No More Learning

Thus democracy abroad, as at home, tends
towards personal singularity.
Nor is this association of characteristics peculiar to mod-
ern times, or to reformers of the State. It has always existed;
and it has been manifested as much in religious agitations as in
political ones. Along with dissent from the chief established
opinions and arrangements, there has ever been some dissent
from the customary social practices. The Puritans, disapproving
of the long curls of the Cavaliers, as of their principles, cut
their own hair short, and so gained the name of "Roundheads. "
The marked religious nonconformity of the Quakers was marked
by an equally marked nonconformity of manners,-in attire, in
speech, in salutation. The early Moravians not only believed
differently, but at the same time dressed differently and lived
differently, from their fellow-Christians.
That the association between political independence and inde-
pendence of personal conduct is not a phenomenon of to-day
only, we may see alike in the appearance of Franklin at the
French court in plain clothes, and in the white hats worn by
the last generation of radicals. Originality of nature is sure
to show itself in more ways than one. The mention of George
Fox's suit of leather, or Pestalozzi's school name, Harry Odd-
ity," will at once suggest the remembrance that men who have
in great things diverged from the beaten track, have frequently
done so in small things likewise. Minor illustrations of this
truth may be gathered in almost every circle. We believe that
whoever will number up his reforming and rationalist acquaint-
ances, will find among them more than the usual proportion of


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those who in dress or behavior exhibit some degree of what the
world calls eccentricity.
If it be a fact that men of revolutionary aims in politics or
religion are commonly revolutionists in custom also, it is not less.
a fact that those whose office it is to uphold established arrange-
ments in State and church are also those who most adhere to
the social forms and observances bequeathed to us by past
generations. Practices elsewhere extinct still linger about the
headquarters of government. The monarch still gives assent to
Acts of Parliament in the old French of the Normans; and Nor-
man French terms are still used in law. Wigs such as those we
see depicted in old portraits, may yet be found on the heads of
judges and barristers. The Beefeaters at the Tower wear the
costume of Henry VII. th's body-guard. The university dress of
the present year varies but little from that worn soon after the
Reformation. The claret-colored coat, knee-breeches, lace shirt
frills, ruffles, white silk stockings, and buckled shoes, which once
formed the usual attire of a gentleman, still survive as the court
dress. And it need scarcely be said that at levées and drawing-
rooms, the ceremonies are prescribed with an exactness, and
enforced with a rigor, not elsewhere to be found.
Can we consider these two series of coincidences as accidental
and unmeaning? Must we not rather conclude that some neces-
sary relationship obtains between them? Are there not such
things as a constitutional conservatism, and a constitutional tend-
ency to change? Is there not a class which clings to the old in
all things; and another class so in love with progress as often
to mistake novelty for improvement? Do we not find some men
ready to bow to established authority of whatever kind; while
others demand of every such authority its reason, and reject it
if it fails to justify itself? And must not the minds thus con-
trasted tend to become respectively conformist and nonconformist,
not only in politics and religion but in other things? Submis-
sion, whether to a government, to the dogmas of ecclesiastics,
or to that code of behavior which society at large has set up, is
essentially of the same nature; and the sentiment which induces.
resistance to the despotism of rulers, civil or spiritual, likewise
induces resistance to the despotism of the world's opinion. Look
at them fundamentally, and all enactments, alike of the legis-
lature, the consistory, and the saloon,-all regulations formal or
virtual,—have a common character: they are all limitations of
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man's freedom. "Do this-Refrain from that," are the blank
formulas into which they may all be written: and in each case
the understanding is that obedience will bring approbation here
and paradise hereafter; while disobedience will entail imprison-
ment, or sending to Coventry, or eternal torments, as the case.
may be. And if restraints, however named, and through what-
ever apparatus of means exercised, are one in their action upon
men, it must happen that those who are patient under one.
kind of restraint are likely to be patient under another; and
conversely, that those impatient of restraint in general, will on
the average tend to show their impatience in all directions.
That Law, Religion, and Manners are thus related-that their
respective kinds of operation come under one generalization -
that they have in certain contrasted characteristics of men a
common support and a common danger will, however, be most
clearly seen on discovering that they have a common origin. Lit-
tle as from present appearances we should suppose it, we shall
yet find that at first the control of religion, the control of laws,
and the control of manners, were all one control. However in-
credible it may now seem, we believe it to be demonstrable that
the rules of etiquette, the provisions of the statute-book, and the
commands of the Decalogue, have grown from the same root.
If we go far enough back into the ages of primeval Fetishism, it
becomes manifest that originally Deity, Chief, and Master of the
Ceremonies were identical. To make good these positions, and
to show their bearing on what is to follow, it will be necessary
here to traverse ground that is in part somewhat beaten, and at
first sight irrelevant to our topic. We will pass over it as quickly
as consists with the exigencies of the argument.
That the earliest social aggregations were ruled solely by
the will of the strong man, few dispute. That from the strong
man proceeded not only monarchy, but the conception of a God,
few admit; much as Carlyle and others have said in evidence.
of it. If, however, those who are unable to believe this will
lay aside the ideas of God and man in which they have been
educated, and study the aboriginal ideas of them, they will at
least see some probability in the hypothesis. Let them remem-
ber that before experience had yet taught men to distinguish
between the possible and the impossible, and while they were
ready on the slightest suggestion to ascribe unknown powers to
any object and make a fetish of it, their conceptions of humanity
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and its capacities were necessarily vague, and without specific lim-
its. The man who, by unusual strength or cunning, achieved
something that others had failed to achieve, or something which
they did not understand, was considered by them as differing
from themselves; and as we see in the belief of some Polynesians
that only their chiefs have souls, or in that of the ancient Peru-
vians that their nobles were divine by birth, the ascribed differ-
ence was apt to be not one of degree only, but one of kind.
Let them remember next, how gross were the notions of
God, or rather of gods, prevalent during the same era and after-
wards: how concretely gods were conceived as men of specific
aspects dressed in specific ways; how their names were literally
"the strong," "the destroyer," "the powerful one"; how, accord-
ing to the Scandinavian mythology, the "sacred duty of blood
revenge" was acted on by the gods themselves; and how they
were not only human in their vindictiveness, their cruelty, and
their quarrels with each other, but were supposed to have amours
on earth, and to consume the viands placed on their altars. Add
to which, that in various mythologies-Greek, Scandinavian, and
others- the oldest beings are giants; that according to a tradi-
tional genealogy, the gods, demigods, and in some cases men,
are descended from these after the human fashion; and that while
in the East we hear of sons of God who saw the daughters of
men that they were fair, the Teutonic myths tell of unions
between the sons of men and the daughters of the gods.
Let them remember, too, that at first the idea of death dif-
fered widely from that which we have; that there are still tribes
who on the decease of one of their number attempt to make the
corpse stand, and put food into his mouth; that the Peruvians
had feasts at which the mummies of their dead Incas presided,
when, as Prescott says, they paid attention "to these insensible.
remains as if they were instinct with life"; that among the
Fejees it is believed that every enemy has to be killed twice;
that the Eastern Pagans give extension and figure to the soul,
and attribute to it all the same substances, both solid and liquid,
of which our bodies are composed; and that it is the custom
among most barbarous races to bury food, weapons, and trinkets
along with the dead body, under the manifest belief that it will
presently need them.
Lastly, let them remember that the other world, as origi-
nally conceived, is simply some distant part of this world; some


