to an absurd boasting of his own powers. As regards literary taste from another point of view, E. K. is opposed to the borrowing of foreign words, principally Latin, French, and Italian, after the common practice of contemporary versifiers, who ‘‘have made our English tongue ‘a gallimaufray, or hodgepodge of al other speches’’.22 Spenser, however, introduces several words of foreign origin into the Calender, upon some of which kK. K. comments. Of these the following are examples: Tamburins (vi, 1. 59), crumenall (ix, 1. 119), overture (vii, 1. 28) ,** stanck (ix, 1. 47), jouisance (v, 1. 25; xi, 1. 2), Melampode (vii, 1. 85),?* Teribinth (vii, 1. 86),°* cabinet (xii, 1.17), Colinet (xii, 1.18), equipage (x, 1. 114), and en- trailed (viii, 1. 30) .%° \ Besides this difference in taste between the poet and the commentator in regard to words, it is clear that they also do not agree upon certain poetical contrivances, notably . alliteration. In addition to his tirade in the Epistle against “the rakehellye route of . . . ragged rymers’’ who ‘‘hunt the letter’’, and who ‘‘without learning boste, without judgement jangle, without reason rage and fome’’,?* he later objects to Spenser’s use of alliteration: ‘‘I thinke this playing with the letter, to be rather a fault then a figure, as wel in our English tongue, as it hath bene alwayes in the Latin’’.27 Among these ‘‘rymers’’ E. K. names Gas- % Kpistle, ed. Herford, p. 6, ll. 1-2. *h. K. notices this derivation. * Although some of these had been used in English before Spenser, they had all been only recently imported. 5 Epistle, ed. Herford, p. 6, ll. 32 ff. *"Ecl. x, 1. 98, gloss. 172 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER coigne as the most important,?* whom he does not consider a poet. From remarks which Spenser drops in his letters, however, it is evident that he felt it no dishonor to be a ‘‘pymer’’, for he applies this name to himself.*° Indeed, judging from the contents of the October eclogue on the one hand, and from its ‘‘argument’’ and the gloss to J. 65 on the other, E. K. presents a higher conception of the poet than Spenser. If this divergence between the literary tastes of the poet and the commentator are not considered conclusive on their difference of identity, the reasons which I shall now advance must finally satisfy that question. The commentator makes mis-statements concerning the contents of the Calender which it is impossible that the poet himself could have made.*° In the April gloss (to 1. 50) to the words Syrinx and Pan, who are here intended to represent Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII, E. K. remarks of the latter term: ‘‘ And by that name, oftymes (as hereafter appeareth) be noted kings and mighty Potentates: And in some place Christ himselfe, who is the verye Pan and god of Shepheardes’’. In the eclogues which succeed the ‘‘April’’ Pan is indeed used a few times to designate Christ and also God, and in % Kel. xi, 1. 141, gloss. *< Cooper, Athenae, II, pp. 45-46. * Ibid. 5 Cooper, ibid. ° Mullinger, I, pp. 181-2. * Cooper, ibid. PALINODE 183 cock of St. Peter’s church in Cambridge were the letters A. P. A. P., which it was said might be taken to mean Andrew Perne A Papist, or Andrew Perne A Protestant, or Andrew Perne A Puritan. The puritan pamphleteers nicknamed him old Andrew Turncoat, Andrew Ambo, and old father Palinode, and called him a Judas. The noted John Penry is said, when at Peterhouse, to have berhymed Dr. Perne’s new statutes, and made a bye-word of his bald pate.’’® In the first of the Marprelate tracts he is called ‘‘Palinode D. Perne’’,® a name which was evidently well known. Taking this character of Perne which the Cambridge scholars imputed to him, and comparing it with a pas- sage in Harvey’s letter to Spenser (April 7, 1580), the situation at once becomes clear. Among other items of news, the following appears: ‘‘ And wil you needes haue my Testimoniall of your olde Controllers new behauior? A busy and dizy heade, a brazen forehead: a ledden braine: a woodden wit: a copper face; a stony breast: a factious and eluish heart: a founder of nouelties: a confounder of his owne, and his friends good gifts: a morning bookeworm, an afternoone maltworm: a right Iuggler, as ful of his sleights, wyles, fetches, casts of Legerdemaine, toyes to mocke Apes withal, odde shiftes, and knauish practizes, as his skin can holde. He often telleth me, he looueth me as himselfe, but out lyar out, thou lyest abhominably in thy throate.’’*° In a subsequent passage in one of the Foure Letters published in 1592, Harvey speaks of ‘‘my old Con- trowler, Doctor Perne’’.* With the help of this reference alone, and without entering into Harvey’s many bitter ’ Cooper, Athenae, II, p. 48. Penry was a member of Peterhouse from Dee. 3, 1580, until 1583-4, when he proceeded B.A. ° Ed. Petheram, no. 1, p. 52. ” Harvey, Works (Grosart), I, pp. 72-3. 4 Ibid., p. 183. 184 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER attacks in his later works upon Perne, brought out all the more perhaps by the latter’s real or fancied opposition to Harvey on the occasion of his unsuccessful candidacy for the public oratorship at Cambridge in 1580, it is evident that Spenser’s and Harvey’s ‘‘old Controwler’’ was this same Dr. Perne, and that he had subjected Spenser to some sort of academic discipline.*” From these known facts in the life of Perne—viz. Spen- ser’s dislike of him, his universal unpopularity among the Cambridge scholars, the ridicule to which he was subjected during Spenser’s collegiate course as well as at other times, and the strong presumption that the name Palinode was applied to him long before the Marprelate controversy, where it appears as a well-worn epithet,*—it seems al- together reasonable that in the person of the shepherd Palinode, whom E. K. labelled a Catholic, and whom Spen- ser intended for an Anglican who retained strong ‘‘ Popish”’ traits, the poet was satirizing Perne. Following the general rule which I have adopted in my study of Spenser’s sources,!* that shepherds of the same name represent the same person unless there is strong evi- dence to the contrary, I see no reason to suppose that the Piers of the May eclogue is not identical with the Piers of the ‘‘October’’. The character and opinions of Piers in each, so far as Spenser has revealed them, offer no incon- Piers * Peterhouse is situated on the same street with, and almost oppo- site to, Pembroke, and it would therefore have been easy for Harvey and Spenser to come into daily contact with Perne. The latter, more- over, was Vice-Chancellor for the year beginning November, 1574. * Perne died on April 26, 1586. The Marprelate tracts did not appear until about 1588. These pamphleteers, therefore, were ap- plying Palinode to Perne as a name sanctioned by custom. “The reference is to a considerable amount of work which I have had occasion to do in connection with my study of Spenser. PIERS 185 sistencies which it is impossible to reconcile. In each ease he expresses certain views which the poet himself enter- tained; in the former he discusses ecclesiastical topics, in the latter the status of poets. The name Piers itself, , which Herford classifies as rustic English,?* was commonly used as a Christian name in Spenser’s day, and would have \ \ been perfectly familiar to him in a literary way through | | the Vision of Piers Plowman. As a surname it would i f have been searcely less familiar to that age, on account of » Dr. John Piers, who held in succession the sees of Rochester, \ \ Salisbury, and York, receiving the first in April, 1576, and \ the second in November, 1577. Whatever name the original of Piers may have borne, from the facts that he is placed in opposition to Dr. Perne (Palinode), and that he imparts the advice of an older man to Kirke (Cuddie), or to some other young friend of Spen- ser’s with poetical aspirations, or even to the poet himself, an older member of the University, a fellow, or perhaps a Head of a college, was probably intended. Judging from the contents of the two eclogues, this man must have been interested in both ecclesiastical and poetical topics, some one with whose views the Puritan Spenser could sympathize. As an absolute identification seems impossible, I merely offer the opinion that Piers may have been intended for Thomas Preston, best known to later times as the author of the tragedy Cambyses, which Shakespeare ridicules in the mouth of Falstaff. ‘What we know of Preston satisfies the requirements of the situation. In the first place, Spenser not only knew him, but probably enjoyed a certain amount of intimacy with him, for, in his letter of October 5 (16), 1579, from Leicester House, he cautions Harvey against showing his verses composed in classical metres to anyone except ‘‘your * Introduction, p. lix. 186 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER verie entire friendes, Maister Preston, Maister Still, and the reste’’.1¢ In the second place, Preston possessed great talents, which first showed to conspicuous advantage at the time of the Queen’s visit in 1564, when he was twenty- seven,!? and when he had been a fellow of King’s College for five years. ‘‘He acted so admirably in the tragedy of Dido, and acquitted himself so gracefully in a philosophical disputation and a valedictory address that her majesty, as a testimonial of her approval, gave him her hand to kiss, granted him a pension of £20 per annum during the royal pleasure, and bestowed upon him the title of her scholar.’’!* A man who had received such material recognition at the hands of the Queen was certainly in a position to advise any your Cuddie to sing of ‘‘fayre Elisa’’ and ‘‘the worthy whome shee loveth best’’,?® as the best means of gaining a livelihood. This sage counsel of Piers, bidding the young poet sing also ‘‘of bloody Mars, of wars, of giusts’’, would be peculiarly characteristic of Preston, who had achieved success with his ‘‘bloody’’ tragedy of Cambyses, written soon after September, 1569.?° In the third place, Preston’s ecclesiastical opinions draw him close to the Piers of the May eclogue. He wrote two ballads of a controversial character, the one entitled A geliflower or swete marygolde, wherein the frutes of tyr- anny you may beholde (1569), and the other A Lamen- tation from Rome (1570). The latter describes the Pope’s grief at the collapse of Northumberland’s insurrec- * Harvey, Works (Grosart), I, p. 9. ™ He was therefore fifteen years older than Spenser. * Cooper, Athenae, II, p. 248. Cf. narratives by Matthew Stokys and others in Nichols, Progresses of Queen Elizabeth, I, III. Cooper, Annals, II, gives the gist of all these. * October eclogue, Il. 45-7. » An allusion in it occurs to the death of Bonner, which establishes this date. PIERS 187 tion (1569), and incidentally exhibits the author’s Puritan hatred of Romanism. Preston’s Puritanism is further emphasized by his friendship with Gabriel Harvey, an out- and-out Puritan, by his subscription of the articles pre- ferred in 1569 against the Catholic Provost of his college, Philip Baker, along with other Puritan fellows,?* and by his failure to obtain preferment, in spite of repeated recom- mendations and his own great talents, until 1584, when he became Master of Trinity Hall, a position of minor impor- tance owing to its wretched stipend. For these reasons, therefore,—personal friendship, simi- larity of interests in religion and poetry, and a general consistency between the characters of Preston and Piers,— I believe that Spenser may have had Preston in mind. The resemblance between the name used and the name of the per- son intended will probably seem slight to many. Hobbinol, we know, is Harvey, and yet beyond the first letters no like- nesses exist between the two names. From actual knowl- edge I can say that ‘‘Hobby”’ has been used as a nickname for Harvey, and perhaps this may have been true in Gabriel’s case. In the same way Preston may have been called ‘‘Pres’’ for short, a word which is close to Piers in both spelling and sound. If arguments such as these appear trivial or foolish, I will refer the reader to Spenser’s use of ‘‘Lobb’”? for Lobbin and of ‘‘Hobbin’’* for Hob- binol, the former example occurring in the most serious and polished poetry in the whole Calender, and to the ‘“‘fond foolerie’’ which characterizes Spenser’s letters, noticeable, for example, in the names of ‘‘ Angel Gabriel’ ’24 and Rosalindula.”> It is well to remember that, when he *Strype, Whitgift, I, p. 35. = Kel. xi, 1. 168. * Hel. ix, I. 56, 74. ** Harvey, Works, I, p. 16. “Harvey coined this word, but Spenser gave him the lead (cf. ibid., p. 38). Diggon Davie 188 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER wrote the Calender, he was still a member of, or had just left, an academic community where such nicknames, natu- rally adaptable to the rusticity of a pastoral poem, were heard upon every side.”° Unlike the interlocutors of Spenser’s other ‘‘Moral’’ eclogues, with the exception of Morrell, Diggon Davie has been the subject of two theories of identification. Dr. Grosart?’ identified him with Jean Vander Noodt, whose Theater for Worldlings (1569) contained an earlier ver- sion of eleven sonnets found in the Visions of Bellay and the identical first six sonnets of the Visions of Petrarch. Mr. Fleay in his Guide to Chaucer and Spenser thought it probable that he was Thomas Churchyard, the author, among other poems, of Davy Dickar’s Dream. It seems to me that both theories are invalidated by the professions of Vander Noodt and Churchyard, neither of whom were clergymen. In Spenser’s ecclesiastical eclogues a shep- herd who has a fiock is meant to represent a clergyman. This meaning may be extended to include men who held positions at Cambridge, who presided over academic flocks, but it certainly should not be applied to a refugee like Vander Noodt or to an adventurer like Churchyard. Now, while Diggon Davie has once had a flock (1. 9) ,?8 it is notice- able that Hobbinol (Harvey), although the scene of the eclogue is laid in the vicinity of his home (1. 254), is no- 7°To the objection which can be urged against this theory that shepherds in Spenser’s ecclesiastical eclogues generally represent clergymen and that Preston was not a cleric, I answer that Preston in the ‘‘May’’, as well as Harvey in the ‘‘September’’, are men who occupied official positions at Cambridge, and who therefore were supposed to guard academic flocks, even if they had not taken orders. "Spenser, Works, I, pp. 25-8. * Hel. ix. DIGGON DAVIE 189 where described as the owner or keeper of a flock, for Gabriel Harvey was not a cleric. This home I take to be either Cambridge or Saffron Walden, preferably the former, because it was there that Spenser knew Harvey, and because it is the controversial atmosphere of that com- munity which these ecclesiastical eclogues reflect. The ‘‘farre countrye’’ from which Diggon has just returned, on the other hand, I take to be London, the head-quarters of ecclesiastical authority, as I have elsewhere declared.”® With the location of the places to which reference is made established, let us turn to the details in the description of Diggon Davie. According to a remark of Hobbinol (1. 20) it has been nine months since he has seen Diggon. For- merly the latter had a ‘‘fayre fiocke’’ (1. 9), but now he returns empty-handed and in a wretched condition (1. 8). The purpose of this journey had been to increase his worldly prosperity : “T dempt there much to have eeked my store,’ (1. 30) The result, however, had been entirely different: “The jolly shepheard that was of yore Is nowe nor jollye, nor shepeheard more.” (Il. 26-7) It is nowhere stated in the text, although E. K. speaks to that effect in the ‘‘argument’’, that Diggon took his sheep with him. At any rate, they are now in a woeful plight: “My seely sheepe (ah, seely sheepe!) That here by there I whilome used to keepe, All were they lustye as thou didst see, Bene all sterved with pyne and penuree: Hardly my selfe escaped thilke payne, Driven for neede to come home agayne.” (ll. 62-7) *In the explanation of the satire of the September eclogue. 190 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER When this pastoral language has been duly translated, it appears to mean that Diggon Davie, a Puritan divine,*° had departed from a living which he had enjoyed in the vicinity of Cambridge (‘‘home agayne’’), and had pro- ceeded to London. If his actions had been voluntary, his purpose had evidently been to seek a richer benefice; if they had not been voluntary, he may have been summoned before the ecclesiastical commissioners for non-conformity, and perhaps deprived of his preferment. His utter de- spondency (ll. 3-6, 11-14, 25-31, 56-67) gives some weight to this latter view. At this point a slight digression is necessary to account for a remark in the gloss. It occurs at the beginning: ‘‘The Dialecte and phrase of speache, in this Dialogue, seemeth somewhat to differ from the common. The cause whereof is supposed to be, by occasion of the party herein meant, who, being very freend to the Author hereof, had bene long in forrain countryes, and there seene many dis- orders, which he here recounteth to Hobbinoll.’’ The fact that Spenser’s dialect is here somewhat more rustic or archaic than usual has long been generally accepted; the reason for this given by E. K., however, seems hardly con- clusive. Comparing those eclogues written wholly in ac- centual metre, the group in which Spenser’s archaic dialect is most strongly marked,*! the purely linguistic glosses of E. K. are found to be nearly the same in all three in pro- portion to the number of lines. In the February and September eclogues*? these glosses occur almost once to every six lines, in the ‘‘May’’ once to every seven. Over half of these comments in the ‘‘September’’, moreover, have » Puritan, because of his attack on the authorities. * Herford, pp. xlix—l. “The proportion is identical in these, the percentage being ap- proximately 16 per cent. ; DIGGON DAVIE 191 been already made by E. K. in the gloss to preceding eclogues. His statement, therefore, that the ‘‘Dialecte and phrase of speache . . . seemeth somewhat to differ from the common’”’ did not make him feel obliged to append extra linguistic comments. In other words, if he believed it, his commentary fails to show this belief, and his remark was therefore probably intended to be misleading. In the same way, the reason given for this difference in dialect,— 2. €. the absence of Diggon ‘‘in forrain countryes’’, where he had picked up a peculiar vocabulary,—cannot be ac- cepted as true. In the one hundred and eighty lines which are attributed to Diggon E. K.’s linguistic comments occur about once to every six lines; in the case of Hobbinol, about once to every seven. This shows a slight support for the reason which E. K. has given, but it is counter-balanced by the fact that Hobbinol’s conversation contains seven of the twenty words on which E. K. now comments for the first time.*? It is impossible, therefore, to accept E. K.’s remarks either in regard to a more than usually pro- nounced difference in Spenser’s language ‘‘from the com- mon’’, or in regard to the ‘‘cause whereof”’, 7. e. the absence of Diggon in a ‘‘farre countrye’’. The only basis of truth for these comments arises from the fact that Hobbinol in the two opening lines uses the word her twice, each time in the unusual sense of you. Diggon replies by using it three times (ll. 3 and 4) in the more usual sense of he. I therefore come to the conclusion that Diggon Davie cannot be considered a foreigner, and that E. K.’s state- ment is made to obscure his identity and that of the ‘‘farre countrye’’ to which he had resorted. In other words, the dialect has no bearing on the person of Diggon. “This makes the proportion of words commented upon for the first time larger in Hobbinol’s conversation, for he utters only 78 ll. to Diggon’s 181 ll. about 5: 12. 192 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER Assuming, therefore, that Spenser’s description of Diggon Davie can be translated in accordance with my theory of the political satire of this eclogue,—in short, that he represents a Puritan clergyman who has been absent from his living near Cambridge on account of a trip, volun- tary or otherwise, to London,—it does not seem impossible to establish his identity. I believe that he may have been intended for Richard Greenham, a prominent non-con- formist divine, whom Spenser almost surely knew. Greenham, who was born about 1535,** matriculated as a sizar at Pembroke Hall on May 27, 1557. Proceeding B.A. in 1563-4, he was subsequently elected a fellow, and com- menced M.A, in 1567. Here he remained until November 24, 1570, when he was instituted to the rectory of Dry Drayton, situated at about three miles’ distance from Cam- bridge.*® In the struggles which shook the University that year he sided with Cartwright, for we find his name ap- pended to the two letters of July and August written to Burghley in behalf of the Puritan leader.** Strype’s state- ment that he subsequently deserted Cartwright,?7 which has been copied by several writers,®* is unsupported by direct evidence. The foundation for this seems to have been that he reproved the younger members of the Univer- sity for petty squabbles, and that he disapproved of the Marprelate tracts.29 It should be remembered that Cart- wright expressed the same views.*° * Dict. Nat. Biog. * Fuller, Church History, V, p. 191. * Strype, Annals, II, pt. 2, pp. 415, 417. * Tbid., pt. 1, pp. 5-8. ® Cooper, Mullinger, Dict. Nat. Biog. Strype’s remarks on Green- ham are more than usually inaccurate. He speaks of him as a mem- ber of Christ’s College, for instance. ® Clark, Lives (1677), p. 15. “” Dexter, Congregationalism, p. 157. DIGGON DAVIE 193 This rectory at Dry Drayton Greenham held for about twenty years. In August, 1573, he married Katherine Bonde or Bound,*! the widow of Dr. Robert Bound, physician to the Duke of Norfolk.*? About this same time he wrote an Apologie or Aunswere ... unto the Bishop of Ely; being commaunded to subscribe, and to use the Romish habite,*® in which he declared his ‘‘plaine, deter- minate and resolved purpose’’, that he ‘‘neyther can, nor will, weare the apparell, nor subscribe unto it, or the com- munion booke’’.** It was probably at this time that the same bishop, Dr. Richard Cox, ‘‘sent for him, to appear about his Nonconformity: At which time the Bishop told him that there was a great Schisme in the Church, asking him where the blame was to be laid, whether upon the Con- firmists, or Non-conformists? To which he readily an- swered, that it might lie on either side, or neither side: For (said he) if they loved one another as they ought, and would do all good Offices each for other, thereby maintain- ing Love and Concord, it lay on neither side: otherwise, which party soever makes the Rent, the Schism lies upon their score. The Bishop was so pleased with this answer, that he dismissed him in Peace.’’*® Some time later, how- ever, probably in 1576 or 1577, Greenham was deprived of his living for a period.** It is uncertain who deprived him, but it was probably not Bishop Cox, who had been leniently * Phillimore, Cambridge Parish Registers, III, p. 70. * Cooper, Athenae, II, p. 144. * Dexter, ibid., appendix, p. 7. 4 Ibid., p. 89. “Clark, Lives, p. 15. “Neal, I, p. 141; Peirce, Vindication of the Dissenters, p. 97. The chronology of Greenham’s life is in a rather loose state. Since the events to which these authorities refer, before and after alluding to Greenham, occurred in 1576-7, it is reasonable to accept this as the date of his deprivation. 14 194 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER disposed towards him, and who had certainly allowed him to continue in the living of Dry Drayton. It is very possible that it may have been the Ecclesiastical Commission, which summoned the more prominent and obstinate non-con- formists to London, especially when they had received easy treatment at the hands of their diocesan. Neither is the period of Greenham’s suspension known. It may have been three, six, or nine months, or even a year, periods which include the more customary lengths of deprivation. At any rate, Greenham finally returned to his fiock, where he exercised the greatest care for their welfare. As a fellow of Pembroke for at least a year and a half after Spenser’s matriculation, as a broad-minded Puritan who devoutly administered the duties of his office by zealous and frequent preachings,*? who sold corn to his poor parishioners during a period of dearth at a low rate to the loss of his own pocket, so that his wife was obliged to borrow money to ‘‘get in his Harvest’’,** and whose con- scientious efforts were nullified by the ignorance and ob- stancy of his flock,*® and as an eloquent divine who lived near Cambridge and often preached at St. Mary’s, he must have possessed the reverential affection of the young Spen- ser. ‘‘He had a peculiar interest in young men, and in Cambridge young men, and a memorial of his to a person of quality pleads touchingly for such pecuniary aid as should at least keep them from being driven by hunger ‘into the Ministerie, both unseasonably and hurtfully’.’*° Like Diggon Davie, he assailed various abuses in the Anglican Church, particularly non-residence,®! the entrance “Clark, Lives, p. 14. Greenham was one of the most celebrated Puritan preachers of that day. * Tbid., p. 15. “ Fuller, ibid., p. 191. °° Dexter, p. 90. “ Puller, p. 192. DIGGON DAVIE 195 of evil ministers, and the ‘‘preposterous zeale and hastie running of young men into the Ministerie’’ before they had arrived at a mature age. His interest in Cambridge stu- dents received its strongest example in Robert Browne, the founder of the Separatists, who was a member of Green- ham’s household, along with other young men, for ‘‘a con- siderable period’’ about 1578.5? The reason which Browne gave for resorting to Greenham was that ‘‘ ‘he hard sai’ that he ‘of all others’, was ‘most forwarde’ in religious reform’’.53 Perhaps Spenser and Harvey may have been visitors®* at the house of this Reformer, in whom Puritanism received one of its most noble exponents, and who chose to pursue his calling in this humble position rather than to receive preferment in that Church with whose government he was not in harmony. Now the description which Spenser has given of Diggon Davie, when stripped of its pastoral dress, tallies pretty closely with what we know of Richard Greenham. The former has been away for nine months (1. 20) from his pastoral charge, which is situated near Harvey’s residence, Cambridge, and during his absence he has visited the centre of ecclesiastical authority, London. This is probably what Greenham also did, and, although we do not know that he was absent for nine months, this period was a customary time-sentence for deprivation. The utter despondency of Diggon points to the conclusion that he had been suspended from his cure. If we are also to believe that Diggon wished = Dexter, pp. 90-3. % Tbid., p. 90. ™ A John Spenser received a license as a schoolmaster at Dry Drayton in 1577 (Ely Epis. Records, p. 173), and this may well have been the conjectured brother of the poet (Grosart, I, pp. xxxv-vi, xl; Fletcher, Encycl. Amer.). The John Spenser who followed the poet through Pembroke proceeded B.A. in 1577-8, and then left college. = Dexter, p. 90. 196 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER to increase his ‘‘store’’,—i. e. to secure a richer living,— this motive may well have found a parallel in Greenham’s life, whose parishioners proved so ignorant, obstinate, and unthankful that he actually left his living in 1591 or 1592,°* after his friends had long importuned him, a pro- ceeding which he may have attempted before, at the time when Spenser was writing the Calender. In addition, the views which Diggon expresses, and the solicitude which he shows about the welfare of his flock, are characteristic of Greenham. Finally, Diggon warmly defends Roffy, whom I have shown strong reason to believe was intended for Bishop Cox, a proceeding which finds a parallel in the generous treatment of Greenham by this reverent ecclesi- astic, who evidently sympathized with the latter’s objec- tions to the Anglican Church. The actual connecting-link between the names of Richard Greenham and Diggon Davie hardly appears at first sight. In view of Spenser’s peculiar and often far-fetched like- nesses between the name which he invents and the name which he wishes to represent, I believe that this relation can be established. Diggon or Dickon, which are only slight variations in the sound of the same name, is collo- quial or rustic for Richard. Its use is seen in the following distich, which was intended to warn the Duke of Norfolk against accompanying Richard III to Bosworth Field: “ Jockey of Norfolk, be not too bold, For Dickon thy master is bought and sold.”57 The Davie in Diggon’s name is as close in sound to Dray- ton, where Greenham lived, as many of Spenser’s coined names are to their originals, and, if any of my readers are disposed to scout the possibility of the truth of such analo- Cf. Ely Epis. Records, p. 449. ™ Burke, Peerage (ed. 1884), p. 981; quoted by Shakespeare in Richard III, Act. V, Scene 3. THOMALIN 197 gies, let them make a study of Spenser’s use of anagrams.°® After taking this link into consideration, therefore, and after noticing the parallels between the pastoral descrip- tion of Diggon and the life of Richard Greenham, remem- bering all the while that Spenser must have known the latter, I believe that this theory may be true. Thomalin occurs twice as the name of a shepherd in the Calender, and each time it is applied to an interlocuter. In the ‘‘argument’’ of the March eclogue E. K. remarks: ‘‘ The speciall meaning hereof (of the eclogue) is, to give certaine markes and tokens to know Cupide, the Poets God of Love. But more particularlye, I thinke, in the person of Thomalin is meant some secrete freend, who scorned Love and his knights so long, till at length him selfe was entangled, and unwares wounded with the dart of some beautifull regard, which is Cupides arrow.’’ Although it is possible that E. K. is speaking the truth, his right to be believed implicitly is seriously impaired by his false testimony on Spenser’s sources. This eclogue, moreover, is a professed imitation of a Greek idyl; it is a literary exercise apparently without any specific allegorical intention.°® Indeed, E. K.’s com- ments are here concerned wholly with the pointing out of rhetorical beauties and with linguistic elucidation, and he makes no attempt in the gloss to interpret this tale allegori- cally except in a purely literary way.