Chapter X: Part 10

These measures, however, did not preserve tranquillity long in Germany. Maurice of Saxony and the Elector of Brandenburg urged the deliverance of the Landgrave of Hesse, as having made themselves sureties against violence to his person. Charles answered by absolving them from their pledges. The Protestants of course charged him as arrogating the same spiritual authority with the popes. And Maurice, offended at the slight put upon him, directed his artful policy to the humiliation of Charles. He had compelled his subjects to conform to the Interim by the help of the timid Melancthon, who was no longer supported by the firmness of Luther. On the other hand, he had silenced the clamours of the more sturdy by a public avowal of his zeal for the Reformation. In the meantime, the diet of Augsburg, completely at the Emperor’s devotion, had named him general of the war against Magdeburg, which had been placed under the ban of the empire for opposition to the Interim. He took that Lutheran city, but by private assurances regained the good will of the inhabitants. He also engaged in a league with France, but still wore the mask. He even deceived the able Granville, Bishop of Arras, afterwards cardinal, who boasted that “a drunken German could never impose on him;” yet was he of all others most imposed on. At last, in 1552, Maurice declared himself, and Henry II. published a manifesto, assuming the title of “Protector of the liberties of Germany and its captive princes.” He began with the conquest of the three bishoprics of Toul, Baden, and Metz. In conjunction with Maurice he laid a plan for surprising Charles at Inspruck, and getting possession of his person; and the daring attempt had almost succeeded. Charles was forced to escape by night during a storm, in a paroxysm of gout, and was carried across the Alps in a litter. In the subsequent conferences at Passau, the deliverance of the Landgrave of Hesse, the abolition of the Interim, and the assembling of a diet within six months, to end all religious differences, were the conditions imposed upon the Emperor. In the meantime, liberty of conscience was to be enjoyed in the fullest manner, and Protestants were made admissible into the imperial chamber. The examination of grievances affecting the liberties of the empire was to be referred to the approaching diet; and if the ecclesiastical disputes were not then adjusted, the treaty now concluded was to remain in perpetual force. These disputes were adjusted, in 1555, at the diet of Augsburg, by the solemn grant of entire freedom of worship to the Protestants. The King of France was abandoned by his allies, and scarcely named in the treaty. Dr. Robertson’s remark on this is worth quoting: “Henry experienced the same treatment which every prince who lends his aid to the authors of a civil war may expect. As soon as the rage of faction began to subside and any prospect of accommodation to open, his services were forgotten, and his associates made a merit with their sovereign of the ingratitude with which they abandoned their protector.” Henry resolved to defend his acquisition of the three bishoprics, and Charles to employ his whole force for their recovery. The Duke of Guise made adequate preparations for the defence of Metz, the siege of which the Emperor was compelled to raise, after sixty-five days spent in fruitless efforts, with the loss of 30,000 men by skirmishes and battles, and by diseases incident to the severity of the season. “I perceive,” said he, “that Fortune, like other females, forsakes old men, to lavish her favours on the young.” This sentiment probably sunk deeper into his reflections, than might be inferred from the sarcastic terms in which it was clothed: for in the year 1556, after various events of war, alternately calamitous to the subjects of both nations, he astonished Europe by his abdication in favour of his son. In an assembly of the states at Brussels, he addressed Philip in a speech which melted the audience into tears. The concluding passage, as given by Robertson, is worth transcribing, to show how much easier it is to utter the suggestions of wisdom and virtue than to act up to them, and how much an experienced observer of human character may be misled to gratuitous assumptions by parental affection. “Preserve an inviolable regard for religion; maintain the Catholic faith in its purity; let the laws of your country be sacred in your eyes; encroach not on the rights and privileges of your people; and if the time should ever come when you shall wish to enjoy the tranquillity of private life, may you have a son endowed with such qualities that you can resign your sceptre to him with as much satisfaction as I give up mine to you!” Charles retired into a monastery, where he died, after more than two years passed in deep melancholy, and in practices of devotion inconsistent with sound intellect, when only between fifty-eight and fifty-nine years of age. His activity and talents had been the theme of universal admiration: the ardour of his ambitious policy had been extreme, and his knowledge of mankind profound: but he should have followed up the objects of his high aspiring by a straighter road. His glory would have been truly enviable had he devoted his efforts to the happiness of his subjects, instead of harassing their minds by dissensions, and mowing down their lives by hundreds of thousands in war.

To the statesman or the politician the history of this period is an inexhaustible fund of instruction and interest, and to the general reader it is rendered more than usually attractive by the almost dramatic contrast of character among the principal actors in the scene. Francis seems to have been the representative of the expiring school of chivalry; Charles was not the representative, but the founder of the modern system of state policy: Henry was the representative of ostentation, violence, and selfishness, to be found in all ages.

We are absolved from the necessity of dilating on the state of the fine arts at this era of their glory, by referring the reader to the lives of the artists of the time scattered through our volumes. The life of Titian affords the most ample evidence of Charles’s personal taste, and feeling of painting; and his warm and generous friendship for that great artist is at once a proof of his discernment, and perhaps the most attractive feature in his character.

It is scarcely necessary to name Robertson as the modern historian of Charles, and his work is the best direction to original authorities. Sismondi may also be consulted.

[Charles V., from a picture by Vandyke.]
]

_Engraved by W. Holl._

DES CARTES.

