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

"Go visit her in her chaste bower of rest,
Accompanied with Angel-like delights."[23 - Sonnet lxxxiii.]

Turn we next to the "Epithalamion." And here the same cuckoo-note is repeated usque ad nauseam. We are told, that, to look upon her,

"we should ween
Some Angel she had been."[24 - Stanza 9.]

Even her bridesmaids (her sisters, probably) are thought to be Angels, and, addressing them, the bridegroom says,

"Sing, ye sweet Angels, Alleluya sing!"[25 - Stanza 13.]

Finally, in "Colin Clout's come home again," the poet very dexterously evades the royal anger of Elizabeth, sure to be aroused by the preference of any beauty to her own. To deceive the Queen,—to whom, in gratitude for past favors, and, mayhap, with a lively appreciation of others yet to come, he is offering up homage,—he describes her Majesty by the very same imagery he had elsewhere employed to depict his lady-love; and ostensibly applies to the royal Elizabeth the amatory terms which are covertly meant for an Elizabeth of his own,—between whom and her royal type he either saw or affected to see a personal resemblance. Here we find her placed by the poet:

"Amongst the seats of Angels heavenly wrought,
Much like an Angel in all form and fashion."

The metaphoric 'Angel' of enamored swains is at once so trite and obvious, that both the invention and vocabulary of the lover who abides by it so perpetually must have been poor and narrow beyond anything we can conceive of Spenser's fecundity of language and imagery, if we sit down content to imagine that no more is meant by its recurrence than meets the eye. We are satisfied that this title or simile—call it what you will—is the key-word of the mystery; and we must now look around the neighborhood of the Mulla for a family-surname out of which this "Angel" can be extracted by the "alchemy of wit."

On consulting the "Great Records of Munster," Vol. VI., we find a family residing in the neighborhood of Kilcolman Castle whose name and circumstances correspond exactly with all the requirements of our Angel-ic theory. The Nagles were a very ancient and respectable family, whose principal seats were in the northern parts of the County of Cork and the adjoining borders of the County of Waterford. There seem to have been two races of them, distinguished by the color of their hair into the Red Nagles and the Black Nagles; and of the former, the lord or chieftain of the tribe resided at Moneanymmy, an ancient preceptory of the Knights of St. John, beautifully seated on the banks of the Mulla, where it disembogues its tribute into the Blackwater, on its passage to Cappoquin and Youghal, and at a convenient distance from Spenser's Kilcolman. Elizabeth Nagle belonging to the Red branch of the family, we shall find no difficulty in accounting for her alleged resemblance to Queen Elizabeth.

The proprietor of Moneanymmy, strictly contemporaneous with Spenser, was John Nagle, whose son, David, died in the city of Dublin in 1637. It is therefore but fair to suppose that in 1593 (the year of Spenser's marriage) this David might have had a sister of marriageable age; for he himself, by his marriage with Ellen Roche of Ballyhowly, had a daughter, Ellen, who in due time was married to Sylvanus, the eldest son of Edmund Spenser. If our supposition be correct, therefore, Ellen and Sylvanus were linked by the double bond of cousinhood and matrimony.

Unfortunately for our Spenserian inquiry, however, the full and regular pedigree of these Nagles commences only with David, whose marriage and the issue thereof are recorded at large in Irish books of heraldry; whereas the preceding generations, to a remote antiquity, are merely notified by the bare names of the son and heir as they succeeded to the inheritance.

John Nagle may have had a daughter marriageable at the time of Spenser's marriage; and she may have married the poet,—and did, we are convinced,—even though her family belonged to the Romish persuasion, and the bridegroom to the Protestant Church.

To this untoward circumstance—the difference in religion—there is curious reference made in a remarkable passage of the "Amoretti," which seems not only to indicate the name of her family, but to screen the poet himself from the penalties denounced against Protestants who intermarried with Roman Catholics. In the Sixty-first Sonnet, the lady is said to be:

"divinely wrought,
And of the brood of Angels heavenly born;
And with the crew of blessed Saints upbrought,
Each of which did her with their gifts adorn."

Here we have distinctly her birth and education, each assigned to a different source. She is of the "brood" or family of anagrammatic "Angels,"—otherwise, Nagles; but has been "upbrought," or instructed, by persons whom Spenser denominates "Saints," or Orthodox Protestants; for Spenser was by party and profession a Puritan; and the Puritans were "Saints,"—to such as chose to accept their own account of the matter.

But there may be a yet deeper meaning, an anagrammatic appropriateness, in this phrase, "crew of blessed Saints." The Nagles of Moneanymmy had intermarried frequently with the St. Legers of Doneraile; and thus such a close intimacy was established between the families as to warrant the supposition that a child of the one house might have been reared amongst the members of the other. Elizabeth Spenser (born Nagle) may not unlikely have been educated by the Puritan St. Legers. The name St. Leger, as Camden remarks, is a compound name, derived from the German Leodigar or Leger, signifying "the Gatherer of the People." Verstigan also gives it the same translation, as originating from Leod, Lud, or Luyd, which, he says, means "folk or people."[26 - Verstigan's Restitution of Decayed Intelligence, p. 226.] Therefore St. Leger seems to signify a folk, a gathering, a legion or "crew" of saints, a holy crowd or crew,—which may have been the quibble extorted by Spenser's "alchemy of wit" from the "upbringing" of Elizabeth Nagle, his wife. He calls her with marked emphasis his "sweet Saint," his "sovereign Saint"; and in the "Epithalamion" the temple-gates are called on to:

"Receive this Saint with honors due."

