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It is significant that his purpose in writing the 'Faerie Queene,' as explained in the prefatory letter addressed to Sir Walter Raleigh, was 'to fashion & gentleman or noble person in vertuous and gentle discipline,' and that the liveliest and poetically the best of its six complete books, the last, is that in which the knightly virtue is Courtesy. The success of that book probably in part was due to the ease and confidence which had come with practice, as well as to the encouragement derived from fortunate publication earlier; but also it resulted from the insight of the poet, who knowing that manners maketh man saw not only in 'salvage' Ireland, but also in the cultured passages of the English Court, such rudeness, brutality, coarseness, and selfishness, that, in the phrase of a greater, the times were out of joint, and man was marred through his unmannerliness. Instinctively, Spenser clung to the safeguards of self-respect. He had the pride, the courtesy, which can tolerate cheerfully the nominal superiority of others:

'Loss is no shame, nor to be less than foe;
But to be lesser than himself doth mar.'

At the same time he kept from mixing with the 'rabble rout,' the 'vulgar sort,' not from snobbishnesshe was too sincere and kindly for that disease of the socially mean, although, of course, he had the unconscious prejudices of his age-but because those rabble often were base, unmannerly, hurtful. His spirit in this respect was gentler than Shakespeare's, who often in his plays, and especially through the mouth of Casca, was rude beyond rudeness to the proletariat. It was only when they were working for ill that Spenser despised and hated them, and spoke of them malig nantly. Simple folk are comparatively rare with him; his shepherds are not exactly agricultural labourers. They are minor poets, lolling negligently and weaving rimes in the flower-sprinkled meadows. A wide world stands between his Hobbinoll and Shakespeare's Corin, the old fellow in As You Like It,' who proved that he knew full well and practically his shepherd's craft and

business.

Spenser was sensitive and temperamentally shy. He

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must have been contemplative, otherwise he would not have called tobacco divine. Also he was unaffectedly proud of his distant connexion with a great house; as Lady Strange, the kinswoman to whom he dedicated 'The Teares of the Muses,' showed that she, too, was proud of her family association with him. His friendships were with people distinguished of mind and character, to many of whom he refers in his dedications and prefaces in terms that prove their relations to have been human-kindly and not those merely of suppliant and superior in a time of patronage. Probably his learning was not deep. His mind was too easily impressionable for that. He was acquainted with the Classics, of course-Homer, Virgil, Xenophon, Aristotle -Pembroke College would have seen to that; but the Elizabethans all loved to dabble with the literary legacies of Greece and Rome, and those who wrote made the most of their smatterings. We have rather lost the habit nowadays; not even Members of Parliament seem to know the customary tags.

As to the arts, Spenser's pictorial sense was of an unusual quality. Probably he did not know as much about actual painters and sculptors as Shakespeare did, or thought that he did; but, at least, he avoided making so notorious a howler as the writer of 'The Winter's Tale' did over Giulio Romano. He wrote with his mind full of pictures. As soon as the pen of his inspiration travelled he saw bountifully what he told. His ear for the music of words was more than excellent. His heart, as well as his genius, was victorious there; though often he fell into the golden mire of undue alliteration. His use of the refrain in the Prothalamion' and the Epithalamion helped him to maintain the glowing sense of song. As to vocal and instrumental music, he enjoyed such jolly roundelays as 'It fell upon a holly eve,' sung by Perigot and Willy; but his emotions were not lulled or moved by music as Orsino in 'Twelfth Night' confessed that his were, and as those of Shakespeare must have been. Spenser was lyrical, but not in brief ecstasies. He was lyrical, but at long length.

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Compared with Chaucer and Shakespeare, Spenser had notable limitations. Probably he felt as acutely as any one the appeals of art and the human call; but he

had none of the thrusting forcefulness which marks the d h
positive spirit. He was dreamy, doubtful, sensitive.aling
He did not easily make himself known. Though ey
ambitious for fame he preferred to discover it through t
his poetical achievements and triumphs. It may be th
that his hardness of view in politics was the result of b
an abiding self-distrust. Like others who had such
weakness he disguised his uncertainty in occasional
severity. His tribute to 'Aetion' proves that he knew
Shakespeare personally, and he must often have met
him and other wits, Bohemians, poets, at the Mermaid'
or similar tavern ; but probably in the social throng he
was generally a silent listener, enjoying the mutual
rallying of rare Ben and his co-mates, while too diffident
and self-conscious himself to join the noise and medley.
Although in the feast of mirth his laughter would not
have been loud, swifter far than others he would have
caught the verbal subtleties and seen the glint and
shimmer of the wings of Mab.