_From the original Picture by Francis Hals
in the Gallery of the Louvre._

Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.

_London. Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street._
]

DES CARTES.

The space which we can devote to this biography would be utterly insufficient to give the smallest account of the varied philosophical labours of its subject; still less to recount their consequences. We shall therefore confine ourselves almost entirely to his personal life; the more so, as the private history of Des Cartes is not so well known to the world in general, as is the history of the mathematician, the optician, the natural philosopher, the metaphysician, the anatomist, the musician, &c., to those who study these several sciences.

René Des Cartes[8] du Perron (the latter name being derived from a lordship inherited from his mother, by which he was distinguished from his elder brother) was born at La Haye, in Touraine, March 31, 1596. From his mother, who died shortly after, he inherited a feeble constitution. His father, Joachim Des Cartes, had served in the civil wars, and was of a noble family, of which, says Baillet, neither origin could be traced, nor _mésalliance_ while it lasted.

Footnote 8:

The life of Des Cartes has been written with great minuteness by M.
Baillet author of the ‘Jugemens des Savans,’ &c., in two vols. 4to.,
Paris, 1690; abridged, Paris, 1693; translated into English the same
year. This appears to have been the source from which all accounts
have been derived.

His early inclination for study induced his father to send him to the College of La Flèche when he was only eight years old. We have the accounts of extraordinary progress which are usually related of men after they have become distinguished; but what is not so common, we find that he was allowed to keep his bed in the morning as long as he pleased, partly from the weakness of his health, and partly because he was observed to be of a meditative turn. We mention this because it afterwards became his usual habit to study in bed; and certainly some parts of his philosophy bear the marks of it.

He left La Flèche in eight years and a half, with great reputation, and a disgust for all books and methods then in use. He was sent to Paris at the age of seventeen, under the care of a servant, and fell into the fashionable vice of gambling; but at the same time he cultivated the acquaintance of Mydorge[9] and Mersenne. He finally became disgusted with his favourite pursuit, hired a solitary house in the Fauxbourg St. Germain, and resumed his studies.

Footnote 9:

To explain in the briefest terms who these and other friends of Des
Cartes were, would make us exceed the prescribed bounds. Our reader
must be content to be referred to a biographical dictionary for these
and others not known, except to mathematicians.

At the age of twenty-one, he enlisted as a volunteer under the Prince of Orange. At Breda, the solution of a problem introduced him to Beekman. Here he wrote his ‘Treatise on Music,’ of which the latter (to whom it had been entrusted) gave himself out as the author. In 1619, he enlisted as a volunteer under the Duke of Bavaria; and while thus engaged, he tells us he laid the foundations of his philosophy (November 10); after three wonderful dreams. Quitting the service he was engaged in, after having been present at the siege of Prague, he travelled till the end of 1619. He then returned to Paris, where it was believed he was a Rosicrucian, and his continual presence in public was necessary to repel the suspicion. At this time he appears to have laid the foundation of his mathematical methods. After travelling into Italy, he settled again at Paris, and we now find him in habits of friendship with Beaune (afterwards his commentator), Morin, Frenicle, and others, and occupying himself with practical optics. In 1628, he served at the siege of Rochelle.

To avoid society, in 1629, he migrated to Holland, where he passed twenty years. He removed from town to town, hiding his actual residence from all but one or two friends. He occupied himself at first with his optics, and with the considerations which led him, in a few years, to publish his ‘Treatise on Meteors,’ as also with chemistry and anatomy. We now find him in communication with Reneri and Gassendi. He made a short voyage to England, of which nothing is recorded, except some magnetic observations made near London. About 1633, his philosophical opinions were first taught by Reneri, at Deventer. His ‘Treatise on the World,’ written about this time, was suppressed by him when he heard what had happened to Galileo in Italy; and except some meteorological observations, we find nothing to notice till 1637, when he published his ‘Principles of Philosophy,’ in which the well-known hypothesis of vortices is propounded, together with his dioptrical and meteorological theories. This publication was immediately combated in different parts by Roberval, Fromondus, Plempius, Fermat, the elder Pascal, and others. Without going into these and other now uninteresting disputes, it is only necessary to state, that Fermat, Pascal, Roberval, and several others, were soon after in friendly communication with Des Cartes. After the famous problem of the Cycloid, which was propounded about this time (1638–39), Des Cartes, as he had several times done before, renounced geometry; and his work bearing that title (but which is, in fact, his celebrated application of algebra to geometry) was not published by himself, but by his friend De Beaune, who wrote a comment on it at his desire.

In the meantime, his philosophy was fast rising into repute in Holland, where, in 1639, a public panegyric was made upon it at Utrecht, on the death of Reneri. We pass over the various disputes upon it, both at Utrecht and Paris. In 1640, Des Cartes was nearly induced to take up his residence in England, under the protection of Charles I.: but the domestic troubles, which within two years broke out into civil war, interfered with the completion of this arrangement. His father died at the end of the same year; in which he also lost a child named Francina, whom he owned as his daughter, but concerning whose parentage, whether it were legitimate or not, nothing certain is known. Des Cartes was attacked at this time by the Jesuits in France, and by a party in Holland, which asserted that he himself was a Jesuit. The hostility of his Dutch opponents did not materially retard the progress of his opinions, nor could the Jesuits prevent his receiving a flattering invitation from Louis XIII. to return to France.

