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ON SPENSER.

I

music and sweet poetry agree,

As they must needs, the sister and the brother, THE ENGLISH SHEPHERDS ROUND THE THRONE

Then must the love be great 'twixt thee and me, Because thou lov'st the one, and I the other. Dowland to thee is dear, whose heavenly touch Upon the lute doth ravish human sense; Spenser to me, whose deep conceit is such,

As, passing all conceit, needs no defence.
Thou lov'st to hear the sweet melodious sound
That Phoebus' lute, the queen of music, makes;
And I in deep delight am chiefly drown'd,
Whenas himself to singing he betakes.

One god is god of both as poets feign;
One knight loves both, and both in thee remain.
From Shakspeare's Passionate Pilgrim, first
published in 1599.

Live, Spenser! ever, in thy Fairy Queene;
Whose like (for deep conceit) was never seene.
Crown'd mayst thou be, unto thy more renowne,
As king of poets, with a lawrell crowne!

From a "Remembrance of some English
Poets," at the end of K. Barnfield's
Lady Pecunia, 4to. Lond. 1605.

OF THETIS:

all their pipes were still;

And Colin Clout began to tune his quill
With such deepe art, that every one was given
To thinke Apollo (newly slid from Heaven)
Had tane a humane shape to win his love,
Or with the westerne swaines for g'ory strove.
He sung th' heroicke knights of faiery land
In lines so elegant, of such command,
That bad the Thracian plaid but halfe so well
He had not left Furydice in Hell.
But, ere he ended his melodious song,
An host of angels flew the clouds among,
And rapt the swan from his attentive mates,
To make him one of their associates [praise
In Heaven's faire qu're; where now he sings the
Of him that is the first and last of dayes.
Divinest Spencer! heav'n-bred, happy Muse!
Would any power into my braine infuse
Thy worth, or all that poets had before,
I could not praise till thou deserv'st no more.
From Browne's Britannia's Pastorals, 1616.

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Nor shall my verse that elder bard forget,
The gentle Spenser, Fancy's pleasing son,
Who like a copious river, pour'd his song
O'er all the mazes of enchanted ground;
Nor thee, his ancient master, laughing sage,
Chaucer, whose native manners-painting verse,
Well moraliz'd shines through the gothic cloud
Of time and language o'er thy genius thrown.

From Thomson's Summer.

ON THE CANTOS OF SPENSER'S FAIRY QUEEN,
LOST IN THE PASSAGE FROM IRELAND.

Wo worth the man, who in ill hour assay'd
To tempt that western frith with ventrous keel;
And seek what Heaven, regardful of our weal,
Had hid in fogs and night's eternal shade:
Ill-starr'd Hibernia! well art thou appaid
For all the woes which Britain made thee feel
By Henry's wrath, and Pembroke's conquering steel,
Who sack'd thy towns, and castles disarray'd:
No longer now, with idle sorrow, mourn
Thy plunder'd wealth or liberties restrain'd,
Nor deem their victories thy loss or shame;
Severe revenge on Britain in thy turn,
And ample spoils thy treacherous waves obtain'd,
Which sunk one half of Spenser's deathless fame.
From the Sonnets of Tho. Edwards, esq. 1758.

GARDEN INSCRIPTIONS.

ON SPENSER'S FAERIE QUEENE.

Lo! here the place for contemplation made,
For sacred musing, and for solemn song!
Hence, ye profane! or violate the shade:

Come, Spenser's awful genius, come along;
Mix with the music of the aërial throng!

Oh! breathe a pensive stillness through my breast,
While balmy breezes pant the leaves among,
And sweetly sooth my passions into rest.
Hint purest thoughts, in purest colours drest;
Even such as angels prompt, in golden dreams,
To holy hermit, high in raptures blest,

His bosom burning with celestial beams:
Ne less the raptures of my summer day,
If Spenser deign with me to moralize the lay.

By the Rev. William Thompson, M. A. late
fellow of Queen's College, Oxford. From
Fawke's and Woty's Poetical Calendar,
vol. viii. p. 97. edit. 1763.

ON SPENSER'S SHEPHERD'S CALENdar.

Ar large beneath this floating foliage laid

Of circling green, the crystal running by, (How soft the murmur, and how cool the shade!) While gentle-whispering winds their breath apply To 'swage the fever of the sultry sky;

Smit with the sweet Sicilian's simple strain,

I try the rural reed, but fondly try

To match his pastoral airs and happy vein:

Next I assay the quill of Mantua's swain
Of bolder note, and of more courtly grace:
Ah, foolish emulation! They disdain

My awkward skill, and push me from the place. Yet boast not, thou of Greece, nor thou of Rome; My sweeter Colin Clout outpipes you both at home. By the same, ibid. p. 98.