Reference has been made to the shadows which fell over him towards the end. It had been much the same with Chaucer, whose genial spirit was darkened through the tyrannies of a morbid religiousness. The unkindness of this world, however, and not the penal fires and pains of Eternity, was the cause of Spenser's sadness and pessimism. His religion was conventional; and, probably, only by a narrow accident did it escape negation; for with all the spiritual outburst and bright glitter of that great age, Englishmen generally then were unconfessed agnostics. Like many others who profess and call themselves Christians, Spenser virtuously and angrily hated the other side. Spain and the Irish rebels, with their threatenings and violence, kept his Protestant fervours alive. Otherwise, he shared with most of us Mistress Quickly's opinion that 'there was no need to trouble himself with any such thoughts yet.' Had he been born in one of the Catholic countries his love of colour and of lustrous pageantry, his passion for discipline and order, would probably have made him an enthusiastic follower of the Church of Rome.

Buffeted by the world, out of health, morbid, and disappointed, anxious over the necessities and the future of his young family, conscious that the powers of his mind

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and heart which had produced his great poetry were ailing-for though but forty-seven when he died, men they knew not golf) aged more rapidly then-and it thaunted with the unforgettable truth of the brevity of It Darthly days, he found the sun less warm, the flowers e rless bright, for Death must soon take his toll.

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'So passeth in the passing of a day

Of mortal life, the leaf, the bud, the flower.'

b In Mutability,' in the Ruines of Time,' in the four Hymns, this note of pessimism and hopelessness is sounded, and it is distressing to find it so; for here was one who surely had enjoyed exquisite happiness and, #except when the politician in him was uppermost, was in heart the chanting idealist and the chivalrous champion of the wronged and weak.

'What booteth it to have been rich alive?
What to be great? what to be gracious?
When after death no token doth survive
Of former being in this mortal hous,

But sleepes in dust, dead and inglorious.'

It was worse with him than a peaceful melancholy. He was angry with the forces and the careless indifference which governed and govern still our civilisation; otherwise the Blatant Beast, once in the bonds, would have been slain outright by Calidore, and not have been allowed significantly to escape in the concluding stanzas of the last complete book of the 'Faerie Queene.'

'So now he raungeth through the world again
Ne spareth he most learned wits to rate,
Ne spareth he the gentle Poets rime.'

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His

It was a pitiful ending to the life and dreams of that chivalrous man. Edmund Spenser was mortal; human clay; but nobly endowed and nobly wrought. works were rich with greatness; and yet they are neglected. But his words and inspiration are necessary still, for the Blatant Beast is raging through the world to-day, in Asia, in Europe, spoiling sweet prospects with his loathliness; and there is a call from everywhere for such knightly and unselfish spiritual powers as fought against evil in Spenser's enchanted forest.

C. E. LAWRENCE.

Art. 11.-THE CIRCUS DICKENS KNEW.

1. Astley's. Three volumes of prints, press-cuttings, MSS., etc., in the possession of C. B. Cochran, Esq. 2. The Newcomes: Memoirs of a Most Respectable Family. Edited by Arthur Pendennis, Esq. (Centenary Edition). Murray, 1911.

3. The Comedy of Noctes Ambrosiana. By Christopher North. Blackwood, 1874.

4. The Book of Ballads. Edited by Bon Gaultier. Fourteenth Edition. Blackwood, 1884.

5. Sketches by Boz. Chapman and Hall, 1899.

6. Circus Life and Circus Celebrities. By Thomas Frost. Tinsley Brothers, 1875.

And other collections and works.

To imagine either Bernard Shaw or H. G. Wells in a circus requires too great an effort. There is only one reference in their works to the joys of the ring, and this a slighting one. Listen to Lina Szczepanowska in the last scene of 'Misalliance' when she cries out that sooner than marry the linen-draper she would stoop to the lowest depths of her profession-'I would stuff lions with food and pretend to tame them. I would deceive honest people's eyes with conjuring tricks instead of real feats of strength and skill. I would be a clown and set bad examples of conduct to little children.' The world was certainly trying very hard to grow up when Mr Shaw wrote that. But it is less keen to-day. Clowns and liberty horses' are now as much in vogue in London and New York as in Paris where artists and authors have always loved the ring. English people go to Olympia each Christmas because the circus is 80 modern,' even though this vogue may never grow into the passionate love of the sawdust and tan which ruled many breasts in the days of the crinoline. When Queen Victoria and Prince Albert regularly took their children to see the circus, the public could neither ignore its spell nor cultivate a feeling of being superior.

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This spirit you will find reflected in the authors of those times. Bon Gaultier is the ring's true poet. Ingoldsby wrote a verse or two celebrating circus celebrities. Even the somewhat unbending Thackeray

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