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Elysian fields, some happy hunting-ground,-accessible even to
the living, and to which, after death, men travel in anticipation
of a life analogous in general character to that which they led
before. Then, co-ordinating these general facts, - the ascription
of unknown powers to chiefs and medicine-men; the belief in
deities having human forms, passions, and behavior; the imper-
fect comprehension of death as distinguished from life; and
the proximity of the future abode to the present, both in posi-
tion and character,- let them reflect whether they do not almost
unavoidably suggest the conclusion that the aboriginal god is the
dead chief; the chief not dead in our sense, but gone away, car-
rying with him food and weapons to some rumored region of
plenty, some promised land whither he had long intended to lead
his followers, and whence he will presently return to fetch them.
This hypothesis, once entertained, is seen to harmonize with
all primitive ideas and practices. The sons of the deified chief
reigning after him, it necessarily happens that all early kings
are held descendants of the gods; and the fact that alike in
Assyria, Egypt, among the Jews, Phoenicians, and ancient Britons,
kings' names were formed out of the names of the gods, is fully
explained.
From this point onwards these two kinds of authority, at first
complicated together as those of principal and agent, become
slowly more and more distinct. As experience accumulates, and
ideas of causation grow more precise, kings lose their supernat-
ural attributes; and instead of God-king, become God-descended
king, God-appointed king, the Lord's anointed, the vicegerent of
Heaven, ruler reigning by divine right. The old theory, however,
long clings to men in feeling after it has disappeared in name;
and "such divinity doth hedge a king" that even now, many on
first seeing one feel a secret surprise at finding him an ordinary
sample of humanity. The sacredness attaching to royalty attaches
afterwards to its appended institutions,—to legislatures, to laws.
Legal and illegal are synonymous with right and wrong; the
authority of parliament is held unlimited; and a lingering faith
in governmental power continually generates unfounded hopes
from its enactments. Political skepticism, however, having de-
stroyed the divine prestige of royalty, goes on ever increasing,
and promises ultimately to reduce the State to a purely secular
institution, whose regulations are limited in their sphere, and have
no other authority than the general will. Meanwhile, the religious


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control has been little by little separating itself from the civil,
both in its essence and in its forms.
Thus alike in authority, in essence, and in form, political and
spiritual rule have been ever more widely diverging from the
same root. That increasing division of labor which marks the
progress of society in other things, marks it also in this sepa-
ration of government into civil and religious; and if we observe
how the morality which forms the substance of religions in
general is beginning to be purified from the associated creeds,
we may anticipate that this division will be ultimately carried
much further.
Passing now to the third species of control, that of manners,
we shall find that this too while it had a common genesis with
the others, has gradually come to have a distinct sphere and a
special embodiment. Among early aggregations of men before
yet social observances existed, the sole forms of courtesy known
were the signs of submission to the strong man; as the sole law
was his will, and the sole religion the awe of his supposed super-
naturalness. Originally, ceremonies were modes of behavior to
the God-king. Our commonest titles have been derived from his
names. And all salutations were primarily worship paid to him.
Let us trace out these truths in detail, beginning with titles.
The fact already noticed, that the names of early kings among
divers races are formed by the addition of certain syllables to
the names of their gods,-which certain syllables, like our Mac
and Fitz, probably mean "son of," or "descended from," - at
once gives meaning to the term Father as a divine title. And
when we read, in Selden, that "the composition out of these
names of Deities was not only proper to Kings: their Grandes
and more honorable Subjects" [no doubt members of the royal
race] "had sometimes the like," - we see how the term Father,
properly used by these also, and by their multiplying descend-
ants, came to be a title used by the people in general. And it
is significant, as bearing on this point, that among the most bar-
barous nations of Europe, where belief in the divine nature of
the ruler still lingers, Father in this higher sense is still a regal
distinction. When, again, we remember how the divinity at first.
ascribed to kings was not a complimentary fiction but a supposed
fact; and how, further, under the Fetish philosophy the celestial
bodies are believed to be personages who once lived among
men,- we see that the appellations of Oriental rulers, "Brother


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to the Sun," etc. , were probably once expressive of a genuine
belief; and have simply, like many other things, continued in
use after all meaning has gone out of them. We may infer too
that the titles God, Lord, Divinity, were given to primitive rulers
literally; that the nostra divinitas applied to the Roman empe-
rors, and the various sacred designations that have been borne
by monarchs, down to the still extant phrase "Our Lord the
King," are the dead and dying forms of what were once living
facts. From these names, God, Father, Lord, Divinity,―origi-
nally belonging to the God-king, and afterwards to God and the
king, the derivation of our commonest titles of respect is clearly
traceable.
――――――
There is reason to think that these titles were originally
proper names. Not only do we see among the Egyptians, where
Pharaoh was synonymous with king, and among the Romans,
where to be Cæsar meant to be emperor, that the proper names
of the greatest men were transferred to their successors, and so
became class names; but in the Scandinavian mythology we may
trace a human title of honor up to the proper name of a divine
personage. In Anglo-Saxon, bealdor or baldor means Lord; and
Balder is the name of the favorite of Odin's sons - the gods who
with him constitute the Teutonic Pantheon. How these names
of honor became general is easily understood. The relatives of
the primitive kings-the grandees described by Selden as having
names formed on those of the gods, and shown by this to be
members of the divine race-necessarily shared in the epithets,
such as Lord, descriptive of superhuman relationships and nature.
Their ever multiplying offspring inheriting these, gradually ren-
dered them comparatively common. And then they came to
be applied to every man of power: partly from the fact that
in these early days, when men conceived divinity simply as
a stronger kind of humanity, great persons could be called by
divine epithets with but little exaggeration; partly from the fact
that the unusually potent were apt to be considered as unrecog
nized or illegitimate descendants of "the strong, the destroyer,
the powerful one"; and partly also from compliment and the
desire to propitiate.
Progressively as superstition diminished, this last became the
sole cause. And if we remember that it is the nature of com-
pliment, as we daily hear it, to attribute more than is due;
that in the constantly widening application of "esquire," in the