Here Chaucer first his comic vein display'd,
And merry tales in homely guise convey'd ;
Unpolish'd beauties grac'd the artless song;
Though rude the diction, yet the sense was strong.
To smoother strains, chastising tuneless prose,
In plain magnificence great Spencer rose:
In forms distinct, in each creating line,
The virtues, vices, and the passions shine:
Subservient Nature aids the poet's rage,
And with herself inspires each nervous page.
From The Progress of Poetry, in Fawke's
and Woty's Poetical Calendar, vol. iii.
p. 22. edit. 1763.

Through Pope's soft song though all the graces breathe,

And happiest art adorn his Attic page;
Yet does my mind with sweeter transport glow,
As, at the root of mossy trunk reclin'd,
In magic Spenser's wildly-warbled song
I see deserted Una wander wide
Through wasteful solitudes, and lurid heaths,
Weary, forlorn; than when the fated fair'
Upon the bosom bright of silver Thames
Lanches in all the lustre of brocade,
Amid the splendours of the laughing Sun:
The gay description palls upon the sense,
And coldly strikes the mind with feeble bliss.
From the Rev. T. Warton's Pleasures of
Melancholy.

Though join'd by magic skill, with many a rime,
The Druid frame, unhonour'd, falls a prey
To the slow vengeance of the wisard Time,
And fade the British characters away;
Yet Spenser's page, that chants in verse sublime
Those chiefs, shall live, unconscious of decay!
From the Rev. T. Warton's Sonnet on King
Arthur's Round Table at Winchester.

ODE, SENT TO MR. UPTON, ON HIS EDITION OF THE FAERIE QUEENE.

As oft, reclin'd on Cherwell's shelving shore,
I trac'd romantic Spenser's moral page,
And sooth'd my sorrows with the dulcet lore
Which Fancy fabled in her elfin age;
Much would I grieve, that envious Time so soon
O'er the lov'd strain had cast his dim disguise;
As lowering clouds, in April's brightest noon,
Mar the pure splendours of the purple skies.

' Pope's Belinda, Rape of the Lock.

Sage Upton came, from every mystic tale
To chase the gloom that hung o'er fairy ground:
His wisard hand unlocks each guarded vale,

And opes each flowery forest's magic bound.
Thus, never knight with mortal arms essay'd
The castle of proud Busyrane to quell,
Till Britomart her beamy shield display'd,

And broke with golden spear the mighty spell:
The dauntless maid with hardy step explor'd
Each room, array'd in glistering imagery;
And through the enchanted chamber, richly stor'd,
Saw Cupid's stately maske come sweeping by.
At this, where'er, in distant regions sheen, [bough,
She roves, embower'd with many a spangled
Mild Una, lifting her majestic mien,

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The loves of shepherds, and their harmless cheer
In every month that decks the varied year.
Now on the flute with equal grace he play'd,
And his soft numbers died along the shade;
The skilful dancers to his accents mov'd,
And every voice his easy tune approv'd;
Ev'n Hyla, blooming maid, admir'd the strain,
While through her bosom shot a pleasing pain.
Now all was hush'd: no rival durst arise;
Pale were their cheeks, and full of tears their eyes:
Menalcas, rising from his flowery seat,
Thus, with a voice majestically sweet,
Address'd th' attentive throng; "Arcadians, hear!
The sky grows dark, and beamy stars appear:
Haste to the vale; the bridal bowers prepare,

Braids with a brighter wreath her radiant brow. And hail with joy Menalcas' tuneful heir.

At this, in hopeless sorrow drooping long,

Her painted wings Imagination plumes;
Pleas'd that her laureate votary's rescued song
Its native charm and genuine grace resumes.
By the Rev. T. Warton.

THE CONTEST OF THE SHEPHERDS FOR THE
DAUGHTERS OF MENALCAS.

