[102] In the above instance the rime is sacrificed, and I do not mean that all anomalous lines in Spenser’s measure become strict decasyllables when done into ME.; indeed, they do so of course only by accident.  My point is that Chaucer’s verse as read by the sixteenth-century editors must have often contained just such unmetrical lines as Spenser’s.  The view I have indicated above is that accepted by W. J. Courthope (History of English Poetry, ii. p. 253).  Herford, on the other hand, while having recourse to Chancer’s influence to explain Spenser’s anomalies, regards the metre in question as derived from the old alliterative line.  From this view I am reluctantly forced to dissent.  The alliterative line may be readily traced in the mystery cycles, and later influenced the verse of the interludes and such comedies as Royster Doyster; and this tradition may have affected the verse of the later poets of the school of Lydgate, and even the popular ideas concerning Chaucer’s metre.  But as to the actual origin of Spenser’s four-beat line there can surely be no doubt.

[103] The late A. B. Grosart, in a passage which is a masterpiece of literary casuistry (Spenser, iii. p. lii.), put forward the truly astounding theory that the discussions on the evils of the clergy and similar subjects, put into the mouths of shepherds in the Calender and elsewhere, are ‘in nicest keeping with character.’  Such a theory ignores the essence of the question, for, even supposing that shepherds had done nothing else but discuss the corruption of the Curia since there was a Curia to be corrupted, it is still utterly beside the mark.  Apart from his own observation of ecclesiastical manners, Spenser’s compositions have for their sole origin the similar discussions of the humanistic eclogues, while these in their turn did but cast the individual opinions of their authors into a conventional mould inherited from the classical poets.  Thus, so far as actual shepherds are connected with Spenser’s eclogues at all, they belong to an age when the Curia and all its sins were happily unknown.

[104] The MS. is now in the library of Caius College, Cambridge, and is contained in the volume numbered 595 in the catalogue.  It is entitled Poimenologia.  The dedication to William James, Dean of Christ Church, fixes the date as between 1584 and 1596.  Dove became Master of Arts in 1586, and since he does not describe himself as such, the translation probably belongs to an earlier date.  I am indebted for knowledge of and information concerning this MS. to the kindness of Prof.  Moore Smith, and of Dr. J. S. Reid, Librarian of Caius College.

[105] Winstanley (Lives of the English Poets, 1687, p. 196) ascribes it to Sir Richard Fanshawe; but he was no doubt confusing it with the Latin version of the Faithful Shepherdess.

[106] Faery Queen, VII. vi. 349, &c.

[107] Somewhat similar episodes occur both in the Orlando and the Gerusalemme, to the imitation of which, indeed, certain passages in Spenser can be directly referred.