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perpetual repetition of "your Honor" by the fawning Irishman,
and in the use of the name
>>>>
" gentleman to any coalheaver or
dustman by the lower classes of London, we have current exam-
ples of the depreciation of titles consequent on compliment; and
that in barbarous times, when the wish to propitiate was stronger
than now, this effect must have been greater,- we shall see
that there naturally arose an extensive misuse of all early distinc-
tions. Hence the facts that the Jews called Herod a god; that
Father, in its higher sense, was a term used among them by
servants to masters; that Lord was applicable to any person of
worth and power. Hence too the fact that in the later periods
of the Roman Empire, every man saluted his neighbor as Domi-
nus and Rex.
But it is in the titles of the Middle Ages, and in the growth
of our modern ones out of them, that the process is most clearly
seen. Herr, Don, Signior, Seigneur, Señor, were all originally
names of rulers—of feudal lords. By the complimentary use of
these names to all who could on any pretense be supposed to
merit them, and by successive degradations of them from each
step in the descent to a still lower one, they have come to be
common forms of address. At first the phrase in which a serf
accosted his despotic chief, mein herr is now familiarly applied in
Germany to ordinary people. The Spanish title Don, once proper
to noblemen and gentlemen only, is now accorded to all classes.
So too is it with Signior in Italy. Seigneur and Monseigneur,
by contraction in Sieur and Monsieur, have produced the term of
respect claimed by every Frenchman. And whether Sire be or be
not a like contraction of Signior, it is clear that, as it was borne
by sundry of the ancient feudal lords of France, who, as Sel-
den says,
"affected rather to be stiled by the name of Sire than
Baron, as Le Sire de Montmorencie, Le Sire de Beaulieu, and
the like," and as it has been commonly used to monarchs,
our word Sir, which is derived from it, originally meant lord
or king. Thus too is it with feminine titles. Lady - which
according to Horne Tooke means exalted, and was at first given
only to the few - is now given to all women of education.
Dame - once an honorable name, to which in old books we find
the epithets of "high-born" and "stately" affixed-has now, by
repeated widenings of its application, become relatively a term
of contempt. And if we trace the compound of this, Ma Dame,
through its contractions,- Madam, ma'am, mam, mum,- we find
―
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that the "Yes'm" of Sally to her mistress is originally equivalent
to "Yes, my Exalted," or "Yes, your Highness. '
Yes, your Highness. " Throughout,
therefore, the genesis of words of honor has been the same.
Just as with the Jews and with the Romans, has it been with
the modern Europeans. Tracing these every-day names to their
primitive significations of lord and king, and remembering that
in aboriginal societies these were applied only to the gods and
their descendants, we arrive at the conclusion that our familiar
Sir and Monsieur are, in their primary and expanded meanings,
terms of adoration.
Further to illustrate this gradual depreciation of titles, and to
confirm the inference drawn, it may be well to notice in passing
that the oldest of them have, as might be expected, been de-
preciated to the greatest extent. Thus, master-a word proved
by its derivation and by the similarity of the connate words in
other languages (Fr. , maître for master; Russ. , master; Dan. ,
mester; Ger. , meister) to have been one of the earliest in use
for expressing lordship-has now become applicable to children
only; and under the modification of "Mister," to persons next
above the laborer. Again, knighthood, the oldest kind of dig-
nity, is also the lowest; and Knight Bachelor, which is the low-
est order of knighthood, is more ancient than any other of the
orders. Similarly too with the peerage: Baron is alike the earliest
and least elevated of its divisions. This continual degradation
of all names of honor has from time to time made it requi-
site to introduce new ones, having that distinguishing effect which
the originals had lost by generality of use; just as our habit of
misapplying superlatives has, by gradually destroying their force,
entailed the need for fresh ones. And if, within the last thou-
sand years, this process has produced effects thus marked, we
may readily conceive how, during previous thousands, the titles
of gods and demigods came to be used to all persons exercising
power; as they have since come to be used to persons of respect-
ability.
If from names of honor we turn to phrases of honor, we find
similar facts. The Oriental styles of address applied to ordinary
people "I am your slave," "All I have is yours," "I am your
sacrifice" attribute to the individual spoken to, the same great-
ness that Monsieur and My Lord do: they ascribe to him the
character of an all-powerful ruler, so immeasurably superior to
the speaker as to be his owner. So likewise with the Polish
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expressions of respect,-"I throw myself under your feet," "I
kiss your feet. " In our now meaningless subscription to a formal
letter, "Your most obedient servant," the same thing is visible.
Nay, even in the familiar signature "Yours faithfully," the
"yours," if interpreted as originally meant, is the expression of a
slave to his master.
All these dead forms were once living embodiments of fact-
were primarily the genuine indications of that submission to
authority which they verbally assert; were afterwards naturally
used by the weak and cowardly to propitiate those above them;
gradually grew to be considered the due of such; and by a con-
tinually wider misuse, have lost their meanings as Sir and Mas-
ter have done. That like titles they were in the beginning
used only to the God-king, is indicated by the fact that like titles
they were subsequently used in common to God and the king.
Religious worship has ever largely consisted of professions of
obedience, of being God's servants, of belonging to him to do
what he will with. Like titles, therefore, these common phrases
of honor had a devotional origin.
Perhaps, however, it is in the use of the word you as a sin-
gular pronoun that the popularizing of what were once supreme
distinctions is most markedly illustrated. This speaking of a
single individual in the plural, was originally an honor given
only to the highest; was the reciprocity of the imperial "we"
assumed by such. Yet now, by being applied to successively.
lower and lower classes, it has become all-but universal. Only
by one sect of Christians, and in a few secluded districts, is the
primitive thou still used. And the you, in becoming common to
all ranks, has simultaneously lost every vestige of the honor once
attaching to it.
But the genesis of manners out of forms of allegiance and
worship is above all shown in men's modes of salutation. Note
first the significance of the word. Among the Romans, the salu-
tatio was a daily homage paid by clients and inferiors to superi-
ors. This was alike the case with civilians and in the army.
The very derivation of our word, therefore, is suggestive of sub-
mission. Passing to particular forms of obeisance (mark the word
again), let us begin with the Eastern one of baring the feet.
This was primarily a mark of reverence, alike to a god and a
king. The act of Moses before the burning bush, and the prac-
tice of the Mahometans, who are sworn on the Koran with their


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shoes off, exemplify the one employment of it; the custom of
the Persians, who remove their shoes on entering the presence
of their monarch, exemplifies the other. As usual, however, this
homage, paid next to inferior rulers, has descended from grade to
grade. In India it is a common mark of respect; a polite man
in Turkey always leaves his shoes at the door, while the lower
orders of Turks never enter the presence of their superiors but
in their stockings; and in Japan, this baring of the feet is an
ordinary salutation of man to man.
Take another case. Selden, describing the ceremonies of the
Romans, says: "For whereas it was usual either to kiss the
images of their gods, or adoring them, to stand somewhat off
before them, solemnly moving the right hand to the lips and
then casting it, as if they had cast kisses, to turne the body on
the same hand (which was the right forme of Adoration), it grew
also by custom, first that the emperors, being next to Deities,
and by some accounted as Deities, had the like done to them in
acknowledgment of their greatness. " If now we call to mind
the awkward salute of a village schoolboy, made by putting his
open arm up to his face, and describing a semicircle with his
forearm; and if we remember that the salute thus used as a form
of reverence in country districts is most likely a remnant of the
feudal times, we shall see reason for thinking that our common
wave of the hand to a friend across the street represents what
was primarily a devotional act.
Similarly have originated all forms of respect depending upon
inclinations of the body. Entire prostration is the aboriginal sign
of submission. The passage of Scripture "Thou hast put all
under his feet," and that other one, so suggestive in its anthropo-
morphism, "The Lord said unto my Lord, sit thou at my right
hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool," imply, what the
Assyrian sculptures fully bear out, that it was the practice of the
ancient God-kings of the East to trample upon the conquered.
And when we bear in mind that there are existing savages
who signify submission by placing the neck under the foot of the
person submitted to, it becomes obvious that all prostration,
especially when accompanied by kissing the foot, expressed a
willingness to be trodden upon - was an attempt to mitigate
wrath by saying, in signs, "Tread on me if you will. " Remem-
bering further that kissing the foot, as of the Pope and of a
saint's statue, still continues in Europe to be a mark of extreme
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reverence; that prostration to feudal lords was once general; and
that its disappearance must have taken place, not abruptly, but
by gradual modification into something else, we have ground
for deriving from these deepest of humiliations all inclinations.
of respect, especially as the transition is traceable. The rever-
ence of a Russian serf who bends his head to the ground, and
the salaam of the Hindoo, are abridged prostrations; a bow is a
short salaam; a nod is a short bow.
Should any hesitate to admit this conclusion, then perhaps on
being reminded that the lowest of these obeisances are common
where the submission is most abject; that among ourselves the
profundity of the bow marks the amount of respect; and lastly,
that the bow is even now used devotionally in our churches,
by Catholics to their altars, and by Protestants at the name of
Christ, they will see sufficient evidence for thinking that this
salutation also was originally worship.
The same may be said too of the curtsy-or courtesy, as it is
otherwise written. Its derivation from courtoisie, courteousness,
that is, behavior like that at court,-at once shows that it was
primarily the reverence paid to a monarch. And if we call to
mind that falling upon the knees, or upon one knee, has been a
common obeisance of subjects to rulers; that in ancient manu-
scripts and tapestries, servants are depicted as assuming this atti-
tude while offering the dishes to their masters at table; and that
this same attitude is assumed towards our own Queen at every
presentation, we may infer, what the character of the curtsy
itself suggests, that it is an abridged act of kneeling. As the
word has been contracted from courtoisie into curtsy, so the motion
has been contracted from a placing of the knee on the floor to a
lowering of the knee towards the floor. Moreover, when we
compare the curtsy of a lady with the awkward one a peasant
girl makes, which if continued would bring her down on both
knees,- we may see in this last a remnant of that greater rev-
erence required of serfs. And when from considering that simple
kneeling of the West, still represented by the curtsy, we pass
eastward and note the attitude of the Mahometan worshiper,
who not only kneels but bows his head to the ground, we may
infer that the curtsy also is an evanescent form of the aboriginal
prostration.
―
__
―――――
-
In further evidence of this, it may be remarked that there
has but recently disappeared from the salutations of men an