HE (Tityrus) ended; and, as rolling billows loud,
His praise resounded from the circling crowd.
The clamorous tumult softly to compose,
High in the midst the plaintive Colin rose,
Born on the lilied banks of royal Thame,
Which oft had rung with Rosalinda's name;
Fair, yet neglected; neat, yet unadorn'd;
The pride of dress, and flowers of art, he scorn'd:
And, like the nymph who fir'd his youthful breast,
Green were his buskins, green his simple vest:
With careless ease his rustic lays he sung,
And melody flow'd smoothly from his tongue:
Of June's gay fruits, and August's corn he told,
The bloom of April, and December's cold;

Thou, Tityrus, of swains the pride and grace,
Shalt clasp soft Daphne in thy fond embrace:
And thou, young Colin, in thy willing arms
Shalt fold my Hyla, fair in native charms:
O'er these sweet plains divided empire hold,
And to your latest race transmit an age of gold.
What splendid visions rise before my sight,
And fill my aged bosom with delight!
Henceforth of wars and conquest shall you sing,
Arms and the man in every clime shall ring:
Thy Muse, bold Maro, Tityrus no more,
Shall tell of chiefs that left the Phrygian shore,
Sad Dido's love, and Venus' wandering son,
The Latians vanquish'd, and Lavinia won.
And thou, O Colin, Heaven-defended youth,
Shalt hide in fiction's veil the charms of truth;
Thy notes the sting of sorrow shall beguile,
And smooth the brow of anguish till it smile;
Notes, that a sweet Elysian dream can raise,
And lead th' enchanted soul through fancy's
maze;

Thy verse shall shine with Gloriana's name,
And fill the world with Britain's endless fame."

From sir William Jones's Arcadia.

POEMS

OF

EDMUND SPENSER.

THE SHEPHEARDS CALENDER:

CONTEINING

TWELVE AEGlogues,

PROPORTIONABLE TO THE TWELVE MONETHES.

ENTITLED TO THE NOBLE AND VERTUOUS GENTLEMAN,

scholler of so excellent a master, calleth the loadstarre of our language: and whom our Colin Clout in his Aeglogue calleth Tityrus the god of shepheards, comparing him to the worthinesse of the Roman Tityrus, Virgil. Which proverb, mine

MOST WORTHIE OF ALL TITLES BOTH OF LEARNING Owne good friend M. Harvey, as in that good old

AND CHIVALRY,

MAISTER PHILIP SIDNEY.

TO HIS BOOKE.

GOE, little booke! thy selfe present,
As childe whose parent is unkent,
To him that is the president
Of noblenesse and chevalree:
And if that Envie barke at thee,
As sure it will, for succour flee
Under the shadow of his wing.
And, asked who thee forth did bring,
A shepheards swaine, say, did thee sing,
All as his straying flocke he fedde:
And, when his honour has thee redde,
Crave pardon for thy hardy-hedde.
But, if that any aske thy name,
Say, thou wert base-begot with blame;
Forthy thereof thou takest shame.
And, when thou art past ieopardee,
Come tell me what was said of mee,
And I will send more after thee.

Immerito.

TO THE MOST EXCELLENT AND LEARNED, BOTH ORATOR AND POET, MAISTER GABRIEL HARVEY, His verie speciall and singular good friend E. K. commendeth the good lyking of this his good labour, and the patronage of the new poet. UNCOUTH, unkist, said the old famous poet Chaucer: whom for his excellencie and wonderfull skill in making, his scholler Lidgate, a worthie VOL III.

poet it served well Pandares purpose for the bolstering of his bawdie brocage, so very well taketh place in this our new poet, who for that hee is uncouth (as sayde Chaucer) is unkist, and unknowne to most men, is regarded but of a fewe. But I doubt not, so soone as his name shall come into the knowledge of men, and his woorthinesse bee sounded in the trumpe of fame, but that hee shall bee not onely kist, but also beloved of all, imbraced of the most, and wondred at of the best. No lesse, I thinke, deserveth his wittinesse in devising, his pithinesse in uttering, his complaints of love so lovely, his discourses of pleasure so pleasantly, his pastoral rudeness, his morall wisenesse, his due observing of decorum everie where, in personages, in seasons, in matter, in speech; and generallie, in all seemely simplicitie of handling his matters, and framing his wordes: the which of many things which in him be straunge, I know will seeme the strangest, and wordes themselves being so auncient, the knitting of them so short and intricate, and the whole period and compasse of speech so delightsom for the roundnesse, and so grave for the strangenesse. And first of the wordes to speake, I graunt they bee something hard, and of most men unused, yet both English, and also used of most excellent authours, and most famous poets. In whom, when as this our poet hath bin much travailed and throughly read, how could it be, (as that worthie

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