®° For these reasons it seems improbable that Thomalin designates any particular ® Those who are sceptical of the value of anagrams in the study of Elizabethan literature I will refer to some potent remarks of Edmond Malone in his edition of The Plays and Poems of William Shakespeare, II, pp. 205-10, 222-4. "In the Epistle E. K. remarks that one of Spenser’s aims in writing the Calender was ‘‘to warne’’ his friends to beware of the folly of love. This eclogue may be an example of this general purpose. ; © Cf. glosses to ll. 23, 29, 97. Thomalin 198 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER person. Perhaps Spenser, who wished to stimulate all pos- sible interest in his book, may have allowed several of his friends to believe that they were each represented in the person of this shepherd, or perhaps E. K. wished to dis- guise the close imitation of the Greek poet by giving the impression that the contents described a contemporaneous love-affair. The eclogue, at any rate, is of too unrealistic a character to warrant efforts at an identification of its inter- locutors. The Thomalin of the July eclogue, on the other hand, appears in a poem which has a basis of fact in the outside world; Bishop Aylmer (Morrell) is his opponent and Arch- bishop Grindal (Algrind), whose sequestration he describes (IL. 215-28), is his authority. E. K. does not hint that the poet is introducing one of his friends, for Thomalin is made the mouth-piece for an attack on the persecuting Bishop of London and his Anglican colleagues of that ilk. At the same time, this Thomalin can hardly be identical with the ‘*March’’ shepherd, who is only a ‘‘shepheards boye’’, somewhat older than his confrére Willye, and whose char- acter bears no resemblance to that of the stern opponent of clerical corruption. Since the Thomalin of the ‘‘July’’, therefore, seems to be distinct from his ‘‘March’’ name- sake, and since he appears in an eclogue which shadows actual events, I believe that he has an identity which it is worth while to establish. The name Thomalin Spenser has taken from the French, like other names such as Perigot and Thenot, and it must have been unknown to English writers before the Calender appeared, for none of his editors have cited parallels. Con- sidering its French form, it is evidently a diminutive for Thomas, and, if we compare Spenser’s general practice in the use of anagrams, it is legitimate to suppose that * Herford, p. lix. THOMALIN 199 Thomalin may represent Thomas somebody. Thomalin is clearly a Puritan of no mean standing, whom Spenser thought prominent enough to place in opposition to Bishop Aylmer. Since he is the keeper of a flock (1. 8), he must have been a minister. Now the only eminent Puritan divines of this time (circa 1577) by the name of Thomas were Thomas Cartwright, Thomas Lever, and Thomas Wilcox.®? In every sense were they considered leaders of their party. Of these men, Cartwright had departed from England in December, 1573, and did not return until 1585.°* He did not come into contact with Aylmer until this latter year. Lever, who also had no relations with Aylmer, died in July, 1577. For these reasons Spenser would probably have not represented either of these men in the person of Thomalin. We are left with Wilcox, and what we know of his life renders him a peculiarly fit sub- ject for Spenser’s notice. Thomas Wilcox was born about 1549, became a ‘‘fellow or scholar in and about 1566”’ of St. John’s College, Ox- ford,** from which, for reasons now unknown, he never received a degree. Upon his departure from the University he became a minister in Honey Lane, London, probably at All Hallows’ Church. His Puritanism soon became evident, for in June, 1571, he was summoned before Archbishop Parker along with many other prominent Puritans, and was informed that he ‘‘must come up to the Queen’s injunc- tions or be deprived’’.*® The next year appeared the ®Thomas Sampson was a leading Puritan non-conformist, but took no part in the ecclesiastical disputes after 1572-3, ‘‘when he was struck with the dead palsy’’ (cf. Cooper, Athenae, II, p. 44). ® Ibid., p. 361. * Foster, Alumni Oxonienses (1500-1714), IV, p. 1630, Of these Goodman, Lever, Sampson, Wyburn, Dering, Field, Browne, and Johnson were the best known. °° MSS. quoted by Neal, I, p. 119. 200 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER famous Admonition to the Parliament, setting forth the objections of the Puritans to the Anglican Church. This book was composed chiefly by Wilcox and John Field,” another Puritan divine, a labor in which they probably received the assistance of Sampson, Gilby, and Lever.* For presenting this to the Parliament some time during the session of 1572 (May 8—June 30), Field and Wilcox were sent to prison on July 7, 1572.°° While they remained in confinement, ‘‘Archbishop Parker sent his chaplain, one Pearson, to confer with them’’.7”? As this conference proved unsatisfactory, they were sentenced to one year’s imprisonment on October 2. These proceedings against them, however, served only to increase their fame. While they lay in prison, many of their friends visited them.” Sandys, Bishop of London, writing to Burghley and Lei- cester on August 5, 1573, described the estimation in which they were held: ‘‘The City will never be quiet, until these authors of sedition, who are now esteemed as gods, as Field, Wilcox, Cartwright,”? and others, be far removed. . .. The people resort unto them, as in Popery they were wont to run on pilgrimage. If these idols, who are hon- oured for saints, and greatly enriched with gifts, were re- moved from hence, their honour would fall into dust.’’78 The first Admonition, which had been allowed to pro- ceed from the press, went through four editions ‘‘within the compass of two years, notwithstanding all the en- “Strype, Annals, II, pt. 2, pp. 482-3. 8 Strype, Whitgift, I, p. 55. © Brook, I, p. 319. Tbid., II, p. 185. ™ Strype, Parker, II, p. 240. =Tt must be remembered that Cartwright had already taken up the cudgels with his Second Admonition to the Parliament (1573) and with his Reply to Whitgift’s Answer. % Strype, Whitgift, III, p. 33. THOMALIN 201 deavours of the bishops to find out the press’’.* Their fame also increased through their drawing up of a Con- fession of Faith in December, 1572, in which they sup- plemented the previous objections which they had made against the Anglican Church.’ Although Wilcox had obtained his release by the fall of 1573,”* he lost his preferment in Honey Lane.” During the next ten years he seems to have remained near London, preaching frequently at Bovington in Hertfordshire. One letter from his pen is dated from Coventry, December 21, 1573, and another from Coleman Street, London, six weeks later.”® Anthony Gilby’s View of Antichrist was published in 1576, and must have been composed as early as 1575 owing to the references to Archbishop Parker, who died on May 17 of that year. To this work Wilcox con- tributed one section.”® The most important incident in his life, however, so far as the present connection is concerned, is that he was cited before Aylmer some time in 1577 along with Field and others.8° The bishop informed Burghley that he was obstinate, and that he entertained no hopes of his conformity; he therefore advised that he ‘‘might be profitably employed’’ in one of the northern counties, where the Popish religion still retained a strong hold over the people, and where he could be set on to the Catholics. The bishop offered this unusual counsel because of the oppo- sition which he had experienced from these men. ™ Neal, I, p. 121. % Tbid., p. 122. The date of his release is uncertain; cf. the order in Acts of the Privy Council (p. 93) under March 30, 1573, which, if carried out, would have set him free from Newgate at that time. ™ Brook, II, p. 191. ™® Ibid., p. 192. *Strype, Annals, II, pt. 2, p. 218. © Strype, Aylmer, p. 36. 202 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER Now the points which I wish to emphasize are that Wil- cox, on account of his position as a leader of the Puritans in London, and on account of his persecution by Aylmer in 1577, a fact which dovetails with the supposed date of this eclogue, dealing as it does with events of that year,®* is exactly the sort of man whom Spenser would have chosen to introduce into this part of his work. Even if he had been personally unacquainted with Wilcox, he must have known a great deal about him from the reports circulating in Cambridge of the celebrated Admonition. Thomalin, according to Spenser’s methods of allegory, may refer to Thomas somebody, and of the three most prominent Puri- tans of the time who bore this surname, two are excluded on reasonable grounds, while the character and known inci- dents in the life of the third arrest attention. If I were to push the argument further, I might say that the contro- versial language and arguments which Wilcox has left behind him find a parallel in the general tone of Thomalin’s remarks in the July eclogue. Here, Thomalin is attacking the ‘‘proude and ambitious Pastours’’, the ‘‘Popes and Cardinalles’’ of the Anglican Church who “lord it as they list :” (1. 176) One of the theses of Field and Wilcox was that ‘‘no names can be more blasphemous than those of ‘lord-bishops’ and ‘archbishops’ ’’.°? Quotations from the Admonition®* upon this text will also be found in my discussion of Spen- ser’s ecclesiastical satire. From another work of theirs, however, I can give a similar citation: ‘‘we hold that there In March Aylmer had become Bishop of London, and in June Grindal had been sequestrated. ® Book II, p. 190. ® One section of this work is devoted to ‘‘ the corruptions of the (Anglican) hierarchy, and the tyrannical proceedings of the bishops’’. ROSALIND 203 ought to be joined to the pastors of the Church, elders and deacons, for the bridling of vices and the providing of the poor; that no pastor ought to usurp dominion over another, nor any church exercise lordship or rule over another’’.** The lordship and pomp of the bishops never failed to pro- voke Puritan attacks. For all these reasons, therefore, I believe that Thomas Wilcox may very possibly have been intended for the Thomalin of the July eclogue, a man whom Spenser might easily have met in London, after his departure from Cam- bridge. The defence of Grindal by such a thorough-going Puritan as Wilcox would not be surprising, for the Puri- tans considered him their champion after his disgrace, while the Thomalin-Morrell quarrel offers a striking parallel to the known relations between Aylmer and Wilcox. ili, RosaLINp The story of Rosalind is probably that part of the Shep- herd’s Calender which most naturally arises in the remem- brance of the majority of its readers. The identity of this person was so carefully concealed by Spenser and his friends that no satisfactory clue has ever come to light, and the guesses of would-be discoverers have been either con- troverted or else believed by few. In a work of this kind on the Shepherd’s Calender, however, it will be necessary to review the more important of these theories, to test their probability, and, after a consideration of all the evidence, to determine what—if any—view of the identity of this elusive individual is at the present day plausible. In order to carry out this plan, however, it will first be advisable to collect the references of the poet and his friends to this lady, which must always form the basis of any inquiry like the present one. “The Confession of Faith, quoted by Neal, I, p. 122. 204 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER The following references in the Calender are found in which the name Rosalind appears, including passages both in the text and in the gloss: “Tn this fyrst Auglogue Colin Cloute, a shepheardes boy, com- plaineth him of his unfortunate love, being but newly (as semeth) enamoured of a countrie lasse called Rosalinde” (January “argument ”’). “¢ A thousand sithes I curse that carefull hower Wherein I longd the neighbour towne to see, And eke tenne thousand sithes I blesse the stoure Wherein I sawe so fayre a sight as shee: Yet all for naught: such sight hath bred my bane. Ah, God! that love should breede both joy and payne! “It is not Hobbinol wherefore I plaine, Albee my love he seeke with dayly suit; His clownish gifts and curtsies I disdaine, His kiddes, his cracknelles, and his early fruit. Ah, foolish Hobbinol! thy gyfts bene vayne; Colin them gives to Rosalind againe. ‘T love thilke lasse, (alas! why doe I love?) And am forlorne, (alas! why am I lorne?) Shee deignes not my good will, but doth reprove, And of my rurall musicke holdeth scorne. Shepheards devise she hateth as the snake, And laughes the songs that Colin Clout doth make.’ ” (Complaint of Colin in the January eclogue) “ Rosalinde, is also a feigned name, which, being wel ordered, wil bewray the very name of hys love and mistresse, whom by that name he coloureth. So as Ovide shadoweth hys love under the name of Corynna, which of some is supposed to be Julia, themperor Augustus his daughter, and wyfe to Agryppa. So doth Aruntius Stella every where call his Lady Asteris and Tanthis, albe it is wel knowen that her right name was Violantilla: as witnesseth Statius in his Epithalamiwm. And so the famous ROSALIND 205 Paragone of Italy, Madonna Ceelia, in her letters envelopeth her selfe under the name of Zima: and Petrona under the name of Bellochia. And this generally hath bene a common custome of counterfeicting the names of secret Personages.” (January gloss) “Colin thou kenst, the Southerne shepheardes boye; Him Love hath wounded with a deadly darte: ‘Whilome on him was all my care and joye, Forcing with gyfts to winne his wanton heart. But now from me hys madding mynd is starte, And woes the Widdowes daughter of the glenne; So nowe fayre Rosalind hath bredde hys smart, So now his frend is chaunged for a frenne.” (Hobbinol in the April eclogue) “The Widowes, He calleth Rosalind the Widowes daughter of the glenne, that is, of a country Hamlet or borough, which I thinke is rather sayde to eolour and concele the person, then simply spoken. For it is well knowen, even in spighte of Colin and Hobbinoll, that shee is a Gentlewoman of no meane house, nor endewed with anye vulgare and common gifts, both of nature and manners: but suche indeed, as neede nether Colin be ashamed to have her made known by his verse, nor Hobbinol be greved, that so she should be commended to immortalitie for her rare and singular vertues: Specially deserving it no lesse, then eyther Myrto the most excellent Poete Theocritus his dearling, or Lau- retta the divine Petrarches Goddesse, or Himera the worthye Poete Stersichorus hys idol; upon whom he is sayd so much to have doted, that, in regard of her excellencie, he scorned and wrote against the beauty of Helena.” (April gloss) “This Aiglogue is wholly vowed to the complayning of Colins ill suecesse in his love. For being (as is aforesaid) enamoured of a country lasse, Rosalind, and having (as seemeth) founde place in her heart, he lamenteth to his deare frend Hobbinoll, that he is nowe forsaken unfaithfully, and in his steede Menaleas, another shepheard, received disloyally.” (June “ argument’) 206 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER “The couth I sing of love, and tune my pype Unto my plaintive pleas in verses made: Tho would I seeke for Queene-apples unrype, To give my Rosalind; and in Sommer shade Dight gaudy Girlonds was my common trade, To crowne her golden locks: but yeeres more rype, And losse of her, whose love as lyfe I wayd, Those weary wanton toyes away dyd wype.” (Complaint of Colin in the June eclogue, Il. 41-8) “Then should my plaints, causd of discurtesee, As messengers of this my painfull plight, Flye to my love, where ever that she bee, And pierce her heart with poynt of worthy wight, As shee deserves that wrought so deadly spight, And thou, Menaleas, that by trecheree Didst underfong my lasse to wexe so light, Shouldest well be knowne for such thy villanee.”’ (Ibid., Il. 97-104) “Ye gentle Shepheards . Beare witnesse all of thys so wicked deede: ‘ And tell the lasse, whose flowre is woxe a weede, And faultlesse fayth is turned to faithlesse fere, That she the truest shepheards hart made bleede, That lyves on earth, and loved her most dere.” (Ibid., ll. 106-12) “ Ah, faithlesse Rosalind and voide of grace, That are the roote of all this ruthfull woe!” (Answer of Hobbinol, ibid., I. 115-6) “ Discurtesie: he meaneth the falsenesse of his lover Rosalinde, who forsaking hym hadde chosen another” (June gloss). “ Menalcas, the name of a shephearde in Virgile; but here is meant a person unknowne and secrete, against whome he often bitterly invayeth” (Zbéd.). “The great shepheard, is some man, ete. The person both of the shephearde and of Dido is unknowen, and closely buried in ROSALIND 207 the Authors conceipt. But out of doubt I am, that it is not Rosalind, as some imagin: for he speaketh soon after of her also.” (November gloss) “ And, if thy rymes as rownde and rufull bene As those that did thy Rosalind complayne,” ete. (Thenot to Colin in the November eclogue, ll. 43-4) “¢ Adieu, delightes, that lulled me asleepe; Adieu, my deare, whose love I bought so deare; Adieu, my little Lambes and loved sheepe; Adieu, ye Woodes, that oft my witnesse were: Adieu, good Hobbinoll, that was so true, Tell Rosalind, her Colin bids her adieu.’ ” (December eclogue, ll. 151-6) “ Adiew delights, is a conclusion of all: where in sixe verses he comprehendeth briefly all that was touched in this booke. In the first verse his delights of youth generally: In the second, the love of Rosalind: In the thyrd, the keeping of sheepe, which is the argument of all the A%glogues: In the fourth, his complaints: And in the last two, his professed friendship and good will to his good friend Hobbinoll.” * The only other passage in Spenser’s poetry in which reference is made to Rosalind by name is the description at the end of Colin Clout’s Come Home Again (dated December 27, 1591) ,? which is too long to quote here.2 In the conventional language of courtly love the poet affirms the continuance of his love for ‘‘that faire Mayd’’. With the foregoing, three other allusions may be joined, two of which undoubtedly glance at Rosalind, though leav- ing her name unmentioned : *The conventional August sestina is also connected with her (cf. ecl. viii, 11. 139-42). 7L1. 897-953. *Grosart includes passages from the August eclogue, from the Hymne in Honour of Love, and from the Hymne in Honour of Beautie in his collection of Spenser’s references to Rosalind. The first of these certainly does not refer to Rosalind, and the connection of the other two is speculative. 208 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER “Now, as touching the generall dryft and purpose of his Ziglogues, I mind not to say much, him selfe labouring to con- ceale it. Onely this appeareth, that his unstayed yougth had long wandred in the common Labyrinth of Love, in which time to mitigate and allay the heate of his passion ... he compiled these xij Alglogues,” ete. (The Epistle of E.K.) “Then also, me seemeth, the work (the Calender) to base for his excellent Lordship, being made in Honour of a priuate Personage unknowne, which of some yl-willers might be upbraided, not to be so worthie, as you knowe she is” (Letter of Spenser to Harvey, Oct. 5 [16], 1579). “Thinke uppon Petrarches Arbor vittoriosa, triomfale Onor d’Imperadori, e di Poete: and perhappes it will aduance the wynges of your Imagination a degree higher: at the least if any thing can be added to the loftinesse of his conceite, whd gentle Mistresse Rosalinde, once reported to haue all the Intelligences at commaundement, and an other time, Christened her, Segnior Pegaso.” (Letter of Harvey to Spenser, May 9, 1580). The postscript of this last letter contains a joking reference to an altera Rosalindula at whom the poet had previously hinted in his letter of April 13, 1580.* This, however, does not designate Rosalind herself. From these references various guesses (for they can never be anything more) have been hazarded concerning the identity of Rosalind. The January gloss, in which E. K. remarks that Rosalind ‘‘ is also a feigned name, which, being wel ordered, wil bewray the very name of hys love and mistresse’’, has afforded a convenient starting point, and the expression ‘‘wel ordered’’ has been generally ac- cepted as indicating an anagram. ‘Spenser refers to her as Meum Corculum; Harvey in his reply gives her the name noted in the text. ROSALIND 209 The first theory of which a record remains did not attempt to give Rosalind’s real name; it merely asserted her relationship to certain people. John Aubrey, writing towards the latter part of the seventeenth century, stated on the alleged authority of John Dryden, the poet, that Spenser ‘‘was an acquaintance and frequenter of Sir Erasmus Dreyden’’> and that ‘‘his mistress, Rosalind, was a kinswoman of Sir Erasmus’s Lady’’.6 The placing of Rosalind by the poet Drayton in the Cotswold hills,” which will be discussed more fully later, has been cited in con- nection with this story.2 Unfortunately for this view the testimony is of a very flimsy nature. It is improbable, on the one hand, that Drayton’s meaning is that Rosalind was a native of the Cotswold hills, while, on the other, Aubrey is never a very reliable authority. Among the latter’s notes on Spenser he gives the disproved story of the contest with Launcelot Andrews over a fellowship, repeats a piece of gossip from his contemporary, Woodford, to the effect that Spenser ‘‘lived sometime’’ in Hampshire or Wiltshire and that he ‘‘writt good part of his verses’’ there, and accepts the year 1510 as the date of his birth. Elsewhere he is generally incorrect in his biographical notes, his remarks on Shakespeare being a fair sample of his accuracy. The lead which Aubrey has given, moreover, has never led anywhere, for little information concerning the Wilkes family of Hodnell has yet come to light.® The next guess occurred in the Life of Spenser prefixed to Ralph Church’s edition of the Faerie Queene. After indicating that Spenser’s family may have resided in 5 The grandfather of the poet, created a baronet November 16, 1619. ° Lives of Eminent Men, II, p. 541. ™Eclogue nine, 2nd ed. of Shepherd’s Garland (1606). ’ Professor J. B. Fletcher, article on Spenser in Encyclopedia Americana. ®Lady Dryden belonged to this family. 15 210 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER Northamptonshire, the writer ventured to add: ‘‘that as Rose is a common Christian name, so in Kent among the Gentry under Henry VI, in Fuller’s Worthies, we find at Canterbury the name of John Lynde’’.*® No record of a Rose or Rosa Lynde contemporaneous with Spenser has ever been discovered. The famous Shakespearean scholar, Edmond Malone, evolved the anagram into Elisa Horden, remarking in reference to Church that ‘‘Thomas Horden, as well as Mr. Linde, was a gentleman of Kent, in the time of Henry the Sixth’’.11. Evidently, however, he gave little credence either to Church’s or his own solution.?? In 1850 the Rev. N. J. Halpin of Dublin propounded the first scientific guess of Rosalind’s identity, which through a series of misfortunes was not published in full until 1858 in the November number of the Atlantic Monthly (Vol. II, pp. 674-88).* Considering Rosalind, or Rosalinde as it sometimes occurs in the gloss, as an anagram, he evolved the name Rose Daniel, and attempted to prove her existence by identifying her with the Rose to whom John Florio, the eccentric Italian scholar, was married, and whom he has mentioned in his will. On the strength of Daniel’s com- mendatory verses to the second edition of Florio’s World of Words (1611) and to the second edition of his transla- tion of Montaigne’s Essays (1613), in which he salutes Florio as his ‘‘deare friend and brother’’ and as his ‘‘deare brother and friend’’ respectively, Halpin conjectured that Florio had married Daniel’s sister. In his will Florio speaks of his wife Rose, formerly, according to this theory, The Faerie Queene, edited by Ralph Church (1758), I, p. xx. 4 Malone, The Life of Shakespeare, p. 218, in Vol. II of his edition. Tbid., p. 219. *™By his son, Major C. G. Halpin. The ire of Grosart, who has undermined this theory, was aroused because E. P. Whipple in The Literature of the Age of Elizabeth (ed. 1886, p. 194) spoke of this as an American solution of the problem (III, p. lxxxvii). ROSALIND 211 Rose Daniel. Various reasons were advanced to supple- ment this view, the chief of which was that Florio often used the appellation of ‘‘the Resolute’’, an adjective ex- pressed in Greek by the words pévos and ddxj, which combine to form Menaleas, the name of Colin Clout’s suc- cessful rival.° Grosart combatted this theory with the dis- covery that the surname of Florio’s wife Rose, whom he married at St. James’s Clerkenwell, London, on September 9, 1617, was Spicer, and with the affirmation that ‘‘his notorious signature of ‘the Resolute’ occurs in none of his books until 1598, a good nineteen years after the publica- tion of the Shepheards Calender’’.1* Halpin’s theory is probably groundless, but not for the reasons which Grosart has advanced. Owing to the varying orthography of the time it is possible that Spencer or Spenser may have been the name of the lady whom Florio married. I have found one example at this time where Spicer has been faultily read for Spenser.27 Both names were then common, the latter more so than the former, and it is easy to see how a confusion might have arisen. Spenser was often written Spécer (the poet himself signed his name Spéser), and it would be an easy matter to confuse this ‘e’ with a mark of omission above it for a dotted ‘i’. At least we have one example where this mistake occurred in Spenser’s time. On the other hand, Grosart’s remark that Florio’s ‘‘signa- ture of the ‘Resolute’ occurs in none of his books until 1598” can neither be proved nor disproved. Of his four “B. J. Child (1866) did not discuss this view at length, but agreed to it in a foreword, stating that he had not read it until his edition of Spenser was in the press. Lowell (1875) said that Halpin ‘‘ makes it extremely probable that Rosalinde is the anagram of Rose Daniel, sister of the poet and married to John Florio’’ (Essays, IV, p. 285). * Cf. Grosart, III, p. xeviii. * Ibid., p. ci. P. W. Long follows Grosart (Anglia, XXXI, p. 80). ™Macray, Annals of the Bodleian, p. 92. 212 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER works which appeared before 1598 two, the First Fruttes (1578) and a translation of Ramuzio’s Voyages (1580), were contemporary with the Shepherd’s Calender. Of the former only one imperfect copy?® (in the British Museum) is known to exist; of the latter none exists. Grosart did not say that he had examined the one remaining copy of either of these works, and it is therefore impossible to tell whether Florio therein signed himself ‘‘the Resolute’’. Halpin’s theory cannot be controverted by the reasons which Grosart has expounded. The true grounds on which to reject Halpin’s theory, however, are that the date of Florio’s marriage with Rose Spicer or Spencer (1617) precludes the possibility that she could have been Spenser’s wife or beloved forty years before, with Florio as the favored rival. On the other hand, no Rose Daniel is known to have existed. Neither of the poet’s sisters was named Rose, while Sidney Lee’® and others have taken Daniel’s references to his ‘‘brother’’ Florio to mean nothing more than that they were associated as fellow gentlemen-pensioners of Queen Anne’s privy chamber dur- ing a period of time which included the years 1611 and 1613. Of Florio’s wife Rose I have been unable to obtain any new information. What is known of her is limited to the entry of her marriage and to Florio’s mention of her in his will. Neither can I discover any other Rose Spicer or Spencer who lived at this time, although it is not im- probable, owing to the commonness of both these names, that such a person existed. Halpin’s interesting theory must therefore be relegated to the lumber-room of literary curiosities. *T presume that this, like most imperfect copies, is lacking in the title and dedicatory pages at least. If so, this removes all possibility of knowing how Florio signed himself in 1578. ” Articles on Daniel and Florio in Dict. Nat. Biog.; also P. W. Long, op. cit., p. 80. Grosart mentioned the same doubt, but did not depend upon it for his theses. ROSALIND 213 Mr. F. G. Fleay, in his Guide to Chaucer and Spenser,*° evolved Rosalind into Rose Dinle or Dinley, and identified her, on the strength of Drayton’s reference, with the family of Dinleies who lived at Charlton in Worcestershire, a few miles from Evesham. The passage in question occurs in Drayton’s ninth eclogue which appeared for the first time in the second edition of his pastorals (1606). The poet is describing a bevy of celebrated nymphs or shep- herdesses : “Here might you many a shepherdesse have seene, Of which no place as ‘ Cotswold’ such doth yeeld, Some of it native, some for love I ween, Thether were come from many a fertill field. There was the widows daughter of the ‘ Glen’, Deare ‘ Rosalynd’, that scarsely brook’d compare, The ‘ Moreland’ mayden, so admyr’d of men, Bright ‘ Gouldy-locks’, and ‘ Phillida’ the fayre. ‘Lettice’ and ‘ Parnell’ prety lovely peats, ‘Cusse’ of the Fould, the Virgine of the well Fayre ‘ Ambrie’ with the alablaster teats, And more whose names were heere to long to tell.’”’22 On the ground that the natives are mentioned first Fleay remarks that ‘‘Rosalynde is probably one of them’’. ‘‘ In this case,’’ he proceeds, ‘‘the glen must be the Vale of Evesham, and in that vale we must look for her family.’’ The authority of Camden, who ‘‘mentions only one family in this vale, that of the Dinleies of Charleton’’, he used as the final means of identification. To destroy this theory Grosart was more than usually inaccurate.22 After minor * Published in 1877; the reference is to p. 81. Cf. supra, p. 209. » Poemes Lyrick and Pastoral (Spenser Society Publications, 1891), pp. 91-92. 3% He used his favorite localization of Rosalind in ‘‘the North’?, 214 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER blunders, he stated that ‘‘Camden mentions no Dinleis of Charleton or anywhere else contemporary with Spenser in 1579’’.24 Itis true that Camden does not say that such and such members of the Dinley family were alive in 1579, but merely intimates?® that they had been living at Charlton for some years before he wrote (1586). The pedigree of the Charlton Dyneleys (as the name is generally spelled), how- ever, is at hand, and proves conclusively that many mem- bers of this family were living at Charlton circ. 1579.?¢ This family first came into possession of the estate at Charl- ton in the time of Edward III, and held it continuously until 1682.27. On the other hand, it is probable from Dray- ton’s list that ‘‘Lettice’’, ‘‘Parnell’’, ‘‘Cusse of the Fould’’, and ‘‘fayre Ambrie’’, whose names are thoroughly rustic, are the ‘‘natives’’, and that Rosalind, ‘‘the Moreland mayden’’, and the others ‘‘were come’’ to Cotswold ‘‘for love’. As P. W. Long remarks, ‘‘the preéminence of Rosa- lind’s poetic fame will account for her precedence’’ (p. 81).28 On one point, however, Grosart was right: ‘‘no ‘Rose’ Dinlei appears in any of the Charleton Dinleis’ pedi- grees’’ (p. civ). and took ‘‘the ‘Moreland’ mayden’’ to apply to the lady as an in- habitant of the moors in the Pendle district. ‘‘The ‘Moreland’ may- den’’, however, is almost certainly another shepherdess, and not a mere appellation for Rosalind. Fleay and Grosart both took the literal meaning of ‘‘glenne’’, forgetting, as Mr. Long pointed out, that E. K. was interpreting the allegorical meaning of this word, which there is no reason to suppose that he misunderstood. For a convenient dis- cussion on ‘‘glenne’’, see Professor J. B. Fletcher, Mod. Lang. Notes (1907), XXIT, p. 63. * Tbid., p. civ. *% Britannia, II, p. 472. * The Visitation of Worcestershire, 1569 (Harl. Soc. Publ.), p. 50. *H. 8. Grazebrook, The Heraldry of Worcestershire (1873), I, pp. 182-4. % Op. cit. ROSALIND 215 Grosart (III, p. evi) resolved Rosalind into Rose Dine- ley, and attempted to connect her with the Dineleys of Downham, Lancashire, who lived in the Pendle district. When he came to write his Life of Spenser, he modi- fied his first assertion: ‘‘The more I have studied the prob- lem, the more I am satisfied that in a yet untraced Rose or Elisa or Alice Dineley or Dynley or Dinlei, and an Aspinall (Menaleas) of these ‘North partes’, we shall find ... the ‘parties’ . . . of this love-story’’ (I, p. 50). In other words, Grosart found no actual original for Rosalind. With him also the lady whose name he evolved from the conjectured anagram continued to be imaginary. The untrustworthiness of this theory, which has gained a wide acceptance”® on account of the eminence of its advo- cate, received a scientific criticism at the hands of Mr. P. W. Long, writing in 1907.