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action having the same proximate derivation with the curtsy.
That backward sweep of the foot with which the conventional
stage sailor accompanies his bow-a movement which prevailed
generally in past generations, when "a bow and a scrape » went
together, and which, within the memory of living persons, was
made by boys to their schoolmaster, with the effect of wearing a
hole in the floor- is pretty clearly a preliminary to going on one
knee. A motion so ungainly could never have been intentionally
introduced, even if the artificial introduction of obeisances were
possible. Hence we must regard it as the remnant of something
antecedent: and that this something antecedent was humiliating
may be inferred from the phrase "scraping an acquaintance";
which, being used to denote the gaining of favor by obsequious-
ness, implies that the scrape was considered a mark of servility,
-that is, of serf-ility.
Almost every-
Consider, again, the uncovering of the head.
where this has been a sign of reverence, alike in temples and
before potentates; and it yet preserves among us some of its
original meaning. Whether it rains, hails, or shines, you must
keep your head bare while speaking to the monarch; and on no
plea may you remain covered in a place of worship. As usual,
however, this ceremony, at first a submission to gods and kings,
has become in process of time a common civility. Once an
acknowledgment of another's unlimited supremacy, the removal
of the hat is now a salute accorded to very ordinary persons; and
that uncovering, originally reserved for entrance into "the house
of God," good manners now dictates on entrance into the house
of a common laborer.
Standing, too, as a mark of respect, has undergone like exten-
sions in its application. Shown by the practice in our churches
to be intermediate between the humiliation signified by kneeling
and the self-respect which sitting implies, and used at courts as
a form of homage when more active demonstrations of it have
been made, this posture is now employed in daily life to show
consideration; as seen alike in the attitude of a servant before a
master, and in that rising which politeness prescribes on the
entrance of a visitor.
Many other threads of evidence might have been woven into
our argument. As, for example, the significant fact that if we
trace back our still existing law of primogeniture; if we consider
it as displayed by Scottish clans, in which not only ownership


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13741
but government devolved from the beginning on the eldest son
of the eldest; if we look further back, and observe that the old
titles of Lordship, Signior, Seigneur, Señor, Sire, Sieur, all origi-
nally mean senior or elder; if we go Eastward, and find that
Sheik has a like derivation, and that the Oriental names for
priests as Pir, for instance-are literally interpreted old man;
if we note in Hebrew records how primeval is the ascribed supe-
riority of the first-born, how great the authority of elders, and
how sacred the memory of patriarchs; and if then we remember
that among divine titles are "Ancient of Days," and "Father of
Gods and Men"; we see how completely these facts harmonize
with the hypothesis that the aboriginal god is the first man suf-
ficiently great to become a tradition, the earliest whose power
and deeds made him remembered; that hence antiquity unavoid-
ably became associated with superiority, and age with nearness
in blood to "the powerful one"; that so there naturally arose
that domination of the eldest which characterizes all history, and
that theory of human degeneracy which even yet survives. .
A similar relationship of phenomena was exhibited in Europe
during the Middle Ages. While all its governments were auto-
cratic, while feudalism held sway, while the Church was unshorn
of its power, while the criminal code was full of horrors and the
hell of the popular creed full of terrors, the rules of behavior
were both more numerous and more carefully conformed to than
now. Differences of dress marked divisions of rank. Men were
limited by law to a certain width of shoe-toes; and no one below
a specified degree might wear a cloak less than so many inches
long. The symbols on banners and shields were carefully attended
to. Heraldry was an important branch of knowledge. Precedence
was strictly insisted on. And those various salutes of which
we now use the abridgments were gone through in full. Even
during our own last century, with its corrupt House of Com-
mons and little-curbed monarchs, we may mark a correspondence
of social formalities. Gentlemen were still distinguished from
lower classes by dress; people sacrificed themselves to inconven-
ient requirements, -as powder, hooped petticoats, and towering.
head-dresses,—and children addressed their parents as Sir and
-
Madam.
A further corollary naturally following this last, and almost
indeed forming part of it, is that these several kinds of gov
ernment decrease in stringency at the same rate. Simultaneously


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with the decline in the influence of priesthoods, and in the fear
of eternal torments,- simultaneously with the mitigation of polit-
ical tyranny, the growth of popular power, and the amelioration
of criminal codes,- has taken place that diminution of formalities
and that fading of distinctive marks, now so observable. Looking
at home, we may note that there is less attention to precedence
than there used to be. No one in our day ends an interview
with the phrase "your humble servant.
" The employment of
the word Sir, once general in social intercourse, is at present
considered bad breeding; and on the occasions calling for them,
it is held vulgar to use the words "Your Majesty," or "Your
Royal Highness," more than once in a conversation People no
longer formally drink each other's healths; and even the taking
wine with each other at dinner has ceased to be fashionable.
The taking-off of hats between gentlemen has been gradually
falling into disuse. Even when the hat is removed, it is no
longer swept out at arm's length, but is simply lifted. Hence
the remark made upon us by foreigners, that we take off our
hats less than any other nation in Europe; a remark that should
be coupled with the other, that we are the freest nation in
Europe.
As already implied, this association of facts is not accidental.
These titles of address and modes of salutation, bearing about
them as they all do something of that servility which marks their
origin, become distasteful in proportion as men become more
independent themselves, and sympathize more with the independ-
ence of others. The feeling which makes the modern gentle-
man tell the laborer standing bareheaded before him to put on
his hat; the feeling which gives us a dislike to those who cringe
and fawn; the feeling which makes us alike assert our own
dignity, and respect that of others; the feeling which thus leads
us more and more to discountenance all forms and names which
confess inferiority and submission,-is the same feeling which
resists despotic power and inaugurates popular government, de-
nies the authority of the Church and establishes the right of
private judgment.
A fourth fact, akin to the foregoing, is that these several
kinds of government not only decline together but corrupt to-
gether. By the same process that a Court of Chancery becomes
a place not for the administration of justice, but for the with-
holding of it; by the same process that a national church, from


