No More Learning

In personal appearance Spenser was a fine type of a sixteenth century
gentleman. The grace and dignity of his bearing was enhanced by a face of
tender and thoughtful expression in which warmth of feeling was subdued by
the informing spirit of refinement, truthfulness, simplicity, and nobility.
He possessed a fine dome-like forehead, curling hair, brown eyes, full
sensuous lips, and a nose that was straight and strongly moulded. His long
spare face was adorned with a full mustache and a closely cropped Van Dyke
beard.

The _Shepheards Calender_ was published in the winter of 1579 with a
grateful and complimentary dedication to Sidney. It is an academic exercise
consisting of a series of twelve pastoral poems in imitation of the
eclogues of Vergil and Theocritus. The poem is cast in the form of
dialogues between shepherds, who converse on such subjects as love,
religion, and old age. In three eclogues the poet attacks with Puritan zeal
the pomp and sloth of the worldly clergy, and one is devoted to the courtly
praise of the queen. It was at once recognized as the most notable poem
that had appeared since the death of Chaucer, and placed Spenser
immediately at the head of living English poets.

In 1580 Spenser went over to Ireland as private secretary to Lord Grey of
Wilton, the Artegall of the Legend of Justice in the _Faerie Queene_. After
the recall of his patron he remained in that turbulent island in various
civil positions for the rest of his life, with the exception of two or
three visits and a last sad flight to England. For seven years he was clerk
of the Court of Chancery in Dublin, and then was appointed clerk to the
Council of Munster. In 1586 he was granted the forfeited estate of the Earl
of Desmond in Cork County, and two years later took up his residence in
Kilcolman Castle, which was beautifully situated on a lake with a distant
view of mountains. In the disturbed political condition of the country,
life here seemed a sort of exile to the poet, but its very loneliness and
danger gave the stimulus needed for the development of his peculiar genius.

"Here," says Mr.
Stopford Brooke, "at the foot of the Galtees, and bordered
to the north by the wild country, the scenery of which is frequently
painted in the _Faerie Queene_ and in whose woods and savage places such
adventures constantly took place in the service of Elizabeth as are
recorded in the _Faerie Queene_, the first three books of that great poem
were finished. " Spenser had spent the first three years of his residence at
Kilcolman at work on this masterpiece, which had been begun in England,
under the encouragement of Sidney, probably before 1580. The knightly
Sidney died heroically at the battle of Zutphen, in 1586, and Spenser
voiced the lament of all England in the beautiful pastoral elegy
_Astrophel_ which he composed in memory of "the most noble and valorous
knight. "

Soon after coming to Ireland, Spenser made the acquaintance of Sir Walter
Raleigh, which erelong ripened into intimate friendship. A memorable visit
from Raleigh, who was now a neighbor of the poet's, having also received a
part of the forfeited Desmond estate, led to the publication of the _Faerie
Queene_. Sitting under the shade "of the green alders of the Mulla's
shore," Spenser read to his guest the first books of his poem. So pleased
was Raleigh that he persuaded the poet to accompany him to London, and
there lay his poem at the feet of the great queen, whose praises he had so
gloriously sung. The trip was made, Spenser was presented to Elizabeth, and
read to her Majesty the three Legends of Holiness, Temperance, and
Chastity. She was delighted with the fragmentary epic in which she heard
herself delicately complimented in turn as Gloriana, Belphoebe, and
Britomart, conferred upon the poet a pension of ? 50 yearly, and permitted
the _Faerie Queene_ to be published with a dedication to herself. Launched
under such auspices, it is no wonder that the poem was received by the
court and all England with unprecedented applause.

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.