Page:Works of Edmund Spenser - 1857.djvu/22

6 Reformation, In every age and country, religious dissensions have been unfavourable to the progress of Literature; and to these continued troubles may be ascribed its utter prostration in England at the commencement of the reign of Elizabeth. Her accession was hailed with no common feeling of enthusiasm by both the court and the people, who, weary of the merciless exactions of her father from which the reign of the youthful Edward proved but a transient relief, and groaning beneath the bigotry and sanguinary persecutions of her sister, beheld in their new queen the harbinger of a happier season; nor were these hopes disappointed. During the strict seclusion in which she had been detained by Mary, Elizabeth had acquired, under the able tuition of the erudite and elegant minded Ascham, no small share of those intellectual acquirements which are usually confined to the sterner sex. Thus nurtured, her inclinations naturally leaned to the society of those who were conspicuous for either talent or learning: from among these she selected her counsellors, and, aided by their willing co-operation, laid the foundation of that impulse to literature which has increased rather than diminished under every succeeding sovereign. The forty-five years of her reign must be regarded as the brightest epoch of our national history, and may challenge the annals of Europe to rival the galaxy of men, so illustrious in arms and arts, who flourished under her auspices. It is a period which, of all others, has a peculiar charm for the sympathies of youth; and though in after years reason and experience may in some degree temper the warmth of our imaginations, and dispose us to contemplate the character of Elizabeth in a more just and less romantic light, it must ever retain an especial place in our regards, as the age which produced such men as Spenser, Raleigh, Sidney, and Shakspeare. The life and writings of Spenser, “the fascinating poet of Faerie Land,” and one of the fairest ornaments of this era, the following observations are designed to illustrate.

When Sir James Mackintosh was invited by a body of London Booksellers to superintend an edition of the Poets, from Chaucer to Cowley, he characterized the life of Spenser as one which would offer no little difficulty, on account of the paucity of materials for its execution. This difficulty has certainly not been removed; but though, unable to present the reader with any new facts relating to the “Prince of Poets of his time,” we may, perhaps, while condensing the existing information, so guide him to the beauties of our author, as to obviate the necessity of wading through the more voluminous labours of Todd and Warton.

Edmund Spenser, styled the “Sunrise,” as Chaucer was the “Day Starre,” of English poetry, was born in the year 1553, in East Smithfield,—in

Although frequently referring in his poems to his gentle birth, and claiming in some of his dedications consanguinity with the noble house of Spencer, of his parentage he has left us no record. The university of Cambridge had the honour of his education; and though the history of his college life partakes of the same obscurity that envelopes his origin, it has been ascertained that he was admitted a sizar of Pembroke Hall, May 20,