In 1641, appeared his Meditations De Primâ Philosophiâ, on the Soul, on Freewill, and on the Existence of a Creator. Various parts of this treatise were criticised by Hobbes, Gassendi, and some others; but so much was the reputation of Des Cartes increased in France, that the exertions of Mersenne, made by the desire of the author, could not obtain more than one opponent to this work out of all the Sorbonne. This was the afterwards celebrated Arnaud, between whom and Des Cartes a friendly controversy was maintained. But in Holland, the active enmity of Voet, the rector of the university of Utrecht, and others, raised a clamour against Regius, who publicly taught Cartesian doctrines at Utrecht. Des Cartes himself, averse to controversy, wrote strongly to his pupil not to deny or reject any thing commonly admitted, but merely to assert that it was not necessary to the proper conception of the doctrine taught. But Voet, not content with writing books, instituted an unworthy course of clandestine persecution against Des Cartes, by which, in 1642, he obtained the condemnation of the ‘Meditations’ by the magistracy of Utrecht, and gave the author some personal trouble and anxiety. On the other hand, the new philosophy at this time made great progress among the Jesuits, its former opponents. In the middle of the year Des Cartes returned to France, and superintended a new edition of his Principles of Philosophy. But in the following year he went again to Holland, where some decisions in his favour, in matters of alleged libel, the too virulent enmity of Voet, the public teaching of Cartesian doctrines at Leyden by Heereboord, and other things of the same kind, made his reputation gain ground rapidly. About 1647, we find him clear of violent opposition, and actively engaged in the dissemination of various opinions by personal correspondence. He returned again to France, where a pension of 3000 livres was obtained for him: but he is said never to have received any part of it. He came back to Holland, but next year was recalled to France by the promise of another pension, which turned out to be fallacious. He once more returned to Holland, which he left the same year, to fix his residence in Sweden, at the desire of the queen Christina, with whom he had been some time in correspondence. He arrived at Stockholm in September, and while engaged in projecting an Academy of Sciences, at the desire of the queen, was seized with an inflammation of the lungs, which carried him off, February 11, 1650, at the age of 54. His body, seventeen years after, was removed to the church of St. Geneviève at Paris.

Des Cartes was under the middle size, and well proportioned, except that his head was rather too big for his body. His voice, owing to an hereditary weakness of the lungs, was unable to sustain any long conversation. He was very temperate, slept a good deal, and, as before noticed, wrote and thought much in bed. He was very particular in choosing his servants, engaging none but such as were both well-looking and intellectual; and several of his attendants afterwards rose in the world. Baillet mentions a physician, a Regius professor, a mathematician, and a judge, who had served Des Cartes in different capacities. He inherited from his mother an income of about 6000 livres a year. His expenses in experimenting were considerable, but he never would accept the offered assistance of his friends. He read little, and had few books. We have already noticed the obscure connection from which his daughter Francina derived her birth: he also paid his addresses to a lady, for whom he fought a duel with a rival. With these exceptions, he seems to have been insensible to female influence. He told the last-mentioned lady, somewhat bluntly, that he found nothing so beautiful as truth. He was a devout Catholic, and writers of that persuasion think that his doctrines were more favourable to them than those of Aristotle.

His character as a philosopher is that of extraordinary power of imagination, which frequently carried him beyond all firm foundations. His ingenuity is very great; and had he been contemporary with Newton and Leibnitz, he might have been a third inventor of fluxions. Father Castel says of him, that he built high, and Newton[10] deep; that he had an ambition to create a world, and Newton none whatever. It is usual to compare these two great men; but we do not think them proper objects of comparison. Des Cartes lived at a time when the power of mathematical analysis was but small, compared with what he himself, Wallis, Newton, and others afterwards made it. He pursued his studies before Stevinus and Galileo had yet made the first additions to the mathematical mechanics of Archimedes. It is not, therefore, with Newton that he ought to be tried, but with those philosophers of his own age, who were in the same position with himself, and wrote upon similar subjects with similar methods. And here if we had room we could easily show, that, for variety of power, and comparative soundness of thinking, he was above all his contemporaries, and well deserves his fame.

Footnote 10:

The good Father first transcribed Newton, then read him twenty times,
then wrote his comparison of the two, and kept it twenty years; and
finally, decided that Des Cartes was the better philosopher, for the
reasons given in the text. _Nous avons changé tout cela._

It were much to be wished that his writings were better known in this country, particularly by those who represent him as nothing but a wild schemer, because they hold the system of Newton. It is a sort of article of faith in many popular English works on astronomy, that Des Cartes was a fool. To any one who has imbibed that opinion, we recommend the perusal of some of his writings.

SPENSER.

The materials for the personal history of Edmund Spenser[11] are very scanty; and it may not be amiss to warn the reader of what he will find exemplified in the present article, that early biography, with any pretension to authenticity, must partake nearly as much of a negative as of a positive character.

Footnote 11:

Our engraving is from a copy of the picture in the possession of the
Earl of Kinnoull, which was made some years since by Mr. Uwins.

