At other times he casts to sue the chace

Of swift wild beasts, or run on foot a race,

T'enlarge his breath (large breath in arms most needful),
Or else by wrestling to wax strong and heedful;

Or his stiff arms to stretch with yewen bow,
And manly legs, still passing to and fro,
Without a gownéd beast him fast beside,
A vain ensample of the Persian pride,
Who after he had won th' Assyrian foe
Did ever after scorn on foot to go.
Thus when this courtly gentleman with toil
Himself hath weariéd, he doth recoil
Unto his rest, and there with sweet delight
Of music's skill revives his toiléd spright;
Or else with loves, and ladies' gentle sports,
The joy of youth, himself he recomforts:
Or lastly, when the body list to pause,
His mind unto the Muses he withdraws;
Sweet lady Muses, ladies of delight,

Delights of life, and ornaments of light,

With whom he close confers with wise discourse,

Of Nature's works, of Heaven's continual course, Of foreign lands, of people different,

Of kingdoms' change, of divers government,

Of dreadful battails, of renowned knights;

With which he kindleth his ambitious sprights

To like desire and praise of noble fame,
The only upshot whereto he doth aim.
For all his mind on honour fixéd is,
To which he levels all his purposes,
And in his prince's service spends his days,
Not so much for to gain, or for to raise
Himself to high degree, as for his grace,
And in his liking to win worthy place,

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60

Through due deserts, and comely carriage,
In whatso please employ his personage,
That may be matter meet to gain him praise;
For he is fit to use in all assays,

Whether for arms and warlike amenance,1
Or else for wise and civil governance.

For he is practis'd well in policy,

And thereto doth his courting most apply:
To learn the enterdeal of princes strange,
To mark th' intent of counsels, and the change
Of states, and eke of private men some-while,
Supplanted by fine falsehood and fair guile;
Of all the which he gathereth what is fit,
T'enrich the storehouse of his powerful wit,
Which through wise speeches and grave conference
He daily ekes, and brings to excellence.

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It is in Spenser's "Mother Hubberd's Tale," and in relation to the practices at court of Fox and Ape, that the well-known lines occur

So pitiful a thing is suitor's state!
Most miserable man, whom wicked fate
Hath brought to court, to sue for had-I-wist,*
That few have found, and many one hath mist;
Full little knowest thou that hast not tried,
What hell it is, in suing long to bide;

To lose good days that might be better spent ;
To waste long nights in pensive discontent;
To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow;
To feed on hope, to pine with fear and sorrow;
To have thy prince's grace, yet want her peer's;
To have thy asking, yet wait many years;
To fret thy soul with crosses and with cares;
To eat thy heart through comfortless despairs;
To fawn, to crouch, to wait, to ride, to run,
To spend, to give, to want, to be undone.
Unhappy wight, born to disastrous end,
That doth his life in so long tendance spend.
Whoever leaves sweet home, where mean estate
In safe assurance, without strife or hate,
Finds all things needful for contentment meek,
And will to court, for shadows vain to seek,
Or hope to gain, himself a daw will try:3
That curse God send unto mine enemy.
For none but such as this bold ape unblest
Can ever thrive in that unlucky quest;
Or such as hath a Reynold to his man,

That by his shifts his master furnish can.

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Spenser having returned to Ireland, the grant was made or confirmed to him in October, 1591, of Kilcolman Castle, where he was living in the following

1 Amenance, carriage, behaviour. So Phineas Fletcher writes m "The Purple Island:"

"The Island's king, with sober countenance,

Aggrates the knights who thus his right defended;
And with grave speech and graceful amenance
Himself, his state, his spouse, to them commended."

2 Enterdeal, dealing between one another.

3 Ekes, increases. First-English "écan," to increase. Had-I-wist, spelt often as one word, was a phrase to express the mood of a man who has thoughtlessly got himself in a difficulty through "unforeseen circumstances," and cries, "If I had only known," &c. &c. A poem in the "Paradise of Dainty Devices" is called "Beware of Had-I-Wyst."

3 Himself a daw will try. A daw was proverbial for a foolish bird.

December, when he finished "Colin Clout's Come Home Again," describing therein what he had seen at the English court. This poem was not published until 1595, and in the same year appeared his love sonnets entitled "Amoretti," and his "Epithalamion, or Marriage Song."