°° Grosart’s theory rests entirely on the localization of Spenser’s residence in north-east Lancashire after his departure from the University. In the first place, he made the mistake of misinterpreting a passage in one of Harvey’s letters to Spenser, where the former was speaking of certain English poems of his which he charged the poet with surreptitiously printing: ‘‘to be shorte, I would to God that all the ilfavorid copyes of my nowe prostituted devises were buried a greate deale deeper in the centre of the erthe then the height and altitude of the middle region of the verye English Alpes amountes unto in » Mr. J. W. Hales, in his revised life of the poet (1896) prefixed to the Globe edition of 1906, and Mr. Sidney L. Lee, in the article on Spenser in the Dict. Nat. Biog., from their position in the world of letters and scholarship sufficiently attest the credence which Gro- sart’s theory has obtained, through their own acceptance of it. ” Mr. Long’s article, Spenser’s Rosalind: In honour of a private personage unknowne appeared in Anglia (1908), XXXI (n. f. XIX), pp. 72-104. 216 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER the aier’’.*4_ The last two words Grosart read ‘‘your shier’’, and connected this district of the ‘‘English Alpes’’ with Pendle and north-east Lancashire. Long demonstrated that Grosart misread these words: ‘‘the antithesis, deeper ... centre... erthe... height... altitude... middle . . . ater, would be destroyed by the reading shier’’.*? Grosart’s attempt to localize the Spensers, who spelled their name with an ‘s’, not a ‘ce’, in north-east Lancashire, and his lengthy assertions that the Calender reflects the dialect and the scenery of the same district, received refu- tation from Long, and have been discussed by me in another place.** In spite of the amount of labor which Grosart expended to prove Spenser’s connection with that part of England, the basis of his theory and his methods of reason- ing were erroneous, and his identification of Rosalind with an imaginary Rose Dinley is therefore entirely without foundation. The latest theory, and by all odds the most interesting and the most worthy of belief, is that recently offered by Mr. P. W. Long, to whose work I have had occasion to refer more than once in the pages above. It is contained in the last ten pages of his article (pp. 94-104) ,*4 and it identi- fies Rosalind with a certain Elizabeth North,** the daughter of Sir Thomas North,** the translator of Plutarch, and the *In Grosart’s Works of Harvey this occurs in I, p. 119; the refer- ence in the Camden Society’s edition of Harvey’s Letter-Book, ed. by E. J. Long Scott, is the 2nd series, XXXIII (1884), p. xi. Long, ibid., p. 83. Cf. the section in this chapter entitled The Biography of Spenser (1576-1580), pp. 289-95. *4In Anglia (1908), XXXI (n. f. XIX), pp. 72-104. * Following the hint given by Mr. J. W. Hales in Folia Litteraria (1893), p. 160, and accepting ‘‘Rosalinde’’ as ‘‘the uniform spell- ing’’, he resolved the name into Elisa North, changing ‘d’ to ‘th’ in accordance with the euphonic alterations allowed by the rules of the Elizabethan anagram. %° Knighted in 1591 (D.N.B.). ROSALIND 217 niece of Roger, Baron North of Kirtling in Cambridgeshire. As opposed to all previous theories his original for Rosa- lind actually existed,?7 and in this respect he claims a greater amount of attention than previous speculators. As far as I am concerned, however, and much as I should like to connect Spenser with Lord North in some personal rela- tionship, I find it difficult to accept this new elucidation. Its contents, however, require pretty full consideration. At the outset it is necessary to point out that Long’s theory is based upon the Cambridgeshire setting of the poem,—that is, he believes the various references in the text and the gloss refer to Cambridge and its neighborhood. With this view, as appears elsewhere, I most heartily agree. A critical analysis of the contents of the text and gloss of the Calender has led me to believe that a great part of the eclogues were either composed in Cambridge or else were intended to refer to persons and events contemporaneous with Spenser’s connection with the University.2? From this starting point, Long proceeds to interpret the poetry of Spenser and the glosses of E. K. at their face value,*® and endeavors to show that the ‘‘cireumstances’’ of Eliza- beth North ‘‘fit the allusions relative to Rosalind’’ (p. 95). Passing over his remarks on Elizabeth North’s station in life and her presence in the vicinity of Cambridge (pp. 95-6),—4. e. that she was ‘‘a countrie lasse’’ (Jan. arg.) living in a ‘‘neighbour towne’’ (Jan. ecl. 1. 50), ‘‘a Gentle- woman of no meane house’’ (Apr. gloss, 1. 26), and ‘‘a private personage unknowne’’ (Spenser’s letter to Harvey, 5 [16] Oct., 1579), all of which fit the case of Miss North,— I come to his discussion of the ‘‘ Widdowes daughter of the ** Cooper, Athenae, II, p. 350. = Cf. the previous chapter, passim. “Since Long has made use of these methods of literal interpreta- tion, his theory should be tested by similar explanations of the text and gloss of the poem. 218 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER glenne’’ passage (Apr. ecl. and gloss). The comment of E. K. reads as follows: ‘‘The Widowes, He calleth Rosalind the Widowes daughter of the glenne, that is, of a country Hamlet or borough, which I thinke is rather sayde to coloure and concele the person, then simply spoken.’’ As- suming that Thomas North was a widower in 1579, Long on the strength of two examples reads ‘‘ Widdowes’’ into “‘widower’s’’.4° Etymologically speaking, no obstacles existed to prevent this use of widow for widower; practi- cally, this signification would seem to have been rare, for, although the word widower constantly appears in the Church registers of this period, scarcely a trace is left of widow as its variant.*? At the same time, it is uncertain whether Thomas North was actually a widower circa 1579. His first wife, who was the mother of Elizabeth, was alive at the end of the year 1577, according to an entry of Lord North’s under Nov. 26: ‘‘A Litter to convey my Sister North to London... . 37s. 9d.’’? (Long).*? As Lord North’s only surviving sister was married at this time, and as he had no brother save Thomas, the reference must have been to the latter’s wife.** Long has inferred that another entry under date of Nov. 6, 1578,—‘‘paid the Mr. of the Rolls a Cli which my brother tooke upp of his Childrens Portion’’,“*—refers to the dis- “They are taken from the Wells Register under the year 1552 (‘‘ John Taylor, wyddowe’’), and from a remark on St. Paul by Law- rence Tomson in 1579, contained in Calvin’s Sermons on Timothy, ete., 257/2. The E.D.D. gives widow for widower also. “A search through the Church registers published by the Harleian Society has failed to reveal to me the use of widow for widower. For frequent examples of widower itself, cf. Vol. I (Lhe Registers of St. Peter’s Cornhill), pp. 231-8. “ Archaeologia, XIX, p. 297; in this place will be found extracts from The Booke of howshold charges, etc., of Lord North (1575/6- 82), of which Long has made considerable use. * Article on Edward, Lord North, in Dict. Nat. Biog. * Archaeologia, ibid. ROSALIND 219 posal of Mrs. North’s property after her decease (p. 97). Unfortunately, this memorandum jotted down by Lord North is susceptible of other interpretations, which, from our knowledge of the various members of the North family, are more likely to be true. In the first place, it is clear that the payment passed through the hands of the Master of the Rolls, an official who then occupied a position in Chan- cery second only to that of the Lord Chancellor,*® and who was invested with the power of giving judgment in all suits which appertained to the jurisdiction of this court. That matters relating to inheritance and to the settlement of estates then passed through his hands, we know from histor- ical records.*® In so far, therefore, Long’s assumption that the entry of Lord North refers to ‘‘the disposal of . . . property”’’ is sound; but why should the allusion be to the will of Mrs. Thomas North? What reason is there to suppose that the poor wife of a poor man*’ died possessed of as large a sum as £100? Even if this had been true, why should Lord North, rather than her own husband who was a lawyer, attend to the management of her estate? These are ques- tions which Long should have explained. The allusion of Lord North may be, for instance, to a provision in the wills either of his father,*? mother, or step-mother,®° who were “ Art. Master of the Rolls, Encycl. Brit. “Cal. Hatf. MSS., i, p. 473; ii, pp. 58, 287. “ Leicester, writing to Burghley on August 21, 1580, asked the latter’s patronage for Thomas North, ‘‘in his book he has to pass. He is a very honest gentleman and hath many good things in him which are drowned only by poverty’’ (Cal. Hatf. MSS., ii, p. 339). “ Equivalent to about £1000 ($5000) at the present day. “ Edward, Lord North, died on December 31, 1564, and was there- fore alive when the children of his son Thomas were born, for Eliza- beth, who married in 1579, was younger than her brother, Edward. ® The first wife of Edward, Lord North, was the mother of his four children, and his second wife survived him until June 2, 1575. Each 220 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER certainly able to have bequeathed the sum of £100 to the children of Thomas North. Lord North, as executor, would then have paid the bequest to his brother through the regu- lar channel of the Master of the Rolls. Presumably, young Edward North, who had been a member of the Earl of Bedford’s household for at least one year and a half pre- vious to the date of the entry,®* had attained that age named in the will when he and his sister were to receive their ‘*‘portion’’. Lord North’s memorandum might therefore simply refer to the fact that his brother had actually ob- tained this bequest which had been willed to his children. At any rate, this appears to me a rather more logical expla- nation of the transaction noted by Lord North than the one which Long has casually offered. From another point of view, assuming that Mrs. North died circa 1578, it is curious that Lord North, who made generous presents to the members of his brother’s family, as his Booke attests, has failed to record from January, 1575-6, until January, 1581-2, any disbursement for funeral expenses, which he would probably have paid, and there- fore have recorded, in the case of the death of his brother’s wife. If Mrs. Thomas North really died at some date be- tween Nov. 26, 1577, and Nov. 6, 1578, leaving her husband a widower, no record remains of the event.’? Even if we accept, therefore, the rather dubious idea that Spenser was referring to a man when he wrote Widdowes, Long has unfortunately been unable to show that Thomas North was a widower in or about 1579 rather than a few years later. The date of the latter’s second marriage offers no assistance, was wealthy in her own right (cf. D.N.B. and Cooper, Athenae, I, pp. 232-3). " Archaeologia, XIX, p. 293. Her name does not appear in any of the published registers of London, Cambridgeshire, or Hertfordshire churches, through which I have searched in the hope of corroborating Mr. Long. ROSALIND 221 for it did not take place until about ten years later at the earliest. Dr. Richard Bridgwater, the first husband of North’s second wife, lived until Feb. 15, 1587-8.°% Other arguments which Long has produced to prove that the ‘‘cireumstances’’ of Elizabeth North ‘‘fit the allusions relative to Rosalind’’ are interesting only if the preceding evidence is sound.*+ Indeed the same criticism applies to the remainder of his remarks, which are concerned with the probability ‘‘that Spenser had some acquaintance with Thomas North’’, with the surmise that Elizabeth North may have actually met Spenser at Leicester House when visiting London ‘‘with her widowed father for a few months before her marriage’’,°> and with the guess that Spenser and % Cooper, Athenae, II, p. 19. 5 These are: (1) that the ‘‘ North countrye’’ and similar allusions in the June gloss may be graceful compliments to the North family; (2) that those ‘‘hilles’’ of the June eclogue (1. 19), ‘‘if localized at all, may have been the Gogmagog hills’’, situated a few miles south of Cambridge; (3) that ‘‘Rosalind’s forsaking of Colin’’ in the June eclogue corresponds to the marriage of Elizabeth North to Thomas Stuteville of Brinkley in the month of June, 1579; (4) that ‘‘with Harvey in Cambridge, Rosalind in Brinkley, and Spenser in London’’ Colin’s farwell message (ecl. xii) is appropriate. % This visit is based upon the interpretation of ‘¢(For love then in the Lyons house did dwell) ’’ (eel. xii, 1. 57) as a reference to Leicester, on account of an inaptness in applying it to the events of Colin’s life, ‘‘because Leo presides over July, the month after Rosalind forsook Colin’’ (p. 101), and also upon the inference that the poet laments her departure in the August sestina: ‘‘T hate the house, since thence my love did part.’’ (1. 161) If we knew that Elizabeth North had visited London, then the allu- sions noted by Long might be applied with some show of plausibility to fit her case. But, as no evidence exists of such a visit, the infer- ences are of little value until we can find an established set of inci- dents to which they conform. 222 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER Harvey may have resorted to Lord North’s seat at Kirt- ling during the royal progress (September 1-3, 1578), when Elizabeth North may have also been present. These are the successive reasons which he has brought forward. In con- clusion, it may be repeated that his theory of Rosalind is the most interesting one which has ever been offered in print, and that it possesses a unique advantage over its predecessors in that the existence of its heroine is a fact. That we know scarcely anything about her is a matter of deep regret. There is still another theory, which was first distinctly set forth in print by Thomas Keightley.** This is that Rosa- lind was ‘‘a purely ideal being’’ (p. 413). He denied that E. K. intended an anagram in the much vexed passage of the January gloss (to 1. 60), on the ground that the other fictitious names there enumerated, the Corinna (Julia) of Ovid, the Asteris or Ianthis (Violantilla) of Aruntius Stella, Zima (Madonna Celia), and Bellochia (Petrona), are not anagrams of the names of their originals. He pro- ceeded to mention that ‘‘Rosa linda ... is pure Italian and Spanish, signifying beautiful rose’’. The conclusion reached was ‘‘that she may have been the Muse that in- spired the two friends (Spenser and Harvey), that they combined to hoax E. K., and that those expressions of ‘gentle Mistress Rosalind’? may have occurred in some compositions of Harvey’s, dictated by the Muse”’ (p. 413). In this light he considered the farewell in Colin Clout’s Come Home Again explicable. Keightley’s theory, although worthy of consideration in itself, was the natural father of an absurdity which ap- peared four years later.** An anonymous writer, who also °° Fraser’s Magazine (Oct., 1859), LX: On the Life of Edmund Spenser, pp. 410-22. "Harvey, Works (Grosart), I, p. 31. % Article signed ‘‘C’’ in Notes and Queries (3rd s.), IV, pp. 101- 3, entitled The ‘‘ Faerie Queene’’ Unveiled. ROSALIND 223 regarded Rosalind as ‘‘the poet’s pastoral muse’’, reckoned the name an anagram for ‘‘Rondelais’’, 7. e. roundelay. He made the mistake of saying, however, that Rosalind was always the spelling in the poem®® and that Rosalinde was always the spelling in the gloss.°° Thence he proceeded to identify this Rosalind with the Elisa of the April eclogue (‘‘rond-Elisa’’), with the fourth Grace of the Faerie Queene (VI, x), and with the third Elizabeth of the Amoretti (sonnet 74)! In conclusion he seemed to con- sider Rosalind the Shepherd’s Calender itself. Such is the malicious result of guess-work. The trouble with Keightley’s and all theories of that kind is that they cannot frankly be made to square with certain remarks of Spenser, Harvey, and Kirke. Consider, for in- stance, the following passage in Harvey’s Gallant familiar Letter, in which he is speaking of some verses of Spenser’s: “Now to requite your Blindfolded pretie God, ... Imagin me to come into a goodly Kentishe Garden of your old Lords, or some other Noble man, and spying a florishing Bay Tree there, to demaunde ex tempore, as followeth: Thinke upon Petrarches Arbor vittoriosa, triomfale, Onor d’Imperadori, e di Poete: and perhappes it will aduance the wynges of your Imagination a degree higher: at the least if any thing can be added to the lofti- nesse of his conceite, whd gentle Mistresse Rosalinde, once reported to haue all the Intelligences at commaundement, and an other time, Christened her, Segnior Pegaso.”®! To my mind this remark alone, which, to do Keightley justice, I should say that he has quoted, vouches for the "® Cf. Rosalend, ecl. viii, 1. 141, twice. © Cf. Rosalind, April gloss to 1. 26; June ‘‘argument’’; ecl. xi, gloss to 1. 38; ecl. xii, gloss to 1. 151. * Harvey, Works (Grosart), I, pp. 81-2. 224 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER actual existence of the poet’s mistress as a living person. What would be the point in Harvey’s fantastic represen- tation of Rosalind, the joint Muse of the two young men, calling Spenser her ‘‘Segnior Pegaso’’, as Keightley would have us avoid the difficulty? No indeed, Harvey is merely having a sly poke at Spenser for the compliments which some lady of refined intelligence has paid him. The actu- ality of the living person to whom this points must be felt by all readers who have examined and pondered over this portion of Harvey’s letter, even if they can find noth- ing in the Calender references to Rosalind—i. e. that she was ‘‘a Gentlewoman of no meane house’’, and ‘‘the Widdowes daughter of the glenne’’ (‘‘country Hamlet or borough’’)—which vouchsafes her reality. Again, if Rosa- lind is purely imaginary, how are we to account for other remarks, such as Spenser’s statement that the Calender was ‘‘made in Honour of a private Personage unknowne, which of some yl-willers might be upbraided, not to be so worthie, as you (Harvey) knowe she is’’,®? and such as Harvey’s comment on Spenser’s new mistress in London: ““ner tuam Venerem altera Rosalindula est: eamq non alter, sed idem ille, (tua, ut ante, bona cum gratia) copiosé amat Hobbinolus?’’*? From these notices we may not be sure of the quality of Spenser’s sentiment, but it is resolutely closing one’s eyes to direct testimony to conceive of Rosa- lind as ‘‘a purely imaginary being’’, the poet’s Muse. Even in these days of literary scepticism few scholars, and those of lesser authority, believe that Beatrice and Laura had no existence in life, as Keightley also asserted (p. 413).°* This, however, leads to a further point. " Ibid., p. 6. = Tbid., p. 107. “He also included the Corinna of Ovid, Drayton’s Idea, and Daniel’s Delia in this category. The first has always been considered aP ROSALIND 225 If none of these solutions of Rosalind’s identity, ingenious as some of them are, seem worthy of belief,®* it is at least pos- sible, perhaps, to tell something of the nature of Spenser’s relation to this lady. Almost all of Spenser’s biographers, including the theorists mentioned above, have adopted the opinion that the poet’s sentiment for Rosalind was ‘‘the love of a man for a maid’’, the passion of a youth for his sweetheart.°° That this made a deep impression upon him and that Rosalind still remained enshrined in his heart for many years they have maintained, pointing to the conclud- ing lines of Colin Clout’s Come Home Again (ll. 897- 953) as direct evidence. On the other hand, there are a few writers who have differed from this preponderance of opinion. As early as 1855 Francis James Child remarked : ‘‘there are no indications that the feeling with which Rosa- lind had inspired the youthful scholar fresh from the Uni- versity was ever very deep; at any rate, her image had long since been transferred from his heart to his fancy, and become the object of mere poetic contemplation’’.** At the same time, he accepted Halpin’s theory,® which, like all others depending upon the literal and rigid interpretation Julia, the daughter of Augustus, the second Anne Goodere, and the third certainly a real person, although unknown (perhaps the Countess of Pembroke). =<. Colin (Spenser) has been attacking the courtiers, and Hobbinol answers that there are some whose lives are ex- emplary. The point is that he mentions Lobbin, evidently some nobleman at Court, and that he refers to him in the past tense (‘‘knewest’’). As everyone knows, Harvey had waited upon Leicester as a suitor before Spenser left Eng- land in 1580, and the Earl died in September, 1588, three years before Spenser in this poem alluded to him in the past tense. No reasonable doubt can exist concerning the identity of Lobbin. In the ‘‘argument’’ of the November eclogue E. K. re- Dido marks: ‘‘hee (Spenser) bewayleth the death of some may- den of greate bloud, whom he calleth Dido’’. To him her “‘personage is secret, and... altogether unknowne’’, al- 2? Froude, XI, p. 19; Camden Soc. Publ. (Ist s.), XXVII, p. 193. * Froude, VII, p. 300. * Hales, Life of Spenser, p. xlvii. * Globe ed., p. 556. DIDO 233 though he professes to have often inquired of the poet. In the eclogue itself Dido is first mentioned when the shepherd Thenot suggests a subject on which Colin (Spenser) can lament. “¢ For deade is Dido, dead, alas! and drent; Dido! the greate shepehearde his daughter sheene. The fayrest May she was that ever went, Her like shee has not left behinde I weene:’” (Il. 37-40) To this E. K. makes the following comment: “The great shepheard, is some man of high degree, and not, as some vainely suppose, God Pan. The person of the shephearde and of Dido is unknowen, and closely buried in the Authors conceipt. But out of doubt I am, that it is not Rosalind, as some imagin: for he speaketh soone after of her also.’’ The dirge which laments the death of this girl is, as everyone knows, modelled upon Marot’s De Mme. Loyse, and indeed becomes a mere paraphrase of the latter in places. In spite of this imitation, however, certain descrip- tive touches appear which must be used in any attempt at an identification of this maiden. Colin calls upon the in- habitants of Kent to mourn this grievous loss: “« Shepheards, that by your flocks on Kentish downes abyde, Waile ye this wofull waste of Natures worke;’ ” (Ul. 63-4) He proceeds to tell us that he had celebrated her previously : “¢Sing now, ye shepheards daughters, sing no moe The songs that Colin made you in her praise,’ ” (Il. 77-8) Her high position is further signified in the following description of her pastimes: 234 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER “¢Ne would she scorne the simple shepheards swaine; For she would cal him often heame, And give him curdes and clouted Creame. emer meme re weer ere eer eres ererereeveseeseseees e880 Als Colin Cloute she would not once disdayne,’ ” (Il. 97-101) Then follows the most important passage in the whole poem from a biographic point of view: “¢O thou greate shepheard, Lobbin, how great is thy griefe! Where bene the nosegayes that she dight for thee? The coloured chaplets wrought with a chiefe, The knotted rush-ringes, and gilte Rosemaree? For shee deemed nothing too deere for thee.’ ” (il. 113-7) The accompanying gloss states that Lobbin is ‘‘the name of . a shepherd, which seemeth to have bene the lover and deere frende of Dido’’. This personage is further exhorted to think of Dido’s resurrection : “¢Why then weepes Lobbin so without remorse? O Lobb! thy losse no longer lament; Dido nis dead, but into heaven hent.’” (ll. 167-9) These references furnish the sole information on the part of Spenser and his friends upon which to form a theory of identification for Dido. Of solutions, only two have been offered which seek to connect Dido with a real person, each of them resting upon the assumption that the Earl of Leicester is represented in the person of the shepherd Lobbin. This I believe to be true for reasons which I have just given. The first of these appeared in 1821 from the pen of Edmond Malone in °Cf. supra, pp. 231-2. DIDO 235 his edition of Shakespeare.” He believed that this maiden was an illegitimate daughter of Leicester by Douglas, Lady Sheffield, with whom he lived for a few years dating from as early as 1570, probably. He contended that this daugh- ter might have been named Elizabeth after the Queen, and that she is to be plausibly understood by Dido, or Elisa, which is used in the Aneid as the Phenician equivalent of Dido. He proceeds, ‘‘the fruits of that commerce were, I believe, this daughter, who was, perhaps, born in 1571, and a son, born in 1573”’, Robert, styled Duke of Northum- berland, whose age is attested by the Oxford Register. “‘The daughter, it may be presumed, died early in 1578, about seven years old; and dying so young, under such equivocal circumstances, may not have been thought worthy of the notice of Dugdale, Collins or any other of our genea- logical historians.’’ Such are the main points offered by Malone. During the last few years this theory has been supplanted by another, which Mr. P. M. Buck, Jr. first presented.® This writer suggested that the subject of Spenser’s lament may have been Ambrosia Sidney, a sister of Philip, who died on February 23, 1574-5 ;*° the chief reason which he advanced for this identification lay in the fact that she was ‘‘the only member of the Dudley family who died not far from the date of the Shepherd’s Calender’’. Another writer,"! who arrived independently at the same conclusion a short while later, has embellished the theory with addi- tional arguments. After observing that the young lady in * Shakespeare, II, pp. 214-17, note 6. ° Mise. Geneal. et Herald. (un. s.), ITI, p. 368. ° Mod. Lang. Notes (1906), XXI, pp. 80-1. * Buck wrongly prints the date as a year later. *G. C. Moore Smith, Mod. Lang. Rev. (1907), II, pp. 346-7. 236 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER question died at Ludlow Castle, Shropshire,? Mr. G. C. Moore Smith remarks: ‘‘the fact that it is Kentish shep- herds who are invoked is an evidence that this young kins- woman of Leicester’s was a Sidney’’. On the one hand, he gives no reason for this statement, while, on the other, it is impossible to say whether the relation of Dido to Lobbin really was that of a kinswoman. Although he acknowledges that he has not ‘‘found any evidence that Ambrosia Sidney was drowned’’ (cf. 1. 37), or that she was not, for that matter, he appears to place some value upon the following line in the description of Dido’s apotheosis: “¢There drincks she Nectar with Ambrosia mixt,’” (1. 185) While he admits that the original of this may be found in Marot (odour ambrosienne), he considers the introduc- tion of Ambrosia’s name an interesting coincidence. Buck also quotes the above mentioned line with like intention, and one finds students of Spenser accepting the theory chiefly upon this last hint. The same expression, however, occurs elsewhere, where there can be no allegorical allusion. In The Ruines of Time those ‘‘whom the Pierian sacred sisters love’’ “with the Gods, for former vertues neede, On Nectar and Ambrosia do feede.” (I. 198-9) Likewise, in the Amoretti the poet tells us that after his mistress had smiled upon him, 2 Mr. Smith, however, makes the mistake of supposing that Am- prosia Sidney was born in 1555. A reference to the State Papers disproves this assertion (Cal. State Papers, Foreign, 1560, p. 350), for Ambrosia was born at Hampton Court early in October, 1560, and enjoyed the honor of having Queen Elizabeth for god-mother. DIDO 237 “More sweet than Nectar, or Ambrosiall meat, Seemd every bit which thenceforth I did eat.” (sonnet xxxix) 1% I cannot believe, therefore, that the conventional appear- ance of this word ambrosia has any bearing upon the solution of Dido’s identity. Another reason,—the conjectured closeness of the bond between Philip and his sister Ambrosia on the score of the nearness of their ages,—must be thrown out of court, for Ambrosia was six years the younger. Probably her death gave no great shock to his nature, for after a three years’ absence abroad he plunged into all the gaieties of Court life on his return in May, 1575, shortly after his sister’s death. Moreover, if Ambrosia were the subject of this verse, we should naturally expect either Philip or his father to be represented as chief mourner,—a view sup- ported by the dedication of the poem to the former,—rather than Leicester, whose life at Court may never have allowed him an opportunity of seeing his young niece after her infancy. This theory, therefore, requires further evidence if it is to be accepted. The most important hints which Spenser and E. K. have given are that Dido met her death by drowning, that she was a ‘‘mayden of greate bloud’’, and that Lobbin, as we have seen, is described as a ‘‘great shepheard’’ (1. 113). Now the father of Dido is called ‘‘the greate shephearde’’ (1. 38). Malone assumed that the two were identical, a proposition, however, which requires support in the way of argument. Without the gloss few would hesitate to believe ® Cf. also the ‘‘ambrosiall odours’’ of the flowers which adorn the Medway as the bride of the Thames (F. Q., IV, xi, 46). Likewise, in the Daphnaida, although the daughter of Douglas Howard, Lady Gorges, was named Ambrosia (cf. 1. 270), we find no play upon her name. 238 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER that Lobbin and the father of Dido were one and the same person. Whether E. K. did not possess the poet’s con- fidence, as he contends, or whether he knew his inmost thoughts, seems to me to make little difference at this point. Indeed Malone thought that he was unaware of Lobbin’s identity (p. 216), but such a view seems altogether improb- able owing to Spenser’s employment by Leicester at the time when the Calender was being completed, something which all his intimates must have known. Judging from E. K.’s policy of misleading Spenser’s readers in regard to his models, and judging from his artful disavowals of polit- ical satire in the ecclesiastical eclogues, it is reasonable to suppose that he knew about Dido and that he denied this knowledge in deference to Spenser’s desire. I therefore believe that he is deliberately attempting to mystify the reader concerning Lobbin’s identity with ‘‘the greate shepehearde’’, the father of Dido, when he calls the former her ‘‘lover and deere frende’’. Although Malone’s reasons are not altogether cogent or freed from inaccuracies, I believe that his theory is true, on account of the probable correctness of Lobbin’s (Leicester’s) identification with ‘‘the greate shepehearde’’, the father of Dido. This view, however, needs a rehabilitation in the shape of correction of mistakes and additional evidence. The relations of Leicester and Lady Sheffield are en- shrouded in an atmosphere of mystery, but the following account of their relations is probably close to the truth. This lady, the eldest daughter of William, Lord Howard of Effingham, by his second wife, was married to John, Lord Sheffield, about the year 1562, when she was seventeen years of age. During her husband’s life-time, who died in De- cember, 1568, not without suspicion of poison, she had an intrigue with the Earl of Leicester. About 1570 she en- tered into a contract of marriage with this nobleman at DIDO 239 Cannon Row, Westminster, and two years later they were married at her residence"* at Esher in Surrey.