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13743
being an agency for moral control, comes to be merely a thing
of formulas and titles and bishoprics,-by this same process
do titles and ceremonies that once had a meaning and a power
become empty forms.
Coats of arms which served to distinguish men in battle, now
figure on the carriage panels of retired grocers. Once a badge of
high military rank, the shoulder-knot has become on the modern
footman a mark of servitude. The name Banneret, which once
marked a partially created Baron-a Baron who had passed his
military little-go"-is now, under the modification of Baronet,
applicable to any one favored by wealth or interest or party
feeling. Knighthood has so far ceased to be an honor that
men now honor themselves by declining it. The military dignity
Escuyer has, in the modern Esquire, become a wholly unmilitary
affix. Not only do titles and phrases and salutes cease to fulfill
their original functions, but the whole apparatus of social forms
tends to become useless for its original purpose,-the facilita-
tion of social intercourse. Those most learned in ceremonies,
and most precise in the observance of them, are not always the
best behaved: as those deepest read in creeds and scriptures are
not therefore the most religious; nor those who have the clearest
notions of legality and illegality the most honest. Just as lawyers
are of all men the least noted for probity; as cathedral towns
have a lower moral character than most others: so, if Swift is to
be believed, courtiers are "the most insignificant race of people
that the island can afford, and with the smallest tincture of good
manners. "
But perhaps it is in that class of social observances compre-
hended under the term Fashion, which we must here discuss
parenthetically, that this process of corruption is seen with the
greatest distinctness. As contrasted with Manners, which dictate
our minor acts in relation to other persons, Fashion dictates our
minor acts in relation to ourselves While the one prescribes
that part of our deportment which directly affects our neighbors,
the other prescribes that part of our deportment which is pri-
marily personal, and in which our neighbors are concerned only
as spectators. Thus distinguished as they are, however, the two
have a common source. For while, as we have shown, Manners
originate by imitation of the behavior pursued towards the great,
Fashion originates by imitation of the behavior of the great.
While the one has its derivation in the titles, phrases, and salutes,


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13744
used to those in power, the other is derived from the habits and
appearances exhibited by those in power.
The Carrib mother who squeezes her child's head into a shape
like that of the chief; the young savage who makes marks on
himself similar to the scars carried by the warriors of his tribe
(which is probably the origin of tattooing); the Highlander who
adopts the plaid worn by the head of his clan; the courtiers who
affect grayness, or limp, or cover their necks, in imitation of their
king; and the people who ape the courtiers, are alike acting
under a kind of government connate with that of Manners; and
like it too, primarily beneficial. For notwithstanding the num-
berless absurdities into which this copyism has led the people,
from nose-rings to ear-rings, from painted faces to beauty-spots,
from shaven heads to powdered wigs, from filed teeth and stained
nails to bell-girdles, peaked shoes, and breeches stuffed with
bran,-it must yet be concluded that as the strong men, the
successful men, the men of will, intelligence, and originality, who
have got to the top, are on the average more likely to show judg.
ment in their habits and tastes than the mass, the imitation of
such is advantageous.
By-and-by, however, Fashion, corrupting like these other forms
of rule, almost wholly ceases to be an imitation of the best,
and becomes an imitation of quite other than the best. As those
who take orders are not those having a special fitness for the
priestly office, but those who see their way to a living by it; as
legislators and public functionaries do not become such by virtue
of their political insight and power to rule, but by virtue of birth,
acreage, and class influence: so the self-elected clique who set
the fashion, gain this prerogative not by their force of nature,
their intellect, their higher worth or better taste, but gain it
solely by their unchecked assumption. Among the initiated
are to be found neither the noblest in rank, the chief in power,
the best cultured, the most refined, nor those of greatest genius,
wit, or beauty; and their reunions, so far from being superior to
others, are noted for their inanity. Yet by the example of these
sham great, and not by that of the truly great, does society
at large now regulate its goings and comings, its hours, its dress,
its small usages.
As a natural consequence, these have generally
little or none of that suitableness which theory of fashion implies
they should have. But instead of a continual progress towards
greater elegance and convenience, which might be expected to


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occur did people copy the ways of the really best, or follow their
own ideas of propriety, we have a reign of mere whim, of un-
reason, of change for the sake of change, of wanton oscillations
from either extreme to the other-a reign of usages without
meaning, times without fitness, dress without taste. And thus life
à la mode, instead of being life conducted in the most rational
manner, is life regulated by spendthrifts and idlers, milliners and
tailors, dandies and silly women.
To these several corollaries that the various orders of con-
trol exercised over men have a common origin and a common
function, are called out by co-ordinate necessities and co-exist
in like stringency, decline together and corrupt together - it now
only remains to add that they become needless together. Conse-
quent as all kinds of government are upon the unfitness of the
aboriginal man for social life, and diminishing in coerciveness as
they all do in proportion as this unfitness diminishes, they must
one and all come to an end as humanity acquires complete adapt-
ation to its new conditions. The discipline of circumstances which
has already wrought out such great changes in us, must go on
eventually to work out yet greater ones. That daily curbing of
the lower nature and culture of the higher, which out of can-
nibals and devil-worshipers has evolved philanthropists, lovers of
peace, and haters of superstition, cannot fail to evolve out of these,
men as much superior to them as they are to their progenitors.
The causes that have produced past modifications are still in
action; must continue in action as long as there exists any incon-
gruity between man's desires and the requirements of the social
state; and must eventually make him organically fit for the social
state. As it is now needless to forbid man-eating and Fetish-
ism, so will it ultimately become needless to forbid murder, theft,
and the minor offenses of our criminal code. When human nature
has grown into conformity with the moral law, there will need
no judges and statute-books; when it spontaneously takes the
right course in all things, as in some things it does already,
prospects of future reward or punishment will not be wanted as
incentives; and when fit behavior has become instinctive, there
will need no code of ceremonies to say how behavior shall be
regulated.
-
Thus then may be recognized the meaning, the naturalness,
the necessity of those various eccentricities of reformers which
we set out by describing. They are not accidental; they are not
XXIII-860


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HERBERT SPENCER
mere personal caprices, as people are apt to suppose. On the
contrary, they are inevitable results of the law of relationship as
above illustrated. That community of genesis, function, and de-
cay, which all forms of restraint exhibit, is simply the obverse
of the fact at first pointed out, that they have in two sentiments
of human nature a common preserver and a common destroyer.
Awe of power originates and cherishes them all; love of freedom
undermines and periodically weakens them all. The one defends
despotism and asserts the supremacy of laws, adheres to old
creeds and supports ecclesiastical authority, pays respect to titles
and conserves forms; the other, putting rectitude above legal-
ity, achieves periodical installments of political liberty, inaugu
rates Protestantism and works out its consequences, ignores the
senseless dictates of Fashion and emancipates men from dead
customs.
There needs then a protestantism in social usages. Forms
that have ceased to facilitate and have become obstructive-
whether political, religious, or other-have ever to be swept
away; and eventually are so swept away in all cases. Signs are
not wanting that some change is at hand. A host of satirists,
led on by Thackeray, have been for years engaged in bringing
our sham festivities and our fashionable follies into contempt;
and in their candid moods, most men laugh at the frivolities with
which they and the world in general are deluded. Ridicule has
always been a revolutionary agent. That which is habitually
assailed with sneers and sarcasm cannot long survive. Institu-
tions that have lost their roots in men's respect and faith are
doomed; and the day of their dissolution is not far off. The time
is approaching, then, when our system of social observances must
pass through some crisis, out of which it will come purified and
comparatively simple.
How this crisis will be brought about, no one can with any
certainty say. Whether by the continuance and increase of indi-
vidual protests, or whether by the union of many persons for the
practice and propagation of some better system, the future alone
can decide. The influence of dissentients acting without co-oper-
ation seems, under the present state of things, inadequate. Stand-
ing severally alone, and having no well-defined views; frowned on
by conformists, and expostulated with even by those who secretly
sympathize with them; subject to petty persecutions, and unable
to trace any benefit produced by their example,-they are apt


