No More Learning

At the height of his fame, happiness, and prosperity, Spenser returned for
the last time to Ireland in 1597, and was recommended by the queen for the
office of Sheriff of Cork. Surrounded by his beloved wife and children, his
domestic life was serene and happy, but in gloomy contrast his public life
was stormy and full of anxiety and danger. He was the acknowledged prince
of living poets, and was planning the completion of his mighty epic of the
private virtues in twelve books, to be followed by twelve more on the civic
virtues. The native Irish had steadily withstood his claim to the estate,
and continually harassed him with lawsuits. They detested their foreign
oppressors and awaited a favorable opportunity to rise. Discord and riot
increased on all sides. The ever growing murmurs of discontent gave place
to cries for vengeance and unrepressed acts of hostility. Finally, in the
fall of 1598, there occurred a fearful uprising known as Tyrone's
Rebellion, in which the outraged peasants fiercely attacked the castle,
plundering and burning. Spenser and his family barely escaped with their
lives. According to one old tradition, an infant child was left behind in
the hurried flight and perished in the flames; but this has been shown to
be but one of the wild rumors repeated to exaggerate the horror of the
uprising. Long after Spenser's death, it was also rumored that the last six
books of the _Faerie Queene_ had been lost in the flight; but the story is
now utterly discredited.

Spenser once more arrived in London, but he was now in dire distress and
prostrated by the hardships which he had suffered. There on January 16,
1599, at a tavern in King Street, Westminster, the great poet died
broken-hearted and in poverty. Drummond of Hawthornden states that Ben
Jonson told him that Spenser "died for lack of bread in King Street, and
refused 20 pieces sent to him by my Lord of Essex, and said He was sorrie
he had no time to spend them. " The story is probably a bit of exaggerated
gossip.
He was buried close to the tomb of Chaucer in the Poets' Corner in
Westminster Abbey, his fellow-poets bearing the pall, and the Earl of Essex
defraying the expenses of the funeral. Referring to the death of Spenser's
great contemporary, Basse wrote:--

"Renowned Spenser, lie a thought more nigh
To learned Chaucer, and rare Beaumont, lie
A little nearer Spenser, to make room
For Shakespeare in your threefold, fourfold tomb. "

"Thus," says Mr. Stopford Brooke, appropriately, "London, 'his most kindly
nurse,' takes care also of his dust, and England keeps him in her love. "

Spenser's influence on English poetry can hardly be overestimated. Keats
called him "the poets' poet," a title which has been universally approved.
"He is the poet of all others," says Mr. Saintsbury, "for those who seek in
poetry only poetical qualities. " His work has appealed most strongly to
those who have been poets themselves, for with him the poetical attraction
is supreme. Many of the greatest poets have delighted to call him master,
and have shown him the same loving reverence which he gave to Chaucer.
Minor poets like Sidney, Drayton, and Daniel paid tribute to his
inspiration; Milton was deeply indebted to him, especially in _Lycidas_;
and many of the pensive poets of the seventeenth century show traces of his
influence. "Spenser delighted Shakespeare," says Mr. Church; "he was the
poetical master of Cowley, and then of Milton, and in a sense of Dryden,
and even Pope. " Giles and Phineas Fletcher, William Browne, Sir William
Alexander, Shenstone, Collins, Cowley, Gray, and James Thomson were all
direct followers of Spenser. His influence upon the poets of the romantic
revival of the nineteenth century is even more marked. "Spenser begot
Keats," says Mr.