As to the year of Spenser’s birth, we are thrown for any thing like admissible evidence on the date of his matriculation at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, in 1569, which, according to the usual age of admission in those days, would place his birth about 1553. The monument erected to him by the Countess of Dorset, afterwards of Pembroke and Montgomery, places his birth in 1510, and his death in 1596. This monument, having been erected only thirty years after the poet’s death, might have been expected not to be very inaccurate as to dates; but its authority is completely put down by the college entry. It is altogether at variance with university practice at any period, that a man should be matriculated at the age of fifty-nine, for the purpose of passing through his seven years _in statu pupillari_, and proceeding to the degree of M.A. at the ripe age of sixty-six. Neither do any facts on record give countenance to the supposition that the poet lived to the advanced age of eighty-six.

The parentage of Spenser is supposed to have been obscure: the only information he has given us on that point is confined to the unimportant fact, that his mother’s name was Elizabeth. But although his silence respecting his parents, and his entering the university as a sizar, give reason to suppose that his nearest connexions had fallen into humble life, his claim of alliance with “an house of ancient fame” indicated that his blood was not altogether plebeian. The dedications of his ‘Muiopotmos’ to Lady Carey, of his ‘Tears of the Muses’ to Lady Strange, and of ‘Mother Hubbard’s Tale’ to the

_Engraved by J. Thomson._

SPENSER.

_From an original Picture in the possession of
The Earl of Kinnoull._

Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.

_London. Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street._
]

Lady Compton and Mounteagle, express affection and bounden duty, on the score of kindred, to the house whence those ladies sprang, who were three sisters, and daughters of Sir John Spencer of Althorpe.

Spenser took the degree of Bachelor in 1572, and that of Master of Arts in 1576, in which year it is said that he was an unsuccessful competitor for a fellowship; but Mr. Church, student of Christ Church in Oxford, who has been more minute in his inquiries than Spenser’s other biographers, thinks that the story has no foundation. It is agreed on all hands that Sir Philip Sidney was the person who drew the poet from obscurity, and introduced him at court. On this subject we are told that Spenser sent a copy of the ninth canto of the first book of the ‘Faery Queene’ to Leicester House; and that Sidney was so transported at the discovery of such astonishing genius, as, after having read a stanza or two, to order his steward to give the author fifty pounds: after the next stanza the sum was doubled. The steward was not so enthusiastic as his master, and therefore in no hurry to make the disbursement; but one stanza more raised the gratuity to two hundred pounds, with a command of immediate payment, lest a further perusal should tempt the gallant knight to give away his whole estate. The obvious drift of this story is to magnify the genius of its subject; but it is rather hard on Sir Philip, that a reputation fully capable of standing by itself should have been unnecessarily propped at the expense of his character for common sense. The plain fact is, that the celebrated Gabriel Harvey, Spenser’s college friend, introduced him to Sidney; that he wrote part of his ‘Shepherd’s Calendar’ at Penshurst, and under the modest name of _Immerito_, inscribed it to his patron. The general strain of this poem is serious and pensive, but with occasional bursts of amorous complaint. Without the latter it was considered that there could be no pastoral poetry; but in this instance the wailings are thought not to have been altogether fictitious. The name of Rosalinde is said to have shadowed forth a mistress who had deserted him, as that of Colin Clout both there and elsewhere denoted himself. Sidney lost no time in introducing his new friend to the Earl of Leicester, and finally to Queen Elizabeth. On his presenting some poems to her, the Queen ordered him a gratuity of a hundred pounds. Lord Treasurer Burleigh, better qualified to appreciate the useful than the ornamental, said, “What! all this for a song?” The Queen in anger repeated the order; and the minister from that time became the personal enemy of the poet, who alludes to this misfortune in several parts of his works.

The Earl of Leicester seems to have undertaken to provide for Spenser by sending him abroad. A letter to Gabriel Harvey from Leicester House fixes this to the year 1579; but either there is a mistake in the date, or the scheme must have been abandoned; for in 1580 he was appointed secretary to Arthur Lord Grey of Wilton, who was sent as lord-deputy to Ireland. While in that country he wrote his ‘Discourse on the State of Ireland,’ a judicious treatise on the policy then best suited to the condition of that country. His services were rewarded with a grant of 3028 acres in the county of Cork, out of the forfeited lands of Gerald Fitz Gerald Earl of Desmond. Spenser’s residence was at the castle of Kilcolman, near Doneraile. The river Mulla, which he has more than once introduced into his poems, ran through his grounds. Here he contracted an intimacy with Sir Walter Raleigh, who was then a captain under Lord Grey. ‘Colin Clout’s come Home again,’ in which Sir Walter is described as the Shepherd of the Ocean, is a beautiful memorial of this friendship, founded on a similarity of taste for the polite arts, and described with equal delicacy and strength of feeling. The author acknowledges services at court rendered to him by Raleigh; probably the confirmation of the grant of land, which he obtained in 1586. The friends returned to England together, and Spenser wished to have obtained a settlement at home, rather than to have continued in a country at that time little better than barbarous. To mortifications, and ultimate disappointment in his attendance at court, we probably owe the well-known lines in ‘Mother Hubbard’s Tale.’ If his forced return to Ireland was the cause of his writing the ‘Faery Queene,’ his country was benefited, and his fame immeasurably enhanced by the disappointment of his wishes. On the publication of the first three books the Queen rewarded him with a pension of fifty pounds a year; and in him the office of Laureate may be considered to have commenced, although not conferred under that title.