> A letter of Gilbert Talbot to his father, the Earl of Shrewsbury, under date of May 10, 1573, recounts among other bits of Court gossip that Lady Sheffield and her younger sister, Francis Howard, were ‘‘very far in love’’ with Leicester, that they were acknowledged rivals for his hand, and ‘‘that the queen liked not well of them nor the better of him’’.*® Some time earlier in this year a son was born, the future self-styled Duke of Northumberland, whose age was recorded as fourteen in the Oxford Register when he matric- ulated on May 7, 1587. Leicester subsequently sought to repudiate this marriage by offering Lady Sheffield £700 yearly to disregard it, together with a £1000 payment for the custody of their son. At her refusal he threatened to take her life, and so terrified her that she married Sir Edward Stafford"? for protection shortly before September 21, 1578, the date of Leicester’s legalized marriage to the Countess of Essex. By this proceeding she seemed to ac- knowledge the invalidity of her union with Leicester, although few writers have doubted its legality. The secrecy attending this marriage was due to Leicester’s fear of arousing the Queen’s anger, which broke out so violently in the summer of 1579 when she found that he had married the Countess of Essex. At any rate, although “N. H. Nicolas, Report of Proceedings on the Claim to the Barony of L’Isle, pp. 167, 254. *The Dict. Nat. Biog. places the date of this marriage in May, 1573, two days before the birth of a son. No authority is given for this statement, and it lies open to grave suspicion owing to Lord Talbot’s account of Lady Sheffield’s presence at Court during this month. * Quoted by Strype, Annals, II, pt. 1, p. 457. "Sir Edward Stafford, who became Elizabeth’s ambassador at the Court of France in 1583, was a friend of Philip Sidney (Fox Bourne, Sir Philip Sidney, p. 295). 240 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER Leicester made this son his heir in his will, the latter never succeeded in establishing a right to his father’s titles.’® The only statement for the existence of a daughter by this marriage is contained in Leycester’s Commonwealth, an ex- travagant attack on Leicester’s life, which appeared anony- mously in 1584, and which was formerly thought to have been the work of Robert Parsons, the Jesuit. Present opin- ion considers the author some courtier of the time whom Leicester had injured. Although many of the allegations here laid to Leicester’s charge are hardly credible, yet there must have been some basis of truth to a few of them, since stories circulated against this nobleman did not cease even with his death. This book mentions a daughter born at Dudley Castle, Staffordshire, the seat. of Edward Sutton, Lord Dudley, who was a cousin of Leicester. It further declares that his wife, Lady Dudley, the sister of Lady Sheffield, in order to conceal the maternity of the latter, pretended to be delivered of a child.t® Whether this daughter actually existed we have no other means of ascer- taining. In view of the probability that Spenser intended Lobbin for the father of Dido, and in view of the parallel between the lives of the Dido of the A’neid and Douglas Sheffield, each of whom was deserted by her lover, I am in- clined to accept the testimony of the Commonwealth. In fact the latter coincidence is indeed striking. Another point which bears out a belief in the existence of a daughter is that the intrigue between Leicester and Lady Sheffield 1% This account of Lady Sheffield is taken chiefly from an article by B. W. Greenfield in Miscellanea Genealogica et Heraldica, III (n. s.), pp. 368-70. Practically the sole authoritative information regarding her is contained in Camden’s Annals, Gervase Holles’s Memoirs of the Holles Family, Dugdale’s Warwickshire and Baronage, and the account of the law suit in the Star Chamber over Leicester’s titles. Greenfield’s account is a digest of these. “Op. cit., pp. 29, 33-4. DIDO 241 began as early as 1568, whereas their son was not born until 1573. The strong probability is that there must have been another fruit of this union before 1573 in view of its con- tinuance for a number of years. Although no record remains of this girl’s death, I believe with Malone that Dugdale, Collins, and other genealogists may not have thought it worth while to record the fact, since she died at so early an age and ‘‘under such equivocal circumstances’’ (p. 216). Finally, there is another coincidence which is certainly worth recording. Dido is described as “the great shephearde his daughter sheene.” (1. 38) In annotating E. K. writes the last word shene. Now Shene was the older and historic name for Richmond (Surrey) and its palace, and it was here that Douglas Shef- field resided while the Court was there. It was also the birth-place of her son.?? Her residence at Esher, the scene of the clandestine marriage, lay only seven miles distant. This daughter, like the son, must have resided with her mother, sometimes at Esher and sometimes at Shene or Richmond, and it is altogether possible that Spenser may have seen her when he visited the Court in Leicester’s ser- vice.21_ Probably it was here that this little girl saw her father, with whom she may have lived for a part of the year. The picture of Dido, who dights ‘‘nosegayes’’ and weaves ‘‘coloured chaplets’’, ‘‘knotted rush-rings’’, and “‘eilte Rosemaree’’ (ll. 114-6) for Lobbin, might well be a true description of Leicester playing with his young daugh- 2» B. W. Greenfield, op. cit. * Daphnaida was written in honor of Lady Sheffield’s niece and name-sake, Douglas Howard, wife of Arthur Gorges. Cf. the foot-note at the end of the article on the February eclogue for Spenser’s rela- tions to the Howard family (pp. 70-1). 17 242 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER ter in moments when he was freed from the heavier cares of Court intrigue. The fact that he attempted to get pos- session of his son shows that he was capable of feeling paternal affection. Hence the allusion to Shene could be understood by those in the secret. On the other hand, the fact that the Kentish shepherds are called upon to lament does not prove that Dido was a Sidney. Kent and Surrey were closely connected in Spenser’s mind in reference to Leicester, as the April gloss indicates (1. 21), and in Kent lay Penshurst, the home of the Sidneys, who might be expected to lament the death of this maiden, their kins- woman. Indeed she may have died in Kent, for all that we know. In short, the theory which Malone advanced, when its mistakes are corrected, and when new reasons are brought forward, seems to me much more plausible than that which presents Ambrosia Sidney as the theme of the lament. In fact one might call it certain, if the identification of Lobbin with the father of Dido could be unhesitatingly accepted. If true, it certainly bears witness that Spenser enjoyed the confidence of Leicester to a strong degree, or perhaps that he thought that he did. From this point of view the November eclogue furnishes an interesting parallel to Virgil’s Gnat.2? 2 In view of the fact that revivals of accusations against Leicester charging him with the death of his first wife, Amy Robsart, were current as late as 1584, when Leycester’s Commonwealth appeared, it might not be so ridiculous as it at first seems to connect Dido with this ill-fated lady. When Leicester was in disgrace in 1579, pre- sumably these sinister rumors revived. Spenser, who had the Harl’s ear, would then have had an opportunity of testifying to Leicester ’s unfeigned sorrow over the loss of this wife, giving drowning as the cause of her death. Again, Dido might plausibly represent one of Leicester’s many mistresses, none of whose names have come down to us. Such theories pre-suppose the idea that Lobbin and ‘‘the greate shepehearde’’ are not the same. PHILIP SIDNEY 243 One of the most interesting subjects in the whole life of aides Edmund Spenser is his connection with Philip Sidney, and eae it is certainly at the heart-root of any discussion of the biographical aspects of the Shepherd’s Calender because of the dedication. Although the exact nature of their asso- ciation must always be a matter of opinion, a new sifting of the evidence, together with the judgments of the more important Spenserian writers, is demanded in a work of this kind. Just what the nature of this relation was, in the whole range from intimate friendship to patronage and subserviency, I shall attempt to estimate. The actual allusions to Sidney in the poetry of Spenser are neither numerous nor yet few in number. In the first place there is the dedication of the Calender, ‘‘to the noble and vertuous gentleman, most worthy of all titles both of learning and chevalrie, Maister Philip Sidney’’. In the prologue, ‘‘To his Booke’’, which follows, Sidney is alluded to as “the president Of noblesse and of chevalrie:” and as ‘‘his honor’’. The last title Spenser uses of Sidney in his letters to Harvey. The same kind of language ap- pears in the Epistle: ‘‘the Noble and worthy gentleman . . @ special favourer and maintainer of all kind of learning’’. This dedication, however, may be regarded as a stereotyped form, regulated then, as sometimes at the present day, by literary and social conventions. In the poem itself, on the other hand, although his uncle Leicester is respectfully introduced as the ‘‘Southerne shephearde’’ (iv, 1. 21)?* and as Lobbin (xi), allusion is not made to Sidney.?* = Of course, it is entirely possible, as many writers have believed, that Sidney was the ‘‘Southerne’’ shepherd. The description in the gloss, to my mind at least, points more closely to Leicester, who was 244 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER According to the chronological order in point of publica- tion, Spenser’s next reference to Sidney occurs in the sonnet to the Countess of Pembroke prefixed to the first three books of the Faerie Queene (1589), in which his mem- ory occupies the chief place.2> The succeeding mention of him is in that series of poems which composes The Ruines of Time (1591), and which, owing to its description of members of the Dudley family, is supposed to contain material formerly used in the unpublished Stemmata Dud- leiana.2® The dedication to the Countess of Pembroke and nine stanzas in the main body of the poem, together with two allusions in the second group of ‘‘visions’’,?” sound the praises of Sidney, and have been cited in proof of the warm friendship which existed between the two poets. Astrophel (1595) is ‘‘a Pastorall Elegie upon the death of the most noble and valorous knight Sir Philip Sidney’’. It follows the conventions of pastoral tradition, and is largely concerned with the love-affairs of its unfortunate hero. The narrative form also contributes to render faint any personal note of sorrow. At the same time The Dole- full Lay of Clorinda, written by Sidney’s sister and pub- a nobleman, and who employed Spenser (‘‘Colin perteyneth to,’’ etc.). Now neither of these remarks is strictly applicable to Sidney. *T cannot believe with P. M. Buck, Jr. (Mod. Lang. Notes, XXI, p. 80), that Perigot (ecl. viii) is Sidney, and that the singing-match contains ‘‘a covert allusion to the love of Sir Philip Sidney for his Stella, Penelope Devereux’’. Sidney’s passion for Stella was not aroused until after her marriage (1581), and therefore Spenser could not refer to what did not exist at the time when he wrote. Cf. Fox Bourne, Sidney, p. 239. * As I shall have occasion to discuss this later, I shall not quote it at present. In Harvey, Works (Grosart), I, p. 39, Spenser speaks of this poem in April, 1580. 7 All these will be discussed later. PHILIP SIDNEY 245 lished in the Astrophel volume, reflects a hardly less stereo- typed form of grief, and yet the sincerity of her affec- tion for her brother is beyond question. In Colin Clout’s Come Home Again (1595)*8 the follow- ing references are made to Sidney: “ All these,?® and many others mo remaine, Now, after Astrofell is dead and gone: But, while as Astrofell did live and raine, Amongst all these was none his paragone.” (Globe ed., p. 554) “Ne lesse praise-worthie Stella do I read, Though nought my praises of her needed arre, Whom verse of noblest shepheard lately dead Hath prais’d and rais’d above each other starre.” (ibid.) Such are all the certain references to Sir Philip Sidney in the poetry of Spenser. Nevertheless, various writers have supposed that Spenser was covertly alluding to Sidney in other parts of his poetry. In the Shepherd’s Calender the mention of Kent, which occurs six times in the text®® and thrice in the gloss,*+ has been taken as an indication that Spenser composed several eclogues at Penshurst. Especially has the following passage of the July eclogue been cited in proof of this: “But little needes to strow my store, Suffice this hill of our. Here has the salt Medway his sourse, Wherein the Nymphes doe bathe; The salt Medway, that trickling stremis Adowne the dales of Kent.” (ll. 75-82) * Substantially written before December 27, 1591. * Contemporaneous poets whom Spenser has been enumerating. °° Eclogues ii, ll. 74, 93; vii, ll. 44, 82; ix, 1. 153; xi, 1. 63. = Eel. iv, gloss to 1. 21; ecl. vi, gloss to 1. 31; ecl. ix, gloss to 1. 153. 246 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER This opinion, however, is speculative. In general, the Calender does not reflect the scenery of Kent, but that of conventional Arcadia. In the February eclogue Kent is called the home of Tityrus (Chaucer), and throughout the Calender it is either used colloquially—e. g. ‘‘as lythe as lasse of Kent’’—or stands symbolically for the south of England in contrast to the north (Cambridge). Of course, it is possible that Spenser, like Virgil in the Bucolica, is alluding in the passage above to a place which he had himself visited, and it is likewise true that ‘‘this hill of our’’ (1. 76) may have been one of those hills within a short distance—five miles or so—of Penshurst, such as Ide Hill, Toys Hill, or the higher ground in the Weald, in each of which a small tributary of the Medway took its origin.*? Tradition, indeed, prefers to believe that Spenser visited Penshurst, and, although this may have been true, espe- cially on account of his employment by Philip Sidney’s uncle, the local allusions in the Calender do not furnish a trustworthy guide.** The celebrated description of the perfect courtier in the Mother Hubberd’s Tale (ll. 717-792), beginning “Yet the brave Courtier, in whose beauteous thought Regard of honour harbours more than ought,” has been generally accepted as a portrait of Sidney.** Spenser, along with many of his countrymen, probably recognized in Sidney a model of all courtly graces and attainments, and he may have intended in this description to pay a compliment to his memory, just as numerous other writers had done at the time of his death. The whole pas- * The principal source of the Medway lay a short distance west of Crowhurst, Surrey, situated at about eight miles from Penshurst. 3 Notice the local descriptive touches in the river category of the Faerie Queene, IV, xi. The poet could never have visited all these. * Grosart, I, p. 449; Fox Bourne, p. 245. PHILIP SIDNEY 247 sage is an exemplification of the Renaissance conception of the perfect courtier, which found its noblest expression in Castiglione’s Cortigiano, and in the portrayal of his picture Spenser laid hold of those details which were found in the popular ‘‘conduct’’ books of this age. While the tradi- tional view of this allusion may therefore be accepted, nothing in the whole passage argues for an intimate friend- ship, as some writers have claimed.*® In the same way, the Faerie Queene has been employed to throw light upon the relations of the two poets. The Calidore of the sixth book, the knight of Courtesy, was generally considered to represent Sir Philip Sidney. An- other recent. article by Mr. P. W. Long,** however, has made it extremely probable that Essex, not Sidney, furnished the original for Calidore, a conclusion fully warranted by this royal favorite’s patronage of the poet.*7 Likewise, Sidney has been claimed as the original for Prince Arthur, and perhaps Spenser thought of him, as well as of other knights, when he drew this image of ‘‘magnificence’’. Nevertheless, the relation must remain hypothetical, for this knight of ‘‘faerie’’ can never be certainly identified with Sidney, as he can with Leicester (I, ix; V). Spenser’s Renaissance studies enabled him to portray the courtly ideal of the perfect man, which Sidney, among others, was considered to typify, but which, on account of its scale, transcended in his mind any photograph of this chivalrous hero. So much for Spenser’s poetry. In his correspondence the following allusions to Sidney occur: * Grosart, I, pp. 449-52, for instance, produces an entirely erro- neous idea of the ‘‘brave Courtier’’ passage. It contains no per- sonal allusions to Sidney or anyone else, as far as details are con- cerned. 38 Englische Studien (1910), XLII, pp. 17. Cf. especially the dedicatory sonnet to the Earl of Essex pre- fixed to the Faerie Queene. 248 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER “ As for the two worthy Gentlemen, Master Sidney and Master Dyer, they have me, I thanke them, in some use of familiarity: of whom, and to whome, what speache passeth for youre credite and estimation, I leave your selfe to conceive, having alwayes so well conceived of my unfained affection and zeale towards you... Newe Bookes I heare of none, but only of one, that writing a certain Booke, called The Schoole of Abuse, and dedicating it to Maister Sidney, was for hys labor scorned: if at leaste it be in the goodnesse of that nature to scorne. . . . Suche mighte I happily incurre entituling My Slomber and the other Pamph- lets unto his honor” (Sidney).” “T will imparte yours (Harvey’s “Iambics”) to Maister Sidney and Maister Dyer at my nexte going to the Courte.’’?® . “Of all things let me heare some Newes from you. As gentle M. Sidney, I thanke his good Worship, hath required of me, and so promised to doe againe.”?° “T would hartily wish, you would either send me the Rules and precepts of Arte, which you observe in Quantities, or else followe mine, that M. Philip Sidney gave me, being the very same which M. Drant devised, but enlarged with M. Sidney’s own iudgement, and augmented with my Observations, that we might both accorde and agree in one: leaste we overthrowe one an other, and be over- thrown of the rest. Truste me, you will hardly believe what greate good liking and estimation Maister Dyer had of your Satyricall Verses... .”# Similar references in Harvey’s answers are confined to one letter: “T cannot choose, but thanke and honour the good Aungell, whether it were Gabriell or some other that put so good a notion into the heads of these two excellent Gentlemen M. Sidney, and M. Dyer, the two very Diamondes of her Maiesties Courte for Letter of October 5 (16), 1579, in Harvey, Works (Grosart), I, pp. 7-8. ® Tbid., p. 9. Ibid., p. 17. “ Letter of April 10, 1580, ibid., pp. 36-7. PHILIP SIDNEY 249 many speciall and rare qualities: ...I would gladly be ac- quainted with M. Drants Prosodye, and I beseeche you, commende me to good M. Sidneys indgement, and gentle M. Immeritos Ob- servations.” 4? “Tell me in good sooth, doth it not too evidently appeare, that this English Poet wanted but a good patterne before his eyes, as it might be some delicate, and choyce elegant Poesie of good M. Sidneys, or M. Dyers (ouer very Castor, & Pollux for such and many greater matters) when this trimme geere was in hatching.’’43 In view of the rather formal and certainly respectful nature of these utterances, it is well to remember that these letters were given to the world (1580), and that they there- fore may have been purposely couched in ‘‘dress’’ language. From the foregoing allusions in the poetry and corre- spondence of Spenser the imagination of a succession of biographers has conjured into being the existence of an intimate friendship between the two poets. Tradition,** doubtlessly fostered to some extent by the fictions of earlier writers,** although the latter have now been generally dis- carded, has come to speak with the voice of authority. Let us briefly review the growth of this idea of Spenser’s asso- ciation with Sidney during the past century, until it has crystallized into the present theory of an intimate friend- ship: “A Gallant familiar Letter, ibid., pp. 75-6. “TIbid., p. 86; Harvey is referring to his Speculum Tuscanismi, which he is communicating to Spenser. “Even Dean Church, Spenser’s best biographer in the opinion of Messrs. Hales and Lee (D. N. B.), has remarked: ‘‘tradition makes him Sidney’s companion at Penshurst’’ (p. 23). * Edward Phillips’s statement that Spenser went to Ireland as Sir Henry Sidney’s secretary (Theatrum Poet. Angl., p. 148), and the story found in the Life by Hughes (pp. iii-iv) of Sidney’s first reading of the canto of Despair, are the chief instances of this spurious tradition. 250 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER “Tt is not to be doubted ... that Sidney was a warm and liberal friend to Spenser” (Aiken, 1806, I, p. v). “Under the influence . . . of warm hearts and kindred tastes, acquaintance soon ripened into friendship, and friendship into intimacy ;—and few months elapsed after the first interview, before the young poet was at home in the hospitable mansion of the most powerful earl in England” (Hart, 1847, p. 32). “The relation of the ‘newe poete’ to Sir Philip Sidney was of ‘friendship’ in the deepest and tenderest sense of the word” (Grosart, 1882-4, I, p. 443).*6 “This acquaintance rapidly ripened into a deep and tender friendship, of singular and excellent influence, both morally and intellectually” (Hales & Lee, D.N.B., 1898, art. Spenser). Others entitled to speak with authority have pronounced less certainly in favor of the closeness of this bond: “The poet (Spenser) was also invited to the family-seat of Sidney at Penshurst in Kent, where he was probably employed in some literary service, and at least assisted, we may suppose, the Platonick and chivalrous studies of the gallant and learned youth who had thus kindly noticed him” (Todd, 1805, I, p. ix). “He is believed to have accompanied Sidney (probably as a secretary or amanuensis) to the family seat of Penshurst in Kent” (Gilfillan, 1859, II, p. xiv). “Before the publication of his Shepherd’s Calendar in 1579, he had made the acquaintance of Sir Philip Sidney, and was domiciled with him for a time at Penshurst, whether as guest or literary dependent is uncertain” (Lowell, 1875, Prose Works, IV, p. 286). “He (Sidney) brought him (Spenser) forward: perhaps he accepted him as a friend” (Dean Church, p. 23). These last, however, are distinctly in the minority when compared with the upholders of the theory of a close and “Dr. Grosart uncompromisingly declared for the intimate friend- ship of Sidney and Spenser in an article contained in the appendix of his edition of Spenser (I, pp. 443-56). PHILIP SIDNEY 261 warm friendship. Sidney’s principal biographers, on the other hand, diverge considerably in their views on this subject: “Tf Spenser had a useful patron in the Earl of Leicester, he had a far more useful friend in Sidney ... at first—to some extent always—the difference in rank between the two caused Spenser to regard himself, doubtless without being so regarded by them, as inferior to Sidney and the other courtiers who wel- comed his company ” (Fox Bourne, 1862, revised 1891, p. 197) .47 “Though Philip and Spenser had met often, but met only during a period of very few months, their liking for each other was sincere and cordial; on Spenser’s side, if we may judge by his written words, he felt a most warm affection for Philip. But there is scant reason... for the belief that an intimate friendship existed between the two. Philip was the last man in the world to become the intimate of any man on the sudden.” (Addleshaw, 1909, pp. 264-5) The late Mr. J. A. Symonds, who wrote the life of Sidney for the English Men of Letters Series (1887), had nothing to say of the existence of this friendship. It is therefore clear that the bulk of opinion in favor of a close and warm, even intimate, friendship has proceeded from Spenser’s biographers, whereas Sidney’s do not sanction this view. One reason for this result is to be found in the enthusiasm which has prompted zealous persons to read into Spenser’s testimony on Sidney more than the literary conventions of the time warranted. This opinion leads back to a discus- sion of the principal portions in Spenser’s poetry which have been used in support of the idea of a warm friendship, and all of which, it is worth noticing, were written after Sidney’s death. The first of these is the dedicatory sonnet to the Countess of Pembroke prefixed to the Faerie Queene: ‘Cf. also p. 200: ‘‘Spenser ... hardly aspired to rank with courtiers’?. 252 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER “ Remembraunce of that most Heroicke spirit, The hevens pride, the glory of our daies, Which now triumpheth, through immortall merit Of his brave vertues, crownd with lasting baies Of hevenlie blis and everlasting praies; Who first my Muse did lift out of the flore, To sing his sweet delights in lowlie laies; Bids me, most noble Lady,” ete. Certainly Spenser was referring to the Shepherd’s Cal- ender and to the protection which he imagined that Sid- ney gave it on account of the dedication.** This surely expresses no more than the acknowledgment that Sidney had acted as his patron, and probably that he had inspected the work before its appearance, as Spenser has elsewhere intimated.*® The purpose of this dedicatory sonnet, as well as of the other sixteen, was to interest influential per- sons in his new poem. In this presentation to his new patron, the Countess of Pembroke, whom he had undoubt- edly known many years previous to 1589, he laid hold of the compliment which would best please her, that of associating her with her famous brother, and at the same time gave the latter the credit for whatever had been worthy in his earlier poem, a method constantly used by the poets of this age.°° In the address to the same lady prefixed to The Ruines of Time Spenser himself has summarized the nature of his relation to Sidney: “Most Honourable and bountifull Ladie, there bee long sithens deepe sowed in my brest the seede of most entire love and humble affection unto that most brave Knight, your noble brother de- ceased, which, taking roote, began in his life time some what to * Harvey, Works (Grosart), I, pp. 6 and 8. * Letter of October 5 (16), 1579. °° Cf. Daniel, dedicatory sonnet to the Countess of Pembroke pre- fixed to Delia. By this lady Daniel had been employed as secretary, and as tutor to her son. PHILIP SIDNEY 253 bud forth, and to shew themselves to him, as then in the weakenes of their first spring; And would in their riper strength (had it pleased high God till then to drawe out his daies) spired forth fruit of more perfection. But since God hath disdeigned the world of that most noble Spirit, which was the hope of all learned men, and the Patron of my young Muses, togeather with him both their hope of anie further fruit was cut off, and also the tender delight of those their first blossoms nipped and quite dead. Yet, sithens my late cumming into England, some frends of mine, . . . knowing with howe straight bandes of duetie I was tied to him, as also bound unto that noble house, (of which the chiefe hope then rested in him) have sought to revive them by upbraiding me, for that I have not shewed anie thankefull remembrance towards him or any of them, but suffer their names to sleep in silence and forgetfulnesse.” Spenser has here taken pains to point out the respectful nature of his attachment to Sidney,—i. e. ‘‘the seede of most entire love and humble affection’’,—the admiration for a gracious gentleman of superior birth from whom he had received favors. This sentiment ‘‘began in his life time somewhat to bud forth’’, although, probably owing to the short period of time during which the two were thrown together, it never led to a close personal relationship (i. e. ‘‘in the weakenes of their first spring’’). That the allusion does not concern ‘‘the slenderness of the Poet’s erewhile verse-expressions’’ in honor of Sidney, as Grosart has con- tended (I, p. 449), is borne out by what follows,—1. e. the ‘‘hope of anie further fruit’’ for his ‘‘young Muses’’ was “‘eut off’’ by the early death of this patron. This ‘‘fruit’’, the same as the ‘‘fruit of more perfection’’, is the result of Spenser’s poetry,—. e. the ripening of his acquaintance with Sidney,—but this ‘‘fruit’’ has been ‘‘cut off’’ by the latter’s death. Therefore, although Spenser may write in praise of his former patron, he will reap no ‘‘fruit’’, or benefit, in the way of assistance from Sidney. Contrary 254 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER to what Grosart has maintained, these passages relate to the degree of association which subsisted between the two, and not to Spenser’s poetical celebrations of Sidney. Per- haps the fact that the poet had not seen Mary Sidney for ten years, during his absence in Ireland, may account for some part of the formality of this dedication, noticeable in comparison with the tones of others in the Complaints. But, even allowing for this, the whole address indicates a realization on the part of the poet of the great difference in social position between himself and the Sidneys. As he expressed the connection, Philip Sidney was the ‘‘Patron’’ of his ‘‘young Muses’’. In the same way, the stanzas in praise of Sidney con- tained in this poem ought not rightly to be interpreted as indicating a former intimate friendship. Inspired by the influence of Platonic ideals, Spenser has identified the memory of Sidney with the spirit of poetry, with the beauty of the universe: “ His blessed spirite, full of power divine And infiuence of all celestiall grace, Loathing this sinful earth and earthlie slime, Fled back too soone unto his native place; Too soone for all that did his love embrace, Too soone for all this wretched world, whom he Robd of all right and true nobilitie.” (Il. 288-94) It is the same idea which is found in Lycidas and Adonais. In the middle of this elegy he invokes the Countess of Pembroke: “That her to heare I feele my feeble spright Robbed of sense, and ravished with joy :” (ll. 320-1) This extravagant kind of flattery is, of course, character- PHILIP SIDNEY 255 istic of Elizabethian poets in their relations to patrons, and its appearance amid serious verse devoted to eulogy of the dead is typical of the Renaissance fashion of intermingling gay and sad, pagan and Christian motifs. At the same time, this poetry cannot be separated sufficiently from the literary ideas with which it is invested to testify to what the exact nature of the relation between Spenser and Sid- ney may have been. It therefore should not be used as evidence in favor of an intimate friendship, as several writers have done.®+ In the same way, Astrophel is evidence that Spenser, along with ‘‘hundreds of Sir Philip Sidney’s contempo- raries’’,®? celebrated the glory of this flower of knighthood. The fact that Spenser wrote it at all testifies to his grief at Sidney’s death, but its narrative pastoral form leaves no opportunity for the expression of a poignant sorrow. It likewise cannot be fairly used as indicating the exact nature of Spenser’s sentiment, as I have previously intimated.