In praying to the gods for a large posterity, he places his request on the ground,

"That from the earth (which may they long possess
With lasting happiness!)
Up to your haughty palaces may mount
Of blessed Saints for to increase the count."

There is yet another solution, beside the anagrammatic one, for the name of "Angel" so sedulously applied by the poet to his beloved. The Nagle family, according to heraldry, were divided into three branches, distinguished by peculiarities of surname. The Southern branch signed themselves "Nagle,"—the Meath or Midland branch, "Nangle,"—while the Connaught or Western shoot rejoiced in the more euphonious cognomen of Costello! Let the heralds account for these variations; we take them as we find them. The letter N, as we are informed, according to the genius of the Irish tongue, is nothing more than a prefix, set, euphoniæ gratiâ, before the radical name itself, when commencing with a vowel. Thus, the N'Angles of Ireland were the Angles whose heroic deeds are duly recorded in the lists of the battle of Hastings. They went over to Ireland with Strongbow; one branch assumed (can the heralds tell us why?) the name of Costello;—another became N'Angles, and the Southern shoot dwarfed down their heavenly origin into prosaic Nagle. The well-known punning exclamation of Pope Gregory, on observing the fairness and beauty of some English children,—"Non Angli, sed Angeli forent, si essent Christiani,"—may have set the fervid brain of Spenser on fire, and suggested the divine origin of her he loved. Between Elizabeth de Angelis—the pun of Gregory—and Elizabeth de Angulo—the latter being the derivation of heralds and lawyers—what poet could hesitate a moment?

Our task is done. We think we have established our case. By anagram, Elizabeth Nagle makes a perfect Angel; by heraldry and a pontifical pun, the N'Angles of the County of Meath are Angels in indefeasible succession; Elizabeth belonged to the Red branch of her family, and therefore must have resembled the royal Elizabeth; she was brought up among the "crew of Saints" in the St. Leger family; and, finally, her place of residence corresponds with that depicted by the "passionate shepherd" as the home of his second mistress. We think we have satisfied all the requirements of reasonable conviction, and confidently await the verdict of that select few who may feel interest in this purely literary investigation.

Guided by the rules of anagram here laid down and illustrated, some future commentator, more deeply versed in the history and scandal of the Elizabethan era, may be able to identify real personages with all the fantastic characters introduced in the "Faëry Queen."

CHAPTER III

A year had passed since Maddy's flitting. The skimped delaine was sadly rusty,—Miss Wimple very poor. The profits of the Hendrik Athenæum and Circulating Library accrued in slow and slender pittances. A package of envelopes now and then, a few lead pencils, a box of steel pens, a slate pencil to a school-boy, were all its sales. Almost the last regular customer had seceded to the "Hendrik Book Bazaar and Periodical Emporium,"—a pert rival, that, with multifarious new-fangled tricks of attractiveness, flashed its plate-glass eyes and turned up its gilded nose at Miss Wimple from the other side of the way.

But Miss Wimple's proud and honorable fund for the relief of the shop, by no means fell off. As she had anticipated, her expert and nimble needle was in steady demand by all the folks of Hendrik who had fine sewing to give out. Her earnings from this source were considerable; and, severely stinting herself in the very necessaries of life by a strained ingenuity of economy, to which the skimped delaine—turned and altered to the utter exhaustion of the cleverest dressmaker's invention, and magically rejuvenated, as though again and again dipped in the fountain of perpetual youth—bore conclusive testimony, she bravely reinforced her fund from time to time.

Miss Wimple's repasts were neither frequent nor sumptuous; "all the delicacies of the season" hardly found their way to her table; and in her bleak little nest, for it was now winter, a thin and scanty shawl but coldly did the office of a blanket.

But Miss Wimple partook of her tea and dry toast with a cheerful heart, and shivered in her nest with illustrious patience,—regaled by satisfied honor, and warmed by the smiles of courage and of hope.

Between Simon and herself negotiations rested where we left them last; only there was now a heartier welcome for him when he came, and often a sparkling smile, that seemed to say, he had waited well, and not in vain, she hoped,—a smile that, to the eye of his healthy spirit, was an earnest of the rose-star's reappearance; it was only behind the rusty skimped delaine, as behind a cloud. His visits were not so rare as before, nor always "upon business"; he lingered sometimes, and sometimes had his way.

