So I alone, now left difconfolate,

Mourne to my felfe the absence of my Love;
And, wandring here and there all defolate,
Seek with my playnts to match that mournful
dove:

Ne ioy of ought, that under heaven doth hove,
Can comfort me, but her owne ioyous fight:
Whose sweet afpect both God and man can

move,

In her unfpotted pleafauns to delight.

Dark is my day, whyles her fayre light I mis, And dead

my life that wants such lively blis.

SONNETS

WRITTEN BY SPENSER,

COLLECTED FROM THE ORIGINAL PUBLICATIONS IN
WHICH THEY APPEARED.

* I.

To the right worshipfull, my fingular good frend, M. Gabriell
Harvey, Doctor of the Lawes.

HARVEY, the happy above happieft men
I read; that, fitting like a Looker-on
Of this worldes ftage, doeft note with critique

pen

The fharpe dislikes of each condition :

And, as one careleffe of fufpition,
Ne fawneft for the favour of the great;
Ne feareft foolish reprehenfion

Of faulty men, which daunger to thee threat:
But freely doeft, of what thee lift, entreat,
Like a great lord of peereleffe liberty;
Lifting the Good up to high Honours feat,
And the Evill damning evermore to dy :

*I. From "Foure Letters, and certaine Sonnets, efpecially touching Robert Greene, and other parties by him abufed, &c. Lond.-4te. Impr. by Iohn Wolfe, 1592.” Sign. I. 3. b. TODD.

For Life, and Death, is in thy doomeful

writing!

So thy renowme lives ever by endighting.

Dublin, this xviij. of July, 1586.

Your devoted friend, during life,

EDMUND SPENCER.

* II.

WHOSO wil feeke, by right deferts, t' attaine
Unto the type of true Nobility;

And not by painted fhewes, and titles vaine,
Derived farre from famous Aunceftrie:
Behold them both in their right vifnomy
Here truly pourtray'd, as they ought to be,
And striving both for termes of dignitie,
To be advanced highest in degree.

And, when thou dooft with equall infight fee
The ods twixt both, of both the deem aright,
And chufe the better of them both to thee;
But thanks to him, that it deferves, behight;

II. Prefixed to "Nennio, or A Treatife of Nobility, &c. Written in Italian by that famous Doctor and worthy Knight Sir John Baptifta Nenna of Bari. Done into English by William Iones, Gent. 4to. 1595.” TODD.

II. 4. famous] This is the true reading. The editor of Jonfon's Sad Shepherd, who reprinted this Sonnet from a manuscript copy in which the word was wanting, conjeatured that it fhould be buried. His conjecture of well, intead of it, in the twelfth line, is alfo not fupported. TODD.

To Nenna firft, that firft this worke created, And next to Jones, that truely it translated.

ED. SPENSER.

* III.

"Upon the Historie of George Caftriot, alias Scanderbeg, king of the Epirots, tranflated into English.

WHEREFORE doth vaine Antiquitie so vaunt
Her ancient monuments of mightie peeres,
And old heröes, which their world did daunt
With their great deedes and fild their chil-
drens eares?

Who, rapt with wonder of their famous praise,
Admire their ftatues, their coloffoes great:
Their rich triumphall arcks which they did raise,
Their huge pyramids, which do heaven threat.

* III. Prefixed to the "Hiftorie of George Caftriot, alias Scanderbeg, King of Albanie: Containing his famous actes, &c. Newly tranflated out of French into English by Z. J. Gentleman, Impr. for W. Ponfonby, 1596." fol. TODD.

III. 7. triumphall arcks] Compare The Ruines of Rome, stanza 7. But fee, more particularly, the Theatre for Worldlings, already spoken of in the notes on The Visions of Petrarch, vol. vii. p. 525, &c. The writer of The Theatre, fpeaking of the Romans, fays; "They adorned their Citie with all maner of fumptuous and costely buyldings, wyth all kindes of curious and cunning workes, as Theaters, TRIUMPHALL ARKES, Pyramedes, Columnes, &c." p. 16. TODD.

III. 8. pyrúmids,] The accent on the second fyllible appears to have been not uncommon. See Drayton's. Shep. Garland, 1593, p. 56.

"And who erects the brave pyramides

"Of monarches &c." TODD.

Lo! one, whom Later Age hath brought to.

light,

Matchable to the greatest of those great;
Great both by name, and great in power

might,

And meriting a meere triumphant seate.

and

The fcourge of Turkes, and plague of infidels, Thy acts, O Scanderbeg, this volume tels.

ED. SPENSER.

* IV.

THE antique Babel, Empreffe of the East,
Upreard her buildinges to the threatned skie:
And fecond Babell, Tyrant of the Weft,
Her ayry towers upraised much more high.
But, with the weight of their own furquedry,
They both are fallen, that all the earth did
feare,

And buried now in their own ashes ly;

III. 12.

meere] Abfolute, entire. So, in the Faerie Queene, he has "mere compaffion." See alfo Cotgrave's Dict. in V. Mere. TODD.

* IV. Prefixed to "The Commonwealth and Government of Venice, Written by the Cardinall Gafpar Contareno, and tranflated out of Italian into English, by Lewes Lewkenor Efquire, London, imprinted by John Windet for Edmund Mattes, and are to be fold at his fhop, at the figne of the Hand and Plow in Fleet-street. 1599." 4to. TODD.

IV. 2. the threatned fkie:] Compare Faer. Qu. v. x. 23. And the preceding Sonnet, ver. 8.

TODD.