Spenser, Edmund

Scribal manuscript in a single neat early seventeenth-century secretary hand, the title with a note added in the curl of the initial "A" ("God save our noble kinge with all the princely progenie defende the realme"), contemporary pagination, 166 pages, with, written from the reverse, an additional thirteen pages of notes in French mostly comprising a synopsis of a book, plus blanks, 4to (190 x 150 mm), early seventeenth-century; some damp damage including loss to last two leaves. Contemporary limp parchment wrappers in a cloth folding-box and red morocco pull-off box; slight loss at base of spine, binding reattached with new ties.

Frank B. Benger, bookdealer, of Leatherhead, Surrey (Catalogue 10, n.d., item 1 (enclosed with lot)) — Arthur A. Houghton, Jr, 1906-1990 (bookplate; Christie's, 11-12 June 1980, lot 441, to Clarke). acquisition: Bernard Quaritch, 1989

CELM, SpE 57

"Eudoxas: But yf that Country of Ireland whence yow latterly come be soe goodly & commodious a soile as yow reporte: I wonder there noe course is taken for the turning thereof to good uses, & reducinge that salvage nacion to better government & civilitye.
Irenius: Marye soe there have beene diverse good plottes devised, & wise counsels caste already about reformacion of this Realme, but they saie it is the fatell destinie of that Lande, that noe purposes ... will prosper, & take goode effecte, which, whether it proceede from the very Genius of the soile, or influence of the starres, or that Almighty god hath not yet appointed the tyme for the reformacion, or that he reserveth her in this unquiet state, still for some secret scourge, which shall be her come unto Englande, it is harde to be knowne, but yet much to be feared..."

An early manuscript copy of Spenser's most substantial and controversial work in prose. Spenser moved to Ireland in 1580, when he was in his late twenties, as private secretary to the Lord Deputy, Lord Grey of Wilton. He remained resident in Ireland for the rest of his life, taking on a number of different administrative posts and obtaining an estate in Cork. He therefore had many years experience as a settler and administrator when he came to write the View in the mid-1590s. The Viewe calls for the subjugation of Ireland through untrammelled royal authority and the extirpation of Irish culture. England ruled Ireland by right of conquest and one of her greatest failures had been to grant property rights to Irish landholders; the Irish themselves were identified with the Scythians, whose barbarism was described by Herodotus. The View in fact provides a fascinating and detailed discussion of Irish customs, but always couched in the understanding that they were uncivilised and in need of radical reformation. Spenser notoriously recommended the use of famine as a weapon, expanding on the scorched earth-policy that Spenser had witnessed in his early years in Ireland during the Second Desmond Rebellion and his text is haunted by visions of the starving: "Out of everye corner of the woode and glenns they came creepinge forth upon theire handes, for theire legges could not beare them; they looked Anatomies of death, they spake like ghostes, crying out of theire graves."

Spenser's Viewe was entered in the Stationers' Register in 1598 but was not published — either because of censorship or a dispute over publishing rights. It did not appear in print until 1633 but enjoyed scribal circulation, and surviving copies can be traced back to original owners including the Second Earl of Essex, Sir Arthur Chichester (Lord Deputy of Ireland, 1605-1616), and James Ussher later Archbishop of Armagh. The present copy, with its reference to "the King," almost certainly dates from the reign of James I. The text in this manuscript includes key readings that allow it to be bracketed with the small group of manuscripts that are textually close to the copy identified by modern editors as containing the most authoritative text (which is held at The National Archives). CELM lists twenty-two copies of the work, all but four in institutional possession. No manuscript copy of this key work by the great Elizabethan poet has been sold at auction in twenty-five years.