No More Learning

The next year while still in London, Spenser collected his early poems and
issued them under the title of _Complaints_. In this volume were the _Ruins
of Time_ and the _Tears of the Muses_, two poems on the indifference shown
to literature before 1580, and the remarkable _Mother Hubberds Tale_, a
bitter satire on the army, the court, the church, and politics. His
_Daphnaida_ was also published about the same time. On his return to
Ireland he gave a charming picture of life at Kilcolman Castle, with an
account of his visit to the court, in _Colin Clout's Come Home Again_. The
story of the long and desperate courtship of his second love, Elizabeth,
whom he wedded in 1594, is told in the _Amoretti_, a sonnet sequence full
of passion and tenderness. His rapturous wedding ode, the _Epithalamion_,
which is, by general consent, the most glorious bridal song in our
language, and the most perfect of all his poems in its freshness, purity,
and passion, was also published in 1595. The next year Spenser was back in
London and published the _Prothalamion_, a lovely ode on the marriage of
Lord Worcester's daughters, and his four _Hymns_ on Love and Beauty,
Heavenly Love, and Heavenly Beauty. The first two _Hymns_ are early poems,
and the two latter maturer work embodying Petrarch's philosophy, which
teaches that earthly love is a ladder that leads men to the love of God. In
this year, 1596, also appeared the last three books of the _Faerie Queene_,
containing the Legends of Friendship, Justice, and Courtesy.

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.