In 1598 the Irish, infuriated by the invasion of their country and the seizure of their lands, set fire to Spenser’s castle.  He and his family barely escaped with their lives.  He crossed to England and died the next year, according to some accounts, in want.  He was buried, at the expense of Lord Essex, in Westminster Abbey, near Chaucer.

The Faerie Queene.—­In 1590 Spenser published the first three books of the Faerie Queene.  The original plan was to have the poem contain twelve books, like Vergil’s AEneid, but only six were published.  If more were written, they have been lost.

The poem is an allegory with the avowed moral purpose of fashioning “a gentleman or noble person in vertuous and gentle discipline.”  Spenser says:  “I labour to pourtraict in Arthure, before he was King, the image of a brave knight, perfected in the twelve private morall vertues, as Aristotle hath devised.”  Twelve Knights personifying twelve Virtues were to fight with their opposing Vices, and the twelve books were to tell the story of the conflict.  The Knights set out from the court of Gloriana, the Faerie Queene, in search of their enemies, and meet with divers adventures and enchantments.

The hero of the tale is Arthur, who has figured so much in English song and legend.  Spenser makes him typical of all the Virtues taken together.  The first book, which is really a complete poem by itself, and which is generally admitted to be the finest, contains an account of the adventures of the Red Cross Knight who represents Holiness.  Other books tell of the warfare of the Knights who typify Temperance, Chastity, Friendship, Justice, and Courtesy.

The poem begins thus:—­

  “A gentle Knight was pricking[6] on the plaine,
    Ycladd in mightie armes and silver shielde,
  Wherein old dints of deepe woundes did remaine,
    The cruell markes of many’ a bloody fielde;
  Yet armes till that time did he never wield.
       * * * * *
  “And on his brest a bloodie Crosse he bore,
    The deare remembrance of his dying Lord,
  For whose sweete sake that glorious badge he wore.
       * * * * *
  “Upon a great adventure he was bond. 
    That greatest Gloriana to him gave,
  That greatest glorious Queene of Faerie lond.”

The entire poem really typifies the aspirations of the human soul for something nobler and better than can be gained without effort.  In Spenser’s imaginative mind, these aspirations became real persons who set out to win laurels in a fairyland, lighted with the soft light of the moon, and presided over by the good genius that loves to uplift struggling and weary souls.

The allegory certainly becomes confused.  A critic well says:  “We can hardly lose our way in it, for there is no way to lose.”  We are not called on to understand the intricacies of the allegory, but to read between the lines, catch the noble moral lesson, and drink to our fill at the fountain of beauty and melody.