Spenser’s marriage is placed by most biographers in 1593; by Mr. Church in 1596: the year of his death, if we could rest our faith in the monument. All we know of the lady is, that her Christian name was Elizabeth: a name, he says in his 74th sonnet, which has given him three graces, in his mother, his queen, and his mistress. In his ‘Epithalamion’ he says,

“Tell me, ye merchants’ daughters, did ye see
So fair a creature in your town before?
So sweet, so lovely, and so mild as she,
Adorn’d with beauty’s grace and virtue’s store:
Her goodly eyes, like sapphire, shining bright.

* * * * *

Her long loose yellow locks, like golden wire,
Sprinkled with pearl, and pearling flow’rs atween,
Do, like a golden mantle, her attire.”

He probably dwells the more on this latter circumstance, because the Queen’s hair was yellow. But even if the marriage took place in 1593, his term of domestic happiness was very short. In the Earl of Tyrone’s rebellion, in 1598, he was plundered and deprived of his estate. No direct or authentic account of the circumstances attending this calamity has come down to us; but among the heads of a conversation between Ben Jonson and Drummond at Hawthornden, given in the works of the latter, Jonson, after saying that neither Spenser’s stanzas pleased him, nor his matter, is stated to have given the following appalling description of his misfortune: that “his goods were robbed by the Irish, and his house and a little child burnt: he and his wife escaped, and after died for want of bread in King Street, Westminster.” Jonson however adds a circumstance, the strangeness of which throws suspicion over the former part of the story: “He refused twenty pieces sent him by my Lord Essex, and said he was sure he had no time to spend them.” But whether these particulars be true or not, it is certain that he died in London, ruined, and a victim to despair, according to Camden, in 1598, but according to Sir James Ware, who wrote the preface to the ‘View of the State of Ireland,’ in 1599. Sir James, after having given a high character of his poetry, says, “With a fate peculiar to poets, Spenser lived in a continual struggle with poverty: he was driven away from his house and plundered by the rebels: soon after his return in penury to England he died. He was buried in Westminster Abbey near Chaucer, at the expense of the Earl of Essex; the poets of the time, who attended his funeral, threw verses into his grave.” In order to account for the inaccuracy of the dates on the monument, it is alleged that the inscription had been defaced, perhaps by the Puritans in revenge for the descriptions of the Blatant Beast; and that on its renewal, the carver (the year of birth being illegible) put ten at a venture, and ninety-six instead of ninety-eight or ninety-nine.

Respecting Spenser’s private character, conversation and manners, his contemporaries leave us nearly in the dark. We know that Burleigh was his enemy, that Sidney and Raleigh were his friends: and from the dignity of sentiment and moral tendency prevailing throughout his works, we may reasonably infer that his virtue was not unworthy of his genius. Milton speaks of him as “our sage and serious poet, whom I dare be known to think a better teacher than Scotus or Aquinas.” ‘The Shepherd’s Calendar,’ the first of Spenser’s works in print, is generally said to have come out in 1579. It is a series of pastorals, formed on no uniform plan, but lowered to the standard supposed to be appropriate to that style of composition. But the rustic language of these pieces renders them so utterly untunable to a modern ear, that what obtained the applause of Sidney would not have saved the author’s name from oblivion, had it not been borne up to imperishable fame by the splendour of the ‘Faery Queene,’ the three first books of which were published in 1590. Six years afterwards three other books came out; and after his death two other cantos, and the beginning of a third. The poem, therefore, exists as a fragment: there is a traditionary story that he had completed his design in twelve books, as was his avowed intention; but that the last six books were lost by a servant who had the charge of bringing them over to England. Yet, unfinished as the poem is, any one canto has merit and beauties enough to have secured its author’s fame. In 1591 a quarto volume was published, containing the following nine pieces:—‘The Ruines of Time;’ ‘The Tears of the Muses;’ ‘Virgil’s Gnat;’ ‘Mother Hubbard’s Tale;’ ‘Ruines of Rome;’ ‘Muiopotmos;’ ‘Visions of the World’s Vanitie;’ ‘Bellay’s Visions;’ ‘Petrarche’s Visions.’ ‘Daphnaida,’ published in 1592, was dedicated to the Marchioness of Northampton, on the death of her niece, Douglas Howard. The pastoral elegy of ‘Astrophel’ was devoted wholly to the memory of Sir Philip Sidney, and inscribed to Lady Essex. To enter on the subject of his Sonnets, &c. &c. would carry us far beyond our prescribed limits.

