Literary by-paths in old England . Essex defrayed the charges of the funeral,and poets bore the pall and cast upon the coffintheir elegies and the pens with which they werewritten. Although Spenser had achieved hischief work on Irish soil, it was given him torest at home at last. T is well; t is something ; we may standWhere he in English earth is laid. According to a passage in Brownes Britan-nias Pastorals, Spenser was fated to be robbedof Queen Elizabeths bounty even in the narrates how the Queen gave explicitorders for the building of a costly tomb over thepoets remain
Literary by-paths in old England . Essex defrayed the charges of the funeral,and poets bore the pall and cast upon the coffintheir elegies and the pens with which they werewritten. Although Spenser had achieved hischief work on Irish soil, it was given him torest at home at last. T is well; t is something ; we may standWhere he in English earth is laid. According to a passage in Brownes Britan-nias Pastorals, Spenser was fated to be robbedof Queen Elizabeths bounty even in the narrates how the Queen gave explicitorders for the building of a costly tomb over thepoets remains, and then adds: LITERARY BY-PATHS The will had been performance, had not Fate,That never knew how to commiserate,Suborned curst Avarice to lie in waitFor that rich prey (gold is a taking bait) :Who, closely lurking like a subtle snakeUnder the covert of a thorny brake,Seized on the factor by fair Thetis sent,And robbed our Colin of his monument. But Spenser did not lack for a monument,although it was more than twenty years after. Spensers Tomb his death before such a memorial was suppliedthrough the generosity of Anne Clifford, Count-ess of Dorset. A hundred and fifty years after,that monument had fallen into decay, but its IN OLD ENGLAND appearance is faithfully reproduced by the exist-ing marble, which was erected by subscription in1778 at the instigation of the poet Mason. Itwill be seen that the inscription differs in twoparticulars from the accepted dates of Spenserslife, giving 1553 instead of 1552 as the date of hisbirth, and 1598 instead of 1599 as the year of hisdeath. Several portraits (in oils) of Spenser are in ex-istence, and at least one miniature. The lattermay be dismissed as wholly unsatisfactory. Thereis nothing of the Elizabethan atmosphere aboutit, and its subject is a nondescript character whollyout of keeping with the pronounced personalityof the author of the Faerie Queene. The otherportraits may be divided into two classes, repre-sented respectively by
Size: 1405px × 1779px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookauthorshelleyh, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, bookyear1906
