CHRONOLOGY 8 EDMUND SPENSER LIFE OF SPENSER THE Italians of the fourteenth century ranged seven contemporary poets as a Pleiad in their literary firmament. Such limitation would be impossible in the England of to-day. From our five centuries of poetic achievement at least twelve great names stand out, full orbed, large, and lustrous, as to whose relative precedency may be room for diverse judgement, but all claiming and receiving place in the catalogue of Immortals. Some, as Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, hold rank above the rest. We should all close the list with Tennyson, should all open it with Chaucer. Chaucer unified the English language and created English Poetry. Even as he passed away, the impulse which he had given was arrested by foreign and domestic discord. Driven from England by the Religious, the French, the Civil wars, the Muse betook herself to Scotland. King James I cites Chaucer as his master; Henryson, Holland, Blind Harry, David Lyndesay, were his imitators; Dunbar and Gawain Douglas maintained across the Tweed the current he had generated; but for a hundred |