The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 02, No. 13, November, 1858

Florius hae specie floridus,—optat amans."

And it was with evident allusion to this conceit that he named his several works his "First Fruits," "Second Fruits," "Garden of Recreation," and so forth. Spenser did not miss the occasion of reducing this figurative flower to a worthless weed:—

"Go tell the las her flower hath wox a weed."

In the preceding stanza we find this weed distinctly identified as Menalcas:—

"And thou, Menalcas! that by treachery
Didst underfong my lass to wax so light."

Another reason for dubbing Florio Menalcas may be found in the character and qualities ascribed to the treacherous shepherd by Virgil. He was not without talent, for in one of the Eclogues he bears his part in the poetical contention with credit; but he was unfaithful and fraudulent in his amours, envious, quarrelsome, scurrilous, and a braggart; and his face was remarkable for its dark, Italian hue,—"quamvis ille fuscus," etc. Compared with the undoubted character of John Florio, as already exhibited, that of Menalcas so corresponds as to justify its appropriation to the rival of Spenser.

There is a further peculiarity in the name itself, which renders its application to John Florio at once pointed and pregnant with the happiest ridicule. Florio rejoiced in the absurd prefix of Resolute. Now Menalcas is a compound of two Greek words ([Greek: menos] and [Greek: ulkm]) fully expressive of this idea, and frequently used together in the sense of RESOLUTION by the best classical authorities, —thus, "[Greek: menos d'ulkmd te lathpsmat]."[14 - Iliad, Z. 265.] Again, in Liddell and Scott's Greek-English Lexicon [Greek: menos] in composition is said to "bear always a collateral notion of resolve and firmness." And here we have the very notion expressed by the very word we want. Menalcas is the appropriate and expressive nom de guerre of the "Resolute."

Every unprejudiced reader will admit, that in emblem, name, character; and appearance, John Florio and Menalcas are allegorically identical; and it follows, as a consequence, that Rosalinde, married to the same person as Rose Daniel, is one and the same with her anagrammatic synonyme,—and that her sorrows and joys, arising out of the conduct of her husband, must have had the same conditions.

Having identified Rosalinde with Rose Daniel, it may be thought that nothing further of interest with respect to either party remains, which could lead us into further detail;—but Spenser himself having chosen, under another personification, to follow the married life of this lady, and revenge himself upon the treachery of her husband, we should lose an opportunity both of interpreting his works and of forming a correct estimate of his character, if we neglected to pursue with him the fortunes of Mirabella. Like her type and prototype, we find that she has to suffer those mortifications which a good wife cannot but experience on witnessing the scorn, disdain, and enmity which follow the perversity of a wayward husband. Such, at least, we understand to be the meaning of those allegorical passages in which, as a punishment for her cruelty and pride, she is committed by the legal decree of Cupid to the custody and conduct of Scorn and Disdain. We meet with her for the first time as:

"a fair maiden clad in mourning WEED,
Upon a mangy JADE unmeetly set,
And a leud fool her leading thorough dry and wet."

Again she is:

"riding upon an ass
Led by a carle and fool which by her side did pass."

These companions treat her with great contempt and cruelty; the Carle abuses her:

"With all the evil terms and cruel mean
That he could make; and eke that angry fool,
Which followed her with cursed hands uncleane
Whipping her horse, did with his smarting-tool
Oft whip her dainty self, and much augment her dool."

All this, of course, is to be understood allegorically. The Carle and Fool—the former named Disdain, the latter Scorn—are doubtless (as in the case of Holofernes and Armado) the double representatives of the same person. By the ass on which she rides is signified, we suppose, the ridiculous position to which marriage has reduced her haughty beauty; the taunts and scourges are, metaphorically, the wounds of injured self-respect.

The Carle himself is extravagantly and most "Resolutely" painted as a monster in nature,—stern, terrible, fearing no living wight,—his looks dreadful,—his eyes fiery, and rolling from left to right in search of "foeman worthy of his steel"; he strides with the stateliness of a crane, and, at every step, rises on tiptoe; his dress and aspect resemble those of the Moors of Malabar, and remind us forcibly of the swarthy Menalcas. Indeed, if we compare this serio-comic exaggeration of the Carle with the purely comic picture of Don Armado given by Holofernes, we shall see at a glance that both depict the same object of ridicule.

That Mirabella is linked in wedlock to this angry Fool is nowhere more clearly depicted than in the passage where Prince Arthur, having come to her rescue, is preparing to put her tormentor to death, until his sword is arrested by the shrieks and entreaties of the unhappy lady that his life may be spared for her sake:—

"Stay, stay, Sir Knight! for love of God abstain
From that unwares you weetlesse do intend!
Slay not that carle, though worthy to be slain;
For more on him doth than himself depend:
My life will by his death have lamentable end."

This is the language of a virtuous wife, whom neither the absurdities of a vainglorious husband, nor "the whips and scorns of the time," to which his conduct necessarily exposes her, can detach from her duties and affections.

