And buried now in their own ashes ly, Yet fhewing by their heapes how great they weare: Yet not fo fayre her buildings to behold, B. vi. c. vii. f. xxiii. EDM. SPENCER.. At length into a monaftere, did light, Where he him found defpoyling all with maine and might. Those who complain of the outrages committed at the diffolution of monafteries, feldom obferve, that literature fuffered an irreparable loss, in the difperfion and deftruction of books, which followed that important event. Bale*, a notorious and profeffed reformer, laments the injuries sustained in this article. Many most valuable pieces both printed and manuscript, were either instantly deftroyed, or configned to the moft mean and fordid ufes. Wood tells us†, that two famous libraries were purchased at the price of forty fhillings, by a common fhop-keeper at Oxford, for In Proem. ad lib. cui tit. Iter Laboriofum, &c. Lond. 1549. Hift. et Antiq. Un, Oxon. pag. 272. 1. 1. the the purpose of wafte paper. Some of the books, were fold to merchants who carried them abroad *. The spirit of purging the libraries from what they called popery, prevailed fo far, that the reforming visitors of the university of Oxford, in the reign of Edward VI. left only a manuscript of Valerius Maximus †, in the public library t. The greatest part of the rest of the books they burned in the market-place, or fold to the lowest artificers §. Rubrics, mathematical figures, and aftronomical demonftrations, were judged to be the genuine characteristics of popish delufion and impofture. For this reason, they took from the library of Merton-college, more than a cart-load of manufcripts . The monks at least protected and preserved, if they did not propagate and practife, literature. We are told, that there were no less than a thoufand and seven hundred manuscripts in the abbey of Peterborough (§). B. ii. c. x. f. lxvii. So now entombed lies at Stonehenge by the heath. * Hift. et Antiq. Un. Oxon. pag. 272. 1. i. † I wonder their confciences permitted it to remain, as its initials and margins are finely illuminated and ornamented. It is on vellom, in folio. Wood, ut fup. lib. 2. pag. 50. Wood, ut fup. 1, 271. § Ibid. (§) Gunton's Peterborough, pag. 173. See Tanner's Notit, Monaft. fol. præf. pag. 41. This is Aurelius, who was poifoned by a faxon. "King Edgar,... and king Athelftane,... are faid "by approved authors, to be buried in fome of the "Wiltshire hills.... They buried their princes, and peers, and nobles, in hills; making fome monu"ments of earth, or ftones heaped up."... Conftans is fuppofed to be buried in the mountains of northwales t. B. v. c. iii. f. iii. To tell the glory of the feast that day, At Florimel's wedding. By devifefull fights, Spenfer means, fights full of DEVICES, that is, masques, triumphs, and other spectacles, usually exhibited in his time, with great coft and splendor, at the nuptials of noble perfonages. Hence Milton, in L'Allegro, felects that fpecies of "mafque and antique pa geantry," which was celebrated at weddings. On thefe occafions there was conftantly an epithalamium; which is the reason that the author of the Arte of Englifh Poefie, feparately confiders the epithalamium as a fpecies of poetry, and accordingly delivers rules for its compofition. * Hiftory of Allchefter, ut fupr. pag. 690. VOL. II. + Ibid. 703. B. vii. B. vii. c. vi. f. lv. Speaking of Diana's departure from Ireland. Parting from the place Thereon a heavy hapleffe curfe did lay, To weet, that wolves, where she was wont to pace In Colin Clouts come home again, where he is praising England, he does it by an enumeration of fome of the miseries of Ireland. No wayling there, nor wretchednesse is heard, No griefly famine, nor nor raging fweard : Spenfer, fpeaking of the maffacres committed upon the people of Munster, in Ireland, after the rebellion, paints in the strongest colours, though in profe. "Out of every corner of the woodes and glennes they "came creeping forth upon their handes, for their "legges legges could not bear them: they looked like ana"tomies of death; they spake like ghoftes crying out "of their graves; they eat the dead carrions, happy were they could they find them, yea, and one "another foon after; infomuch, as the very carcafes "they fpared not to fcrape out of their graves. And "if they found a plot of water-creffes, or fham"rockes, there they flocked, as to a feaft, for the time; yet not able long to continue there withall, &c*." Spenser himself died in Ireland, in the most wretched condition, amid the defolations of this rebellion; as appears from the following curious anecdote in Drummond, who has left us the heads of a conversation between himself and B. Jonson......" Ben Jonfon "told me that Spenfer's goods were robbed by the "irifh in Defmond's rebellion; his houfe, and a lit"tle child of his burnt, and he and his wife nearly "escaped; that he afterwards died in king-ftreet, [Dublin] by abfolute want of bread; and that he "refused twenty pieces fent him by the earl of Effex, "and gave this answer to the person who brought "them, that he was fure he had no time to spend "them +." Camden informs us, that Spenfer was in *Spenfer's View of the State of Ireland. p. 154. vol. 6. works, 12mo. 1750. + Works, fol. pag. 224. Heads of a Conversation between the famous poet Ben Johnson, and William Drummond of Hawthornden, January, 1619. Kk 2 Jonfon |
