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"A very interesting one to me, dear, because under that humble exterior lies a fine, strong character. It is like Becky to clear her way, even up a dusty hill where the first rain will wash out many more stones. Let us ask her why she does it. I've observed the habit before, and always meant to ask," replied Mrs. Spenser. "Here we are!
In matter he set himself squarely against the mediæval tendency: Let others sing of kings and paladines In aged accents and untimely words, Paint shadows in imaginary lines. This fling at Spenser and his followers marks the beginning of the modern and realistic school, which sees in life as it is enough poetic material, without the invention of allegories and impossible heroines.
Thus by gaining abroad he lost at home, like the painter in the "Arcadia," who, going to see a skirmish, had his arms lopped off, and returned, says Sir Philip Sidney, well instructed how to draw a battle, but without a hand to perform his work. There is another thing in which I have presumed to deviate from him and Spenser.
Spenser completed only six books, celebrating Holiness, Temperance, Chastity, Friendship, Justice, and Courtesy. We have also a fragment of the seventh, treating of Constancy; but the rest of this book was not written, or else was lost in the fire at Kilcolman.
And it deserves respect as an honest effort to bring poetry back to its highest office in the ideal treatment of life. Davenant emulated Spenser, and if his poem had been as good as his preface, it could still be read in another spirit than that of investigation. As it is, it always reminds me of Goldsmith's famous verse. It is remote, unfriendly, solitary, and, above all, slow.
Raleigh took a great interest in these estates, so perhaps it was not altogether a hardship to him, finding himself out of favor with his Queen, to go to Ireland for a time. And although they had known each other before, it was then that his friendship with Spenser began.
The head-fountains of both the Dart and the Plym are surrounded with romance, as the cities at their mouths are famous in English history, and Spenser, in the Faerie Queene, announces that both Dart and Plym were present at the great feast of the rivers which celebrated the wedding of the Thames and Medway. The courses of the Dartmoor rivers are short, but with rapid changes.
"You're the only woman in the world he has any real liking for," said Sperry, earnest and sincere. "Don't you ever doubt that, Mrs. Spenser." When they were seated in the café and he had ordered, he excused himself and Susan saw him make his way to a table where sat Fitzalan and another man who looked as if he too had to do with the stage.
Appreciation of poetry was almost extinguished, Addison, writing of the poets of the past, made no mention of Shakespeare, and found it possible to say of Chaucer: In vain he jests in his unpolish'd strain, And tries to make his readers laugh, in vain. And of Spenser: Old Spenser next, warm'd with poetick rage, In ancient tales amus'd a barb'rous age.
Cowley owns that he derived inspiration from him; and I have heard the celebrated Mr. James Thomson, the author of the Seasons, and justly esteemed one of our best descriptive poets, say, that he formed himself upon Spenser; and how closely he pursued the model, and how nobly he has imitated him, whoever reads his Castle of Indolence with taste, will readily confess. Mr.
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