^{page 419 note 1} Spenser was never in any serious danger of adopting the system of versification that he discussed with Harvey. These discussions were largely due to his friendship for Sidney and for Harvey. In an article on Spenser and the Earl of Leicester (Publications of the Modern Language Association, September, 1910) I have discussed the letter of October fifth, 1579, showing that the thing nearest Spenser's heart was the preferment which he expected at the hands of Leicester, and for which he was indebted to Sidney. Both the Calender and the poems written at the same period but not printed until 1591 prove that in his serious work Spenser had no intention whatever of applying the principles laid down by Drant, whatever they were, or by the “ Areopagus.”

^{page 421 note 1} Translation by John Dove of Christ Church, Oxford, who inscribed it to the Dean “ut hoc opusculum jam pene deletum et quasi sepultum, de novo vestrae lectioni secundo commendarem.” (Wilson, in Blackwood, xxxiv, 834.) For this reference I am indebted to Professor J. B. Fletcher.

^{page 421 note 2} The later biographers have followed blindly the same path. Hales (Memoir prefixed to the Globe edition) says that the Calender “secured him at once the hearty recognition of his contemporaries as a true poet risen up amongst them.” Church is more cautious but he says that if the authorship was a secret, “it was an open secret, known to every one who cared to be well informed,” and he totally misunderstands Harvey's references to it as contrasting his own poverty with Colin Clout's good luck. Jusserand (Literary History, etc., ii, 441) says, “ The publishing of the ‘Calender’ had made him instantly famous.” Courthope (in Cambridge History of English Literature, iii, 248-9) confuses Leicester, to whom Spenser at first intended to dedicate his work, with Sidney and says that Sidney “hastened to show” that Spenser's hesitancy about the dedication was groundless “by bestowing high praise.”

^{page 425 note 1} For convenience I append a summary of the contents of the Kalendrier, based on Sommer's reprint of Pynson's edition of 1506. There are two prologues, the first dealing with the duration and purpose of life and admonishing men to lead a godly life; the second comparing the seasons and the months to the course of life. In the Calender proper are five sections, the first containing the almanac; the second an account of the Tree of Vices and the punishments of the Seven Deadly Sins in Hell; the third, the means by which a man may lead a virtuous life, and the account of the Garden of Virtues; the fourth, “Physicks and the governail of health”; and last, a miscellany, chiefly astrological.

^{page 430 note 1} Cf. for example, Chaucer's description of the monk with Spenser's lines:

^{page 430 note 2} Cf. Chaucer's lines about the Parson (Prologue, ll. 477 ff.) with the characterization of the wicked pastors by Piers (ll. 39 ff.). Spenser's charge that the sheep are left to “runne at large” by shepherds who “playen while their flockes be unfedde,” caring nothing “what fallen the flocke, so they han the fleece,” is very similar to the point of view expressed by Chaucer. A little later, Piers speaks of the damage wrought by wolves who were permitted to ravage the flock through the neglect and worldliness of the shepherds; this parallels with some closeness Chaucer's (ll. 512 ff.) praise of the good shepherd who

^{page 433 note 1} See, for example, Professor Herford's note in his edition of the Calender (p. 161) with his citations from Fleay, Grosart, and Koeppel.

^{page 433 note 2} It is noticeable that Spenser represents these charges as brought by the people who “chatten … Ylike as a Monster of many heads,” and that these are the charges he himself makes in the earlier poems of the series. The effect is cumulative; here it is, as he says, that we get the truth of the matter.

^{page 434 note 1} Hobbinol may represent Harvey, but it should be noticed that he also represents a different mood of Spenser's when he says (ll. 236 ff.):

Other eclogues represent this variance of mood in Spenser, notably the view of the old religion in “February.” Cf. “October,” and also Milton in Lycidas and again in L'Allegro and Il Penseroso.

^{page 437 note 1} I have discussed these matters at some length in the Publications of the Modern Language Association, September, 1910.

^{page 438 note 1} Cf. Innes, England under the Tudors, pp. 318-325. It may be noted, also, that in his prose tract on Ireland Spenser expresses exactly the same views about the insidious wiles of missionaries from Douay and elsewhere (Globe ed., p. 680a).

^{page 438 note 2} In his edition of the Calender, p. xxxvii. But he rightly holds that Chaucer's verse, as scanned by the Elizabethans, gave authority for the rude anapestic measure adopted by Spenser. The other points he mentions (Chaucer's mastery of fable and allegory as shown in the Nonne Preestes Tale and in the translation of the Rose, and his skill in verse narrative) do not apply with any exactness to the Calender.