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The young
one by one to give up their attempts as hopeless.
convention-breaker eventually finds that he pays too heavily for
his nonconformity. Hating, for example, everything that bears
about it any remnant of servility, he determines, in the ardor of
his independence, that he will uncover to no one. But what he
means simply as a general protest, he finds that ladies interpret
into a personal disrespect. Though he sees that from the days of
chivalry downwards, these marks of supreme consideration paid
to the other sex have been but a hypocritical counterpart to the
actual subjection in which men have held them,-a pretended
submission to compensate for a real domination,-and though he
sees that when the true dignity of woman is recognized, the mock
dignities given to them will be abolished, yet he does not like to
be thus misunderstood, and so hesitates in his practice.
In other cases, again, his courage fails him. Such of his un-
conventionalities as can be attributed only to eccentricity, he has
no qualms about; for on the whole he feels rather complimented
than otherwise in being considered a disregarder of public opin-
ion. But when they are liable to be put down to ignorance, to
ill-breeding, or to poverty, he becomes a coward. However clearly
the recent innovation of eating some kinds of fish with knife
and fork proves the fork-and-bread practice to have had little but
caprice as its basis, yet he dares not wholly ignore that practice
while fashion partially maintains it. Though he thinks that a
silk handkerchief is quite as appropriate for drawing-room use as
a white cambric one, he is not altogether at ease in acting out
his opinion. Then, too, he begins to perceive that his resistance
to prescription brings round disadvantageous results which he
had not calculated upon. He had expected that it would save
him from a great deal of social intercourse of a frivolous kind,-
that it would offend the fools but not the sensible people; and
so would serve as a self-acting test by which those worth know-
ing would be separated from those not worth knowing. But the
fools prove to be so greatly in the majority, that by offending
them, he closes against himself nearly all the avenues through
which the sensible people are to be reached. Thus he finds that
his nonconformity is frequently misinterpreted; that there are
but few directions in which he dares to carry it consistently
out; that the annoyances and disadvantages which it brings upon
him are greater than he anticipated; and that the chances of
his doing any good are very remote. Hence he gradually loses


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resolution, and lapses step by step into the ordinary routine of
observances.
Abortive as individual protests thus generally turn out, it
may possibly be that nothing effectual will be done until there
arises some organized resistance to this invisible despotism by
which our modes and habits are dictated. It may happen that
the government of Manners and Fashion will be rendered less
tyrannical, as the political and religious governments have been,
by some antagonistic union. Alike in church and State, men's
first emancipations from excess of restriction were achieved by
numbers, bound together by a common creed or a common politi-
cal faith. What remained undone while there were but individ-
ual schismatics or rebels, was effected when there came to be
many acting in concert. It is tolerably clear that these earliest
installments of freedom could not have been obtained in any
other way; for so long as the feeling of personal independence
was weak, and the rule strong, there could never have been a
sufficient number of separate dissentients to produce the desired
results. Only in these later times, during which the secular and
spiritual controls have been growing less coercive, and the tend-
ency toward individual liberty greater, has it become possible for
smaller and smaller sects and parties to fight against established
creeds and laws; until now men may safely stand even alone in
their antagonism.
The failure of individual nonconformity to customs, as above
illustrated, suggests that an analogous series of changes may
have to be gone through in this case also. It is true that the
lex non scripta differs from the lex scripta in this,—that being
unwritten it is more readily altered, and that it has from time to
time been quietly ameliorated. Nevertheless we shall find that
the analogy holds substantially good. For in this case, as in
the others, the essential revolution is not the substituting of any
one set of restraints for any other, but the limiting or abolishing
the authority which prescribes restraints. Just as the fundamental
change inaugurated by the Reformation was not a superseding of
one creed by another, but an ignoring of the arbiter who before
dictated creeds; just as the fundamental change which Democracy
long ago commenced was not from this particular law to that,
but from the despotism of one to the freedom of all,- so the
parallel change yet to be wrought out in this supplementary gov-
ernment of which we are treating, is not the replacing of absurd


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13749
usages by sensible ones, but the dethronement of that secret irre-
sponsible power which now imposes our usages, and the asser-
tion of the right of all individuals to choose their own usages.
In rules of living, a West End clique is our Pope; and we are all
papists, with but a mere sprinkling of heretics. On all who de-
cisively rebel comes down the penalty of excommunication, with
its long catalogue of disagreeable and indeed serious consequences.
The liberty of the subject asserted in our Constitution, and
ever on the increase, has yet to be wrested from this subtler tyr-
anny. The right of private judgment, which our ancestors wrung
from the Church, remains to be claimed from this dictator of
our habits. Or as before said, to free us from these idolatries
and superstitious conformities, there has still to come a protest-
antism in social usages. Parallel therefore as is the change to
be wrought out, it seems not improbable that it may be wrought
out in an analogous way. That influence which solitary dissent-
ients fail to gain, and that perseverance which they lack, may
come into existence when they unite. That persecution which
the world now visits upon them, from mistaking their noncon-
formity for ignorance or disrespect, may diminish when it is seen
to result from principle. The penalty which exclusion now entails
may disappear when they become numerous enough to form vis-
iting circles of their own. And when a successful stand has
been made, and the brunt of the opposition has passed, that large
amount of secret dislike to our observances which now pervades
society may manifest itself with sufficient power to effect the
desired emancipation.
Whether such will be the process, time alone can decide.
That community of origin, growth, supremacy, and decadence,
which we have found among all kinds of government, suggests
a community in modes of change also. On the other hand,
nature often performs substantially similar operations in ways
apparently different. Hence these details can never be foretold.
Meanwhile let us glance at the conclusions that have been
reached. On the one side, government (originally one, and after-
wards subdivided for the better fulfillment of its functions) must
be considered as having ever been, in all its branches,- politi-
cal, religious, and ceremonial,- beneficial, and indeed absolutely
necessary. On the other side, government under all its forms
must be regarded as subserving a temporary office, made need-
ful by the unfitness of aboriginal humanity for social life; and the


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13750
successive diminutions of its coerciveness in State, in church, and
in custom, must be looked upon as steps towards its final dis-
appearance. To complete the conception, there requires to be
borne in mind the third fact, that the genesis, the maintenance,
and the decline of all governments, however named, are alike
brought about by the humanity to be controlled; from which
may be drawn the inference that on the average, restrictions of
every kind cannot last much longer than they are wanted, and
cannot be destroyed much faster than they ought to be.
Society in all its developments undergoes the process of exu-
viation. These old forms which it successively throws off have
all been once vitally united with it; have severally served as the
protective envelopes within which a higher humanity was being
evolved. They are cast aside only when they become hindrances,
-only when some inner and better envelope has been formed;
and they bequeath to us all that there was in them good. The
periodical abolitions of tyrannical laws have left the administra-
tion of justice not only uninjured but purified. Dead and buried
creeds have not carried with them the essential morality they
contained, which still exists, uncontaminated by the sloughs of
superstition. And all that there is of justice and kindness and
beauty, embodied in our cumbrous forms of etiquette, will live
perennially when the forms themselves have been forgotten.


## p. 13750 (#581) ##########################################



## p. 13750 (#582) ##########################################


EDMUND SPENSER.