In a letter to Sir Walter Raleigh, Spenser sets forth the general design of the ‘Faery Queene,’ and settles the scheme of the whole twelve books. But the following passage proves that he contemplated twelve more. “I labour to pourtraict in Arthur, before he was king, the image of a brave knight, perfected in the twelve Moral Vertues, as Aristotle devised, the which is the purport of these first twelve books: which if I find to be well accepted, I may perhaps be encouraged to frame the other part of Politic Vertues in his person, after that he came to be king.” He also says, “In the person of Prince Arthur I set forth Magnificence in particular.” By magnificence Dryden understands him to mean magnanimity, in succouring the representatives of the particular moral virtues when in distress, and considers his interposition in each legend as the only bond of uniformity in a design, which in all other respects insulates his allegorical heroes, without subordination or preference. This plan gave him much opportunity of drawing flattering portraits of individual courtiers, though few of the likenesses have been recognized, and the originals seem to have shown but little gratitude for the compliment. It is generally allowed that Prince Arthur was meant for Sir Philip Sidney, who was the poet’s chief patron. The prevailing beauty of this great poem consists in its vein of fabulous invention, set off by a power of description and force of imagination, so various and inexhaustible, that the reader is too much pleased and distracted to be sensible of the faults into which his judgment is betrayed by occasional excess. It is remarked by Sir William Temple, in his ‘Essay on Poetry,’ that “the religion of the Gentiles had been woven into the contexture of all the ancient poetry with an agreeable mixture, which made the moderns affect to give that of Christianity a place in their poems; but the true religion was not found to become fictions so well as the false one had done, and all their attempts of this kind seemed rather to debase religion than heighten poetry.” Critics in general, and common sense itself, have confirmed Temple’s remark as to the hazard, which it required such a mind as Milton’s successfully to face, of giving a poetical colouring to the solemn truths of religion. To a feeling of this difficulty we probably owe the peculiarity of Spenser’s epic, if so it may be called. In other epics, instruction is subordinate to story, and conveyed through it; in the ‘Faery Queene,’ morality is the avowed object, to be illustrated by the actions of such shadowy personages, that but a thin veil is thrown over the bare design. Whatever may be thought of allegorical poetry as a system, the execution in this instance is excellent, the flights of fancy brilliant, and often sublime. Rymer finds fault with Spenser for having suffered himself to be “misled by Ariosto;” and says that “his poem is perfect Fairyland.” The readers of poetry in the present day will probably receive that censure as praise: marvels and adventures, even if probability be not made matter of conscience, may have more attraction than classic regularity and strict adherence to the unities. But though Spenser frequently imitated both Tasso and Ariosto in descriptions of battles, and his general delineation of knight-errantry, the plan and conduct of his poem deviated widely from Ariosto’s model, and, it is generally thought, not on the side of improvement. Ariosto narrates adventures as real, however extravagant, and only occasionally intermixes portions of pure allegory. But allegory is the staple of Spenser’s design; and his legendary tales are interwoven with it so far only as they are connected with his one human hero. With the exception of Prince Arthur, his heroes are abstractions; they bear the names of knights, but are in reality Virtues personified. Dryden finds fault with Spenser’s obsolete language, and the ill choice of his stanza. The poems of the Elizabethan age, now considered as the golden age of poetry, are so much more read and better understood in these later times, than they were in Dryden’s days, that the language is no longer felt as a serious obstacle to the pleasures of perusal. With respect to the form of stanza, it was natural for Dryden, the mighty master of the couplet, to condemn it; and it may be in itself objectionable as favouring redundancy of style, not only in respect of expletives and tautology, but of ideas. Its fulness of melody however, and sonorous majesty, have of late brought it into favour both with writers and readers.

Of all critics, none can be better worth hearing, on such a subject as that of the Faery Queene, than the historian of English poetry. Warton writes thus:—“If the Faery Queene be destitute of that arrangement and economy which epic severity requires, yet we scarcely regret the loss of these, while their place is so amply supplied by something which more powerfully attracts us; something which engages the affections, the feelings of the heart, rather than the cold approbation of the head. If there be any poem whose graces please, because they are situated beyond the reach of art; and where the force and faculties of creative imagination delight, because they are unassisted and unrestrained by those of deliberate judgment, it is this: in reading Spenser, if the critic is not satisfied, yet the reader is transported.”

The principal editions of Spenser are Upton’s ‘Faery Queene, with a Glossary and Notes,’ London, 1751; and Mr. Todd’s Variorum Edition of his Works, 8 vols. 8vo. 1805.

]

_Engraved by J. Posselwhite._

GROTIUS.

_From an original Picture by M. J. Mirevelt
in the possession of the Publisher._

Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.

_London. Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street._
]

GROTIUS.

Hugh de Groot, or Hugo Grotius, as he is more generally designated, was born at Delft in Holland, on Easter Sunday, April 10, 1583[12]. His family was ancient and of noble extraction, both on the paternal and maternal sides. His father, John de Groot, who was Curator of the University of Leyden, was a lawyer and a poet of considerable reputation.

Footnote 12:

A discrepancy appears in the accounts of the different biographers of
Grotius respecting the date of his birth; some fixing it in 1582, and
others in 1583. The fact is only material with reference to the
anecdotes of his early acquirements, and it is ascertained beyond a
doubt, by a very simple circumstance. That Grotius was born on Easter
Sunday, and on the 10th of April, appears in numerous passages of his
letters and poems; and as Easter Sunday fell on the 10th of April in
1583, and did not fall on that day for many years before and
afterwards, the date of his birth seems to be satisfactorily proved by
that coincidence. See Nicolas’s Tables.