Spenser was too profoundly earnest to write merely conventional verse. His "Amoretti" were poems designed to represent pure love as it should be, and as his own was, the true man's helper to the love of God. Although not formally so divided, they are in two parts, representing such love both during the suit and after the acceptance and the marriage. A line of division may be drawn between the sixtyfirst and sixty-second sonnets. His own marriage was on St. Barnabas Day, the 11th of June, 1594, and in his works it is associated by the "Amoretti and the " Epithalamion" with verse that paints for all eyes and all days the beauty of the marriage of true minds. His queen, his mother, and his wife, who was golden-haired (sonnets 37, 73, 81), were all Elizabeths, and the gift he ascribed to his wife's love was the lifting of his mind.

You frame my thoughts, and fashion me within ;
You stop my tongue, and teach my heart to speak; 10
You calm the storm that passion did begin,
Strong thro' your cause, but by your virtue weak.
Dark is the world, where your light shinéd never;
Well is he born, that may behold you ever.

A MIND UNSETTLED.

Great wrong I do, I can it not deny,

To that most sacred empress my dear dread, Not finishing her Queen of Faery, That mote enlarge her living praises dead: But Lodwick,2 this of grace to me aread; Do ye not think th' accomplishment of it Sufficient work for one man's simple head, All were it as the rest, but rudely writ? How then should I, without another wit, Think ever to endure so tedious toil? Sith that this one is tost with troublous fit Of a proud love, that doth my spirit spoil. Cease then, till she vouchsafe to grant me rest, Or lend you me another living breast.

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type of a foolish man. "Try" was used in the sense of "fare." In Mr. Halliwell's "Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words," "How de try?" is given as Exmoor for "How d'ye do?"

1 The structure of Spenser's sonnets, it will be observed, is of his own devising. With rare exception (as in the one here named "Love's Living Fire"), each consists of three interlaced quatrains of alternate rhyme and a final couplet. The quatrains are interlaced by making the second rhyme of one the first rhyme of the next that follows, thus: a b a b, b c bc, e de d, ee. The consequence of this arrangement is that the first eight lines of such a sonnet answer to the measure known in France as that of the chant-royal, which is the

Love-learned letters to her eyes to read:

Which her deep wit, that true heart's thought can spell, Will soon conceive, and learn to construe well.

HARD TO WIN.

Do I not see that fairest images

Of hardest marble are of purpose made,

For that they should endure through many ages,

Ne let their famous monuments to fade?

Why then do I, untrain'd in lover's trade,

Her hardness blame, which I should more commend?

Sith never aught was excellent assayed,

Which was not hard t' atchieve and bring to end;

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Ne aught so hard, but he that would attend,
Mote soften it and to his will allure:

So do I hope her stubborn heart to bend,
And that it then more steadfast will endure;
Only my pains will be the more to get her,
But having her my joy will be the greater.

measure of a Spenserian stanza down to the ninth line, its closing Alexandrine.

2 Lodwick, Lodovick or Lewis Bryskett, a familiar friend of Spenser's, from whose translation of Giraldi's Ethics, set in a framework of original dialogue, we have an often quoted reference to Spenser's ethical purpose in writing the "Faerie Queene."

TO HER THAT IS MOST ASSURED TO HERSELF.

I.

Weak is th' assurance that weak flesh reposeth
In her own power, and scorneth others' aid;
That soonest falls when as she most supposeth
Herself assur'd, and is of nought afraid.
All flesh is frail, and all her strength unstaid,
Like a vain bubble blowen up with air;
Devouring time and changeful chance have prey'd
Her glorious pride, that none may it repair.

Ne none so rich or wise, so strong or fair,

But faileth, trusting on his own assurance;

And he that standeth on the highest stair

Falls lowest for on earth nought hath endurance.

Why then do ye, proud fair, misdeem so far,

That to yourself ye most assured are?

II.

Thrice happy she, that is so well assur'd
Unto herself, and settled so in heart,
That neither will for better be allur'd,

Ne fears to worse with any chance to start;

But like a steady ship, doth strongly part

The raging waves, and keeps her course aright; Ne aught for tempest doth from it depart,

Ne aught for fairer weather's false delight.
Such self-assurance need not fear the spight

Of grudging foes, ne favour seek of friends;
But in the stay of her own steadfast might,
Neither to one herself nor other bends.
Most happy she that most assur'd doth rest,
But he most happy who such one loves best.

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The next sonnets are from those which celebrate love happily returned :—

NEW YEAR, NEW LIFE.