Assuming, then, that the circumstances of this allegory identify Mirabella with Rosalinde, and Rosalinde with Rose Daniel, and, in like manner, the Fool and Carle with Menalcas and John Florio, have we not here a thrice-told tale, agreeing so completely in all essential particulars as to leave no room for doubt of its original application to the early love-adventures in which the poet was disappointed? And these points settled, though intrinsically of trivial value, become of the highest interest, as strong corroboration of the personal import of all the allegorical characters introduced into the works of Spenser. Thus, in the "Shepherd's Calendar," the confidant of the lover is Hobbinoll, or Gabriel Harvey; and in the "Faëry Queen," the adventurers who come to Mirabella's relief are Prince Arthur, Sir Timias, and Serena, the well-known allegorical impersonations of Spenser's special friends, the Earl of Leicester, Sir Walter Raleigh, and Elizabeth Throckmorton, to whom Sir Walter was married. Are not these considerations, added to the several circumstances and coincidences already detailed, conclusive of the personal and domestic nature of the history conveyed in both the poetical vehicles? And do they not amount to a moral demonstration, that, in assigning the character and adventures of Mirabella and Rosalinde to the sister of Samuel Daniel, the wife of John Florio, we have given no unfaithful account of the first fickle mistress of Edmund Spenser?—We shall next ascertain the name and history of his wife from the internal evidence left behind him in his works.

PART II.—SPENSER'S WIFE

The second passion of our poet, having had birth "In savage soyle, far from Parnasso Mount," is more barren of literary gossip and adventure, and may, therefore, we trust, be compressed into narrow limits.

The chief evidence on which we shall have to rely in this case must be of a similar nature with the former;—not that we shall have to interpret allegories, but the true reading of an anagram; for we may set out on our pursuit, assured, that, according to the poetical alchemy of his age, Spenser did not fail to screen his second innamorata under the same "quintessential cloud of wit" as his first; and that we shall find in his homage some sobriquet, "the right ordering of which" (as in the former case) "will bewray the verie name of his love and mistresse."

On this point, however, his biographies and biographers have hitherto preserved absolute silence. They tell us he was married, and had several children by his wife; but, of the name, the rank, or the country of the lady they confess their ignorance. Todd informs us, that he "married a person of very inferior rank to himself,"– "a country lass";—and he quotes the "Faëry Queen" to prove his assertion:—

"For, certes, she was but a country lass."

It is true, those words occur in the passage cited by the commentator from the "Faëry Queen"; most probably they refer to the person in dispute. But she was no more "a country lass," in the ordinary acceptation of the phrase, than was Spenser himself (Clerk of the Council of Munster) "a shepherd's boy." Had Mr. Todd consulted that portion of our poet's works especially devoted to record this passion, its progress and issue, he would have found she was a "lady," whose rank was rather "disparaged" than otherwise by "sorting" with Edmund Spenser, albeit his blood was noble:—

"To all those happy blessings which you have
With plenteous hand by Heaven upon you thrown,
This one disparagement they to you gave,
That you your love lent to so mean a one."

                            Amoretti. Sonnet lxvi.
Spenser devoted two entire poems expressly to this passion,—to wit, the "Amoretti," describing its vicissitudes, and the "Epithalamion, or Marriage Song," in which he celebrates its consummation. There are many allusions to it also in the "Faëry Queen" and "Colin Clout's come home again"; and from these sources we propose to supply the name, the lineage, and residence of the happy fair.

She was, undoubtedly, a person of rank and blood, residing in the poet's vicinage, and is so described in many of the Sonnets. She is constantly addressed as "a lady," enjoying the respect and the elegancies, if not the luxuries, of her condition,—well-educated, accomplished in the arts of design and embroidery,—at whose father's house the poet was no infrequent visitor. Her residence, or that of her family, could not have been far from Kilcolman Castle; and was seated, most probably, on the banks of the Mulla, (Spenser's favorite stream,) a tributary of the Blackwater, which empties into the sea at Youghal. For she is seen for the first time in the "Faëry Queen" as the love of Colin Clout, (Spenser,) dancing among the Nymphs and Graces,—herself a fourth Grace,—on a mountain-top, the description of which exactly corresponds with all his other descriptions of his beloved Mole,—a mountain which nearly overhangs his castle;[15 - Faëry Queen, Book VI. Canto x.] and, undoubtedly, the bridesmaids and companions who attended her at the hymeneal altar were the "Nymphs of Mulla," and,

"of the rivers, of the forest green, And of the sea that neighbours to her near,"—

a localization which would fix her family mansion somewhere between Kilcolman Castle and the prosperous seaport town of Youghal,—but somewhat nearer to the former. This limits our inquiries within the narrow range of the lands bordering the Mulla waters.

But our poet, we believe, did not stop with these ambiguous indications of her birthplace and family; he had promised her to immortalize the triumph of his passion, and to leave to all posterity a monument of the "rare wonderment" of the lady's beauty.[16 - Sonnet lxix.] He had gone farther; and, in three several sonnets,[17 - : Sonnets lxxiii, lxxv, and lxxxii.] vowed to eternize her name—"your glorious name in golden monument"—after his own fashion, and to the best of his abilities. We have no right, then, to doubt that he fulfilled his promise; and if we can fix upon any distinctive appellation or epithet addressed to her, common to the several poems which professedly reveal his passion, and solvable into the name of a person whose residence and circumstances correspond with those ascribed to the lady by her worshipper, may we not most reasonably conclude that we have at length discovered the long-lost secret?

To begin with the beginning,—the "Amoretti." Here she is an Angel, in all moods and tenses, the "leaves," "lines," and "rhymes" are taught, that, "when they behold that Angel's blessed look," they shall "seek her to please alone."[18 - Sonnet i.] In a subsequent sonnet, she is an:

"Angel come to lead frail minds to rest In chaste desires, on heavenly beauty bound."[19 - Sonnet viii.]

Again, the poet denies that

"The glorious portrait of that Angel's face"

can be expressed by any art, by pen or pencil.[20 - Sonnet xvii.]

Again, she is

"Of the brood of Angels heavenly born."[21 - Sonnet lxi.]

And yet again, she is

"Divine and born of heavenly seed."[22 - Sonnet lxxix.]

Once more we are bid