Page:Cousins's Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature.djvu/366

 354 Dictionary of English Literature

been regularly paid, and on the whole his experiences of the Court did not yield him much satisfaction. In the same year his reputa tion as a poet was vastly augmented by the publication of the nrst three books of the Faerie Queen, dedicated to Elizabeth. The en thusiasm with which they were received led the publisher to bring out a collection of other writings of S. under the general title oi Complaints, and including Mother Hubbard's Tale (a satire on the Court and on the conflict then being waged between the old faith and the new), T eaves of the Muses, and The Ruins of Time. Having seen these ventures launched, S. returned to Kilcolman and wrote Colin Clout's come Home Again, one of the brightest and most vigorous of his poems, not, however, -pub. until 1595. In the follow ing year appeared his Four Hymns, two on Love and Beauty and two on Heavenly Love and Beauty, and the Prothalamion on the marriage of two daughters of the Earl of Worcester. He also pub. in prose his View of Ireland, a work full of shrewd observation and practical statesmanship. In 1594 he was m. to Elizabeth Boyle, whom he had courted in Amoretti, and his union with whom he now celebrated in the magnificent Epithalamion, by many regarded as his most per fect poem. In 1595 he returned to England, taking with him the second part of the Faerie Queen, pub. in 1 596. In 1 598 he was made Sheriff of Cork, and in the same year his fortunes suffered a final eclipse. The rebellion of Tyrone broke out, his castle was burned, and in the conflagration his youngest child, an infant, perished, he himself with his wife and remaining children escaping with difficulty. He joined the President, Sir T. Norris, who sent him with despatches to London, where he suddenly d. on January 16, 1 599, as was long be lieved in extreme destitution. This, however, happily appears to be at least doubtful. He was buried in Westminster Abbey neai$ Chaucer, and a monument was erected to his memory in 1620 by the Countess of Dorset.

The position of S. in English poetry is below Chaucer, Shake speare, and Milton only. The first far excels him in narrative and constructive power and in humour, and the last in austere grandeur of conception; but for richness and beauty of imagination and ex quisite sweetness of music he is unsurpassed except by Shakespeare. He has been called the poets' poet, a title which he well merits, not only by virtue of the homage which all the more imaginative poets have yielded him, but because of the almost unequalled influence he has exercised upon the whole subsequent course and expression oi English poetry, which he enriched with the stanza which bears his name, and which none since him have used with more perfect mastery. His faults are prolixity, indirectness, and want of con structive power, and consequently the sustained sweetness and sumptuousness of his verse are apt to cloy. His great work, the" Faerie Queen, is but a gorgeous fragment, six books out of a pro* jected twelve; but probably few or none of its readers have regretted its incompleteness. In it Protestantism and Puritanism receivf their most poetic and imaginative presentation and vindication. :

SUMMARY. B. 1552, ed. Merchant Taylor's School and Camb., bei came known to Leicester and Sir P. Sidney 1578, pub. Shepheard's Calendar 1579, appointed sec. to Lord Deputy of Ireland 1580, and began Faerie Queen, receives various appointments and grants