** On the other hand, what are the references to Spenser to be found in Sidney’s works? There is exactly one, and that is all, the critical remark on the Shepherd’s Calender contained in the Apologie for Poetrie.5* Sidney reserved his acknowledgments of friendship for those men with whom he was really on terms of intimacy—Fulke Gre- ville, Dyer, and Languet.” Giordiano Bruno, Thomas Grosart, I, pp. 452-3; Hales, p. xxxv; Dean Church, p. 106. ° Fox Bourne, p. 360. Fully two hundred volumes of memorials appeared (D. N. B.). = The tone of this poem greatly resembles that of Daphnaida, yet Spenser had not known the lady, Douglas Howard, whom he cele- brated in the latter poem (cf. its dedication). "Ed. J. C. Collins, p. 51. ° Cf. Sidney’s Two Pastoralls, which appeared in Davison’s Poetical Rhapsody, his correspondence with Languet, and ‘‘the song I sang old Languet had me taught’’ (Arcadia). 256 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER Lodge, and Gabriel Harvey dedicated writings to Sidney, but it does not appear that Sidney’s interest in them ever approached any degree of intimacy. Testimony in favor of any intimate friendship between Sidney and Spenser on the part of their contemporaries, men like Puttenham, Webbe, Nashe, Jonson, Harington, and others who have often mentioned these poets in their works, is entirely lacking. Even Harvey in his writings which fol- lowed the Spenser correspondence has connected them only as poets: “Good sweete Oratour, be a deuine Poet indeede: . . . and with heroicall Cantoes honour right Vertue, & braue valour indeed: as noble Sir Philip Sidney and gentle Maister Spencer haue done, with immortall Fame”... . 5° In the poetical works of the time their names are not often associated, and, even then, their relation is not re- membered as that of a celebrated friendship. Among the Verses Addressed to the Author prefixed to the Faerie Queene, there are some by W. L., which allege that Sidney persuaded Spenser to write the Faerie Queene in honor of Queen Elizabeth : “So Spenser was by Sidney’s speaches wonne To blaze her fame, not fearing future harmes.” Whether this was true we know not, but it is this kind of reference which has assisted imaginative writers in con- juring up these charming pictures of friendly intimacy. Yet after all, this, as well as other poetical allusions, not only indicates, but asserts, the connection of patron and poet.°7 Spenser certainly received great favors from the % Foure Letters, etc., in Works (Grosart), I, pp. 217-8. In the other places where he associates them, they appear only as famous poets of the age, cf. Works, II, pp. 234, 266, and ITI, p. 50. Cf. A Pastorall Aiglogue upon the death of Sir Philip Sidney, Knight, ete., by Ludovic Bryskett (Globe ed. of Spenser, pp. 566-7), THE AREOPAGUS 257 Sidney family and from the Earl of Leicester when they patronized his early work and procured him employment, and he enjoyed especially the favorable notice of young Philip, whose tastes led him to discuss literary projects with this poet who was striving to improve his position in life. So much is certain, but that Philip ever accepted him as an intimate friend, one with whom he acted upon terms of perfect equality, is an unwarranted conclusion. Undoubt- edly ‘‘Spenser’s admiration for that bright but short career was strong and lasting’’,®* but he has himself left on record the light in which he regarded, after a retrospect of ten years, his relation to Philip Sidney,—. e. ‘‘the Patron of my young Muses’’.°® v. THE Shepherd’s Calender snp THE Areopagus During the last forty years a theory has received cur- rency that Spenser, Sidney, Dyer, Fulke Greville, Harvey, and perhaps others! formed a literary club for the purpose of reforming English poetry, which they called the Areo- pagus. Although all information which is supposed to vouch for the existence of this society is agreed to lie solely in the five Harvey-Spenser letters written in the years 1579- 80, the Shepherd’s Calender and its gloss have been used to furnish many of the conjectured literary canons of these reformers, and, in one case, to exhibit a parallelism of pro- gram between this coterie and the French Pléiade of ll. 141-2; also An Eclogue: made long since upon the death of Sir Philip Sidney by A. W. (published in Davison’s Poetical Rhapsody, ed. Bullen, I, pp. 63-71), Il. 135-9. % Dean Church, p. 159. » Cf. dedication of The Ruines of Time. + Kirke, Drant (Dict. Nat. Biog., article Spenser), and Leicester (Maynadier, Mod. Lang. Rev., IV, p. 293) have been suggested. 18 258 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER Ronsard and Du Bellay.?, Whether this poem is entitled to be reckoned a part of the program of the Areopagus,’ and therefore an expression of the critical opinions of» Sidney, is a matter which calls for more detailed analysis than has yet been given it. This investigation in the first place requires a discussion of the exact nature of the Areopagus. The five letters which passed between Harvey and Spen- ser, three of which were published in June, 1580, and the two remaining somewhat later in the year, were avowedly concerned with ‘‘English refourmed Versifying’’, as their titles indicate. In the description of this scheme to estab- lish classical metres in English poetry, with which the cor- respondents connected the names of Philip Sidney and Edward Dyer, the title Areopagus twice appeared, men- tioned once by Spenser and once by Harvey.* While the earlier, as well as many of the later, biographers of Spen- ser and Sidney noticed the project in question, they have failed to recognize the Areopagus as a literary club.® Apparently the first conception of the Areopagus as an intellectual society which centred around Sidney and Spen- ser arose soon after 1870. In his edition of the Complete Poems of Sir Philip Sidney (1877) Dr. Grosart briefly mentioned the Areopagus, ‘‘wherein Gabriel Harvey, Sir ? Professor J. B. Fletcher, Areopagus and Pléiade, in Journal of Germanic Philology (1898), II, pp. 429-53. *The name Areopagus is used simply as a convenient symbol for that literary coterie of which Sidney seems to have been the guiding spirit, not because there is any evidence that he and his friends used the word for that purpose. ‘Harvey, Works (Grosart), I, pp. 7 and 20. *Masterman (ed. Pickering, 1825), I, p. xi; Mitford (1839), I, pp. ix-x; Craik (1845), I, pp. 20-1; Hart (1847), pp. 34-5; Child (1855), I, p. xxi; Gilfillan (1859), II, p. xiv; Collier (1862), I, pp. xxiv-v; Hales (1869), pp. xxvii-ix; Lowell (1875), IV, pp. 277-8; Grosart (1882-4), I, p. 70. THE AREOPAGUS 259 Edward Dyer, Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke, Sidney and Spenser, sought to found a new school of poetry’’.* The game writer, however, in his copious life of Spenser omitted any reference to the Areopagus. Dean Church (1879) twice alluded briefly to Sidney’s Areopagus, although he failed to connect it with any project other than the in- troduction of classical metres.?. In much the same way Mrs. Humphrey Ward (1880) called the coterie Harvey’s Areo- pagus.® The earliest statement of the current theory of the Areopagus as a literary club devoted to the reforma- tion of English poetry which I have been able to find ap- peared from the pen of J. A. Symonds. Speaking of it as ‘a little academy, formed apparently upon the Italian model’’, he went on to say that ‘‘its critical tendency was indicated by the name Areopagus, given it perhaps in fun by Spenser ; and its practical object. was the reformation of English h poetry upon Italian and classical principles’’. 7 He doctrines so thoroughly in practice as Sidney’’, whose Arcadia poems in various metres ‘‘form the most solid residuum from the exercises of the Areopagus’’. Sidney’s best biographer, H. R. Fox Bourne, has vigorously seconded this theory. ‘‘The Areopagus,’’ he has said, ‘‘was a sort of club, composed mainly of courtiers, who aspired to be also men of letters, apparently with Sidney as its president, to which were admitted other men of letters, Spenser in par- ticular, who hardly aspired to rank with the courtiers.’’!° Sidney’s Lady of May (1578), various poems of Dyer, and Greville’s ‘‘ponderous tragedies’’, he considered a part of the program of the club. After inferring its opposition °T, p. bxxv. " Spenser, pp. 24, 29. *Cf. T. H. Ward, The English Poets, I, pp. 343-4, 368. ° Life of Sidney (Eng. Men of Letters Series), pp. 73-4. ” Sir Philip Sidney, p. 200. 260 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER to the clique of poets who ‘‘centred around the Earl of Oxford’’1 he reached the conclusion that ‘‘at no time was imitation of classical measures other than a pastime either to Sidney or to Spenser’’.1?_ In another place he character- ized the purpose of Sidney’s Apologie for Poetrie as fol- lows: ‘‘his eloquent and humorous treatise was in reality as much a challenge to his friends of the Areopagus and others to give dignity to the poet’s calling as a defence of poetry against such ribald, but not wholly unmerited, attacks as Stephen Gosson had lately made in The School of Abuse’’.*® From this time the theory of the Areopagus as an organ- ized literary society has received a pretty wide accept- ance, and has been stated in essays which relate to Sidney, Spenser, Fulke Greville, Dyer, and Harvey.** At the same time, however, there are other writers who give little credit to this lately evolved opinion. Of these,.Mr. Jusserand is entitled to speak with the most authority,> and Dr. Howard Maynadier has written perhaps the most vigorous article in opposition.'® The view that the Calender may be regarded as a part of the literary program of this club, although stated more than once,!7 has been pushed furthest by Professor J. B. Fletcher in an essay on the Areopagus and the Pléiade. That many of the critical doctrines of the French 1 Ibid., p. 201. 4 Tbid., p. 203. % Sir Philip Sidney, p. 257. “The articles on these men in the Dict. Nat. Biog. are good ex- amples of the critical opinion which upholds the theory of an organ- ized literary club with definite membership, meetings, and program. % A Literary History of the English People, II, pp. 355-7, note 2. * Mod. Lang. Rev. (1909), IV, pp. 289-301: The Areopagus of Sidney and Spenser. "J. W. Mackail in The Springs of Helicon, p. 83, for instance, expresses this opinion. THE AREOPAGUS 261 poets of the latter school are put into practice in the Shepherd’s Calender and are reflected in the gloss, he has shown strong reason for believing. In fact, one might call this relation definitely established. On the other hand, the theory that the Shepherd’s Calender is to be regarded as a presentation of the views of the Areopagus is less certain. At any rate, room remains for other opinions of the influences which brought about the publication of this poem, and these I shall endeavor to indicate in the course of a consideration of Professor Fletcher’s theory. A statement of my theory of Spenser’s motives in writing the Calender, however, must introduce this discussion. In the first place, he desired to achieve poetic fame, to be a second Virgil (cf. Oct. ecl.). Side by side with this is the wish to please his patrons, Leicester and Sidney, a purpose indicated by the Puritan attacks against the Anglican clergy and by the personal celebration of Leicester and one of his family (cf. Oct. and Nov. ecl.). These aims bear witness that the publication of the poem was influenced by the poet’s connection with Leicester and Sidney and by a desire to express personal and political sentiments accept- able to them. Doubtlessly several of the literary innova- tions therein recommended or practiced found parallels in the views of Sidney and his courtier-friends, but that the poem and its gloss may be considered to advocate literary principles which this circle alone entertained at that time, and which Spenser would not have published if he had not known Sidney and the rest, is a matter of doubt. Professor Fletcher, while acknowledging that ‘‘the only business of the club directly dwelt on between Harvey and Spenser?® is the experimentation with classical metres’’ (p. 430) justly remarks that ‘‘it is certainly hard to conceive the authors of the Shepherd’s Calender and the Faerie * In their correspondence. 262 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER Queene, of the Defense of Poesie and the Arcadia, in the very years in which those works were being planned and executed, finding no more fruitful basis for conversation and cooperation than the ‘Dranting’ of English verse’’ (pp. 430-1). He then proceeds to identify the critical opinions of Sidney and Spenser as the expression of one school through the medium of the former’s Defense or Apologie and of the latter’s treatise, The English Poete, mentioned by E. K. in the October ‘‘argument’’ of the Calender. The only known topic, but undoubtedly the principal one, dis- cussed by Spenser in this lost work was the Platonic con- ception of the poet’s vocation. E. K. expressed the opinion that poetry is ‘‘rather no arte, but a divine gift and heavenly instinct not to bee gotten by laboure and learning, but adorned with both; and poured into the witte by a certain *EvOovowwopos and celestiall inspiration, as the Author hereof elsewhere at large discourseth in his booke called The Eng- lish Poete, which booke being lately come to my hands, I mynde.. . to publish’’. Professor Fletcher, after stating that ‘‘this bardic notion of the poet is Sidney’s major premiss’’ (p. 431), sums up the relation of the two treatises. ‘‘The simultaneous enunciation of a root principle of their art not currently accepted in their time and place by two friends known to be leaders of a literary reform-club can hardly be regarded as other than concerted action’’ (pp. 431-2). This theory, of course, depends upon the hypothesis that at the time E. K. referred to The English Poete, presumably no later than April 10, 1579,1° the Areopagus had existed for sev- *The addition of the August sestina unaccompanied by a gloss indicates that Spenser added to the poem after E. K. had completed the gloss. E. K.’s intention of publishing The English Poete also shows pretty clearly that Spenser could not have written the October ‘fargument’’. On April 10, 1579, E. K. submitted his gloss to Harvey, and I do not believe that he subsequently altered it. THE AREOPAGUS 263 eral months at least; otherwise, the two poets could have had no opportunity to construct their critical platform. Of course, it is entirely possible that Sidney may have had Spenser ‘‘in some use of familiarity’’ during the winter of 1578-9, yet this allusion to the extent of their acquaint- ance appears in Spenser’s letter of October 5 (16), when it is evidently applied to a condition of affairs previously unknown to Harvey. Even, therefore, if the Areopagus is considered a literary club, organized to the extent of holding meetings at Leicester House, its organization could hardly have reached a point which would warrant a pro- mulgation of a considerable part of its platform in April, 1579. In other words, it can be shown that Spenser’s trea- tise may have been the result of influences outside of the Sidney circle. The influences to which I refer may well have arisen from the contemporaneous study of Plato in the University of Cambridge. Ascham has testified that Plato began to be studied there about 1540,?° with the result that the new statutes of Edward VI (1549) prescribed his writings as a part of the curriculum.”: In his letter of April 7, 1580, Harvey mentions the general estimation in which Plato’s works were then held in Cambridge.?? Not only Spenser and Kirke, but many other Cambridge scholars, must there- fore have been thoroughly acquainted with the Platonic theory of the function of the poet, and it is in this way pos- sible to account for the influence which induced Spenser to compose a treatise on this subject. The ‘‘bardic notion of a poet’’, while ‘‘not currently acecepted’’ in England about the year 1580, had neverthe- less been broached in two critical treatises, one of which » Mullinger, I, p. 52. 31 Tbid., p. 110. = Works (Grosart), I, p. 69. 264 SPENSER’S ‘‘SHEPHERD’S CALENDER?’ appeared a few years before E. K. referred to The English Poete, and the other?* certainly before the composition of Sidney’s discourse. In 1567 Thomas Drant’s translation of the Ars Poetica of Horace appeared, a work in which the divine origin of poetry is noticed: “ Silvestres homines sacer interpresque deorum Caedibus et victu foedo deterruit Orpheus, Dictus ob hoc lenire tigres rabidosque leones. Sic honor et nomen divinis vatibus atque Carminibus venit.” (Il. 391-401) This is a succinct statement of the bardic function of the poet—sacer interpresque deorum—and of the divine nature of poetry—divinis vatibus atque carminibus,— which had been circulated in English through the transla- tion. Probably in 1580, perhaps at the end of the previous year, Thomas Lodge set forth his Reply to Stephen Gosson’s Schoole of Abuse. In spite of the fact that it has been char- acterized as ‘‘a production of the old inflated type, without a touch of modern freshness, full of pompous and only too probably spurious allusions to the classics’’,* the same ‘Platonic conception of the poet’s calling is asserted more than once: “Poeta nascitur, orator fit as who should say, Poetrye com- meth from above from a heavenly seate of a glorious God unto an excellent creature man.” “ Perseus was made a poete divino furore percitus and whereas the poets were sayde to call for the Muses helpe ther * Although The English Poete probably preceded this second treatise in date of composition, it was strictly withheld from publication. *Cf. The Complete Works of Thomas Lodge (Hunterian Club), memoir by E. W. Gosse, p. 7. * Op. cit., I, p. 13. THE AREOPAGUS 265 mening was no other as Iodocus Badius?* reporteth, but to call for heavenly inspiration from above to direct theyr endedevors” (i. e. endeavors) .” “I would make a long discourse unto you of Platoes 4 furies, ete.’’28 These critics, therefore, had enunciated the Platonic theory of poetry before, or at the very same time that, Spenser and Sidney were holding their informal discussions, and, in addition, they published their treatises, whereas Spenser’s never reached the press,?® and Sidney’s appeared only post- humously in 1595, though it probably circulated in manu- script soon after its composition (circ. 1581).?° Not only Spenser and Sidney, but other writers also, by 1580 or thereabouts had presented the Platonic idea of the poet’s vocation, which the Italian and French critics of the Renais- sance had sedulously proclaimed. This part of Professor Fletcher’s argument, therefore, does not necessarily dis- tinguish Spenser and Sidney from other innovators at this time, if one regards the Areopagus as a somewhat loosely organized society unwilling to publish its treatises on poetry. In his skilfully executed argument to exhibit the paral- lelism in program between the Areopagus and the Pléiade Professor Fletcher draws upon the Shepherd’s Calender, as well as other poems of Spenser and the writings of Sidney. While I repeat that the works of these two men taken together certainly seem to strive after the same aims as the French school, it is my endeavor to show that *The commentator of Mantuan’s eclogues. 7 Op. cit., I, p. 14. 8 Ibid. = Webbe, writing in 1586, who shows a familiarity with the Shepherd’s Calender, wishes its author would let his ‘‘English Poet come abroad’’ (Haslewood, p. 37). Ed. Collins, p. xxiii. 266 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER the actual literary innovations in the Shepherd’s Calender and the critical opinions therein declared by E. K. are in large part either at variance, or cannot be proved to coin- cide, with the practice and views of Sidney, and that it is therefore unsafe to consider this poem as the manifesto of the Areopagus. The first point in Professor Fletcher’s theory relates to the imitation of the classics: ‘‘it is clear that both Du Bel- lay’s Deffence and Sidney’s Defense mediate in like manner between the friends and the opponents of classical imitation by a similar distinction between literal and what they both indicate as ‘digestive’ imitation’’ (p. 483).3+_ The examples given from both works testify to the truth of this similarity in aim. How is this theory, which is a corollary to the bardic notion of a poet,®? illustrated in the Shepherd’s Calender? A close imitation of classical or Renaissance writers—a paraphrase in places—is made in the March, July, October, November, and December eclogues. The first is an imitation of the theme of Bion’s idyl (iv), The Boy and Love, the second and third of two eclogues of Man- tuan, where paraphrases of the original occur, and the two last of Marot—De Mme. Loyse and the Eglogue au Roy—in which slavish transcription is somewhat prac- ticed. On the other hand, the January, June, and August eclogues, although the influences of Theocritus and Virgil are apparent, have devoured the ‘‘figures and phrases’’ of their originals, making them ‘‘wholly theirs’’.** This use This is precisely the theory of Horace, Ars Poetica, ll. 408-14, which Drant had translated (1567). Drant died before April 17, 1578, and therefore could hardly have been a member of the Areo- pagus as some have stated (cf. Dict. Nat. Biog.). =<¢¢The Slavish imitation of the humanist, however, depended upon a more vital misconception than of mere literary methods. He forgot that before the poet can imitate or do anything else, the poet must be; and that no recipe save God’s can make him’’. (P. 434.) Sidney, Apologie (Collins), p. 57, quoted by Mr. Fletcher, p. 433. THE AREOPAGUS 267 of models has been noticed by E. K. in his list of poets, classic as well as Renaissance, ‘‘whose foting this Author every where followeth’’.** At the same time, Spenser has also applied this scheme of assimilative imitation to Chaucer in three of his eclogues, the February, May, and September. Now Sidney, in spite of his warm defence of his own tongue —‘‘for the uttering sweetly and properly the conceits of the minde, ... that hath it equally with any other tongue in the world’’*°—recommended neither by practice nor by dogma the application of this principle to native poets. His poetry, as well as his prose work,** is imitative only of classic or foreign models. Like Du Bellay*? he did not Chaucer (p. 51). While Sidney and Spenser, as well as many other poets of that age, notably the amorists and son- neteers, generally agreed in an assimilation or transforma- tion of classic and foreign models into English poetry, these two differed in the application of this principle to their national predecessors. The next parallel which Professor Fletcher draws be- tween the doctrines of the Areopagus and of the Pléiade relates to the new ‘‘poetic diction’’ which it was the chief purpose of Du Bellay’s Deffence, as well as of E. K.’s * The Epistle (ed. Herford), p. 7. * Op. cit., p. 59. * Sidney probably considered his Arcadia in large part a poem: ‘*T speak to shew that it is not riming and versing that maketh a Poet, no more than a long gowne maketh an Advocate... But it is that fayning notable images of vertues, vices, or what els, with that delightfull teaching,’’ etc. (p. 12). Cf. also p. 36. * Oeuvres (ed. Marty-Laveaux), p. 33: ‘‘De tous les anciens Poétes Franeoys, quasi un seul, Guillaume du Lauris, et Ian de Meun, sont dignes d’estre leuz, non tant pour ce qu’il y ait en eux beaucoup de choses, qui se doynent immiter des Modernes, comme pour y voir quasi comme une premiere Imaige de la langue Francoyse, venerable pour son antiquité’’ (Deffence, L. II, ch. 2). ~ ne Se 268 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER Epistle prefixed to the Shepherd’s Calender, to ‘‘defend and define’. (p. 436). ‘‘Poetic diction and humanist die- tion both were partly right; their common fault was one- sidedness. Poetic diction must not be either all home-bred, or all learned, but both in due proportion. The literary vocabulary was to be enriched (illustré) by an equitable addition from both classes of terms. ‘Home-spun’ revivals were to include (1) archaisms, and (2) dialectical terms and phrases; ‘learned’ accretions were to come from (1) naturalized importations from foreign tongues, ancient and modern, (2) technical terms from the arts and sciences, and (3) new coinages’’®* (pp. 436-7). The very advocation of this new ‘‘ poetic diction’’, how- ever, implied that the state of poets and their art needed a rehabilitation. Accordingly, we find Sidney and Spenser, in company with Du Bellay, lamenting the base condition of poetry.°° This idea, therefore, forms a parallel between Sidney and Spenser, as well as between the two circles of French and English poets. At the same time, it appeared too commonly in the writings of the period to be regarded as the exclusive property of any particular set of poets or critics. Even Gosson in The School of Abuse lamented * Professor Fletcher’s note to this passage runs as follows:—‘‘It is obviously impossible to prove in detail this analysis of the new diction. It can at most illustrate it. For the Pléiade, see Pellisier in Petit de Julleville, Hist. de la Langue et de la Litt. Franc., T. III, ch. iv; also La Pléiade Francoyse, ed. Marty-Laveaux: appendices. For the Areop., C. H. Herford, ed. Shep. Cal., introd., iv; A. S. Cook, ed. Defense of Poesy: introd., §4. But a full study of Spenser’s language and grammar is still a desideratum.’’ The last statement is still true. * Sidney, Apologie (Collins), pp. 48-50 (cited by Mr. Fletcher), cf. also pp. 2, 7; Spenser, Shep. Cal., Oct. ecl., especially ll. 67-84 (Mr. Fletcher cites The Teares of the Muses, ll. 559-70); Du Bellay, Deffence, Livre II, chap. xi (cited by Mr. Fletcher). THE AREOPAGUS 269 the miserable condition of poetry,‘® although he had nothing to recommend for its improvement beyond the driving out of present evils. Since poetry has become ‘‘prophaned . . . of the base vulgar’, as Sidney and Spenser lament, they desire to elevate it and to make it worthy of the regard of princes and noblemen. ‘‘It is clear,’’ therefore, ‘‘that the gospel of the New Poetry was limited to Gentlemen and Scholars,’’? or, in other words, the new poets, like Milton and Wordsworth, sought a ‘‘fit audience, though few’’. In Spenser’s farewell admonition to his ‘‘booke’’, “The better please, the worse despise; I aske no more,” we get a concise statement of this theory, which he has carried out in the celebration of Queen Elizabeth, Leicester, Grindal, and other actual or hoped for patrons. Likewise, Sidney has enumerated many kings and famous men who honored poets and poetry, regretting that they ‘‘should only finde in our time a hard welcome in England’’.*? Turning to Professor Fletcher’s classification of the new ‘*noetic diction’’ we find that the first sub-division of ‘‘home- spun’’ revived words is composed of archaisms. He has noticed that Sidney and Spenser differed upon this subject in much the same manner as Du Bellay and Ronsard (p. 438). E. K.’s Epistle defends this use of archaism, just as the Calender illustrates it in the passage beginning: ‘‘in my opinion it is one special prayse of many, whych are dew to this Poete, that he hath laboured to restore, as to theyre rightfull heritage, such good and naturall English words, as have been long time out of use, and almost cleane dis- herited’’.® In the Apologie Sidney did not advocate the “In Early Treatises on the Stage, XV, p. 15. A similar idea is found in Lodge’s Reply, pp. 19-21, in Works, I (ed. Hunt. Club). “Professor Fletcher, pp. 437-8. “Op. cit., p. 48. ‘““Mr. Fletcher cites the whole of this passage. 270 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER pursuance of this device, neither did he adopt it to any extent in his poetry.** His criticism of Spenser’s poem— ‘that same framing of his stile to an old rustick language I dare not alowe”’ (p.51)—to which Professor Fletcher has pointed, when taken with his application of pastoral art, probably denotes an opposition to both rustic and antique words. On the question of archaism, therefore, which forms so large a part.of the Calender’s contribution to the New Poetry, Spenser and Sidney disagreed. Likewise on the use of ‘‘terms and-phrases from provin- cial dialects’? Spenser and Sidney were at variance. This divergence of opinion, which Professor Fletcher has noted as a parallel to the opposite views of Ronsard and Du Bellay, is shown by Spenser’s employment of dialect in the Calender for ‘‘Doric’’ rusticity and by Sidney’s censure of it in the passage just quoted. The second division—‘‘learned’’ accretions—is composed of ‘‘(1) naturalized, (2) technical, (8) newly coined”’ terms or phrases.*® This classification is founded upon ‘‘the explicit prescriptions of Du Bellay and Ronsard’’, and it is true that these kinds of words ‘‘abound in the diction’’ of Sidney and Spenser. At the same time, al- though undoubtedly present, they do not abound in the Shepherd’s Calender. Herford’s introduction to this poem “ Professor Fletcher remarks: ‘‘ certainly in both his (Sidney’s) and Du Bellay’s works there is evident archaism’’ (p. 438). Though this is true, Sidney’s archaism is kept pretty well in the background. His pastoral poems—the two pastorals which appeared in Davison’s Poet- ical Rhapsody, the Dialogue between Two Shepherds, and the poems in the Arcadia,—in which his use of archaisms might be expected to be illustrated, have nothing in common with the Shepherd’s Calender. Such words as prest (ready), liveth (lieveth), sneb, nould, defaste, and the phrase I con thee thanke, are about the only examples. His pastoral poetry, even in such pieces as Geron and Mastia, is devoid of rusticity. * Fletcher, op. cit., p. 440. THE AREOPAGUS 271 contains a discussion of its language which, while not pro- fessing to be complete, is pretty thorough in regard to certain classes of words. Of the first class noted above Herford enumerates four words, one** of which, however, had been circulating in English for a long time; the others are: crumenall (ix, 119), overture (vii, 28), and stanck (ix, 47), all of which are shown to be unfamiliar by E. K.’s glosses. The derivation of the first, which comes from the Latin crumena, and of the second, from the Italian stanco, E. K. does not notice, while he records that overture ‘‘is borrowed of the French’’. To this list equipage (Fr. équipage),*’ Melampode (Lat. melampodion, taken from the Gr.), Tamburins*® (probably from Ital. tamburino), scanne (Lat. scandere), and entrailed (O. F. entreillier) may be added.*® Although the two latter terms had been used previously in England, Spenser gave them a new meaning due to his deri- vation. Under technical terms, chamfered (ii, 43),°° as Mr. Fletcher notices, may be given as an example. The same gentleman cites other instances of this transferred use of words in Spenser, but none are taken from the Calender. Herford has not attempted any such classification in his “Flowre Delice (iv, 1. 144) was used by Dunbar (1503) in The Thistle and The Rose (1. 