^{page 439 note 1} Studies in Chaucer, iii, p. 56. But M. H. T. is very regular, and is an illustration of the fact that Spenser got the couplet from the French, as Chaucer had done before him, while Colin Clout is in regular quatrains.

^{page 440 note 1} By no means all of the verbal borrowings from Chaucer in the Calender have been noted. For example, one of the emblems for the March eclogue reads: “To be wise, and eke to love, Is graunted scarce to Gods above.” This is similar to the line in the Knightes Tale (A1799) which Skeat regards as a translation of the proverb “Amare et Sapere vix Deo conceditur.” (Publius Syrus, Sent. 15.) But the proverb is common in the xvi century.

^{page 441 note 1} Lounsbury, Studies in Chaucer, i, pp. 134-140.

^{page 441 note 2} On the view of Chaucer as a Puritan poet, common in the xvi century, see Lounsbury, iii, pp. 34, 35 and his discussion of the Plowman's Tale in i, 468, 470, 471. But Professor Lounsbury fails to note this in what he says (iii, pp. 42-46 and 54-58) concerning the influence of Chaucer on Spenser.

^{page 442 note 1} For a complete discussion, see Skeat, The Chaucer Canon, ch. ix, x; Lounsbury, i, 461-473; and Thynne's Animadversions in Speght's Chaucer (Ed. Chaucer Society, with the introduction).

^{page 443 note 1} Note the parallel in verse form between this poem and the eclogues we are now considering.

^{page 444 note 1} Ed. Arber, p. 53 (Book i, ch. xviii).

^{page 444 note 2} There is a curious sentence in Thynne's Animadversions (ed. Chaucer Society, p. 10): “In one open parliamente (as I have herde Sir John Thynne reporte, beinge then a member of the howse) when talke was had of Bookes to be forbidden, Chaucer had then for ever byn condempned, had yt not byn that his woorkes had byn counted but fables.”

This reference is of course to such polemical matters as are contained, for example, in the Plowman's Tale, which was universally attributed to Chaucer in Spenser's time. No doubt as to the authenticity of this work seems to have been expressed before 1721 (by Dart in the life of Chaucer prefixed to the Urry Other instances might be cited, and there are evidences elsewhere in his works that Spenser knew Piers Plowman. The material in this section of the poem (Pass, v-vii) also fits admirably the teaching of the serious part of the Calender. I believe, therefore, that Spenser knew the great allegory and admired it, and that in the envoy to the Calender he expresses his admiration.

^{page 445 note 1} Webbe implies that Spenser met with some criticism for thin poem (ed. Arber, p. 54): “One only thing therein have I hearde some curious heades call in question: viz: the motion of some unsavery love, such as in the sixt Eglogue he seemeth to deale withall (which say they) is skant allowable to English eares.” He then repeats E. K.'s interpretation, in effect, saying that Spenser meant to warn others.

^{page 447 note 1} The fact that this song may have been an afterthought, since the combination of song and singing match is unusual, and since the gloss of E. K. does not extend to the song (Reissert, Herford) does not affect the inconsistency thus introduced into the story.

^{page 448 note 1} Like Milton, Spenser did not wholly sympathize with the Puritan zeal for plain and bare churches and a service devoid of dignity. In the prose tract on Ireland he says that one of the first things to do in reforming the country is to provide the people with beautiful places of worship, “for the outward shewe doth greatlye drawe the rude people … what ever some of our late to nice fooles saye,—‘ there is nothing in the seemelye forme and comely orders of the churche.‘” (Globe ed. p. 680b).

^{page 449 note 1} That the danger in such writing was very real is shown by innumerable instances. Thynne, in his “Animadversions” tells of the difficulties attending the publication of the edition of Chaucer in 1542; I have already alluded to the fact that “ Chaucer ” would have been “ called in ” had it not been that his works were accounted “fables” (p. 444); Gascoigne protests “even by the hope of my salvation” that he did not mean “the scandalizing of some worthie personages” in his story of Ferdinando Jeronimi (1574); Stubbes lost his right hand because of a tract he wrote on the subject of the Queen's marriage; Sidney, favorite as he was with the Queen, was disgraced because of a letter which he wrote on the same subject, and Spenser was sent to Ireland for similar activities.