The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5Spenser, Edmund
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The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5
Spenser, Edmund
English poetry -- Early modern, 1500-1700
I take best my _Dreames_ shoulde come forth alone, being growen, by
meanes of the Glosse (running continually in maner of a paraphrase),
full as great as my _Calendar_ Therin be some things excellently, and
many things wittily, discoursed of E. K., and the pictures so
singularly set forth and purtrayed, as if Michael Angelo were there, he
could (I think) nor amende the beste, nor reprehende the worst. I knowe
you woulde lyke them passing wel. Of my _Stemmata Dudleiana_, and
especially of the sundry apostrophes therein, addressed you knowe to
whome, muste more aduisement be had, than so lightly to sende them
abroade: howbeit, trust me, (though I doe never very well,) yet, in my
owne fancie, I neuer dyd better: _Veruntamen te sequor solum; nunquam
vero assequar._
_Extract from Harvey’s Reply._
But Master Collin Cloute is not euery body, and albeit his olde
companions, Master Cuddy & Master Hobbinoll, be as little be holding to
their Mistresse Poetrie as euer you wist, yet he peraduenture, by the
meanes of hir speciall fauour, and some personall priuiledge, may
happely line by Dying Pellicanes, and purchase great landes and
lordshippes with the money which his Calendar and Dreames haue and will
affourde him. _Extra iocum_, I like your Dreames passingly well; and
the rather, bicause they sauour of that singular extraordinarie veine
and inuention whiche I euer fancied moste, and in a manner admired
onelye in Lucian, Petrarche, Aretine, Pasquill, and all the most
delicate and fine conceited Grecians and Italians, (for the Romanes to
speake of are but verye ciphars in this kinde,) whose chiefest endeuour
and drifte was to haue nothing vulgare, but, in some respecte or other,
and especially in liuely hyperbolicall amplifications, rare, queint,
and odde in euery pointe, and, as a man woulde saye, a degree or two,
at the leaste, aboue the reache and compasse of a common scholars
capacitie. In whiche respecte notwithstanding, as well for the
singularitie of the manner as the diuinitie of the matter, I hearde
once a diuine preferre Saint Iohns Reuelation before al the veriest
metaphysicall visions and iolliest conceited dreames or extasies that
euer were deuised by one or other, howe admirable or super excellent
soeuer they seemed otherwise to the worlde. And truely I am so
confirmed in this opinion, that when I bethinke me of the verie
notablest and moste wonderful propheticall or poeticall vision that
euer I read, or hearde, meseemeth the proportion is so vnequall, that
there hardly appeareth anye semblaunce of comparison: no more in a
manner (specially for poets) than doth betweene the incomprehensible
wisedome of God and the sensible wit of man. But what needeth this
digression betweene you and me? I dare saye you wyll holde your selfe
reasonably wel satisfied, if youre Dreames be but as well esteemed of
in Englande as Petrarches Visions be in Italy; whiche, I assure you, is
the very worst I wish you. But see how I haue the arte memoratiue at
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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