## p. 13750 (#583) ##########################################

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## p. 13750 (#584) ##########################################



## p. 13751 (#585) ##########################################

13751
EDMUND SPENSER
(1552? -1599)
BY J. DOUGLAS BRUCE
DMUND SPENSER was born in London in or shortly before the
year 1552. Although the obscurity which hangs about the
life and circumstances of the poet's father has never been
quite dispelled, it seems at least certain that he belonged to the
Lancashire branch of the Spensers; and the family was connected
with the "house of auncient fame" of Spencer, which, down to our
own day, has continued to bear so honorable a part in the public life
of England. The first event in the poet's life of which we have defi-
nite knowledge—although even here the precise date is wanting -
is his admission to the Merchant Taylors' School of his native city.
This event is probably to be referred to the very first year of the
existence of this famous school-1560; but however this may be, in
1568 we find his name in the list of "poore scholers" who were
assisted in obtaining their education by the charities of Dean Now-
ell,—a list, it may be added, which in the subsequent years of the
same century was destined to include still other names hardly less
illustrious than Spenser's own. To Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, the
poet was transferred in the spring of 1569; and there, amidst studies
which apparently were often interrupted by ill-health, he passed the
next seven years of his life, receiving in due succession the degrees of
bachelor and master; but-owing to some disfavor with the author-
ities, it would seem-making no application for a fellowship, such as
would probably otherwise have been made by a student whose tastes
were so scholarly and whose means were so limited.
The years of the poet's life which immediately follow his University
career are again involved in obscurity. Shadowy, however, as are
both the lady and the circumstances, we know that this period was
marked by the love affair with Rosalind,- more famous, perhaps, than
is justified by the quality of verse which it called forth. To these
years too, most probably, we should refer the beginning of Spen-
ser's fateful connection with Ireland, since in 1577 it appears that
he accompanied to that unhappy country the then Lord Deputy, Sir
Henry Sidney, father of Sir Philip. Two years later he is again in
England, and in the house of the powerful Earl of Leicester, brother-
in-law of the Lord Deputy Sidney. From here we find him carrying


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13752
EDMUND SPENSER
on a literary correspondence with his former college-mate, Gabriel
Harvey; in which the perverse metrical theories and insufferable ped-
antry of the latter are almost atoned for by the genuineness of his
friendship for the poet, and the stimulus he afforded to his literary
activity. For this must indeed have been with Spenser - if we may
judge by the list of works which are mentioned in the course of this
correspondence, many of them lost a period of such intense activity
as can be paralleled from the lives of but few poets. The range of
his literary experiments extended even to the drama,-the branch of
literature which of all seems most alien to his genius; and we hear
of the Nine Comedies by the side of the work with which he was
about to open the great age of Elizabethan literature.
This work, the Shepherd's Calendar,'-appearing towards the
close of the year 1579, justified in the minds of contemporaries as
well as posterity the title of "The New Poet," which the author
tacitly accepted from his friend and commentator, "E. K. ”
To say
nothing of the varied command of metrical forms and of the music
of verse which the eclogues in this collection revealed, readers of
native poetry recognized in the 'Shepherd's Calendar,' for the first
time since Chaucer, a work exhibiting the sustained vigor which is an
essential of verse that is worthy of the name of literature. A plan
had been adopted of no inconsiderable scope,-one which admitted
the treatment of a great if somewhat singular variety of subjects and
situations; and notwithstanding occasional grotesqueness of diction
or injudicious choice of material,― matters as to which contempo-
rary taste was by no means the same as our own,- or even a curious
deficiency in that imaginative glow which the poet was afterwards
to exhibit so pre-eminently, this plan had been executed without
flagging from beginning to end.
But the year following this great literary success saw Spenser
finally drawn into those circumstances which were to determine the
sum of his happiness and sorrow during the rest of his too brief
career. In the summer of 1580, as secretary to the new Lord Deputy,
Arthur, Lord Grey of Wilton, the stern Arthegall of the 'Faery
Queen,' the poet once more turned his face toward Ireland; in
which country, as a servant of the English Crown in various capaci-
ties, he was destined to spend the remaining years of his life. Only
twice during this period did he revisit his native land before the final
year of 1598; when, swept away from Ireland like many another
Englishman by the storm of rebellion and devastation, he returned
to die in London a broken man, in fortunes if not in spirit. In this
savage and untamable Ireland of the closing sixteenth century, the
poet who in his works stands furthest aloof of all men from the
actual world, was called on to be a witness, and finally an actor, in
some of the sternest of the world's work. He was in reality, however,
―――
____


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EDMUND SPENSER
13753
not less an English gentleman than a poet; and possessed not only
the sense of civic duty characteristic of his class, but the fibre neces-
sary to support the burdens of public service. Accordingly, by a
striking coincidence, we find him at the end of his career, like the
other great master of romance in our own century, filling the prosaic
yet responsible office of sheriff, at the time when the rebellion of
Tyrone burst over Munster, the province of his residence.
After a more than ten years' interval, covering the earlier years
of Spenser's life in Ireland, an interval in publication though not in
composition,-in 1590 the 'Shepherd's Calendar' was followed by the
first three books of the 'Faery Queen. ' Six years more elapsed be-
fore the remaining books saw the light; but this latter period, includ-
ing the final year, was marked by the publication of those minor
poems, which—in beauty of form at least-constitute a no less pre-
cious inheritance of English literature than the 'Faery Queen' itself.
In surveying this great body of work, the impression one receives of
its variety is hardly less than that of its power. 'Mother Hubberd's
Tale, Colin Clout's Come Home Again,' the marriage songs,- to
speak of no others,-represent achievements, in the last case of the
first rank, in the others of all but the first rank, in their respective
literary forms; achievements all the more remarkable, one might say,
in view of the absence of English models at the time. Who, for
instance, would have suspected in the author of the 'Faery Queen'
one of the keenest of satirists, but for the existence of the first of
the above-named poems? Reflection upon the range of power which
works so different exhibit, causes us to regret even the loss of those
earlier dramatic experiments.
But to the mind of the modern reader the name of Spenser is
apt to call up simply the poet of the 'Faery Queen,'—a work indeed
which filled more completely the intellectual life of its author, during
a larger proportion of the years of his maturity, than has been the
case perhaps with any other poem in literature of equal rank; and it
is this work alone which we shall be able to consider, briefly, within
the limits of this essay.
-
We may perhaps best attain a just insight into the nature and
essential characteristics of the 'Faery Queen' by a consideration of
its relation to its undoubted model, the 'Orlando Furioso. ' It was
unquestionably the example of Ariosto which led Spenser to dedicate
his genius to this new representation of the idealized life of chivalry;
and it was his object no less than that of his exemplar to render in
his pages all the immemorial charm of romance. But the absence of
one element from the Italian model could not but be keenly per-
ceptible to the grave, even Puritan, nature of the Northern poet:
the element of moral seriousness, which hardly less than the love of
beauty was of the very essence of Spenser's genius. To give then a
•