One night, Simon was outrageously rebellious; he had cheated Sally of half an hour, and spent it in rank mutiny; he compared the rose-star to the remotest of the asteroids, as seen through Lord Rosse's telescope, and instituted facetious comparisons between Miss Wimple's honorable fund and the national debt of England. It was near closing-time; Miss Wimple said, "Now, Simon, will you go?" —she had said that three times already. Some one entered. O, ho! Miss Wimple snatched away her hand:—"Now go, or never come again!" Simon glanced at the visitor,—a woman,—a stranger evidently, and poor,—a beggar, most likely, or one of those Wandering Jews of womankind, who, homeless, goalless, hopeless, tramp, tramp, tramp, unresting, till they die. She had almost burst in, quite startling Miss Wimple; but now she stood by the glass case, with averted face, and shabby shawl drawn suspiciously about her, and waited to be noticed, peering, meanwhile, through the little window into the dark street.

"Good-night, little Sally!" said Simon; "put up your bars, and so put up my bars. Now there's a fine speech for you!—if my name were Philip Withers, you'd call it poetry."

The strange woman actually stamped with her foot twice, and moved a step nearer to the window. Miss Wimple took it for a gesture of impatience, and at once arose to accost her. Simon eyed her curiously, and somewhat suspiciously, as he passed; but, taking her attire for his clue, he thought he recognized one of a class with whom Miss Wimple was accustomed to cope successfully; so he took his leave unconcerned.

Miss Wimple approached the stranger. "What will you have?" she asked. But the woman only followed Simon with her eyes, not heeding the question.

"Do you hear me?" repeated she; "I say, what will you have, Madam?"

By that time, Simon had disappeared among the distant shadows of the street. The woman turned suddenly and confronted Miss Wimple.

"Look at me," she said.

Miss Wimple looked, and saw a pale and haggard, almost fierce, face, that had once been fair,—one that she might, she fancied, have met somewhere before.

"You seem to have suffered,—to suffer now. What can I do for you?"

"Look at me!"

"I see; you are very wretched, and you were not always as you are now. You are cold; are you hungry also? I, too, am very poor; but I will do all I can. I will warm you and give you food."

The woman walked to where the bright camphene lamp hung, and stood under it.

"Now look at me, Miss Wimple."

"I have looked enough; desperation on a young woman's face is not a pleasant sight to see. If you have a secret, best keep it. I have to deal only with your weariness, your hunger, and your half-frozen limbs. If I can do nothing for those, you must go.—Merciful Heaven! Miss Madeline Splurge!"

"Yes!—Now hide me, quick, or some one will be coming; and warm me, and feed me, or I shall surely die on your hands."

Not another word said Miss Wimple,—asked no question, uttered no exclamation of surprise; but straightway ran and closed the windows, put up the bars, adjusted the shutters in the glass door, and screwed them down. Next she took Madeline's hand and led her up the narrow staircase to the nest, seated her in the little Yankee rocking-chair, and wrapped her in the scanty, faded shawl that served for a coverlet. Then she ran quickly down into the cellar, and, with a hammer, broke in pieces an old packing-box;—it was a brave achievement for her tender hands. Back to the nest again with the sticks;—Madeline slept in the chair, poor heart!

Miss Wimple made a fire in her little stove, and when some water was hot, she roused her guest with a kiss. Silently, languidly, and with closed eyes, Madeline yielded herself to the kind offices of her gentle nurse, who bathed her face and neck, her hands and feet, and dressed her hair; and when that was done, she placed a pillow under the wanderer's head, and, with another kiss, dismissed her to sleep again.

Then she prepared tea and toast, and, running down to the street, returned quickly with some fresh eggs and a morsel of golden butter, wherefrom she prepared a toothsome supper, the fragrance of which presently aroused the famished sufferer, so that she opened her eyes feebly, and smiled, and kissed Miss Wimple's hand when she came to draw her nearer to the table. Then Madeline ate,—not heartily, but enough to comfort her; and very soon her head fell back upon the pillow, and she would have slept in the chair again, holding Miss Wimple's hand. But Miss Wimple arose and took the sheets from the cot, and, having warmed them by the fire, made up the bed afresh,—a most smooth, sweet, and comfortable nest; and, raising Madeline in her arms, supporting her still sleeping head upon her shoulder, she very tenderly and skilfully removed her garments, all coarse and torn, soiled and damp, and clad her afresh in pure night-clothes of her own. But first—for Madeline began to shiver, and her teeth had chattered slightly—Miss Wimple untied her own warm petticoat of quilted silk, that for comfort and for decency had been her best friend through the hard winter,—wherefore it was most dearly prized and ingeniously saved,—and put it upon Madeline, whom then she led, almost carrying her, as one may lead a worn-out and already slumbering child, to the nest, and laid her gently there, drawing the covering snugly about her, and spreading the faithful shawl over all. And all the while, not a word had been spoken by either;—with one, it was the silence of pious carefulness, —with the other, of newly-found safety and perfect rest. Then Miss Wimple placed the lamp on the floor behind the door, fed the stove with fresh sticks, and with her feet on the little iron hearth, and her head resting on her knees, thought there all night.