The mind of Grotius was developed with unusual rapidity. In his ninth year he is said to have made extemporaneous Latin verses; in his fifteenth year he published his edition of Martian Capella, and before that time, his biographers state that he disputed twice publicly in the schools on questions of philosophy and civil law. His memory is said to have been so prodigious, that being present at the muster of a regiment on some particular occasion, he afterwards repeated accurately every name which had been called. Anecdotes of this kind are seldom to be traced to any good authority, and are frequently merely fabulous; but there is no doubt that, at a very tender age, Grotius had made extraordinary progress in the acquisition of learning. The knowledge and critical discernment displayed in his edition of Capella, which was unquestionably published in 1599, excited the astonishment of his contemporaries. Scaliger, De Thou, Lipsius, Casaubon, have characterised this work as a prodigy of juvenile learning; and those who have patience to read it at the present day will collect from the annotations, that at the age of fifteen the editor must have read critically and carefully the works of Apuleius, Albericus, Cicero, Aquila, Porphyry, Aristotle, Strabo, Ptolemy, Pliny, Euclid, and many other ancient and modern authors, in different languages and on various subjects, and cannot fail to consider Grotius as a wonderful instance of early talents, industry, and acquirement. “_Reliqui viri_,” says his contemporary Heinsius, “_tandem fuêre_; Grotius _vir natus est_.” In the following year Grotius published the ‘Phenomena of Aratus,’ an astronomical poem, written originally in Greek, and translated into Latin by Cicero, when a very young man. Part of Cicero’s translation had been lost in course of time; and in this publication the deficiencies were supplied by Grotius in Latin verse with much elegance and success. In a letter to the President de Thou, written in 1601, when he was not eighteen years of age, he thus modestly refers to those astonishing works:—“I was exceedingly glad when I understood that my Capella and Aratus were not only come to your hand, but were also favourably received by you. My own opinion of Martianus and the other Syntagm is only this, that they are capable of some excuse from my age; for I wrote them when I was very young. But you are pleased to augur well from these beginnings, and to express a judgment that they may grow up into some hope hereafter. I hope it may be so; for it is my greatest desire and ambition _a laudatis laudari_.”

Before he went to the university, he was placed under the care of an Arminian clergyman, named Uitenbogard, from whom he derived that strong sectarian bias, which had afterwards a powerful effect upon his character and fortune. At twelve years of age Grotius was sent to the University of Leyden, where, though he remained only three years, he became so much distinguished, that he attracted the notice of Scaliger, and many of the most celebrated scholars of the times. He had always been intended for the profession of the law; and lest the allurements of general literature, and the flattery of successful authorship, which had greatly withdrawn him from legal studies, should lead him to renounce the lucrative and honourable employment for which he was designed, his father sought to turn his thoughts into a new channel. It happened that about this time the celebrated Grand Pensionary, Barneveldt, was sent on an embassy from the Dutch States to Henry IV., for the purpose of persuading him to conclude a new treaty of perpetual alliance with Holland and England against Spain. John de Groot readily obtained for his son a situation in the train of Barneveldt. Grotius remained in France a whole year, and during that time was treated with marked distinction and respect by the learned men of that country, and received the degree of Doctor of Laws from the University of Paris. He was also graciously noticed by the king himself, who gave him at his departure his own portrait and a chain of gold. From some unexplained cause, Grotius did not upon this occasion become acquainted with the President de Thou; but soon after his return to Delft, he wrote him a letter accompanied by a copy of his Aratus. From that time until the death of the President a constant correspondence was maintained between them, and Grotius furnished many notes and materials for that part of De Thou’s history which relates to the Netherlands and Holland.

Immediately after his return from France to Holland in April 1599, Grotius published his “Limeneuretica, sive Portuum investigandorum Ratio,” a treatise for the instruction of seamen in ascertaining the exact situation of a ship at sea. This work was merely a translation, and has been of course long since superseded by modern discoveries; but it is worthy of remark, as a proof of the extraordinary acquirements of a youth of sixteen, that he should have added to his critical and scholastic knowledge so competent an acquaintance with magnetism and practical navigation as the translation of such a work implies. In the course of the same year he enrolled himself on the list of Advocates at the Hague, and before he was eighteen years of age commenced the actual practice of his profession. In this occupation he was eminently successful, though he always disliked it, and lamented the time which it claimed from more congenial pursuits. His reputation and practice, however, daily increased, until in the year 1607, being recommended by the suffrages of the courts, and nominated by the States of Holland, Prince Maurice conferred upon him the important and responsible office of Advocate-General of the provinces of Holland and Zealand. Soon after this appointment, he married Mary Reygersburgh, the daughter of an opulent family in Zealand, with whom he lived in the most complete harmony.

In the year 1608, while he held the office of Advocate-General, Grotius composed his ‘Mare Liberum,’ the general design of which was to show, upon the principles of the law of nations, that the sea was open to all without distinction, and to assert the right of the Dutch States to trade to the Indian seas, notwithstanding the claim of the Portuguese to an exclusive title to that commerce. This tract was published without the consent of Grotius; and at a subsequent period of his life he expressed his disapprobation of it. “My intention,” he says, “was good; but the work savours too much of my want of years.” Many years afterwards, Selden published his profound work on maritime rights, entitled ‘Mare Clausum,’ in which he incidentally notices this treatise of Grotius with much respect, though he advocates a contrary doctrine. Soon after the appearance of his ‘Mare Liberum,’ Grotius published a ‘Dissertation on the Antiquity of the Batavian Republic,’ for which he received the thanks of the States of Holland, accompanied by a present.