The weary year his race now having run,
The new begins his compass'd course anew:
With shew of morning mild he hath begun,
Betokening peace and plenty to ensue:

1 All those forty. If Spenser was forty years old in 1593, he was born in 1553; but as a poet of thirty-nine or forty-one would assuredly not put the odd number into his sonnet, but write himself "forty," this evidence of the sonnet does not fix a date conclusively.

So let us, which this change of weather view, Change eke our minds, and former lives amend; The old year's sins forepast let us eschew,

And fly the faults with which we did offend. Then shall the new year's joy forth freshly send Into the glooming world his gladsome ray; And all these storms which now his beauty blend Shall turn to calms, and timely clear away. So likewise, Love, cheer you your heavy spright, And change old year's annoy to new delight.

LOVE'S LEAGUE.

The doubt which ye misdeem, fair Love, is vain,
That fondly fear to lose your liberty;

When losing one, two liberties ye gain,

And make him bound that bondage erst did fly.
Sweet be the bands, the which true love doth tie,
Without constraint, or dread of any ill:
The gentle bird feels no captivity

Within her cage, but sings, and feeds her fill.
There Pride dare not approach, nor Discord spill

The league 'twixt them, that loyal Love hath bound; But simple Truth and mutual Good-will

Seeks with sweet Peace to salve each other's wound: There Faith doth fearless dwell in brazen tower, And spotless Pleasure builds her sacred bower.

EASTER DAY.

Most glorious Lord of Life, that on this day
Didst make thy triumph over Death and Sin;
And having harrow'd hell, didst bring away
Captivity thence captive, us to win:

This joyous day, dear Lord, with joy begin,
And grant that we for whom thou diddest die,
Being with thy dear blood clean wash'd from sin,
May live for ever in felicity;

And that thy love we weighing worthily,

May likewise love thee for the same again:
And for thy sake, that all like dear didst buy,
With love may one another entertain.
So let us love, dear Love, like as we ought,
Love is the lesson which the Lord us taught.

TRUE BEAUTY.

Men call you fair, and you do credit it,

For that yourself ye daily such do see; But the true fair, that is, the gentle wit, And virtuous mind, is much more prais'd of me. For all the rest, however fair it be,

Shall turn to naught, and lose that glorious hue; But only that is permanent and free

From frail corruption, that doth flesh ensue :* That is true beauty; that doth argue you

To be divine, and born of heavenly seed: Deriv'd from that fair Spirit, from whom all true And perfect beauty did at first proceed. He only fair, and what he fair hath made; All other fair, like flowers, untimely fade.

2 That doth flesh ensue, that follows the life of the flesh.

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10

Hark how the cheerful birds do chant their lays,

And carol of Love's praise!

The merry lark her matins sings aloft,
The thrush replies, the mavis descant plays,
The ousel shrills, the ruddock2 warbles soft;
So goodly all agree, with sweet consent,
To this day's merriment.

Ah! my dear love, why do ye sleep thus long,
When meeter were that ye should now awake,
T' await the coming of your joyous make,
And hearken to the birds' love-learned song
The dewy leaves among?

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5 Three handmaids of the Cyprian Queen. The Graces- Aglia. Radiant Beauty; Euphrosyne, Cheerful Sense; Thalia, Abouwing Joy.

The pipe, the tabor, and the trembling croud. The tabor was a little drum, played with one stick, and tapped usually as an accompan ment to the fife or pipe. The crowd, Celtic "crwth." Latinisal "chrotta," was the stringed fiddle used in ancient times by the Britons. Venantius Fortunatus, Bishop of Poitiers, referring to the musical instruments of different peoples, gave the crowd to the Britons, "Chrotta Britanna canat." Crowd remained in com S use as a popular word for the fiddle until the seventeenth century "The fiddler's crowd now squeaks aloud,

His fiddling strings begin to troll;
He loves a wake and a wedding cake,
A bride house and a brave Maypole."
("Cupid's Banishment," 161

The crowd played with a bow is thonght by Messrs. Sandys Forster, historians of the violin, to have been invented in Britaa ↑ have found its way to the East, been modified there, and the introduced.

7 Io Hymen! "Io" (w) was among the Greeks an exclamaty joy. So also in Latin, "Io triumphe!' ""Io Hymen!"* where it w equivalent to our "Hurrah!" The cry was used also in Attic Greek and in Latin sometimes to express sorrow, as our "Oh" and "A Our English "Oh" can also be used to express either joy or sOTTIR