Civil Life,” was intended “to represent all the Morall Virtues, assigning to every virtue a Knight, to be patron and defender of the same; in whose actions, feats of armes, and chivalry, the operation of that virtue, whereof he is the protector, are to be expressed; and the vices and unruly appetites that oppose themselves against the same, to be beaten downe and overcome.”
At this period Spenser was introduced by Raleigh to Queen Elizabeth, who, in February, 1590–1, as we learn from a patent discovered in the chapel of the Rolls, by the indefatigable Malone, conferred upon him a yearly pension of fifty pounds, which he enjoyed till his death. It has been asserted by some of the poet’s biographers, that attached to this pension was the office of laureat; but it has been satisfactorily proved by Malone, that Spenser, although addressed by that title by his contemporaries, was never officially appointed to the situation. In reference to this office, Gibbon (in the 12th volume of his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire) remarks, “From Augustus to Louis, the Muse has too often been false and venal; but I much doubt whether any age or court can produce a similar establishment of a stipendiary poet, who, in every reign, and at all events, is bound to furnish, twice a year, a measure of praise and verse, such as may be sung in the chapel, and, I believe, in the presence of the sovereign.” Setting aside the adulation which the appointment entailed, and which is now obsolete, we are not disposed to quarrel with the office; for, at the least, it offers an encouragement to literary men, in the certainty of an income, no unwelcome benefit to a race not generally possessed of a superfluity of this world’s gear, and though originating, no doubt, in royal vanity, it has not unfrequently lightened the sorrows and sweetened the labours of “these Foster-babes of Fame.” After the publication of his poem, Spenser returned to Ireland; and during his absence from court, encouraged by the popularity into which his works were rapidly advancing, his bookseller collected and printed his minor pieces, in a volume, of which the following are the title and contents:—
“Complaints, containing sundrie small Poemes of the World’s Vanitie: viz. 1, The Ruines of Time. 2, The Teares of the Muses. 3, Virgils Gnat. 4, Prosopopoia, or Mother Hubberds Tale. 5, The Ruines of Rome, by Bellay. 6, Muiopotmos, or the Fate of the Butterflie. 7, Visions of the Worlds Vanitie. 8, Bellayes Visions. 9, Petrarches Visions.” These pieces, although considerably inferior to his great work, have yet participated in the fame with which it endowed its author, and, without reference to their intrinsic merits, have been equally lauded by his critics. This want of discrimination may be attributed to the dazzle of his name, which has induced them, with a blind devotion, to heap upon his minor poems those eulogiums which can only be justly claimed by the Faerie Queene. Of these, “Mother Hubberds Tale,” though written in the “raw conceit of youth,” is certainly the best; it abounds with satirical hits at the leading features of the times, the priests and the court: the lines devoted to this latter subject embody the description of the miseries of a place-hunter, already quoted. The language is bold and nervous, and the narrative in general unembarrassed. Take, for example, the following description of the ape purloining the crown, sceptre, and hide “which he had doft for heat,” from the King of the Forest. To this adventure he is incited by the fox:—