138), and the New English Dictionary cites previous examples. In the Faerie Queene (II, vi, 16) Spenser has flowre-deluce, which E.K. considers a misusage. “Murray cites an example of the military use of this word also in 1579. *E.K.’s vague identification of this instrument with the clarion bespeaks the newness of the word. “Graseth (ix, 113), perhaps from Latin grassari=to go about, to go rioting about, to rage,—may belong here. Also Oten as applied to reedes (x, 8) may owe its meaning to the Lat. avena, charme (x, 118) its meaning to the Lat. carmen, and tinct (xi, 107) its form to the Lat. tinctus. These words had all been used before in English in allied senses. “ Its technical use is given in Cooper, Thesaurus, Striatus (1565-73), cf. N. E. D. 272 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER discussion of the language of the Calender. With the help of the New English Dictionary, however, I offer the following examples: spring (vi, 53), shole (v, 20), cosset (xi, 46, 206,)** and weanell wast (ix, 198).5? At any rate, E. K. by his glosses shows that he thought the first two words were technical, but the two latter may well have been : dialectical. Murray also gives no figurative use of pyneons (x, 87) before Spenser, which had previously been applied to the terminal segment of a bird’s wing, and then to the wing itself.5* Other words, such as maskedst (i, 24), rovde (viii, 79), pricke (ix, 122), tenor (x, 50), and checkmate (xii, 53), although once used technically, had come by Spenser’s time to be regularly applied to ordinary matters. ‘“New-coinages are ticklish things to pronounce on,’’ as Mr. Fletcher remarks, but Herford has shown the way, and the New English Dictionary is a pretty reliable authority. With the help of these guides the following examples from the Calender may be given: beastlyhead (v, 265), dreeri- ment (xi, 36), embrave (ii, 109), forhaile (ix, 248), forsay, forsayd (v, 82; vii, 69), headlesse hood (ii, 86), overgrast (ix, 130), and merimake (v, 15; xi, 9).5* Forsay and forsayd are not glossed and may therefore have been dia- lectical in Spenser’s time. For cheriping =chirruping * No examples of this word occur between the Domesday Book and Spenser (Murray). °K. K. uses somd (p. 7, 1. 29) summed, full-fledged, and prin- cipals (p. 7, 1. 34) =the two longest feathers in the wings of a hawk, which are technical terms transferred from falconry. % Enstalled (xi, 177), generally spelled installed, had enjoyed at first only the restricted meaning of investing with an office or dignity by seating in a stall or official seat. Its transferred meaning of merely putting or placing in a particular position or place began to appear about 1580. Spenser seems to keep a part of the first meaning, and the term might therefore be considered quasi-technical. * Derring-doe (x, 1. 65) had been previously used by Lydgate as a quasi-compound (Chron. Troy), noticed by Herford (p. 199). THE AREOPAGUS 273 (vi, 55), frowie— musty (vii, 111), mazie (xii, 25), wightly = swiftly (ix, 5), state—stoutly (ix, 45), wnder- saye = to affirm in contradiction to anyone (ix, 91), vetchy (ix, 256), wexen—of wax (xii, 68), weedye (xii, 122), wrigle — wriggling (ii, 7), witeless = blameless (viii, 186), the grosse—=the whole (ix, 185), haske = fish-basket (xi, 16), no previous examples have been found, but they were all probably colloquial or taken from dialects.°* In addi- tion, there are certain words which Spenser uses with a meaning slightly different from the common, such as enchased = engraved, instead of adorned with figures in relief (viii, 7), goodlihead = applied to the person instead of the quality (ii, 184; v, 270), keepe==applied to the objects looked after, instead of to the looking after (vii, 133), and greete—= mourning, as applied to dress, instead of weeping, lamentation (viii, 66). Herford has also classified as anomalies in Spenser’s language certain new uses or forms due to grammatical and etymological blunders. This writer remarks that ‘‘some of his most singular blunders had been made before him”’ (p. lvii), and that they are due to his misconception of pas- sages couched in the Middle English of earlier writers. Undoubtedly many of them, such as renne (viii, 3) = used as past participle instead of as present indicative, yede (vii, 109) used as infinitive and present indicative in- stead of as preterite, and gride (ii, 4) spelled thus, in- stead of gerde, were consciously made to give rusticity to his language, an effect against which Sidney recorded his objection. Such is the amount and such is the scope of the ‘‘learned’’ accretions in the Calender, and it is, of course, evident that they are greatly in the minority in comparison Cf. Wright, Engl. Dial. Dict., where several of these are con- tained. Frowie, mazie, wightly, state, vetchy, witeless, the grosse, and haske are glossed by E. K. 19 274 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER with the ‘‘home-spun’’ revivals. In fact E. K., with whom Spenser probably more nearly agreed at this time than he would have later in life, has let it be understood that the introduction of foreign words, at any rate, formed no part of Spenser’s program.®* It is not in the Calender, where the use of archaisms is required to provide a rustic atmos- phere, but in the courtly descriptions of the Faerie Queene, that Spenser’s ‘‘learned’’ accretions abound. In regard to the elevation of the syntax, the next parallel which Mr. Fletcher draws between the Areopagus and the Pléiade, E. K. has this to say: ‘‘for the knitting of sentences, whych they call the joynts and members thereof, and for al the compasse of the speach, it is round without roughnesse, and learned without hardnes, such indeed as may be perceived of the leaste, understoode of the moste, but judged onely of the learned’’. This difference or im- provement is determined by a comparison with the work of preceding or contemporary ‘‘rymers’’; indeed the advance in syntax from that employed by men like Skelton, Surrey, Wyatt, Grimald, Turbervile, Googe, and others, is notice- able. At the same time, however, ‘‘the syntax of the Shepherd’s Calender is, in comparison with the vocabulary, but slightly removed from that of contemporary verse’’.5? Now, while Sidney and Spenser were certainly both inno- vators in the use of syntax, the kind of innovation in this respect employed in the Calender differs a good deal, for instance, from that in the pastoral songs of the Arcadia. A separate work might indeed be written on this point, which is beyond the scope of the present essay. In gen- eral, however, I will hazard the opinion that the degree of difference in syntax from that in common use found in the Calender and in Sidney’s pastoral poems varies in pro- The Epistle (ed. Herford), pp. 5-6. * Herford, Introd., p. lix. THE AREOPAGUS 275 portion to the degree of rusticity present in these poems of each, and as regards the use of rusticity the difference, both in the opinion and in the practice of the two poets, was at this time (circa 1580) considerable. In reference to syntactic advantages of the English lan- guage Sidney made it clear what he had chiefly in mind: ‘*for the uttering sweetly and properly the conceits of the minde, which is the end of speech, that hath it equally with any other tongue in the world: and is particularly happy in compositions of two or three words together . . . which is one of the greatest beauties can be in a language’’.>* “‘In the invention and use of compound terms,’’ Mr. Fletcher remarks, ‘‘Sidney was rivalled only by Du Bartas’’ (p. 441). Professor Cook, in his edition of the Defense or Apologie, has given a list of fifty-four com- pounds found in this work alone (p. 130). ‘‘Many of these,’’ he says, ‘‘seem to be translated directly from Latin or Greek, rather than borrowed from the French.’’ In the Calender compound terms are few, and, apart from those obviously intended for one word, as heedlesse hood (ii, 86) and lusty-head (v, 204), only five ean be classified as new: well-thewed (ii, 96), new-budded (v, 214),® fyerie- footed (vii, 18), sonne-bright (x, 72), and harvest-hope (xii, 121).°° This poem, therefore, is rather behind-hand with this device, which Sidney has strongly advocated both by precept and example, although Spenser’s later work is full of such compounds.** Two further suggestions in regard to syntax, intended to give ‘‘ampleness to opulence of style,’’ Professor Fletcher has also included in the program of the Areopagus. *° Apologie (ed. Collins), pp. 59-60. Sidney uses new-budding, cf. Defense (ed. Cook) , Pp. 52, 1. 19, ® There are only about half a dozen others in the Calender, all of which were then in common use. * Professor Fletcher, op. cit., p. 442. 276 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER These are (1) allusion, ‘‘especially classical,’? and (2) paraphrase. ‘‘The innovation here,’’ he remarks, ‘‘is of course not of kind, but degree’’ (p. 443). Certainly these characteristics find a profuse illustration not only in the works of Sidney and Spenser, but also in those of their recent predecessors and of their contemporaries. Indeed Spenser’s use of these prevalent stylistic devices of Renais- sance poetry and prose is much better illustrated in the Faerie Queene and his later works than in the Shepherd’s Calender. In the latter, several eclogues give exceedingly few examples of classical allusion,®* while several, it is true, are well fitted out with this piece of poetic mechanism.“ At the same time, the employment of paraphrase also becomes much more noticeable in the Faerie Queene, chiefly by reason of its stanza and its narrative form. While, of course, this device is present in the Shepherd’s Calender, just as it is in the poetry of Surrey, Wyatt, and Grimald, examples do not swarm upon every side. Spenser’s habit of telling time by the firmament, which Lowell instances as “fone leading characteristic’’ of his style, does not find a profuse illustration in the Calender. Warton is the authority to whom Professor Fletcher refers (p. 444), and Warton’s remarks upon Spenser’s ‘‘dilatation’’ are con- ® For conscious and copious use of classical and Biblical allusion several pieces in Tottel’s Miscellany furnish examples (cf. ed. Arber, pp. 97, 98, 100, 103, 105, 137, 197). Grimald was especially strong on this device. ®T find three instances in the ‘‘January’’, three in the ‘‘August’’, four in the ‘‘May’’, two in the ‘‘September’’, and one in the “«February’’. “The March, June, October, November, and December eclogues, and especially the April song, are pretty well provided with classical allu- sion. Biblical allusion receives exemplification in the ‘‘July’’. * These seem to be the only examples: i, 73-5; iii, 116-7; x, 3; xi, 13-16. Lowell draws his examples from the Faerie Queene (pp. 330-1). THE AREOPAGUS 277 cerned only with the Spenserian stanza.°* On the other hand, Sidney’s use of these devices is too often attested both in his poetry and in his prose to require proof,®’ and he, as well as Spenser and many other Elizabethan poets, enriched the style of their language in this respect. On this point my contention is that the Calender, perhaps owing to its rustic dress, does not make any great step in advance over some earlier poets of the sixteenth century in the degree of application of these devices. In regard to metrical innovation, whatever parallels may exist between the purposes of the Areopagus and the Pléiade, Sidney and Spenser seem to have diverged widely in their views. After all has been said and done, the fact remains that from October, 1579, until April, 1580, at any rate, the imitation of classical principles of versifica- tion formed the ostensibly chief business of the Areo- pagus.*® Indeed, everything in the correspondence of Spenser and Harvey upon which the theory of this club’s | existence has been based is concerned with ‘‘our English refourmed Versifying’’.®® In October, 1579, Spenser announced what was a part of the program of Sidney’s circle: ® Warton, Observations on The Faery Queen of Spenser (1807) ‘5 pp. 158-9. * Cf, Professor Fletcher’s remarks on this point (p. 444). Professor Fletcher, who, to my mind, rightly argues that this part of the program of the Areopagus has been given undue impor- tance, remarks that ‘‘theoretically the members of the Areopagus seem to have discussed seriously offsetting ‘balde rymes’ by so-called classical metres in English. Practically, they never published a verse of the ‘reformed versification’’’ (p. 446). That is true, if we do not consider Harvey a member, for specimens occur in his correspondence with Spenser which he published. At the same time, the Areopagus published neither of its so-called manifestos (The English Poete and the Apologie). ® Sub-title of the Three Proper .. . Letters, which, though of later composition, preceded in publication the remaining two. fi mie 278 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER “ And nowe they have proclaimed in their dpewrdyw a generall surceasing and silence of balde Rymers, and also of the verie beste to: in steade whereof, they have, by authoritie of their whole Senate, prescribed certaine Lawes and rules of Quantities of English sillables for English Verse: having had thereof already great practise, and drawen mee to their faction.” This scheme for the ‘‘surceasing and silence of balde Rymers’’ has something in common with E. K.’s dictum: “T scorne and spue out the rakehellye’ route of our ragged rymers (for so themselves use to hunt the letter) which without learning boste, without judgement jangle, without reason rage and fome, as if some instinct of Poeticall spirite had newly ravished them above the meanenesse of common ecapacitie.”™ In regard to the Shepherd’s Calender the significant part of all this is, not that Spenser failed to introduce classical metres into his poem, but that he still clung to certain ‘‘halde’’ rhymes. The July eclogue is couched in the native ‘‘fourteener’’, divided according to common prac- tice, the ‘‘March’’ is written in old-fashioned ballad metre, and the February, May, and September eclogues, together with most of the ‘‘August’’, employ the uneven accentual rhythm modelled upon what were then supposed to be Chaucer’s methods.” Though Sidney did not disapprove of rhyme when he wrote the Apologie, he probably dis- liked irregular native metres, such as the above, for he has left scarcely a specimen of his employment of them.” On the other hand, the varied stanzaic metres of the other eclogues—the ‘‘January’’ and the ‘‘December’’, * Harvey, Works (Grosart), I, pp. 7-8. “The Epistle (Herford), p. 6. *Cf. Thynne’s edition of Chaucer (1542), which prescribes four accents for the reading of his verse, and also Gascoigne, Certayne Notes of Instruction concerning the making of Verse or Ryme in English (ed. Haslewood), pp. 5-7. This was published in 1575. %The Dialogue Between Two Shepherds uttered in a Pastoral Show at Wilton, written in fourteeners, is the only example. THE AREOPAGUS 279 the ‘‘June’’ and the ‘‘October’’, the ‘‘April’’ and the ‘‘November’’—certainly conveyed to Sidney that poetry which he found in the Calender. Such metrical effects Sidney probably had in mind when he commented upon the ‘‘Auncient’’ and ‘‘Moderne’’ systems of versification : “‘the latter (7. e. the ‘Moderne’) likewise, with hys Ryme, striketh a certain musick to the eare: and, in fine, sith it dooth delight, though by another way, it obtaines the same purpose: there being in eyther sweetnes, and want- ing in neither maiestie’’.7* It is possible, therefore, that in these latter eclogues, which deal with courtly subjects as opposed to the more rustic subjects of those couched in native metres, Sidney’s influence was making itself felt upon Spenser. At the same time, however, even if we believe with Professor Fletcher that it is unintelligent to ‘‘limit the business of the Areopagus to its ‘reformed versification’ ’’ (p. 446), we find a distinct difference in the opinion of the two poets in regard to metre at the time of the publication of the Calender. On the one hand, Spen- ser employs old-fashioned homely metres in the more rustic eclogues and imported, or remodelled Chaucerian,” stan- zaic forms and rhythms in the more courtly ones, in a work published when Sidney was protesting against these. ““balde’’ rhymes, and when he was subordinating the kind ing of classical metres on the English stock. After this short-lived ‘craze for the ‘‘refourmed’’ versification had died out among the members of the Areopagus, Sidney and his friends undoubtedly sought to enrich English versifica- tion along the general lines of innovation suggested by Spenser. But the reason that the metres of the Calender cannot be considered to represent the program of this % Apologie (Collins), p. 60. * Cf. E, Légouis, op. cit. by Professor Fletcher, p. 445. 280 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER school is that Sidney and his fellow: Areopagites were at That Spenser himself followed this fashion has ‘cmeall¢ been taken as an indication of his respect for Sidney, and not as proof of any serious belief in this scheme.”® The concluding point in Professor Fletcher’s article is concerned with the literary genres which the Areo- pagus recommended for imitation. In the present dis- cussion this portion of his argument need hardly be treated, for he implies that each member of the Areo- pagus illustrated the new program by essaying certain of the proposed forms,—i. e. Spenser’s contributions were, among others, odes, eclogues, sonnets, and an epic; Sidney attempted the masque, the religious hymn, the eclogue, the sonnet-sequence, and the pastoral romance, for instance; while Fulke Greville in addition essayed tragedy.” Though both Sidney and Spenser cultivated the eclogue, it is evident from the works of Barclay, Googe, and Tur- bervile that this coincidence of practice gave no new genre to English poetry. With Professor Fletcher’s conclusion, the similarity in the ‘‘quasi-propagandist organization’’ and in the ‘‘dis- tinct and innovating programme’’ (p. 452) of the Areo- pagus and the Pléade, I agree heartily. At the same time, while clearly seeing that the reformations. advocated by E. K:-and those put in practice by Spenser find close parallels in the work of Du Bellay and Ronsard, I have attempted to show that these innovations are in many cases at variance with the literary tenets of Sidney, and I Cf. Masterman (1825), I, p. xi; Craik (1845), I, pp. 20-1; Hart (1847), pp. 34-5; Gilfillan (1859), II, p. xiv; Lowell (1875), IV, pp. 277-8. Fox Bourne (pp. 201-3) and Professor Fletcher (p. 446) also do not take Spenser’s interest in classical metres as evidence of a serious purpose. "Cf. Fox Bourne, p. 200. THE AREOPAGUS 281 cannot therefore regard the Calender as representing ‘‘the views and enthusiasm’’® of any organization over which the latter presided. Whether one looks upon the Areopagus as a club devoted to general literary reform with Profes- sor Fletcher (p. 482), or whether one accepts the extreme contrary opinion of Dr. Maynadier, that the ‘‘existence of a literary club with definite membership, known as the Areopagus, is doubtful’’,”® the fact remains that the com- bined literary innovations of Sidney and Spenser bear cer- tain striking resemblances to those of the Pléiade. At the—-- same time, the Shepherd’s Calender, although is is dedi- cated to Sidney, and although it undertakes certain con- scious reforms analogous to those of the Plétade, either attempted changes of which Sidney deliberately disap- proved, as in the case of its archaisms and rusticity, and, in part, in the case of its metres, or else failed to advocate duly other reforms which Sidney recommended, as in the case of the use of ‘‘learned’’ accretions and of digestive methods of classical imitation. In regard to the advocation of other changes in the criticism of their art, such as that which regarded the poet as a bard or vates, Johnson’s remark on Dryden might be applied, that, if they changed, they changed with the nation. Not only had Plato been studied at Cambridge for upwards of forty years before 1579, but other critics besides Sidney, Spenser, and E. K.,—i. e. Drant and Lodge,—were using his writings as authority for their opinions. A Discourse of English Poetrie (1586) by William Webbe, who shows no famil- larity with the work of Sidney,®° although he is prolific in his mention of contemporaneous writers, also sets forth the % Mackail, The Springs of Helicon, p. 83. ” Op. cit., p. 301. = Cf. G. Wyndham, Ronsard and La Pléiade, pp. 55-6. 282 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER Platonic theory of the poet’s art. This has been described s ‘‘of high value and interest as a storehouse of allusion to contemporary poets, and for the light it throws upon the critical ideas of the Cambridge in which Spenser was bred’’.8?, For these reasons, therefore, whatever Spenser’s connection with Sidney and the Areopagus may have been after the substantial completion of the Shepherd’s Calender, it is hazardous to accept this poem as a part of the program of that literary circle.** My theory of the literary influences which brought about the composition and publication of the Shepherd’s Calender can be stated briefly. Considered as a literary, not a polit- ical, work this poem is distinctly a Cambridge production. The men whom Spenser imitated, whether he avowed the relation oy not (in addition to the Latin and Greek authors whom he had studied at school), such as Petrarch, Boc- caccio, Castiglione, and various other French and Italian the University.** The anviant authors whom E. K. has quoted in support of his critical views—Plato, Cicero, Xenophon, Aristotle, Homer, Euripides, Hippocrates, Plutarch, Seneca, Lucian, as well as the contributors to the Bible—lay in the curriculum of the undergraduate or * Cf. ed. Haslewood, pp. 23-5. Although Webbe had studied the critical remarks of E.K., he had not seen The English Poete, the loss of which he regretted. ! ©The Rev. Ronald Bayne in Dict, Nat. Biog., art. Webbe. = Other differences in literary opinion between Sidney and Spenser ' (as represented by the Calender) may be found, but bear less directly on the Shepherd’s Calender than those discussed above. On the degree of alliteration necessary for poetry Sidney would probably have agreed with the protests of E. K. (ef. Apologie, p. 57). Conversely, the statement that verse was not essential to poetry (ibid., pp. 11-12) Spenser probably would not have accepted, judging from his practice. “Harvey, Works (Grosart), I, p. 69. THE AREOPAGUS 283 graduate course of study.** Finally, the work at its com- pletion was referred to the judgment of another Cambridge man, who, in spite of his pedantry, enjoyed the distinction of being held ‘‘learned’’? (Harvey). William Webbe, a member of St. John’s College, who proceeded B.A. in the same year as Spenser (1572-3), certainly regarded the Shepherd’s Calender as a Cambridge production, and has connected it with the poet’s own college.®* The publication of this work was due to the concerted action of these three Cambridge graduates, and, together with the appearance of the Harvey-Spenser correspond- ence, represented a species of literary advertisement. Spenser, like Virgil and like Ronsard, aspired to be the New Poet of his country, and he first sought an audience and tested his wings in the low-flying pastoral. In the revival of ancient words this trio of friends stood agreed, in opposition to Sidney,*? and the national aspect of the poem they emphasized by the acknowledgment of Chaucer as the well-spring of English poetry and as the master of their.-New...Poet. The mystery which surrounded the author, the commentator, the heroine, and various indi- viduals in the. poem, as well as the praise of Queen Eliza- beth and the Karl of Leicester, was partly intended to whet the curiosity of the book-buyer and to stimulate the jaded palates of worldly readers, although this air of con- cealment was also due to the Puritan nature of the attacks * Cf. Harvey, ibid. ; Mullinger, I, pp. 110-1, 401-39 (passim) ; and Ascham, The Scholemaster, bk. 2, passim, who is prescribing a course of study based largely on his connection with Cambridge. I+ is notice- able that Sidney, who was not a Cambridge man, differs widely from E. K. in the authorities upon whom he draws, and also sometimes in his opinion of the ones mentioned by both. *%* A Discourse of English Poetrie (Haslewood), p. 36. For Harvey’s regard for archaism, cf. Prof. Fletcher, op. cit., p. 439. / 284 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER against the policy of the government. The pains-taking elucidations of the commentator indicate how anxious the promoters were that the book should receive a wide cir- culation. Only one thing remained, to find a patron for this work, and several lay near at hand among the residents or habitués of Leicester House, with whom the secretarial nature of Spenser’s duties brought him in contact. Not- withstanding E. K.’s remark in April, 1579, that the poet had ‘‘dedicated it to the Noble and worthy Gentleman, the right worshipful Ma. Phi. Sidney’’,®* the poet still wavered in his selection as late as October of the same year. Evi- dently Harvey, who hoped to receive recognition as a liter- ary dictator through the success of the poem, wished Spen- ser to dedicate it to Leicester.°® But the poet demurred; he probably felt doubtful whether Leicester would stand sponsor for the Puritan satire if Burghley and the Angli- cans ascertained its true bent, for the Earl and his friends in the autumn of 1579 Jay under a cloud on account of the Queen’s discovery of his marriage with the Countess of Essex and on account of his opposition to the French match. The praise of Grindal and the attack on Lord North, Leicester’s friend and connection by marriage,*° would likewise have been unacceptable to this nobleman. Yet Spenser wished to make his bid for fame, and among all his compositions at this time—the Dreames, Legendes, Cf. the Epistle. This was introduced probably for the public, in order that it might be understood that Spenser intended no slight to his most intimate friend, Harvey, by failing to inscribe to him the first fruits of his poetry. “Cf. letter of Spenser, October 5 (16), 1579 (Harvey, Works, I, p. 6). Lord North married the widow of Sir Henry Dudley, an elder brother of Leicester (Cooper, Athenae, II, p. 292). My interpreta- tion of the September eclogue identifies him with the Wolf. THE AREOPAGUS 285 Court of Cupide, ““My Slomber and the other pamph- lets,’’9 The English Poete, ete.—the Shepherd’s Calender alone had reached that stage which would warrant pub- lication. Perhaps he enlightened Sidney in regard to the scope of the‘ Puritan satire, or perhaps he disclosed only half the truth. At any rate, he had been made cautious by the reception which Sidney had accorded Gosson’s The School of Abuse, which had been dedicated to him without authorization, and he probably felt that in spite of the celebration of Lecister in two eclogues he had better emphasize the literary, rather than the polit- ical, aspect of the poem, by inscribing it to the young twenty-five-year-old Sidney, ‘‘a special favourer and main- tainer of all kind of learning’’. Spenser was putting his fortune to the touch in an en- deavor to acquire political advancement at the hands of Leicester and his party, through the fame which his poem would bring, and through the material assistance which he hoped to give them by the Puritan nature of his satire. At the same time, he camé to find out after his connection with Leicester that certain matters touched upon in his poem would be disagreeable to the Earl if discovered by him. Yet he was unwilling to put off his bid for fame, and he had no other work sufficiently advanced to put forth in the place of the Calender. Rather than injure the purely literary side of his poem by omitting certain eclogues—the ‘‘July’’ and ‘‘September’’—he chose to em- phasize the literary projects of the work by the dedication to Sidney, with the hope that his patrons would fail to per- ceive, or, if they discerned, would fail to take offence at, the objectionable contents. If Leicester and Sidney had not been in disgrace at this time,—7. e. from the summer of 1579 until several months of the following year had elapsed, “Cf. Harvey, Works, I, p. 8. 286 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER —perhaps Spenser might have secured political employ- ment in England. But, as matters turned out, the poet over-estimated the regard which Leicester entertained for him. Sidney, therefore, acted as the patron of Spenser’s eclogues just as Gallus had done in the case of Virgil’s.® As an employé of his uncle’s, as a supporter of the Puri- tan party, and as a poet and a scholar, Spenser interested him in their somewhat casual association. Although this poet and his critical supporter, E. K., then entertained and urged certain reformations in. English. -poetry with which Sidney disagreed, or “failed to support adequately other innovations which he cherished, the latter acted as a patron of the New Poet probably without examining his work very carefully. After this poem had been planned and executed, certain literary views of Spenser, such as those connected with rusticity of style, archaic diction, and old-fashioned metres, partly no doubt through asso- ciation with Sidney and other courtiers underwent a change. Owing to these new influences Spenser’s later work—the Faerie Queene, many of the poems in the vol- ume of Complaints, the Amoretti, and the Epithalamion— may be held to represent the program of the Areopagus, but the Shepherd’s Calender, which was probably largely written before Spenser knew Sidney and probably before the Areopagus had been organized, was an expression and example of theories for the reformation of English poetry differing from Sidney’s to an extent that renders it hazard- ous to consider this work as the mouth-piece of that society. vi. THe BiocraPHy or SPENSER (1576-1580) “A From the time of the earlier writers on the life of Spenser to the authorities of the present day the Shep- #<«The new Virgil had found his Gallus’’ (Mackail, The Springs of Helicon, p. 81). BIOGRAPHY OF SPENSER 287 herd’s Calender has been used to illustrate his biography during the years which immediately preceded its appear- ance. It is seldom that any two writers agree on the exact course of events in his life during this period, a result not altogether surprising in view of the inferential nature of the information bearing upon this subject. The upshot, however, has been that a great deal of biographical lumber has been accumulated which has enjoyed a more or less wide acceptance and the questionable nature of which it is necessary to point out in the beginning. From the poet’s commencement in the degree of M.A. on June 26, 1576,1 until October 15, 1579, the date of his first letter to Harvey,? the following is the sole bit of authentic evidence which furnishes a definite date: from a note in a copy of Copland’s edition of the old romance of Howle- glas, now contained in the Bodleian library, it is known that Spenser presented Harvey with this work on Decem- ber 20, 1578, at London, playfully binding him to read it before the approaching first of January on the penalty of forfeiting a four-volume edition of Lucian.? This estab- lishes the fact that Spenser was in London at this time. In three other instances information of questionable accuracy has been used in support of alleged dates and facts in the life of the poet at this period. In the View of the Present State of Ireland, written in the last few years of his life, 1Cf. H. J. Todd, Life of Spenser, prefixed to Vol. I of his edition, p. i, who quotes the MSS. notes of Dr. Farmer in the first volume of Hughes’s second edition (1750) and also Chalmers’s Suppl. Apology, ete., p. 23. ? The date given at the end of this letter, October 5, is invalidated by the following remark which it contains: ‘‘thus much was written at Westminister yesterday: but comming this morning, beeyng the sixteenth of October, to Mystresse Kerkes,’’ etc., cf. Harvey, Works, I, p. 8. porate Annals of the Bodleian Library, p. 92. 288 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER Irenaeus, who seems to represent the poet, remarks that he had witnessed at Limerick the execution of Murrough O’Brein, ‘‘a notable traytour’’,* which took place on July 1, 1577.5 This finds apparent corroboration in a statement by Edward Phillips, the nephew of Milton, who declared in his Theatrum Poetarum Anglicanorum (1675) that Spenser went to Ireland as secretary to Sir Henry Sidney,*® whose last Lord Deputyship lasted from August 5, 1575, until September 12, 1578.” John Aubrey, the seventeenth century antiquarian, in his Lives of Eminent Men gives another biographic bit of news under Spenser: ‘‘Mr. Samuel Woodford (the poet who paraphras’d the Psalmes) lives in Hampshire, near Alton, and he told me that Mr. Spenser lived sometime in those parts.’’ Grosart, while admitting that no date was given, attempted to make capital out of the above piece of gossip for this period of Spenser’s life.2 Aubrey’s author- ity, Woodford, whom Grosart has made ‘‘the confidant of Sidney and his sister Mary, Countess of Pembroke’’, was not born until 1636,° when Sidney had been dead just half a century, and his sister fourteen years. Alton, moreover, lay over forty miles distant from the residence of the Countess at Wilton and, therefore, scarcely in its neighbor- hood. But Aubrey is never very accurate, and this current failing, together with the lack of mention of a date, renders this material useless for the life of Spenser during the years 1576-1580. Phillips also cannot be trusted, not only on account of his loose manner of writing biography in ‘Globe ed., p. 636. ° Cf. letter of Sir Wm. Drury, July 8 (1577), in Cal. Carew USS., 1575-1588, p. 104. ° Edition of 1800 by Sir Egerton Brydges, p. 148. * Article on Sir Henry Sidney, Dict. Nat. Biog. ® Spenser, Works, I, pp. 130-1. * Article on Woodford, Dict. Nat. Biog. BIOGRAPHY OF SPENSER 289 general, but, specifically, because he makes Sir Henry the “‘brother’’ of Philip Sidney, represents Spenser as return- ing with him after Philip’s death (1586),1° and knows nothing of the poet’s connection with Lord Grey." The remarks of Irenaeus in the View is the most credible of the three, but it is unwise to insist too rigorously on his absolute identification with the poet on all matters of detail.127 On the whole, then, these pieces of biographical evidence are at present unsuitable for the elucidation of Spenser’s movements, and should be held in reserve until they receive support from fresh information. From the Shepherd’s Calender and from the Harvey- Spenser correspondence knowledge is gained of one of the most important facts in Spenser’s whole life—. e. that he made the acquaintance of Sir Philip Sidney and his uncle, the Earl of Leicester, at this period (circa 1578-9). Of the origin of this connection nothing is definitely known, yet any work upon the Calender would be incomplete with- out some speculative discussion of it, and this I now pro- pose to give. In order to treat this event in a proper light, however, it will be first necessary to invalidate another theory which has received currency in many quarters—the association of the Shepherd’s Calender with the life of the poet in north-east Lancashire. The foremost, not the first, advocate of this theory has been the late Dr. Grosart. The best refutation of it appeared in an article on Spenser’s Rosalind by P. W. Sir Henry Sidney died May 5, 1586. “4 Mitford, I, p. xv, records how the statement of Phillips prob- ably originated. “Cf. the forcible description of the death and funeral of the Earl of Leicester in The Ruines of Time (Globe ed., p. 491) uttered in character by the spirit of Verulam, but which from its very nature might be accepted as evidence of Spenser’s presence in England at this date, if outside information to the contrary had been lacking. 20 290 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER Long in Anglia for 1908 (Vol. XXXI). A repetition of Mr. Long’s arguments, supplemented by some of my own, I believe necessary in a work of this kind, in order to destroy this theory set forth by Grosart and others, which many writers have been content to swallow bait, hook, line, and all.18 The basis of this theory harks back to an article by F. C. Spencer in the Gentleman’s Magazine (1842),\* which owes a great deal of its authority to a communication of John Travers of Birch Hill, Cork, in Ireland.** The latter, who claimed a descent from a John Travers of county Cork, the husband of a certain Sarah Spenser, asserted to be the poet’s sister, stated ‘‘that he himself descended from a Lancashire stock’’ and that these Spensers ‘‘were from Lancashire’’.1* This ancestor he described as the ‘‘eldest son of Brian Travers, of Nateby in Lancashire, Esq.’’ The inaccuracy of this statement Grosart admitted, for he found that ‘‘the only one of this name who occurs in local records of the period is a Brian Travers’’ of Halton in Cheshire. Although this place is thirty miles distant, as the crow flies, from Preston,’ near which the main family of Travers lived, Grosart connected Brian Travers with the latter. The relation of the Irish John Travers who married a Sarah Spenser to the Travers family of Lanca- shire is therefore entirely hypothetical. From this untrustworthy evidence F. C. Spencer pro- *The most eminent of these are Professor C. H. Herford, Mr. Sidney Lee, and Mr. J. W. Hales. “Vol. XVIII, 2nd ser., pp. 138-43. In The Patrician, V, p. 54. * Quoted in F. C. Spencer’s article, p. 139. A great many mistakes have been made in the spelling of this last gentleman’s name; the above is taken from his signature at the end of the article in question. 1 Nateby and Tulketh, the seats of this family, lay near Preston, Lancashire, which is roughly fifteen miles distant from the Pendle district. BIOGRAPHY OF SPENSER 291 ceeded to localize the Spensers, who spelled their names with an s, in the Pendle district of north-east Lancashire. He also dilated upon the prevalence of the surnames of Edmund and Laurence (said to be the name of the poet’s second son)1* among these Spensers. Following this lead Grosart, who ‘‘has met with the surname Spencer?® in Inquisitions and Visitations, Wills and Parish Registers, University and School Records, all over’’ certain counties, which form only nine out of a total of forty, however, has affirmed the truth of the following thesis: ‘‘it is a some- what noticeable fact that whilst the surname Spencer— spelled with a ‘ce’, not an ‘s’—is found in most of the coun- ties of England, that of Spenser—spelled with an ‘s’, not a ‘e’—is practically limited—earliest and latest—to a small district in the north-east angle of Lancashire’’.2° This conclusion is entirely unwarranted. Mr. P. M. Buck, Jr. has given a list of names of Spencers and Spensers which he has found in twenty-seven English counties, and which were taken from ‘‘ Wills, Registers, Inquisitions, Chancery Records, State Papers, Domestic and Foreign, Heralds’ Visitations, Accounts, ete.’”+ Under Wills of Lichfield and Birmingham, for example, he has found forty-three Spensers to three Spencers, and under Wills of Glouces- tershire and Wiltshire fourteen of the former to thirteen of the latter. This last bit of statistics shows conclusively that the spelling of the name with an s was not confined * Although the name of his younger brother Peregrine occurs in the Lismore Papers, III (2nd ser.), pp. 79-80, there is no mention of this Laurence. The asserted kinship rests solely on the evidence of Sir Wm. Betham (cf. Globe ed., p. liv), and is not free from suspicion. * Long most unfortunately quotes the name as Spenser in this passage. His various spellings of the name of F. C. Spencer (cf. especially p. 84) are also confusing. » Life of Spenser in Works, I, p. xi. 21 Mod. Lang. Notes (1906), XXI, pp. 83-4. 292 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER to north-east Lancashire.22 As everyone knows, the Eliza- bethans exercised no uniformity in the spelling of proper names. Even the poet’s name is spelled with ac. This occurs in the title page of Colin Clout’s Come Home Again,* in the signatures to the sonnet to Harvey (July 18, 1588) and to the one Prefixed to ‘the Commonwealth and Government of Venice’, in the introductory poem by W. L. before the Faerie Queene, where both spellings occur side by side, in an Irish document among the signatures of the undertakers, and at least five times among the papers of Richard Boyle, Earl of Cork, in connection with Pere- grine.2> The names Spencer and Spenser are everywhere encountered in English documents of the sixteenth century, and the list of the names which I have jotted down in the course of my investigations entirely confirms Mr. Buck’s conclusions.?® From these inaccurate classifications, Grosart proceeded to consider the Calender as a north-east Lancashire pro- duction. Of his two principal theses in this respect the first deals with words: ‘‘that in agreement with the North- 72 Mr. Buck, in the course of his investigation, found one hundred and seventy-three (173) cases of different persons bearing the name of Spenser at this time. % Cited by Long, p. 85. * Cal. Carew MSS8., 1589-1600, p. 61. In the three depositions of Lord Roche, in the three papers discovered by P. M. Buck, Jr., noted in Mod. Lang. Notes (1904), XIX, pp. 237-8, in Bryskett’s Discourse of Civil Life, and elsewhere in the Carew MSS., the name always occurs as Spenser. Grosart is therefore wrong in his statement that ‘‘the poet and his family are almost invariably spelled with a ‘ce’ in Irish documents’’, a remark which Long uses (pp. 84-5). ** Other instances may be met in the critical writings of Meres and Bolton, and in Nashe’s dedication of Christ’s Teares over Jerusalem. * Cf. Dugdale, History of Warwickshire, passim, where he has con- tinually found the names of the Spencers of Althorpe spelled with an 8. BIOGRAPHY OF SPENSER 293 East Lancashire localization of the Family of Spenser, the entire poetry of Spenser has worked into it a relatively large number of Lancashire, and specifically North-East Lancashire, words and idiomatic phrases’’.27 This conten- tion of Grosart, whose uncritical methods allowed him to classify as north-east Lancastrian any dialectical or ar- chaic words and phrases occurring both in the Calender and in the dialect of that district, has been largely dis- credited. The subject is too long to discuss here, and I will therefore refer my readers to the work of Professor Herford and of Mr. Long on this subject. The lists drawn up by the former ‘‘sufficiently illustrate the highly com- posite quality of the language of the Shepheards Calender. However many words and usages Spenser may have bor- rowed from Northern dialects, the language even of the homeliest Eclogues is not substantially dialectical. Dialect words are everywhere freely mingled with cultured words, even with Latin neologisms, which no rustic lips ever fashioned.’’® Of the words beginning with A and B which Grosart classified as north-east Lancastrian,”* Mr. Long found that none were ‘‘distinctively Lancastrian’’,?° a conclusion which agrees with Herford’s. Mr. J. W. Hales, who believed that Spenser visited Lancashire after his departure from Cambridge and that his family origi- nated there,*! in writing of a paper drawn up by T. T. Wilkinson in support of this same thesis stated that ‘‘of no word is it shown that it is distinctively East Lanca- shire’’.22, The antiquarian Walford remarked that the lan- 7 Spenser, Works, I, pp. xlii ff. 8 Introduction, pp. xlvili—Ixvi. 7 Spenser, Works, I, pp. 408-417. * His work is of course based on the New English Dictionary and the English Dialect Dictionary. * Globe ed., pp. xvii—xviii. 2 Folia Litteraria, p. 157. 294 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER guage of the Calender ‘‘is in reality the English language of the sixteenth century, moulded partially, as regards style, on that of Chaucer, and with here and there an obsolete word stuck in to give an archaic appearance’’. He proceeded to point out that the Lancashire words found in the Calender are all in common use to this day among counties further south.** In conclusion, I cannot do better than quote another authority of the present day: ‘‘the asserted Lancashire setting and dialect of the Shepheard’s Calender are uncritical myths: setting and language are not local, but literary and composite, artificial rustic (‘Dorie’) and conventional ‘Arcadian’ ’’.°* This last quotation leads to the other contention of Grosart: ‘‘that North-East Lancashire scenery as dis- tinguished from Southern (e. g. Kent and its dales and downs), and the historically known character of the people of the district, are similarly reflected in the Poems; whilst the places in the ‘Glosse’, etc. can only be understood as applied to North-East Lancashire’’.*> The elaborate argu- ments intended to demonstrate the truth of this thesis have now sunk into a mere curiosity of literary criticism. The discovery of the sources used by Spenser®* and a critical comparison of the Calender with these show conclusively that the setting of the poem is artificial and conventional, and that it therefore does not reflect the scenery of any particular locality. The place-references in the gloss like- wise never point to north-east Lancashire, Kent and % Walford’s Antiquarian Magazine and Bibliographer (1884), V, pp. 229-37. “Fletcher, Encycl. Amer. * Articles by F. Kluge in Anglia (1880), III, pp. 266-74, and by O. Reissert in Anglia (1886), IX, pp. 205-224. Cf. also Henry Morley, Clément Marot, I, pp. 255-75, and II, pp. 20-32. BIOGRAPHY OF SPENSER 295 Surrey being the only counties mentioned either in the text or the gloss.*” 2 Although the statement of Grosart that Spenser visited north-east Lancashire after he left the University is un- founded, the evidence to which he has pointed in the last part of his latter thesis has always been considered bio- graphic. Of this the June eclogue furnishes the chief piece, in which Hobbinol (Harvey) gives Colin (Spenser) the following advice: “ Then, if by me thou list advised be, Forsake the soyle that so doth thee bewitch: Leave me those hilles where harbrough nis to see, Nor holy-bush, nor brere, nor winding witche: And to the dales resort, where shepheards ritch, And fruictfull flocks, bene every where to see:” (Il. 17-22) To this passage Kirke appended the following glosses: “ forsake the soyle (1.18). This is no Poetical fiction, but unfeyn- edly spoken of the Poete selfe, who for speciall occasion of pri- vate affayres, (as I have bene partly of himselfe informed) and for his more preferment, removing out of the Northparts, came into the South, as Hobbinoll indeed advised him privately.” “ Those hylles (1. 19), that is in the North countrye, where he dwelt.” “The Dales (1. 21). The Southpartes, where he now abydeth, which thoughe they be full of hylles and woodes (for Kent is very hyllye and woodye, and therefore so called, for Kantsh in the Saxons tongue signifieth woodie,) yet in respecte of the Northpartes they may be called dales. For indede the North is counted the higher countrye.” From these remarks it is evident that Spenser dwelt in the ‘‘North countrye’’ for some time, and that it was by *Long’s remarks on this subject (op. cit., pp. 90-4) illustrate the emptiness of this opinion of Grosart. 296 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER Harvey’s advice that he journeyed to the ‘‘Southpartes’’. In spite of the conventionality of Spenser’s scenery, and in spite of his imitation of Virgil’s first eclogue,** the gloss clearly points to a biographic interpretation of the text. Long errs in considering the gloss and the text as con- temporaneous expressions.*® As I have already attempted to show, it is highly improbable that they were written at the same time.*® The only certain facts are that at the time to which the poem alludes Hobbinol (Harvey) advised Colin Clout (Spenser) to remove ‘‘out of the Northparts’’, and that at the time when Kirke made his annotations, during the period between September, 1578, and April, 1579, Spenser was living in the ‘‘Southpartes’’. Since Kirke merely selects Kent as typical of the latter region, and since he does not state that Spenser dwelt in Kent, it is unwise to connect this eclogue with the seat of the Sid- neys at Penhurst, as some writers have done.** In the April eclogue it is true that Spenser is described as ‘‘the Southerne shepheardes boye’’ (l. 21), a nobleman dwell- * In his various allusions to this eclogue of Virgil (pp. 79, 80, 85) Long makes the mistake of supposing that ‘‘Tityrus (Virgil) was supposed to speak here of his transfer of residence from Mantua to Rome’’. This is untrue, for the scene is manifestly laid in the country near Mantua (cf. notes in ed. Greenough & Kittredge, Bucolica, p. 35). * Cf. particularly, op. cit., p. 79. “Notice the article on E. K., who composed the gloss between September, 1578, and April, 1579. If we are to accept, as a eri- terion, Spenser’s prevailing custom at this time of allowing a work to remain some while in MS., a good part of the Calender, including the June eclogue, had probably been composed before E. K. began the gloss. “ Long remarks: ‘‘ when Colin is visiting Hobbinoll (June eclogue), since they speak of ‘those hills’ and describe the dales as ‘here’ and as ‘these places’, they must be conversing in Kent’’ (p. 79). But E. K. does not identify ‘‘these places’’, ete. with Kent, merely with the ‘‘Southpartes’’, of which Kent is only a type. BIOGRAPHY OF SPENSER 297 ing ‘‘perhaps in Surrye or Kent’’ (gloss), but this noble- man I believe to have been Leicester, who did not reside at Penshurst. As Kirke, however, identifies ‘‘those hylles’’ ‘in the North countrye’’ with the place ‘‘where he (Spen- ser) dwelt’’ and ‘‘the dales’’ of ‘‘the Southpartes’’ with the place ‘‘where he now abydeth’’, the locality to which the poem refers is worth while to establish, even though its pastoral setting is Arcadian. The surmises of Keightly*? and Long** that Cambridge is this ‘‘North countrye’’ seem to me altogether reasonable. It is certainly more critical to connect this allusion (ecl. vi, Il, 18-20) with a place in which Spenser is known to have resided at about this time of his life, than with imaginary abodes in Lancashire, Worcestershire,“ or Northampton- shire.*° Contemporary documents designate places as in the north which are practically no further removed from London than Cambridge. Here are extracts from letters of the Duke of Norfolk’s servants, which refer to his residence at Kenninghall, Norfolk: ‘‘when the Duke went last from Court to his house in the North;’’** ‘‘Mr. Myddleton and his wife (servants of Norfolk) will be in the north parts about a three weeks hence’’.*7 Now Kirke, who evidently composed the gloss in London, was probably speaking of Cambridge as the ‘‘Northparts’’ in accordance with the prevalent point of view of a resident of London.*® *On the Life of Edmund Spenser, in Fraser’s Magazine, LX, pp. 410-22, 2 Op. cit., p. 85. “Mr. F. G. Fleay identified the home of Rosalind with the vale of Evesham on the strength of an interpretation of Drayton (eel. viii), which connected her with the Cotswold hills (cf. p. 213). *®The Spencers of Althorpe lived in this county. Cy. the surmise in Ralph Church, The Faerie Queen, I, p. xviii. “Green, Cal. State Papers, p. 273. * Cal. Hatfield MSS., i, p. 516. * Notice the following remark of the Spanish ambassador: ‘‘the 298 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER On the other hand, London may be plausibly understood as the ‘‘Southpartes’’, where Spenser would have the best opportunity of receiving preferment, and to which the alle- gorical language of ‘‘shepheards ritch’’, ‘‘fruictfull flocks’’, and the joys of society and poetry—the ‘‘frendly Faeries’’ and the ‘‘systers nine’’—naturally applies. It is noticeable that Hobbinol (Harvey) does not say that he lives in ‘‘these places’’, as Long has inferred ;*° he merely knows of them, or has visited them, and his ‘‘here’’ (1. 23) and “Such pierlesse pleasures have we in these places” (1. 32) are probably only colloquial descriptive expressions. This locality, moreover, is nowhere identified with that of the first stanza. The latter plausibly represents Cambridge, or perhaps Saffron Walden, Harvey’s home, a place where Spenser doubtlessly often visited him in the summer-time. From this point of view Hobbinol’s allusion to ‘‘those hilles’’ is also perfectly intelligible, for through his fellow- ship at the University he was to continue to live in that locality, as the quotation implies, whence he could easily reach Saffron Walden, about fourteen miles distant. As Mr. Long suggests, ‘‘those hilles’’ may have been the Gogmagog hills,°° which are described as ‘‘high’’ by Cam- den® and as ‘‘of a great eminency’’ in another authori- tative work of the seventeenth century.®? The latter adds that the country people told ‘‘fine fabulous stories’’ about Queen has not been at all gratified by the people in the North in consequence of the large number of Catholics that there are amongst them’’ (Cal. State Papers, Span., 1568-79, p. 613). This reference is to the Queen’s progress of 1578, when she went no further north than Norwich. “Op. cit., p. 79. © Op. cit., p. 98. ™ Britannia (ed. by Gough), II, p. 213. RR. Blome, Britannia (1673), p. 50. BIOGRAPHY OF SPENSER 299 them, a statement which accords with Spenser’s allusions to ‘‘night-ravenes’’ (1. 23) and ‘‘elvish ghosts’’ (1. 24), if anyone is anxious to see more than a conventional follow- ing of Virgil, Marot, and others. The preceding, therefore, is my solution of this much discussed reference, which I have felt compelled to give at some length. On Harvey’s advice, then, Spenser left the vicinity of Cambridge and betook himself to London, at some date between June 26, 1576, and December 20, 1578, when Harvey recorded his friend’s residence there in the copy of Howleglas. Of course, the most important event of this period was his meeting with the Earl of Leicester and Philip Sidney. No one knows how or when it took place, and the accounts which various biographers have conjectured differ widely, based as they are on tradition®® or idle speculation. The facts from which critical infer- ences may be drawn I shall briefly discuss. From May 26, 1572, until early in June, 1575, Philip Sidney had been travelling on the Continent. Upon his return in the summer of 1575 he accompanied the Queen in her progress, passing the greater part of July at Kenil- worth, and visiting the seat of the Earl of Essex at Chart- ley, and later, other places, such as Stafford, Dudley, and Worcester. The progress ended at Woodstock on Septem- ber 11.55 In November Sidney was in London, and the following winter he probably resided with his uncle at Leicester House, and employed much of his time in im- proving his acquaintance with the Earl of Essex and with Edward Dyer.** At the end of this period spent at Court —t. e. in July, 1576—he accompanied Essex to Ireland on * Dean Church, for instance, follows tradition (Spenser, p. 23). *T regret to say that this term fairly applies to the account of Grosart, I, pp. 43-68, 130-1. ® Fox Bourne, Sidney, pp. 95-6. * Ibid., pp. 98-101. 300 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER a visit to his father, who had left England the previous August.*7 About October 1 he returned,®* and we find him ‘‘at Greenwich, where the Queen was staying, on the 4th of November’’.®® During the next three months he probably remained at Court.*®° From February 23 until early in June, 1577, he was abroad on a diplomatic mission, on his return from which in July he paid a visit to his newly married sister, the Countess of Pembroke, at Wilton. During this summer, when he was engaged in defending the Irish policy of his father, he remained in strict attend- ance on the Queen. ‘‘Except during the three or four weeks he passed at Wilton in July and August, 1577, and perhaps some other and shorter holidays at Penshurst, Philip seems to have been in almost constant attendance on the Queen for more than two years after his return from Germany; usually going with her when she went to keep Court at Richmond, or Windsor, or any other of her own or her subjects’ houses in the country, and, when she was in London, taking up his abode, at such times as he could be spared from the royal presence, either at Baynard’s Castle® or at Leicester House.’’*? During the summer of 1577 the Queen kept her abode chiefly at Greenwich, owing to the prevalence of the plague, although she paid two visits in Surrey.** On July 27, 1578, however, during her progress through the eastern counties, she was met at Audley End by a deputation from the University of Cambridge headed by Dr. Howland, the Vice-Chancellor. This visit Gabriel Harvey described in his Xatpe, vel Gratulationis Valdi- 7 Dict. Nat. Biog. " Ibid. " Fox Bourne, p. 109. “ Ibid., p. 111. “The London residence of the Earl of Pembroke. “@ Fox Bourne, p. 137. “Nichols, Progresses of Queen Elizabeth, II, pp. 53-64. BIOGRAPHY OF SPENSER 301 nensis, to which Kirke refers in the September gloss. Of the four books in this work the first is dedicated to the Queen, the second to Leicester, the third to Burghley, and the fourth to Oxford, Hatton, and Sidney jointly. In the epilogue to the second book Harvey has described his pre- sentation to the Queen by Leicester, who is made to say that he had intended to send Harvey into France and Italy. This implies some acquaintance on Harvey’s part with Leicester. In the fourth book there occurs a fulsome laudation of Sidney, which, however, implies no previous acquaintance. Indeed, it is probable from the absurdity of its exaggerated praises that Harvey could have known little of the character and tastes of the person for whom he intended them.** Unless, therefore, we are to suppose that Spenser had the good fortune to meet Leicester or Sidney in some chance way—a meeting which seems altogether un- likely on account of his probable residence in the vicinity of Cambridge in 1576-8, which neither Leicester nor Sidney visited from 1569 until the time of which we are speaking,—the progress at Audley End, with its attendant circumstance of Harvey’s doings thereat, offers the most plausible date for the beginning of this connection. Nevertheless, in contradiction to this view of the origin of Spenser’s acquaintance with Leicester and Sidney, which places it somewhat later than most biographers have been disposed to do,** an article®’ published.a few years ago sets “ Harvey, Works (Grosart), I, p. xxxix. *Grosart in his edition of Harvey, I, pp. xxxv-xliii, prints the only parts which relate to Leicester and Spenser, accompanied by translations. “The year 1577 seems to be the one most often used, a result probably due to Phillips’s reference, taken together with the state- ment in the View, to the poet’s employment in Ireland by Sir Henry Sidney. *P. M. Buck, Jr., Notes on the ‘‘Shepherd’s Calender’’, and Other Matters concerning the Life of Edmund Spenser, in Mod. Lang. Notes (1906), XXI, pp. 80-4. 302 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER forth what is the latest theory on the subject. The author of this, Mr. P. M. Buck, Jr., seeks to prove, among other matters, ‘‘that the acquaintance between Spenser and Sid- ney was of much earlier origin’’ than is usually imagined. Using the Calender as the basis for his theory he believes ‘‘that there is in the poem a certain air of familiarity with the Sidneys and the Dudleys which would hardly be con- sistent with the view that the poet was attempting by its means to gain favor with them’’. Of the four pieces of evidence which Buck adduces, the first is the description of Colin Clout (Spenser) in the April eclogue as ‘‘the South- erne shepheardes boye’’ (1. 21). In company with other writers Buck identifies this shepherd with Sidney, on the strength of the gloss-reference to ‘‘some Southern noble- man, and perhaps in Surreye or Kent’’, taken in considera- tion with the actual residence of the Sidneys at Penshurst. Although it makes little difference whether this shepherd was Sidney or Leicester, for no one disputes that he is either one or the other, it seems more probable, on account of the designation of ‘‘nobleman’’, that the poet intended Leicester, as I have elsewhere stated.** Leicester possessed lands in both Kent and Surrey,*®* the Sidneys only in the former, and references in Spenser’s letters show that he served in the employ of this nobleman, a relation well indi- cated by the remark in the April eclogue. The second point concerns the love story of Perigot in the August eclogue, and here Buck, on a hint from the gloss that the allusion is biographiec, feels that ‘‘ we have a covert allusion to the love of Sir Philip Sidney for his Stella, Penelope Devereux’’. As I have also stated in Cf. p. 243. °° Previous to the year 1579 Leicester had received two grants of property in each of these counties, the most important of which was the acquisition of the ‘‘Old Palace’’ at Maidstone, Kent, in 1574 (cf. W. Rye, The Murder of Amy Robsart, appendix xv). BIOGRAPHY OF SPENSER 303 another part of this work,’ Sidney’s biographers and critics agree that his passion for Stella, whether they regard it as real or merely as conventional, evinced itself by his writings only after her marriage to Lord Rich,” which took place at any rate after March 10, 1581, at which date the Harl of Huntingdon, her guardian, applied to the Queen for permission for this marriage. The father of Penelope, the first Earl of Essex, had indeed suggested a marriage between Sidney and his daughter, then thirteen ( years of age, as early as 1576, the year after the young people had met at Chartley. On March 1, 1578, Sidney wrote to Languet that he had no intention of marrying,” and it is extremely doubtful if any of the sonnets intended for Stella were composed until over a year later. The relation between the two had therefore probably not as- sumed a definite enough shape by the spring of 1579 to allow of Spenser’s referring to it. The third piece of evidence used by Buck is the allu- sion to Leicester in the October eclogue as ‘‘the worthy whome’’ the Queen ‘‘loveth best’’ (ll. 47-8). Such refer- ences, however, were common enough, and conveyed nothing more than everyone knew, 1. ¢. that Leicester occupied the first place in the favor of his sovereign. In the second book of the Gratulationes Valdenses, a work celebrating a public festival, Harvey asserted that everyone hoped the Queen would marry her favorite: ” Of. p. 244, ™ Fox Bourne, p. 241; Addleshaw, p. 326; Collins, Memoir prefixed to edition of Apologie for Poetrie, p. xvii; Lee, Dict. Nat. Biog.; J. A. Symonds, chap. vi, especially p. 107. Dr. Grosart in his Memorial Introduction to the Complete Poems of Sidney has dated no sonnet earlier than October, 1580 (p. Ivii). 728, A, Pears, The Correspondence of Sir Philip Sidney and Hubert Languet, p. 144. 304 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER “ Nemo tibi non regificos impertit honores, Expectat Capiti non Diadema tuo. Fata illis ignota Detim: sed quisque precatur Regalis tandem Sponsus ut esse queas’”™ The nature of Spenser’s compliment does not therefore imply that he stood on terms of intimacy with the Earl, although this was probably true enough in the year 1579, and certainly does not indicate an acquaintance which had lasted for several years before the appearance of the Shepherd’s Calender. The last link in Buck’s argument relates to Dido, whom he has identified with Ambrosia Sidney. Although this solution is questionable,* the point at issue concerns the fact that the eclogue (xi) indicates a personal knowledge of some maiden dear to Leicester (Lobbin). This allusion also implies some degree of intimacy, but no more than the poet may have gained after a few months’ employment by his patron. Finally, it is a little difficult to determine how far back Buck would place the origin of the poet’s ac- quaintance with Leicester and Sidney, for he mentions no date.7> Although Spenser had already ‘‘tasted’’ the ® Edition of 1587, p. 5. This part is addressed to Leicester. “Cf. my article on Dido. %* From a passage in the February eclogue, ‘“But shall I tell thee a tale of truth, Which I cond of Tityrus in my youth, Keeping his sheep on the hills of Kent?’’ (ll. 91-3) Buck infers that ‘‘Spenser spent a part of his youth in Kent’’, where he was ‘‘a frequent visitor’’. The clause in the last line, however, may presumably refer to Tityrus—i. e. Chaucer, who lived at Greenwich on the Kentish side of the Thames, and whose Canter- bury Tales are also laid in Kent. Chaucer actually resided in Kenf, whereas no evidence exists to prove that Spenser lived there. This interpretation implies that the poet is guilty of using a loose kind of construction in the text, a proceeding, however, not without paral- lels in his work (eel. ii, ll. 7-8; ix, Il. 174-9). BIOGRAPHY OF SPENSER 805 ‘‘sweetnesse’’ of favors from patrons by October, 1579— plausibly an allusion to the employment which brought him to Leicester House,—there is nothing to show that this connection between patron and poet, master and dependent, had lasted for any length of time. Indeed Spenser’s fear of ‘‘over-much cloying their noble ears’’ by his writings indicates rather a recent connection with his patrons, in the humoring of whose tastes and desires he felt compelled to proceed cautiously. Specifically, however, the plausibility of the theory here offered may be increased by two other considerations. If Spenser had by chance attracted the notice of Sidney or Leicester before the end of his college course, it is altogether unlikely that they would have allowed him to continue in the ignominious position of a sizar. Students so enrolled ‘‘were often called upon to perform offices distinctly menial in character’’, for instance, to act as chapel-clerks, porters, college-cooks, and as valets to the fellow-commoners and pensioners.”* If Spenser attracted the notice of Lei- cester and Sidney by his literary attainments, as he has himself intimated,” it would have been an easy task for them to have recommended him to a fellowship after he had attained the degree of B.A.7 There are few who believe, however, that the beginning of the acquaintance antedated Spenser’s departure from the University. The second consideration arises from a set of conflicting circumstances revolving about the July eclogue which cer- tainly demands explanation. As everyone knows, the con- clusion of this eclogue pointedly alludes to the misfortune *Mullinger, I, pp. 399-400. ™ Harvey, Works (Grosart), I, p. 6. ™ The records of the Privy Council at this time are full of orders secured by favorites for the placing of men in academical positions. Cf. Acts Pr. C., 1575-7, p. 161, and 1577-8, p. 125; Mullinger, I, pp. 71, 268-9. 21 306 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER of Archbishop Grindal, who had been sequestrated from the duties of his see in June, 1577, ostensibly on account of his unwillingness to stop the ‘‘prophesyings’’. It seems probable, however, that his punishment arose also from other matters, and that it was procured by the influence of Leicester. Sir John Harington, who lived in those times, and who would have been likely to know the truth, states that Grindal aroused the wrath of Leicester because he proceeded against the latter’s Italian physician, one Julio Borgarucei, for having two wives, and refused to humor Leicester by dropping the case. This ‘‘great lord’’ ‘‘in- censed’’ the Queen ‘‘exceedingly against him’’, with the result that he was deprived.”* Another contemporary, William Camden, has given the same reason for Grindal’s disgrace.®° It has also been stated that Leicester had his eye on Lambeth palace and that Grindal refused to alienate it from the see.*t Whatever the exact truth of the whole matter may have been, it is clear that stories were circu- lated and credited at that time to the effect that Leicester had caused Grindal’s downfall. The paradoxical situation then arises that Spenser praised the deposed Archbishop of Canterbury, whose disgrace was openly said to have been caused by the Earl of Leicester, in a work dedicated to the latter’s nephew, about the very time that he held some position in the employ of this nobleman, from whose house he wrote in October, 1579. How may these facts be recon- ciled, for they obviously cannot be passeed over in silence by anyone who desires to explore the nature of Spenser’s political satire and its relation to the events of his life? A natural suggestion that Leicester would not have read the poem carefully enough to see that the poet referred in ” Harington, Nugae Antiquae, II, p. 18. » Annals, p. 494. Fuller, Worthies of England, II, pp. 342-3; Froude, XI, p. 101. Fuller also gives the reason stated by Harington and Camden. BIOGRAPHY OF SPENSER 307 terms of praise to Grindal need scarcely be given serious consideration. Spenser’s reference to Sidney’s unfavor- able reception of The School of Abuse, dedicated to the latter without permission—‘‘suche follie it is, not to regarde aforehande the inclination and qualities of him to whome wee dedicate oure Bookes’’*?—indicates caution in selecting a fit recipient for the dedication of the Calender. This prudence he intended to exercise when he resisted the advice of Harvey to dedicate the poem to Leicester, on the grounds that the work was ‘‘too base for his excellent Lordship, being in Honour of a private Personage un- knowne, . . . or the matter not so weightie, that it should be offered to so weightie a Personage: or the like’’.8* Now these letters first appeared publicly in the summer of 1580, when Spenser was about to leave for Ireland, and their contents may have been pruned for publication. At any rate, the poet’s tone is here marked by wariness and by a desire to hint at, rather than name, matters known to his correspondent, and it is therefore probable that the real reasons which caused him to hesitate to offer his poem to Leicester arose from subjects therein treated which would have been unpalatable to the latter. The Puritan drift of the satire levelled at the Anglican policy of Burghley and his associates, the opponents of Leicester, and the flattering allusions in the October and November eclogues would certainly have pleased the Earl and would have been ‘‘weightie’’ enough to warrant a dedication. The praise of Leicester, in marked contrast to the lack of celebration of Sidney, indicates that the poem was first intended for the former. Why then did Spenser transfer the dedication ? The truth, to my mind, as I have already suggested in the discussion of the relation of the Shepherd’s Calender to the Areopagus, is that Spenser came to find out, after = Harvey, Works (Grosart), I, p. 8. 8 Tbid., p. 6. ‘ 308 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER he had been a short time in Leicester’s service, and after he had almost certainly written several of the eclogues, that Leicester had been, or was openly alleged to have been, the cause of Grindal’s sequestration, and that he also regarded Lord North, who had married his brother’s widow, as a close friend,** the same Lord North whom the poet probably attacked in the September eclogue. Rather than defer his bid for fame, which would be best made in this highly composite work possessing so many advantages for the display of his talents, he emphasized the literary aspect of the poem by the dedication to a young man then regarded chiefly as a patron of men of letters, and not as a statesman or political leader. As I expect to show later, Spenser could hope for little from Leicester at the time when the Calender finally appeared, and perhaps he had good reason to suppose that Sidney would not concern himself greatly about matters relating to the private affairs of his uncle. Indeed the intimacy of Sidney with his uncle at this time (before 1580) is rather doubtful, for, although he was the nephew of the royal favorite, he received no favors at Court before 1581, beyond the enig- matical appointment as a gentleman-in-waiting to the Queen.** Neither did Leicester take him sufficiently into his confidence to require his presence at Wanstead in September, 1578, nor did he further Sidney’s union with his step-daughter, Lady Penelope. At any rate, Spenser, probably through lack of tact or through faulty informa- tion, dedicated his work to the nephew of the Earl of Leicester, and thereby made a serious error in judgment, as I shall explain further on.®* North’s friendship with Leicester at this time is clearly prove? by his presence at the secret wedding of the latter and the Countess of Essex, celebrated at Wanstead in September, 1578. * This position brought no salary. Leicester’s loss of favor (1579-80) also had an important bear- BIOGRAPHY OF SPENSER 309 The application of this argument to the origin of Spen- ser’s acquaintance with Leicester and Sidney is simply this: that the poet, in view of the anxiety to please his patrons to which he has fully testified in the letter of October 5 (16), 1579, would probably never have expended his poetical efforts on subjects which were disagreeable to Leicester after he had met him and while he was trying to win his favor.*7 The fact that he published these eclogues touching upon topics unwelcome to his patron in a work dedicated to Sidney probably arose from his unwillingness to injure the literary integrity of a poem by which he hoped to win fame and material prosperity, extenuated by the circumstance that none of the other poems upon which he had been working—i. e. the Dreames, the Legendes, the Court of Cupide, the ‘‘sonnetts’’, and ‘‘sondry others’’ —would display his talents as well as the Calender, even if any one of them had yet arrived at that state which would warrant publication. His desire to appear before the public, combined with other circumstances, overcame his sense of tact, and deadened misgivings on the subject of the allusions to Grindal and Lord North. Owing to the fact, therefore, that the July eclogue could not have been completed before June, 1577, the date of Grindal’s sequestration, the notoriety of Leicester’s enmity to the latter is a strong argument that Spenser could not have known Leicester and the Sidney family until the ing on the time of publication of this work. This relation will be treated at length in its proper place. * The parts of the Calender dealing with Grindal (eel. v, 1. 75; vii, ll. 126, 157, 213-30) might have been easily suppressed without injuring the integrity of the poem, but not so the September fable, which presumably refers to Leicester’s friend Lord North. In the case of the former, the poet perhaps did not care to face the dis- agreeable charges which might have been laid at his door, provided he had ever thought of suppressing these views, such as deserting in the hour of need a former benefactor to himself and to the Puritans. 310 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER summer of 1577 at the earliest. For placing this meeting still a year later there is, unfortunately, no actual proof, but, unless we are to suppose that Spenser encountered either Sidney or Leicester in some chance way on a visit to London, it is plausible to date the meeting from the prog- ress at Audley End, July 26-27, 1578.28 On this occasion his friend Harvey, who knew Leicester and had hopes of being employed by him in some diplomatic capacity,®® probably introduced him to his future employer. After this event the conversation recorded in the June eclogue, which is interpreted biographically by E. K., took place, and Spenser, on the advice of his older friend, decided to leave his present occupation and to seek the favor of Lei- cester and Sidney, who had taken a fancy to him probably on account of his literary gifts. How the young poet had been engaged from the time that he left the University until the summer of 1578 is unknown. This period of his life has been identified with the story of Rosalind by his biographers, in whatever light each one may regard the attachment, and it seems certain that this conclusion is correct. In accordance with my interpreta- tion of the June eclogue as referable to Cambridge, and in accordance with the view that Rosalind was a lady of some social position in whose house Spenser was employed either as secretary or tutor,®® the logical theory of his ex- istence during these two years is apparent. If the state- ment that Rosalind was ‘‘a Gentlewoman of no meane house’’ (April gloss) is to be accepted literally, this lady probably belonged to a family of Cambridgeshire, or per- * Of the presence of either Leicester or Sidney in the neighborhood of Cambridge or Saffron Walden during the connection of Spenser with the University and the two years following, we possess no record. © Cf. Harvey, Works (Grosart), I, p. xxxix; Nichols, Progresses, II, pp. 111-4. © This has already been stated in the article on Rosalind (ef. p. 230). BIOGRAPHY OF SPENSER 311 haps of one of the adjacent counties, which could be num- bered among the landed gentry. Her father may have been a knight or a baronet, but no higher in rank, for, if we are to accept the description of E. K., her family prob- ably did not possess nobility. From this point of view, among the families of Cambridgeshire which belonged to _ the landed gentry, it is worth while to speak of three. The first is the family of Cotton, who owned the manor of Landwade,™ situated at a distance of sixteen miles from Cambridge, via Newmarket. The present head of this house was Sir John Cotton,°? who had married Isabella, the sister of Sir John Spencer of Althorpe. By her this knight had a family of four sons and three daughters, the names of the latter being Alice, Anne, and Sarah. Two of these daughters married, but whether before. Spenser’s residence at Cambridge is uncertain. Their father, at any rate, died in 1593. The other family to which I wish to refer is also a knightly one, that of the Allingtons of Horseheath Hall.*? At the time of which I am speaking Sir Giles Allington was the head of this family, and, out- living both his eldest son Robert and his grandson Giles, was succeeded by his great-grandson Giles on his death in 1586.°* Now the last-named was the son of Giles, who died Nov. 25, 1573,°° by Margaret Spencer, eldest®* daugh- ter of Sir John Spencer of Althorpe. Owing to a confusion in the Allington pedigree in the Visitation of Cambridge * Also spelt Lonwade and Landward. Camden calls it Lanheath. “His lineage, which was ancient, is given in the Visitation of Cambridge, 1575, and 1619 (Harl. Soc. Publ., p. 22); ef. also The Topographer, III, p. 131. * Also spelled Alington, Alyngton. “Burke, Extinct Peerage, p. 4. * Collectanea, Topographica et Genealogica, IV, p. 36. “Baker, The History and Antiquities of the County of North- ampton, I, p. 109, and Collins, Peerage, I, p. 379, name her as the eldest of the six daughters. 312 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER (pp. 15-16) the issue of this marriage is sometimes wrongly given.®” Besides Giles, who succeeded to his great- grandfather’s estates, two other children were born, John and Margaret. Their ages are established by their chris- tenings, viz. Giles on Sept. 18, 1572, John on Aug. 13, 1573, and Margaret on October 9, 1571.°* After the death of her husband, Margaret Spencer married an Edward Elrington of Carlton Hall in Cambridgeshire.*® As a daughter by this second union was married on July 27, 1602,1° it is probable that this lady did not long remain a widow. Her husband has been confused with other Edward Elringtons, chiefly the one who lived at Wither- field or Wethersfield, Essex,?° but his identity is set at rest by the marriage of their daughter, which took place at Carlton. Horseheath is about twelve miles south-east of Cambridge, while Carlton is about thirteen, and at the same time about four miles northerly from Horseheath.?” Now the heads of these three families of ancient lineage were all lords of the manors in which they lived, and were *” Blomefield, Collectanea Cantabrigiensia, p. 33, describes the monu- ment of Margaret, wife of Robert Allington, on which are engraved the names of her progeny, some of whom had been recorded as children of Margaret Spencer in the Visitation. *R. Clutterbuck, The History and Antiquities of the County of Hertford, II, p. 542. * Visitation of Cambridge (Harl. Soc. Publ.), p. 41. 1 Ely Epis. Rec., p. 278. 1% Visitation of Essex (Harl. Soc. Publ.), p. 49. There were several Edward Elringtons living at this time, however (cf. The Genealogist, V, p. 231; Prerogative Court of Canterbury Wills, IV, p. 142; Mar- riage Licenses, London, 1520-1610, in Harl. Soc. Publ., p. 148; Morant, Essex). BR. Sims, Index to the Pedigree of Arms in Heralds’ Visita- tions, gives three families of Elringtons in Essex circ. 1580-1600. Another came from Willesden, Middlesex. The name is by no means Tare in Elizabethan documents. 2. Carter, History of the County of Cambridge, pp. 151, 220. The Allingtons actually owned the parish of Horseheath, BIOGRAPHY OF SPENSER 313 therefore possessed of some wealth and influence in dis- tricts which lay at only a short distance from Cambridge. One of these gentlemen had married the sister of Sir John Spencer of Althorpe, whose family acknowledged the poet as kinsman, and the two others had been successive hus- bands of the same knight’s eldest daughter. The origin of Edmund Spenser’s acquaintance with the Althorpe Spencers and their acknowledgment of the relationship is not recorded. Perhaps, therefore, the suggestion may be made that it arose through those members of this family who lived near Cambridge, whose acquaintance the poet may have made during his residence at the University, and by any one of whom he may have been given employment. As I do not believe that the name Rosalind is an anagram, perhaps the original of the lady praised by the poet is to be found in Margaret Spencer, who, if not a ‘‘Widdowes daughter’’ circa 1576-8, was probably a widow. This, however, like all theories concerning the person of the poet’s heroine, is mere surmise, and can never be rendered plausible to those who accept the word Rosalind as an anagram. Spenser, upon his graduation, might have found employment in many another family of the landed gentry near Cambridge. But, if the setting of the June eclogue has been rightly interpreted as referring to this locality, and if Rosalind was a real person of flesh and blood, who presumably lived within reach of Harvey either at Cam- bridge or Saffron Walden (cf. Dec. ecl., ll. 155-6), the life of the poet may also be reasonably supposed to have been spent near Cambridge during the years 1576-8, Another argument in support of this theory is that none of the references in the various letters of Harvey (Letter Book) to Spenser which mention the meetings of the two friends are referable to a period earlier than circa Janu- ary 1, 1578-9. In his letter of April 7, 1580, Harvey 314 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER alludes to his Anticosmopolita, which still remains ‘‘neither an inche more forward, nor backwarde, than he was fully a twelve-month since in the Courte, at his laste attendaunce uppon my Lord there’’..% The expression “fully a twelve-month since’’ might be stretched to refer to the period about January 1, 1578-9, when Spenser presented Harvey with a copy of Howleglas.1°* No other allusion occurs which can possibly point to a meeting of an earlier date. Hence the conclusion arises that the sepa- ration of the two friends did not occur a long time before January 1, 1578-9, a fact which helps to account for the absence of letters from Harvey to Spenser before this year (1579), especially when the latter so eagerly de- manded news of the University.? Certainly by December 20, 1578, when Spenser pre- sented Harvey with the above mentioned book, the poet was living in London, presumably engaged as some sort of a confidential secretary or diplomatic agent in the employ of the Earl of Leicester. Mr. Sidney Lee conjectures that ‘fone of Spenser’s chief duties while in Leicester’s service was apparently to deliver despatches to Leicester’s corre- spondents in foreign countries’’.1°° If the writer means that Spenser carried these despatches to foreign countries, and not that he merely transferred them to accredited agents of Leicester’s foreign correspondents on their visits to Leicester House, the proposition seems plausible. At the time when E. K. sent the Epistle to Harvey (April 10, 1579) the poet is mentioned as ‘‘being for long time furre *% Harvey, Works (Grosart), I, p. 68. 14 Harvey as a fellow of Trinity would be unlikely to desert his post during term-time. © Op. cit., I, pp. 68-9: ‘‘But I beseech you, what Newes al this while at Cambridge? That was wont to be ever one great Question’’ (Harvey on April 7, 1580). 6 Dict. Nat. Biog. BIOGRAPHY OF SPENSER 315 estraunged’’,!°? a statement which may mean that he had been sent on a mission to a foreign country by the Earl, his master.1°* For some time previous to the winter of 1578-9 Leicester had been in close connection with William of Orange and other leaders of the religious revolt against Spain in the Low Countries. In fact, if the Queen had decided to adopt the Protestant policy favored by almost all of her ministers, an armed expedition was to have been sent to their aid of which Leicester would have been the com- mander. On December 18, 1577, we find Sir Edward Horsey writing his opinion to Davison, the English ambassador in the Low Countries, that ‘‘before Can- dlemas or shortly after’’ the latter would see ‘‘my Lord of Leicester well accompanied’’ in the field against the Spaniards.‘ Although his expectation actually remained unfulfilled until several years later (1585), Leicester evi- dently believed that he might be despatched at any moment, and consequently kept himself informed of the state of political matters in these Spanish provinces, chiefly through the medium of Davison, who was one of his protégés. Without tracing the wavering course of the Queen’s policy in regard to the States of Holland and Belgium, it is enough to remember that, much to the disgust of her Council, she withdrew her support from them and required Alencon to give up his two months’ campaign for their assistance by again dangling marriage proposals in his face (1578). Leicester, however, continued to keep in touch with those at the head of affairs in the Low Coun- tries, 7. e. the Prince of Orange and Duke John Casimir. On December 10, 1578, during the temporary illness of the wTEd. Herford, p. 8, 1. 24. * Lee, Dict. Nat. Biog. ™ Green, Cal. State Papers, Dom., Add., p. 523. 316 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER Queen, Leicester despatched Daniel Rogers,1!° a govern- ment diplomatic agent, on a mission to the Low Countries with instructions which he had signed on his own responsi- bility. At the same time we find him sending over another messenger, one Wilkes,"? and in the following winter still others, who announced or brought gifts to the Prince and Princess of Orange.‘ For the visit of Duke John Casimir at the end of January (1579)?* Leicester and Walsingham, who were now acting together in opposi- tion to Burghley, were responsible, and to prepare for this event several messengers had to be despatched to the Low Countries to make the necessary arrangements.?*° It is evident, therefore, that Leicester’s principal foreign business from the time of the Queen’s progress at Audley End at the end of July (1578), until the Alencon marriage negotiations assumed primary importance in the spring of 1579, was concerned with the Low Countries, of which he entertained hopes of one day becoming the sovereign. Ac- cordingly, it is by no means an unsafe guess that the young Spenser may have been occupied on a mission to these States in the interests of his patron at the time when his friend, E. K., speaks of him as ‘‘for long time furre estraunged’’. The idea of sending Harvey abroad, if we are to believe the latter’s statement in the Gratula- tiones,** evidently came to naught, and the reason may have been that Leicester had found a more prepossessing “Daniel Rogers (1538-1591) had been employed several times previously on the business of the Low Countries. He was a friend of both Harvey and Spenser, especially of the former (cf. Works, I, p. 107). 4 Green, op. cit., pp. 336 ff. ™ Toid. +8 Tbid., pp. 385, 391. ™4 His visit to London lasted from January 22 until February 12. ** Cal. State Papers, Spanish, 1568-79, pp. 644, 648, 4° Works (Grosart), I, p. xxxix. BIOGRAPHY OF SPENSER 317 man of high intellectual gifts who would reflect greater credit upon his patron.1!7 At all events the young aspirant for political advance- ment was once more in London shortly after the date given by E. K. (April 10, 1579), for the ‘‘long Westminster con- ference the verie last Ester terme’’,*® to which Harvey refers in the postscript to his letter dated ‘‘the 10 of this present, and as bewtifull a sunnye daye as cam this summer—1579’’,® took place in the same year.” Furthermore, Harvey speaks of Spenser as ‘‘de London in comitatu Middlesex, gentleman’’ (p. 121), where he prob- ably indulged in the pleasure of attending the play-houses along with some ‘‘lively copesmates’’ (p. 125), and this description indicates that his permanent abode then lay at the metropolis. During June he must have remained there, for Harvey desires him to ‘‘deygne the voutesafinge me by the nexte London karrier that comith downe to Midsomer fayer’’ (June 24) some ‘‘portion’’ of his writings.17+ Of his whereabouts during the remaining months of the sum- “* This journey, of course, could not have commenced until after December 20, 1578, the date in the copy of Howleglas. “8 Works (Grosart), I, p. 124. 4* Tbid., p. 120. “*In this same letter Harvey writes as if he had not communicated with Spenser for a long time, an additional reason for supposing that the poet may have been abroad, where Harvey could not conveniently reach him. Cf. especially the following: ‘‘I still sende abroade amongste my frendes, according to my wontid manners, rather de- siring continuance of entire frendshipp and ould acquayntaunce by familiar and good fellowlye writinge than affecting the commenda- tion of an eloquente and oratorlike stile.’’ (P. 119.) “™ Op. cit., p. 131. The reference to Dr. Humphrey Busby (p. 128), who made various gifts to Trinity Hall, of which Harvey was then a fellow, and who died before July 1, 1580 (Cooper, Athenae, I, p. 425), indicates that this letter was written in 1579. The time of year is established by the allusion to the Midsummer Fair, which took place at the period around Midsummer Day (June 24). 318 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER mer we are ignorant, but it is likely enough that he re- mained in London, holding himself in readiness to depart for foreign climes on the business of his patron. His letter of October 5 (16) of that year indicates that Lei- cester was then thinking of despatching him abroad: “But by my troth, I have no spare time in the world, to thinke on such Toyes, that you know will demaund a freer head, than mine is presently. I beseeche you .. . let me be answered ere I goe: which will be, (I hope, I feare, I thinke) the next week, if I can be dispatched of my Lorde. I goe thither, as sent by him, and maintained most what of him: and there am to employ my time, my body, my minde, to his honours service.’”’!22 Whether this expectation was fulfilled is unknown, but in view of the best contemporaneous information the prob- ability is that Spenser remained in London. In his reply of October 23, Harvey remarks that ‘‘as for your speedy and hasty travell: me thinks I dare stil wager al the Books and writings in my study, which you know, I esteeme of greater value than all the golde and silver in my purse, or chest, . . . that you shall not . . . bee gone over Sea, for al your saying, neither the next, nor the nexte weeke’’.*?8 Those of the poet’s biographers, like Mr. Lee and Mr. Hales,"** who prefer to treat the Latin hexameters of Spenser contained in the letter of October 5 (16) as auto- biographic, are inclined to believe that the poet visited not only France and Italy, but even Spain, the Caucasus, and the far East.2?° Such a contingency, however, seems alto- gether unlikely. Between November 1, 1579, and April 10, 1580, when he wrote from Westminster, Spenser could never have had time to travel to these far distant lands. ™ Harvey, Works (Grosart), I, pp. 16-17. * Op. cit., p. 26. 4 Dict. Nat. Biog. “Cf, Harvey, Works (Grosart), I, p. 15. BIOGRAPHY OF SPENSER 319 Indeed the noticeable imitation of Horace in these Latin verses, as well as the answering comments of Harvey upon the wanderings of Ulysses and Aeneas,1”* sufficently show that the two friends were indulging in rather pedantic pleasantries on the prospect of Spenser’s departing ‘‘over sea’’, If he attended in person to the obtaining of a license for the Shepherd’s Calender on the following December 5, as would seem most natural, there would have been scant time for employment on any foreign mission. My theory of Spenser’s relations with Leicester during the winter of 1580, which I shall now present, also implies that the poet did not depart at this time from his native land. More than one writer has noticed the difference in tone and in subject of Spenser’s two letters which have come down to us, the first dated October 5 (16), 1579, and the second April 10,1580. In theearlier letter the poet alludes to his patrons, Leicester and Sidney, to the ‘‘sweetnesse’’ which he had ‘‘already tasted’’ from their patronage and the necessity to guard against ‘‘over-much cloying their noble eares’’, to his ‘‘late beeing with hir Maiestie’’, to his association with Sidney and Dyer in the project of reform- ing English poetry, and, finally, to his proposed journey abroad, to which reference has just been made. Although literary matters occupy the larger part of this letter, it is clear that Spenser hoped for political advancement at the hands of his powerful patron, Leicester. He warns Harvey, that ‘‘it sitteth with you now, to call your wits and senses togither, . . . when occasion is so fairely offered of Esti- mation and Preferment’’, and reminds him that ‘‘whiles the yron is hot, it is good striking, and minds of Nobles varie, as their Estates’’.?7 He is evidently elated at his connection with Leicester, Sidney, and Dyer, and his desire “8 Ibid., pp. 26-7. ™ Ibid., p. 7. 320 SPENSER’S SHEPHERD’S CALENDER for diplomatic employment becomes unmistakably appar- ent at the conclusion of his letter. By April 10, 1580, how- ever, in a period of six short months, Spenser’s aspirations became somewhat changed. Writing no longer from ‘“Leycester House’’, but from the vicinity of the Court at Westminster, he discusses the systems of Drant, Harvey, and Sidney for the importation of classical metres into English poetry. Of projects he is still brimful, but they are now entirely literary, and among his unpublished works he mentions his Epithalamion Thamesis, his Dreames, his Dying Pellicane, his Faery Queene, and his Stemmata Dudleiana. On political and diplomatic matters he says never a word, and he fails to mention his patron Leicester by name, although the last sentence in the post- script undoubtedly hints at him: ‘‘of my Stemmata Dudleiana, and especially of the sundry Apostrophes therein, addressed you knowe to whome, must more advise- ment be had, than so lightly to sende them abroade,’’ ete.128 Now the nature of this reference to his lost poem in honor of the Dudleys and their relations, which has been substantially identified with The Ruines of Time, proves the fact that the poet intended to be extremely cautious before he published it. The passage in question is also important when taken in connection with a remark made by Harvey in his letter of May 9, 1580,12° which has been previously quoted for another purpose: ‘‘Imagin me to come into a goodly Kentishe Garden of your old Lords, or some other Noble man,’’ etc.2° This ‘‘old Lord’’, who is a nobleman, I take to be the Earl of Leicester, who owned estates in Kent, as we have seen, and to whom Spenser failed to refer openly in his letter of April 10, 1580. With “8 Tbid., p. 39. *¢