Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 18.djvu/510

* SPENSER. 438 SPERMACETI. By 15S8 or 1589 he was living at Kilcolman Castle, in the County of Cork, which with its ex- tensive lands was legally transferred to him in lo'.ll. lu the meantime he had written Astropliel, a noble pastoral elegy on Sidney, and had re- ceived a visit from Sir Walter Ralegh (1589), made memorable by Colin Clouts Come Home Ayaiiie. In 1590 he accompanied Kalegh to London, was welcomed by the Court, and pub- lished the first three books of The Faerie Queene, a moral and historical allegory. In 1591 followed a volume of miscellanies called Complaints, in- cluding "The Ruines of Time," "The Teares of the Muses," "Jlother Hubberd's Tale," "The Tale of the Butterflie," and four other poems. Evi- dently disappointed of expected Court preferment, Spenser returned to Ireland, where he married a certain Elizabeth, probably Elizabeth Boyle, re- lated to the first Earl of Cork. The courtship is described in the Amoretti (published in 1595), a series of mellifluous sonnets; and the marriage is celebrated in the Epithalamioii (published in 1595), the richest nuptial hymn in the English language. In 1596 he brought to London for pub- lication three more books of The Faerie Queene. Spenser intended to continue the work to twelve books, but he never got further than two cantos on Mutabilitie (printed 1609). While in England he seems to have completed a prose treatise on the Present State of Ireland (not published till 1033) ; he prepared for the press the beautiful Foure Eymnes (1596), in honor of love, beauty, heavenly love, and heavenly beauty; and wrote for a double marriage at Essex House the Pro- thalamion (1596), one of his choicest poems. Once more disappointed of preferment, he re- turned to Ireland. In October, 1598, his castle was sacked and burned by the Irish rebels. Spen- ser fled to England, where he died at a London inn, January 16, 1599. He was buried near Chaucer in Westminster Abbey. The Shepheardes Calender marks an epoch in English poetry. Conventional in theme, it yet shows a command over rhythm greater even than Chaucer's. It sounded the note of the Elizabetlian outburst. As Spenser grew older he became more weighty in substance and discovered new melodies. In The Faerie Qncene he invented a nine-line stanza known as 'Spenserian.' It is the Italian ottava rinia with an added Alex- andrine (twelve syllables). T?he rhymes run ababbcbcc. But there is more in Spenser than sweet verse. His imagination dwelt in a realm of beauty and the noblest ideals. His greatest fault is an insistence on the allegory until it becomes monotonous and obscvire. With the poets themselves, for whom this wealoiess counts less than for the general public, Spenser has been a favorite. The generation following him were Spenserians, and to him ^lilton owed much. In the romantic revival at the end of the eight- eenth century Spenser was potent, and Keats's Eve of Saint Agnes and Byron's Childe Harold were written in the Spenserian stanza. Consult the Life by R. W. Church (English Men of Letters, London, 1879) ; ^yorks, ed. H. J. Todd (8 vols., ib.. 1805. new ed.' 1877), by J. P. Collier (5 vols, new ed., ib,. 1891), by R Mor- ris, with memoir by J. W. Hales (Globe edition, ib., 1869. often reprinted), and bv A. B. Grosart (Huth Library, 10 vols, ib., 1882-84). Consult also G. L. Craik, Spenser and his Poetry (ib., 1845), and the essays by Lowell, Among My Hooks, second series (Boston, 1876), and by Au- brey de Vcre (London and New York, 1894). The Spenser Society, founded at Manchester in 1867, published a facsimile of the first edition of The Shepheardes Calender. SPENSERIAN STANZA. See Spenser, En.MUNi) ; 'er.sificatiox. SPERANSKI, spfi-ritn'ske. Mikhail, Count (1772-1839). A Russian statesman. Educated at the Saint Petersburg Ecclesiastical Academy, he was appointed professor of mathematics there in 1797, and State Secretary in 1801. He be- came Assistant Minister of .Justice in 1808, and Privy Councilor in 1809. During his administra- tion he remodeled the system of taxation and the system of national education, and instituted many other reforms. His influence brought him many enemies, and he was lianishcd in 1812, but recalled in 1816 and made Governor of Pensa. As Governor-General of Siberia (1819-21) he dis- played great energy in fighting official corrup- tion and bettering the condition of the exiles. In 1821 he was made a member of the Imperial Council. Nicholas I. intrusted him with the codification of the Russian laws, which task he performed with singular success. SPERM, IN Plants (Lat. sperma, from Gk. cTrfpiia. seed, from airtlpeiv, speirein, to sow), Anthebozoids. Spermatozoids. The male sexual cell, whose union with the egg is the process of fertilization, and results in the formation of an embryo. S])erms are produced by all plants ex- cept the lower algie and many of the fungi, and are often characteristic of great groups of plants. An ordinary sperm is an actively moving, naked cell, consisting essentially of a relatively large nucleus with a thin sheath of cytoplasm, form- ing the bodv. and delicate, hair like swimming TYPEB OF flPERMS. 1, Chara; 2-4, fern; 5, Marsilia; 6, club moss; 7, fern; 8, Quillwort; 9, liverwort. appendages (cilia). The male organ which pro- duces sperms is uniformly called an antheridium (q.v.). See Fertilization; Reproduction; Sex. SPERMACETI (Neo-Lat.. whale's seed, from Lat. sperma, from Gk. airipiia, seed -)- ceti, gen. Bg. of cetus, from Gk. k^toi. hetos, whale ; so called because at first supposed to be the spawn of the whale). A waxy substance obtained from cavities in the head of the sperm whale (Physeter