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EDMUND SPENSER
moral basis to this ideal world seemed to Spenser necessary to ren-
der it complete even in its beauty, to say nothing of any more
directly didactic object he may have had at heart. The method of
allegory by which he attempts to supply this basis to the romance-
epic, with his plan of the knights representing the twelve Moral and
twelve Politic Virtues, seems a mechanical device for effecting his
purpose, and indeed soon breaks down of its own weight; yet the
nobility of Spenser's nature, his high moral seriousness from which
the conception of the allegory sprang, diffuses itself through the
whole poem, so that after all he might rightly appear to the great
Puritan poet of the next generation as "a better teacher than Scotus
or Aquinas. "
Even superior to these qualities of moral earnestness and purity,
as an element of power in the 'Faery Queen,' is the passionate love
of beauty to which the poet here gives the most luxuriant and vivid
expression to be met with in English verse. In no English poet
until Keats do we again find this pursuit of ideal beauty in the same
degree the dominant element in the poet's genius; and here the
superior moral vigor of Spenser supplied a check on the tendencies
to sensuous excess, which was wanting in the case of Keats. It is
especially in the management of his verse, and in the exercise of his
unequaled powers of description, that Spenser's sensibility to beauty
and capacity for its expression appear most striking. From no met-
rical instrument, perhaps, has a poet drawn richer harmonies than
Spenser from his immortal stanza; and his descriptive powers, whether
applied to the heroic figures who are the actors in his story, or to
such splendid conceptions as the Cave of Mammon or the Bower of
Bliss, mark the limits perhaps of the achievement of poetry in this
direction.
But after all, it is doubtless the ideal aloofness of the world of
the Faery Queen' from that which lies about us, that gives its
greatest charm to the poem. From this new world of the imagina-
tion the commonplace is excluded; and if we encounter here again
evil and ugliness, they have taken on forms of terror which are
hardly less ideal than those of purity and beauty. We wander on at
will amidst this endless variety of incident and figure, all steeped in
the colors of the imagination, without being reminded that there are
bounds to the world we have entered, such as are recalled to us even
in the depths of the Forest of Arden.
And finally, the 'Faery Queen' is not without its philosophy, a
philosophy in conformity with the unsubstantiality of its world. In
accordance with the nature of Spenser's genius, we must not expect
to see him present the problems of destiny and moral evil with the
direct and tragic power of the chief masters of human character, as
exemplified above all in the dramas of his great contemporary. No


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EDMUND SPENSER
13755
other poet, however, has expressed with equal power the mystery of
change as the most fundamental of all the conditions of existence,
as subjecting to its law the very heart of the world. This mystery
of "mutability » seemed to lie like a burden on Spenser's spirit; and
it is the depth of his feeling and reflection on this idea which has
imparted an incomparable sublimity to the posthumous cantos of the
'Faery Queen,' where the solution to the mystery which Nature pro-
poses, differs perhaps but little after all from that of ages maturer in
science.
J. Douglas Amer
PROTHALAMION; OR, A SPOUSALL VERSE
C
ALME was the day, and through the trembling ayre
Sweete-breathing Zephyrus did softly play
A gentle spirit, that lightly did delay
Hot Titans beames, which then did glyster fayre;
When I (whom sullein care,
Through discontent of my long fruitlesse stay
In princes court, and expectation vayne
Of idle hopes, which still doe fly away
Like empty shadows, did afflict my brayne)
Walkt forth to ease my payne
Along the shoare of silver-streaming Themmes;
Whose rutty bank, the which his river hemmes,
Was paynted all with variable flowers,
And all the meades adorn'd with dainty gemmes,
Fit to decke maydens bowres,
And crowne their paramours,
Against the brydale day, which is not long:
Sweet Themmes! runne softly, till I end my song.
There, in a meadow, by the rivers side,
A flocke of Nymphes I chauncèd to espy,
All lovely daughters of the flood thereby,
With goodly greenish locks, all loose untyde.
As each had bene a bryde;
And each one had a little wicker basket,
Made of fine twigs, entraylèd curiously,
In which they gathered flowers to fill their flasket,
And with fine fingers cropt full feateously
The tender stalkes on hye.


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EDMUND SPENSER
Of every sort which in that meadow grew
They gathered some: the violet, pallid blew,
The little dazie, that at evening closes,
The virgin lillie, and the primrose trew,
With store of vermeil roses,
To deck their bridegroomes posies
Against the brydale day, which was not long:
Sweet Themmes! runne softly, till I end my song.
With that I saw two Swannes of goodly hewe
Come softly swimming downe along the lee;
Two fairer birds I yet did never see;
The snow, which doth the top of Pindus strew,
Did never whiter shew,
Nor Jove himselfe, when he a swan would be
For love of Leda, whiter did appeare;
Yet Leda was (they say) as white as he,
Yet not so white as these, nor nothing neare;
So purely white they were,
That even the gentle stream, the which them bare,
Seem'd foule to them, and bad his billowes spare
To wet their silken feathers, least they might
Soyle their fayre plumes with water not so fayre,
And marre their beauties bright,
That shone as heavens light,
Against their brydale day, which was not long:
Sweet Themmes! runne softly, till I end my song.
Eftsoones, the Nymphes, which now had flowers their fill,
Ran all in haste to see that silver brood,
As they came floating on the cristal flood;
Whom when they sawe, they stood amazèd still,
Their wondring eyes to fill:
Them seem'd they never saw a sight so fayre,
Of fowles so lovely that they sure did deeme
Them heavenly borne, or to be that same payre
Which through the skie draw Venus silver teeme;
For sure they did not seeme
To be begot of any earthly seede,
But rather angels, or of angels breede:
Yet were they bred of Somers heat, they say,
In sweetest season, when each flower and weede
The earth did fresh aray;
So fresh they seem'd as day,
Even as their brydale day, which was not long:
Sweet Themmes! runne softly, till I end my song.


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EDMUND SPENSER
13757
:
Then forth they all out of their baskets drew
Great store of flowers, the honour of the field,
That to the sense did fragrant odours yeild,
All which upon those goodly birds they threw,
And all the waves did strew,
That like old Peneus waters they did seeme,
When downe along by pleasant Tempes shore,
Scattred with flowres, through Thessaly they streeme,
That they appeare, through lillies plenteous store,
Like a brydes chamber flore.
Two of those Nymphes, meane while, two garlands bound
Of freshest flowres which in that mead they found,
The which presenting all in trim array,
Their snowie foreheads therewithall they crown'd,
Whilst one did sing this lay,
Prepar'd against that day,-
Against their brydale day, which was not long:
Sweet Themmes! runne softly, till I end my song.
"Ye gentle Birdes! the worlds faire ornament,
And heavens glorie, whom this happie hower
Doth leade unto your lovers blissfull bower,
Joy may you have, and gentle hearts content
Of your loves couplement !
And let faire Venus, that is Queene of Love,
With her heart-quelling Sonne upon you smile,
Whose smile, they say, hath vertue to remove
All loves dislike, and friendships faultie guile
For ever to assoile.
Let endlesse peace your steadfast hearts accord,
And blessed plentie wait upon your bord;
And let your bed with pleasures chast abound,
That fruitfull issue may to you afford,
Which may your foes confound,
And make your joyes redound
Upon your brydale day, which is not long:
Sweet Themmes! runne softly, till I end my song. "
So ended she; and all the rest around
To her redoubled that her undersong,
Which said, their brydale daye should not be long:
And gentle Eccho from the neighbour ground
Their accents did resound.
So forth those joyous Birdes did passe along
Adowne the lee, that to them murmurde low,


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EDMUND SPENSER
As he would speake, but that he lackt a tong,
Yet did by signes his glad affection show,
Making his streame run slow.
And all the foule which in his flood did dwell
'Gan flock about these twaine, that did excell
The rest, so far as Cynthia doth shend
The lesser stars. So they, enrangèd well,
Did on those two attend,
And their best service lend
Against their wedding day, which was not long:
Sweet Themmes! runne softly, till I end my song.
At length they all to mery London came,-
To mery London, my most kyndly nurse,
That to me gave this lifes first native sourse,
Though from another place I take my name,
An house of auncient fame:
There when they came whereas those bricky towres
The which on Themmes brode aged backe doe ryde,
Where now the studious lawyers have their bowers,
There whylome wont the Templer Knights to byde,
Till they decay'd through pride;
Next whereunto there standes a stately place,
Where oft I gaynèd giftes and goodly grace
Of that great lord which therein wont to dwell,
Whose want too well now feels my freendles case;
But ah!