In 1613, he was advanced from his practice as an advocate to the judicial station of Pensionary of Rotterdam, which office was given him for life, the usual tenure having been only at will. In the same year a difference of opinion having arisen between England and the States of Holland, respecting the right of fishing for whales in the Northern seas, Grotius was sent into England for the purpose of effecting an amicable arrangement of the dispute. He there became personally acquainted with Isaac Casaubon, with whom he had previously corresponded. He was favourably noticed by the king during his stay in England, and formed an intimate connexion with several of the most eminent English divines of that day, which he maintained by letters for many years afterwards. In the political object of his embassy he appears to have failed; the subject in dispute was resumed at Rotterdam in 1615, before commissioners of both countries, but with no more favourable result to the Dutch States.

Soon after his return from England, Grotius became deeply involved in the religious animosities which at that time prevailed in Holland. He had adopted the principles of Arminius from Uitenbogard, the instructor of his early youth, and he now zealously maintained the doctrines of the Arminian party in opposition to the tenets held by the followers of Gomar. The questions in dispute related for the most part to predestination and other abstract points of Christian doctrine, the discussion of which by the disciples of Arminius on the one hand, and of Gomar, a professor of Leyden, on the other, had divided the United Provinces into two parties, animated by the most furious hostility towards each other. The public peace being endangered by the violence to which these religious differences were carried, the States of Holland, in 1614, published an edict, drawn up by Grotius, enjoining forbearance and mutual toleration between the contending parties, but denouncing in unqualified terms the doctrines of the Gomarists. The effect of this partial and injudicious edict was to increase the virulence of party spirit; frequent riots ensued, attended with popular demonstrations of an alarming kind. The powerful city of Amsterdam favoured the Gomarists; and hesitated to submit to the edict of 1614. Under these circumstances, the States sent a deputation, of which Grotius was the chief, for the purpose of converting the Town Council of that city to their opinion. Upon this occasion Grotius made a judicious and temperate harangue, which was afterwards translated into Latin, and is published among his works. It was, however, unsuccessful in its result, as the Senate declared that the city of Amsterdam could not adopt the edict without endangering the church, and risking their commercial prosperity. In the mean time popular tumults continued and increased; and in this position of affairs the Grand Pensionary, Barneveldt, proposed to the States of Holland, that the magistrates of the several cities in that province should be authorized to levy soldiers for the purpose of securing the public tranquillity. The representatives of several towns vehemently opposed this proposition, but it was adopted, after a stormy debate; and, August 4, 1617, a proclamation was issued to carry it into execution.

This decree directly induced a train of circumstances, which eventually led to the death of Barneveldt, and the ruin and banishment of Grotius. Prince Maurice of Nassau, who was at that time Governor and Captain-general of the United Provinces, denounced it as an act illegal and unjustifiable in itself, and an invasion of his authority. He influenced the States-General to write to the magistrates of those provinces and cities which had acted under the decree by raising soldiers, commanding them to disband their levies; and upon the refusal of many of them to comply with this requisition, he obtained authority to proceed to the recusant cities, and enforce their obedience. Having executed this commission successfully in the towns of Nimeguen, Overyssel, and Arnheim, Maurice, who on the death of his brother in February, 1618, had assumed the title of Prince of Orange, proceeded to Utrecht, with the same object. The States of Holland had in the mean time sent thither Grotius and Hoogerbertz, the Pensionary of Leyden, for the purpose of opposing the Prince’s commission. They stimulated the magistrates of the city to resist the assumed authority of the States-General, to increase their militia, and to double the guards at the gates. They also brought letters from the States of Holland to the officers of the ordinary garrison, persuading them that it was their duty to obey the States of Utrecht, in opposition to the States-General and the Prince of Orange. Notwithstanding these preparations the Prince entered the city without forcible resistance, and having disbanded the new levies, displaced several magistrates, and arrested some of those who had been most active in their opposition, returned to the Hague. Grotius was now satisfied that all further attempts at opposition would be useless, and prevailed upon the magistrates of Rotterdam at once to dismiss the levies made under the obnoxious decree.

The Prince of Orange and the States-General were highly incensed at the measures taken to excite a forcible opposition at Utrecht; and Barneveldt, Grotius, and Hoogerbertz, were arrested, August 29, 1618, upon the charge of having raised an insurrection at that place, and committed to close custody in the castle of the Hague.

In the ensuing November, the prisoners, having previously undergone repeated examinations, were separately tried before twenty-six commissioners, chosen from the principal nobility and magistracy of the Seven Provinces. Barneveldt was tried first, and was condemned to be beheaded, for various acts of insubordination towards the States; and in particular for having promoted the insurrection at Utrecht. The trial of Grotius followed a few days afterwards. He complains of having been treated then, and during the previous examinations, with great hardship and injustice: he says that he was pressed to answer ensnaring questions directly, when he required time, and that the commissioners refused to read over his examinations to him, after they had written down his answers. He was, however, found guilty, and sentence was passed upon him, May 18, 1619, recapitulating the heads of the charges of which he had been convicted, and condemning him to imprisonment for life, and the confiscation of his estate.

The castle of Louvestein was selected for his place of confinement, a fortress situated near Gorcum, in South Holland, at the point of the island formed at the junction of the Waal and the Meuse. Here he was kept a close prisoner: his father was refused permission to see him, and his wife was only admitted on condition of sharing his imprisonment, being told that if she left the castle she would not be allowed to return. These restrictions were afterwards, however, considerably relaxed: his wife obtained leave to quit the castle twice a week, and Grotius was permitted to borrow books, and to correspond with his friends on all subjects except politics.